#and I’d love to play it but the original games aren’t!!! in english!!!!

[1960z]

it sucks because I’d love to get into games that predate ace attorney and lay the groundwork for it genre-wise but almost all games that fall into that category never got official localisations because it was assumed at that point there wasn’t a market for these types of games outside of japan. hell ace attorney itself didn’t get localised at first. it’s frustrating

[onestepbackwards]

Hello! I'm normally a ghost reader but I really have to tell you the following; I love your writing! Wholeheartedly! It really makes my day, even my whole week when I read your oneshots/short stories! I'm currently in love with "What's all the buzz about?" and "Our Angel" - the submas twins are sitting rn rentfree in my mind and reading your awesome stories really makes me happy! Also, I really, really love "Love that bites" - I never played Castlevania and never watched it but still; your writing pulled me right in! Now I'm even considering buying one xD (do you have a recommendation?) Anyway! Just wanted to tell you that and wondered when a next part might come - if you don't know/have no idea or don't feel so good bc of health problems, that's fine! Don't pressure yourself and take your time! :) Kind regards crimson anon

Hello Crimson Anon! (o´∀`o)/

Thank you so much for the kind words!! I’m really touched you like my writing 🥰 When I started this blog, I never really thought people would like it this much, so its nice to see messages like this 🥹

I’m glad you enjoying all my stories, and even gave my Castlevania fic a shot!

If you do want to try the games out, there are a few good ones out there to start with!

I first recommend Symphony of the Night. It’s a classic, and redefined the series, and even created the Metroidvania genre with the help of Metroid games!

It was specifically designed to be a Castlevamia game anyone could play. It starts out a little tough if you aren’t sure what to do, but it still considered a gem, and I enjoy playing it. I’d even do daily randomizer runs of it when I still had a computer! This game was a lot if people’s first Castlevania game too!

(Word if advice, if you play it, explore every cranny you can, look at every item description, and there are technically 2 clocktowers. One in the middle if the castle, and one that is an actual tower. The first is a kinda a mistranslation, but if you want the full experience, it’s easier to figure out some things if you know that. The game is deceptively longer than you might think.)

You can get SotN on playstation 4, and on a few other consoles I believe! You can even get it with Rondo of Blood, one of the best Castlevania games before Symphony came out. If you want a more original Castlevania experience, Rondo is the way to go. Symphony is actually a direct sequel to Rondo, but you don’t have to beat Rondo to know what’s going on.

Though if you do get the Rondo + Symphony bundle, Symphony is technically a remaster, with new text and voice acting. A lot if the iconic lines were changed or redone. Its still done nicely, but if you get this version, make sure to look up the original cutscenes on youtube. Dracula’s lines may be memed a bit, but he put his whole non existent soul into those lines, along with Richter. Evil Richter my beloved~

Rondo has some of the best sprite work, level design, and enemies before Symphony, while still being a classic! It technically took a long time for it to get an english release too, and i had a lot if fun with it!

You don’t have to know the overarching story to play Rondo either. Most of the games don’t really require knowledge from previous games.

But if you want to start somewhere based on the story, I recommend Lament of Innocence. Its the first game in the timeline, though you would probably have to emulate it since this was only released in the ps2 i believe.

It’s an amazing game, and plays similar to Devil may cry 1. It has its issues, but i genuinely love it, and it IS first in the timeline.

If you can’t find it, or emulate it, i know some lets plays are on youtube, and one of my favorite streamers has played it as well.

For a beginner, those are the ones I recommend! But honestly, Symphony is probably your best bet. Its casual and fun, and has a good story that a little of the anime was based off of (though the rest was based off of Castlevania 3, but they took lore from symphony too)

If you like symphony, it more or less set the standard of modern castlevania games after that before the reboot. So playing it will help out a bit if you wanna try any others that came out afterwards, most of them on gameboy and ds are pretty good too.

As for my writing, i’m about 2500 words into Love That Bites, and about a 1000 for the next Our Angel! I’ve been working on both instead of one at a time so i can focus on Beemas, and a genshin fic i’ve been planning, and maybe another castlevania fic 👉👈

I try to get all my chapters around 3000 words before i post them. Just a personal goal of mine. If i write more, then great! But i try to write about that much first.

so thats one reason its taking a bit longer than usual, added with the migraines i’ve been fighting for the past few weeks. I’ll try to have those out soon though! Hopefully within a few days!

Thank you so much for reading and enjoying my stuff 🥰💕

[cobaltsage]

People definitely gave Genshin a bad rep when it first came out, and I think that deterred a lot of people from playing it. But honestly, comparing it to RSL is kinda hilarious, because I think most people don’t even realize what kind of game Genshin even is.

On the surface, yeah it’s a BotW clone that grew far past its origins. It’s 120GB in size on desktop (40GB on mobile) and even free, I think the game’s worth playing. Early on, yeah, the game’s a little grating with pacing and VA and stuff I hope they go back and re-dub eventually, but the newer content is proof that the game’s really come into its own. It’s stories are engaging, its lore pretty deep for what’s essentially a play on Isekai stories, it takes the time to flesh out every area not just in design and extra details, but in mountains of hidden lore you can find in notes and books and character dialogue.

While I get it’s a Gacha game on paper, the game honestly has way more content than both BotW and TotK combined, so to me it’s not that weird that the fandom is so big, especially when they take the time to really let you meet and interact with all the PCs.

Plus, you can tell that everyone involved loves what they do. The voice actors always talk about their work with love and affection, or how they were able to insist on taking a line a certain way. Every major update has a preview where the devs talk about what’s coming up, and sometimes they talk about the aesthetic, but when Fontaine came out no, they were like ‘do you know how goddamn difficult it was to work on functioning underwater mechanics in a game that previously didn’t have them? Do you know how big of a challenge that was? Let’s go line by line and show you exactly what we did to make that possible. We cannot stress enough that we hope you see just how much time we put into making underwater plants and fish and scenery, and love it. ‘

The localization team? Also has a field day. They love throwing in references to things you wouldn’t expect ( my most recent find? “Naturally, any rational citizen knows that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.” ). When the in game TCG came out? They absolutely leaned into Yu Gi Oh references. Legitimately, as someone who loves to learn about game design, it’s hard not to feel affectionate toward Genshin, not when you hear things like what happens to game devs like Kojima, or seeing what happens when a dev is forced to cut corners like with The Pokemon company.

I hear horror story after horror story about pretty much every company in the industry, and here Hoyo is being like “ yeah we want to tell these stories about these lesbians but we do sorta have to find a way to squeak by Chinese censorship laws. “ and like. As far as problems go? That’s sorta it. When the previous English VA for Tighnari got called out for predatory behavior? No. He got cut immediately. He got replaced. They were like ‘ yeah stay tuned we are redubbing all of his lines as we speak and will patch it in as soon as it’s done. ‘ there was nobody trying to defend what happened, there was no trying to hush the issue, there was only total reassurance that the issue was being handled and an entirely outlined process on how.

So yeah. I know I can be a bit of a Genshin fanboy when I’m talking about it. But when you see game devs actually loving everything they’re doing for a game, it’s hard not to love it back.

Also not for nothing, but even if you aren’t interested in the gameplay I’d say it’d be worth listening to one of their concerts.

can i be real with u for a second. i can't believe tjere's a real fandom for stuff like genshin impact. imagine if half your dash was posting about raid shadow legends. you'd think it was astroturf

[shadowlineswriting]

Rostand

Years and years ago, way back when I was still in college, my mom gave me a DVD collection that had a lot of old black and white films on it. One of those was “Cyrano de Bergerac.” It tells the story of a poetic soldier (Cyrano) who is in love with a beautiful woman (Roxane), but he’s convinced she’ll never love him because he has a massive nose (I’m not being sarcastic; that’s the truth). Roxane falls in love with a man named Christian, who would like to woo her, but he isn’t poetic like Cyrano. So Cyrano, who just wants Roxane to be happy, agrees to write her letters, pretending they’re from Christian, so the two can live happily ever after. 

It’s partly a funny story but partly a sad one, too (I mean, it IS French). Of course we want Cyrano to get what he wants out of life, but it’s hard not to laugh at the nose. 

Anyway, after seeing the old movie for the first time, I did some research and learned that the film was based on the play, Cyrano de Bergerac, written by Edmond Rostand. He wrote it about a real-life person named Cyrano de Bergerac who had a huge nose. 

There haven’t been too many adaptations of this story over the years, which is a surprise to me, given how amazing it is. In fact, this play is credited for introducing the word “panache” to the English language! How could you not want to watch it?! 

BUT. In 2021, a new film version was released starring Peter Dinklage (a very widely appreciated actor, perhaps currently most known for his role in “Game of Thrones”). This came from an off-Broadway musical that Peter Dinklage’s wife wrote (well, she did the script, but an indie band did the music). 

I had mixed emotions about this adaptation when I first saw the trailer. For one thing, it’s a musical, which is totally fine by me, but I wasn’t sure if the music would be any good. Second, I love the black and white version so much I wasn’t sure how this one would measure up.

Folks, I loved it even more. Though it’s true that in this version Cyrano is a dwarf rather than a man with a big nose, and it’s true that they do make two major plot changes, and it’s true that the actors aren’t famous singers, I was really impressed with how closely this version stayed to the original. I also adored the music, once I got over the fact that it didn’t sound like what I’d initially imagined. In fact, I listen to this soundtrack at least once a week (not exaggerating). 

I’ve loved this story from the first time I saw it, and I imagine I’ll love it for years more. The play stays! 

[eurofox]

Project zero/Fatal Frame 4 review

I really want another addition to this series or at least a re-release of the original triology so I can play them again so I paid full wack for this now 15 year old port but I did enjoy it. Although I ‘m going to be controversial here, I preferred 5 overall, this game is by far the least scary in the whole series. I enjoyed it, but probably worth about 30 euro, not 50 😩 Anyway spoilers at the end:

Although it’s on old Wii game, they’ve touched up the models and everything looks well enough. The characters aren’t very expressive, fairly doll like and don’t react much to the freaky shit going on around them. They are also improperly dressed for such a trip, heels and dresses, and I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, that is very jarring for me. The ghost design is the most uninspired ever in the series, most just look like normal people who float and there’s only one or two really freaky ones. The gothic lolita ghost was more cringe than anything. They did react just before a shot and that was kind of cool, it’s just a shame they were mostly pretty boring looking. Plus there are 3 in particulr who just keep coming back again and again and I got so fucking sick of them. The original game still has the best disturbing ghosts.

  I was disappointed there was no English voice option. I know it was never originally released but it meant I couldn’t understand what the ghosts were saying and that takes away from the fear. I also enjoyed the goofy voice acting in the other games, it gave me an uncanny feeling. The Japanese just didn’t do it for me.

The controls are ok, but stiff. Characters can barely run, just shuffle slightly faster looking like they've shat themselves. Evade feels clunky as hell but usually works. The mechanic where you shine the torch to reveal items is an absolute ball ache though, didn't translate well to PS4 at all and you can miss things. Plus those fucking shitty ghost hands are here too, albeit far rarer.

 I liked the environment this time, the western style hospital made a nice change from the usual Japanese mansions in the other games. I also didn’t get lost as much this time as most rooms felt very unique and memorable so I knew where to go. The other games had a lot of similar tatami rooms and I’d always mix them up and spend ages running around. A lot less open than MOBW which helped set it apart. Although some areas I felt were used too much and other areas weren’t really visited except once.

 The camera gameplay wasn’t as good as 5 I feel. I liked the way in 5 you could target weakpoints, felt there was more strategy to it. There is variety here though so it didn’t get too stale. I quite liked Chosiro’s OP torch, loved blasting those ghosts back to hell with my superbeam. Made a nice change of pace. The fighting was more tricky than 5 as the you’re often in small corriders and the enemies can ‘blossom’ and move faster and hit harder. I died once in the beginning but you can buy healing items and film so it was ok after that. A lot of the ghosts in this game just slowly float around, probably as it was a wii game originally, so it’s easy enough. The final boss is the easiest of them all.

 Some good sound design here. Usual spooky atmosphere tracks and I liked the pipe Organ tsukimori song, that was fairly memorable. There is also one room in particular with a very unsettling track.

 Ok now for the story

I liked the way they changed the usual format of the stories for this game. It isn’t the usual ‘maiden must suffer for the good of all and something fucks up’ schtick, the ritual here was just supposed to help. And something fucks up. Just a local dance, with friendly islanders looking to entertain tourists, with a family of oddballs hosting a ‘real’ version in secret that backfires. And even the real version isn’t supposed to kill anyone. Refreshing tbh. The lore this time was little light though, not as many notes to read and they were usually short. More is better imo. Some of it is cliche at this point, dolls, long hair, medical malpractice, etc.

 None of the characters themselves were all that interesting, other than the haibaira family and some of the ghosts. Choshiro had his notebook so you got to see his perspective a bit more, but the girls were fairly bland. Misaki seemed like she’d have an attitude but that was dropped pretty quickly and we don’t learn much more about her. Ruka’s just the usual project zero spiritually gifted quiet protag, nothing to say really. Sakuya is scary shrine maiden no.5 and is the least frightening. I still enjoyed her story though, more sad than disturbing.

The scares in general were poor honestly. Far too many attempts at jumpscares that fell flat. Loud noises and zooming in on pretty meh ghosts happen too often to count. I started guessing when they'd occur it happened so often. I'm not opposed to jumpscares, if they're done well and they just aren't here There's no random spawning ghosts this time, which I don't mind tbh but you always feel fairly safe backtracking. I found 5 scarier, which I wasn't expecting since a lot of people said this was scarier and it just isn't, and nowhere close to 1 or 2 either. No subtle scares I can recall at all. And the fact that there's no English voices means the ghosts mutterings were lost on me. Least scary game in the franchise by a mile.

 The story in general was a bit vague and confusing at times too, especially with the time loops. I don’t understand the timeline, especially with Ruka’s mother, is she dead when she sends the man? Then how does she know Ruka left? Why did the other 2 girls suddenly get sick and die after years of being fine? If the guardians could prevent disasters why did they phase them out? These games are always kind of vague though so nothing new. Lack of endings here too, just two 'good' ones and the second is just still images, pretty poor.

Overall though the story was enjoyable though, if confusing and I enjoyed my playthrough. It's not the longest game and the most streamlined I'd say. Less repetition than 5 which is a good thing. The areas led into each other in a logical way. The combat is good, if trickier than usual at first and the sound design is great. The atmosphere is good as usual and it looks well despite it's age. I just wish it was scarier. Still well worth checking out if you like spookier horror games.

[kaialone]

The Reason why Gorons are Allowed in Gerudo Town

In The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Gorons are allowed to enter Gerudo Town, even though only women are supposed to be there.

A character named Traysi actually researches this mystery, but doesn’t seem to figure out the answer, leaving fans to speculate more on their own.

But did you know? This mystery actually was solved in the original Japanese version of the game!

-

After you’ve taken care of the Divine Beast in the desert, you can find Traysi (JPN: Mitsuba) in town, writing notes as she watches two Gorons.

In the English version, she just says this:

"Male Gorons seem to have no trouble getting into Gerudo Town..."

But in the Japanese version, she says this:

"ゴロン族は ゲルド人にとっては 女子扱いっと…"

"Apparently Gorons are treated like women by the Gerudo people..."

So, the Japanese version basically says that Gorons are considered women by Gerudo standards, but the English version has rewritten this detail.

Notably, the English version also has Traisy emphasize that these Gorons are “male”, which is actually not directly stated in Japanese here.

Since characters do wonder why Gorons are allowed in the town we can gather that most people would consider them male, but they don’t say it outright.

In fact, there are some more details when we look at the two Gorons Traisy is watching here, Strade (JPN: Stradon) and Lyndae (JPN: Gatorin).

-

When you talk to Strade at this point in the game, he has this to say in Japanese:

"オデ… 友達できたゴロ"

"I... made a friend, goro."

"でも… これって"

"But... Is this-"

"男友達ゴロ？ 女友達ゴロ？"

"A boy friend, goro? Or a girl friend, goro?"

Given this context, it also feels relevant that Lyndae has a traditionally feminine-sounding name in either language version.

In the Japanese version he also uses the first person pronoun 僕/Boku, which is considered masculine, but has come to occasionally be used by women and girls as well.

I do want to point out that Lyndae can also be found earlier in the game, wondering why he was let in:

"僕… なんで入れちゃったゴロン？"

"I wonder... Why'd they let me in here, goron?"

-

All in all, the Japanese version seems to play with the potential androgynous vibe of the Gorons, but it also shows that the Gorons aren’t really used to be treated as female the way the Gerudo do.

To put in a bit of my own thoughts here, I think this can be a neat way of showing that while Hylians (and the presumed audience) would consider Gorons male by default, this isn’t actually something that is universally true, and other cultures like the Gerudo can have a different understanding of gender.

In turn, to me it seems that the Gorons are used to being treated as male by Hylians, but they also clearly don’t seem opposed to the idea of being considered something else, even if it’s a slight surprise for them.

In any case, I think it’s a bit of a shame that the English version omitted this tidbit in the localization.

But that’s just me, I’d love to hear what other people think of this!

-

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: May 15th Part 1

It’s been longer than usual since our last answer session, so I’m answering a ton of questions today! It’s so big I split it into two parts. Thank you for the patience on getting a response to these.

Thanks for reaching out to us with your questions and kind words ^^!

Sorry if this has been asked before or isn't something you can say but is there anyway for Cove to confess in step 4? I wanted him to confess in step 3 and followed all the steps to make him do it but ended up texting my family instead of Cove at the end.

Yeah, Cove can confess in Step 4!

Hello! I heard that Cove is on the spectrum, albeit undiagnosed. As someone who is ND, this makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy. I literally was brought to tears! Thank you for that!

Out of curiosity, will Cove be diagnosed in Step 4? I have a strong feeling y’all won’t make it a HUGE deal/make it out to be negative, so I’m not worried about that whatsoever! I’m just curious just he’ll off handedly mention it? Or will it just not be touched upon at all (which is ok!)?

Either way is ok, I’m just curious!

I’m happy it made you happy! Admittedly, Cove simply being someone with autism that grew up not being diagnosed was something I included for myself. I didn’t really think anyone would notice or ask about it, aha. But players did start to have questions about his traits, so I started to talk about it outside of the game. It’s great to see it get such a positive response and now I do feel like having it be a non-topic may have been the wrong choice and bringing it up would’ve been good in terms of having positive representation for that. I don’t know if I’ll find a way to mention it in Step 4 now, with how far along the game is, but I am at least thinking about it when originally it wasn’t something I really even considered.

Hey!  Just wanted to say thank you for Our Life.  It's been a bright spot and a needed escape in what's otherwise been a crummy year.  I know you just did a Q&A post but I figured I'd ask anyway.  Was just curious about Step 4.  Will it be similar to the other Steps in that it consists of several different moments or will it just be one long sequence?

Step 4 is shorter than the prior Steps because it’s just an epilogue rather than a full arc of a story. It’ll consist of scenes that all happen in a set row one after the other. There won’t be a collection of Moments to choose from. But it’ll still be very sweet and fun.

¡hola!, you see, first I want to say that I love Our Life! (°◡°♡) and I have 2 important questions, would Cove cry watching titanic? and what is the saddest part according to him? (sorry for my english) 

Titanic would make him cry. He’d probably think the parts showing people who aren’t able to make it to the life boats/are choosing to stay and go down with the ship were the saddest.

Hello, I wanted to ask how much you earn with creating games? Like is it possible to make a living? Thank you >< <3 

How much I earn varies a lot month to month based on Steam sales, Patreon backers, and how many projects are in full production at the time. It’s also hard to say how much I make historically, since that also changes dramatically year by year. But I do earn enough to work on these games full time! I really appreciate all the support that allows me to do that.

Hey!! I was wondering for the 18+ Our Life moment, will there be an emphasis on safety/comfort for all involved? I feel like there  would be just going off of what the rest of the game is like, but I wanted to ask 

Yes! Cove is a nervous boy himself and also super cautious about doing anything the MC doesn’t like, so clear consent from both is absolutely needed for anything to happen. It’s a conversational sexy times Moment with stops/starts so the two can talk about how they’re feeling, rather than a heat of the moment just going for it kind of thing.

Hey!! I was wondering how long the wedding dlc would be? Will it be broken up into moments, or just one big event? 

It’s one long series of scenes all in a row rather than a collection of Moments to pick from. It’s the shortest and the least expensive of all the DLCs. It’s not super crucial to get and those who aren’t into big weddings can totally skip it without worry.

HELLO AMAZING DEVS 👋 i am hopelessly in love with the worst guy ever (jeremy king) and because of this i have a really stupid question: does he really hate people who are nice to him? TvT he’s too cute to be mean to istg it’s a miracle JB held the urge to be consistently nice to him bc just look at his FACE he is so cute! thank you for jeremy’s route it’s so lovely (and awful bc he’s scum 11/10) it gave me so much laughs LMAO i hope you guys have a good day!! 

Haha, thank you. He doesn’t hate them but he’s certainly not pleased with them. Jeremy is either uncomfortable with or annoyed by people being sweet on him, depending on how they approach it. He’s far more comfortable with jerkiness. It lets him relax and he can be himself without it being a problem, since he’s also a jerk. He feels a level of guilt being such a little punk to kind people, not enough to be a better person but still.

Has Cove dated or been interested in someone other than MC? 

Nope! He stays single over the course of the game if he’s not with the MC.

Is Step 4 more mature? Or it's gonna be set in similar atmosphere as Step 3? 

Step 4 is a similar atmosphere as Step 3. Though, it’s actually kind of less mature-topic heavy than Step 3 since it’s just a ‘hey, let’s check in on the gang to see what they’re up to’ style epilogue rather than a story arc with serious issues.

will there be new music for now and forever?? or will the old our life music be reused? 

It’s gonna be a brand new soundtrack. We’ll be opening up a job position for that soon.

Hi, is it okay if we use the assets in Our Life (like the sprites) for fanworks or fan content content, like edits? 

Sure! Just as long as you don’t use the assets made by those artists to make money.

Quick clarification on Step 3 choices: I hope I didn't come off rude (because I LOVE the game, really!!), I was just curious because the intro threw me off at times. For example, you could choose how you felt about Elizabeth in Step 2 (Dinner), but during the Step 3 intro, it says that you got closer to Liz and I didn't get a choice in it. 

For the example, it can’t be helped that you’re closer to Liz in Step 3 than you were in Step 2 because she’s inherently closer to the MC regardless of whether you liked her or not in Step 2. Her feelings are out of your control and the game isn’t so dramatic that you can push her affection away and not let her bond with you, haha. But ‘being closer’ can still be relative. For some people maybe that means you’re best buds now and for others it might just mean you’re not fighting all the time any more. If there’s other parts you want to mention, feel free to let us know.

Did the illustrator for Our Life change? 

We have many OL artists! The main artists who set the game’s style haven’t changed, but there’s multiple other artists who help finish assets.

So Miranda's type is confident and outgoing, huh? So...does that mean Terri's her type?? 👀 

Haha, sorry for the late reply on this. As you might’ve seen in our post yesterday- yeah that is her type.

Hey! First, I just want to say I've really enjoyed how detailed OL got with gender identity and sexuality and how respectful the topics were handled! It's been so wonderful to play since the experiences could be close to my own (I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up at parts). Second, I was wondering, would future games explore the topic of polyamory? I'd love to see more visual novels allow room for that and I saw you've explored the topic before.

Keep up the amazing work! ♡

Thank you! We do want to include polyamory in at least some of our future projects. Floret Bond, which might be what you’re referring to when mentioning how we’ve explored the topic before, is on hold unfortunately. So right now I’m not sure when something might release or what will be the first game of ours to come out with poly relationships (we might do something else before FB is done). We’ll have see how things ends up coming together.

Hey um. I feel like im not allowed to ask this on the private discord cuz people will yell at me but why is there so much focus on OL2 and not finishing OL1 stuff? I like the new people but i kind of want to finish cove's story and get derek and baxter stuff first. didn't people pay for it? 

I’m sorry, I don’t understand entirely what’s making that situation a concern. There’s a channel in the discord for critique where no one is allowed to comment back. People can voice things they’re worried about without any way for others to push back on it. And the two teams working on the OL games are different. We try to post pretty often about how we’re hiring brand new people to start on Our Life: Now & Forever. The OL1 team is all still working on OL1 like normal. There’s only more updates on the Patreon for OL2 because the expansions to the first game are mostly script-based at this point while OL2 is just starting to get all its art, which means there’s a lot more to show off as previews.

Also, there was a Kickstarter for the first Our Life, if that’s what you mean by people paying for it. But one of the stretch goals was to start Our Life 2 early, before fully completing Our Life 1, so that the new game could be out sooner. It wouldn’t make sense to stop doing OL2 work because that would be going against what backers were promised. Maybe you didn’t get the full story before and hopefully this clears it up!

Hello! I know it's up to every player but.. What is your recommendation for playing order? Did you ever had any timeline  events planned? 

I didn’t make the events with a planned timeline. The events got made simply as I had ideas for them and then I just kind of organized them from left to right on the screen in an order to space out more dramatic ones between more lighthearted ones. Any order the player wants to go with is totally valid!

Hi! It's Step 4 a paid dlc or update? And how long it's planned to be? Ps. Love the game! 

The Step 4 epilogue is free! The Cove Wedding DLC does cost money, though. Those are planned to be shorter than the usual Steps/DLCs.

Will we have options for what sort of job the MC might have by the time step 4 takes place? 

Yeah, you can. It’s not super exact or detailed, but there are options about it.

Is there a pandemic in Our Life world, or is it just in a better timeline with no pestilence? 

Our Life is pandemic-free! That didn’t exist when we began working on the project and it’s not something we’d like to feature in this story now that it has unfortunately come along, aha.

Hi, you said that you can play tic-tac-toe or hangman with Cove in Boating if you're sick/scared but I keep getting tic-tac-toe. Am I doing something wrong?

After being sick/scared you have to continue to be upset/unwell. If you calm down and decide to just chill you’ll end up playing tic-tac-toe.

Hi, GB Patch! Since Lee was initially commissioned to only appear in two Steps does this mean she won't appear in the Wedding DLC? I really like her character so it'll be a little weird to not have our cousin at our wedding, aha.

She is gonna be in Step 4/the wedding DLC after all! We’re still working with her creator to make sure it fits with what they wanted.

Is Sunset Bird based on a real place? Asking for a friend, not trying to move there or anything. 👀

It’s based on small beach towns in So-Cal, but not one specific town you could go see in real life, I’m afraid. It’d be nice if it was real, though.

—– —– —– —–

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

[nintendowife]

Recently 100% completed Bustafellows on Nintendo Switch. It’s an otome visual novel that revolves around the protagonist Teuta Bridges, a young journalist who has a special power to go back in time in attempt to save people. She crosses paths with a group of guys from different walks of life who call themselves “fixers” - people who try to right the wrongs in the society utilizing their varied skill sets in not always quite legal ways and also conveniently profit from it. They join forces and get entangled into the web of a criminal organisation’s shady dealings. 

The game’s visuals are very nice (cool art style, animated backgrounds, etc.) and the music and writing are quite good too. There aren’t many typos and errors, which is a very positive thing after having played Café Enchanté which had hundreds of typos. All the characters are professionally voice acted, including the protagonist, and the characters are animated in dialogues. 

The characters are quite fun with their own distinct personalities and there’s a good amount of supporting side characters as well that appear frequently throughout the game or in individual characters’ routes.  It was fun to see their interactions that often were quite humorous. For example there was a part where Teuta was attempting to cook Thanksgiving dinner (she isn’t a great cook) and they realized the turkey they had bought is still frozen solid when they were supposed to stuff it. They tried to solve the issue by defrosting it in the microwave oven but it was too big to fit in. The next idea they came up with was to put it in the laundry dryer until master chef Mozu arrived to save the day. 

The story had many exciting moments as expected from a murder mystery / crime novel. All the love interests have their own story routes that give more info about their past and motivations. There’s some romance in these but it’s not excess. My personal favorite routes were probably Mozu’s and Scarecrow’s. 

After completing all the character routes a new after story unlocks that continues the main story. This was the weakest part of the game in my opinion as it didn’t feel believable and was a very sudden and strange conclusion to the story. Overall I think it was poorly handled and left a bit sour taste on the otherwise interesting and high quality game.  The cutscenes don’t display English subtitles as the original game doesn’t have them, but they can be read from the log after the cutscene ends. This isn’t the case for the final cutscene though. The last cutscene has no English subtitles available at all, so for someone who doesn’t know Japanese, the ending was partially left shrouded in mystery. 

There are “memorabilias” to collect from different events that happen in the game and the typical CG art images are gathered into a gallery. There’s also a good UI and handy skipping features that make it very convenient to get to certain chapters. You can’t save the game when dialogue choices are displayed - but you can rewind to just before the choice and make a save file, then proceed to make your choice. 

Overall I’d recommend Bustafellows if you enjoy visual novels. It was a shorter game and never felt like it was dragging. I had a good time following the story all the 30+ hours that I spent on the game according to Switch’s Play Activity info.

[niji-translated]

“Hold Your Breath” – tst-movie Interview

Translation by me (niji-translated)

[If you wish to use any of my translations, please ask]

Link to original interview:

Hulu Original ‘Hold Your Breath’ Episode 3, Murakami Nijiro Interview

The one thing that cannot be missing when getting married.

Reporter A: Shinpei and yourself seem to be people very different from each other to me, but were you aware of any similarities?

Nijiro: I’ve known Director Nakagawa Ryutarou a long time, so he know a lot about me. I thought “you know me, and you’re making a parody”. Therefore, him and myself are not that different, I feel that just the world changed. Even if it’s like I’m playing myself, if it didn’t look like that, I feel that we succeeded.

Reporter A: Shinpei isn’t accepted by society, but aren’t you accepted by society?

Nijiro: I rarely think I’m accepted by society. I’ve always been a social misfit, everyday I live with this thinking. When I can have a normal conversation with you like this, I think I’m doing well, and yet when I get home I’ll think “I knew it,  I'm still not doing this right" And I’ll go right back. (laughs). It’s a fleeting feeling.

Reporter A: That’s unexpected.

Nijiro: Is it really? When I’m home alone, I can’t help thinking ‘where are your social skills?’ I can have a conversation like this, but I’ll keep thinking ‘what was I doing then?’

Myson (main interviewer): I thought it was interesting that it was a short story this time. Do you have a different approach when you play a role that starts off with a lot of information compared to a role where you can let your imagination run wild?

Nijiro: Pain, suffering, crying and so on, of course there is always a lot of space, meaning to them and the amount of time you put in doesn’t change. I think it’s less difficult for me to show bigger emotions, that’s been with me from the start. I don’t think I’m very good at it now, but when I look at my early works, I think I’m more like myself when I say something like “Ahhhh!!”

(laughs). “Good morning” and “by the way”, and so on, those are the most difficult. Since this work is the latter, it was a challenge for me (laughs). Especially from where I was a few years ago, I couldn't have done this, I’m not changing my approach at all, but for me this kind of work has a higher level of difficulty.

Myson: Performing the everyday is more difficult, did you start with the "what is natural?" approach, then?

Nijiro: I think there is also that, because you’re depicting something the norm, I think performing something universal is difficult. Universal, I mean, by majority, which means it’s the majority that will be observing and judging, there’s a feeling that it’s more demanding. (laughs)

Myson: Certainly! (laughs). However, during the quarrel scene, when you’re very angry, it’s like there’s a half smile, I could see the excitement in your eyes. I thought it was very realistic

Nijiro: Is it? But, I also have a huge complex about the universal. I may be completely misunderstanding this, but when I’m talking to people, eating meals, when going out on site with new people, sometimes it’s like there’s some kind of tension and pressure points are very different, mostly they don’t match. This is my own experiences and feelings, I often feel that I enjoy things differently to everyone else, I have a huge complex about others (laughs). I don’t mean that in a bad way, you saying ‘ it was realistic’, that makes me happy.

Myson: This work is about people who live along the Tama-gawa, but if work and corona have nothing to do with it, what city or what kind of place would you want to live in?

Nijiro: I really like the city, but I want to live with animals. I was born in Tokyo, and I believe my roots are in Tokyo, but I grew up in the countryside, I was in the wilderness for a lot of my time, especially during my adolescence. At that time I lived with goats and birds, cats and so on, therefore there’s a feeling that living with animals is natural. It’s not like ‘Princess Mononoke’ but I love big animals, I want to live with something extreme, like bears or something.

Myson & Reporter A: Ehhh!???

Nijiro: Looking at social media, aren’t there a lot of animal videos? Overseas you can see men playing with bears, and I really like when fierce animals like tigers or something are cute when they’re babies. I also like squirrel monkeys and cats, birds and other small animals, they’re cute, I want to live with all of them. But, I love Tokyo and I love the city therefore, seeking the two extremes you’d definitely need a lot of money, right. I’m an actor who films away from home, so I’m not really suited to that kind of life. Desires and work don’t match, what can I do? (laughs). It’s not like I’d have a sitter raise them. If I’m not there, then there’s no point.

Myson: Certainly! (laughs)

Nijiro: Like learning asset management, I think it’s not that easy (laughs). This might be a bad way of putting it but, in my mind, I think of marriage as a contract that the partner will keep animals as well. It’s not a contract with a woman, it’s a ‘contract to raise animals together’.

Myson: Hahahaha!

Nijiro: If not that, then I won’t get married, or at least have a de-facto marriage.

Myson: That’s the most important thing in order to marry!

Nijiro: It is important, isn’t it. How did we get talking about this? (laughs)

Myson: We were talking about where you want to live. (laughs)

Nijiro: Where I want to live, well I'm not wrong then!

Everyone: Hahahaha!

As a child I felt a distance from the entertainment industry

Myson: As a small child I guess the entertainment industry felt close to home, but how did you become interested in actors and the job itself? Did it feel natural that you would become an actor?

Nijiro: Maybe it was the reverse. By my school and my parents I was banned from all media, so my intake of drama and movies, compared to people who grow up in a world with normal TV, it was about a tenth of that. I used to watch “Rookies” in secret, but I knew very little about it, so I couldn’t admire it. I did have manga and games though. So instead this world was rather far away. I have opportunities to meet various people close to my parents, but those kind of people are so over the top, there are a lot of people who look the opposite of celebrity (laughs). In that sense, my generation, and the generation below my parents is still fresh. Because I was born during my parents busiest time, I was raised by my grandmother, and even though I was small, I had a vague thought of “why ain’t ya around?”. In that sense, I vaguely didn’t like it. When I was still a small child I didn’t know how great my dads performance is, but before I realised it, I started to understand. Now that I’m an actor I think I understand it more.

Myson: I don’t know if this is the right way to ask, but,  do you enjoy being an actor?

Nijiro: I don’t know anything else, in that way it’s painful because it’s the only thing I know. Makes me wonder if there’s something more fun than this, you know. Because we want what we don’t have. Therefore, I don’t know how fun it is as an average, but I think I’m still continuing because I’m still enjoying it.

Myson: How about acting overseas? Do you have any interest?

Nijiro: Not that it isn’t possible at all, but I don’t think it’s possible to speak slang like a native in a film. I’d be happy to have those kinds of opportunities, like voice acting in Wes Anderson’s films, like Nagase’s role in Jim Jarmunsch’s ‘Patterson’, of course I’m interested. But, if I was going to spend all that time on English, I think I’d sooner be reborn. Of course, I’d study more if I had if i get that kind of opportunity.

Myson: I see. How do you usually choose the films you watch?

Nijiro: What is it, huh, it has a shine, doesn’t it? All the information I want to get now.. That’s a bit of a sparkly statement. (laughs).

Myson: No, no, no, hahaha! Do you watch both Western and Japanese films?

Nijiro: That doesn’t matter at all, I’ll watch anything including dramas and documentaries.

Myson: It’s like buying the jacket visuals and watching it.

Nijiro: In other words, I’m very influenced by the visuals. No matter how good the cast is, if I’m not attracted to the poster I’ll put off watching it. The visuals are the most important. I think this is good and bad though. After I started acting, I always had a natural appetite to watch things, even if it wasn’t something I needed to know or feel right away, if it may or may not be useful right now, lately that’s changed little by little. That’s not a good part of it, since there’s no guarantees, and there’s a feeling that you can’t afford to spend too much time on something that you get nothing from. It’s right to get what you need most, but I haven’t surprised myself much recently, it’s like I’m not surprised at all anymore, I think the reason is because I don’t touch anything I’m not sure of. Right now it’s not easy to go for a drink but, for example, when I go out of a drink and I think ‘I’m 80% likely to not enjoy myself if I go there’, then I won’t go, but the remaining 20% is very important, isn’t it? There’s the possibility of that roughly 20% could make me think ‘that was really fun!” I think I need to do more with that small percent.

Myson: Thank you very much!

[dialovers-translations]

DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE, MORE BLOOD Vol. 3 Sakamaki Shuu Stellaworth Tokuten: “Monopolizing Her”

Original title: 彼が貴女を独り占めするCD

Source: Diabolik Lovers More, More Blood Vol. 3 Sakamaki Shuu Stellaworth Tokuten CD [CD not owned by me]

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Toriumi Kousuke

Translator’s note:  I enjoyed this CD a little more than I would like to admit, haha. Shuu teasing the MC honestly gives me life. > < It has been a while since I played any Shuu route since he almost always first and I’m close to finishing one game and about halfway through the other, so I’m glad you guys are still requesting his stuff so I can get my Shuu fix. xD

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

You enter the room and walk up to a sleeping Shuu.

“Zzー... Nn...”

You start trying to wake him up.

*Rustle rustle*

“Mmh...Nn...”

*Rustle rustle*

You eventually give up and call his name.

“Nn�� Shut up...Hm...”

You beg for him to wake up.

*Rustle rustle*

“...Nnh...You’re annoying...What do you want?”

You offer to go outside. 

“Hah...? You woke me up just to say that? My answer’s no. If you want to head out, you can do so by yourself. I’m gonna nap.”

*Rustle*

“Ugh...Stop talking to me...You really are trying everything to prevent me from sleeping, aren’t you?”

You insist.

“Who cares if you won the tickets? I’m not interested in some mucisian’s concert. If you want to go, be my guest.”

You explain the situation.

“Haah...It’s couples only, huh? Guess you can’t get in then. Too bad for you. Why not watch the broadcast on TV then?”

You keep on begging.

“Nn...You’re persistent. Didn’t I just tell you that I’m not going? That is the one thing I want to be clear about. I am not moving, no matter what happens.”

You mention that there will be a part on classical music as well.

“...! What did you say just now?”

You repeat yourself.

“Hm...There’s a classical recital as well? I changed my mind.”

You blink in confusion.

“What are you spacing out for? We’re going to this concert. Shouldn’t you get ready?”

You remind him of his earlier words. 

“I never said I wouldn’t move.”

You shake your head.

“I didn’t. Do you want to go with me? Or not? Which one is it?”

You tell Shuu you want to go.

“Then hurry up and get ready. I’m leaving you behind if you keep me waiting.”

You nod, quickly running off.

*TIMESKIP*

Upbeat music plays in the background followed by fans cheers.

“Haah...It’s so loud...I know this is supposed to be one of those lives (1), but I didn’t think the music would be this annoying. It’s crowded as well, I’m feeling fed up already. ...It’s still not over? How far are we in right now?”

You reply.

“It’s long...Only halfway? So, when exactly is the classical part? I’m starting to itch to go home.”

You tell him that the musician has to speak first.

“A speech by the artist? (2)”

You explain.

“Ah, you’re referring to him talking right now? The recital comes after this, right? In that case, I’ll listen just a little longer.”

The artist talks to the crowd.

“Haah? That guy’s telling us to hold hands or something?”

You nod.

“Ah, right. I guess the whole crowd consists of couples, huh? They’re trying to appeal to the audience like that? What a drag.”

You offer your hand.

“We don’t have to follow his orders, do we? ...Or do you want to hold my hand, perhaps? In that case, I’ll offer you one. Why not do as you please?”

You hesitate.

“Why are you hesitating? Ah. You don’t want to? In that case, I don’t mind either.”

You shake your head, begging to hold his hand. 

“Haha, you’re way too desperate. You’re such a cheap woman too, getting all happy over something like this. However, I’m well aware that those innocent reactions of yours are just for show. There’s no way something this childish would be able to satisfy you, right? So you don’t mind if I run my fingers across yours like this, do you?”

*Rustle*

You flinch.

“Does it tickle? Or did you feel it just now? You’re as sensitive as ever. You’re so lewd to feel good over something like this.”

You protest. 

“Hm? What was that? I can’t hear you over all the other noise. You’ll have to come closer to tell me. Bring your lips towards my ear.”

You repeat yourself.

“Hmm~? You want me to stop? But the artist told us to do this, so I won’t stop.”

You ask if he is mad at you.

“Haah...? I’m not upset or anything. Well, I might be a little agitated by this ruckus and ridiculous crowd. I’d love to suck your blood right now just to distract myself but...”

You flinch.

“...I’ll keep that for after we’re back home. Right now, I’ll enjoy watching you struggle instead. You can use this as an opportunity to anticipate my fangs. Your blood tastes so much richer and sweeter after you’ve been teased after all.”

You puff out your cheeks.

“...Hm? He wants us to face each other next.”

You turn to the side.

“Oi. Don’t turn your head away. What’s the point in getting embarrassed still? Look my way.”

You refuse.

“Heeh...You’re stubborn, huh? Come on, look at me, I said.”

*Rustle*

“...Don’t waste your energy resisting when you’ve looked at my face a million times already. It’s a pain to keep on having to force you to turn your head. Also scoot a little closer. Don’t move away from me.”

Shuu pulls you close.

*Rustle rustle*

“Haha...You’re restless. Are you having a hard time relaxing when I’ve got my arms looped around your waist? Don’t be playing innocent, I usually do things much more intense to you. Both your body and soul already belong to me, don’t they? If this much is enough to make you throw in the towel, you might not be able to keep up with me in the future, you know? Well, I wouldn’t mind if you were to break or go crazy though. I will stay by your side, no matter what happens to you.”

They get the next instructions from the artist.

“...Hah. Did you hear that?”

Your cheeks turn bright red.

“He wants us to kiss while looking at one another. We have to listen to him, no? So you should initiate the kiss.”

Your eyes widen in shock. 

“What? Don’t tell me you can’t?”

You tell him it’s embarrassing.

“Heeh...You find it embarrassing in front of other people, huh? I’ll let you off the hook then.”

You seem somewhat disappointed.

“What? You don’t want to, no? If you’re not up for it, I guess I have no other choice.”

You frown.

“The next song’s about to start. Guess we should turn back to the stage and find ourselves a spot.”

The music begins to play.

“...What?”

You ask for permission to kiss him.

“Haha...You should have just said so earlier. Lift your face then. ...I’ll tuck your hair behind your ear so it’s easier.”

*Rustle*

“...You’re hot. Not just your ears, your whole body feels feverish.”

Shuu steps closer.

“I’m leaning in, so you can reach, right? Wouldn’t it be better to cup both sides of my face with your hands so you can do it properly?”

You cup his cheeks.

“Hahaha...You’re actually gonna do it? Your hands are shaking though. Bring your face closer to mine. ...Exactly, just a little further. A little more...”

*Smooch*

“Heh. I was expecting this, but you actually went for my cheek after getting that flustered? Okay then. I’ll teach you. Not only it is dim in here, but there’s a flashy concert going on. I doubt anyone will take notice of us.”

He pulls you close.

*Rustle*

“I’ll use the remaining time to teach you thoroughly. Although I’m not sure if just kisses will actually be enough to satisfy you.”

You become even more flustered. 

“Didn’t I tell you? The more I tease you, the more delicious you become...I’ll give it to you plenty once we’re back. Both kisses, and my fangs...”

ーー THE END ーー

Translation notes

(1) I think he says ショー気分ライブ or ‘show-kibun live’ here, which literally means ‘a live concert with the feeling/vibes of a show’. I was not quite sure how to accurately translate this to English. xD I guess it means one of those really upbeat concerts where everyone is screaming and waving those light sticks in the air. 

(2) Te word トーク or ‘talk’, derived from English, is used in Japanese to refer to an artist talking on stage in between performing different songs. 

[jjkfire]

I like the song, actually I really do haha but... I wonder when they'll go back to making Korean music. I mean I know why they make it in English. They're gaming the system. They know they won't top the billboard charts for long if the song is in Korean. American radio is just more likely to play the song if it is fully in English. That being said, every time it is in English I just know that they aren't heavily involved in the lyric writing and that's what makes me sad. Like yoongi and hobi can't write their raps. also yes I'm a doodoohead but my pet peeve is poor diction and yes, even if English is the singer's first language. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with making fun music with no deep lyrics aka Bruno Mars with uptown funk, finesse etc they are absolutely amazing tracks. Just happy dance music is great, but I do miss their deep tracks.

I know I shouldn't feel like this because for all we know they love making this type of music and they like these peppy pop songs but I can't help feeling like it's just so manufactured (which is a big lol considering this is ya kno kpop). It just feels like someone made the track (someone did lol its Ed sheeran and a bunch of other people) and they just sang it. again, nothing wrong with that like a ton of singers don't write their own songs. but, it makes me feel like they're not shining the way that I know they can (?) they're all so talented and great and I love the stories they tell through their music so I hope they eventually return to that. for now it feels like big hit is making them pump out these English singles because tours are what used to be the big big moneymakers and they can't do that now so this is what they're doing to make up for that. it just feels very dance monkey dance, sing monkey sing... if that makes sense. but also permission to dance was made by Ed sheeran so ofc hell yeah if I was a singer I'd be like I totally wanna do this song. anyway, I want them to be able to achieve what Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee did with despacito. granted Justin Bieber had to feature on it plus add English for it to take off but most of the song is still in Spanish and it did amaaaaazing. you know it's still reggaeton, it still has that Latin pop vibe, the beats. (also the original with full Spanish is so good I love)

bts are no longer underdogs but I miss that about them. that raw, underdog, throw whatever you want at me!!! I'll just keep doing me. I like the little anecdotes of their lives, and of their culture woven into their songs. it makes it different to what's in western pop. I enjoyed that aspect. yeah yeah not every bts song is deep but you know what I mean. anyway love them still and I hope they're happy and truly making music that they love but and as I've always said I miss hyyh and I want the ending of that chapter lol.

[zaptap]

so i finished the first great ace attorney game last night! now to see if i can remember all the thoughts i had about it

in contrast to most of the lawyers in the series, ryunosuke didn’t go through law school before his first court appearance, and it was interesting to see how he didn’t know how to point, slam the desk, or say “objection” for a while

love how they brought back the multiple witnesses mechanic from the layton crossover. adds an interesting element to cross-examinations. the music kind of reminded me of that game, and as it turns out that’s because yasumasa kitagawa composed for both

kazuma had huge mia vibes so i knew he would probably be the victim of the second case from pretty early on

funny how they aren’t allowed to use the name “sherlock holmes” in text but had no problems using the original japanese audio where you can hear him being referred to as such (watson too)

the second case, being solved entirely outside the courtroom, reminded me a lot of the investigations games. that was pretty fun

the third case was interesting because for the first time in the series i didn’t know if the client was innocent, like it could have gone either way. towards the end i thought he probably did it, and the trial ends with this bittersweet “did we really win?” feeling that they’ve never had in previous trials

fourth case was the second time in the series when the defendant was charged with something besides murder, and the first time when it didn’t end up being murder later on. fitting since it turned out the real culprit did it by total accident

when they first talked about vilen borshevik in the second case i’m like “oh that guy will probably be involved in the last case of the game” and uh. well i was right? i love how he’s just There. probably will be in the second game, but even if he isn’t the fact that there’s this revolutionary there to attack the crystal tower or something and it’s all happening in the background is hilarious

speaking of which, the jury system in this game is so messed up. over here in the modern day they can’t call you for jury duty for years after the last time, but i guess there’s no rule like that in place here (not sure if that’s due to british law at the time or they just decided to ignore the rule to make it funny). and even if you don’t live there or speak english they’ll grab you off the street and stick you in the courtroom

it was so sad having to play the last case in 2d when they kept doing all that stereoscopic stuff. i already had the 3ds version pretty much set up in preparation to play it there before the switch port was announced, so maybe i’ll replay that part of the game on there someday so i can see the 3d (that’s the big drawback of playing these games on switch, but since the fan translation for the second game didn’t get finished before the official localization, it probably won’t ever get finished, so i’d have to play at least one of the games on switch, and they come together so i just ended up playing both)

overall i thought this game was VERY good. very well written plot, one of the best in the series, and while i’d still say investigations 2 is my favorite, dgs2 has the potential to be really good as well

[im-fairly-whitty]

@mightywolfmouse kindly said I could answer this as an ask post since my thoughts on the matter are a bit lengthy, so here goes!

The short answer is that in my opinion you’ve already landed on the best of the lot in the while Witcher franchise as TW3 is a magnificent and beautiful game that has a great time with the book’s canon while still treating it with respect. I own the game on two platforms now and have sunk so many hours into it and I agree that it’s probably the best way to fall in love with the world of Witcher in general.

Which is a good thing since the rest of the media can be a little…hard to love at times. 😅

NETFLIX SEASON 1: For my part Netflix season 1 was my first exposure to the Witcher, and from what I’ve gathered the Netflix is best experienced first and not second, since if you know nothing about the world but still like the show you’ll have a pretty good time once you’ve gotten the very confusing non chronological timeline thing figured out. The fights are great, the monsters are cool, and Jaskier is the accidental star of the show who went on to inspire the vast majority of the tumblr fandom’s activity, much to the horror of the Reddit dudebro population.

If you’ve already played TW3 though Netflix season 1 may feel somewhat lacking since Geralt is played as a kinda pushy and nearly nonverbal kind of asshole-ish guy instead of the warm quippy adventurer in Projekt Red’s games or the world weary but rather sweet book character. The show also tries its darndest to make Ciri and Yennifer the main characters instead of side characters like in other media with mixed results. I’d say it’s worth a watch if your standards aren’t set too high and you’ll have a decently good time.

NETFLIX SEASON 2: In season two they do a much better job of making Yen both likable and engaging instead of just overpowered and angry, making her relatable and human instead of just Hashtag Girlboss energy cranked up to eleven. They’ve also managed to start decoupling her from her womb-quest which is definitely one of the more badly aged elements to have come out of the original books. If you are a Yennifer fan definitely give season two a go, but be warned that if you hold anything about the school of the Wolf, Kaer Morhen, or Lambert/Eskel/Coen near or dear to your heart you will be wildly betrayed and disappointed so honestly low key skip ahead whenever it comes on screen.

THE OG BOOKS: I wanted so badly to like the books and maybe I’ll try them again someday, but as an English major and story crafter they hurt my head too much to choke down. The story telling is actually pretty clever and charming all around with fun spins on fairytales…except for the fact that practically every single fucking time a female character comes on screen everything goes to beans and is super weirdly written until she leaves. Characters become two dimensional, motivations turn to jello, descriptions veer leering and simpering. Then she leaves and all the male characters recover and the story goes back to being pretty decent.

I’ve read so so many books in my time, many of which are products of their time ect but these ones just put such a bad taste in my mouth I ended up dropping them, which is a shame but also I was getting all the important excerpts from the fandom anyway. Yen especially has such a bad time being a Hashtag Girlboss while simultaneously juggling her meaningless in the face of apparently having no true claim to womanhood if she can’t birth a child herself that the fact that she was written by a man in 1986 is very unforgettable. Overall the books have fantastic worldbuilding and set the foundation for so much great stuff, but don’t expect much from his female characterization at least in the first book. It’s full of gems but is also very much a panning for gold experience where you’ll have to sift through a lot of weirdly sexualized dirt clods.

OTHER GAMES: Projekt Red has certainly worked to milk their cash cow for all its worth, and have Witcher 1 (which I’m playing right now and is old but charming, and a clear grandparent of TW3, def worth it when you’ve exhausted the third) Witcher 2 (haven’t played it yet but it’s waiting in my steam library when I’m done with 1) Gwent the card game (which is kinda niche but I fucking adore it, the card art is gorgeous and I literally spent an entire summer obsessed with playing it, also delightful since it pulls in canon from all their other Witcher games into the same classy art style) Thronebreaker (an extension of the Gwent game but built around a story world as you collect cards, I didn’t get into it myself but it was pretty good stuff) and Witcher Pokémon Go (I tuned in during the buggy launch and appreciated it for what it was but ultimately couldn’t be arsed to walk that much in the year of our pandemic 2021) and I think I’m missing a mobile game or two but those are all the important ones I think.

OTHER SHOWS AND MOVIES: I have not watched the young Vesemir castlevania Netflix anime but heard very distressed comments from a friend about it since it reportedly the charge in burning school of the Wolf canon that season two witcher continues. Probably will not personally watch but hey, hot young Vesemir has got to have some merits. There are also several old films made about Geralt back before the games which vary wildly in quality, there’s a very charming one with an excellent Dandelion that I’ve seen referenced in fandom but when I tried to watch it I accidentally got a janky old TV series with pornographic misogyny in it so be sure to do your research and get the titles right if you seek them out! 😂 (although baby geralt was raised by actual wolves for like a month during his training in that one which was cool I guess?)

Ultimately the best part of loving the Witcher is slowly hoarding all the canon knowledge you can from every crevice you find it in and then crowing in delight when you recognize it being used or referenced in another game/show/cosplay/book/fanfic. What you end up partaking in is totally up to you, just as long as you’re enjoying wherever it is you’ve wandered, but hopefully this gives you a decent roadmap to start wandering with!

[venteamocha]

Hello! Sometimes I see you post stuff from IF blogs and I've recently started playing some IF games, which I've enjoyed so far. Do you have any IF stories you'd recommend in particular? I'm not attached to any particular genre and I don't need romance or a self-insert main character, (though I'm not opposed to either). Though, it's a definite plus if it's LGBTQ+ inclusive! I'm not really sure what the "cornerstones" are of IF so I'll take any and all recommendations haha

Oh god, I play so many IFs. So many. And it’s not even close to all of them, but I’m trying!!

Tbh IFs without romance seems to be very rare, I think because when I think IF I think Choice of Games, and those pretty much always have romance in them. At least, the most well known ones do. But a well done one without romance would be nice too!

Okay, this is a list of my favourites! They’re all LGBT+ inclusive, and most have gender selectable love interests, or at least ones that change gender depending on the gender and sexuality combination you pick. In no particular order, of course.  Behind a cut because I’m gonna give them each a mini review. Because I haven’t done that yet.

(There are so many.)

Mind Blind: I absolutely love our big brother Nick, I love how witty and sharp so much of the dialogue is, I love how the MC clearly has a rather large handicap, but is still such an important person to so many people and not looked down on in the slightest. And when they are, we all know it’s because that person is a jerk! They’re not defined by what they aren’t, but what they are, and that’s a great message.

Shepherds of Haven: Part of why I love this one so much is I just love fantasy settings and this one just pulls it off so well. The cast is full of amazing characters, and I gotta say I die inside pretty regularly for not being able to afford the patreon content, lol. The author puts so much amazing stuff on there, and gives us so much great content in the game and through answers on tumblr, and you can tell this whole thing is just the best thing ever to them, and that makes it the best ever for us readers too!

The Wayhaven Chronicles: I’d be shot if I didn’t mention this one, the series that literally killed dashingdon when the book 3 demo dropped!! Again, another author that cares a lot and does their best to do right by their fans. We’ve been given drip after drip of these amazing characters backstories, and I just cannot wait for more! It’s definitely very romance centered, but the overall plotlines are also very good, and I have to say that no matter who I romance, I just feel like the group as a whole is a family. And that’s wonderful.

Speaker: I really like the lore. I really like the lore. I can’t wait until we get more of the overall plotline. Mostly I want my Speaker to get in deep trouble so Seb, Li and Seer (best sister ever) go off and beat the shit out of whatever is causing it. This probably says something about me, but what can I say, I thrive on angst and inflicting near death injuries on my OCs. Sometimes I even kill them, although all of this is offtopic. Or is it? I guess we’ll find out, although I doubt we’ll actually be able to kill off Speaker. And yes, I am definitely playing the Seb & Li poly route. I love them both so much. 

Wilhelmina: I love vampires, ok? Ok? And this one is based off Dracula!! The OG!! And you can choose Drac’s gender!! Shit, sign me up forever!! Yeah, she might be literally killing my bff, torturing my fiancé and low key fucking with my mind, but vampires are hot!! Let me live! Or not. But yeah, this is a really well done retelling of the Dracula novel and I like how well it works as an IF. Did I mention I like vampires?? Especially when they get all monstery?? (This one has an MC with a set gender, as it’s based on an already existing literary figure. Mina can have a same sex relationship with dracula, if you make drac a female, or with Lucy, a female love interest.)

More Things in Heaven and Earth: Hi Nell!! First off, I gotta uncover a deep shame of mine. My family literally has a Shakespeare heirloom collection. As in, my greatgrandfather passed down through the family a collection of Shakespeare that was published in 1911. In ye olde englishe. I tried to read it when I was like 10 and was like what language is this?? What the fuck? What the fuck??? And ended up reading As You Like It, a bit of Romeo and Juliet, and a little of Hamlet. Didn’t touch the rest of it. I only got into the other stories through trashy ya reimaginings. That said, this retelling of Hamlet inspired me to go read the whole of the original and now I have a lot of fears for these characters that I’m so much more attached to, oh god I hope my Ophelia has a happy ending. I hope Hamlet himself has a happy ending. The dialogue is so well done, everyone is engaging, and yeah it made me finish an old af book when nothing else did. (This one also has an MC with a set gender, female, for the same reason. However, there are two gender variable love interests, so you can very much play a bi or gay Ophelia if you so choose.)

Guenevere: I love King Arthur. All the myths. I have so many books based on the King Arthur mythos, oh dear god. I love pretty much every version of it. All the movie and tv shows too! I just can’t get enough of those knights. I could go on for paragraphs about how courtly love worked and how all the different social castes were, but I’ll try not to. This series lets you customize Guen as a character to an amazing degree, considering that she’s also based on an actual literary figure like the other two I mentioned above. It really feels like she becomes your own character, and yet she still exists within this world very very well. I worry quite a bit that the author might have bit off more than they can chew with the current book they’re working on, what I’ve seen of it looks absolutely massive in scale. What is out so far is a wonderful read though, full of drama and laughter and lots of chances to make the story your own.

Bastard of Camelot: Yep! Another King Arthur series! Sue me! This one lets you set Mordred’s gender though, so it’s more inclusive in that way. It is very interesting to play as one of the “bad guys” of the King Arthur mythos. You can play them as straight up evil, as good, or you know, a bit of column a and a bit of column b. Or they can just be a rude little shit. It’s got dragons too! You get a dragon pet! Dragons are cool. It can be a bit tough to play sometimes, since a lot of people dislike Mordred quite a lot because of prejudices. Hopefully this will change a bit later in the series if you’ve been a fairly good person up to that point. Gotta say though, as a warning, that Mordred is a product of incest. It’s not glossed over, and it does cause a lot of problems for them in the story.

God of the Red Mountain: I just love that this inspired me to read more chinese mythology tbh. There is just so much here! And it’s just such a good read. I wish I was better at describing things. The MC being a spirit that you can define, the whole setting, most of the love interests also being spirits, the massive amount of history and culture and lore, how it all fits together. It is such a well done story. I really wish it got more attention than it does. I still miss Big Sister. I still can’t wait to find out more about the foxes, and how we can heal our MC.

The Nameless: Another one that lets you play as something otherworldly. I love the lore behind this one, and I love all of the cast I’ve met. I kind of like that our MC isn’t loved right off the bat, that we’ll have to win over all of our love interests and even the other npcs. I’m up for the challenge! Everything I’ve read on the tumblr for these characters just makes me love them all more tbh. I love how much they’ve written for all of them! Most of all though, I love Oisein. All the art of them is just *chef kiss* and their personality is magical.

A Mage Reborn: This is a really recent one but!! Wow, it’s really well done! That cliffhanger!! Oof!! Not many books literally start with killing your MC off! That takes guts! I told the author this already, but I love the way they formatted this, the way it starts with the end, so to speak, and then fills it all out. It just made everything feel so poignant, how MC is literally looking back at all these moments in time in the last minutes they have before they die. Shit. That’s powerful. And there’s gonna be more??? Can’t wait for that angst. Give me that drama. Of course I picked the one who had me killed, that’s just how I am!

These are all just the COG type games, there are a few twine games with graphics I’d throw on here, but the list is long enough as it is and they feel like they’re in a different category to me. Maybe it’s just me?

[rallamajoop]

How (not) to say ‘fuck’ in Etruscan (and other things I cannot believe I spent so much time tracking down for a throwaway joke in a Witcher slash-fic)

Buried in chapter 4 of my fic Something Nice is a joke which, as much as it amused me, no-one else is going to get unless I explain it. So here we go.

For the last few people in this fandom who haven't heard yet: The Witcher 3's vampire-language is Etruscan. To my knowledge, there's never been an official statement from CDPR to confirm this, but the evidence (ie. that basically all the vampire vocab can be found in online Etruscan sources) seems pretty solid. To explain why this made me go oooooh that's so NEAT, we need a little context.

Context!

The Etruscans (in my admittedly far-from-expert understanding) were a people who lived in Italy back before the Romans got around to conquering-slash-assimilating the rest of the peninsula, and the language they spoke is one of the most frustratingly mysterious of the ancient world. Most dead languages are at least related to something modern linguists have a decent handle on, but Etruscan seems to have been related to almost nothing else spoken – it may even have pre-Indo-European roots (a whoooole other tangent I am in no way qualified to cover).

Surprisingly, we do owe our modern Latin alphabet in part to the Etruscans, since the earliest Roman alphabets were adapted from the Etruscan (who got it from the Greeks, who got it from from the Phoneticians, and so on). The Etruscans may even be the reason we're stuck with so many weirdly redundant K-sounds (not only K and C, but X and Q, which are really just 'ks' and 'kw' with an overblown sense of superiority).

But being able to sound out every surplus K-word from an Etruscan inscription isn't much help nowadays when there are no surviving Etruscan dictionaries to tell us what it actually means – not even a decent Etruscan Rosetta stone to give us a push-start. So while modern linguists may rattle off Ancient Greek fluently or puzzle out Egyptian hieroglyphs from thousands of years before the Etruscans even had an alphabet, the Etruscan vocabulary available to us nowadays remains embarrassingly limited. Bits have been figured out from context or thanks to loanword exchanges with their neighbours (plenty of ancient Greeks and Romans certainly spoke Etruscan, even if they failed to write it down), but a lot is still as mysterious to the experts as it would be to you and me.

So why to I love the idea of using Etruscan as the Witcher’s vampire-language so much? Basically, if you want a language that will sound both old and reliably alien to anyone listening to it – be they the mainstream English-speaking market or the original Polish-language audience – Etruscan is a damn good call. You're not going to have much vocabulary to draw from, but it's not like there's a lot of vampire-chatter in the game anyway. It's a cool little easter egg for fans nerdy enough to try and figure out what they're saying.

Translations and Sources

You aren’t going to find a lot of great Etruscan language sources on the web – few of the easily-discovered online sources on Etruscan vocab appear to have been updated within the last ten years, and lord knows how consistent some of these are with current scholarship (let alone how sure linguists can be about anything with a task like this). All the same, have some links you may find useful:

Etruscology – Brief, but more readable than most

Lexicons.ru Etruscan Glossary – Probably one of the best collections of many terms in one place

Maravot.com Etruscan Language pages – Hard to navigate, but gosh there are a lot of vocab here I have not seen elsewhere

Old, Tripod-hosted Etruscan Glossary – I think these are mostly just the same terms from the Lexicons page, but in harder-to-use format

Etruscan word search – Decent, but not the most extensive vocab

Introduction to the Etruscan Language – Looks to be from Maravot.com, but in pdf format

Paleoglot.com’s Etruscan tag – Blog by an actual linguist who regularly discusses Etruscan material, and who even created their own translation applet! – which was, unfortunately, in flash, and is thus no longer usable. (There is a certain irony that even the tools available online to help you understand Etruscan are written in a language that is now no longer supported or understood by any modern browser.)

Not that translating what’s in the game is going to be easy, oh no. Take, for example, the oh-god-please-don't-kill-me ceremonial greeting Geralt has to offer to the Unseen Elder to survive that meeting – "Eclthi, lautni ama".

'Eclthi' is apparently a "demonstrative (locative)" (’here’, ‘there’, etc). "Lautni" is trickier – it means a freed slave, but may also imply a familial relationship or a client of sorts, while the root “lautn” apparently designates simply “possession.” House slaves in the ancient world were often considered part of the family, and freed slaves were an important class in many ancient cultures, who often maintained relationships with their former masters, so you can see the internal logic, but what sense was the Witcher using it in? It’s hard to know.

"Ama" is possibly worse – most translations seem to have taken it as "to be", but sometimes also “to love”, or even "now" or  "meanwhile." Then you hit the question of Etruscan grammar, and I have no idea where I’d even start. So, with a little creativity, you could probably translate that phrase as anything from "take this and consider me a friend" to "meanwhile, this is family" to "a demonstration of love from your slave." I mean, you've got the same general theme going there regardless, but there's a lot of ambiguity in the inflection.

For what it's worth, I feel garasham's translation efforts are easily the most convincing I've seen – they have the above line as “Here I am a slave / a friend / kindred” FWIW. (Mind you, given the wiki doesn't even try to do more than offer you one possible meaning for each word, there's not exactly much competition out there).

So, bringing this all back to that fic and how to say ‘fuck’ in Etruscan...

I've already gone to the web's Etruscan dictionaries once while I was writing Forget-Me-Not, seeking inspiration for a 'real' name for "the Queen of the Night" from the first Witcher game. Neither 'queen' or 'night' got me far, but the Etruscans did apparently have a goddess of the moon called 'Aritimi, Artume or Artames', which worked pretty well. If anything it's almost too close to the better-known Greek goddess Artimis, who was obviously a relative (ancient cultures bleed into each other even when they're not bleeding all over each other, nothing new there), but I'm not going to be picky.

However, being a) a giant nerd, who b) writes a lot of smut, and c) is no more mature deep down inside than the rest of us, I couldn't resist seeing if I could find some slightly more obscene vocabulary. Did the Etruscans have a word for, say, 'fuck'?

Alas, if they did (and I mean, they totally did, c'mon), the web wouldn't tell me about it. Nor could I find much else relating to sex or genitalia (male or female), or even a decent word for 'thrust'.

On the flipside, there were a couple of different terms meaning 'plough'. And anyone who's played – well, any of the games, but especially Witcher 2 – would probably realise exactly why that filled me with so much glee.

Speaking of which, here, have a picture which is in no way related:

The fact that the various Etruscan terms meaning ‘plough’ could also apparently be translated as things like “to worship“ or “to act through movement, including ritual acts,” or that an important mythological figure was “a prophetic child who sprang from a freshly plowed furrow” was in no way discouraging.

The word I ultimately picked was 'esari'. Admittedly, variations on the prefix ‘ar-’/‘ara-’/’aras’ were much more consistently attested to throughout the various online Etruscan dictionaries as ‘terms meaning plow’, but figuring out how to convert an Etruscan prefix into a satisfying word is officially where even my enthusiasm for all this nonsense gives out. Esari was, by comparison, already a much more solid-sounding term, so let’s go with that.

Why go to all this trouble anyway? Well, the honest answer is “entirely for my own amusement”, but the nominal excuse comes right back to “so I could give Regis and Geralt this little exchange during a sex scene.”

"Unless you have any particular objection," said Regis, moving to straddle Geralt's body, "I thought we might engage in some esari... hm, what was the equivalent term in your language again?" The vampire leaned in close to Geralt's ear as he made a show of remembering his answer, "Ah, yes—I thought I'd fuck you."

Never let anyone tell you you never learnt anything from porn!

[beewolfwrites]

The Oar in the Sand - Chapter Four: Guessing Games

@cheshiya @tenseoyong @szallejhscorner @something-more-original-please @ofsunsetsandpoetries @nek0dzuken @allozaur @serenzippity

I’m sorry if there’s any typos or mistakes in this. Some chapters are just harder to write, and I end up repeating words over and over haha. If you spot any, do let me know! 

As always, I’ll leave the AO3 link here. And I hope you like it! 

--------------------------------------------------

The Latin alphabet.

The message could be written in any language from English to Spanish, Czech or even Latin itself.

It could mean anything.

Unlike An, Headband or Pigtails, I had the advantage, and I could still save us. Except I had no idea where to start, and the steady pressure of the game was already settling on my shoulders like a thick fog.  

The Queen was smiling at me from the other gallows. I understood now, the way her eyes had lingered on me back in the reception. She probably hadn’t accounted for a foreigner to be here – after all, her game was intrinsically designed for native Japanese speakers. And yet that smile, the way the corners of her eyes crinkled ever so slightly; she was still confident.

And she should be. She already knows I can’t read morse code.

‘I don’t mean to rush you,’ said Pigtails, ‘but do you think you’ll be able to decode some of it?’ Her previous hope had wilted away, and she was now watching me with apprehension.

The message glared at me from the screen, nonsensical and confusing. The dots and dashes were swarming, melting into one dotted mass that darkened the room. My arms and legs felt detached, swinging from this noose like a doll. So many people had died. The teenage girl, the business man, Pink Scrunchie, countless players accused of being witches... I wasn’t able to save any of them.

And now, four more lives would be added to the list.

‘Stop panicking.’

I jumped at the sharpness of An’s voice. The dots and dashes returned to their screen. My hands and legs were still intact, still moving.

‘Take a deep breath and focus,’ she instructed.

Swallowing, I breathed in and out shakily. My chest felt hollow, and at the same time, it was crawling with jitters. ‘How can you be so calm? 何���知っている分からない.’ I don’t know what I’m doing.

‘Yes, you do. Chishiya brought you to the Beach for a reason.’

Chishiya?

That was why she trusted me?

I couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh; no matter how much I loved him, what he did at the Beach, the way he had almost betrayed me, it was still painful to think about.

‘違う.’ You’re wrong. I didn’t exactly have the vocabulary to explain properly, but I was sure they’d get the gist. ‘苣屋は私を使ってトランプの盗むしていた. それが唯一の理由だった.’ Chishiya was using me to steal the cards. That was the only reason.

An’s lips parted in surprise. Headband and Pigtails were whispering in low voices. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but from their tones it was clear they didn’t think too highly of Chishiya.

‘So that’s what really happened,’ An muttered, filling in the rest of the blanks herself. ‘It was hard to believe Arisu could be capable of doing something like that.’ She shook her head slowly, processing the new information. ‘I suppose it no longer matters, since the Beach is gone now. But Chishiya still made a good decision bringing you to us. I’ve heard about your games, and I believe you’re more capable than you think.’

I remembered my conversation with Chishiya the day before the second stage, when he told me I would be good at Diamonds. Back then, he was wrong. Just looking at the dots and dashes on the screen, I knew this game was beyond me. And yet, it would be nothing more than a simple brainteaser for someone like him.

I wonder, what would he do? How would he approach this game?

I tried to picture his response to a morse code message. I tried to imagine his methods of breaking it down logically. But even so, it was impossible to understand how his brain worked. He was totally different to me. He was rational and analytical, able to uncover a solution to even the most complex situations. All I could do was notice things. I wasn’t Chishiya, nor would I ever be. And right now, was he wandering the streets looking for me? Probably not. Knowing him, he might have even gone straight to the Jack of Diamonds venue.  

No. That can’t be true.

He cared. I knew that. I’d felt his fingers playing with my hair whenever I drifted in and out of sleep during the night. I’d witnessed that unreadable expression of his when he first saw the bruises Niragi left. I’d felt his hands tearing me away from the balcony edge when...

‘If we were in a game together, and say, someone pointed a gun at me, would you do that? As in, would you stand back and watch?’

‘I don’t know.’

My vision glassed over at the memory. Chishiya, you...

You liar.

I rubbed away the tears and tried to hold my chin up higher. ‘みんな、ごめんね. 今大丈夫.’ I’m sorry everyone. It’s okay now.

There were only fifty-two minutes left. The Queen, who had remained silent this whole time, was watching on with a vague, academic intrigue. Despite the pristine neatness of her olive suit and her black shoes, she was relaxed, raising her delicate eyebrows as I looked at her squarely.

‘You said before that you might be able to answer some of our questions, so I want to make a deal.’

‘What kind of deal?’ Her eyes glinted as if I’d just proposed a new game – as if I’d made this even more fun for her.

The drawing of the gallows was still waiting, empty, on the second screen. ‘If we figure out this message and clear the game, you have to answer my questions.’

She took the time to consider it. ‘I suppose that’s fair,’ she said. ‘One of us will die here, so it hardly matters anymore. It’s a deal.’

I’d said those same words to Chishiya, and I had no intention of breaking our promise here in this library. With a little more confidence now, I analysed the coded message closely. Normally in a game of Hangman, vowels were a first choice because of how often they were used. But we could only pick two.

What’s the most used vowel in the Latin alphabet?

Most people would assume it was A, but if I had to make a guess, I’d probably say E. Lots of languages with a Latin alphabet, like French, Spanish and Italian, used words like el, es, e, and est. But if E was the most common vowel, would that make it too obvious a choice?

I chanced a look at the Queen. She was smiling, not in a manipulative or secretive way, but as if she was quietly supporting us from the sidelines. It was peculiar. There was a chance she had purposely avoided E because of how often it was used, and I wouldn’t put it past her – she was still alive for a reason.

So what’s the second most common?

U was a no-go. Out of all the vowels it was definitely the least popular. A would be far too obvious as well. It would have to be a gamble between I and O. There were just forty-eight minutes left, and there was no time to waste hesitating between them.

Pick one, pick one.

‘If it’s okay with everyone,’ I said, ‘I’m going to choose O.’

Pigtails and Headbands looked unsure, most likely because I kept switching languages accidentally. On the other hand, An was open to the idea, replying only with, ‘I trust you.’

I held my breath, transfixed by the dots and dashes before us.

A number of Os appeared, scattered throughout the message; two in the first line, three in the second, four in the third, and one in the fourth. The drawing of the empty gallows remained unchanged.

We did it!

Beside me, Headband exhaled a sigh of relief and murmured a subdued thank you. Much to my surprise, however, the Queen didn’t seem disheartened by our small victory. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she looked pleased for us.

‘A good choice to start with, I must say.’ She clasped her hands together, resting them against her blazer. ‘Unfortunately, you’ve used up one of your vowels, but you seem like smart girls. I’m sure you’ll do well.’

How could she be so happy?

‘Isn’t this a bad thing for you?’ I asked. ‘Aren’t you worried?’

‘Should I be? There’s no good or bad,’ she countered, ‘just two perspectives.’

She’s a gamemaster, isn’t she? She set up these games, and she’ll die here if we win.

‘But we’re your enemy...’

She smiled warmly once more. ‘I think you’ll find we’re on the same side.’

On the same side? I didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense at all. ‘What do y—’

‘Don’t bother.’ An took off her sunglasses, openly assessing the Queen. ‘She’s intentionally wasting our time.’

She was right. The clock was now on forty-seven minutes, and the Queen seemed to be particularly skilled at raising more questions than she answered. I could interrogate her about all of this once we’d cleared the game – some things took priority. I focused my concentration on the code, trying to find some kind of hint or pattern there.

.-.   ..   -.   --. / .- / .-.   ..   -.   --. / O / .-.   o   ...   .   ...

.- / .--.   o   -.-.   -.-   .   - / ..-.   ..-   .-..   .-.. / o   ..-. / .--.   o   ...   ..   .   ...

.- / -   ..   ...   ....   o   o / .- / -   ..   ...   ....   o   o

.--   . / .-   .-..   .-.. / ..-.   .-   .-..   .-.. / -..   o   .--   -.

From what I could see, the O in the first line was capitalised. It was a standalone word – usually that would mean the word was either archaic, or it was in another language. But the Os in the third line were even more curious. The morse symbols repeated themselves twice, with the Os hinting at what could only be either onomatopoeia, or again, archaic terminology.

‘What do you think?’ Pigtails asked.

My eyes scanned the repetitions in the third line. There was something off about it. Words didn’t usually repeat themselves twice in a row like that... unless they were poetic. It would certainly explain why the O was alone in the top line, and why this message was carefully constructed with line breaks in the first place.

If it’s poetry, I might have heard it before.

Headband perked up suddenly. ‘What about going with the most common characters?’

By characters, she must’ve meant letters. I still didn’t know what language the message was in, so I could only use the letters I knew rather than those with accents. Although, playing Hangman as a child, there were always certain letters that wielded the best chance of success.

‘Let’s go with M,’ I said at last. There was usually at least one hiding somewhere. The four of us looked at the screen in anticipation. My fists clenched at my sides as I willed for an M to appear in the mix.

The screen changed.

The wrong screen. A circle appeared below the noose in the drawing. The hangman now had a head.

I could feel the others looking at me, aware that they had put their trusted me and I had let them down. ‘I’m sorry...’ I told them. ‘I’m sorry. ごめん.’

A hand lightly squeezed my shoulder. ‘It’s okay,’ Headband said. ‘We’ve still got more tries.’

Pigtails stepped as close as the noose would allow. ‘This was going to happen at some point. And at least now we know which characters aren’t there. It narrows down the possible words.’

There was silence from An. Perhaps she was disappointed in me, or even regretting her decision to let me captain this game. I wouldn’t blame her if that was the case. I felt the same way, only my regret was stained with guilt too. If I couldn’t save the three of them, at least I would die too. At least I would get what I deserved.

I glanced up at the timer. Forty-five minutes until someone gets sent to the gallows. I couldn’t let it be them.

I can’t lose control of myself like this.

‘You’ve used up one of your ten consonants,’ the Queen reminded us, steady and composed as always. ‘As a word of advice, relying on an age-old strategy doesn’t necessarily work.’

Every time the Queen opened her mouth, she only confused me more. And judging from An’s response, I wasn’t the only one to feel that way. ‘Why should we listen to your advice? Our failure is your win.’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t,’ the Queen replied. ‘But I’ll leave it up to you to decide.’

She didn’t sound like she was purposely trying to mislead us, but that in itself could be what made it so misleading. Most people tend to gravitate towards common letters when playing Hangman – is that what she meant by an ‘age-old-strategy’?

In that case...

I took a deep breath. Maybe this was worth the risk. ‘I think we should try doing the opposite,’ I stated. ‘I think we should choose an uncommon letter.’ Realising I’d slipped between languages yet again, I tried to remember the words in Japanese. ‘逆が試みよう.’ Let’s try the opposite. ‘レアの文字.’ An uncommon letter.

The Queen could have purposely avoided using popular ones to throw us off. But if I was wrong, was it worth losing a turn? The bodiless head dangled from its noose on the other screen.

Only six chances left.

‘It’s worth a shot,’ said An.

Pigtails peered at us from the end of the platform. ‘Are you sure? We don’t have that many chances of guessing.’

I understood her hesitation. It felt like we were gambling with our lives, and I was the one calling the shots. And it was even worse for her as she was placing her life in someone else’s hands. ‘I know, わかてる,’ I tried to reassure her. ‘If it doesn’t work, we can try a different approach.’

Headband was twiddling her fingers again, although there was a hardness in her posture. A resolve to win. ‘It won’t be a waste, because we’ll know then that it’s the wrong strategy. I trust you two.’

It felt good to know they had my back, even if my previous attempt at guessing hadn’t worked. Maybe things would take a turn for the better? I exhaled slowly, trying to assemble the most unlikely letters. Q was definitely a contender. Z was again, too obvious, but X was hardly ever used because there were fewer words you could make with it. It was probably the most unlikely letter to appear in a game of Hangman.

Forty-three minutes ticked down to forty-two.

‘X.’

We waited with bated breath. Headband played with her fingers. Pigtails chewed on her lip. An clutched her sunglasses in both hands, her eyes locked on the message before us.

Please... please.

‘Relying on an age-old strategy doesn’t necessarily work.’

A black line appeared beneath the hangman’s head, his new body dangling from the noose.