#i do t know if the game modes outside the original give more information on them (havnt played them yet oops) but i still like them

[sourbombz]

Sigh like months ago I did try drawing the spookys jumpscare mansion protagonist but jm not rlly a fan of how I decided to draw them they can get a redo later I think. But yeah uhhhh IS there a spookys fandom ?????? I don't know but if you exist here you go

[spiderling-space]

This idea is inspired by @zozobegone ‘s this post 

Setting: Grim goes platonic yandere mode when he realizes MC is going to go back to their world

It is written from Grimm's perspective

Italics indicate thoughts

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The Great Grimm

Warning: Unhealthy dependency and friendship

"Henchperson, give me those candies!" Grimm ordered (Y/N) after trying so many times to reach the top shelf.

"Aw, you couldn't reach yourself?" (Y/N) had seen Grimm jumping and trying to climb to take the candies. They didn't do anything but watch him fail for the last 10 minutes, they couldn't help themselves as he was being so cute. "What's the magic word?"

After grumbling a little, Grimm spoke coercively, "Please..."

"That's a good boy!" They patted him on the head before grabbing the candies and giving them to him. 

He started devouring them the moment he got his hand on the candies. He thanked them quickly before focusing entirely on his food. They were just so delicious, he couldn't resist it!

"Honestly Grimm, what will you do once I'm gone?" They sighed as they took a seat in the kitchen.

The words didn't register for Grimm at first. "Eh?" He stopped eating for a moment and looked at them. "What nonsense are you babbling about?"

"Hmm? Oh! Well, you know, it's been months and lots of progress have been done. Crowley finding a way for me to return home is right around the corner." They spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"That birdman doesn't do anything but whine and pin all the tasks on us."

"I convinced him to do the actual work and he made a progress on finding a way for me to go home." (Y/N) stood up, walking toward him and kneeling to his height. "I'll give you a secret, I haven't told anyone this." They gulped before smiling, "Crowley found the way for me to go back. We just need ingredients and get some tests done then I'll be able to go back. I haven't told others about it yet because I wanted to have something concrete but since you are like my second family, I wanted you to know first."

Huh, he thought.

Grimm continued eating, ignoring what (Y/N) had said who got up and left the kitchen after sharing their secret. At that moment, it didn't bug him at all since he thought they were joking.

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It didn't even pass a week that (Y/N) started to tell the others that they would be leaving soon and ask their help to get the ingredients and spend their last days together. Meanwhile, Grimm became more and more irritable as the days passed by.

Grimm didn't have a family nor a friend. When he opened his eyes to the world, he was in a back alley by just himself. He fended for himself and decided to become the greatest magician when he heard people talking about Night Raven Collage. He didn't have anyone who supported his dream nor he needed one. He would accomplish it on his own and show everyone how great he was. Of course, things didn't go as planned and he got thrown off the moment he revealed his true self at the entrance ceremony and was even threatened to get eaten. What's worse was that when he returned to NRC, showing the persistence of an NRC student, he was about to be thrown again. That would be the case if it weren't for (Y/N) sticking up for him. He wasn't a sentimental monster and he hated to be called cat by (Y/N) despite his catly activities as they called it. However, deep down he knew it was because of (Y/N) that he became a student in the NRC, getting one step closer to achieving his dream. Heck, he and (Y/N) were considered one student together.

It wasn't just (Y/N) creating him an opportunity that made him care about them, it was everything. They studied together; they slept on the same bed, shared meals and snacks, played games, did homework, complained about the school and students together. Not to mention, how much he enjoyed getting petted, belly rubbed and washed by them. They had each other when no one was around and always stood against overblot student together. In Grimm's eyes, they were an inseparable and astonishing duo; even a family he never had, not that he would say it out loud.

Maybe that was why he was miffed by everything that was going on... What would happen to me if (Y/N) were to go back? Become alone again? Get kicked out of NRC? Have no friends and family? No, that's not going to happen!

As the days passed, the attention he got from (Y/N) diminished gradually, came to a point that he only saw them in classes and when they got back. They were out with another person every day, not sparing enough time for the Great Grimm. 

How dare they, he thought while heatedly huffing and puffing on the couch.

Grimm dearly missed the old times when (Y/N) wasn't obsessed with going back. He didn't even receive enough petting last few days nor they studied together. His mind wandered to their time spent together when he noticed something. (Y/N) would leave everything behind regardless of how important it was when he got into serious trouble or got hurt. They would sweep in to save his neck. It just clicked at that moment. 

He would get into trouble or injured to get their attention on him. However, then the other minions would gather around them too and their attention would be divided. It was not something he wanted. An idea struck in his head after a few minutes of thinking. As expected out of the Great Grimm, it was a brilliant plan.

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"Oh my goodness, Grimm! What happened to your paw-paw?!" (Y/N) rushed to his side, kneeling and examining his paw.

Grimm grumbled acting as if he didn't want to tell them. "Nothing, Great Grimm is fine!"

"Don't be ridiculous! It looks broken!" The worry on (Y/N)'s face was gratifying since he got their attention back.

"Ask your best friends," He answered with faux melancholy, withdrawing his paw near his chest and turning back as if he would leave.

"What does that supposed to mean?" They asked, confussion evident on their face just like Grimm wanted.

"Azul tricked them into doing his work and asked them to collect all the feathers on the roof. Ace and Deuce took me with them then we got into a fight and I fell off the roof." He lowered his head for extra effect.

"And they didn't even take you to the infirmary?!" He managed to get them riled up.

"It was my fault th-"

"That's not an excuse! For fuck's sake! C'mon, we are going to the infirmary." (Y/N) wrapped their arms around Grimm and lifted him en route to the hospital wing.

"Hey (Y/N)! Do you -"

"I can't believe what you two did!"

"What we did?" Deuce mumbled, fearing their wrath.

"Don't talk to me for some time and at least take responsibility and apologize!" (Y/N) stormed off before Ace could finish his sentence. Both Ace and Deuce look perplexed as (Y/N) marched away. Grimm was looking at them over (Y/N)'s shoulder, taking in their puzzled looks and flashing a grin as (Y/N) walked away.

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For the next two weeks, Grimm continues with his plan.

"I swallowed a lot of soapy water." Grimm said as he was rubbing his belly, it genuinely hurt. Swallowing soapy water was more awful than hurting his paw.

"Azul! You promised to not do this and shame on you Jade, Floyd!"

3 more down, plenty to go...

"Leona, have you seen Grimm? He is way smaller than you! How couldn't you realize what your claws would do on Grimm?"

"Ruggie, Grimm got food poisoning because of you! You could have just stolen his food instead of replacing them with expired ones."

"Jack, I've never expected this from you. I'm very disappointed."

"What? What are you talking about?" Jack asked hastily but it fell on deaf ears as (Y/N) didn't even listen to him, grabbing Grimm and leaving them standing.

Woo hoo! My plan is working fantastically! 

"He could have died Kalim if it were higher!"

"Jamil, I thought you would stop making people poison taste. Grimm has been puking all day long because of you!"

Grimm grinned wickedly as he was once again carried by (Y/N).

Wait until I'm done with all of you! HAHA, You cannot defeat me!

Grimm was thinking of new original ways to distance (Y/N) from the rest of Heartslabyul, Pomefiore, Ignihyde and Diasomnia. The last one would be the hardest as he had a powerful competitor who also sought (Y/N)'s attention but it didn't matter, Grim would be the only one!

That was what he thought until Birdman came bearing the news...

"(Y/N)! Good news! All the tests we did on the mirror worked! You can go back now!"

Everything stopped right there and then. 

Grimm was so focused on getting (Y/N)'s affection and attention that he forgot about the tests they were doing on the mirror.

Now I am too late...

"My goodness! Thank you! I missed my home so much! I'll start saying my goodbyes!" (Y/N) spoke rapidly, they truly were happy to hear the news.

Happy to leave me all alone!

"No worries, they all gather around the magic mirror, waiting for you." Birdman informed, "Are you coming now?"

"Yes!" (Y/N) said before turning to him, taking him in arms and carrying him outside.

That is not how it was supposed to go...

As they were walking outside before leaving the Ramshackle perimeter, Grimm jumped on the ground.

"What's wrong?" (Y/N) stopped to ask.

"What's wrong?!" Grimm couldn't contain it anymore. everything was too much.

"(Y/N), do you need a moment to say goodbye to the dorm?" Birdman questioned, getting closer to where they were standing.

"Uhm... yes... I mean I spent months here so I should say goodbye to it. You can go, we will catch up in a moment."

With that Birdman walked away, leaving (Y/N) and Grimm alone.

"Is there something you wanted to talk about?" They asked idiotically. 

Are they too dumb to understand?

As Grimm was about to tell them what was on his mind, unfiltered, he felt a power within himself. A power that wanted to surge out of him and he let it since he had nothing to lose anymore.

"You will leave me all alone!"

"But you already knew that, Grimm. This place isn't my home and if I took you with me, you would be discovered and people would do experiments on you." Their voice was so soft as they tried to reason with him but none of them mattered.

"We are one student together, you can't leave until I graduate!" The power inside of him grew even more.

"Well, Crowley said he-"

"We fought the monsters together. We are a team, you called me your son!" He could feel that power getting closer

"I-" He wasn't going to let them speak anymore!

"So you see me as a family but you abandon me!" He felt the power leak outside and he didn't even care about it.

"GRIMM!" (Y/N) yelled, taking a few steps back. "I, I, I changed my mind, we will be together!"

"You want me to have no one again!" Grim screamed, not even noticing how his voice changed. "AAAAAHHH!"

Everything went black for a moment and the second he reopened his eyes, everything was different. He was no longer looking up to (Y/N); he now was looking down on them. They were so tiny.

"YOU CANNOT LEAVE!" Grimm screeched when he saw (Y/N) backing and running away. He jumped, landing right in front of them who fell on the ground from the shock and still trying to crawl away.

"G-Gr-Gr-Grim, i-i-it's me! We are friends, remember? I know you wouldn't hurt me because we are family, innit?"

"It is too late for everything but you are right. We are family..." Grimm said, his voice echoing, giving it more menacing feelings. 

Grimm was no longer waiting for (Y/N) to understand that they couldn't leave him. He had no intention of waiting anymore. He leaned towards them slowly, biting their clothing and lifting them.

It was always (Y/N) who carried Grimm around relentlessly now it was Grimm's turn. Once he was sure that they wouldn't fall, he took off, running away from the Ramshackle, leaving NRC behind.

[oumakokichi]

What are the differences between the original and localization?

Hmm, that’s a very simple question with a pretty lengthy answer! I did answer some similar questions in the past, but that was a long time ago, much closer to when the localization was first released. There are probably a lot of people whose main experience with the game has only been with the localization, and who don’t really know or remember those differences anymore.

For that reason, I’m going to go into kind of a “masterlist” of things that were changed in the localization in this post. This will be very long, but I really want to explain the whole story behind the localization and its differences from the original to people who might only be hearing about this for the first time. I’m going to cover full spoilers for the game obviously, so be careful when reading!

Also, please feel free to share this post around, as I think it contains a lot of information that might be interesting to people who’ve only experienced the localization!

Before I really get into it though, I want to stipulate that the differences I’m covering in this post are mostly going to be things that I believe could’ve been handled or translated better, not every single line that was changed verbatim in the game. This is because a localization’s purpose is incredibly different from a literal translation.

Where a literal translation seeks to keep as much of the original authorial intent as possible and has the leeway to explain various Japanese terms and cultural specifics to the readers in footnotes or a glossary, a localization is usually much more targeted towards a specific target audience, usually one more unfamiliar with Japanese culture or terminology. As a result, some things in a localization are occasionally changed to make them more understandable to a western audience.

So, for example, I’m not going to fault the localization for changing Monosuke’s extremely heavy Kansai accent in Japanese to a New York accent in the English dub. It’s much easier for western players to immediately grasp that, “hey, this guy has a very specific regional accent that the other characters don’t,” and it works really well as a rough equivalent. Similarly, localization changes like changing a line here or there about the sport of sumo to be about the Jets and the Patriots also helps get the point across to players quickly and easily without having to explain an unfamiliar sport to western players in-depth before they can get the joke.

That being said… there were some liberties taken with ndrv3’s translation which I don’t believe fulfill the point of a localization, and which changed certain deliveries or even perceptions about the characters in a way that I just don’t agree with.

Let me explain first how the localization team actually worked, to people who might be unfamiliar with the process. Ndrv3 had four separate translators working on the localization. When NISA first announced that the game was being localized, these four translators introduced themselves on reddit in an AMA, where they also mentioned that they were by and large dividing up the 16 main characters between themselves, with each translator specifically assigned to four characters.

Having more translators working on a game might sound like a good idea in theory, but it’s often not. The more translators assigned to a game, the harder it is to provide a consistent translation. Translation is messy work: often there are multiple ways to translate the same sentence, or even the same word between two different languages. If a translation has multiple translators, that means they need to be communicating constantly with one another and referencing each other’s work all the time in order to avoid mistranslations: it’s difficult work, but not impossible.

However… this didn’t happen with ndrv3’s translation team. It’s pretty clear they did not reference each other’s work or communicate very well, and the translation suffers for it. I’m not just guessing here, either; it’s a fact that various parts of the game have lines completely ruined by not looking at the context, or words translated two different ways almost back-to-back. I’ll provide specific examples of this later.

Many of the translators also picked which characters they wanted to translate on the basis of which were their favorites—which, again, isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but which does raise the risk of letting character bias influence your work. No work is inherently without bias; all translators have to look at their own biases and still attempt to translate fairly regardless. But because translators were assigned four characters each, this meant that while they might be really enthusiastic about translating for one character in particular, they were less enthusiastic for others. These biases do reflect in the work, and I will provide further examples as I make my list.

This system of delegation also leaves more questions than it answers. It becomes impossible to tell who translated certain parts of the game, particularly in areas where the narrator is unclear. For example, did Saihara’s translator translate Ouma’s motive video, as Saihara is the one watching it in chapter 6? Or did Ouma’s translator do it, since it’s his motive video? Who translated the parts we see at the beginning of certain chapters, where characters from the outside world make occasional comments? It’s really unclear, and I’m not even sure if the translators divvied up these parts amongst themselves or if only one person was supposed to handle them.

To put it simply, there were quite a lot of complications and worrying factors about the way the translation was divided by the team, and the communication (or lack thereof) between said translators. It’s impossible to really discuss the main problems that ndrv3’s localization has without making it clear why those problems happened, and I hope I’ve explained it well here.

With that out of the way, I’m finally going to cover the biggest differences between the original game and the localization, and why many of these changes were such a problem.

1.)    Gonta’s Entire Character

To this day, I still feel like this is probably the most egregious change of the entire localization. Gonta does not talk like a caveman in Japanese. He does not even have a particularly limited vocabularly. He talks like a fairly normal, very polite high school boy, and the only stipulation is that he’s not very familiar with electronics or technology due to his backstory of “growing up in the woods away from humans.”

Gonta does refer to himself in the third-person in Japanese, but I need to stress this: this is a perfectly normal thing to do in Japanese. Many people do it all the time, and it has no bearing on a person’s intelligence or ability to speak. In fact, both Tenko and Angie also refer to themselves in the third-person in the Japanese version of the game, yet mysteriously use first-person pronouns in the localization.

I wouldn’t be so opposed to this change if it weren’t for the fact that Gonta’s entire character arc revolves around being so much smarter than people (even himself!) give him credit for. He constantly downplays his own abilities and contributions to the group despite being fairly knowledgeable, not only about entomology but also about nature and astronomy. He has a fairly good understanding of spatial reasoning and is one of the first people to guess how Toujou’s trick with the rope and tire worked in chapter 2.

Chapter 4 of ndrv3 is so incredibly painful because it makes it clear that while Gonta was, absolutely, manipulated by Ouma into picking up the flashback light, he nonetheless made the decision to kill Miu of his own accord. He was even willing to try and kill everyone else by misleading them in the trial, because he thought it was more merciful than letting them see the outside world for themselves. These were choices that he made, confirmed when we see Gonta’s AI at the end of the trial speak for himself and acknowledge that yes, he really did think the outside world was worth killing people over.

Gonta is supposed to be somewhat naïve and trusting, not stupid. He believes himself to be an idiot, and other characters often talk down to him or don’t take him seriously, but at the end of the day he’s a human being just like the rest of them, and far, far smarter and more capable of making his own decisions than anyone thought him capable of.

Translating all of his speech to “caveman” or “Tarzan speech” really downplays his ability to make decisions for himself, and I think it’s a big part of why I’ve seen considerably more western fans insist that he didn’t know what he was doing than Japanese fans. I love Gonta quite a lot, but I can’t get over the localization essentially changing his character to make him seem more stupid, instead of translating what was actually there in order to more accurately reflect his character.

2.)    Added Some Slurs, Removed Others

It’s time to address the elephant in the room for people who don’t know: Momota is considerably homophobic and transphobic in the original Japanese version of the game. In chapter 2, he uses the word “okama” to refer to Korekiyo in an extremely derogatory fashion. This word has a history of both homophobic and transphobic sentiment in Japan, as it’s often used against flamboyant gay men and trans women, who are sadly and unfortunately conflated as being “the same thing” most of the time. To put it simply, the word has the equivalent of the weight of the t-slur and the f-slur in English rolled into one.

This isn’t the only instance of Momota being homophobic, sadly. In the salmon mode version of the game, should you choose the “let’s undress” option in the gym while with Momota, he has yet another line where he says, “You don’t swing that way, do you!?” to Saihara, using his most terrified and disgusted-looking sprite. This suggests to me that, yes, the homophobia was a deliberate choice in the Japanese version of the game, as Momota consistently reacts this way to even the idea of another guy showing romantic interest in him.

The English version more or less kept the salmon mode comment, but removed the use of the slur in chapter 2 entirely. Which I have… mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I am an LGBT person myself. I don’t want to read slurs if I can help it. On the other hand, I really don’t think the slur was removed out of consideration to the LGBT community so much as Momota’s translator really wanted to downplay any lines that could make his character come across in a more negative light.

This is backed up by the fact that both Miu and Ouma’s translators added slurs to the game that weren’t present in the original Japanese. Where Miu only ever refers to Gonta as “baka” (idiot) or occasionally, “ahou” (a slightly ruder word that still more or less equates to “moron”), her translator decided to add multiple instances of her using the r-slur to refer to Gonta specifically, and on one occasion, even the word “Mongoloid,” a deeply offensive and outdated term. Ouma’s translator similarly took lines where he was already speaking harshly of Miu and added multiple instances of words like “bitch” or “whore.”

To me, this suggests that the translators were completely free to choose how harsh or how likable they wanted their characters to come across. Momota’s translator omitting just the slur could maybe pass for a nice gesture, so people don’t have to read it and be uncomfortable—except, that’s not the only thing that was omitted. Instances of Momota being blatantly misogynistic or rude were also toned down to the point of covering up most of his flaws entirely. His use of “memeshii” against Hoshi (a word which means “cowardly” in Japanese with specifically feminine connotations, like the word “sissy” in English) is simply changed to “weak,” and when he calls Saihara’s trauma “kudaranai” (literally “worthless” or “bullshit”), this is changed to “trivial” in the localization.

Momota’s translator even went so far as to omit a line entirely from the chapter 2 trial, which I touched on in an earlier post. In the original version of the game, Ouma asks Momota dumbfounded if he’s really stupid enough to trust Maki without any proof and if he plans on risking everyone else’s lives in the trial if he turns out to be wrong. And Momota replies saying yes, absolutely, he’s totally willing to bet everyone’s lives on nothing more than a hunch because he thinks he’s going to be right no matter what.

This is a character flaw. It’s a huge, running theme with Momota’s character, and it’s brought up again in chapter 4 deliberately when Momota really does almost kill everyone in the trial because he refuses to believe that Ouma isn’t the culprit. But the localization simply omits it, leaving Momota to seem considerably less hard-headed and reckless in the English version of the game. If anyone wants proof that this line exists, it is still very much there in the Japanese dialogue, but it has no translation whatsoever. This goes beyond “translation decisions I don’t agree with”; omitting an entire line for a character simply because you want other people to like them more is just bad translation, period.

3.)    Angie’s Religion

In the original Japanese version of the game, neither Angie’s god nor her religion have any specific names. She refers to her god simply as “god” in the general sense, and clearly changes aspects of their persona and appearance based on who she’s trying to convince to join her cult. Everything about her is pretty clearly fictionalized, from her island to the religious practices her cult does.

Kodaka’s writing with regard to Angie is already a huge mess. It feeds into a lot of harmful stereotypes about “crazy, exotic brown women” and “bloodthirsty savages,” but at the very least it never correlated with a specific religion or location in the original version of the game.

This all changed when Angie’s translator, for whatever reason, decided to make Angie be Polynesian specifically and appropriate from the real religion of real indigenous peoples native to Polynesia. That’s right: Atua is a real god that has very real significance to tons of indigenous peoples.

In my opinion, this decision was incredibly disrespectful. It spreads incredible misinformation about a god that is still very much a part of tons of real-life people’s religion, and associates it with cults? Blood rituals? Human sacrifices? It’s a terrible localization decision that wasn’t necessary whatsoever and to be quite frank, it’s racist and insensitive.

As I said, the original game never exactly had the peak of “good writing decisions” when it came to Angie; there are still harmful stereotypes with her character, and she deserved to be written so much better. But associating her with a real group of indigenous people and equating a real god to some fictional deity that’s mostly treated as either a scary cult-ish boogeyman or the punchline to a joke is just… bad.

4.)    Ouma’s Motive Video

Some of the decisions taken with Ouma’s translation are… interesting, to say the least. In many ways, he feels like a completely different character between the two versions of the game. This is due not only to the translation, but also the voice direction and casting.

A lot of his lines are tweaked or changed entirely to make his character seem much louder, less serious, and less sincere than the original version of the game. Obviously, Ouma lies, a lot. That’s sort of the whole point of is character. But what I mean is that even lines in the original version of the game, where it was clear he was being truthful via softer delivery, trailing off the end of his sentences, and seeming overall hesitant about whether to divulge certain information or not are literally changed in the localization to him pretty much yelling at the top of his lungs, complete with tons of exclamation points on lines that originally ended with a question mark or ellipses.

Tonally, he just feels very different as a character. The “sowwy” speak, lines like “oopsie poopsie, I’m such a ditz!”—all of these things are taken to such ridiculous extremes that it feels a little hard to take him seriously. Even in the post-trial for chapter 4 when Ouma starts playing the villain after Gonta’s death, a moment which should have been completely serious and intense, the mood is kind of completely killed when the line is changed from him calling everyone a bunch of idiots to him calling everyone…. “stupidheads.” These changes don’t really seem thematically appropriate to me, but overall, they’re not damning.

What is damning, however, is the fact that Ouma’s motive video is completely mistranslated and provides a very poor picture of what his motivations and ideals were like. I still remember being shocked when I played the localization for the first time and discovered that they completely omitted a line stating that Ouma and DICE have a very specific taboo against murder.

Literally, this is one of the very first lines in the entire video. The Japanese version of the game makes it explicitly clear that DICE were forbidden to kill people, and that abiding by this rule was extremely important to them. By contrast, the localization simply makes a nod about him doing “petty nonviolent crimes and pranks,” without ever once mentioning anything at all about rules or taboos.

This feels especially egregious in the localization considering Saihara later uses Ouma’s motive video as evidence in the chapter 6 trial and states there that Ouma and DICE “had a rule against killing people,” despite the game… never actually telling you that. It not only skews the perception of Ouma’s character at a crucial moment, it also just straight-up lies to localization players and expects them to make leaps in logic without actually providing the facts. So it winds up sort of feeling like Saihara is just pulling these assumptions out of his ass more than anything else.

I actually still have my original translation of Ouma’s motive video here, if anyone would like to compare. Again, translation is a tricky line of work, and obviously not all translators are going to agree with one another. But I consider omitting lines entirely to be one of the worst things you can do in a translation, particularly in a mystery game where people are expected to solve said mysteries based on the information and facts provided to them.

5.)    Inconsistencies and Lack of Context

As I mentioned earlier, there are many instances of lines being completely mistranslated, or translated two different ways by multiple translators, or addressed to the wrong character. This is, as I stated, due to the way the translation work was divided by four separate people who appear to have not communicated with each other or cross-referenced each other’s work.

One of the clearest examples of this that I can think of off the top of my head is in chapter 3, where Ouma mentions “doing a little research” on the Caged Child ritual, and Maki in the very next line repeats him by saying… “study?”

On their own, removed from any context, these would both potentially be correct translations. However, it’s very clear that the translators just didn’t care to look at the context, or communicate with each other and share their work. The fact that characters aren’t even quoting each other properly in lines that are back-to-back is a pretty big oversight, and something that should have been accounted for knowing that four separate people were going to be translating various different characters.

This lack of context causes other, even more hilarious and blatantly wrong mistranslations. At the start of the chapter 3 trial, there is a line where Momota mentions that he couldn’t perform a thorough investigation on his own “because Monokuma disrupted him.” In the original, Ouma responds and tells Momota that he’s just using Monokuma as an excuse to cover for his own flaws. However, what we actually got in the localization was… this.

I don’t even have words for how badly this line was butchered (though I could make several hilarious jokes about Monokuma “over-compensating”). Presumably, this happened because Ouma’s translator saw Ouma’s line without any of the lines before it or the context of what Momota was saying, had no clue who Ouma was actually supposed to be talking to, and just ad-libbed it however they could, even though it literally makes no sense and doesn’t even fit into the conversation.

There are other similar instances of this, too. For example, did you know that the scene after Saihara faints in chapter 2, just before he wakes up in Gonta’s lab, is actually supposed to have Ouma talking to him? The narrator is unnamed, but there are several lines just before Saihara wakes up where Ouma tells him “come on, you can’t die on me yet!” and keeps prodding him and poking him to wake up. This is never explicitly told to you from the text… but it becomes pretty obvious when you look at the context and see that a huge CG of Ouma looking over Saihara as he starts to wake up is the very next part of the scene.

In the localization, however, Saihara’s translator pretty clearly had no idea what was happening or who was supposed to be talking to him, because they translated those lines as Saihara talking to himself, even though the manner of speech and phrasing is clearly supposed to be Ouma instead.

I could go on and on listing other examples: Tsumugi makes a joke in the original about Miu being able to dish out dirty jokes but not being very good at hearing them herself, but it’s changed in the localization to Tsumugi saying “I’m not so good with that kind of stuff,” and a line where Momota protests against Maki choking Ouma because she’ll kill him if she keeps going is instead changed to him saying “you’ll get killed if you don’t stop!” In my opinion, the fact that this is a consistent problem throughout the whole game shows that the translators weren’t really communicating or working together at any point, and that it wasn’t simply a one-time mistake here or there.

6.)    Edited CGs and Plot Points

I have made an entirely separate post about this in the past, but at this point I don’t think anyone actually knows anymore: the localization actually edited in-game CGs and made some of them completely different from the Japanese version of the game. I’m not accusing them of “censorship” or anything like that, I mean quite literally that they altered and edited specific CGs to try and fix certain problems with them and only ended up making them worse in the process.

In chapter 5, Momota gets shot in the arm by Maki’s crossbow when trying to defend Ouma, and Ouma gets shot in the back shortly afterward when attempting to make a run for the Exisals. These injuries are relevant to how they died, but they’re not actually very visible in the CGs of Ouma and Momota shown later in the chapter 5 trial.

There are a whole bunch of inconsistencies with the CGs in chapter 5 in general: Momota gives Ouma his jacket to lie on under the press, but is magically still wearing it when he emerges from the Exisal himself at the end of the trial (I like to think he snuck back into the dorms Solid Snake style to get a new one from his room before joining the trial), the cap to the antidote is still on the bottle when Ouma pretends to drink it in front of Maki and Momota, etc. None of these things really deter from the plot though, and so I would say they’re fairly unimportant.

However, for some reason, NISA decided that “fixing” at least some of the CGs in the chapter 5 trial was necessary. They did this by adding bloodstains to Momota’s arm while he’s under the press, to better show his injury from the crossbow…. and in doing so, for some completely inexplicable reason, they changed the entire position of his arm. Here’s what I mean for comparison:

This is how Momota’s arm looked in the original CG from chapter 5, shown when the camcorder is provided as evidence that it’s “Ouma” under the press.

And this is how the localization edited it to look. I can understand and even sympathize with adding the bloodstains, but… changing the entire arm itself? Moving it to be sticking out from under the press? To put it nicely, this change doesn’t make any sense and actually makes it harder to understand Ouma and Momota’s plan.

The whole trick behind their plan was that nothing was supposed to stick out from under the press, other than Momota’s jacket. They waited until the instant when the press completely covered every part of Momota’s body, arms and all, and then performed the switch to mislead people. But the edited version of the CG in the localization just has Momota’s arm sticking completely out, hanging over the side, meaning it would’ve been impossible for the press to hide every part of it and the whole switch feels… well, stupid and impossibly easy to see through in the localized version.

Again, this shows a total disregard for presenting the facts as they actually appear and actually makes things more difficult for English players of the game, because they’re not being given accurate information. I really don’t understand why these changes were necessary, or why the bloodstains couldn’t have just been added without moving Momota’s entire arm.

7.)    In Conclusion

This has gotten extremely long (nearly 10 pages), so I want to wrap things up. I want to specify that my intention with this masterlist isn’t to insult or badmouth the translators who worked on this game. I’m sure they worked very hard, and I have no idea what time or budget constraints they were facing as they did so.

Being a translator is not easy, and typically translators are not very well-paid or recognized for their work. I have the utmost respect for other translators, and I know perfectly well just how difficult and taxing it can be.

I am making this list because these are simply changes which were very different from the original version of the game, and which I believe could have been handled better. Personally, I disagree with many of the choices the localization made, but that does not mean that they didn’t do a fantastic job in other places. I absolutely love whichever translator was responsible for coming up with catchphrases and nicknames throughout the game: little localization decisions like “cospox,” “flashback light,” “Insect Meet n’ Greet,” and “cosplaycat criminal” were all strokes of genius that I highly admire.

I only want to stress that the Japanese version of the game is very different. Making changes to the way a character is presented or portrayed means influencing how people are going to react to said character. Skewing the information and facts presented in trials in the game means changing people’s experience of the game, and giving them less facts to go off of. Equating fictional gods to real-life ones can cause real harm and influence perception of real indigenous peoples. These are all facts that need to be accounted for before deciding whether a certain change is necessary or not, in my opinion.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! Again, feel free to share this post around if you’d like, since this is probably the most comprehensively I’ve ever covered this topic.

[laffiteslanding]

Today in Movies that Need Theme Park Adaptations: Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

There are certain movies that just scream out for theme park adaptations. Jurassic Park. Jaws. Avatar, apparently. To this esteemed company, I humbly submit Little Shop of Horrors.

Revisiting this movie, I honestly can’t believe that no one has ever attempted to adapt it to theme parks, even if only as a stage show. Even at a glance, it has a lot going for it:

A killer Menken/Ashman score (that directly preceded their work on The Little Mermaid no less!)

A theatrical design/aesthetic that could be adapted to theme parks super easily

A memorable location in the form of the shop, which actually attracts tourists in the film, giving guests a convenient reason to be there

Great creature design and puppetry effects that could be incredibly realized through animatronics

Merchandising potential. Especially with the original ending factored in

Also in the original (cut) ending, some fantastical potential dark ride environments

Posters that write themselves: “See Audrey II!”

Finally, a delightfully twisted sense of humor

I can imagine nothing happened with the property because it was released

A) by Warner Bros.

B) in the 80s, when Disney alternatives weren’t super into the theme park game and Universal wasn’t licensing other studio’s IP

C) regional parks weren’t big on licensing properties either - and still aren’t, mostly, with the exception of cartoons and superheroes.

Furthermore, the film was a only a modest box office success at the time, though it has since grown into a cult classic that has spawned countless high school and professional theater productions. Little Shop is more well-known (and relevant!) now than it’s ever been, which makes 2020 the perfect time to adapt it!

So, How Would It Work?

Glad you asked! Little Shop could go in a few different directions, but in this case the most obvious answer seems to be the best one: we’ll make it into a shop! Not just any shop, mind you. No, this is going to be a full-on experience, like shopping in Diagon Alley but even more immersive. Here’s a quick rundown:

Leading up to the shop/in the area are posters that have a handcrafted quality to them and display sayings like “See Audrey II!”, or “Mr. Mushnik’s This Way!” There can also be graffiti on the walls cheekily referencing “Big Green Mother From Outer Space,” or bemoaning a terrible dentist appointment. There are also a number of missing persons flyers, and a few small vines may be creeping out of the shop entrance.

Once we get to the entrance, it’ll be an approximation of the small store front windows, though with a few changes for practicality. We’ll expand the space a bit beyond the tiny confines shown in the film to allow for better guest flow - perhaps Mr. Mushnik expanded a bit after his recent windfall. Not too much bigger, though. It is a “Little Shop” after all.

After heading through the facade, guests will be greeting with a room equally reminiscent of Ollivander’s and Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. The room is quaint, but not quite claustrophic. The ceiling may be raised to add some necessary breathing (and show) room. Houseplants and flowers line the walls, as does a host of purchasable goods - more on that later. Apart from the increased stock, the shop appears to be relatively normal, albeit with the tiny exception of a massive AUDREY II animatronic/puppet situated along the far wall.

The trick here is that this is two attractions in one - a shop and a show, kind of like Sonny Eclipse but way more involved. Even better - there’s no real barriers between the two. Ideally, there’s no fencing or barriers in the middle of the shop, though Audrey II has one or two handlers that keep everyone at bay. It seems Mr. Mushnik has taken on some extra staff to help with his booming business.

Audrey II, unsurprisingly, is the star of the show. There’s a considerable amount of movement in the animatronic, and though it slows down occasionally, it never stops completely. Most of the time, Audrey II will function as a sort of puppet, making snide, guest-specific commentary that is improvised by a hidden controller, similar to Turtle Talk or Islands of Adventure’s Magic Fountain. Movements will be synchronized so that it seems it’s actually making such comments in real time. Every 15 minutes (or three times an hour), however, Audrey II gets hungry. Like, really hungry...

So hungry, in fact, that it will burst into song! As the gigantic plant begins to sing one of a few songs from the film (”Feed Me” or “Mean Green Mother From Outer Space” are prime picks, and can alternate), the room around us comes to life. Vines begin to snake down from above and clusters of singing buds emerge from hidden cracks in the walls and ceiling. There may even be a sort of rumble effect to accompany these changes as the vines make the building supports groan in protest.

As the song reaches it’s climax, an unlucky “shopper” (read: cast member) ventures too close to the plant by mistake. Despite their screams, Audrey II swoops down and gobbles them up, closing its mouth around them but leaving their legs flailing for all to see before they, too, finally disappear. In reality, this effect could be accomplished in a number of ways - a more conservative approach would be that the lights go down for a moment as the song ends and suddenly we see (animatronic) legs flailing in Audrey’s mouth. The “shopper” is never actually eaten. Alternately, the mouth is fitted to actually fit a cast member inside, much like it is in stage productions. The “eaten” cast member can then slide out the back of the puppet through to a room on the other side of the wall. The latter would be preferable, as it could be quite an effect.

Afterwards, the shop suddenly returns to normal. All is as it was, and the shop’s staff encourage you to shop to your heart’s content. If anyone has any concerns, the staff cheerfully inform them not to worry - there’s no danger now that Audrey II has been fed! Besides, Mr. Mushnik has informed them they have to meet their quota.

While that concludes the “show” portion of the attraction, there’s still the “shop” aspect to explore. There is some merchandise available in the store, though it also spills out into the street outside to provide more space for the show. Make no mistake - this little shop isn’t going to be a t-shirt/bag/ears extravaganza. The merchandise here is intended to be an extension of the show in a way that is, I think, somewhat unique to Little Shop. That is to say, all of the merchandise available at the shop revolves around Audrey II and its cuttings. Animatronic toys, Audrey bud bouquets, and even seed packets are available. If there’s one rule in play here, it’s that the items available for purchase must be some form of the plant (Note that this playfully mirrors the alternate ending of the 1986 film).

The reason of this is simple, and its the same reason the two parts of this attraction are intended to coexist in the same space: theme. Both the film and the play focus on the morality of desire, and the film goes a bit further, touching on the dangers of consumerism. The act of purchasing something from the shop, especially after seeing a full grown version of the thing you’re purchasing eat a man alive, becomes an inherently thematic and even moralistic act. It may make the purchaser feel uncomfortable, yes, but there’s a thrill to the act now, as if you’re doing something dangerous. Even those who purchase nothing will likely feel some sort of reaction, perhaps even a positive one. Either way, the shop’s merchandise now serves as part of the experience, rather than being a separate (albeit adjacent) one, and now serves to enhance the immersion further. That’s why the whole thing is the attraction, rather than just the show element. It’s a cohesive thematic experience, but only if all of the elements work together.

Details, Details

A few more tidbits to really flesh out the experience: 

Various animatronic buds are scattered throughout the store’s merchandise shelves to add to the ambiance (and provide great stereo sound quality!)

If Audrey II ever needs to go into B-mode/goes down, a secondary show can involve the staff bringing a dentist in examine to examine the plant’s teeth. Hilarity ensues.

Instrumental versions of the musical soundtrack play over the radio in the background when Audrey is not singing. Radio announcers are soundalikes for the “Greek chorus” girls, and there’s at least one advertisement for an eye doctor that will help you “suddenly see more.”

And that about wraps it up! Got a different idea for an adaptation? Would you have done something differently? Let me know!

[comunidadarcsystemworks]

Exclusive interview with Arc System Works

We have had the opportunity to interview several key members of Arc System Works. Before we begin, we want to thank Arc System Works America for giving us the opportunity to have this interview.

We will divide the interview into 3 sections: "General", "Daisuke Ishiwatari" and Tosimichi Mori.

General

Q. The first question is going to be a tough one, but the community has been very vocal about it so we would really want to begin with this one. Will GGPO (Good Game Peace Out) be implemented in your next projects? If not, would you consider its implementation at some point in the future? We are not talking specifically about Guilty Gear Strive.

A. We’ve heard your passionate requests, and we’re working on a netcode that will live up to everyone’s expectations.

We’ll have more information for you later.

(Guilty Gear Strive Director: Akira Katano)

Q. Fighting games aside, do Arc System Works has plans to do more action games like Hard Corps in the future? Especially with the Guilty Gear engine. We recently saw Code Shifter as your latest brand new platform action game or your collaboration with Wayforward, which are always welcome.

A. We’d definitely like to try genres other than fighting games, such as action games.

This would include plans to use Arc System Works’ 2.5D animation style in non-fighting games, of course.

However, we don’t have any concrete plans to share at the moment.

(Producer: Takeshi Yamanaka)

Daisuke Ishiwatari:

Q. Thank you so much for taking the time for our questions. Since the announcement at EVO, we are really excited to know more about Guilty Gear Strive, and we have read all the interviews and your philoshophy about this game and its gameplay. So, what would you consider to be the lead factor for this change?

A. Thank you for your excitement about Guilty Gear Strive.

The biggest reason for changing the gameplay is to make a game that can reach the current generation of gamers.

I feel that through previous Guilty Gear titles, we have more or less perfected the Guilty Gear formula.

It may very well be possible to tighten that up and make a further refined game. But, even if we did, such a game would create a disparity between new players and veterans who are used to the game’s systems.

So, we wanted to reset the start line for everyone. But of course, this doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten our appreciation and respect for long-term fans and accomplished players.

Q. One of the main focus seems to be drawing the attention for new players and esports while adapting the HUD and the gameplay/action to everyone so it can be enjoyed by a wider audience. That´s interesting, but how will you make new players invest time in your game and wanting to improve their skills at their own pace? For example Granblue Fantasy Versus could be a good example since it has a big focus on its RPG Mode to do so in case beginners are not doing well while playing online.. Will you take a new approach this time with the Story Mode or single player content?

A. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything concrete at the moment.

However, the game will offer an experience of learning and discovery for both new and advanced players. Our game design is even more focused on that now, than ever.

I can’t guarantee that it will make it into the game, but we are also thinking of ways to further strengthen the community.

For example, currently most players aren’t very familiar with the top players.

But if they realized there were stars similar to Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather playing the game, wouldn’t they want to know how that person got so skilled?

We’d like to provide something to help players who aren’t too deeply into the game a way to enjoy it as a whole, like fans do with soccer or basketball.

Q. As of today, we know that you are gathering feedback regarding the main points of the new gameplay so I´ll save it for later, but as for the music, we are noticing a lot of emphasis on vocal tracks. Will this be the Guilty Gear with the biggest number of vocal tracks? will we get new versions of themes like “Holy Orders” or “Give me a break!?

A. Yes, I believe GGST will feature more vocal tracks than any prior title.

That is one of our many decisions in attempting a complete renewal.

We aren’t currently planning vocal arrangements of previous songs, however.

The only example I can think of where that went well would be Queen’s Seven Seas of Rhye.

Of course, if there were enough requests, there are songs I would love to create vocal versions of.

Q. A lot of people are requesting characters from past games like Testament or Bridget, but of course, we know that you can´t confirm any detail by the moment. However, I would like to know if we could get just a small hint about past fighters coming back to the scene.? Can we expect more original characters to be added to the game besides the cyborg samurai from the first teaser?

A. All I can say is, there will be characters from the previous series and this new character too. Please look forward to it!

Q. About the gameplay, as I said earlier, I believe that it's necessary to wait until the beta version for us to have a proper idea about it. Since I still haven´t had the chance to play the game I can just express my opinion as a spectator. I believe the overall gameplay seems interesting according to what you want to achieve but doesn´t the wall break mechanic interrupts the flow of the match a bit too much for the spectators? I feel the same with restricting combo routes, won´t it be monotonous if we ever watch the same, or really similar routes?

A. Don’t worry. The developers are creating GGST with both a casual and hard-core perspective in mind. There may be some aspects that don’t quite satisfy series veterans, but we will create new depth that will motivate them to learn something entirely new.

Also, even if the Beta Test is not well received, you will see our answers to your feedback in the game upon release.

Finally, could you share some words and thoughts to your fans in Spain?

Currently, we are steadily releasing news about GGST. However, the gameplay itself is still very much in development. Our plan is to continue to evolve the game as we receive feedback from the players. Please look forward to it.

Toshimichi Mori:

Thank you so much for giving us the chance to give an answer to our questions. We have read everything that could lead to a future Blazblue or Persona 5 Arena so I´ll try to make interesting questions for everyone.

Q. First of all, I would like to start with Blazblue Alternative Dark War. Will it be possible for you to share some more details about it? Last time I heard from the game I was taking notes at the London Comic Con.  If you can´t share any details, could you give us a hint about when could we know more about the game? Also, I love the sketches that you publish from time to time!

A. Thank you very much.

However, I can’t say much about Dark War right now--only that I, personally, am working so that you guys can play the game as soon as possible. I believe that as long as the players are supporting the project, it will move forward. So please keep talking about it.

Q. Talking about the London Comic Con from last year, I remember that I asked about Alpha 01 and you said that this year we should have news, but this year I want to add something else to the same question. Besides Alpha 01, when could we know something about Gamma 03 as well?

A. I’m really glad that for whatever reason, so many people like Alpha.

I understand some are really looking forward to her making an appearance, but it will be some time… So please wait a little longer.

Q. As of June of 2018 you said in an interview with Gamerevolution that you are saving ideas for future Blazblue and future Persona Arena Projects. Also, in an interview with Gearnuke (January 2020) you said that you would like that your next game will be 2.5D and that the next Blazblue will have new system mechanics. Taking all of this into account, could you please give us further details about what would you like to achieve with a new Persona Arena (which people are really vocal about it) or Blazblue project?

A. I appreciate your enthusiasm. However, I can’t really discuss anything at this moment. Please understand.

Q. Moving on to Blazblue Cross Tag Battle and talking about the same interview from Gearnuke, we read that companies are not approaching you to add their characters in the game. Have you considered “small” companies like Nihon Falcom or Vanillware to see beloved characters like Adol Christin from the YS series or Gwendolyn from a cult classic like Odin Sphere? I feel that they are characters that most of us known or we have heard of but they still didn´t have the chance to shine outside of their games.

A. I get a lot of requests for characters in BBTAG. Honestly, there’s lots of characters I would like to include, myself.

I won’t say it’s impossible for the characters you mentioned to join the cast, but we don’t have any plans for this at the moment. Regardless, I would really like to do some form of collaboration in the future.

Q. Sticking with Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, will we see more characters from RWBY or Senran Kagura? Is there a chance to see Persona 5 characters in the game (unless a Persona 5 Arena is in the works of course) or Kyoko and Misako from River City Girls?

A. We’ve just released Season 2, so we don’t have any definitive plans for the next characters yet.

Right now, we’re still thinking about the next step and listening to everyone’s requests as we work with the current version.

Going back to Blazblue main story, now that the phase C came to an end, and with Rachel´s words being “I shall find you, I promise” at the end of Blazblue Central Fiction… Will we get a follow up to this arc, or it will be a completely new arc? Also, are you planning to do another anime or manga?

A. We are preparing for the start of a new story… Sadly, I can’t guarantee when it will happen. I think that when that new chapter begins, you will understand what Rachel meant.

Finally, could you share some words and thoughts to your fans in Spain?

Thank you for loving the BlazBlue series.

I can feel that love you have, so I hope I can meet all of you in person someday. Thank you for your continued support.

[littlepurinsesu]

[IDOLiSH7] DUSK TiLL DAWN (Story Translation 2)

*Note: This is a Chinese-to-English translation using the official Chinese translation from the TW server! There’s a small chance that some phrases may differ slightly from the original Japanese text due to different wording and localisation, but overall there shouldn’t be too much of a difference so probably nothing to worry too much about xD

CHARACTERS: Iori: Io Yamato: Yamarson Mitsuki: Mick Tamaki: Tamathony Sogo: Somas Nagi: Nagistopher Riku: Rictor

(I will include the characters’ names in brackets even if they haven’t revealed their names yet, because it would just be too confusing otherwise. I recommend having the game story open as you read so you get a better feel of the characters’ actions and expressions, since I won’t be indicating them here ^^)   ---

STAGE 2

18:30

??? (Rictor): Say, Io, we should be completely safe here, right?

Io: For now, yes. But I’m not sure how long this security wall will last…

??? (Rictor): That’s true… But Io, you’re really strong!

Io: Eh?

??? (Rictor): Didn’t you save me when I was almost attacked before? You were able to take it out in one shot, amazing!

Io: It was just good luck! And their movements are slow, so as long as you aim for their feet and attack, they’ll stop.

??? (Rictor): Oh, is that so! I think you’re also amazing to be able to calmly observe this! Unlike me, wasting so many shots because I panicked…

Io: I’m part of the archery club, so I’m used to aiming for targets. Once you’re used to it, you’ll definitely be able to do it, too.

??? (Rictor): Really…?

Io: Yes. You just need to breathe in, and relax your shoulders, and then try aiming for the target. Just by doing this, your success rate should increase significantly.

??? (Rictor): I understand…! I’ll try what you said next time!

Io: By the way, it seems to have become quiet suddenly…

??? (Rictor): … Don’t know what the situation outside is like right now.

Io: … This is…! T-Take a look at this. The streets have entered a state of panic! This monster is the same as the ones that attacked the hospital before!

??? (Rictor): This is…

Io: Sigh… Don’t know if Somas is okay…

??? (Rictor): Somas?

Io: He’s my classmate. We were together just before, but I needed to come to the hospital, so we separated. I can’t get in touch with him.

??? (Rictor): So worried…

Io: …

??? (Rictor): U-Um! I’ve never gone to school, but to have a classmate you’re on good terms with must feel pretty good!

Io: N-Not really… It just increases the things you need to worry about…

??? (Rictor): What kind of person is Somas? Ah… Sorry for suddenly asking something so weird! I don’t have friends, so I’m curious as to what friends are like…

Io: It’s fine, I’m about the same…

??? (Rictor): Eh?

Io: He… Somas is a friend I’ve known since I was young. He’s the kind of person who ignores everything around him once he becomes obsessed with something. It makes me worry… I bet he’s enjoying himself right now, praising the current situation as being “just like a movie” or something.

??? (Rictor): Really…! Somas is a really interesting person!

Io: You’re… Rictor, right? Why did you come here?

Rictor: I was called over by someone, but I wasn’t able to meet them…

Io: Who called you over?

Rictor: The doctors* who looked after me when I was little. They gave me this and told me to come…

Io: A letter…?

Rictor: “Oct.30 16:00 We’ll be waiting for you at Central General Hospital. We will tell you the truth.”

Io: … What does “the truth” mean…?

Rictor: I don’t know… But I think it has to be something really important.

Io: Is that so… You seem to trust them a lot.

Rictor: Yes! Those two are really important people to me! Ah, this was given by them as well! “Wear it anytime and anywhere, giving you good air anytime and anywhere! Recite the magic spell: Clean Air antivirus mask~” ** Pretty cool, right!

Io: Oh… Um, there was something I’ve been wanting to ask…

Rictor: What is it?

Io: What’s up with that mask of yours?

Rictor: What do you mean “what’s up?” Because it’s really dangerous outside, isn’t it? There’s stuff like viruses and bacteria everywhere, and the air isn’t clean! It’s so dangerous, so why aren’t you wearing an antivirus mask?

Io: Normal people don’t wear them! You really are a weirdo…

<ROAR>

Rictor: Ah…! The security wall…!

<CLICK>

Io: C-Calm down! Just accurately take them down one by one!

Rictor: I-I understand…!

19:15

Io: Huff, huff…!

<BAM BAM BAM>

Io: No, there’s no end to this!

<BAM BAM BAM>

Rictor: —! Io, watch out…!!

<BAM BAM BAM>

Somas: Io!

Io: Somas…! Great, you’re okay! I contacted you so many times!

Somas: Sorry, I think I dropped my phone while running… Ah, but these people saved me, so I’m okay! And I have a pistol!

Io: Pistol… So that’s how it is, isn’t this the gun that caused chaos during training?

Mick: Is he the friend you mentioned?

Somas: Yes! He’s Io!

Nagistopher: And this is?

Rictor: I’m Rictor!

Mick: …! Your white robes…

Rictor: Ah, I’m a researcher from the “World Reflective Unit.”

Io: The “W.R.U.,” so you’re an elite!

Rictor: Eh? Is that so?

Mick: Captain…!

Nagistopher: Hmm… Rictor, where’s the vaccine?

Rictor: Eh… Vaccine… Wh-Who are you people!? I can’t talk to people I don’t know!

Mick: What?

Io: Sorry, he’s been taught not to speak with people he doesn’t know.

Mick: Where did this overprotected young master come from?

Nagistopher: I’m Nagistopher, the captain of the special forces unit “I.DOL.” This is Mick, he’s also a member of the same unit. And they’re regular civilians.

Yamarson: … I’m Yamarson. I was attacked before, and they saved me.

Somas: I’m…

Rictor: You’re Somas, right!

Somas: Eh?

Rictor: Io told me you were a weird friend!

Io: Wait…! Don’t say things that could cause a misunderstanding!

Rictor: Eh… S-Sorry…!

Somas: Hahaha, it’s fine! Io often says that about me.

Nagistopher: Rictor, we’ve introduced ourselves, so now you know us. Is it okay now?

Rictor: Ah… yes, thank you. U-Um… Since you guys are searching for the vaccine… that is to say, the cause of the matter is that virus…?

Nagistopher: What does that virus mean?

Rictor: The “D-X virus”…

Nagistopher: … Is that so…

Rictor: I-Is something wrong?

Mick: So it seems that you know about the “D-X virus,” huh.

Rictor: Eh? Because, aren’t you guys here to look for the vaccine for the “D-X virus?”

Mick: The captain didn’t say what kind of vaccine.

Rictor: Ah…!

Nagistopher: I heard that the vaccine is in this hospital. Where is it?

Rictor: I-I don’t know! I’m just a basic-level employee… So I don’t have anything to say about this…!

Mick: Sigh… You said you’re called Rictor, right? We don’t want to get physical, either.

Rictor: P-Please wait a moment! This is top secret!

Mick: Top secret… Then why does a basic-level employee like you know about a virus that’s been classified as top secret?

Rictor: Th-That’s because… I grew up in the laboratory…

Yamarson: Hey! What vaccine are you guys talking about? Will that vaccine be able to stop infections…!?

Mick: Yes, that’s what I’ve heard. The streets have already entered chaos, and the virus is spreading out of control. If we want to control the situation, we need that vaccine.

Nagistopher: Rictor, please tell us everything you know.

Rictor: But…

Io: Rictor…

Rictor: … The vaccine… isn’t here…

Yamarson: …! Then where is it!

Somas: Yamarson! Calm down…!

Yamarson: … Sorry.

Rictor: In the lab… In the lab of “W.R.U.” It’s being protected in a heavily guarded place in there.

Mick: … I understand. It’s inside the lab, right?

Nagistopher: This is Handsome. Sugar, are you listening? The vaccine is in the “W.R.U.” lab. It’s inside the institute.

<BUZZ>

Radio noise (Tamathony): I’m listening~ I looked up the route and sent it over just now.

<BUZZ>

Nagistopher: Route confirmed.

Rictor: U-Um! Wait! It’s not the lab on ground level!

Mick: What? What do you mean by not the lab on ground level?

Rictor: There’s a lab underground, too. It’s there…

Somas: There are labs underneath this city!? S-So cool…!!

Nagistopher: Sugar, give me the underground map.

<BUZZ>

Radio noise (Tamathony): Hang on~ Underground, underground, underground~ Uh, Captain, I can’t find any information beneath the ground. Hmm~ But there’s an area where the information is especially messed up. Feels like someone messed with the data…

<BUZZ>

Nagistopher: Understood. Rictor, please lead the way.

Rictor: Eh!? Me?

Nagistopher: You’re the only one who knows how to get there.

Rictor: … I understand. This way, please.

<ROAR>

Yamarson: Hey, the exit…!

Somas: Wow, this is bad…! So many Gathereds! It really is like a movie plot, right, Io!

Io: What are you saying! This isn’t a movie, it’s reality!

Mick: If this continues, we’ll be at a disadvantage… What should we do, Captain?

Nagistopher: Mick, prepare the grenade.

<BUZZ>

Radio noise (Tamathony): A grenade won’t be enough for a number as large as this. All of you get down, I’m coming~

<VROOM>

Mick: Sugar? Don’t tell me you’re planning to…!

Nagistopher: Get back, quickly!!

Io, Yamarson, Somas, Rictor: …!

Radio noise (Tamathony): Disabling security system… Okay, I’m coming!!

20:00

<ROAR>

<BAM BAM BAM>

<VROOM>

??? (Tamathony): Tada~! Reinforcement has arrived!

Mick: “Tada~!” your head. Are you trying to kill us!

??? (Tamathony): Oh! If it’s Captain and Mick, there shouldn’t be a problem, right? See, aren’t you all alive and well?

Mick: We’re not the only ones here, there are regular civilians, too!

Io, Yamarson, Somas, Rictor: Sob sob…

Io: What exactly happened…?

??? (Tamathony): They look fine.

Mick: Seriously, you… Ah! Say, why did you come down! What about the helicopter?

??? (Tamathony): I set The Pudding to autopilot mode, don’t worry~ It’ll come when I call for it!

Mick: Call for it, huh… Sigh… But don’t you hate coming to the ground?

??? (Tamathony): Mm, I really hate it. But what I hate even more is encountering something I cannot analyse. So I want to make sure with my own eyes! Alright, no worries! I drank pudding drink before coming, so I’m super energized right now! Watch carefully~ Hey! Ha, hey!

Mick: Sigh… But it’s pretty convenient that you can be this energized just by drinking an ordinary drink…

Somas: Um… this person is…?

Mick: Ah, sorry, we got you guys involved just then. This is Tamathony. He’s our teammate. He can be a little weird sometimes, but he’s smart and good at combat.

Tamathony: That “weird” part wasn’t necessary~

Somas: I’m Somas, and this is my friend Io. Nice to meet you!

Tamathony: Mm~ So then, the one over there with glasses is Yamarson, and you must be Rictor, right?

Yamarson: Eh…

Tamathony: I heard everything through the radio~

Nagistopher: We should get going now… Otherwise we won’t be in time for the anime broadcast.

Mick: Uh… Captain, you’re still concerned about that…

Nagistopher: Rictor, please lead the way.

Rictor: Okay, I understand. We can get to the underground lab via the underground subway tracks.

Io: Underground subway tracks?

Rictor: There are hidden passageways in the underground subway tracks, and they can lead us to the lab.

Somas: Not just hidden passageways, but also an underground secret institute…! I’m so excited!

Io: Somas, even though I’ve said this many times, I need to remind you that we aren’t filming a movie.

Somas: Mm, I know that. But my heart can’t help but flutter…

Io: Sigh…

Yamarson: Anyway, let’s hurry up and go. If we keep staying here, those guys will come again.

Rictor: Right, hopefully the lab is fine…

Yamarson: …! Huff…

Somas: Yamarson, are you okay? You don’t look so well…

Yamarson: No, I’m fine, just a little tired is all.

Rictor: … Yamarson?

Yamarson: What.

Rictor: Have we… met somewhere before?

Yamarson: … I don’t know you.

Rictor: Is that so…

Io: Is he really okay? He really doesn’t look too well…

Tamathony: Hey~ We don’t have time for breaks. Oh right, Mick, give him that. That thing that can make people super high!

Mick: Don’t say it so weirdly like that. It’s just an ordinary energy drink! Here, even though it’s temporary, it should help you feel a bit better.

Yamarson: … Thanks.

Io: You okay…?

Yamarson: … Mm, I’m a bit better.

Tamathony: Then let’s go~

*Just a clarification that “doctor” here refers to the PhD kind of doctor and not the medical one!

**This is supposed to be a song, but I cannot for the life of me think of a less awkward way to translate it into English xD So just… imagine that he’s singing it with rhyme and everything ^^;;

---

Stage 1  |  STAGE 2  |  Stage 3  |  Stage 4  |  Stage 5

---

Follow me on Twitter for more IDOLiSH7 fangirling! ღゝ◡╹)ノ♡

[whats-the-story-tc]

14th of February, 2020

“The One with the Long Way Home”

[THIS IS GONNA BE REALLY LONG, CUZ A  L O T  WENT DOWN, BUT THE ENDING IS REALLY GOOD. PROMISE.]

Another day, another flannel. And y’all know what’s funny? Yesterday, I said V has a shirt similar to what I wore. A day later, she puts it on. I hate her.

Physics first thing in the morning, and the teacher asked me to fetch some tests that we left in our classroom. As I went outside, and looked towards the teachers’ corridor, I spotted an oddly familiar wristwatch on an oddly familiar hand. I step back a little, so I can see the person in question better. Bingo, it’s V — and she was cutting paper. Blood froze in my veins as I walked away. I didn’t remember her promising us a test. Seconds later, I remembered that one of the younger boys I know from rehearsals told me they’re writing a test in V’s class, in second period. Thank God. 

English with V. Turns out, she did have some papers for us, too, but it was only classwork. Didn’t take a minute to recognise the metaphors in the exercise. Meanwhile, V took her dice out of her pocket, twirling the bag in her hands and fiddling with its strings. “Uh-oh...” I muttered. “I’m just playing with it, don’t be scared.” she told me, with the trademark half-smile.

Turns out, my solutions were all correct. Sometimes, I explained them to a confused Art Friend before V could, but she didn’t seem to mind much. I think she’s used to me not having much control over my words. She lets me speak. But when she did get into full-blown story mode, when Know-It-All asked her something... things got interesting. V, sitting on the edge of her desk, looked at him when she started speaking — then turned to me. As in, looked me directly in the eyes all the while she was explaining whatever she was explaining, for about half a minute or so. It wasn’t easy to keep eye contact, but I managed somehow. I’m getting better at it. When she finished, she looked back at him briefly, before walking back to the blackboard. I didn’t know what to make of it. I still don’t. It’s been two days since, and I get butterflies thinking about it.

V asked us if we could recognise what kind of stylistic thingamajig this one quote was. After thinking a lot, as I recognised it, I just couldn’t find the word, I blurted out: “Metonymy!” “Why?” V asked me. “Cuz that’s what first came to mind!” I surprised V to a grin, the rest of the class laughing as well. “I wish it worked like that.” she said.

But here’s the funny part. Know-It-All had no idea what hoarfrost meant (it was in one of the quotes), and thought it was a plant. The look on V’s face... if eyes could kill, he would’ve turned to ashes. The poor woman was shocked. She fully pulled out her phone, googled that shit, and walked up to him with the image search results on her screen. I think Incessant Questions Guy also asked to see it, and, though I don’t remember everything she said, she definitely called him “City Kid”. I was howling with laughter. 

Then I noticed. V types with only her right hand. The same way I do. I raised my hand immediately, and asked her “Sorry, off-topic question, but did I notice correctly that you type with only one hand, Miss?” I think she thought I was gonna call her out on it, because she said “Yeah. That’s what I got used to.” “Finally someone!” I answered. “I spent my whole life getting picked on for this!” She didn’t say anything, but someone else did. “Another similarity.” said Comparison Boy. Oh, the irony. Out of all people, it’s her having this in common with me. I think it would be easier to list our differences than what we have in common.

After V called Blonde Boy in the Back out on him doing fuck all in class, he didn’t take it very well. As we were waiting for our next class, I overheard him tell his friend “What’s going on with this [V]? She’s a dick, that one.” I had to physically remove myself from there so I didn’t say anything. Does discipline immediately mean someone is a dick these days? I’m afraid for my generation.

I don’t remember where my mood started going downhill. It must have been around homeroom, where things got pretty serious. Serious as in my stomach still sinks thinking about it. 

V’s presence in the next period made it slightly better, but didn’t solve things completely. “You know what’s funny?” she turned to me and Pocketwatch Friend, after I said that the other class should get their own loudspeakers (which, as V informed me, they did). “That [this one teacher] thinks yours is free property! [The one she was plugging in] is the other class’, as they took yours, then [another class] took it elsewhere, and then [that teacher] took it like it was free property!” Bless her soul, she was so riled up.

Now, because these loudspeakers were a little different, V had to choose a different spot to sit. That very spot was the other side of the desk in front of ours  — placing V in a way where she was facing me directly. Meaning I actually had to watch the film. As soon as Tatyana appeared with that extra ass hairdo, I said “Shame about that hair,” making V grin and repeat it immediately. And, when I pointed out that Tatyana is the only one wearing colour, my favourite absolute unit of a woman paused the film just talk about it, calling it a “good discovery”. I feel valid.

After class, I thought I’d be cute and help her out a little, and unplug the loudspeakers, as well as take them back to their original place, receiving a “many thanks” for it. As I told Pocketwatch Friend, whom I dragged with me, “I wouldn’t carry anyone else’s shit.” Not true, cuz I help everyone and their mothers cuz I can’t say no, but anyway. When I went back to our classroom, V was still there, giving the Onegin tests back to my classmates. Naturally, I went to check mine. “It’s always the names!” I said, looking at what I got wrong. “Always...” I heard quietly from the other side of the teachers’ desk. V wasn’t surprised. What did surprise her, however, that the actress playing Olga, Lena Headey, is the one playing Cersei in Game of Thrones. When Art Friend and I told her, she started grinning, all wide-eyed. “I didn’t even get that! You learn something new every day.” She was still grinning about it when she walked away.

After that, I started to think about graduation, totally randomly. What happens after. If V and I will stay in contact. How could I possibly ask her something like that. I kept spiralling into things, and took the longer way home, thinking more and more, until I pushed myself to the verge of tears for absolutely no reason at all. Honestly, though. I still don’t get why I did that. There wasn’t a reason. 

But let me tell you what there was this evening — a school dance. There is always one towards the end of winter. And once I finished training, I ventured into the crowd. The day couldn’t end with me crying alone at home and writing a sad post on it. I wouldn’t let it. And this is where Fate kicked in, as everything, that happened from then on, was a string of coincidences aligning a very particular way, too particular for it to be coincidences anymore.

I walked around in circles, eyes sharp, making small talk with a couple people along the way, looking for her, but not finding her anywhere. But... that couldn’t be. Every teacher was here, even the ones who never attend anything. There was no way she wasn’t somewhere among all these people. And as I made my way deeper into the crowd, I spotted a familiar shirt. She was sitting in the very front row. A judge. Every class has to present something, you see, as there’s a contest every year, judged by teacher. Well chosen, I thought to myself. V always sees everything.

But this also meant, that if I wanted to talk to her, I’d have to stay until everyone is done, with either a dance or a video. Am I seriously staying until I haven’t spoken to her? Maybe. Fuck it, I’ll do it. You only live once. - I texted to Pocketwatch Friend. Are you sure this is what you want? - she replied. And no, I wasn’t. No matter what was happening, my eyes were on V. The scoring paper in her hand, the pen in her mouth, the way her shirt collar was open, exposing the nape of her neck... unreachable, now physically, too. On the verge of crying, I waited for my Dad to stop talking to my coach so we could leave. I couldn’t take another minute of this.

Outside, I told Dad that I wanted to walk the long way ‘round home, because “today has been a lot” and “I want to think”. Then Dad posed me a good solution, so I wouldn’t be alone: “Why don’t you walk me home then?” As soon as he told me there was cake at theirs, I was sold. I hadn’t eaten in a while by then, and I would’ve needed some energy for crying anyways, so it definitely felt like a good solution. And it definitely was good cake, even though I nearly teared up at the dinner table about five times.

It’s time to get going, and Dad offered to accompany me until I’m about halfway home. And when he left, I got an idea. I couldn’t simply walk past school without being sad, so... why not go back inside? I could still wander around on the dark streets, listen to sad music and cry afterwards, if I wanted to. But, as I said before, I wasn’t about to let the day end like that. And as long as there was even just half a percent chance that there would be a happy ending to my night, I owed myself that chance to try. I’ve gone mad. - I texted Pocketwatch Friend on my way back. And even though she was trying to talk me out of it, I told her to tell me one reason why I shouldn’t, aside from the pain. It has hurt before. I could take it. But I knew that no matter what she said, she couldn’t talk me out of it. I was already at the corner of the building. I was going inside.

I walked up to the bridge, and ran into Art Friend. Thank God, someone I knew, someone I could talk to about what was wrong! And, of course, she wasn’t the only one there. There V was, just so my heart could hurt even more, stood at the railing, not looking up from her goddamn phone. Now that I saw her, I suddenly wasn’t so brave anymore. I didn’t want to bother her, so I chickened out of going up to her, even though Art Friend tried to talk me into it. I refused and refused until V walked away. Fantastic. I’m literally so fucking stupid

We kept talking for about ten minutes after that, Art Friend and I, both of us venting about our love-related woes to the other, and chatting with a few other people along the way. I didn’t know whether I should stay or go, I felt absolutely hopeless and confused at that point. Nothing made sense. After asking my poor friend about five times whether I should stay or go, I decided to stay. At least until she came back. And she did come back.

V and A walked down the stairs together, both of them joining the people standing at the railing as the band, comprised entirely of students, was setting up downstairs. Now’s my time, I thought, and went closer to where V was standing. One of the teachers, who used to be my homeroom teacher at about the dawn of time, noticed me standing behind her, and offered to swap places with me so I could see better, which would’ve put me even closer to V, who was, for your information, still on her goddamn phone. I politely refused, but she wouldn’t have it, and so, I wound up directly at the railing, my Art teacher next to me, V just slightly behind us. I think you can guess how nervous I was.

I ended up talking to my Art teacher, discussing some stuff in a couple sentences. Bless, she’s the best person to talk to when you’re nervous, as she’s a right laugh. And then. V came closer, bumping into the Art teacher’s feet as she did. The latter barely even noticed, even though V said sorry, so V tapped her shoulder to say sorry again. And there we were. The music started, V wound up between us, so now, she was standing directly next to me. Jesus bloody Christ. So much for a healthy blood pressure.

Listen, guys. We all know V is clever. She knew why I was still wearing my coat. She knew why I was standing there and she knew why I was so nervous and why I didn’t say a word to her. That might be why she decided to speak first. The music was loud, so she leaned closer and just told me “Look at those two stupid seniors in the corner,” referring to two boys dancing in this classical, wobble-your-shoulders kinda club dancing style. She even imitated it, making me laugh, but she was grinning too. Down by the stage, the people started a train dance, which V just commented as “Unbelievable,” still grinning. Meanwhile, I thought it unbelievable that I’m the one she started talking to when I haven’t seen her speak to anyone else all night.

“How were the performances from the first row?” I asked her, subtly referring to the fact that I saw her earlier. She leaned closer again, hand in front of her mouth like she was saying something confidential, and told me “To be honest, I was a little scared of the girls dancing hip-hop.” “Who, the younger kids?” I asked her, laughing. “No, no, the guests.” Yeah, I probably missed those. Anyway. “And how was our clip?” I continued. “I thought there were too few of you in it, but it was really well edited.” “Yeah, [Boy who filmed it] is talented at this. I was only in it, so I didn’t have to go to P.E.” And as the band started playing a new song, I told V “[They’re] really good.” “Yeah, I want to film them.”

And she did. Understandable, I think she teaches half of them, and they were really good. After that, there was silence. She pulled out her phone, and, as far as I’m concerned, she was texting, meanwhile I got a few words with A who was standing nearby, and took photos myself. I decided, that when the song ends, I’ll leave. I got way more than I hoped for, anyway.

“I think I’m gonna go now.” I turned to V, once we gave them the applause they deserved. “Alright.” “And you, Miss? Are you staying until the end?” “Well, I have to.” “And why is that?” Maybe this one I shouldn’t have said, as it was painfully fucking obvious. “I’m supervising.” “Oh. Well, then, have a good weekend.” “You too.” “And keep holding on.” “Thanks.” My Art Teacher waved to me, smiling, as I walked away, and I waved back. Yeah. There’s a bit of a difference between how I like her and how I love V.

I went downstairs to say goodbye to Art Friend, and, just before I left, I looked back up at V, who was smiling. I’m not certain anymore, and I don’t want to write misinformation, but in that very moment, I could’ve sworn she was looking at me.

I no longer needed to take the long way home, I went my usual way. Even so, I burst into tears, but those were of relief. I trusted my gut, went through with it, and my night ended really well. Then I spent the rest of that night and the next morning calling my friends and telling them in even more excruciating detail what happened between V and I. To be honest, it still doesn’t feel real.

See, I still don’t know if there even is a V and I to begin with. But something has definitely changed in the past weeks, I feel it. But I’ll leave this up to you to judge. All I know is that I’m over the moon. Good luck trying to get me off.

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]

[redriotess]

Don't fall for the "Free hearts and tickets!!" Scam

This is a long post. It is meant to help you understand why hacking tools and heart/ticket generators do not work. To get the TL;DR version, scroll down to the paperclip.

We've used our last bit of money to pay the electric bill and now there's nothing left over to buy a small pack of hearts. But our favorite route just came out and come hell or high water, we WILL be playing that route with heart options to read about sexy times.

We decide to do some online searching because the Lovestruck app is a piece of software and software can be hacked!!

Next thing we know, we come upon a promise of endless tickets and hearts!!

All we have to do is use this online tool!

No downloading necessary! We can have as many as 999,999,999 hearts in under 5 minutes!

We test out this tool and realize that for some reason it doesn't work. Huh. Weird. Ok. Forget it. There is a whole row to try! The next one just says fill out a survey and we'll instantly have 10,000 hearts added to our account!

Happily, we answer our 2 question survey, fill out our email, phone number, and mailing address?

Hm, ok. Whatever.

We get a pop-up that says: "You are super close to your reward, just answer this one last question!" What's one more question?

Click.

We're asked to enter our email one more time, you know, for verification purposes. Another pop-up appears asking us to select two free prizes!!

Awesome! We get free hearts and two free prizes! We select our prizes. Where should they ship our brand spanking new frying pan and magazine subscription that we never knew we needed? We enter our mailing address, phone number, email...

Another pop-up. "CONGRATULATIONS! Enter this sweepstake to win an all-inclusive vacation to Hawaii for two!!! Just enter your email and phone number!"

Forty-five minutes later we close out all the pop-ups and try to get back to our original window. WTF?? Where did it go? Where are our 10,000 hearts?? Nowhere of course. "But thanks for your information!"

Meh. Let's try this other link.

Oh, snap! This one comes with a YouTube video SHOWING us that it works!! We watch the video, we SEE it with our very own eyes. The guy on the video obtains 100,000 hearts and 50,000 tickets!!

This is it! This is the winning lottery ticket!

We click the link under the video, which redirects us to the "tool". We follow the steps to a T. Why isn't it working? We did EXACTLY what the guy did in the video.

Let's contact the guy! He can help us. We email him, explaining exactly what we did. He gets back to us right away and tries to troubleshoot with us. After a couple of back and forth emails, he tells us: "It must just be your phone. Sorry, I can't help you."

We decide to give up. We resign ourselves to reading our favorite route without sexy time. Life sucks.

...

Two weeks later we come home to a mailbox overflowing with sweepstakes, advertisements and letters from strange companies.

Ignoring the pile of junk, we decide to check our email. 1,478 new messages including an urgent message informing us that due to recent political conflict in central Africa, the secret Rwandan treasure with a monetary value of 100,000,000 US DOLLARS must be immediately transferred to a bank in the United States of America. WE have been found to be the only surviving heir of King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa. Prince Emmanuel Bushayija has been found to be unfit and therefore we must reply to this email immediately providing our name, mailing address, phone number, bank name, account information and last four of our social so that the money can be transferred quickly and safely. We must also provide a small fee of $6,000 to aid in the transfer. But what's $6,000 when we are going to receive $100,000,000.

The next email states that we are wanted by the IRS for tax fraud and must send a payment IMMEDIATELY or go to federal prison. We can send the payment of $10,000 via Western Union to a location in the Ukraine where the IRS has recently relocated.

...

Given this incredibly long post, you should realize by now how these heart generating tools work. They don't. They are there to gather your information or send you on an infinite loop of surveys.

📎 So why aren't there hacking tools? Well, for one thing, they are unethical and take away from the paychecks of the artists, writers, production team, programmers, etc for the game we all love. Outside of that, the biggest reason these tools don't work is that the game is server side. Have you tried playing Lovestruck in airplane mode or without internet connection before? It doesn't work, right?

Your account is part of a database that rests within the Voltage server. When you purchase a pack of hearts, they are added to your account on the SERVER side. The hearts are not stored on your phone memory or locally in the Lovestruck app.

This is also the reason why you can't just add a bunch of hearts in. You'd have to hack your way into the Voltage server, find your account and manually enter the amount of hearts and tickets that you desire. To hack into a server is not an easy task. If you did manage to succeed, Voltage would be able to see any changes that were made on the server and roll these changes back. In other words, you'd just lose all the hearts that you dishonestly gained. Server breaches are flagged almost immediately and have shutdown safeguards in place.

Hoping to breach a server, find your account, add hearts and then read an entire route is close to impossible. You also risk losing your entire account by being banned.

To sum things up, stay away from these hacking tools and empty promises of unlimited hearts and tickets. The only legitimate way to acquire hearts is by buying them, participating in the weekend challenges and winning them through the daily puzzle system.

And if you think about it, why would you want to cheat the system? By buying hearts, you are supporting the fantastic team that is creating these amazing stories FOR YOU. Remember, they have electric bills, mortgages and groceries to pay for too.

I know this was a long read.

I hope that those who have read this entire article have learned a little something.

If nothing else, take-home points:

1. if it's too good to be true, then it probably is.

2. don't support cheating, support the hard work of the Lovestruck team.

I wonder whatever happened to that frying pan...

[thornstocutyouwith]

Basics:

Character’s Name: Setirasuri

Character’s Nickname(s):  Seti, Suri, Little Prince, Brat

Name pronunciation: It’s not that hard to say.

Origin of name: I love the Egyptian god Set, so I looked up the closest Egyptian name to it, and combined it with Ra, I don’t know where the Suri came from. I think it’s just something I tacked on at the end because it sounded nice with the other two names, not that it is a name all on it’s own. lol

Age: 19

Ethnicity: Egyptian

Sex/Gender: Male

Sexual orientation: Primarily Bisexual(Male Preference) 

Hair color: A light brown, with a reddish brown tent (Another homage to the god Set~)

Eye color: Green

Height: No taller than 5′10″

Weight: 105

Scars: Several on his neck, his chest, his arms, his hands, his back, and his legs. 

Tattoos: None so far.

Birthmarks: A few here and there

Piercings: Several on his ears

Right/left handed/ambidextrous: Right handed

Glasses/contacts: Neither

Apparel:

Clothing preferences: Seti in his Main Verse will usually wear next to nothing, or thin, airy soft fabrics. In a verse set in Modern times he would wear all sorts of colors, t-shirts, hoodies, jeans, he would be adventurous.

Accessories: Seti likes to wear stuff, jewelry can pretty much be found on most of his body parts, in his main verse. In a modern verse he wouldn’t wear too much like he would in his main, he would wear all sorts of bracelets, necklaces and some rings though. They wouldn’t be as flashy as in main, more earthy or Hippie like.

Style: In his main verse he could be viewed as extremely flashy at time, mostly pointing out his princely, royal, status. Though he is more so treated like an object and a lot of things are also just given to him.  In a modern verse it’s all more down played, casual clothing.

Trinkets: Probably a few magical items he’s come across. Some of them look like normal jewels, and such. 

Favorite possession: A lot of the things he wears, the artifact, The ring Sean gave him.

Equipment: Seti carries around a bag that he has his trinkets in and extra jewelry. Some scrolls, some with spells, or just for reading. A lot of things with text. 

Grooming habits: Usually oils, which he massages himself with often. He bathes a lot as well, mostly for enjoyment, and not so much for grooming.

Family and Relationships:

Parents: Seti and his mother and father got along very well. Seti was more of a momma’s boy, though. 

Siblings: Seti has several siblings. Husani, the eldest, but not first born of his siblings, is the current pharaoh and treats Seti like a pet or personal object to do with as he pleases. Which causes a lot of tension between them. Despite Husani’s abusive tendency’s toward Seti, Seti still tries to care about his brother. Seti’s elder sister, Isis, is a lot nicer than Husani, but is still a very cunning and powerful woman. She took on parenting Seti after their mother died when he was still very young. Making Seti’s relationship with her a good and strong one.

Grandparents: N/A

Marital Status: Married to Sean

Significant Other: Sean O’Hare

Children: 4 [Julian, Phoebe, Pfieffer, Phoenix]

Pets: A ton of cats at the abandoned temple to keep him company, especially when Husani chains Seti there.

Friends: Seti has some friends here and there who help him when he travels to the kingdoms.

Enemies: He has a lot lol

Close relatives: Quite a lot

Non-close relatives: Unknown

Ancestors: Mekh, Narmar, Akhenaten, Seti I and Tutankhamen bloodlines

Religion:

The religion they follow (if any): Egyptian polytheistic

Beliefs: In Egyptian gods, ritualistic things. 

Superstitions: A lot.

Virtues: Unknown

Location:

Country of Birth: Egypt

Place of Birth (State, city, etc): Memphis, Ta-Mehu (Land of papyrus, Lower Egypt)

First Language: Egyptian(Coptic form)

Cultures: Unknown

Traditions: Unknown

Schooling:

Highest Education: Minimal

Degrees: None

Home-schooled/public school/private school: Home schooled

Favorite subject: Anything to do with reading

Favorite teacher: Science Teacher

Least favorite subject: Math

Least favorite teacher: Math Teacher

Average grade: B- 

Study habits: None

Special education: Unknown

Graduating year: Never

Work:

Occupation: Nothing

Salary: A lot of monies

Employment history: None

Work space: No where

Mode of Transportation: Walking

Total income: Lots of monies

Boss: Husani

Hours: Life

Experience: Life

Co-worker relationships: Threatening

Rank: Scapegoat

Work ethic: None

Home:

Rent or Own: I guess he own’s it, he’s made it his own ahah

House, apartment, etc: Apartment in the Palace, Home under the Temple

Mode of transportation: Walking

Living space: Quite spacious 

Address: In the middle of no where mostly, At the palace

Hometown: Memphis, Ancient Egypt, Lower Egypt

Inner Workings Of Your Character:

Secrets: He was framed for the murder of his father. He has been abused by several people, mainly his brother Husani. Husani’s wife has in the passed forced Seti to have sex with her, in order to make her husband happy when she ends up pregnant with a child, that thankfully have almost all have been Husani’s, the living ones anyway. Can be easily manipulated into having sex with someone when drunk. Has, in the past more so then presently, sold his body merely to spice things up in his sex life. Has also had sex forced on him, whether drunk or not. 

Fears: Being crowded, or put in traumatic situations

Worries: Things getting bloody, hurting someone, having a panic attack and losing control over his powers.

Eating Habits: Seti eats in a polite way, usually. Keeping his mouth shut, not trying to talk, if possible as he is chewing. But sometimes he will toy with his food a bit.

Food preferences: Seti prefers sweets and meats. But he is okay with veggies and fruits too. He’s not very picky.

Sleep preferences: Usually prefers to be as comfy and cozy as possible. Though he doesn’t like to feel suffocated, so if he’s sleeping with others it could be a little problematic.

Work preferences: He has none, he doesn’t work.

Book preferences: Anything stimulating for him in the fiction section is pretty good. 

Music preferences: Stuff that makes him feel independent or just speaks to him. Other than that he would probably have no other preferences.

Introverted/extroverted: Probably an ambrivert

Optimist/pessimist: He’s more on the optimistic side

Hobbies: Exploring, Table games, Dancing, 

Pet peeves: Being stuck in awkward situations. Giving up easily. Referring to any government agency as "the Fed". Characters that have just met each other in movies arrange dates without exchanging any contact or meet information. When you're invited to a party (or any event) with people you have never met, and the host doesn't introduce you to anyone. People who blame anything but themselves for THEIR failure.  

Skilled at: Lockpicking, Monster Handler, Cartography, Swords, Bow and Arrows/other ranged weapons, Fire Building, Riding, Hunting, Desert Survival, Deduction, Persuasion, Botany, Hiding, Parry, 

Unskilled at: Hand to Hand, Playing Brass Instruments, Tailoring, Survival Arctic,  Firearms, Aura Perception, 

Attitude: Positive

Obsessions: Snacks, Sleeping in, Sex, Partying, 

Stresses: Being in tight spaces, Blood, Being put into situations out of his control,

Addictions: Fruit, Sex, Staying up late, 

Handicaps (physical): None

Handicaps (emotional/psychological): Emotionally scarred due to his brothers actions, and recent events. 

Allergies: Unknown, so far.

Medical history: Suffers random bouts of sickness, due to weakened immune system and rough life conditions.

IQ: 104

Temperament: Phlegmatic

Perception and outlook on life: Positive, for the most part. 

Habits:

Verbal quirks: For the most part, Seti’s speech is clear and he will mostly speak English. Outside of that, sometimes he will carry an accent when in high stress situations. Or mix up words/ slip in some things from his native language. 

Physical quirks: Thrives in hot weather, hates cold weather, Has a noticeable scar from a weapon,  Plays with hair, Shifts from foot to foot, 

Sleeping habits: Wakes up after noon, 

Annoying/Irritating habits: Drinks alcohol excessively when around others,uses drugs recreationally,

Eating habits: Is strongly susceptible to “brain freeze”, 

Healthy habits: None

Unhealthy habits: Sometimes overeats, Sometimes sleeps too much

Objects Kept In - And Why:

Their closet: Technically he doesn’t have a closet, but wherever he keeps his clothes, they are all fairly well made, considering where he lives. And the time in which he lives in. Thin breathable fabrics that at the bare minimum would cover up from the hip to the knee. 

Their bedroom: Styled appropriately, with an abundance of pillows and blankets. 

Their purse/bag: Survival items.

Their fridge: No.

Their car: No.

Their desk: No.

Their pockets: Probably small little trinkets, rocks, pieces of jewelry.

Their junk drawer: No

Their glove compartment: No

Their backpack: No

Their locker: No

Their car trunk: No

Their wallet: No

Their suitcase: No

Favorites:

Favorite book: The Journey To The West

Favorite movie: I, Robot

Favorite hobby: Astronomy

Favorite animal: Cats/ Snapping Turtle

Favorite color:  Emerald Green

Favorite season: Doesn't matter, it’s perpetually too hot. Spring?

Favorite food:  Rice

Favorite drink: Wine

Favorite time of day: Noon

Least Favorite:

Least favorite book: Harry Potter

Least favorite movie: Black Panther

Least favorite hobby: Car Racing

Least favorite animal: Birds

Least favorite color: Grey

Least favorite season: Winter

Least favorite food: Passion Fruit

Least favorite drink: Water

Least favorite time of day: Morning

Other:

Talents:   Tanning (furrier), Play Percussion Instruments, Trade, Speak (language), Leadership, Herbalist, Closed Fist, Archery, 

Political preference: It’s not important.

Strengths: Curiosity, Judgment, Bravery, Perseverance, Fairness, Forgiveness, Self Regulation, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, Logical, Friendly, Open, 

Flaws: Blunt, Moody, Indifferent, Intolerant, Naive, Lazy, Strict, Bold, Fierce, Proud, Smartass, Unpredictable, 

Social class: Royalty

Blood type: AB

Posture: Bird like, elegant, sometimes hands on his sides, or at his sides. 

Speech impediments: None

Spending habits: I’m sure he has some.