#i studied a lot more for this one but i'd very much Did fail the midterm so here's to history not repeating itself 🫠

[falling-hand-in-unlovable-hand]

can y'all pls wish me luck for my math final tomorrow i really want to do well 😭

[adore-gregor]

my perception of grades totally changed since i started uni

[decafbat]

i really like how much depth your art has, do you think you could show how you break down bodies when sketching if that makes sense? it’s something i struggle with a lot in my art! ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡

ok apologies in advance, this is probably going to be a really long and tangential rant about art that may or may not actually help you in learning how to construct bodies. im just gonna put it under a cut to save everyone from seeing this huge text wall.

i dont think its gonna be possible for you to replicate my methods here, because theyre mostly just really specific shortcuts for finding certain proportions and reference points for anatomy, which i'm fairly versed in, but not as much as i'd like to be. the shortcuts you'll need will be different from mine. im glad you think my art has depth, that is something i am trying to seek very intentionally right now, and i dont think im even close to the depth of form i am actually aiming for. so like. this makes making a tutorial kind of inherently hard. nevertheless, i threw this quick sketch together after like 3 failed attempts. (i was doing those attempts digitally, ended up giving up on that and going back to traditional because its what im most comfortable with rn)

i didnt get all the steps i took to get here because scanning that much would be cumbersome but ill try to explain how i got here. i start with the head almost every time.

i use a lot of symbolic/graphic shapes when drawing heads and dont stick to using forms very often besides the circle at the center of the head, which i use as the base to form these graphic shapes around. think of it like "wrapping" the ball in various textures and masses. the eyes are usually "textured" onto the head, notice how the her left eye looks narrower then her right. of course i try to make sure her bangs sit along the curve of the sphere and her ears look like they sit on opposite sides of the head. its easy to forget that part, making the head look unsymmetrical. the particular masses of leica's head would be her snout, which is just a curve extended slightly outside the diameter of the ball, and her hair, which are two strange organic shapes that are quite hard to draw, two hair sprig anime antennae things (forgive me, i forgot the word for them,) and the back of the head, which i usually need to extend slightly. its a little too extended here, needs more on the top, i fix this in the final pass. this was a quick sketch, so i didnt focus too hard on the forms of the head beyond the most essential ones for her design, but i sometimes highlight the form of cheeks with curved hatching, or try to make the eyes appear more sunken-in as they are on human faces. i dont know how to proportion the neck and torso correctly until i draw the head, so i always do it first. next, i did the torso.

so heres why i said that you probably wont be able to replicate this approach. you do kind of just have to practice anatomy, i cant just make it make sense because im not very good at explaining this stuff, but ill try to go through what i did here. so, i generally use simplified bone shapes to find proportions and reference points, as well as more complicated shapes like those of elbows and knees. i try to study fairly often because im not satisfied with here im at with this stuff yet. of course, i dont think i'll ever be. so i'll usually start with the ribcage, add a shoulderblade out the back to find the shoulder, the armbones come out of that, the bone in the upper arm connects to the ulna with a sort of three-pronged attachment, one big knurl in the middle, which forms the thrust of the elbow, two little ones on the side. i think those are part of the ulna but i dont remember. see, you dont really have to know what exactly they do as long as you know what they look like. the ulna does some goofy rotation shit i dont understand, connects to the wrist, and then we have a hand, which, i mean, im not good enough at hands to even be telling you how to do it, but i just have a big squarish mass and some little hotdog fingers coming out of that. you can see on her left hand that ill have a big circle forming the the area on the hand where the thumb attaches... theres more depth to the hands, i think you can easily find better tutorials then i could offer. anyway, under the ribcage theres the pelvis, represented with a box. ill get into that when i talk about the legs. i wanna briefly talk about the way i add the flesh and fat to the bones.

so, i really can't give a comprehensive crash course on anatomy, but i can point you towards the morpho series, which is where i get most of this stuff from. you can get very far with the volumes Simplified Forms, Fat and Skin, and Skeleton and Bone Reference Points. moving on, i just kind of have a feel for where the masses attach by now. the important thing to remember when drawing fat characters like this is that the fat should "hang" from the bones and flesh, drooping down slightly. leicas fat hangs substantially, so she's not very wide despite her weight. this is important to her character design i feel. i almost always draw characters naked first when doing serious drawings because it will come in handy knowing where the forms of the body are when i add the clothing. by focusing on the way her body looks naked, i can modify the impression of those forms when adding clothes, and when i add them later on in this drawing, leica will take on the distinctive boxy look i try to draw her with.

if you look at the arm, youll see that the place the line of bone sits is very high compared to the whole mass of the arm, the flesh and fat of the arm "hang" from the bone, and then the upper arm squishes against the bent forearm too. even if the anatomy in the arm is indistinct, it can still look convincing when the forms act realistically against one another. the elbow has much less fat connected to it, so its more bony then the rest. this isnt actually consistent on all people so like, think about that kind of thing when designing characters, like i was talking about before, fat can sit in infinite different ways. maybe if i was doing a more objective anatomy lesson i'd draw cath, because i do have a sort of vague understanding of muscle placement that doesnt come through here, but probably would if i was drawing a scrawnier character. let me know if you want that.

a word on the breasts too: they hang a bit lower then you'd expect, keep that in mind. the attachment point is also angled, as the line shows. the line starts roughly in the middle of the torso and ends around the armpit, but the form of the breast can go underneath the armpit or even connect around the fold of fat in the back. many things to think about. i love boob shapes. ok lets finally get on with it and talk about the legs.

so, the really specific shape of the pelvis doesnt matter that much unless youre drawing a really thin character, so its just a box here. out from the sides of the pelvis, extending out more then you'd expect, is the femur, which ends in a similar joint to the arm. this shape helps me figure out the form of the knee. two masses on each side with a bunch of complex and weirdly shaped bones forming the kneecap, which i have omitted because i dont yet know shit enough to include them. i am learning though. so, obviously the feet are just scribbles here because im just gonna put her feet in socks anyway. you really dont have to do more then you have to. a few tips i can offer here, the butt should hang a bit too when drawing fat characters, i think the butt is supposed to start just below the pelvis if i remember, but take that with a grain of salt. i also didnt really do that here but its hard to tell because she's facing mostly forward. again, i dont think i can really communicate what's going on here. morpho has a lot of great drawings explaining the shapes and muscles of the legs, all things i might focus on more when drawing a scrawnier character. for this case, i regrettably don't go too hard on the legs. also i should note that legs would usually be much longer, leica is really short so ive exaggerated the proportions to communicate that. i may change my mind on that front in the future and give her more grounded proportions. the important thing to remember with legs is just getting a nice hierarchy of forms going. bigger thigh going into smaller calf going into smaller foot. it mostly comes automatically now.

i added the clothing, shaped up her head a bit, added a bit of fur. i put her in her classic outfit, just a sweater and jeans. i enjoy the big thick folds that come out of these clothes, and big areas of white space too. its nice. i try my best to form all the folds around the forms of the body i drew earlier. thats one case where i really really have no idea what im doing and could never explain it in words. its just some fun intuitive play with loops and lines. this is at around the stage for a sketch where i'd do inks, or if it was going to be a finished pencil drawing i'd erase out parts piece by piece and replace them with nicer and more defined lines and tones.

i guess that's all i can offer , i hope that halped.

[taylormarieee]

Sexy professor and sexy affairs Professor!Rick!Grimes no outbreak AU

Summary: You had a huge crush on your professor, as did every other female in the college auditorium in your class. What happens when your a little behind and decide to make a move-(not just to help your grade, but your lustful intentions as well).

Pairing: Professor!Rick!Grimes x fem!college!student!reader

Word Count: 2.7k (May be proofread, bare with me people)

Warnings: Lustful yearning, mentions of readers revealing clothing, Age gap (Rick- early 30s Reader- early 20s), female gossip, reader falling asleep in class, reader makes it up to Rick (IFYKYK)→ oral (M receiving), kissing, nothing much

A/N: This might be a series idk, i already have like four uncompleted series in the works and idk if I can take responsibility for another. If you guys do want a series I'll happily do one but for now this is just a little starter idea, ENJOY, MWAH💋

Rick Grimes, the best professor you could ever ask for. He was kind, determined, and made sure his students were well educated.

He loved seeing every single one of his student's answer questions and interact with the class( mainly just the females to get his attention). There were times after class he had to talk to the males and certain females about interacting more and engaging or else they're going to fail.

You on the other hand never had that problem. When you engaged, you passed with flying colors. You were at the top of all your classes and never missed a day or a lesson.

Professor Grimes was your American Literature teacher. He taught you study of writing and literature along with an introduction to different elements of writing. With his class you got to dabble in a lot of different elements to be able to get your degree in English.

Today was another day and his class was next. You were always excited when his class came along because you loved his(him) class.

You sat in your seat as normal, right next to your best friend, Candy Simmons. She was your ride or die, the person you could always call and she'll be there (and your mother as well).

"Candy, do you have everything? Sometimes you forget and you know how Professor Grimes gets when you rush out to get your books." You say to her with an eyebrow raised in concern.

Before Candy can even respond Rick is already starting class. "Alright guys, let's get to it. Today we're going to be reading Romeo and Juliet. Now has anyone read this book before today?" He asks looking around the class.

Only two people have raised their hands. "Ok, so you guys have two options. You can read with us and break the book down and discuss or you can go and start your homework on any classes your behind on." He says, addressing the two students.

One student raises his hand to speak, "uhm professor grimes? I'd like to read the book again, I'm not behind in my classes. Can I stay?" Rick nods his head at the boy and then turns his attention to the other student.

"I would like to go complete some assignments please professor? Is that ok?" the female student asks. He nods his head again and that student silently packs up and makes her way to the door.

"Thank you professor." she says, smiling at him. He smiles back and then turns back to the class. "Alright let's begin. Everyone in the very top row come get your books. Remember the numbers on your books because these will be your books." He says.

Your row finally get's to get their books and as you're waiting, you make eye contact with Rick. He didn't have a wedding ring on his hand but he used to.

You know he has a kid because he used to have to leave early to pick him up from school if he was sick. You never knew what happened to his wife but one day he just started showing up without his wedding ring on.

You were so zoned out you didn't even notice that it was almost your turn to grab a book. Once you stepped up he spoke.

"Hey, are you ok? you seemed a little zoned out there. Just wanna make sure your ok." He asks kindly with a concerned look on his face.

His southern drawl went straight to your cunt. Your little bud pulsating at the way he said your name.

"i-i'm ok Professor. When we're done can I by any chance stay after class to talk to you?" you reply nervously. 'why are you so nervous, get it together' you thought.

His face immediately softened and turned into one of care and kindness, no longer concerned. "Of course you can." he replies with a smile.

You smile back and say "thank you professor." before walking back to Candy.

"Girll, he could not take his eyes off you! I told you it was a good idea to wear that sexy ass outfit." Candy whisper-yells giggling.

"Oh stop it Candy. He was just concerned about me cause I was zoned out in the line." you say rolling your eye's at her before looking at your books number. You had the number 17.

You looked at candy, she had 18. You open the page to the table of contents and flip a little more until you reach the first chapter.

"Alright guys so were going to begin reading..."

"Wake uppp!" Candy says, shaking your whole body. You flinch as you wake up noticing half if not all the students are gone leaving you, Candy, and Professor Grimes.

'Ohhhh no! Did I sleep through his class?' you thought. You face palm and groan immediately mumbling out curses and apologies.

"Shit shit shit! Professor I'm so sorry, I've never slept through you class before! I went to bed early so I don't know how I could have fallen asleep. I even drank coffee this morning to make sure I stayed-" you rambled before he cut you off.

"It's ok. You are welcome to stay after class and read with me along with the thing you said you needed to stay later for anyway." He says with a charming tight-lipped smile on his face.

You feel heat rush up to your cheeks and smile. "Ok Professor, thank you so much!" you say walking down with Candy towards his desk.

"Candy I see you later ok? I'll meet you back at the dorm." You say with a smile.

"No wait, I won't be at the dorm remember, I have volleyball practice remember? So I won't be at the dorm till like 7 or 8pm? Depends on how long coach will makes us train for." Candy responds.

"Oh ok so then. i'll stay here a little later., maybe meet you in the gym or something. Walk back with you?" you ask.

"Yea, that's cool, later! Bye professor." she bids her goodbye's with a smile and walks away.

"Later Ms. Simmons." He replies with a smile. He then turns to you and smiles. "Alright, let's get started shall we? What do you wanna work on first?" he asks, that southern drawl getting ahold of your mind.

It's as if your body can't control itself and your thighs press together giving you that pleasant feeling.

"Uh, maybe we can start on my essay that I am having trouble with before we start on the story if that's ok?" You asks.

'Hey, this is your time, take over and lead the way." He says with a smile scooting closer to his desk.

"Ok, thanks professor." You says with a smile. You wonder if he usually lets women take control in bed. You reach across his desk to grab a pencil and your arms kind of squish your boobs together making your boobs more visible than before in your v-neck tank top.

Your eyes flicker to him and you see him glancing at your chest. You sit back down and he clears his throat.

You smirk and reach for your bag to pull out your laptop but before you could get it Rick speaks. "Hey, how about you sit next to me so we can work on it together, so it's not a struggle for you to have to find space for your laptop." He suggests scooting over.

You smile and get up moving your chair towards his chair. He gets up and closes his door. you could have sworn you hear the lock click but maybe it was the sleepiness getting to you.

You bend over at the right time to get your laptop out of your bag and your mini skirt rides up your plush thighs a little revealing your ass cheeks and a bit of your pretty pussy covered in pink underwear.

Rick's breath hitched as he gets a look of your ass. He silently curses himself for looking at you that way but how can he be mad at himself when he knows your doing this on purpose.

But if he knows of your antics, why are they working on him so well? Maybe it's because he's fantasized about you for so long. Maybe it's because he'll take breaks in the bathroom to jerk off to the smell of you, to the new revealing outfit your wearing.

He shakes his thoughts away and sits back down when you sit back down.

"Ok, so what I didn't understand exactly was the concept of Chapter 5. The book you gave us weeks ago was great, I loved it, but chapter 5 has too many things going on and I don't exactly know which concept you want me to focus on." You explain to him.

"Well, it's not really about what I want you to focus on exactly it more about how you feel about the certain concepts. Every single person in this class has had a different perspective on this specific chapter." He says. You look at him with doe eyes as he explains and he can feel his cock straining through his pants.

He grunts and continues what he was saying. "A-As I was saying, What I want y-you to do is just focus on your feelings on the concepts. You can choose a event that happened that really stood out to you and write your opinion on it. I'll be happy with that." He finishes gulping as he looks at your laptop again before glancing back at you.

"mhm, Ok! Thank you professor. Now I'll finish this when I get to my dorm, so now on to Romeo and Juliet. I've heard about this book and it's been on my to read list but I never got around to it." you say.

"Well, you would have loved the first few chapters if you didn't fall asleep." He says with a chuckle. You smile at him and he smiles back.

"I'm terribly sorry for that, how could I possibly make it up to you professor?" You ask batting your eyelashes at him with hooded eyes.

He gulps and looks at you before rubbing his hands on his jeans. He's 100% sure if you took one look down you'll be able to see how hard he is.

He knows what you are implying but he couldn't possibly do it. Your his student. But I mean, your an adult, your old enough to make your own decisions and so is he.

"I told you, it's fine. It's nothing really. Y-You were responsible enough to stay after class and make it up so theres nothing more you can do." He says running a hand through his curls.

You always though his curls were so pretty. They were the perfect shade of brown and they really brought out the blue in his eyes. His stubble was so sexy and made look so wise and so hot you wondered how it would feel on the inside of your plush thighs.

"Oh but professor Grimes, I feel like there is something else I can do. You seem to have a problem and I feel like it was by my doing." You say biting your lip.

'Shit, she knows' Rick thinks. His eyes widen at your words and he bites his lip. He shifts in his seat and groans when the friction from his jeans rub his cock just right.

"Oh come on professor. I know what you want. No one has to know, and I swear on that." You say fiddling with his pants zipper. His head drops towards your hand and he grabs it.

"I-I can't. It's bad enough that I'm hard right now. W-We have to focus on your wor-" His sentence is cut off by the feeling of your hand palming his cock.

While he was talking your hand was making moves and ended up in his boxers. The feeling of your warm, soft hand stroking his cock felt amazing.

The pleasure that is coursing through Rick's veins is immaculate. Your strokes are slow and rough. Everything he needs to cum in your hand right now.

You slide from your chair to your knees. You tap Rick's leg and he lifts his hips so you can pull down his pants and his boxers revealing his pretty leaking cock.

You lick his slit and his cock jumps. You look up at Rick when you take his entire lenghth in your mouth wasting no time at getting a taste of him.

"See, I knew you wanted this. I knew you wanted me just as badly as I want you." You say with a smirk on your face before spitting on Ricks cock and taking it right back down your throat.

Your gaging on his cock and the contractions and vibrations from your moans and throat are sending multiple waves of pleasure to Ricks cock that has his head spinning and eyes rolling back.

By the way his cock is twitching you can tell he's about to come. His hand comes down to massage at your breasts taking in all your glory of your face glistening with saliva and your boobs spilling out of your v-neck. ( this is the top I imagine reader wearing)

You moan around his cock again, jerking off whatever can't fit in your mouth. So lost in the moment your only now realizing how big and pretty Rick's cock his. Nicely trimmed pubic hair, pretty pink tip leaking and oozing with precum.

"Oh shit princess. Gonna -fuck- cum down this pretty throat of yours, hmm? Want your professor to cum down your throat baby?"

You shake your head yes as you gag on his cock some more, your eyes rolling back and your clit throbbing at his dirty words.

He was so well put together but what you didn't know was how much of a slut Professor Grimes was. " Oh fuck I'm gonna cum i'm cumming baby, fuck!" He crys out.

His hands find the back of your head and he lets out the sluttiest moan before letting out a string of curses as he cums down your throat.

"Shit shit shit, right there baby, doing soo good for me." he says. His eyes roll back as he moans out.

Releasing his hot, stick, thick load down your throat and you swallow every bit of it. You suck on his tip overstimulating him and he tries to pull your head off him whimpering and whining at the feeling.

You kiss his tip and finally let up and smile at him sticking your toungue out for him to see you swallowed everything he gave you.

"Oh fuck. Ohhh shit that felt amazing." He says chuckling. He gets up and grabs your hand to help you off your knees.

"Gotta hand it to you," He says as he watches you fix your shirt and hair while he fixes his pants. "I loved seeing you on your knees." he says with a chuckle.

You bite your lip at the compliment and smile at him. "And I gotta hand it to you Professor," You say seductively walking closer to him. "You taste really good." you say with a smirk on your face.

You walk around him and grab all your stuff packing it away. Once you have your bag on your back and the book in your hand you walk up to Rick.

"I'll see you tomorrow professor grimes." You say seductively and kiss him passionately on the lips.

You grab his neck and moan into his mouth allowing his tongue to slip in your mouth.

You pull away from the breathtaking kiss and the last thing connecting you two is a string of saliva.

"I'll be sure to stay after class again, this was fun and thank you sooo much for the extra help Professor." You say with a wink opening the door and leaving.

You smile to yourself walking down the hall and leave him there astonished.

Oh yea, he for sure need more of you and that pretty mouth. If Rick wasn't excited for tomorrow already, this moment just made him 10x more excited to see you again.

Maybe next time he'll get a taste of that pussy he's been fantasizing about.

Taglist: @dustbunniess @dollyfl1rt @rickswh0r3 @sinsandsweetness @justjasminne @itzdarling @versatilehater @aerangi @2svnder @keiva1000 @prettyluhdavis @hutchersonsgurl @grimesuniversexx @liliesdiary @writella

[absolutebl]

There was a surprising amount of sex in Be Mine Superstar! I really wasn’t expecting it…. Similarly, Love Syndrome had a LOT less sex than I was promised by the trailer…

Are there any BLs that had either many more or many less NC scenes than you were expecting before you started watching them?

BLs that exceeded (or underperformed) sexy expectations

Interesting question. So far, not that many Thai BLs. But I think that's just because I pay attention to the pairs and the actors in Thai stuff, and you sort of get a feel for what they will (and won't) take on. So in your examples: I know JaFirst did high heat so I expected the producers to lean into that advantage as part of BMSS because, frankly, it didn't have much else going for it.

I haven't watched Love Syndrome III yet but knowing Frank I wouldn't expect it to go super high heat in terms of actual physical contact.

I guess the ones that have surprised me are mostly out of Thailand are pulps that I knew nothing about going in. Let me see...

Thai BL that ended up being way hornier/better than I expected

Secret Crush On You - such a weird show but BillySeng brought IT, whatever IT is, they got it.

Love in Translation - yeah, what happened in that sauce isle boys? Very saucy. Whatever pun, more please.

2 Moons 3 - about on par with ForthBeam from 2 Moons 2 but nothing else in the previous 2 series would lead one to expect the horny we got in this show on the main.

Second Chance - yeah it was a throw away pulp and this studio is hit or miss on chemistry but it had one of the best kisses of its year.

Big Dragon - I don't know what I expected form the trailers, but it wasn't as good as it turned out to be. Don't get me wrong, the rest of the show is naff, but the chemistry/heat levels are scorching.

Ghost Host, Ghost House - generally the horror stuff doesn't do chemistry well, but these two have some of the best chemistry EVER put into a pulp. I really hope we see more of them.

KinnPorsche - It's no secret I'm not as wild about this show as most, but I did think the VegasPete stuff was unexpectedly killer in all ways.

Oh My Sunshine Night - yeah it was exactly what one expects from OhmFluke but THE SIDES!!!! I mean... WHAT? I'm not mad, just pleasantly surprised.

TharnType - Okay but remember at the time what we'd had from Mame was LBC (relatively low heat) and other Thai stuff I was familiar with at the time was Make It Right, Love Sick, SOTUS, and UWMA. TT was way higher heat that I'd seen from Thailand before. And then...

Why R U? - ZeeSaint's "away trip to the beach" full on sex scenes plus repping for verse was just crazy at the time. Especially since Saint played Pete in LBC before this and Zee was new to BL. Add that to the very odd and disjointed (and miss-matched) SaifahZon counter story and WRU? was this insane all over the place viewing experience, including the heat levels. There was this "what will they do next?" kind of tension over the production. Not the story (because who was following that?) but the PRODUCTION. At the time, it was welcome, but truly bonkers. What a way to drive narrative tension... pure high heat chaos.

Thai BLs where chemistry failed meet my (relatively low) expectations

My Ride - honestly, if they had just gotten the kiss right this might even have earned a 10/10 from me

Unforgotten Night - ugh

Bite Me - double ugh

Friend Forever - I know I'm the only person who watched this but why could we not have gotten ONE kiss from the leads?

Nitman - studies have since shown us it is entirely not Noh's fault... see Oh My Sunshine Night

Wedding Plan - the leads were fine, but Mame usually fails me in every way except chemistry, so "fine" is not up to her usual standards. Those standards being predominantly "they hawt together" and nothing else. There wasn't even a side dish couple to pick up the slack noodle... so to speak.

Korean BL

For most of 2022 I was consistently getting surprised by Korean BL's chemsitry when it was good but now I've settled into half expecting it yet still being delighted when it happens and is well done.

I do think Semantic Error was a bit of a seed change for them.

The problem is, now we know they can do it, we are starting to get pissed when it's bad or entirely absent.

Taiwanese BL

Taiwan is the opposite of Korea.

I expect good chemistry and almost always always get it. I struggle to think of a time when they've disappointed me (in this arena). Maybe a few? But I tend to cut Taiwan more slack than other countries because they have so few BLs and they are generally so consistent. If they falter at all, at least the side couple will pick up the slack.

Japanese BL

I have no expectations of Japan. Life as a BL fan is a lot easier that way.

(source)

[sourw0lfs]

dance with the devil - part seven

This has been done for days but I told myself I'd write ahead a bit before I posted it. Then my brain went on vacation about it, so uh here?

Words: 692 | Rating: E (mostly parts 1 & 2, but also future parts) | CW: no warnings this time! except Eddie's continued bad time

part one || part two || part three || part four || part five || part six || part seven || part eight || part nine || part ten || part eleven || part twelve

Most of the details surrounding his actual death are fuzzy to Eddie, and he supposes that makes sense in the grand scheme of things. Something about blocking out trauma or whatever. He isn’t really sure how any of that actually works. Instead he just focuses on making it all into a cohesive story for the girl that’s still staring at him judgingly. And yeah, he’s earned that look if he’s being honest with himself. He did show up uninvited.

“Well,” he says with a dramatic sweep of his arm. “It all starts in this very city, about twenty-three years ago.”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, I want the long story but not your life story,” the girl interrupts him. “Start with how you ended up in the same room as Steve.”

The interruption should be rude, but Eddie just shrugs. Less work for him and his already fuzzy memories. It’s like as soon as he died, everything got jumbled up and thrown away if he didn’t need it. It’s a pain honestly. “Right, so,” he starts again with a pointed look at the girl. “I don’t know if he mentioned that I’ve been assigned as his guardian angel, but I have been. Because I died recently.”

Something twinges painfully in Eddie’s chest as he says the words, but he presses on anyway. It’s not like he knows why he’s sad about being dead. “I don’t know why I got assigned your friend or who made the decision or whatever,” he continues. “I just know that I’ve got a job to keep him safe, and I have to do it or it’s adios to somewhere much less fun for me.”

Hopefully that’s enough to appease both the girl and Steve, because Eddie doesn’t really have much else on the topic. They’re both looking at him like he’s grown a second head, and that does absolutely nothing for Eddie’s worries.

“So you’re not actually an angel then,” the girl says after studying him for a few minutes. “Because if you were, failing Steve wouldn’t be it for you, would it?”

It’s then that Eddie decides he doesn’t like her. Not because she’s wrong. She isn’t wrong. But because there’s something deeply uncomfortable about a stranger calling him out so quickly and easily.

He sighs heavily, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “No, it wouldn’t be. Or I imagine it wouldn’t be. I don’t actually know. I just know I woke up from dying and a really scary, really tiny lady told me I had to keep ‘Steve Harrington’ out of harms way until I stack up enough good points to get real wings. And that failing would be bad.”

The girl is frowning at him, studying him like a bug under a microscope again, and Eddie squirms. Then her expression softens, and it makes Eddie feel bad for disliking her just a little. “Thank you for protecting him,” she says quietly. “Usually that’s my job, but I don’t have angel magic or whatever.”

Eddie isn’t sure why she just believes his words for what they are, but he’s not going to question it. Not if it makes his life (non-life?) easier. "I mean, I barely do, but you're welcome all the same. I'm Eddie." He thrusts a hand in the girl's direction.

"Robin," she returns with a smile as she takes his hand and gives it a firm shake.

It's a lot better, a lot calmer, than his introduction with Steve. Considering Eddie still wouldn't even know his name if he hadn't been sent in with it. Despite the original hesitation, Eddie thinks he might like this Robin girl a lot more. Maybe that'll make this whole thing just a little bit easier to swallow. Because Steve certainly isn't doing Eddie any favors, even after Eddie got him out of what would have been a full-on murder charge. Ungrateful, but Eddie has a job to do, thankless or not.

"Glad you two are getting on, really," Steve says as he looks between the two of them with a grumpy frown. "But what exactly does this all mean for me? It's my life being invaded."

Tags below the cut! Let me know if you want added <3

@chaosgremlinmunson @soaringornithopter @hbyrde36 @shares-a-vest @dreamwatch @quevadilla @tboyeddie @penny00dreadful @momotonescreaming @stevesbipanic @dawners @steddiejudas @just-my-latest-hyperfixation @estrellami-1 @vthx @lolawonsstuff @gleek4twd @littlebluejane @swimmingbirdrunningrock @lawrencebshaggoth @sadisticaltarts @queenie-ofthe-void @r0binscript @anaibis @hairdressersdoitwithstyle @goodolefashionedloverboi @spookednsaucy @anne-bennett-cosplayer @flustratedcas

[luvletters4nagiseishiro]

break my heart | fuckboy!oikawa

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩ oikawa is the school's most renowned playboy and he tries his best to win you over

cw: gn!reader, college au, slight angst, suggestive, but no smut, mutual pining

notes: the slightest blue lock crossover btw

you were irritating to him. the very thought of you boils his blood-- for the simple fact that you showed no interest in him whatsoever. he was the most popular amongst the school, his groupies heart-eyed at the sight of his face, a simple smile from him could make anyone blush- except you.

it was that one day that made him distraught, almost hysterical. you two were in a calculus workshop and sitting in between you two was your friend who had been trying her best to hide the fact that she was completely enamored with oikawa. it's been three weeks into the semester and you couldn't help but wonder what your friend megumi saw in him. to you he was just a pretty face who could set some volleyballs, nothing more.

on top of his obnoxious personality, it also annoyed you just a little bit how he excels in class for someone who you have never seen pick up a pen in the last two semesters. it just sucks that he's always on par with you even with all the hours you put into your studies, but you don't dwell on it too much.

"anyways,, this is boring. let's chat." oikawa grinned playfully, adjusting his body to face you and megumi.

"have you finished the work?" you don't even glance at him and continued to click away on your calculator.

"did it last night." he said casually, leaning against the chair.

how? before you question it any further, megumi piped in. "are you guys going to the music festival in the city this weekend?" her body is completely facing him, obvious that she is directing the question at him with an ulterior motive.

"hmm, i was planning to but i would need someone fun to go with or else it'd be boring." he mused, eyeing you as you don't even bother to face him when he's talking.

"i mean we could go toget-" but before megumi could even finish that sentence, he leaned in forward on the desk.

"if y/n went with me, i'd have a lot of fun." his cheshire cat smile never failed to send shivers down your spine. you turned to see megumi's scowl on her face which made you curse under your breath.

"no thank you." you said quietly, taking a quick glance at her sour expression.

"why not?" he whined, his eyes glinted with amusement as he waited for your reaction.

"i don't think i'd have fun with you at all." you said nonchalantly. you didn't lie. you didn't think you had anything in common with oikawa at all. even if you liked the same music, how strange would it be for you to go to that music festival with him out of all people?

his grin quickly faltered, his face turning blank. he retreated from his position and went slumped back into his chair. he was stumped. every time he tried to make an advance on you, you would just flat-out reject him with no hesitation. it's been like this for months and it's driving him crazy. he even asked in front of megumi on purpose. to show that he only wanted you. and no one else.

after that day, he decided to stop plotting ways to get your attention because he was so busy with club activities and an on-going tournament. that didn't stop him from being his cocky self, flirting with girls that would watch him at the gym and even entertaining the female professors.

but every time oikawa would catch a glimpse of you in class (he tries to at least once every 5 minutes), he couldn't help but feel a burning sensation in his chest at the fact that you still weren't his.

you only realised recently that he barely talked to you in class, his playful remarks were no longer the first thing you heard when you sat down, his teases were no longer distracting you when you tried to do the work. you felt slightly relieved that you were no longer a target of his antics, because you believed deep down that everything he said and did was just a ruse, something to keep him occupied in a boring class.

but, there was a feeling of emptiness that you felt whenever you expected him to give you a witty comment, but he doesn't. and he just looked away. suddenly, every time you saw him entertain someone else you were trying to figure out why your heart would ache in response. why your stomach would churn whenever he paid megumi the slightest attention- knowing that she was obsessed with him. you knew it was just his personally. it was natural for him as a playboy to find new girls to toy around with. but why did it bother you so much?

your other friend reo tasked you with going into the boy's locker room and dropping off his textbook during his soccer practice. you didn't know why he thought it was a good idea, but you couldn't say no because his notes have been practically saving your grades in your economics classes. you thought it'd be easy to do it around this time because everyone is occupied in the gyms training.

walking in, you immediately dropped the textbook in shock when you saw oikawa shirtless and covered in sweat. he was just about to change when he caught your eyes. "so you're sneaking into locker rooms to get a peak of me now?" the cockiest grin formed on his face, the grin that you denied you missed so much.

blood rushed to your cheeks as you took in the sight. beads of sweat glistened on his abs and defined arms, somehow accentuating every line of his defined muscles. your train of thought snapped when he stepped closer to you, the grin not leaving his very, hot face. you couldn't deny it anymore, as much as you tried to. oikawa was extremely hot. no matter how distasteful his personality was to you, his face card would never decline.

"who's this for?" he cocked his head as he picked up the textbook you dropped on the ground and handing it you.

"um. it's for reo." you mutter to the ground, not daring to make eye contact with him in this situation.

he groaned, "soccer players." he took another step closer to you, forcing you to look up at him. so tall. you thought.

he was too close, his lips were only a few inches from yours. and before you could take a step back, his right hand gripped your waist to keep you close to him. "you're really hard to please y/n." he whispered into your ear. the sensation tickling your outer ear, sending shivers down your spine. your heart has never raced this hard before.

"i don't know what you mean..." you breathed out. he lowered his gaze and you felt his breath on your neck, causing even worse heart palpitations.

"i nearly gave up on you, y'know." you tried to step back but for some reason you were frozen in place, you wanted to leave somehow but the feeling of his large hand keeping you in place gave you butterflies in your stomach.

"but seeing you now, i never wanted you more." that sentence alone made you lightheaded. and before your brain could process it any further, your body moved on its own to pull him in for a kiss.

his eyes widened at the sudden advance, unexpected from you to make any move, but it didn't take him long to kiss you back, and hard. he groaned, your lips practically molding together. his left hand kept your head in place. his other hand gripped your waist tightly, making sure not to let go. he didn't ever want to let go.

oikawa's lips were soft, and so was his hair when you tugged at the back of his head, dropping the textbook once more. he groaned against your lips when you matched his roughness.

but you forcefully pulled away, breathless. "oh fuck..." you cursed under your breath. it way was too hot in that room.

"that was not. i am not-" before you could start to make excuses for yourself, he interrupted you.

"are you free tonight?" he queried, giving you an all-too-familiar grin.

"yes." you blurted out, not thinking straight. but the idea of continuing what you started with oikawa after a date didn't seem too bad.

notes: a smut pt.2 would go well with this

[flyonthewallmedstudent]

The weirdness of high school.

And university too maybe.

Plus or minus med school. But not residency. Watching THis is Us and other bingeable shows recently.

There's a lot of flash backs and flash forwards in the show.

There's the high school ones, which like all TV shows is very stereotype'd. They go to an alumni event, and the nerdy girl now surgeon is estactic to hang out with the former football star/cool guy. Who is very thick.

I was a super weird, nerdy, socially awkward kid. Afraid of a lot of social things, but not afraid of science, history anything academic or what I looked like. I wore oversized sweats all day everyday. I never knew how to say the right things or act in a crowd. I hated crowds. 2 or 3 close friends was great, and the best I could muster. I was terrified of their parents.

But funnily enough, I never knew I was weird. I wasn't unhappy either.

I liked having 2-3 close friends, nothing more or less.

Then close to graduation, one of the guidance counselors (the non-crazy one) said to me, she didn't have a great high school experience either. But it gets better after high school. I'll see. It took me years as a teenager to understand what she meant.

Later on I realized that other people felt sorry for me. Thinking because I didn't have the stereotype of the great high school experience I was some how sad, ashamed, unhappy.

Ironically I never even thought about it and was actually happy in my own world and space. I had my separate universe in academics. Like it never dawned on me that I was missing out on anything.

I felt embarassed, in a strange way as an adult reflecting on those experiences. Slightly embarassed for me, but more embarrassed for the small town/city around me. I did not fit in that place, but I didn't know it either back then or didn't care to. We were very much ships passing in the night. I didn't and don't hate where I grew up, I actually loved it in my own way. I got a great education there, and it got me where I wanted to go.

Looking back, plenty of kids probably made underhanded mean comments or passive aggressive statements - but it all went over my head. I suppose I would have been unhappy, had I read between the lines back then. Someone even stole my math text the week of the math exam, but I was actually flattered. That hey, someone thought I was that smart (imposter syndrome starts when you're young). It was one of the best days of my life.

It was also hilarious to me then, that stealing the text of one of the nerds during exam week would sabotage anything - because they spend their entire free time studying the whole year. They don't cram. Cramming was a terrible habit I acquired in university/undergrad. In med school, I'd fail exams because I crammed.

Another time I had left my draft math home work in a common room table, a classmate told me (2 weeks after the fact) that 5-6 different kids grabbed it and copied it. unfortunately for them, it was a draft full of errors, so I completely disregarded as trash. the final copy I submitted with the correct formulae was substantially different. Our math teacher of course realized that everyone had the same errors, but couldn't figure out the source. No one ever said anything mean or confronting, so it wasn't hard to brush aside. they self-sabotaged themselves, nothing actually happened to me.

Again, it was like we lived on different planets. Had they asked, I probably would have helped them out, I didn't get the grades I got by myself either. My far smarter co-nerd friends taught me a lot. On the other hand, I was intensely shy, they probably interpreted it as being "aloof." Or worse, condescending.

I'd felt my entire time during school, that it was the path to something else. I wouldn't get there till about 10-15 years later. Maybe even 20. It was a means to an end. If I was going to be working, then I wanted that work to have meaning. Or what would the point of all those hours. My parents worked in jobs they grew to hate to just go home and be tired.

Med school was a bit like high school. After the first few months of first year, i spent most of it hiding from other med students. (They were fucking crazy, a good chunk of them although not all, the anxiety, stress, competitiveness, the back stabbing, entitlement and bravado --> by the way, people do mature and get better. of course not all them do. anyhoo).

It was after selecting a vocation and starting residency that I found "home." Where I suddenly was comfortable having more than 2-3 friends and happy to be in crowds. Because everyone in the crowd was pretty much like me. We wanted to talk about all the same things. Maybe I grew more comfortable in my own skin along the way too.

But you know, it wasn't me that need to grow and change. I had found the environment where I finally could be myself in.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

as an adult do you think there are any little habits or things that voldemort retains from his youth?

In a way, yeah, I'm sure he does.

The way we grow up affects us, and I think you'll find a lot of people retain certain habits from a very young age. I mean, people are, for the most part, creatures of habit. We like to have a schedule we follow every day.

Voldemort is a perfectionist, always was. And I don't think anyone would argue he doesn't have obsessive tendencies. So it's incredibly likely he had certain 'ceremonies' he did every day before going to bed or something like that. Like, the order of things and the way he does things being perfectly replicated every day. The thing is when it comes to little habits like that we don't really see him have any. Like, we don't know much about his eating habits, or what he does before bed or to relax or anything like that. We just don't really have that information.

But with his personality, he probably does have pretty rigid patterns in his day. Besides being used to it from the orphanage and Hogwarts, both of which had pretty rigid schedules. Old habits die hard, and all that.

What habits I can actually point at and say he probably does that... well, there aren't many because we just don't know. But this is what I have to offer:

We know he likes collecting things. Both as a child and later with his Horcruxes. I'd say working in Borgins and Burkes was definitely a decision connected to his appreciation of collecting rare magical artifacts to study. And it makes sense he'd like to have things, considering he grew up with basically nothing to his name. Especially nice things.

He most likely reads a lot, as a young child, a Hogwarts student, and an adult, since it goes hand in hand with studying magic. And it was probably one of the only things he could do at the orphanage to pass the time since he wasn't really playing with the other children there.

We also know younger Tom had a diary, so he might have used it for journalling before he turned it into a Horcrux. Considering he has a strong sentimental connection to his other chosen Horcruxes, I'd go on a limb and say he wrote in it before making it one. He is dorky enough for that (the diary would be under various privacy spells, obviously). We don't know if he still journals, but I'm sure he at least writes down all his magical research and experiments somewhere. He won't be a proper academic otherwise.

I think someone like Tom would honestly find comfort in something like journaling, it's structured, completely controllable, and predictable. It's something a young Tom Riddle could do that is just his and only he chooses when and what he wrote. Also, as no one else sees it, there is no failing it. Also, he has the dramatic flare for writing overly formal journal entries at the age of 11 (he's still dramatic, so that didn't change). So, I think this is a likely habit for the younger Tom that the older one continued, if for different purposes.

Not really a habit, but he's very suspicious of others and their intentions. He shows as much in his meeting with Dumbledore, that is definitely a behavior he retains. As an adult, he is just as suspicious and keeps everyone at arm's length.

Like, if we look just at behavior, he shares a lot with his younger self from the orphanage, deep down he is that same orphan raging at the world and wanting control and power he never had. I wrote a whole series about his personality and mentioned it there. But, that's more behavior than habits, so I don't think it counts.

Sorry, I can't offer you more habits. Unfortunately, there is a lack of book evidence on what Voldemort does in his free time when he isn't trying to kill Harry Potter...

[cringefaecompilation]

even as a doyrm enthusiast I am not confident they're gonna make it. cause even if they do make it out alive and figure out the fey deal..... the squall looms and unless cyrus somehow resurrects and comes out with a steel chair....... bronte waits. I'm thinking it'll be more bittersweet than anything

thank you for misspelling the ship name because i feel like it'd be rude to put this in the tag, even if it is mostly positive and more of a character study.

i've been thinking a lot on how to answer this ask and waiting until robbie's fireside and episode 117. since both members of the ship are alive and well for the time being, i think i can answer this solidly now.

both of these are characters i like and i think they have a very believable chemistry, even if some parts of it are a little rockier than i'd prefer (orym never apologized for his comment about cyrus and the whole caleb thing), i still enjoy that robbie and liam went out of their way to slowly develop it when dorian returned rather than having them confess instantly despite the ship being so widely loved. but there is one thing about both of them that is bugging me and makes me nervous about them starting a relationship.

yes, dorian has the squall to deal with and they might raise an eyebrow at him falling in love with someone who isn't one of them, but that is nothing compared to how deeply hurt he is about losing his brother. i cannot stress how much it's been a fucking week since cyrus died. and yes, even if he does then get put at the head of the squall or has to return to deal with the aftermath of what they'll do on the moon, he still has the guilt of the crownkeepers failing on his head.

as for orym, his deal can go one of two ways:

morri considers that he held up their bargain because they did all return from the moon with fcg as armor, and she does not consider fcg a living creature (which might just piss off ashton so hard he'd strangle her into changing her mind), so he is now her slave.

he literally went up to her and told her he failed because fcg died. she KNOWS he failed. no way in fucking hell she is not punishing him for reneging with a violent shrub-related death.

if/when that gets solved, hey, uh, orym? buddy? they don't have to put anything on the backburner anymore for The Greater Good. you're going to have to sit with the reality that you assumed your life mattered so little you could just sell yourself into slavery and they wouldn't care if you left. or that you accepted punishment so thoroughly and didn't assume they'd give a damn about you dying either. and the rest of bh (SPECIFICALLY FEARNE) is going to have some words about that, let alone dorian.

and even before that, what about orym in the aftermath? i've seen a lot of people dunk on orym saying his pain is objectively less than everyone else's and it happened so long ago, but like... it keeps getting retriggered every time he interacts with the bad guys. it's why i don't want him to kill ludinus because then after that fucker's dead then what? he's been so tunnel-visioned on killing him no matter what i think he'd fall into a coma upon realizing his goal is fulfilled and nothing's changed. there's still unrest and an apocalypse to avert even when the elf's a puddle of salsa on the ground.

a party of compartmentalization enjoyers is fun to watch as they break down their walls, but i worry it might not end well. not even in a "they start to hate each other and break up" way, but in a "they both realize they're in way worse places than they thought and they'll have to see if they can work through it or not or if they're even both emotionally equipped to handle a romance right now."

and i think they CAN make it work! after all, he did say they could see if it could. but if robbie and liam decide that in the aftermath, they'll just decide to be friends or maybe have an open or on/off relationship, i will not be upset.

[raguma1002]

I have some questions friend:

Which AUs do you think would be interesting for a Bobutter fanfic?

Do you think they could have been friends (like, real friends) in childhood? Supposing that for some reason PB's family moved from the Labrador Peninsula and went to live where the Horsemans live and BJ studies. I think PB would be interested in meeting BJ, and since BJ was most likely the recluse of the room, PB's attention would be welcome, but I still think he would envy PB for being happy so easily. And PB would have a totally different view of the world, since everything is perfect in his homeland.

What do you think the dynamic between them would be like if they were women? When you're a woman, you have a lot of social pressures, so I don't think BJ would have a sex life like he does in the series. This I say, as openly as a man like him takes it. I think she would feel much more rivalry with PB, and her relationship with Sarah (if she were a boy) would also be totally strange, or maybe it wouldn't happen at all? She would have much lower self-esteem for her body. As for PB, she would have much more gossip about her 3 ex-husbands. I mean, a woman her age with 3 failed marriages, what's her problem? And a woman that age with such young men? And I think she would have more pressure to have children. Which would lead to it not happening. Because.... BOOOM, PB is infertile (not sterile. Infertile. She has little chance of getting pregnant, but she could still do it.) So this could cause a lot of problems for the happy vision of the world that she would have. And she would clearly be a little obsessed with staying young, because no one could love an old woman(in her mind). So, would they be sadder?

hey!

first of all i want to say that EVERY au would be interesting for a bobutter fic 'cause we need more fics my glorious warriors.

secondly, kids au: oooh it would be fun!! them as kids interacting together... well i fantasize like this: if mr peanutbutter moves to san francisco with his family and, let's say, gets into the same class with bojack, he either immediately wins the attention of his classmates and becomes everyone's favorite, or first he needs some time to get used to new people and his new life, and bojack becomes his friend. in the first case, he has quite little contact with bojack, but when this happens it is always extremely friendly and easy. bojack also tries to be kind and pleasant to him because he is afraid to meet public condemnation, but in his soul over the years he begins to envy him and hate him more and more (for the same reasons as in the original). so there's not much chemistry between them, but it sounds more plausible. in the second case, pb due to the sudden change of environment shuts down for a while, but still tries to find friends among classmates, and since boj is not particularly sociable and most likely did not have many himself pb and he get closer. they spend a lot of time together, play and walk, watch cartoons, and really enjoy each other's company. that would be adorable!! mr peanutbutter would be practically the only ray of light in bojack's life, and he'd actually treasured him. but, in the end, pb gains popularity, earns a lot of friends, and... further at the discretion of the author. imo they would drift apart and bojack would hate him in the same way, but there would also be a more personal drama here hehe

tbh the idea of drawing how they play and have fun with each other as children sounds... very tempting

thirdly, genderswap au: surely if they are women they will be sadder..... 😔 but joking aside, i like your thoughts! i've never considered that idea so i don't have much to say. the only thing is, i think it would change a lot. because of the influence of social stereotypes and expectations they would grow up very different from their original versions, and most likely, as you mentioned, they'd have other problems and development paths. i'd be interested to read about it in the fanfiction, yes!

thank you for your thoughts my pal!

[booksbluegurl]

Do you have any tips for stress before exam? My exam is in one month but, because I already go through failing it last year, I'm so scared now...

I love your blog so much and I wish you the best!

Hello!

I can totally understand your fear related to your upcoming exams. I also have my exams starting in June and was just done with one in May starting.

It does seem like a big mountain that we'd need to overcome barefoot, specially when the exams are so close.

I'd like to recommend you to check out my tip to manage overwhelm over a big syllabus if you haven't been able to comprehend studying or revision scenario.

Okay so, dealing with stress before exam

1. First thing you'd need to detach yourself from your past failures or success. It's difficult, I know. I had problems with doing the same too. But you'd need to consciously detach from all your fears, everytime they try to evade your mind.

I try to do that by affirmations. But honestly, one of the best things I found which helps me get rid of negative feelings, even if its momentary, is physical exercise or a walk. It works like magic. I didn't use this magic before my May exam and I regret not using it. But now, I've been consistently going for a walk or having some kind of physical exercise.

2. Now, this is a big part of most of my advices is to cut your syllabus into smaller, digestible chunks. And then take it. Lets say, you have 20 days and you have to read a 500 book for the exam, wow that sounds very scary. But what if, we decide to 25 pages a day. It may be a big deal depending upon how much you're used to reading,

If you're not used to long hours of studying/reading, start with small. See, the whole idea is to get working. Because when we are worrying, we're not working. So the idea is to put yourself in a state of flow. Again, I often feel this flow after some workout or exercise. So, let's say, you're going for a 10 minutes walk or you did 10 Jumping Jacks in your room, after the fatigue aspect is over, you're gonna feel more calm. Focus on the calm, make use of it.

Focusing on your physical wellbeing, is definitely gonna make your mental being well. Because, we all know that getting rid of stressful, negative thoughts isn't easy. We can say "don't think that. You're amazing. You'll do it" but to a person used to thinking negatively, any kind of positive words would sound like lies. So if we can't directly say good things to ourselves, we'll hack the system and then try again. And focusing on your physical wellbeing is the hack.

In short: exercise. go for a walk. drink a lot of water. perhaps making a routine might help. or atleast make a routine for your exercise or walks. sleep. take rest.

I hope this helps. Sometimes this advice seems counterproductive, but it's actually more helpful in such situations. Because our body and mind's already working itself up, we need to bring it to a state of rest. If we can't calm the mind, we'll start by calming the body.

A few other things you can try is Study with Me video on youtube or study discord channels where people come together to study. You can try going out to a cafe to study, if that's your thing. Change your environment, change the pattern of studying, try something new that you can try in a short time.

You'll do it, alright? Focus on the doing, focus on the action. Give all your focus on the action and not the result. Perhaps that might help you get rid of some of the worry.

Good luck ✨

-Tanishka.

(thank you so much for liking my blog ❤️)

[nyacoart]

Out of the main Isekai Quartet protagonists (Tanya, Ainz, Kazuma), which of them would you most want to see summoned to the re zero world in Subaru's place? And regarding the one you'd least wanna see, how would their journey go?

Disclaimer alert: I KNOW I WROTE IQ FIC BUT I DID NOT WATCH MAJORITY OF THE TITLES IM SORRY

As someone who barely watched all of the above series, I think Tanya is probably the most interesting to see while Kazuma is the least I'd wanna see.

Starting from Kazuma, he is pretty much just WN Subaru lmao. Being a scummy pervert, he is unlikely to gain respect from Rem and Ram and would even choose to be freeloader. I doubt he would even choose to become Emilia's knight, since he is only there to live a comfortable life.

If we don't consider Return by Death as a factor, Kazuma is probably going to request for tons of money off Roswaal and just goes off to Kararagi to live a comfortable chill life by making use of his japanese ideas similar to what he did in Konosuba. If he meets Halibel, they are likely going to be really good drinking buddies lmao. But overall, Kazuma is likely to choose to avoid staying in contact with people who are in dangerous situations and even if Emilia is a beautiful girl, he doesn't have any reason to support her. This guy doesn't really fall in love that easily, he might get horny sure, but he would rather ensure his own comfortable life more than trying to support Emilia in the royal election.

But if Return by Death is a factor, Kazuma is likely similar to Subaru but he would probably complain a whole lot about how he is forced to save Emilia camp and maybe a little less likely to really go out his way to save ordinary folks. He would try if he could and with his intelligence, he is likely to be able to come up with better plans than Subaru did in preventing deaths. But it's all up in the air, Kazuma is definitely not that kind that would push himself so far for people, but Roswaal requires him in his plan so Kazuma had no choice but follow the script up to Arc 4. Honestly... He is probably going to whine a lot about how unlucky he is and might even actually take up Echidna's deal but he is also too smart to fall for Echidna's tricks. I'd say, as a huge Subaru simp, he is just a less appealing version of Subaru hahaha.

Ainz? I mean, if some overpowered skeleton guy just ends up in Re:zero, he is probably going to get hunted down by Reinhard immediately. But if he ends up there as a human, he is probably also going to die a lot too and I don't know how he is as a human to comment much about what he would've done. He is a really paranoid guy so he would probably do tons of mental gymnastic to get out of his situation but even then, I am not actually sure he would be like without being Ainz the king of nazarick hah. He is probably going to be very cringe trying to use game skills only to obviously fail.

Tanya though, assuming she gets summoned there as a little girl, is likely going to end up being taken into an orphanage and probably just figure out her way around there. Depending on how Rezero orphanage works, she would probably study her way up and might even consider supporting a camp in the royal election. She is prob the type to support Crusch or Priscilla... Maybe Anastasia a close third... But this is just my own assumption (I really don't know Tanya enough to say much LMAO, wiki said she is Libertarian but guess who lives under a rock when it comes to politics...)

I feel like if Priscilla had met her, she would deem her interesting enough to keep around. But Tanya might attempt to manipulate Priscilla and Priscilla would just force her into submission and remind her who is the person in power. Tanya will play as a fool for some time and try to act innocent but over time I do think Tanya will find it frustrating being stuck under Priscilla's control but eventually sees how effective Priscilla's methods are and would consider supporting Priscilla. Well, again, I didn't watch nor read Tanya to really know much about what Tanya would choose. But I feel like out of every rezero character, Priscilla can totally fix Tanya amirite (delusional blind yapping)

Next on: Purple are you trying to isekai quartet exposed me how bad I actually know about the IQ titles, im deadass running off IQ and VERY MINOR season 1 knowledge of each series LMAAAOOO. Honestly a crazy miracle how long I lasted just like this.

[teachmenari]

11 Teach me! - flower language

Tighnari x GN reader

▪︎WARNING(S): mentions of child abuse and bad parents▪︎

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3 pics - 901 words - 3 pics

___

"So… Are you going to tell me where you're taking me?" You ask, eyes scanning the unfamiliar scenery in front of you. Tighnari chuckles.

"What, so close to the surprise? No, that'd be a waste. You'll see once we get there."

You fake-scoff, not mad at all. "I just hope you're gonna murder me somewhere pretty."

"Oh yeah," he says. "So pretty. Lots of flowers." He turns to you for a second. "It's to die for."

You both burst out laughing.

________

A few minutes before you reach the location, Tighnari asks you to keep your eyes closed. You assume it's because there's signs on the side of the road or something, and you oblige.

Once you arrive and find a spot in the parking lot, Tighnari gets out first and opens your door. "Here you go, y/n. Worth the wait?"

You finally open your eyes - and your mouth falls open. You're left speechless.

He wasn't lying when he said there'd be lots of flowers.

Fields of tulips surround you, bright colors all neatly arranged in rows. White, red, pink, orange… The sunlight makes them pop out even more. It kinda reminds you of the first time you saw Tighnari's eyes.

It's so beautiful.

"So, this is the place," he finally says, breaking the silence. "I've known there was a tulip farm near us for a little while and I wanted to go, but I never had the opportunity. Then, you passed your test, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and take you here to celebrate."

"Wh- Wait, is that your favor? Me accompanying you here?" You ask, stunned.

He laughs nervously. "It's cheaper if you bring someone," he explains.

"Oh! Smart move." You smile, and you can see his shoulders relax a bit.

The thought of how cute he looks when embarrassed quickly flashes in your mind, but you ignore it.

"Anyways," he says, handing you a basket he was hiding behind his back. "Shall we?"

_______

You admire the freshly picked red tulip in your hand, dewdrops still littering the petals, its sweet smell surrounding you.

You place it gently in your basket alongside the other flowers you previously picked. You decide to pause to take a picture, and you jump when Tighnari taps your shoulder from behind.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you," he says, and you can tell he's trying his best not to laugh. You groan and a snicker escapes him. "Did you find any color you like?"

You nod and show him your loot. His eyes shine at the sight.

"These are all very good quality, y/n! You have a knack for choosing them." He then rummages through his own basket and hand you two tulips, one pink and one orange. "And I got these ones for you."

You take them, a bit surprised at the gift. In exchange, you hand him the red one you just picked. "Then, this one is yours."

He takes it and pauses for a few seconds before adding it to his bouquet. He mumbles a thank you and you almost miss the very light pink on his cheeks.

Tighnari then clears his throat. "Uhm, actually… I had a question."

"Hmm? Shoot."

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but… why did you pick a major with so much math and science, when you seem to hate it?"

It's your turn to pause. You let out a heavy sigh.

"I… I'm not on good terms with my parents. They're very strict and even toxic at times. They've put a lot of pressure on me all my life, isolated me from my friends, treated me like trash when I dared have my own opinion, and, uhm… one day, I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to get away."

Tighnari places a warm hand on your shoulder for comfort. You smile weakly and continues.

"The Akademiya was the furthest away I could realistically apply, and I was so desperate to leave that I picked the first thing available. I got in, and as long as I don't cause trouble, then… they're paying for my studies."

Your voice breaks a bit.

"If I fail this year, I'll have to go back."

A heavy silence falls on the both of you. You don't want to look at him and see pity - like every time you tell your story - but when you do look up, Tighnari's expression is nothing but concern and care. He sighs as well.

"My parents adopted my little sister when I was six, and she was two. Then, when they discovered her eleazar was too much to deal with, they abandoned us with my grandmother. I was ten."

You gasp softly.

"She also didn't like us much. I was too rowdy as a child, and she didn't really want to care for a sick toddler."

He looks away, to the distance. A couple with a child laugh in the middle of the field.

"I was basically Collei's parent, on top of school. I legally became her guardian at eighteen. Rukkha discovered that one day and helped me care for her. She was the first actual mother figure in my life."

He looks at you, and your eyes meet.

"You're not alone," he whispers.

A strange feeling squeezes your heart and you nod.

The silence that settles is comfortable, this time.

___

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Teach me!

masterlist - prev - next

tag list: @rollingslumber @whycantscarabereal @aixaingela @toasterinabathtub @hydration-is-for-weenies @crueldinasty @ohmyfinggod @thfloating @swivy123 @loverhole @mikctp @missnella-nova @xiaomainlmao @iamlowkeycrying @lazy-sanns @vanitasbrainrot @hichi842 @shibarinu0000 @faela404 @sakkuur @lovesickfoolpia @spinninginthevoid @itsyourgirlria @chalksdreams @atlaincorrect @duckyyyx

▪︎Synopsis ➤ You’ve been attending the Akademiya for some time now, but for some reason this year is harder than the others. You’re failing almost everything regarding math and science. Your biology teacher, Ms. Rukkhadevata, offers the help of Tighnari, her TA... Let’s just hope he’s nice.

a/n: finally, we're getting a little bit of plot in- hehe :) I hope you guys like it! also those of you who know flower language, notice the colors of the tulips exchange ;) y/n doesn't know it but nari does

[tennybird]

I have opinions about TotK. This is your spoiler warning if you haven't played/finished it yet. Also all of this is, once again, just my opinion on it and not a decisive fact! I will probably misremember things!

Anyway.

Okay so basically as someone who got it on release and beat it within a week, I'm a little underwhelmed by the game now that I'm looking back over half a year later.

It's not a terrible game! I'll say that first and foremost. But after waiting so long for it, and trying so hard to not hype myself up for it (failing horribly at that), it feels just a bit... same-y. The story is nice, and it's different. The boss fights and abilities you gain during your travels are nice. Everything else, though...

I like the map having stayed similar, with enough changes that I have to relearn some areas. The Depths are really fucking cool, and figuring out on my own that they're a negative of the overworld was incredible! But the sky islands were a little disappointing, I think. When we were told we'd be in the sky a lot, I thought there'd be more large islands like the tutorial one that you could walk around on. More references to Skyward Sword, too. It feels to me that they put more love into the Depths than the sky, in a way.

I like the main story. Figuring out Zelda was the Light Dragon (but not really believing it until the final Tears), and that she'd essentially spent thousands and thousands of years trapped inside herself, was AWESOME. Every cutscene involving her as the Light Dragon hit me hard, and I felt genuine sorrow everytime I saw her floating around the sky.

...That being said, I DO wish we could have a game where you get to actually travel with her. I WANT her to tell me about the minor lore of the world! I want to know about the various flora and fauna, and I want her to talk about Hyrule's history! Zelda is part of the royal family, and I'd imagine that part of her studies pre-BotW she'd have to learn about the history of her family (especially because of the importance of the Goddess' blood...). With how pre-BotW went between her and her powers, and her and her father, I'd imagine she'd make it a point to learn more about their history that ISN'T just the prophecy.

I, personally, did not like most of the temple boss fights. I can't really explain much of why- except for Queen Gibdo. I HATED Queen Gibdo because of all the smaller Gibdo chasing you, trying to chase down Riju for her power... It was a lot of things stacked on each other, and simply not my thing. Colgera was an absolute favorite however! The boss theme is AWESOME, the mechanics of being in the air and having to watch for projectiles, as well as crashing through the ice sheets to take it down? VERY, VERY FUN. Climbing through the sky just to get to the temple itself was one of my favorite experiences. Going up and up and up, and finally reaching the top where you break out above the storm clouds and see clear skies...

A thing that bothers me about the temples is that the cutscene at the end, where the ancient Sages gifts their powers to the new ones... I feel like they could've spent a little more time making them different, even if that meant more time in development. I would be okay with that! I think games should be in development longer in order to produce a good, finished product! Anyway.

The fight with Ganondorf was fun for me. I get SUPER immersed in it, so it was a fearful moment when I thought I'd beaten him, only to see his health bar fill again... and then go offscreen. And the DEMON DRAGON FIGHT? Holy SHIT.

I just wish there was more... substance to the game, I guess? It feels weird saying that. There are more things to do, but it's missing something I can't name. Something BotW had, but is now gone. I like TotK, like I said. It's clearly had love put into it, and I'm glad the developers spent more time on getting it as close to the perfect image they wanted as they could. Maybe it's just cause I've spent more time with BotW (over 300 hours), but I think I'm a little biased towards it. Maybe I'm just getting older and grumpier about vidya games, too. Who knows!

If you read all this, cool! I will reiterate that this is simply my view on it! If your view is different, good!! I'm happy to know there are people out there who enjoy it more than I did. Or if you hate it more than I do, maybe you have other things you want to point out about it that I missed.

[richea]

A dive into Hearts R's localization

I've talked a lot about Hearts R and the way it rips apart the original story and characters, but I haven't really talked much about its localization, which is truly its own can of worms. While I have stronger feelings about the Japanese version being poorly made in just about every regard than I do about its loc being a bit of a mess, I've gotten a lot more into translation and editing the past few years and I figure it's time to at least write something regarding this.

A lot goes into a localization, and that also means there's a lot more to unpack with Hearts R's loc than just the "Kor" rename and the fact that only a small portion of the dialogue matched up with the voice acting (these being the obvious things anyone can pick up on, even without knowing Japanese).

As a translator who has played through the localization numerous times, while also having gone through the game in Japanese and done a deep study on all the terms and their naming conventions, I want to go over some things, discussing characterization as well as what terms were good and which ones make me scratch my head.

There's a lot I won't discuss here simply due to the scale of the game, so don't expect nitty-gritty analyses and all the various examples of blatant mistranslations to be found in the game or anything. This is just to give an overview of some things I find interesting.

Characterization

Let's start by discussing something that is crucial for characterizing the characters properly: character voice. Each character has their own "language" for how they're written. For instance, in Japanese Shing talks very casually, Kunzite talks very scientifically, Hisui talks like a punk, etc. Essentially the goal is that via reading written dialogue alone, more often than not you should be able to differentiate who is talking without even needing to see their name slapped next to it.

This is something that is not as easy to get across into English, however the skill still exists when localizing dialogue nonetheless. You'll still want to write Shing's dialogue in a laid back manner, and write Kunzite's to be scientific, and make Hisui's very rude.

Overall, I think the loc did a decent job establishing voices. There's definitely some hiccups, but at the end of the day, I'd say the vast majority of the text uses decent character voice for each character. It's far from perfect, but Chalcedony and Kunzite in particular I think were written very well.

However, where I think R fails is that the quips in the game come across very same-y. While the dialogue can be funny, the sass that Shing would say felt very similar to the sass Beryl might say. Beryl's sass is supposed to come more from finding things absurd while Shing's is supposed to be a bit more out of frustration, but the loc didn't differentiate this well. I'm not sure how to better articulate what I mean by this, but trust me that it was a thing.

Also, they would make the characters say quips in dialogue that they weren't really meant to, which sometimes completely changed the feel of a scene. Shing and Hisui got this the worst, and I also think they're the two characters who suffered the most in this loc.

Below I grabbed some examples of character dialogue for each main character so you can see their character voice and what went wrong or what went right. This isn't a full overview of each character but rather just a small selection of lines that stuck with me (Tumblr has an image limit unfortunately, and also there's just a lot of characters I would have to go over).

Shing

Shing definitely suffers from overusing quips when he wouldn't normally, as well as his overall character voice coming off a bit more bratty than he was originally intended to be. I think everyone's aware of "Kor Meteor doesn't try, Kor Meteor DOES," which has... quite a different feel from what gandoko was originally intended to mean (which was just a cute wordplay on saying "let's go all out"). I will admit this is partially due to his rewrites in R in general as this is also an issue with him in Japanese, but the loc did him no favors. That said I don't think all of his dialogue is horrible, as the third image is an example of a line I think they did just fine.

Kohaku

For the most part, I think Kohaku's character voice is fine. She definitely had some weirdness especially early on ("rapscallion" lives in my head rent free), but she definitely eased out and overall I think anyone who plays the loc gets a perfectly fine idea of the character that is Kohaku (at least her R portrayal).

Hisui

Hisui is, erm... well I'll just say the loc team had a lot of fun with him. Maybe too much fun. It feels like only a tiny amount of his lines were intended to be taken seriously, which is really disrespectful to his character when the whole point of his character is that it's hard for him to express himself in words. Why ruin his serious moments by throwing in random goofy quips and making him come off like a full time jerk? He's definitely not a polite character, but the loc just always tried to make everything that came out of his mouth sound back-handed, even when he was actually trying to be nice.

Another huge issue, which you can see in almost every pic here, is that he would say something from the Japanese (fine) and then the loc would add in another sentence below it that is completely original to the loc and also contributes nothing other than to make Hisui sound like a jerk. For instance in the first line, in Japanese he's (seriously and concernedly) saying "Innes is calling for us? Is she hurt and can't move?" so I'm not sure why they felt the need to make it Extra and Funny. There's an infinite amount of examples of this with his dialogue and every time it truly does paint him to be a much more meanspirited character than he really is.

They did some alright things with his character voice (see the last cap, which is fine), but overall, if you see Hisui say something unhinged and incredibly rude and out of pocket, it's probably the loc and not actually what he said.

Beryl

Beryl on the other hand is a character who DOES say sassy things a lot, so I think the overall writing for the loc played into her personality a lot better than it did with the above characters. It's all written very extra and over the top, which is exactly how Beryl needs to be written. I think my only gripe with her writing is that they did make her flub up words more than she originally did (especially simple ones...), but other than that I don't have a lot to complain about here.

Innes

Innes is mostly a "no notes to be had, for the most part fine" character as far as her loc portrayal goes. I will say in Japanese she called the party "kids" a lot and the loc changed it to "mules" which, at least to me, gives off a slightly different nuance, but it does fit her character so I may just be nitpicking.

Kunzite

Kunzite's character voice is very hard to mess up... so much so in fact that I think the loc actually did him justice (you can only hope they didn't mistranslate anything with all that kanji though).

Chalcedony

Like Kunzite, I find myself surprisingly content with how Chalcedony's dialogue was written. They got across his pretentiousness and formality just right with not a ton of hiccups.

Galando

Galando completely falls in the "can never be taken seriously ever" category, except unlike Hisui I think this actually benefits his character. In Japanese, his dialogue and frankly personality are really unremarkable, but in the loc he says a lot of incredibly bizarre and goofy phrases. The loc team had a lot of fun with making him sound ridiculous and it did him a lot of favors when his overall implementation in this story was an absolute trainwreck.

Richea

Richea's dialogue can be a bit hit or miss. Sometimes it's too stiffly worded, sometimes it's too casual. Overall I think her voice is fine though and it never really did her character too many disfavors.

Terms

For this section, here's a very useful reference which writes out most terms in the game, comparing the Japanese names (romanized very straightforwardly) to the loc. I will be using my own romanizations for terms below.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room: Kor. Why did they change his name? It's actually quite simple: Shing is based on kanji. It means 心具 (shingu; heart-tool). Yamamoto stated that among the characters in the game, he's the only one who's not supposed to have a mineral reference in his name. To get around this, they did Kor, which is based on cor which is the Latin word for heart.

I suppose in a vacuum, I get what they were going for. However, the decision fails to make sense for two very simple reasons: recognizability, and the fact that they left the names Hisui and Kohaku in which literally were translated into English in Graces' loc. It comes across as very ironic to me that they were so held up by Shing's name being Japanese wordplay, to the point of changing it entirely, yet ignoring the two party members with Japanese names. Why only Shing? Nobody would know (even Japanese players) that Shing was supposed to be wordplay on anything had Yamamoto not discussed it in an old blog post. Yet they left in the names Hisui and Kohaku, which are very obviously Japanese, and no English player would know what they're supposed to mean, or if they were even mineral references! Maybe their intent was that they're from Norqueen, and Kohaku has cherry blossom aesthetics to her, but this also doesn't make any sense when nobody else from Norqueen had a Japanese name. It's only them.

This isn't me advocating for them doing Jadeite and Amber from Graces' loc (as I think that was a similarly bizarre situation), but if you're going to change Shing, you could at least be consistent and commit to the idea of making everything Easily Understood References, instead of just changing one name to something completely unrecognizable (and frankly a bit dumb sounding) and not the ones that probably warrant it more.

Shing isn't the only character they did this with. For instance, the members of Chen's Corporation weren't intended to have mineral names. Their names are references to marine life in various languages. Chen's last name is Corallo, which is Italian for coral. Sango means coral in Japanese. Ecaille means scale/shell in French (with her real name being Mica, which is actually a mineral and the loc did keep). In the localization, they were translated to... Ultra Marine, Aqua Marine, and Coral respectively. While I don't think Chen and Sango's name changes were horrible, I still think they could have just kept them as is with no issue at all. "Coral" just feels disrespectful though. Why would you name her what Chen and Sango's names were SUPPOSED to be? Her real last name was changed too, from Zimmer to Zinnwald, which is really just pointless more than anything.

A lot of what the loc did can kind of just be boiled down to pointless. Here's some other pointless name changes for NPCs:

Isaac->Azide (is this even a mineral term?)

Pearl->Perl (?????????????? this one I genuinely don't get because pearl WAS a mineral to start)

Dona, Zektz->Kardia, Sydan (both were mineral names changed to heart terms to match with Shing, but really this is a pointless change. Iola's name wasn't turned to Japanese to match Kohaku and Hisui? Make it consistent if you're going to do these things?)

Sinhala->Benston (sinhalite is a mineral. I don't even know anymore)

Spin, Nel->Ward, Hope (spinel is a mineral...)

This isn't even all of them, but these are the most egregious. For a game really insistent on making everything a specific reference, it's almost hilarious how much the localization made things inconsistent with its own decisions, and how it broke things that would have worked perfectly fine had they just translated it literally. No Tales game has changed so many names arbitrarily and made them so unrecognizable with name alone if you compare to the Japanese names.

It's unfortunately not just the character names, as the location names suffered a bit from this too.

While character names are (mostly) based on minerals, the locations were based on fairy tale references. Most location names in Japanese were portmanteau of terms, whether it be author names, location names from fairy tales, titles, you name it. You can read all about this here, and these observations were made by Japanese fans as well. This stuff is about as common knowledge as the Shing naming convention among Hearts communities, so I would be willing to bet the localizers knew about it too.

Anyway, some of the loc ones I think were fine. For instance, a number of those terms just come across as awkward in English (such as シーブル, which I don't really have huge issues with them just going for Seaville). Yuraio needed to be changed anyway, as it's Japanese worldplay (though I can think of many better alternatives than just "Lion Park" if they wanted to keep the fairy tale reference).

However, I do take issue with some that completely change the reading for the name. "Dronning" and "Norqueen" (however you choose to romanize it) sound nothing alike. "Wonderidell" is a fairly straightforward romanization, and "Cind'rella" makes very little sense when in Japanese, Cinderella was the name reference for the Winged Whale ("Cendrillon" in Japanese, "Mysticete" in the loc). I also think Celland and Quartzia were absolutely fine and conveyed their meaning perfectly fine to English speakers, while I will admit it took me a while to figure out that Organica and Minera were supposed to be based on the words organic and mineral.

As for regular terminology, I don't have a ton of nitpicks. My biggest is that I don't really like the term "Spiria Nexus" as a translation for Spirmaze. The game already uses "Spiria Core" (for Spirune), and the words nexus and core are... very similar in meaning! I would probably opt for something like Spiria Labyrinth (and honestly, Spiria Maze works fine as is). Spirune is a bit of a hard one, because in the context of the story, it refers to both the whole and broken pieces of it, so I feel like they could have opted for "Spiria Shard/Fragment" for the broken pieces and "Spiria Core" and "Spiria Shard/Fragment" could have worked hand in hand. This might just be me nitpicking though.

For positives, I really like the terms "calcification," "Will Artes" and "synthetic Spiria". I'm also surprised "despir" (bungle of katakana) stayed intact given every other naming convention they went for (furuere got changed to Will Wisps, when the terms are similar in structure).

Artes

Artes are infamously something Tales is very inconsistent about, and how did Hearts R's loc fair?

To start, each character has their own "theme" to their artes. Shing's are light based and reference astronomy terms, Kohaku's are fire and cherry blossom based, Hisui's are all bird terms, Beryl's are artist babble, Innes' are French marine terminology, Kunzite's are dark based and a bit grim, Chalcedony's are aerial/holy based, and Galando's are... well all over the place. Shing, Kohaku, Kunzite, Chalcedony and Galando are all based on typical artes (and if not, their naming conventions, or are typical artes just a little to the left), while Hisui, Beryl and Innes have entirely unique kits.

Shing: My only complaint is the loc overused the word "meteoric," sadly including Crazy Comet (which I really wish they had left as is, since it's so iconic). So many celestial terms exist!

Kohaku: I just think Scarlet Halo is a bit messy, since it was already localized as Crimson Disc in Graces. Did they forget Graces loc ever happened?

Hisui: It's actually hilarious how bad his got mangled when his are some of the most straightforwardly translated artes in Tales. All of his arte names are just "[bird] [thing]" and if you translate them 1:1, you get a perfectly fine Tales arte name with no work needed. Yet somehow, they messed this up? An arte named wild-hawk got translated to Mosquito Hawk. What? Another one is kite-rain, which got translated to Rainbird. scatter-heron is Cuckoo's Egg. god-shot-chicken is Bird of Paradise. His artes are just very bizarre, because some are translated literally, and the other half just have completely random naming conventions. It makes for a really inconsistent kit of artes, not to mention each arte had a very specific bird associated with it, and the loc just mangled this. His artes really make me scratch my head at what they were thinking.

Beryl: Flying Colors (originally Slashing Colors) is the only arte of hers that's even remotely close what the Japanese had. This isn't really a complaint as I think changing the names is fine, more just an observation since the game didn't get dubbed and her arte names are actual spoken words and not strings of kanji.

Innes: The loc took hers which were two word structured and made them grammatically correct French. Don't really have any other notes here.

Kunzite: His artes are the most consistent to its own conventions, though I would probably change some to more clearly reference what the arte takes inspiration from.

Chalcedony and Galando I don't have any commentary on other than what I said for Kunzite. They're fine.

Closing thoughts

There's of course a lot I didn't cover in this post. For instance, I feel like skits were overall translated better than the story was, and there's a lot of nitty gritty things like titles and flavor text that I didn't touch upon. (Here's a very funny example of the loc team not picking up on a fairly obvious Abyss reference. Nobody knew this was supposed to be about Mieu)

But, I would say my main thoughts on the loc are that in some regards it was fine, and in some ways was highly disrespectful.

For the story dialogue, it feels like someone translated it roughly (and I will note that there are some lines that are just blatantly inaccurate to what was said, even removing the editing fluff, so I assume this was a rushed job), and then an editor came in and edited the lines without hearing any of the voice work attached to it. It's very rough around the edges, to say the least. I do think the game would have worked better if it was dubbed (like the script feels like it was intended for), even if the mischaracterization would still sadly persist.

To add a very personal comment here, Hisui is my favorite Tales character and it hurts that the only way the English fandom has to experience him is at the hands of his incredibly disrespectful localization writing. While I think his dialogue in it can be funny at times, it's not the kind of writing I want to see in very serious scenes. It's not good when a character can never be taken seriously, when that's not at all how they are intended to be viewed.

I will also add, as someone who plays games in Japanese and is heavily involved in fan translation, whenever I play Hearts R's localization, I just translate the dialogue in my head as I listen to the acting, then I read the translation on my screen and kind of laugh at how far it is from how I would have translated it. Not only is it a disservice to English speaking fans, but it is hilariously obvious to anyone who knows both languages how inaccurate it is, which is not how a localization is supposed to read.

(As a final disclaimer, the rants in this post are only intended to discuss Hearts R's localization. I support the localization practice in general, but I am allowed to nitpick when one was so obviously rushed out the door with poor communication. Please read this article to understand the ways in which I approached writing this post. I do not support the witchhunt on localizations that fandom is so currently obsessed with. All of my speaking points have come from someone who has studied Tales localization practices as well as Hearts specifically in depth, and who has aimed for putting out high-quality translation work myself.)