#some interesting behind the scenes snippets of info

[felassan]

post from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf developer Luke B. (Game Systems Director for Dragon Age) on the unofficial BioWare forum, discussing the reasons why in Dragon Age: Inquisition there was no healing mechanic and instead the barrier system was introduced in the gameplay:

"I can't speak to any other games directly but I can give a bit of historic context for DAI. The game was initially a more dungeon/linear delving - see how far you can get - experience and there was no barrier of any kind. As a side note: healing has always been a hot topic in design because as soon as you include it there are many other conceits you now need take into consideration for the gameplay - one of which I will call 'the Anders problem'. Anyway, as DAI got the date moved and shifted more into the pseudo-openworld the concept of attrition (see how far you can get before having to return to camp) became less relevant and we needed to help the Players have more moment-to-moment agency around their survival. Unfortunately for various reasons (one of which is the sad reality of designing a game with a shifting timeline) the healing couldn't be re-added so we ended up with more of a mitigation strategy in the barrier system. It went through a lot of iterations but eventually landed on what it shipped with which I would call... acceptable (but just barely). Now, I will concede that a part of the reason it didn't return after that shift was an aversion to holy trinity gameplay specifically for MP but it wasn't the core reason. As a side story, trying to balance the game (as that was my job on DAI - and yes, it could be much better haha) we had to all but force Players to take barrier. It is intentionally the first skill in the first tree for the Mage and all the autolevel (I also handled that) is designed to get it right away. Feel free to ask other DAI questions, I'm happy to answer about things I was directly involved in 😁. Anything DA:D related you'll have to wait for at least a few months after launch to grill me...though I'm hoping they let me stream at launch as an official thing 🤞." [source]

a user asked about what the hardest class to balance in DA:I was:

"I feel like anyone who was around for the post-launch content will already know the answer to this as it was the bane of my existence when I got put exclusively on MP after launch but the Knight-Enchanter barrier absorbing was a pain. Stuff like that is very challenging to feel good without being broken as they are relative to damage so scaling is fairly open-ended. Too little and the casual players won't get use out of it, too much and the character builders will be wildly OP. We actually had a 'no nerfing' guideline for the SP side so it was a hard battle to fix that silly thing 🙃." [source]

[tadpolesonalgae]

Hello Hellooooo!

This most recent chapter of cbmthy is... it's everything to be honest. I got the notification that you posted while I was at work (you're forever catching me while im doin things), and I hid for a lil bit to read.

I love the little snippets of reader's interests that we see while Az is still carrying her through the sky. Especially because it makes me pretty excited to see their trek through autumn and summer as their relationship develops. I can easily imagine reader wandering away from Az's side and having him find her hunching over a lizard somewhere. Then she info dumps on him the second she realizes he's behind her because she's just SO fascinated and can't help the word vomit.

"His hide pattern is super unique, his dorsal stripe is broken up in ways that aren't natural to their species- my books mentioned occasional genetic mutations but nothing like THIS" and then a tasteful amount of 🤨😐😑 from Az

I loved watching their trek through the coastal town as well, the descriptions of everything really just plopped us right into the thick of it. I loved the colorful houses but I'm hesitant to believe Malachite's place would be particularly colorful 🤭 I wish we could've been in Az's head just to see what he thought about reader butting heads with Malachite.

I imagine it would be along the lines of 🤨😬🥴😅

Bas- oh my darling Bas.

I can't say im surprised, there had been too many mentions of him specifically being far from reader that I had a feeling SOMETHING was up with him going to winter. Can't say I expected him dead before ever getting there though, I thought maybe reader just wouldn't be able to track him down or that he'd change his mind about forgiving her because it hurt too much. This is better though.

I loved the way you wrote Azriel calming down reader too. It's such a small display of care from him in the way that he calms her that means so so much in as a turning point for their relationship. He doesn't turn her down which sparks relief in her, then uses that relief as a stepping stone to get her to calm down enough to sleep. Poor girls been through so much that I don't think much else would have been able to work to be honest, (if you DID have to change his approach, what would it look like?).

Reader holds a special place in my heart, sick human girl turned fae who can't quite outrun her mortality like her sisters did. Having Azriel's emotionally constipated ass as a love interest is the cherry on top.

chefs kiss, can't wait for whatever you write next :3

-🤠

'This most recent chapter of cbmthy is... it's everything to be honest. I got the notification that you posted while I was at work (you're forever catching me while im doin things), and I hid for a lil bit to read.'

RAHHHH I LOVE YOU <3

And I'm sorry - I think ch. 24 went up between 23:00 - 00:00 for me so I'm guessing we're in different time zones unless you work a night shift

You Hid! Cowboy anon <3 🙄 (Thank you, I'm incredibly flattered)

'I love the little snippets of reader's interests that we see while Az is still carrying her through the sky. Especially because it makes me pretty excited to see their trek through autumn and summer as their relationship develops.'

Thank you! I'm torn between excitement for what the scene will ultimately look like but so stressed over actually having to write it :')

I'm so so happy you liked those stretching paragraphs from reader's pov, though!! I think generally speaking I tend to be more comfortable writing interactions of some kind, so getting to write such a long section where reader is just thinking her thoughts and observing the things she likes (that one part about Azriel) was both refreshing and kind of me testing the waters and seeing if I liked what the end result looked like?

But yes, I'm so excited to write their trek through Summer!!! All the heat and the smells and the bugs and the colours and the food and the clothing!!!! So excited!!!

'I can easily imagine reader wandering away from Az's side and having him find her hunching over a lizard somewhere.'

omg stop peering into my brain!!

'Then she info dumps on him the second she realizes he's behind her because she's just SO fascinated and can't help the word vomit.'

Az standing there a little stiffly because he's never heard her speak so much so quickly <3

'"His hide pattern is super unique, his dorsal stripe is broken up in ways that aren't natural to their species- my books mentioned occasional genetic mutations but nothing like THIS" and then a tasteful amount of 🤨😐😑 from Az'

Haha I actually love the idea of contrasting their views and the way they observe things? I'll probably stress about it for a while but since Azriel is a spy I think it would be kind of cool to just see the rainforest in each of their perspectives and seeing what comes out?

'I loved watching their trek through the coastal town as well, the descriptions of everything really just plopped us right into the thick of it.'

Thank you thank you thank you!!! I really like the descriptive sections in ch. 24 but they also took so much time to write! With dialogue I kind of get a sense of where I'm trying to go with it, but with description it's kind of for the sake of establishing a firm context so there isn't really a direction to take it in? Unless there actually is and I just haven't had enough practice to know what works best for me

'I loved the colorful houses but I'm hesitant to believe Malachite's place would be particularly colorful 🤭"

Haha, yeah, I think his would probably have been a little more like that one that was more like a hut and had nets draped down the walls to look more weathered! Then again, he does kind of make his living out of fashion, if you think about it a lot and really twist his occupation. Maybe he enjoys a splash of colour here and there and actually has some pastel pillows up in his own quarters!

'I wish we could've been in Az's head just to see what he thought about reader butting heads with Malachite. I imagine it would be along the lines of 🤨😬🥴😅'

I kind of wanted to have it turn out that way, so Az would see more of her bickering, but I really like the sections where she's only a little vicious to Mal behind Azriel's back. It just made me laugh a little, like Az was the only adult in the room and the other two knew they could only argue when he wasn't really paying that much attention because otherwise he'd just shut it down with work-talk

'Bas- oh my darling Bas. I can't say im surprised, there had been too many mentions of him specifically being far from reader that I had a feeling SOMETHING was up with him going to winter. Can't say I expected him dead before ever getting there though, I thought maybe reader just wouldn't be able to track him down or that he'd change his mind about forgiving her because it hurt too much. This is better though.'

I have to say I am GLAD you didn't see it coming! I was stressing a little over the market scene where she was thinking of him because I kept worrying that if I made her worry too much it might sound too obviously like foreshadowing? I suppose a little bit of 'huh, this character is being mentioned a suspicious amount of times' is good to get the suspicion arising though :)

'I loved the way you wrote Azriel calming down reader too. It's such a small display of care from him in the way that he calms her that means so so much in as a turning point for their relationship. He doesn't turn her down which sparks relief in her, then uses that relief as a stepping stone to get her to calm down enough to sleep.'

I'm sending you so many affectionate hugs and kisses through the screen rn <3

Again, like with practically every other scene in that chapter, it was stressful to write in a way because I wanted him to comfort her (because I don't think I would be able to redeem him if he just left her to cry on her own) but I still wanted him to feel kind of walled off? Showing an amount of care and attentiveness, but not so much that it would feel weird or out of character for how he's been acting so far in the series?

It was also very soothing though? Personally I find the idea of listening to someone else's heartbeat incredibly intimate, and the idea of falling asleep to the rhythm of someone's heart? Reader needed a little break from misery and it felt like an appropriate amount of comfort. Like Azriel doesn't have to deal with any internal conflict about being emotionally vulnerable with someone through speaking and I feel doing things for someone feels more in line with who he is? And reader gets the physical comfort of feeling him holding her together, which means a lot to her but relatively little to him? But Az does it anyway because he knows it will mean a lot to her?

idk you just got me to ramble there :')

'(if you DID have to change his approach, what would it look like?).'

Whoooo you had me thinking about this for a while but I'm sticking to him being a do-er so I think if I had to think up a different approach for him to take, it would be similar to what he did that one other time? I think he would soothe reader into completing a task for him - like counting backwards from 100, or giving her something to temporarily focus on - and having his shadows watch her while he goes out to find hot meals and something to drink.

I think eating a midnight meal together on the sofa, with reader slumped over while she eats and Azriel keeping a little closer to her side than usual? Just sharing time together and again, with him finding something for her to focus on while calming down.

WHY DID YOU ASK THOUGH

'Reader holds a special place in my heart, sick human girl turned fae who can't quite outrun her mortality like her sisters did. Having Azriel's emotionally constipated ass as a love interest is the cherry on top.'

You're so sweet, thank you <3 <3 <3

Reader's just a girl who wants mutual and devoted affection, and Azriel's just a guy who rejects the concept of emotional intimacy all together (But secretly craves it anyway)

'chefs kiss, can't wait for whatever you write next :3'

Thank you so much!! I loved getting to chatter with you here <3

I'm hoping to get some more of part 25 written tomorrow and roughly map out where the chapter is going to go so fingers crossed! <3

[chiscribbs]

Hey guys, some quick notes:

The plot is on pause today, since I need to focus on completing my submissions for the main bracket (and maybe take the opportunity to answer some asks that have been piling up). Any on-going interactions will be saved in drafts and responded to tomorrow or a little later.

In the meantime, since the next round of polls is just around the corner - allow me to provide some incentive to vote my kiddos through!

For each round that Grown Apart AU wins, I'll post some special behind-the-scenes content! Including (but not limited to):

Main character profiles

An ACT I relationship chart

Never-before-seen character designs

Inside info about Big Mama's Assistant

One of the completed ACT I story beats

Childhood snippets

GA SHELLDON's concept art

If any of these sound like things you'd be interested in seeing, then please consider casting your vote for Grown Apart in the @tmntaucompetition!!!

Thanks and happy voting! ❤

[mrs-gauche]

Hello~ o/

Only one more week until DA4's release, to me it still feels unreal! 🤯 But we're almost there ✨️

Since we talked about it before, I hope you don't mind me asking: Do you happen to have any new insights regarding the German voicecast? I still couldn't find any news on it and can't help but be a bit worried now 😥

I think I tried everything in my possibilities to find a snippet through Google but who knows...

Hii! OHH you and me both, my friend! 😭❤️ I've been looking at forums and even websites of different German recording studios since like June and there seems to be absolutely no info on neither the German or the French voice cast, just nothing at all. :( But we know that there definitely IS one, because it says so on the Steam page. 😅 I wonder if marketing just doesn't bother because they think no one cares, but I've actually seen quite a few people now asking about it on their official accounts? I've even heard of people sending e-mails to EA Germany and threads on their forums asking about the VAs, but no response so far. :/

It's really a bummer because thinking back, I remember there was so much stuff shown in the lead up to Inquisition, they even showed some behind the scenes stuff at the studio in Berlin and videos of the different VAs and remember these cool contests where fans got a chance to voice NPCs in the game, even in Germany? Like, comparing the marketing of DAI to Veilguard's is really.. interesting, but then again, that was ten years ago.

DAI was localized by GlobaLoc and I think there's a good chance they're doing Veilguard too, they've done a ton of EA games and also Anthem (btw, I just looked it up, and it seems like Anthem also only had a single German trailer? 🤔), which would make it more likely for DAI's VAs to return? And now that the launch trailer is out (I haven't seen it because spoilers, but apparently it has new voice lines), I wonder if we'll get a little ad for German media or even TV or something and maybe that's when we'll get to hear them finally? 🥲 Aside from old VAs returning, I am dying to know who voices Rook and the companions of course. 😭

As a side note, I recently looked up the website of Solas' VA with a list of all his work, which he seems to update quite frequently and while it doesn't list Veilguard (yet?), I've noticed that he hasn't had as many projects this year as in any other. Localization is usually one of the last things being done in development, it took them about a year to localize DAI and I even remember how he made a post back then talking about how huge of a project it was, so I really hope he returns for Veilguard and maybe he was busy doing voice work for it this past year. 😁

But, you know, even if we don't get any info until release, the good thing is we only have to wait one more week to find out. :D Like, we'll just start playing and it'll be a great surprise.... *nervous laughter*

And as soon as we get to hear those voices, I recommend checking out this forum, where voice obsessed nerds like me will channel their inner detective and figure these VAs out before the credits roll. lol

[manonamora-if-reviews]

All or Nothing (1973) by Autumn Chen

============= Links

Play the game See other reviews of the game See other games by Autumn or follow @cyberpunklesbian

============= Synopsis

A collection of anecdotes about a troubled Kickstarter production

============= Other Info

All or Nothing (1973) is a Dendry* short game, submitted to the Goncharov Game Jam**. * **Autumn was also the organiser of this jam.

Status: Completed Genre: Unreality, Goncharov, Slice-of-Life, Meta

CW: / Note: cheating, mention of violence/death

============= Playthrough

First Played: December 2022 Last Played: 3-Jun-2023 Playtime: around 20mins Rating: 4 /5 Thoughts: Give your All and get Nothing...

============= Review

Adding to the Goncharov craze of November 2022, All or Nothing (1973) takes on a meta commentary approach on internet trends, the cashing out on said trends*, and artistic creation. Set during an undefined present, we discover through snippets a group of four adults are putting together a trailer for a Kickstarter project to create a Goncharov movie, competing with other crowd-sourced project on the same idea. *which, lol, considering the jam

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

The game starts as a rendition of a scene for a Goncharov movie*, being shot, formatted like a script and with a dark edited picture. You get to choose some options about where the scene goes until one of the characters yells CUT, following one of the actors fumbling his lines. The scene moves to real life (change in background and font), as the crew bickers about the production. The game will continue flipping between the dark setting while the scenes are shot and the brighter background of real life, announcing the transitions**. *which is not a real thing, just to be clear... **until... movie and reality are but one.

We are introduced to a four-member crew shooting materials for a Kickstarter campaign: Arash - playing Goncharov - the director of this whole enterprise and maybe a bit too obsessed with the project, Vivian - playing Katya - the scriptwriter who is disillusioned with making it in the industry, Tony - playing Andrey - looking for a paycheck, and Sofia - playing Sofia* - also here mainly for a paycheck**.*This made me laugh so hard. **I think? It's not as explicit as Tony. Maybe some connection or support?

Like most of Autumn's games, All or Nothing (1973) takes a storylet approach to the storytelling of the downtime of the crew (about 2-3 scenes). You can follow two groups: Arash/Goncharov and Tody/Andrey, or Vivian/Katya and Sofia/Sofia. Each will discuss their view on the production, their worries and dreams, and what is happening in their lives.

Arash's method acting is worrying some of them or getting on their nerves, but he only cares about making art and be remembered* *this is an interesting conversation between Tony and Arash on the subject, where fame doesn't seem to interest Arash if behind it there is no creative output to show for...

Vivian is starting to resent telling Arash (her boyfriend) about the meme and letting him string her along the production, while she questions whether she still want to even pursue this.

Sofia lives in a shitty studio with a baby, Tony looks to get paid* (and maybe more?). *Unlike the other three characters, it didn't feel like there was much to Tony. Maybe being paired with Arash made him more of a background character...

By the second storylet, lines between the characters in the real world and in scenes start to blur. Vivian and Sofia comment on events being similar to struggles the Goncharov characters suffer through, while Arash and Tony lean more and more into the method acting (with Arash being much more into it). Like their movie counterpart (according to lore), both couple have the option of potentially leaning into the sexual tension in the air (with Vivian/Arash cheating on the other*). *Funny thing, in the lore it is unclear whether either party knows about the cheating, condones it, or resents the other for it. Still they don't see each other separating because of it.

The line fully disappears when the real world characters embodies their scene counterparts so much during the height of filming, that neither Arash, Vivian, nor Tony realise Sofia's cries to stop the scene (even her holding her child do not phase them). At this point, the background does not even return to "real-life" mode. While Tony and Vivian do manage to come back to their senses, Arash still stays in character, ending the game with I am Goncharov...

I really enjoyed figuring out that the characters' lives mirrors the ones they portrayed (though the exact lore is unclear one the specifics), with Vivian and Arash being a couple and playing Katya and Goncharov who are canonically together, Katya's dalliance with Sofia, Goncharov and Andrey contrasting identities (light/dark, naive/serious, free/taken...)... as well as trying to find the Goncharov themes (the clock, the gun, the boat...).

A final note: the game references two works: All or Nothing (which is incidentally the name of the game, paired with the fictional release year of Goncharov) and Miss Officer and Mr Truffles, two crowdfunding campaigns which started from a meme post on Tumblr making the rounds on the website. Neither managed to deliver an end product (the second never reached its goal). A bit of a wink to A Paradox between worlds there... Is it also foreshadowing the future of this project?

[littlemonstert-blog]

The long debate

Tired of the Bullshit ( Rant)

Masashi Kishimoto "Sexists, misogynist and sucks at writing women"

I'll make this very clear, Kishimoto is also NOT obligated to put a lot of effort on any character he doesn't want to. He didn't write female characters "bad" than most other Mangas I've have read before, he gets called sexist because of the fandom's treatment of the female cast. ( Yes by all genders )

( A shouen is mostly for the teenage boy demograhic, we all can google the definition up....but I don't say people even try.)

Contray to belief, the mangaka do listen to fans whether mail or twitter. Hell, gotten so bad for Kubo (Bleach) that fans were harrassing him he deleted his account.

Kishimoto always focused on building up Naruto & Sasuke, leaving his side cast behind.

If Naruto gets a power up, then Sasuke gets a power up

If Sasuke loses a loved one (Itachi), then Naruto loses a loved one (Jirarya)

People need to realize it was Naruto & Sasuke story

(As much as I wish he but more time in the side cast/clans Uzumaki, Senju & Hyuga instead of focusing on the Uchiha clan so much you can't force him to.)

It’s dumb to come to the conclusion that Kishimoto is a perv and misogynist just because he drew some sexy justu and big breasted women like Tsunade, Samui & Hinata.

( Other anime do this but he seems to get more backlash it just the girls the only the said)

or because he joked about Hinata breasts. KANA BOOM/ Kishimoto Interview Snippet

Then you have this: Never heard of suigetsu being sexualized boy just walking around naked. (All the shirtless scenes & panels. but oh no big boobs cleavage has he no shame ( me being sarcastic)

But making a big deal when we see Hinata's chest (Hardly ever & always covered) when only time is when she got stabbed in the chest by Pain & needed to be healed

( Didn't know showing a bit of cleavge get's mf's in a tizy but don't seem to care about a seeing a shirtless or naked boy.... the irony)

Then there's Studio Perriot made so much fanservice of Hinata

which is total bullshit don't know why Hinata is the ONLY one people love to focus on when each woman on the show had fanservice. Honestly did you watch the show fillers or just twitter/ tiktok vids.

"Sexists, misogynist"

yet his staff laugh at the thought of a woman knitting a scarf. Like his wife knitting a scarf for him.

Reading his author notes in the manga: He'd spend over a decade making this story missing out on friends parties, weddings & quality time with his family. I remember his father passed during the middle of war arc. He's was having health problems & still working on the Naruto manga. His relationship with on of his son was so bad his son just reffered to him as "the guy that created Naruto" ouch.

NYCC 2015 Panel 2015

7:14 after the series finishes spends more time with his family & kids

7:33 about his marriage got married during run of naruto & never had a honeymoon

bonus his inspo's from other mangaka some good rec 21:12 slam dunk, 20 century boys, monster, Phoniex

32:03 story about boruto the movie has a bit about Kishimoto & his sons relationship

Jump SQ magazine and recently in the American version of Jump. When reading, please keep in mind it was conducted BEFORE Naruto’s official conclusion on November 10, 2014.

Contray to belfie, they weren't even bad ( only inconsisty in maybe two) if he again gave less focus on the Uchiha clan. We could have more arcs & fights for other characters. Heck, the rumored Part 3 of Naruto could done that. ( He puts all characters info in a databook )

Kishimoto explains how Sakura was created for the sake of a love triangle, he didn't say I created the rival and the love interest, he just said a rival and a love triangle because that’s legit the reason why Sakura was created in the first place.

If you don't beilieve me about the triangle pushing the rivarly let's go back where it started in chapter 3

The female characters didn't get any development or have goals & There not relavent to the plot!

The girls most of them are side characters they do have goals & dreams & get develpoment.

Tsunade: A pessmistic but change wanting to protect the leaf village & naruto's dream to become hokage

Hinata : Overcoming her family's abuse. Changing herself and train to become a better fighter and a more confident person.

Sakura: Wanting to be with Sasuke at first but, later wanting to become stronger in order to fight beside Naruto and Sasuke.

Tenten: Become a strong kunoichi like Tsunade.

Mei: Wants to marry a guy. But truly wants rebuild her village. Formerly know as the "Blood Mist Village."

Konan: achieving world peace and gave her life to give for Naruto because her friend Nagato that beilived in him.

Relevancy

Despite some not getting enough screen time they were pretty relevant to the plot if characters didn't appear then other characters would have died.

Had Tsuande denied to become hokage lots of thing wouldn't have happen if she didn't return to the village. Many people would have died during pain arc/ war arc. Hinata if she hadn't jumped in the Pain fight Naruto would have been captured & died. Hinata also did quite a bit in war arc to. Ino was a big help during the war. Ino helped take down inkaku & ginkaku. Relying messages to the Shinobi World not once but twice. Sakura helped deafeat Sasori and healed many people during war arc. Tenten she did help in rescue arc. War arc destoryed kakazu's mask. If Mei didn't become Mizukage her village would still be known as "blood mist village". Pretty damn helpful in war arc.

Why do people never have the same energy for the male cast character when there about the same as the female cast?

The fanbase can be bias alot for characters.

Let's be honest after Sasuke retrival arc most of these male charaters(From konoha) didn't have much after this just little moments after part 2.

Kiba, Shino, Rock Lee, Choji & yes even Neji because he really didn't do much in Rescue arc. ( I'd say choji & rock lee did a bit more in war arc)

He said Sakura would be a terrible woman if switch to loving someone else... Sexist!

Kishimoto : Quite a long time ago in fact. But i have to admit that there was a time when we did thought about Sakura, you know. But after all this time, she would just change her heart all of sudden to Naruto, this would make her a terrible woman…I think she is wholeheartly about Sasuke.

Why did he say that?

Because she fell for Sasuke in part 1 she even confessed to him and kept rejecting other guys, it became more than just a crush.

Kage Summit Arc:

"The hero who defended our village, right now everyone loves you, i’m simply one of them’’.

Her falling for Naruto out of nowhere because he's a nice guy & the guy you truly love a criminal.

This is what he's talking about the sudden switch up. (this chapter was released around the time or later during this interview)

Even Kakashi says that Sakura is still in love with Sasuke this whole time, he knows his team better than anyone

Kishimoto is a sexist, a guy can get over his crush and girl cannot.

What about Ino? Didnt she have a crush on Sasuke?

Ino got over her's crush ( although she had a crush on both Sai & Sasuke too she does have a type lol) for something better.

There's only female healers in Naruto that so sexistist!

I wonder who the hell said that before we've seen many male healers before its just show that Tsunade, Shizune & Sakura are meant to be top dogs in the field.

Exam: ch 66-88

Tsunade Arc: Yes Orochimaru & Kabuto are "dark" healers ( Mostly Orochimaru, Kabuto sometimes randomly would heal Hinata & Sakura)

Reterival Arc: chapter 235 see both men & women medics

War Arc : ch 536-539

So many more but I digress.

The Plot holes in Naruto

If you read the manga there's not many plot holes in it.

the biggest one is when hashirama died... becasue when did he die in the manga?

War arc was bad, "Neji died by sticks."

Like most of yall wasn't hyping that shit up.

Acting like he didn't get sniped before by Kidomaru with a long ass wodden stick.

"Bad writing it, didn't make sense, It's Hinata's fault neji died. all she cared about was Naruto's big hand."

It's only bad writing when you don't like it huh?

After part 1 Neji is just a side character & was never important untill war arc. He never had a big impact on the plot until war arc.

In the manga they made it very damn clear that the spikes were too fast & the natural reaction was to be a shield.

Let's make this clear NO ONE told Neji to jump in the way!

It's not Hinata fault Neji died, he choose to died to protect his loved ones aka Naruto & Hinata. This circled backed to his character development.

I'm not going over this again there were so many great written answers like this one:

(Most of who say that interview was by someone telling someone or read a summary of it on a damn Naruto wiki page.)

Also another great one on quora Atla Jamir on why Neji shield Hinata.

Kaguya was a terribly written villian

Well, I wouldn't say bad villian. If you watch Boruto they go more in depth with her character & why she even did that in Naruto. But I will say he could have went deeper into her story instead of making mini flashbacks or one panel explantion.

Now that all I got for now I probably will go back & edit later.

[idkwhatimdoingbutslay]

Chapter 12 summary:

They head to Babette’s and find out some info on the new drink

Snippet 🫣⬇️

Rooms are scarcely concealed by curtains, leaving a sliver of space between the wall and the fabric, letting you, urging you , to peer in.

Sly eyes watch Caitlyn as Caitlyn watches them, top halves of faces hidden behind pretty masks.

The images become more and more indecent and less and less innocent the farther you go. Some simply lay in a partner’s lap, some cuddle on plush beds, and others touch each other all over in bubble baths and barely have a piece of cloth covering their private areas.

Caitlyn catches herself lingering, staring at a particularly scantily clad woman, quickly walking away to catch up with Vi.

“So what exactly is the plan here?”

Vi turns her head around, hardly looking at Caitlyn and daring to miss a beat before saying, “Pretend like you work here.”

“Excuse me? I will not .” Caitlyn almost faints at the implication.

“Princess, if you want to get anywhere down here in the Lanes, you’re going to have to be more on the giving end instead of the receiving end. Make them think you have what they want. You’re not used to it, I know.” Vi fully turns around, stepping right into Caitlyn’s space, looking up at her with a playful glint in her eyes. Caitlyn blinks, trying her absolute darndest to not give her fear away.

Vi takes her time to look over Caitlyn, taking in each curve, every flat plane. She sweats under the attention, not prepared for such an intense examination.

“I’m not your biggest fan and even I can admit you’re hot.”

“Now I know for a fact you’re not being serious, Vi,” Caitlyn scoffs, turning away with pursed lips. But now she’s looking at a rather intimate moment being shared between quite a few individuals. She turns to her right instead, catching an even more… interesting and vigorous scene playing out before her.

Late update? Don’t mind if I do 🤩

Story summary 🏃🏾‍♀️:

When a native Piltovan council family member turns 22 they are tasked to join select members of the council for a hunt.

A hunt for Undercity people.

Caitlyn is forced to join in on the disgusting initiation, but attempts to stop it in its tracks.

////////

Vi was able to get back to Powder after the explosion, but the damage was already done.

Things were starting to get better until the Pilties got involved again, swiping them right off their feet and making them part of some hunt.

////////

They’re immediately put up against each other. So drastically different but somehow so similar. They fight, they learn, they grow, but most importantly, they heal.

Chapter summary 🏃🏾‍♀️:

They see each other

[world-of-fire-and-flight]

Love Letters Post-Series Info Dump

A/N: This is an info dump of things that could’ve happened in my most recent Tumblr series, Love Letters, and just a general behind the scenes of my putting this series together by the skin of my teeth week-to-week. With that said, I wouldn’t’ve had it any other way because this become one of my pieces and something I looked forward to writing. Two cut scenes at the end!

Warnings: Series spoilers, there’s cut scenes, random thoughts I had while writing this, and scrapped ideas that didn’t make the final cut 😊

My Masterlist

First and foremost, I think I need to state the obvious: I did not expect to write a nine-part short series with the idea to add on some spin-offs. I can’t thank @selene-stories enough for the prompt that inspired so much and how my brain just ran with it and is still running with it 😅

At one point, I considered if Supervillain was actually Other Supervillain too

Supervillain could’ve been = Supervillain, Other Supervillain, and Politician/Civilian

When I asked myself why, I decided that Supervillain was their main occupation and that the Other Supervillain persona was a smoke screen so people (authorities, press, other villains/adversaries who would want their mantle, etc.) would focus more on them and not Supervillain and whatever their actual goal was if they were all focused on this ruthless/cunning/utterly evil figure

I scrapped this idea for two main reasons: at this point (around part 4ish) I REALLY hated Supervillain and thought they were slimy (it didn’t help that I already had plans for them to betray Hero, so that’s where my hatred came from) and two, I had no idea how to pull this off without confusing myself or readers

I also considered the possibility that Politician was an actual innocent civilian and that Supervillain was just lying the entire time to mess with Hero’s head

There was a while there (probably parts 1 through like 5) where I was still up in the air about who Politician actually was which I think set the reveal up pretty well because I was just as curious about where I was going with all of this as you all probably were🤣

I DIDN’T MEANT TO CORRUPT SUPERHERO

A common trope I’ve noticed in the hero x villain community is the bad mentor/corrupt superhero arc and I just…I love those fics (mainly because it usually comes with a side of caring!villain), but I really wanted a good one this time. Just once.

But then the devil on my shoulder looked at part 4 like “okay but Politician is cute, which means Other Supervillain is cute which means your plot just died, so you need to do something to make this interesting” and that’s when fate threw a corruption arc appreciation post on my dash and I agreed with it

There was, at one point, when I was a couple of snippets ahead. That did not last. I’m a procrastinator by nature so I’m just as surprised as everyone else that I kept this on schedule??

(I was sweating it out on the last one though. Talk about down to the wire lol)

(Pretty sure I didn’t sell my soul to pull this off but we’ll see)

Ships I Initially Wanted:

Hero x Superhero, I also considered Hero x Supervillain after parts 1 & 3 but it never really sat right for me/I didn’t feel a connection to it personally and thought Supervillain x Other Supervillain would’ve been fun too

Part 2 made me contemplate what a Hero x Other Supervillain would be like and, well, we all know where this ended up LOL

I think it’s safe to say Other Supervillain was a little jealous that Hero danced with Supervillain at the gala too…a fact I just realized as I rooted through my docs for the cut scenes I promised at the beginning of this post…

I also considered Superhero x Clerk, and Clerk x Other Supervillain but I never got to really develop Clerk/Other Superhero so…

By Part 4 I’d given up on shipping my own characters and decided to roll with it

From Part 7 (context: Hero’s just woken up and is trying to put the pieces of their kidnapping together/what’s happened to them):

Their mind turned over everything they knew again in the hopes of discovering something new. Supervillain and Superhero were working together. They likely had the Ancient Sword. Superhero was compromised, and most likely for a while now. They were in love, possibly. Hero felt their face pull into a glare. How could Superhero of all people fall in love with someone like Supervillain?

Other Supervillain, sure, but Supervillain?

Heat crept along Hero’s cheeks until their entire face was plagued by embarrassment. They didn’t have time to judge Superhero’s taste in romantic partners. They needed to focus, to free themselves, to warn someone, to survive whatever the two had planned for them and the world at large.

I scrapped this because it seemed redundant and I liked the other bits more

From Part 8 (for context: um...Hero's a still trying to put on a brave and defiant front, though at this point they're pretty injured and blipping in and out of awareness):

Hero had hardly glanced at them, and not just because their eyes were swollen or blurred with tears, but because they didn’t want to. They wouldn’t dignify them with even an acknowledgement. Their former friend and mentor didn’t deserve it. They wondered if the ex-superhero had even looked their way to notice, or if they’d been unable to due to whatever righteousness still hid within their soul.

This was scrapped in the final editing process because after having some trouble with this part, I went back and reread some of the other parts, which led me to rediscover some gems in the notes that helped me fix what didn’t feel right to me in this part. So @selene-stories, thank you thank you thank you for all of your help throughout this series. Your tags were literally my favorite things about posting these and the last two parts probably wouldn’t have been what they became because I was stuck pretty good until I saw your comments again💜

[the-void-writes]

Hi, excuse me, I would also like to request some good angsty Dante food:3

A tiny scene Sunday snippet for Dante and Vani? Of Dante getting sick? Vani sacrificing himself? 😭🥺

(in the scene, can you give a lil more info about Vani and who he is? A vigilante? :3)

I feel like that's a lot to ask already and I'd feel bad sending words with this 🤣❤️

@bloodlessheirbyjacques ❤️✨🔥

@bloodlessheirbyjacques Dude, I almost cried doing this one. Thank you for all the good prompts 💕💕💕

TW for blood, guns, sickness, and death

Of course, it wouldn’t be the fighting that killed Dante. Outrunning the police, providing for the downtrodden people across the country, doing more good than his stepfather ever could in his life, none of that would be the death of him. His headstone, though likely unmarked, would read “Dante Briggs: Picked up pneumonia from the world’s grossest old man.” All he wanted to do was help the poor fellow across the street, the textbook example of good deeds. Perhaps it was his own fault for ignoring how sickly the man appeared, but if this was what he felt like, he shouldn’t have been out in the first place.

It felt like liquid fire, traveling through every vein and organ. Each shift in the bed set his nerves aflame. Even the light of the moon made his sight grow fuzzy. Long ago, his mother would have fussed over him, making soup out of whatever was left in their rotting fridge and begging around town for medicine. But his mother was far behind him now, along with that wretched stepfather. She was content with supporting the fool’s vile plans for their neighborhood, letting adults and kids alike die in the streets for a billionaire’s comfort. Dante could never have lived with that. He knew things could change, if he just had the right tools. Life had been kind enough to give him Vani, the only man stirring up real change in the world. However, it was starting to seem like Vani’s interests were less about change and more about chaos for the hell of it, as was demonstrated when Vani skipped into the hotel room with a bag of stolen goods.

“We hit the jackpot, doll!”

He kicked the door shut, unaware of how Dante flinched at the sound. Vani was gorgeous, sure, but he was not bright. That was Dante’s job, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep it up.

“Vani,” Dante groaned, “those cashiers need money.”

“That kid practically handed everything to me on the way out the door. I think he was a fan, or something. Not to make you jealous, or anything—”

“Vani.”

He tried to blink the tears out of his soft blue eyes. “Goddammit, Danny, what do you want me to do? I can’t take you to a hospital, and I can’t do anything while you’re in this condition.”

“We can do things besides blowing up pools.”

“What, like robbing a bank? Is that what you want now?”

Dante tried to retort, but his words turned to coughs. Vani helped him sit up and gave him the medicine he had taken from the shop. Little specks of blood rested on the sheets, shimmering in the moonlight. Dante’s congested breaths were torturous for Vani to listen to. The one thing he couldn’t get rid of with bombs or guns; the one thing he couldn’t change.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Vani whispered. “I can’t live without you.”

Dante rested his head on his shoulder. “I know… but if I don’t make it—”

“No.” Vani’s voice cracked. “You can’t talk like that.”

“We can’t pretend, Vani.”

“I’ll get you help. Forget the bank, we can get more money from that insurance office downtown. They’re stealing all sorts of crap from their people.”

“Vani—”

“It’ll get us enough money. We’ll pay the doctors to keep quiet and get you better, and then we’ll hit the road again. We’ll find a nice church like you always wanted, and live comfortably for the rest of our lives— for eternity, just like you said.”

“Vani, if we’re taking that much money, it needs to go to the youth center back home. Waller’s gonna tear it down.”

Vani shook his head with a smile. “You and that youth center.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. They helped me and my mom when no one else would, and most of the kids there now don’t even have moms. Someone needs to be there for them.”

Tears fell down Vani’s face. “If that’s what you want, then we’ll do it. I’ll help you change something for real before you go.”

Dante kissed his cheek. “Thank you, baby.”

“But if you get any worse, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Deal, but I’ll try to fight this off.”

Vani chuckled. “That’s my guy.”

They spent the rest of the night huddled close together, dreading the morning in fear that Dante might not wake up. Each morning that week was spent planning the heist; securing their escape route, maneuvering around the cameras, and making sure to avoid security. The big night finally came, and Dante was already losing his energy as they stood outside of the building. His sense felt heightened, making every touch unbearable. Vani’s dog tags felt ice cold against his chest, and the hand on his shoulder felt like an anvil.

“You sure you can do this, Danny?”

Dante nodded. “Let’s put Waller’s name in the dirt.”

He followed Vani to the back entrance. Even in his delirious state, he had to admire Vani’s skill as he cracked the locks and got them inside. They rushed past security and into the treasury. Money passed from Dante’s hands into a bag, though he barely registered it. Part of him hated taking future paychecks from innocent workers, but the kids in his old neighborhood would die without the youth center, if not from being left on the streets, then from whatever other insane laws Waller would pass. It was for the greater good.

The streetlights outside made the world spin around Dante. He choked back several coughs, the blood and flem only aggravating his throat more. Vani held him steady.

“Do you need to leave?”

“I can do this, I can—”

He stumbled and fell to the floor with a loud THUD. His body felt like it was on fire inside and out. Lights shone from a distant corridor, and Dante felt Vani pull him off the ground. They ran down a staircase and back into the alley. It was pouring down rain, a heavy sensation that made Dante want to puke. Vani let go of him, and when Dante could finally focus, he saw Vani with his gun drawn towards a young security guard, who’s gun shook in his hands. A rookie, some poor kid who definitely lost a bet.

“Stay where you are!” he yelled.

Vani shook his head. “Drop the gun, kid.”

“You’re in no position to make demands.”

“My fiancé is sick, buddy. Do you really want to let him die here?”

Dante wheezed as he spoke. “Vani… I can’t…”

He coughed violently, and the officer whipped his gun over to Dante. His fingers twitched, and the gun went off. Dante braced for the shot, but nothing came to him. Vani stood in front of him, clutching his chest. A dark, wet flower of red spread across his shirt. The officer trembled and cursed to himself as Vani fell to the ground. Dante knelt down and caught him, regardless of how the weight hurt his arms.

“Vani?!”

The bullet had gone deep, and blood mixed with rain water underneath Vani. And yet, he smiled at Dante like nothing was wrong. He fought with the rest of his life to keep speaking.

“It’s okay, Danny. At least, we’ll be together…”

His smile faded, and his hands fell to the wet stone below. He was gone, the only person willing to fight by Dante’s side, the first to love him for all that he was. Dante felt even heavier, the combination of sickness and grief piercing him like a blade. His hand rested on Vani’s gun as the officer continued to freak out.

“I didn’t mean to kill him, sir. I’m sorry—”

Dante used the last of his strength to hold up the gun, firing it until the clip was empty. The officer fell backwards, choking on his own blood, just like Dante was. Sirens rang out in the distance, growing closer and closer. With his energy gone, Dante let himself fall to the pavement beside Vani… and he kept falling for a while. The world was still twisting around him, turning buildings into jagged trees. Finally, Dante’s head hit a bed of grass, knocking him out cold.

Instead of the relief of the darkness, Dante woke up in a hospital. Many doctors surrounded him with bizarre-looking machines. He started to panic, but a hand gently held his shoulder. The sensation wasn’t as painful anymore. Dante looked up at a tall man with long dreads and lots of ornate jewelry. He looked like some kind of jungle warrior, but his smile was serene.

“You are safe now.” His accent was thick. “The Celestials have relieved your physical pain.”

Dante could only squint. “What the fuck are you talking about…”

“You’ve been taken to Paradise. My name is Gazali, and this is my kingdom.”

“You… kidnapped me.”

Gazali shook his head. “Not at all! You were dying, and the Celestials chose to save you.”

Dante clenched his fists. “Did they, now? Where the hell were they when that punk shot my fiancé?”

To his surprise, Gazali started to cry. “I truly am sorry. I know how you feel, losing someone so dear.”

He jumped as Dante lunged towards him and grabbed his throat.

“Bull-fucking-shit! You’re talking about kingdoms and gods! You’re not dying in a bed surrounded by strangers while your boyfriend rots in an alley somewhere!”

The doctors pushed him back down and started sedating him. Gazali massaged his neck and sighed.

“Forgive me, my friend. I wish I had known.”

Dante laid weakly in bed as Gazali and the doctors left one by one to let him rest. Stuck in a hospital, in a place he had never heard of, knowing that the one good thing in his life was gone. His hands closed around Vani’s dog tags, running his finger over the embossed letters like it would somehow accomplish something. Eventually, Dante cried himself to sleep, wishing that he had just died beside his fiancé, together in darkness for all eternity.

[meetmeatthecoda]

(star emoji) for Grifting With The Enemy :D

Pumpkin!! 🧡🧡🧡 Hello, my dear friend, thank you so much for your endless interest & support!! 😍😍 And for giving me a reason to re-read GWTE, which I haven't done for a loooong time!! 😂😬 (But, the good news is, it low-key got me inspired to hurry up & finish it!! 😏) BUT - in the meantime - here's some BTS info from my re-read under the cut, which is a lot - fair warning - since it's a 4 chapter fic & counting!! ❤️

LOL I forgot how stressful it is coming up with names for random extra people in fics, I hate doing that LOL But I did think it was important to open with Red NOT being a merciless crime lord who kills anyone who displeases him, cause - while he does have that side to him when necessary - that's not who Red is or wants to be.

I liked including that little moment with Red & Dembe about the parallel parking. I love those father/son & brotp moments for them, they're just the best. I tried to sprinkle those in wherever I could in Red's POV in this fic.

I loved the mental picture of Liz - with glasses & beanie a la The Harem - just leaning casually against a bookshelf the first time Red sees her... & he's immediately captivated, just like in canon. Especially with her eyes, I can't NOT write any version of Red that is not completely blown away by Liz's eyes, I mean, come on I also thought it was important that he thinks she's much younger than she is (intentionally part of her persona) & I'm looking forward to writing the reveal of her true age in a later chapter.

I loved writing a Liz that instantly challenges Red, already having heard about him (& more than that, as revealed in chapter 2) & point blank telling him she may refuse the job bc she has a say too. I liked keeping - & even amplifying a little - that dynamic from canon!Liz of always surprising Red & keeping him on his toes, all while he's trying so desperately to stay ahead of her & impress her.

I LOVED writing the brush pass scene - that moment where Red realizes he has officially underestimated her - & LOL I completely forgot I wrote that part about the condom LMFAO wow past!Coda, mighty daring of you 😂😂😂

Plus, I couldn't help the bonus bit about her stealing his phone & tossing it to him to end the chapter, that was just so fun to throw in there!!

I liked opening chapter 2 with Red still thinking about Liz, just to show how she captured his attention, even before he finds out she's been stealing from him. And I liked writing that revelation without any anger on his part, with him understanding it wasn't a full-scale attack on his empire, she's just a thief taking well paying jobs where she can get them, & instead it just shows him how talented she is. I thought that was an important thing to clarify before moving forward.

I LOVED writing Red & Dembe surprising Liz in her apartment, especially the part with Red's snooping & being confused & surprised by what he sees there. I loved kind of creating/designing Liz's apartment to showcase her true self, not her "young thief" persona that Red falls for at first. I wanted it to be clear that Red is fascinated by her seeming duality from the start (canon LOL) as well as just straight-up attracted to her (also canon LMAO).

Also I gave Liz a loft apartment cause I've always loved those!!

And I LOVEDDD writing Red super confident about surprising her & looking forward to taking her off guard by settling in on the couch & all that macho man stuff, only to be rendered fucking dumbstruck when she comes downstairs with no pants on lmfao & I included that little detail of her usually wearing a knife on her leg to show she's not to be underestimated 😏 & I couldn't help but throw in there Dembe kicking the back of the couch, that made me cackle lmfao

I think the truce was important to establish asap bc I didn't want any secrets or lingering animosity between them. That's for canon 😒 Only flirting & sexual tension here, thank you very much.

I had to include Red being a gentleman & asking if she wanted to get dressed, but I also couldn't resist Liz being confident & careless about it, while still hiding tactfully behind the counter. I thought that was a cute exchange.

lmfao of course, I included their coffee preferences being noticed by the other, I think that's an obligatory thing in any Lizzington fic ever, I'm so guilty of that lmfao

I loved the idea of Red being ready to start on a classic Red's Blacklister Presentation but Liz once again stops him in his tracks (while still secretly being impressed by his presence, of course, & I even accidentally switched POVs for no reason to include that?? nice Coda lmfao) as well as trading barbs & quips with him while Red feels awful & guilty at any accidental slights bc he can't bear to insult her.

AM&R vs. AR&M whoops typo lol

I liked the little snippet of dark!Red we see in their conversation of consequences for his enemies, that way Liz sees a little bit of what he's capable of & Red sees how she's not phased by it.

And that last little flirtation & wink to finish the chapter - lol can't resist

Ooooh, I loved switching to Liz's POV (fully ha) for chapter 3, I enjoyed describing how head over heels she is for Red already, that was fun. I liked writing about her lil movie day & chores she's completed, as well as fleshing out her AU past a little with Sam & her young grifting experiences. And her burning her popcorn while daydreaming about Red cause... same 😏

Ooooh, phone conversations are always so fun to write between them, I love trying to get that perfect mix of joking & sincerity & flirting & pining & pressing the phone close to their ear.

I thought it was important to keep (or rather re-invent, since TPTB seemed to drop it like a hot potato 😒😒😒) Liz's intense interest & respect for psychology, especially as a reason for being attracted to Red, since it kind of mirrors one facet of his interest in her. Not to mention Red thinks at first that it's just a useless, do nothing degree for her LOL

Ohhh, I loved establishing that mutual respect & friendliness between Liz & Dembe early on, that's such a fave of mine, I've always loved their friendship & thought it had a lot of potential. Liz loves & respects Dembe for keeping Red safe & Dembe loves & respects Liz for being so dear to Red.

Ugh, I LOVED writing Liz so completely disarmed by Red's relative state of undress at his safe house (paralleling her pants-less parade in chapter 2, of course) bc sameeeeeeee girl.

I also had fun writing Red blabbing on about some story as he often does, meanwhile Liz has already picked the lock on the safe, once again impressing & surprising him while she admires his different passport pics. That was so fun.

And I loved the quick shift to just a little animosity between them with Red insulting her lockpicks & Liz flaunting her thefts from him. I think those little spats give a little electricity & tension to the relationship, even if they blown over quickly, which they always do. And the fact that Red apologizes & they shake hands & make up is very refreshing to me (since they never fucking do it in canon lol fml) & also it's an excuse to write a little teasing physical contact & sexual tension 😁😁😁

And damn, I forgot how fun it is to throw a little teasing jab in there at the end of a chapter, just for fun - probably bc I'm allergic to multi-chapter fics & never write them lmfao wow

Ahhhhhhhh. I remember how much fun I had writing this whole restaurant scene, partly bc it was a difficult & long process (trying not to make all the flirting & physical movements repetitive while fitting in all the necessary dialogue in a semi-non-boring way lol) but also bc it was so fun writing their back-and-forth while seated at a table alone with nowhere else to go & nothing to distract them. I also wanted to take the opportunity to show Red's genuine interest in her as a person & let them spend some quality time together for the first time. I loved the idea of them losing track of time & Dembe having to come interrupt them with a knowing smirk. Also I def referred to the Olive Garden website for the food they ate cause I'm lame lmfaooo

I thought it was cute to throw in that Liz almost couldn't find Red when she arrived but for the fedora marker he placed out for her & then when she's leaving, she can feel his gaze on her the whole way out. Little parallels like that are my guilty pleasure 😁

Omggg I forgot about the end of this chapter, I remember I wanted Red to surprise Liz yet again & I thought the dessert snuck into her bag was a cute touch. Plus, tiramisu is a favorite of mine 😋 I also tried to make the vibe of this phone call a little softer & more tentative, not so much on tender hooks with lots of tension as the previous ones have been, showing how they're getting used to each other & falling in love at a break neck pace lol

Welp, that's all 4 chapters that are posted buttttttttt a sneaky look at my document that I haven't opened for an embarrassingly long timeeeeeee shows my sketch for the rest of the fic which revealssssss....... a detailed 10 chapter map with an epilogue!! Wow, I forgot I sketched everything out in such detail, this isn't too bad, maybe I should actually write this 😂😂😂 And I promise I will, hopefully sooner rather than later!! ❤️❤️❤️

Well, there you go, Pumpkin, I hope that didn't take you too long to slog through & there was something enjoyable in there for you!! 😂 Thank you so much for your interest again, my lovely friend, & getting me excited about this fic again!! 🥰 Much love to you, always, Pumpkin!! 🧡

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut

[creativeskullcreations]

Here’s a one shot that’s crossing over @floofy-grumpuses human OC Nikki, with my own OC Kim from my not-yet-written fic Secret of the Snax.

INFO ABOUT KIM:

Spent the last two years in a hospital after a very traumatic incident.

Was found by the side of the road by Floofty.

Does not have amnesia like Nikki.

Is ten years old.

Is an orphan(parents died in previously mentioned incident).

In the original concept Kim couldn’t understand the Grumpus language, but that’s been changed here for obvious reasons.

Any other info is technically spoilers, but I am willing to share if asked. I also have a few other one-shots/scene snippets/concepts I can post if there’s any interest.

Kim was excited, as Floofty never really took her anywhere. She loved the little lab area in Floofty's basement, but it was hard when you weren't allowed out of the house very often. Luckily, she was used to being confined, and it made going out that much more exciting.

"Where are we going? Are we gonna go see Snorpy and Chandlo? Chandlo said he'd show me how to make a basket from anywhere on the court next time I was over there!" She rambled, bouncing in her seat as Floofty got into the driver's side of their little car. They checked that she had actually buckled up before starting the car.

"Not this time, no. Instead we're going to visit a friend of mine, Professor Triffany Lottablog, and her husband. They adopted a child a while ago, and I feel like you two would be... companions."

"Oh. Like friends?" The ten year old asked excitedly, and Floofty cleared their throat.

"It's a possibility." In truth, Floofty just wanted to know how the two aliens would react to each other. They seemed close in age, at least, and that usually meant a good chance at children becoming friends, at least for Grumpuses. Neither they nor Triffany knew enough about humans to know if it would work the same for them, however. There was always the possibility there would be an immediate fight.

But, the scientist felt guilty that they couldn't let Kim roam like she obviously wanted to. Their home was just too close to civilization for that. But the Troubleham farm was far outside of town, yet closer than their brother's home. It was the perfect place for Kim to run around at.

Luckily, the drive didn't take too long, and they soon spotted the fields Wambus had been planting his pilfered sauce in. Another couple of minutes of driving and the small little farmhouse came into view, with it's faded green paint and flowers under the windows. It was quaint, and Floofty hated the sight of it.

Floofty parked next to Wambus' truck, and the two got out as Triffany came out to greet them. To Floofty's relief, Kim seemed to be in a more outgoing mood today and didn't hide behind them at the approaching Grumpus.

"Well hey there you two. I was wondering when ya would show up." The green Grumpus, Triffany Kim deduced, greeted them.

"We are exactly when I told you we'd be here, Professor Lottablog." Floofty coolly informed her, but was waved off as she turned to lead them to the house.

"So ya are." Was all she said as they walked up the gravel path. Kim followed close, but kept her eyes on the ground in case she spotted a cool rock. She had grabbed a fanny pack before they'd left the house, and needed stuff to put in it, like rocks. Floofty didn't have a lot of pretty things in their house, and Kim intended to fix that.

"Oh, Nikki's been so excited for this visit since we told her." Triffany was telling them. "It even got her to clean her room."

"Fascinating." Floofty sounded anything but fascinated. "Where is she, by the way? I expected her to be here greet us as well."

"Oh well, she may have gotten a little too excited, ya know? So Wambus took her out back to help in the garden and work some energy off."

"Ah. Understandable. Though Kim doesn't have that problem." Floofty told her, a smug tinge to their voice. Triffany frowned, but didn't answer.

'Ya just keep on believing that, Dr. Fizzlebean.' She kept her opinions to herself though as she took them around the house, however. Floofty would find out soon enough that every child had that problem.

They got to the back of the house, where they spotted the large, blue Grumpus leaning against the fence, looking up into a tree. The sight of Wambus turning to greet them cause did Kim to duck behind Floofty, peering out around them suspiciously.

Wambus fixed Floofty with an equally suspicious glare, barely giving the human girl a glance. "You'd better not be plannin' somethin'." He growled out.

"Oh please, I wouldn't do anything I thought would endanger them." Floofty replied, voice carefully even. "But if you're that against this, I can take Kim, and we can leave right now."

A brief staring match ensued before Wambus turned back to the tree. "Nikki! Come on down here!" He called loudly, startling Kim back behind Floofty. The scientist reached back and gave her head a quick pat as Nikki dropped out of the tree.

"You let her climb that?!" Triffany exclaimed quietly as the girl made her way over.

"What? She likes climbing." Wambus whispered back. "She didn't want to do anything else."

The human ran over, slowing when she spotted Floofty, and stopping so she was slightly behind Wambus and Triffany. Kim peeked out just enough that Nikki caught sight of her. But, it wasn't enough for Floofty, who picked the girl up by the back of her oversized shirt and dropped her down in full view of everyone. When Kim made to try and hide again, they put their paws on her shoulders, keeping her in place.

"Nikki," They started. "this is Kim. My... ward." There, that was a safe enough word for it. "We believe that she is the same species you are."

"Hmmm." Nikki walked closer, now assured that Floofty wasn't here for her. "She does look like it, I guess."

"Excellent." Floofty shoved Kim at Nikki. "Go have fun. I have to talk with your parents."

"Uh, okay then." Nikki grabbed the smaller girl's hand and tugged her towards the house. "Come on, I'll show you my room."

Kim followed, but not without several glances back at the Grumpuses, who were slowly making their way after the children as they talked. She lost sight of them when they entered the house

Nikki led her through the house and to a bedroom. It was definitely smaller than Kim's old room in Floofty's lab, but a fairly good sized one besides that. It had a very comfortable looking bed, and several bookshelves, along with a chest. A few toys, and books were scattered around the floor, like Nikki had been called away from playing.

While Nikki gathered a few  of the toys up, Kim stood by the door and looked around the room. "So," she started, quietly, "what do you usually do around here?"

"Oh, just... stuff. I like to help Dad out in the garden, and climb trees, and Dad promised he'd show me how the tractor works when I'm old enough." She explained, using some of the books to set up a house-like shape.

"Dad...?" The big blue one, maybe? Kim couldn't imagine him being anything but scary. "That's... neat."

"What do you do? You came here with Floofty, right? I bet they do all sorts of weird things."

"I mean... Not really? They gave me food, and a place to sleep. Sometimes I take notes for them, but mostly they give me puzzles and books to read."

Nikki stared at her. "That's weird." She said bluntly. "Dad never makes me do puzzles, but Mom is making me go through school, but it's home-school and I get to go outside when all my work's done, so that's okay." She made another "building" out of some nearby blocks

"Oh..." Kim kneeled next to the older girl as she laid out a scene with the dolls. Most of them were Grumpus shaped, but one was a fairly accurate replica of what Nikki looked like. She chose a deep purple Grumpus doll, while Nikki grabbed one of the blue ones, in order to start the story.

The played that scene for long enough that it turned from a simple trip to the mall, to an epic fight with a dragon(represented by a model Nikki cobbled together from a book and tinfoil). They played together until Triffany came to get them for dinner. The girls followed her to the dining room, where Wambus and Floofty were already seated. Kim climbed into the chair next to Floofty, staring suspiciously at the dishes already full of food.

"Is that cooked all the way?" She asked as Floofty served her some of the casserole. She hadn't seen it get made, which meant anything could be in there. She did not trust that casserole.

"Oh of course! Wouldn't be a casserole without spending a long time in the oven." Triffany told her, but Kim kept her suspicious glower. Wambus meanwhile looked almost pained at his wife's words, and was quick to correct her on casserole making.

While the others got caught up in conversation about cooking, they missed Kim standing in her chair and lifting her fork over her head. Without a sound, she stabbed the casserole, hard enough that it splattered against the table cloth. Nikki watched, shocked, as she did it a second and a third time, but the adults were all unsurprised.

Floofty just sighed and finally took the fork away, leaving Kim to eat the now mutilated casserole with a spoon. When she tried to stab it again anyways, the scientist caught her wrist and forced her to sit down. "Stop trying to murder your meal. Just eat it, it's fine." And Kim finally settled down, digging into the "casserole" with her spoon.

Not that she ate a lot, however. Everyone else finished their food, but she left a lot on her plate. Nikki felt jealous, as her parents always made her to clear her plate before dessert, but Floofty just asked if they could borrow a Tupperware to take it home with them. Clearly, they were used to this sort of thing, and so was Kim as she didn't seem upset at not having dessert. She seemed completely uninterested in it, in fact, which Nikki found really weird.

She didn't say anything about it, though, and dinner finished without anymore incidents. While Nikki got up to help her mom gather up the dishes, Kim stayed seated beside Floofty, writing something down on a notepad the scientist had produced.

"Mom, can we go play outside?" Nikki asked when all the plates had been deposited in the sink. Triffany didn't even hesitate before patting the girl on the head with a smile.

"Oh, of course, dear. Just don't leave the yard, okay?" She instructed. "And come right back inside when it starts gettin' dark."

"Okay Mom. Kim, come on! We're gonna go play outside!" She led Kim out the backdoor to the yard where they were before. The sun was getting low, but it wasn't quite sunset yet, giving them plenty of time to play.

Nikki took her to where there was a ball and makeshift basket to throw it in, and they took turns throwing it in. This was followed by seeing how high each of them could throw the ball, and then how far from the basket they could still get it in.

The adults watched them through the window as they cleaned the dishes, Floofty packing Kim's food into a container for later. She may be good at faking it, but Floofty could tell she was hungry. She just... didn't like eating unless she'd heated the food up herself, first.

Or watched it be made from start to finish. Every meal Floofty made for them involved trying to work around the tiny human. Even when it was just a microwave meal or leftovers, Kim could be found with her face almost pressed against tiny window, watching the food cook poorly.

"Oh, well, the girls seem to be getting along real nice." Triffany observed. "I knew this would be a good idea, ey Wamby?" She elbowed her husband, who just gave a grunt in response.

"Indeed, this outing proved fruitful." Floofty agreed. "Perhaps we should schedule another such day, so they can play together again."

"Well, I don't see why not." Triffany shot her friend a smile. "Maybe some time next week?"

"Perhaps. I shouldn't have any particularly time sensitive experiments going then." They paused to think, running through a mental list to make sure. "I'll probably be leaving her with you a lot more often, either way. Summer break is almost over, and I'll be starting my new position at the local school."

"Oh, Floofty, congratulations. Isn't that nice, Wamby?" Another uninterested grunt, but mostly cause he was watching the girls rather than paying attention to the conversation. Triffany just sighed. "Don't mind him. He's been worried about Nikki since she started climbing the trees again. Not like we can stop her once she gets up far enough, of course."

"Indeed." Floofty watched out the window for a moment, as the girls took turns throwing the ball upwards. "Hopefully Kim won't learn such things from your daughter."

"Oh honey, don't count on it." Triffany warned them half with sympathy. Such dangerous acts spread like a disease through children, and she had no doubt that Floofty would be finding Kim climbing things soon enough.

The conversation turned to more adult topics as they finished cleaning up and the sun set outside. Wambus turned on the porch light as the shadows started to grow, so Nikki would know it was almost time to come inside.

They did after a few minutes, Nikki chattering excitedly while Kim went over to Floofty, dragging their old fanny pack behind her. When the scientist lifted it, they found it surprisingly heavy.

"What did you put in here?" They asked bluntly, though honestly curious. Perhaps it was a dead animal the girls had found? They did need a few more subjects for their experiments...

"Rocks." Kim answered just as bluntly. Triffany hid an amused snort as Floofty unzipped the bag and, yep, rocks. Gravel from the driveway, to be precise. Nikki popped over and dumped a few more in to Floofty's shock.

"I see." Was their only answer. Kim just took the bag back and slung it over a shoulder, then climbed up on the couch and leaned tiredly against the purple Grumpus. Triffany saw them pat her head, smoothing out the short, dark hair. They noticed her watching and snatched their paw back like they'd been burned.

She thought about saying something, but instead politely ignored the action. She turned back to Nikki, who was telling them about the rock castle they'd built in the driveway.

"We'll have to get a picture in the morning." Wambus told her, ruffling her hair.

"More than one! Kim wants a picture of it too." She told him seriously, and he glanced at Floofty, who stared back stoically.

"Eh, sure. We can do that." He ignored the scientist's eyes boring into him and turned to his wife. "Any idea where the camera is?"

"I'll dig it out tomorrow." Triffany told him. Nikki bounced in place excitedly.

"I can help with that!" She said, and Wambus chuckled at her enthusiasm.

Floofty cleared their throat suddenly, standing up from their spot on the couch. "It is high time that Kim and I left for home." They announced, picking up the smaller girl. She jolted sleepily, briefly waking from where she'd been dozing, but otherwise didn't protest the sudden movement.

"Bye Kim!" Nikki waved from where she stood next to Wambus. Kim had, sadly, already dozed back off by then but Nikki didn't really mind. She turned to her Dad. "She's gonna come back, right?"

"Of course we'll return." Floofty almost scoffed at the childish question. "It won't be tomorrow, but you will eventually see Kim again."

"Okay." Nikki waved again, and Floofty sighed, but didn't wave back. Instead they followed Triffany as she walked them to the door, chatting as the two of them tried to figure out another play-date.

Nikki turned to her Dad. "Why didn't Kim eat? She just told me that she "couldn't trust the food"."

Wambus hesitated. They all knew why Kim had... issues with food, but it didn't feel like his place to explain why. Especially with Floofty's growing theories on just where, or maybe when, Kim and Nikki had come from. So he just ruffled the girl's hair. "She'll explain it when she's ready to. Now, it's almost time for bed, so why don't you go get ready?"

"Aaaww, can't I stay up tonight? I feel too excited to sleep!" She was bouncing in place, and though she looked wide awake he could tell she was holding back a yawn.

"Yeah. I wasn't born yesterday kid. Go brush yer teeth." With a heavy sigh the human bounced off towards the bathroom, and Wambus stood as Triffany came back in.

"Well, I think that went well. Don't you?" She asked, hands on her hips. She looked rather pleased at how things turned out, though Wambus didn't share the sentiment.

"I still don't trust them." He admitted, watching out the window as the small car made it's way down the drive. "It feels like they're planning something."

Triffany sighed. "Just give them a chance, Wamby. Kim's a sweet kid, and Floofty's really tryin'. Besides, Nikki seemed to like her."

Wambus didn't answer, just stoically stared out the window. Just because Nikki liked someone, didn't mean he had to trust them. She liked Gramble, after all, though he ended up not being so bad. Triffany just sighed after a minute of this.

"Well, either way, she's coming back next week. So I suggest gettin' used to it." He grunted, and she just patted his arm sympathetically. "Now, let's go make sure Nikki actually brushed her teeth just time."

[thornescratch]

🖊🌙 😐📝

What time of day do you prefer to write? Why?

Late at night, more out of necessity than preference. It’s when I have the least amount of interruptions. Also, it’s a proven fact that the words flow best and hardest when you need to be sleeping or getting ready for bed. It’s just how it works in the universal scheme of things.

What embarrasses you most about your own writing?

When I realize that I’m projecting too much on a character or situation and making it obvious. Like, there are some tropes I don’t mind revisiting over and over, but I get twitchy when I realize, Oops, that’s my issue, not Character X’s, and it’s less realistic they’d feel that way. Or when I catch myself reusing a description or phrase too often. I need to stop limning people in gold; I do it way too often. Or focusing on sweat in weird places during sex scenes. Though, it’s my experience that you do always notice the sweat during sexytimes.

Sometimes it embarrasses me how appealing I find some really OOC or over the top trashy stuff, but everyone’s got their favorite woobie and tropes, so I’ve stopped feeling bad about that.

What is one growth area you have for your writing?

Pacing. I do outline, but for a couple of my stories that were written for exchanges, you can tell where I hit deadline and had to just get it done instead of having a few more scenes or length that might have improved it. (Or, conversely, I should have been more brutal and cut shit that I liked but which ultimately wasn’t necessary. But then again, it’s fanfic.)

Also, uh, just finishing shit. And feeling less silly about it. I don’t like posting WIPs because I like to finish them first, but then I get interested in something else or I think it’s not good enough to post, and it languishes on my hard drive for years.

Post a snippet from a current WIP.

Again, not sure what fandom you're from, so let's go back to hockey since I have it open right now.

"Hey, hi, so like, O and Backy turned into chickens, it's not my fault," Willy said, standing on his front step with a large cardboard box in his arms.

"It's his fault," Burky said from somewhere behind Willy.

"Totally Whip fault," someone else—Kuzy? said, also from behind Willy, who took up a lot of space on a normal basis and even more so when he was apparently hauling boxes around. One arm poked out from behind him and waved wildly, and then there was an unmistakable giggle, so it was definitely Kuzy. "Batya, let us in."

"Fuck you, it's not!" Willy said, and then hoisted the cardboard box up slightly. The box peeped at Brooks loudly, and he jerked back in surprise. "Here, let us in, lemme just explain," Willy added, and then Brooks had three—no, four, no, five, Djoos and Orlov were apparently quietly lurking at the back of the pack as well—teammates stampeding into his house like they were trying to outrun the cloud of youthful indiscretion that Brooks could just fucking see hanging over them.

"Curse my slow door-slamming skills," he said to his now-empty front step, and then closed the door and took a deep breath in order to prepare for whatever the hell was going on.

Most of them were all in his kitchen. Willy had put the box down on the kitchen table and he and Burky were in his pantry; Kuzy was looking in his fridge; he didn't see Djoos; and Snarls, bless his heart, was the only one being polite and standing near one of the chairs, clearly waiting for permission to sit down. Brooks made a mental note to tell Ovi about it, since Ovi believed in positive reinforcement when it came to nurturing the kids, and would probably buy Dima a new car or something.

The box on the table was still peeping. Before Brooks could deal with that, it was drowned out by an even louder noise, which was apparently directly related to Kuzy pawing through his vegetable crisper drawer.

"Batya! It's terrible!" Kuzy said, leaning out of the fridge and brandishing an eggplant at him.

"All of his crackers are wholegrain stuff," Burky called out from the pantry, muffled. "He doesn't have any chips."

"He's got two bags of Skinny Pop, though," Willy added. "Original and White Cheddar."

"Everything so healthy," Kuzy said, making a face. "It's terrible but I guess also good. I know we make best choice to come here."

Brooks took the eggplant away from Kuzy and slapped it against his palm once with a pleasantly solid noise. It had some good heft. "The last person who isn't sitting down at the table quietly in the next fifteen seconds gets to explain to Barry why they have to go on LTIR because someone beat them senseless with an eggplant."

"Like, a real eggplant, or is this a dick joke," Willy said, leaning out of the pantry before his eyes went wide. "Oh."

Kuzy was already opening his mouth with that glint in his eye again, so Brooks pointed the eggplant at him. "Sit. Down. Where's Juicer?"

"I was using the bathroom, please don't hit me," Djoos said meekly, slipping back into the kitchen and sitting down immediately, hands folded on top of the table neatly like a good little d-man. Brooks made another mental note to let Nicky know. Nicky had his own nurturing system for the kids, though that usually ran along the lines of a series of slightly less murderous than usual glares that he used for those currently in his favor.

"Can we bring some Skinny Pop?" Burky asked. "Actually, can we bring both bags?"

"I mean, actually you wouldn't really need to explain so much—" Willy said, and then Burky wiggled past him out of the narrow pantry doors with a bag stowed under each arm, and dove for the table, yelling out, "Hit him, Batya, hit him!"

"Hey!" Willy said indignantly, rushing after him and almost knocking Kuzy over in the process.

There was a briefly chaotic interval like a particularly violent game of musical chairs, but it ended with everyone sitting down in a chair, even if Burky and Djoos were sharing one. Less sharing, maybe, than Burky getting physically dumped out of two chairs in quick succession by Willy and Dima, and then Burky climbing into Djoos's lap, planting himself there, and winding his arms around Djoos's neck despite Djoos's wide-eyed expression of panic, but Brooks decided he couldn't afford to be too particular about it, and Djoos was just going to have to learn to desensitize himself to Burky-induced boners and personal space issues.

The box was still peeping.

Brooks eyed all of them, trying to decide who he had the best chance of getting the story out of the quickest, and then decided that he might as well give up on that and picked Willy, since he had a distinctly guilty expression that was only slightly marred by how he was currently shoving a double handful of Brooks's Skinny Pop into his mouth. "Willy. Explain. And no one else talk until I say they can."

Willy swallowed and licked his lips. "Okay, so. Magic."

After a minute when nothing else seemed to be forthcoming, Brooks cleared his throat. "That's it? That's all you got?"

Willy glanced around the table where all of his teammates were successfully avoiding his gaze (Kuzy and Dima were both pretending to read the nutritional info on the back of the popcorn bag; Burky was actually hiding his face against Djoos's neck; accordingly, Djoos's panic looked like it had ratcheted up by several degrees, and he was staring off into the middle distance with a muscle twitching in his cheek) and when it seemed obvious that no help was forthcoming, he shrugged. "Kinda?"

[aqvarius]

[WALKTHROUGH + REVIEW] Masquerade Kiss: Yuzuru Shiba Season 2

Expectations:

I just want to start off by saying that the prologue is absolutely outrageous. There are probably so many targets that hang around the EAC headquarters, especially since HQ is presumably 3 miles within the UN Headquarters and let’s not pretend that there isn’t at least one target going to work there everyday. I actually spent 30 mins on google maps street view trying to find exactly where this location is supposed to be modelled after so I could find all the companies and buildings that have potential targets and then just gave up lol. BUT either way, I refuse to believe that a top international intelligence agency would just go WARNING WARNING and go into emergency lockdown because a target entered a 3 mile radius of HQ. Ridiculous. Also, the letter from the EAC even in the Yuzuru prologue also calls her Arisa Mifune which is her Kazuomi alias lol.

EDIT: I found the location of that background which implies that EAC HQ is modelled after 2 Hammarskjold Plaza or somewhere near (which is right next to the British Consulate btw, how did MC not see that on her way to the building. Also conveniently near something called Japan Society.). Note the octagonal-roofed thing on the bottom left, the general shape of the building, the covered part of the building lobby, the blue sign (afaik street signs in NYC are green) and the position and shape of the building down the road. And I know I’m taking this whole thing way too seriously, but Jeffrey Epstein had a mansion about 2 miles away from here so this whole 3 mile emergency alert thing is just ridiculous. Sure, Epstein probably never existed in the world of Masquerade Kiss but come on, it is highly unlikely that not a single target lives, works or passes by for a kebab within a 3 mile radius of the EAC HQ.

With that out of the way, let’s talk Yuzuru. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to even play Masquerade Kiss ever again. I like most things about the game but Love Choice is honestly just a turn off and the only LC game that I am genuinely drawn to is actually Destind. But then I had 287 unused hearts because I bought a bunch of hearts with the intent of playing Kyogoku’s route in Romance MD (and then I didn’t because I actually just don’t like that game) so I decided to give it a shot. I actually (surprisingly?) prefer Kazuomi to Yuzuru as a character, but I like Yuzuru’s MC more than Kazuomi’s MC and I was intrigued that Voltage would push this whole love quadrangle thing. We’ve seen hyper-jealous Yuzuru before in a substory so I think I went into this route more interested in the plot aspect and to see how they would develop the kind of strange relationship between Yuzuru and his MC. I genuinely enjoyed Yuzuru’s S1 MS a lot and wanted to see how he and his MC would grow as a couple. Also I wanted to play it in order to write a review to bring some traffic back to my semi-hiatus stagnant blog lol. Please give this a like/reblog please I’m begging you please :’(

Keep reading to the walkthrough and review. I’ve calculated a way for you to get to EE with all CGs (50 hearts saved), SHE with CGs (83 hearts saved), or a cheapest overall option to SHE (107 hearts saved).

Stop scrolling after the walkthrough and guide if you haven’t yet played and don’t want the route to be spoiled.

Walkthrough:

Story 1:

Yes, we should keep an eye on him.

No, it’s not necessary

Story 2:

“You came to be with me.” (Love Meter +1) (6 hearts)

I can’t say.

Story 3:

I sign without hesitating.

I hesitate for a moment.

Story 4:

Text Yuzuru.

Don’t text him.

Story 5:

I’ll sign it. (Love Meter +1, CG) (13 hearts)

I’m not going to sign a New York contract.

 Story 6:

Casually intervene. (Love Meter +2) (11 hearts)

Pretend not to notice.

Story 7:

See him out without asking what’s wrong.

Ask what’s going on.

Story 8:

It’s payback time. (Love Meter +1, CG) (16 hearts)

Don’t do anything.

Story 9:

Start touching him. (Love Meter +2) (12 hearts)

I can’t interrupt.

Story 10:

Seduce the info out of him. (Love Meter +1) (8 hearts)

Try to force it out of him.

Story 11: (second chance)

Gently ask about it. (Love Meter +3) (18 hearts)

Now is not the time.

Story 12:

“I’m thinking about you.” (Love Meter +3) (13 hearts)

“Nothin’.”

Story 13:

“It was fun.”

“It was relaxing.”

 Story 14:

Apologize and keep talking. (Love Meter +1) (7 hearts)

Ouch. I have nothing to say for myself…

Story 15:

Play dumb: “What are you talking about?”

Ask: “What if I am?”

Story 16:

Find out if he’s jealous. (Love Meter +2) (18 hearts)

Don’t ask any questions.

Story 17:

“I’ll stay ten more minutes.” (Love Meter +2) (14 hearts)

I have nothing to say.

Story 18:

Ask about his Texas accent.

Don’t ask about it now.

Story 19:

Call out to Yuzuru.

Let him go.

Story 20:

Put up a strong front: “I’m okay.”

Tell the truth: “I’m not okay.”

Story 21: (second chance)

Ask Yuzuru why he did it. (Love Meter +3, CG) (25 hearts)

Don’t ask any questions.

Story 22:

“Not as stubborn as you.”

“You already knew that.”

Story 23 (useless):

Trust Yuzuru and don’t go. (Love Meter +1) (13 hearts)

Right now, I have to go to Jeremy.

Story 24: (second chance but she saves him either way)

Rush over to protect Yuzuru. (Love Meter +3) (19 hearts)

I can’t get there quickly enough.

Guides:

I calculated the cheapest ways to get to Eden End and Super Happy End with CGs and without CGs. Just opt for the heart scenes that I’ve highlighted in each guide below.

Click the read more below for my review. Stop here if you haven’t yet read the route because there are spoilers galore.

Review:

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this route. As I read through, I thought the pacing was excellent and I was really drawn in by everything about it, especially the relationship between Yuzuru and his MC. It has definitely been a while since a LC route really captured my full attention. However, upon rereading my notes and writing this review, I do have quite a few issues with it, particularly the plot. I’ll go through the things I enjoyed about the route first and then discuss what I find to be its limitations.  

So Yuzuru is great in this route. We get a far more expressive and soft Yuzuru. We get to see the most charming side of Yuzuru again, his childlike passion for engineering and innovation. This, in my opinion, is Yuzuru at his softest and most appealing, when he is genuinely passionate and not just doing the hyper-organised scheduling thing (although naturally most of this is hidden behind a heart scene). Sometimes it’s nice to remember that Yuzuru is human.

He’s definitely more playful with his MC in this route, even going as far as to blur the lines between work and personal life a little bit in a way that I found quite unexpected. There’s a lot of flirty banter between them, as well as just little suggestions of flirtations here and there in their body language – in front of people too! Scandalous. It almost reminds me a bit of Kazuomi and his MC, which is definitely a pleasant surprise. A lot of these scenes are hidden behind heart scenes, which I’ll get into later, but I will say that these cute and suggestive moments between the two are probably some of the best moments of the route, and part of the reason why it was so easy to keep reading.

I’ve mentioned this before but Yuzuru’s MC is my favourite version of the Masquerade Kiss MC. She’s great in this route too – cool, calm, great at her job. I also love that she likes Night at the Museum? Lmao me too girl. She has such trashy taste in movies and it’s a cute quirk that definitely makes her more relatable within the sensational premise of the game. Personality-wise, I think they did a good job at bridging the professional and personal aspects of her personality too, making her read like someone who has different personas that are different aspects of the same person. You definitely get a sense of the conflict within the MC when she has to extract information by using her sExUaLiTy when her boyfriend is watching on lol, even when they kind of make it out like a game. It is interesting and quite novel to see a Voltage MC successfully pull off a honey trap on a guy who kind of repulses her. We get snippets of it in other games such as Her Love in the Force but HLITF MC is always careful to keep boundaries so we never get to explore the full potential of the jealousy that can crop up in such situations. MK MC goes above and beyond to give us (and Yuzuru) a show. With that being said, I do feel like they kind of drew back from it a little by having Jeremy be super forward with his affection so the MC just has to respond, keep him on the hook and pull back every now and again, rather than actively needing to pursue someone to obtain information.

I also really enjoyed that moment when Yuzuru tells her to shower before going to his bed to wash off “Mia.” It solidifies that he’s really in love with her and not her charismatic, flirtatious hostess alias. Throughout the route, the blurring of the personal and the professional is definitely a theme that we see cropping up in the lives of both the MC and Yuzuru. It’s something that I find particularly interesting and I’m glad they picked this developmental direction since both Yuzuru and his MC are notoriously bad at mixing those two worlds, with both of them consistently and repeatedly picking work over love. We also get to see Yuruzu and his MC almost working together at times, which I adored. At times, they feel like a team. As always, they have tons of sexual and physical chemistry but they are slowly building up on the emotional chemistry and communication issues which is so crucial for character and relationship development. 

The SHE and EE in particular has some incredibly cute moments. Yuzu’s MC describing them as part of a machine is *chefs kiss* incredible. Their sex scenes are intimate, loving and incredibly romantic. Yuzu preparing his NYC home for MC? Adorable. And, most importantly, him not only tolerating but welcoming his MC’s “bugs” in their relationship? That’s character growth babey. 

With super long LC routes, I always get tired about 7 chapters in and give up and then have to come back and finish it later. However, this route sped along. The pacing of this route is pretty quick and snappy – in fact, I wouldn’t have minded if it was actually longer? Developments tend to happen pretty quickly, there are plenty of moments between Yuzuru and the MC that keep the story moving, and there’s basically very little, if any, ‘downtime’ in this route. Because they are constantly in the club or at Yuzuru’s place lol.

The writing/language quality is great. I felt genuinely tense every time Yuzuru and the MC almost got caught in the club and even more so when the MC went to Jeremy’s home. I couldn’t spot any significant typos or coding errors. The readability of this route is definitely top quality.

Moving onto my gripes with this route, I would say that they have to do mostly with flimsy plot, characters being reduced to plot devices, and lack of relationship conflict.

Firstly, something that I always find a bit off about the premise of EAC is how public their relationships sometimes are and how the MC’s private life even works. Yuzuru literally gets swarmed with people in the prologue asking for autographs and photos and yet later in the route can somehow go on a public date to busy tourist spots in central NYC with a spy? (That being said, I refuse to take that prologue as canon because of how sensationally ridiculous it is.) Let’s not pretend the EAC isn’t watching them lol (they even imply multiple times that this is the case). Is she not worried that Jeremy or Grace or any SHIBA or Space Crystal employees or any of the numerous powerful and dangerous people who frequent Freja will spot them together? There is no way she looks significantly different as Mia than as herself unless she’s wearing prosthetics or can turn off her star aura like Britney Spears can.  Also, is the MC supposed to be mixed? No one has any questions about how a native Japanese woman can get away with being called Mia Knightley?

They also set up this tension of something happening to the MC without Yuzuru ever knowing which never really plays out. There’s a brief callback to it but it’s more about the MC finding an excuse to see Yuzu. I thought the drama would have more to do with the MC having to keep secrets from Yuzu and disappearing but that never happens and so the repeated mentions of this particular source of anxiety don’t really amount to anything. I also wish they made better use of the stun bracelet! I think it would have been cool if that was what took Jeremy out. Symbolically, it could have worked as a physical manifestation of Yuzu’s trust and support of his MC and her job helping to protect her against the Big Bad.

Okay so my main issue is about the villains and the flimsy plot. Jeremy and Grace were such wasted villains!! If this guy went crazy and murdered 3 people… how did he manage to not only reinvent himself but in fact become a very high profile tech executive with more or less the same name? Imagine if Elon Musk was actually a crazy murderer who used to be called Elon Avrevic… there’s no way that he would be able to bury this, especially if he came from nothing and had no connections during the time in his life when he committed these murders. If there are actual criminal reports about his crimes that can be accessed by the EAC and SHIBA, how did he not get taken in for life after murdering 3 people? Why is he even free in the world? It’s such a big plot hole to me… doesn’t have the same fingerprints? Did he get such extensive plastic surgery that he’s not recognisable and also burn off his fingerprints? Evidently not, since the MC can recognise both him and Grace from childhood photos!

I also didn’t think his motivations were really that convincing. We get a throwaway line about his alcoholic father killing his mother because she tried to leave him, but in general they set Jeremy up with so much potential as this psychopath who hunts a very specific type of woman but then they just kind of throw it away with him just going crazy and shooting people because he just wants “girls and money”. Nooo Jeremy they did you so dirty!!!

I just think they built him up as this incredibly dangerous and manipulative predator but then just made him a standard alcoholic incel. He could have been such a good villain. He could have maybe drawn the MC in with sob stories about his mother and actually made her doubt her instincts with his charisma and vulnerability, with it turning out that the whole time he was just luring her in, instead of just relentlessly hitting on her and then getting carelessly drunk and going crazy. He spends so much of the route attempting to play and get with the MC and then just throws it all away by getting pissed and letting her basically have free reign of his apartment? I just don’t buy that a co-founder of Space Crystal would get to the top without being more clever, suspicious and manipulative – especially since he murdered 3 women and still is somehow a free man, ‘disguised’ as a very successful CEO?  Also, if he really just wanted girls and money, there were a thousand other ways of doing it. He could have been so clever and instead they just made him have occasional psychotic breaks with no discernible trigger. Disappointing.

(On a side note, they made his house look weirdly similar to Epstein’s manor. Or maybe all Upper East Side homes look like this, I have no idea. I did look around on Google Maps and I guess a lot of the homes in this area are kind of similar.)

Grace is also a wasted character. She kind of feels like a MacGuffin just to have this love quadrangle in order to play out the jealousy plot but ultimately plays no significant role. Actually, both Grace and Jeremy basically just act as jealousy plot devices, only the jealousy plot isn’t strong enough to actually threaten Yuzu and his MC’s relationship (except for one moment which to be honest doesn’t even play out like that because of jealousy and rather because Yuzu is trying to protect his girl).

Speaking of that moment, I thought that Yuzuru’s “push the MC away plan” could have been stronger. I feel like it’s not like him to do make such a basic attempt at fooling his MC. It might have worked in a different game but all of the MK guys usually know that they can’t trick their MC with cheap Harry and the Hendersons plots and they tend to not disrespect her enough to try. I know that as readers, we enjoy not knowing what the love interest is up to because it ups the tension and drama but I feel like there was a way of having that insecurity and conflict play out while keeping everything a mystery and making better use of the characters. Like maybe it could seem like Yuzuru is running into Grace’s arms after finding his MC in a compromising position with Jeremy when he’s actually doing his own covert investigations and making plans to foil their ultimate plans. Or maybe even working with Grace to take Jeremy’s wild country-bombing plans out. That way, we would prolong the jealousy/love quadrangle plot with the MC stressing about Yuzuru and Grace’s relationship, especially when she already doesn’t trust Grace. It would also make better use of Grace as a character and her position as both someone with a ginormous crush on Yuzuru and as Jeremy’s ‘partner’. If Grace also ended up betraying Jeremy to help Yuzuru and the MC, we could also have had some extra heartbreak about Grace having to betray the one person she has always had in her life (and maybe some extra backstory about Jeremy going nuts as part of having to protect himself and Grace from their parents and the world). #voltagehireme lol. I also find it highly unlikely that Jeremy managed to set up this whole missile-launching phone app business under Grace’s nose, especially when Yuzuru knew about it. Also, the idea of an American attempting to launch a missile to destroy the whole of Japan is a bit… on the nose lol.

The season isn’t really driven by relationship conflict even though they were pushing the whole jealousy line in the marketing. In the end, I don’t think the route is as much about jealousy as it is about trust – but then again, Yuzuru has always placed ultimate trust in his MC even in S1. I can see this being an issue for people who went into this route wanting genuine conflict in their relationship so that they can overcome and work through it to develop. There’s only a little bit of conflict towards the end when the MC goes to Jeremy’s home, and then that kind of gets discarded pretty quickly anyway. They just happen to be better at communication this season, and a lot of that is because of Yuzuru going out of his way to keep tabs on his MC. This is probably what makes the route so easy to read, because Yuzu is more open. However, because of this, while it is great that their communication as a couple improves, it may not necessarily feel that earned? With that said, credit to the writers for making Yuzu more open without making it feel jarring or like he’s had a sudden personality change.

And on another note entirely, I wish there was a bit more detail about the three “S”es and more involvement from Kazu and Kei, who basically just make gratuitous appearances in this route. Learning about them making Takoyaki together at Oxford is such a cute detail and also such an international student in the UK thing to do. Find me one Asian student studying abroad in the UK who hasn’t collectively cooked home food in halls with friends from their country (it’s always hotpot for me lol). I wish there were more moment with them actively involved in helping the MC.

Finally, I have my usual issues about the Love Choice system. If you play the route for free, you get very few cute scenes between Yuzu and his MC, miss out on some major character development moments (esp that planetarium scene) and you get a fade to black ending in the Normal End. Personally, I started playing Voltage in the early 2010s so I don’t mind fade to black endings, but I think the mature/sex scenes are what a lot of MK readers are here for, so it’s a shame that there isn’t even a kiss scene in the NE.

Overall, I would say that the chemistry between Yuzuru and his MC is what keeps this route going and flowing. I would recommend it if you just adore Yuzuru, want to maximise time with him and don’t really care much about plot. Otherwise, while their relationship is brought to new levels, it does not happen because of the plot as much as Yuzu’s response to events we don’t necessarily see, and it does not necessarily feel that earned because the plot doesn’t really put their relationship in that much jeopardy.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually really enjoyed reading this route – I found it super easy to keep reading, and Yuzu kept me hooked. I also love Yuzu more than ever. I think it’s a similar situation to Takane’s route, where the route made me love the love interest more, but has an average/flimsy plot. I imagine that his PoV will reveal more about those events that make him go out of his way to keep an eye on his MC, but as a standalone route, I wish there was more actual relationship conflict leading to more development.

[kazarinn]

Roundup of all the things I’ve translated within the last month

Those who have been following me for a while might know that the last month saw me be very unusually prolific with translation (especially Digimon-related ones), to unprecedented extents. I'll be very honest about the fact that it's because of the current quarantine, which has left me with not a lot to do and a sense of boredom that translation somehow happens to satiate a bit ^^;; That said, the very large number of translations I'd been posting has caused things to get a bit buried, and has made things easily missable, so I've decided to make a bit of a roundup post summarizing everything I've done in the last month.

Of course, there's probably still more to come in the near future -- I have two books (the Digimon Official Super Encyclopedia and the Gakken Digimon Adventure tri. Memorial Book) hopefully coming in the mail soon, and I still have some stuff lying around I might take up if my mood warms up to it, but since I've finally cleared up a ton of the backlog I felt I should take a breather to summarize stuff. (Although, every time I say I've cleared the backlog, suddenly more interesting things pop up...^^;;)

Digimon Adventure, Adventure 02, Tamers, Frontier

Digimon Adventure 02 Drama CD "Armor Evolution to the Unknown" I will be honest in that this is actually my favorite thing to have translated in this past month. Actually, fiction translation has a higher level of difficulty for me than things like interviews -- because I want to be careful with what real people have said, I tend to be less stringent about rewording things, whereas with fiction I hold myself to a higher standard to make things flow well. But that's actually what makes it so much fun, because I can challenge myself to play with wording and broaden my horizons, and moreover Adventure 02 has a ton of characters, and it's really fun to try and make unique "voices" for all of them. That said, translating this was a bit of a wake-up call, because the sheer amount of pop culture references (to things made before I was even born, at that) and wordplay everywhere led me to the very harsh realization of why so few people have attempted to translate this drama CD into so few languages over the past two decades ^^;; I give my thanks to the anonymous Japanese commenters on Nico Nico Douga who pointed out many of the really old and obscure pop culture references, and I ended up spending several hours on Japanese Wikipedia looking up things like said old anime and British punk rock artists. I might not have gotten everything, and I'm sure there are people out there who probably would have been able to pull it off better than I did, but it ultimately became a test of my abilities as a translator, and if it's fun and entertaining and enjoyable, then that alone makes me satisfied. But I think this will be the last time (at least for a while) that I try translating something audio-only with no transcript -- my hearing is not that great, not even in English ^^;;

The Mystery of the American Box Bug A story from Adventure and Adventure 02 director Hiroyuki Kakudou that has some very tangential (at best) relation to Digimon, but is amusing nevertheless.

Digimon Adventure Character Complete File -- Future Encyclopedia Little "dialogue" snippets from an Adventure/Adventure 02-related book, checking in on the kids-turned-adults during the time of Adventure 02's epilogue. I actually translated this a long time ago, but I lost the transcript for it and I'm pretty sure (given how long ago it was) it was probably pretty embarrassing by my current standards, so I went ahead and did this over again. There are some other things in this book that are interesting and/or amusing, like further background info on the kids' family lives and room layouts, so if I have some spare time I might do some of those in the future, although naturally doing the entire book would probably be practically impossible.

Digimon Series Memorial Book: Digimon Animation Chronicle — Special interview with Hiromi Seki, Hiroyuki Kakudou, and Yukio Kaizawa An interview with some perennial Digimon staff members about Adventure through Frontier (and a bit of X-Evolution). We've had no shortage of these kinds of interviews over the years, but this one happens to summarize a lot of things that used to be considered "obscure" in the Digimon fanbase outside Japan, even though this book (and thus this interview) is one of the most prominent resources for diehard Digimon fans out there. Also, Frontier-related development info tends to be somewhat rare, so it's nice to hear about it. The Digimon Official Super Encyclopedia that I'm hoping to get my hands on soon allegedly has a similar interview with the same three people. I don't know specifics about it yet, but I'm informed that it mostly covers similar territory to this one, but also allegedly has some very fascinating details that weren't in this, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

Message from Digimon Adventure producer Hiromi Seki, to Toshiko Fujita Posted by Adventure producer Hiromi Seki to the LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna Twitter on February 8, 2019, right before the 49th day (last day of mourning, in Japanese tradition) after Taichi Yagami voice actress Toshiko Fujita's passing.

Mimi Tachikawa and Lilimon Posted by Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou on his blog, talking about the intent behind Mimi Tachikawa's character and her corresponding track in the drama CD Digimon Adventure: Two-and-a-Half Year Break.

Digimon Adventure tri.

On Creation and Production for “Super Evolution Stage: Digimon Adventure tri.” A post by Director Kenichi Tani about his work on the Adventure tri. stage play. Despite technically being under Adventure tri. branding, the stage play actually has surprisingly little in common with the Adventure tri. anime in terms of both content and production background, and moreover Digimon hasn't had a lot of contact with the stage medium all that much, so I thought it'd be interesting to translate something about its production, especially since this tends to be a lesser talked-about part of the franchise.

October/November 2018 Gashapon Blog interviews with Kenji Watanabe This is actually two interviews, one where Digimon franchise creator and character designer Kenji Watanabe talks about design for a Digimon gachapon set, and one where he talks about Adventure tri.'s Omegamon Merciful Mode, but I'm categorizing it under the Adventure tri. section because I figure the vast majority of readers will be reading the interview for the latter.

Digimon Adventure tri. voice actor comments (Part 1: Reunion | Part 2: Determination | Part 3: Confession | Part 4: Loss | Part 5: Coexistence | Part 6: Our Future) A series of voice actor comments that were posted to the official website prior to each Adventure tri. movie being released. I'd actually had it on the brain to try my hand at these when they were first posted, but various circumstances happened and I never got around to it, until now. In retrospect, though, I think it turned out for the better that I didn't attempt them on the spot. Adventure tri.-related interviews tend to be much more difficult to translate than most Digimon-related ones, and although there are a few reasons why, the biggest one is that, during its run, it had a very tight spoiler embargo, resulting in a lot of vague language being used, and so when you translate from a language like Japanese -- where having proper context can be life or death -- not knowing the original context behind what was being said can throw the end result into completely incorrect and misleading interpretations. While I was working on these, I did actually end up having to pull up the movies again and reference what scenes were being referred to multiple times just so I could phrase the sentence correctly, so yeah, I think it did ultimately work out. Incidentally, this is also the first direct Adventure tri. production-related thing I've translated since 2016 (mainly due to the expenses incurred by importing magazines and my difficulty with translating print media at the time). Looking back at it, I'm honestly kind of ashamed at my own inexperience from back then, but sadly, I don't have the original magazines anymore, so I can't do much to fix it, and so I'm kind of glad to have these as my sort of attempt at "redeeming myself".

Digimon Adventure tri. — Yoshimasa Hosoya interview on “To Me” Also from the official website, discussing voice actor Yoshimasa Hosoya's involvement with the ending theme song from part 3 (Confession), "To Me".

Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna

Anime! Anime! interview series (Director Tomohisa Taguchi interview | Natsuki Hanae and Chika Sakamoto interview | 02 human cast voice actor interview | 02 Digimon cast voice actor interview | Producer Yousuke Kinoshita and supervisor Hiromi Seki interview) I didn't actually know this was a series until very recently, so you'll have to forgive me for translating these out of order. Technically, all of these were posted in February to March 2020, after the movie was released in Japan, but it's pretty much spoiler-free. It's got a huge amount of development and background info behind LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna, so I recommend them as reading for anyone interested in seeing the movie.

"In regards to the new Digimon project" Otherwise known as "what happened when Hiroyuki Kakudou accidentally revealed that they were making another Digimon Adventure-related movie". Since the news that original Adventure director was recusing from LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna due to some kind of creative difference over lore ended up naturally being a hot topic, I felt like having a proper translation of his statement on the matter would be a useful thing to have. Despite technically being LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna-related, it also has a transcription of his tweets regarding Adventure/Adventure 02 background lore along with some surprising production details, so it may interest fans of the original series as well.

Digimon Continues to be Loved Thanks to its Creator’s Commitment — With Digimon Character Designer Kenji Watanabe An Asahi &M article (sort of a half-interview) with Kenji Watanabe over his involvement in LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna, which, unusually for a Digimon anime work, actually had him directly involved in production from beginning to end. I put this on the post already, but this article gets a lot dangerously closer to outright spoilers than you'd expect for this kind of material, so if you're particularly keen on going into the movie "completely clean", best to maybe avoid this one until you've seen the movie.

Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna — Website messages from Hiromi Seki and Yousuke Kinoshita It's just a short greeting message on the official website. I wanted to translate it mainly because it's not on the official English site.

Animage Plus interviews with Yousuke Kinoshita Also something I'd wanted to translate for a while but never got around to (until now). A triple set of interviews with LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna producer Yousuke Kinoshita, who also talks about Adventure's 20th anniversary and the "Memorial Story" short story collection crowdfund.

Digimon Adventure:

Interviews with Yabuno Tenya and Atsuhiro Tomioka (Part 1: V-Jump Web | Part 2: Digimon Web) A two-part interview (each part on different websites) with Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 artist Yabuno Tenya and Digimon Adventure: lead writer Atsuhiro Tomioka, discussing their respective works and Adventure:'s surprising relation to V-Tamer.

Digimon Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou’s initial comments on the Digimon Adventure: reboot A triple set of blog posts from original Digimon Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou about the Adventure: reboot and what relation it has to him and the original Adventure (along with some fun trivia about the latter). I figured some people out there might be curious about what the original Adventure director thought about Toei rebooting his series.

Digimon games

Explore the Secrets of Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode’s Evolution! Interview with Habu and Tomono Decode is rather inaccessible to the West right now (being unlocalized, and on the region-locked 3DS at that), so the idea of translating too many things relevant to it is pretty low-priority to me at the moment, but it's still a game of significant interest to the Digimon fanbase outside Japan, and is also notable as one of the first major titles spearheaded by Digimon game producer Kazumasa Habu, so I felt that there'd be quite a few people interested in this one.

Interview with Producer Habu of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory: Highlights and Future Prospects A 4Gamer interview that I'd wanted to translate since I'd first read it, but never got around to. Incidentally, I decided to go back and make some revisions to the wording for the Famitsu interviews I translated for the original game. They were some of the first things I ever translated, and it...kind of shows. ^^;; Normally I don't like to lock myself into a habit of constantly going back and revising old work, as doing so tends to be a bit of a black hole, but since the original Cyber Sleuth is still quite the hot topic among the fanbase right now (and especially with Complete Edition being recently released), I thought it might be worth it this time.

Famitsu.com interview with Kazumasa Habu on Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory Another Hacker's Memory interview, a bit less detailed than the above but still fairly informative.

Other

Iwata Asks #14: Hatsune Miku and Future Stars: Project mirai Somehow this ended up the only non-Digimon thing on the list ^^;; The version of this game that eventually did make it to the West (Project Mirai DX) is so different from the original game that it meant this Iwata Asks was never officially translated, so I thought it'd be worth taking a shot at this one. I don't have any plans to translate any other Iwata Asks at the moment, mainly because it requires me to have more than a passing knowledge of how each game works for proper context, but I hope you can at least enjoy this one.

[inexchangeforyoursoul]

@nagasleeps​ ... you unknowingly made me sweat blood upon getting the prompts lmfao 😅 (fake dating?? spo rT S??? so many things, none of which I’m into asgdsfafsd,,,) 

Getting over the initial turmoil and the need to hire a deep web hitman to assassinate me, however, I thought about it… and yes, I’ve always liked the aesthetics™ of figure skating and racing, so it wasn’t ~that~ hopeless of a case,,, All in all, I ended up revamping a scene from a half-done fic to feature the LoV (instead of the Todofam bc latter are the og cast in the other thing so they were out of bounds but sssh)

I was vibrating when you reacted to the Happy Feet joke, so I really really hope you’ll enjoy the rest just as much!! ✨ MERRY LATE CRAMPUS AND A HAPPY NEW YEEEEAH

OH right: have an ao3 link that will likely read better lmao

“Can I?”

The question itself takes everyone for a loop, but the real catch that makes heads turn is the barely contained excitement in Hawks’ voice. Then there’s his face, too, which is that of a kid on their first festival.

It quickly turns into an embarrassed blush that he tries to hide behind the collar of his jacket, but the damage has already been done- not only did he speak up like that, but it happened just a split second after everyone has unanimously started to move on.

“Can you?” grunts Dabi into the awkward silence with a raised brow, nodding towards the ice rink. He was a few steps ahead of them already, targeting what seemed to be the nearest punch stall available.

Hawks tagged along for the Christmas fair visit in Deika because he figured he might multitask and try this buddy thing with Jin and also catch a few snippets of info, but watching the kids slipping around on the ice when they stopped by the rink… did things to him. Nostalgic, dangerous things.

“You skate, Hawks?” Himiko asks with a glint in her eye. She also doesn't hesitate to turn back and bounce towards the rink, obviously interested in… either him, the fact, or the place itself. He's yet to get a grasp on the girl.

“ … ” His brows pull up as he sulks on behind the makeshift barrier. “... I could. A little.”

She hops against the railing, balancing over the dangerously unstable structure. “Oooh, that's neat! What are we waiting for then?”

Wait, we?

Hawks is almost surprised enough to say it out loud, which… nice save. That sounds all kinds of counterproductive.

Doesn't help with the emotion reflecting on his face, though.

“What’s that face for?” she asks with a pout, looking almost offended before hopping back down. “I’m not going to pass up some fun, if you’re going, I’m going, too.”

“Ah---”

“Me, too!! Me, too!!!” pops Twice’s head up from nowhere between them.

“--- I see.”

“Well then,” Himiko says, her grump already forgotten as she's planting a hearty pat on Jin's head. “Can you skate, Jin?”

His brows, if they exist, inch closer as he squints, as if thinking… but he also immediately says a plain “Hell no.”

“Want me to teach you, then?”

That one rouses a confident “HELL YEAH!!” on the other hand, and he pulls on the drawstrings of his hoodie with such force that he not only disappears up to the nosetip, but an audible ripping sound also conveys the hoodie’s dislike of the abuse.

“Buckle up, then!" Himiko states with her hands on her hips. "First we’ll need some shoes, though. Also, you should get up from the ground, can’t skate like that.”

The man jumps straight into a salute upon hearing that. Considering that his coat is hanging off his head like a tent, it's quite a sight. “Aye aye, Toga sensei!!”

Hawks can’t help but let the uncertain hum break free; he is not sure he’s ready to make a clown out of himself… or that he could still stand upright at all, as a baby bird he was quite a midget. And a lot closer to the ground in case he hit it, making it less, well, scary.

“Mister, you coming too, right?” asks Himiko turning back to the two leftovers of the group.

“Oh…? Oh, sure! Ha ha…” he starts, the nervousness hardly hidden in his voice.

A stone falls from Hawks’ heart; there’s another clown in the making…

The old man (?) is so full of it, though. Just look at him. The only thing holding him back from stuttering is state of the art bullshitting skills…

“--- it is a highly refined form of showmanship, of course I---” 

“You’re so full of shit, old man.”

… IT WASN’T HIM. IT WASN’T HIM WHO SAID THAT, RIGHT?!

Said old man’s monologue stops with a soft ‘ah’ of mixed shock and horror… followed by both hands pressed tight over his wounded pride and heart. Not even the mask can hide the damage done.

“Dabiii, you can’t just steal the big man’s thunder like that…” speaks up Jin as he peels a hole for himself on the hood to look out of.

Oh, thank GOD.

The offender isn’t shaken by the callout in the least.

“He should just admit he can’t skate,” Dabi shrugs, turning back to wherever he was headed before the minute disturbance began. “Anyway… I’m off to drown myself in mulled wine or whatever they have for sale. Smell y’all later.”

Yeesh… that’s cold.

… actually, getting Dabi alone out of the picture has made this issue of being seen stumbling around half as intimidating. Which Hawks isn’t gonna complain about.

A few minutes later he’s already received his pair of skates and is mentally preparing for the task at hand. And also trying to calm down, because honestly? He’s excited. 

First things first, though, for a change his wings are more of a liability while doing this, so he gets rid of most of the feathers. Only after piling them up in the corner of the coat (more along the lines of 'bag') check room does he try the skates from a few angles on the plastic covered ground. They may be rented, but in comparison to the pair of battered ones he found by a trash container as a kid, few sizes too big then and now just as small, anything shone as long as they fit the task.

With a deep breath, he decides to give this a try and steps into the rink. One leg, then the other… a slow start at low speed, but he’ll have to remember how to stop as well… Yeah, this will do. 

Having gained some confidence on the field, he also manages to get out of the way of Toga and Twice as they burst onto the ice with reckless abandon, the latter obviously having no experience in the rink as he finishes the action mopping up every person and shaved particle in his wake.

Hawks skates up to him with a raised brow as Himiko giggles on and makes her rounds around the sprawling man. "You okay there, mate?"

His face that peeks out of the fluffy hoodie still pulled closely around his head looks either really focused… or 100% out of it. Maybe embarrassed, or having a religious experience. Hawks can't tell. In the end, he summarizes his status as follows:

"... yes."

“I told you, didn't I?” chips in Himiko, too, now that she’s over her giggling fit. “Can’t skate while on the ground. Though, if someone can do it… it’s probably you.”

"I'd say he's still got better chances with the usual method," Hawks muses out loud before offering a hand. (Not the best idea. Jot that down, Hawks: Bubaigawara Jin not only is nimble, but also heavy. Easily two-times-your-weight heavy if wings are not included. Do not engage in close combat.)

Nearly ending up on the ice aside, he notes that the number of people in the rink has dwindled down quite a bit in the past minute. Whether the masses are intimidated, afraid, or just conscious of the dumbassery of the big guns, Hawks doesn’t know.

Nor care about, really- more space for him to fuck around. Speaking of which…

He leaves the two jokers behind as Toga starts to legitimately tell Twice how to stand on the ice, and picks up just enough speed to test whether he can do another thing he usually can’t because of his wings.

The first attempt doesn’t go all that well, as he nearly slips when the skate he’s balancing on hiccups upon a deeper trail cut by others; on the second, he manages to stand on one leg, which is half of the battle, alright. He takes a second of a breather to stretch his legs before taking the route back towards the entrance again, checking in on how Twice is faring while he’s at it; seems to be going well for him. A little shaky, but he doesn’t fall ass backwards anymore.

He takes a deep sigh to collect some second hand inspiration, then shoots off to where Mister Compress’ hat has entered the field.

Hawks lifts a leg again, but this time, he also reaches behind his back to get a hold of the blade that should be riiight about… there!

Just sliding in a straight line and not stretched enough for this shit so it hurts like hell? Yes.

It would hurt even if he had stretched, to be frank.

But!! One day, he’s gonna do a legit Biellmann spin, you just watch.

“Why, Starling…!” Mister calls out with an air of awe, the doom and gloom finally lifting from his stance as the blonde is shaking his leg loose. He does stay suspiciously close to the entrance all along, though. “This comes to you as easy as flying does!”

“Could be worse,” he yells back as the momentum from the bend takes him the opposite direction.

Frankly, some may see it as cheating… but his feathers are an amazing addition he's gonna use to the fullest when on ice. So what if he has sonars to know how and where he’ll touch ground, or where to look for his feet from behind? Anyone with functional legs can do this without the help, they just need a little more practice. And why wouldn’t they? This is as close as anyone else can get to flying themselves, and boy is it a lot of fun!!

In fact, he’s so psyched that he does a pretty decent, simple Axel, nailing the landing after. Nice~

Hawks doesn’t bother opening his eyes for the next few minutes, just enjoying the chilly wind pinching his face and ears even pinker. Only then does he look up when someone with a whiff of some peach flavored alcoholic drink is about to cross his way… and goes as far as holding him by the waist, even if it’s for the fleeting moment he needs to grab his arm and spin them around in a circle.

“Not bad for a chicken.”

What the fuck, it’s Dabi.

The suspiciously happy man smirks over the baffled expression that appears on the hero's face. “You should check whether there’s a Happy Feet on Ice project, you could even make it.” Having said that, he gives Hawks a spin and joins him for the next round across the rink.

Wait a goddamn sec…

The blonde looks around with mild suspicion; he’s just noticed that Dabi is keeping up with him fine, which means… he can skate? “I thought you didn’t do, like, sports?”

He is pretty adamant on whining and moaning whenever the need to do anything but stand around menacingly arises… which is understandable, since, um… isn’t this a little… painful with a Frankensteined body like that?

Actually, it definitely is painful, because there’s one--- scratch that, now it’s two red stains on the white shirt poking out from under that ridiculous coat, and--- and blood dripping from one of his elbows, what the sincere fuck. Can he not feel that?!

“Spiked enough to do some stupid shit,” comes the enlightening sigh of an answer as they take the curve at rather high speeds, the faint smell of something not punch like also apparent on his breath. Makes the fact of him coming up close again less alarming, at the very least; a drunk (if not high as a kite…) Dabi averages out as more annoying, and less of a threat. And double the creepy, but that’s beside the point.

“You ready, birdie?”

… okay, maybe there is some room left for worry.

“Ready fo… huh?” The villain has his hands firmly around Hawks' waist now, as if preparing to--- no, there’s no way, he’s such a stick man, but still, the mere possibility…

“Fly!!!”

“WhaaAA---?!” By the time he realizes that Dabi really has that exact thing on his clearly not quite lucid mind when picking up some more speed on the straight line ahead of them, he’s already airborne. Hell if he’s counting how many turns he is doing, but damn it all, he has bigger problems at hand- first, he's actually getting dizzy, and he’s never dizzy with the exception of concussions and being sick, which is concerning, but maybe it’s due to fear. Second, he needs to recalculate his fall right fucking now, because this cackling asshat has managed to throw him quite high and he's also off-balance. He has trouble landing on solid ground when plucked near clean like this as-is, fuck, he's falling already, fuck fuck fuck fUCK---

It costs him a nearly sprained ankle, some panicked arm and wing flapping and an instant heart attack, but he manages to stick the landing somehow. He’s shaking like jello as Mister claps on and Jin and Himiko cry an awed WOOO HOOO, though. In fact, his legs that he’s using as something to lean on now are about to finally give in under him.

Hawks also just about gives into the temptation of collapsing on the spot as his momentum dies off at last… if not for some fucker capitalizing on the situation and dipping him for good measure.

Dabi also adds a hearty chuckle while doing so, certainly pleased at the mess the other is right now. “And here I thought you couldn’t be shaken.” 

“I saw… my life flashing before my eyes, asshole,” he breathes between wheezes, contemplating whether he should grab onto the guy, because just hanging around doesn’t make for a stable setup and he’d rather not risk one of the concussions he's been thinking of.

A cock of the head aside, all he gets is an eyeroll. “Sure seem happy about it, don't you.”

Well, now that the villain points it out… Hawks certainly is grinning like an idiot, and has been for a while. For whatever reason, he also starts giggling uncontrollably at that.

“Shut up, will you,” he snickers while trying to find something to hang an arm onto.

It’s little use in the end, because Himiko decides to slide right into Dabi’s leg, both ruining a chance for a comeback and collapsing the unbalanced circus act.

He keeps giggling through Dabi’s moans of discontent and more, though. These few minutes were the most fun he’s had in a decade, if not more.

He's coming over tomorrow, too.

[gffa]

An interesting thing to do is to both look back at Celebration’s released info and look at the upcoming schedule of various places we might get new announcements.  Because, while Celebration had a lot of really fantastic stuff (the title + teaser trailer for The Rise of Skywalker, a lot of detail about The Mandalorian, even though they didn’t put it on-line, the first episode of Resistance season 2, the trailer for The Clone Wars, the trailer for Jedi: Fallen Order, etc.), there wasn’t really much that was directly new, even on the publishing panels.  Pretty much the only announcements of new things I can think of were the Be More Leia and Be More Lando books, and Project Luminous.  Not totally surprising, the focus was definitely on filling us in on things we already knew about/celebrating a lot of established stuff. One major thing that was missing was any The Journey to the Rise of Skywalker announcements, which got me thinking.  It’s reasonably likely that they’ll wait until Triple Force Friday to announce the titles for that project/imprint, which will be in October.  HOWEVER, there are a bunch of places where they COULD announce other things, too! - San Diego Comic Con, July 18-21 2019 - D23 Con, August 23-25 2019 - New York Comic Con, October 3-6 2019 - Triple Force Friday, October 4 2019 NYCC and TFF overlapping seems like a gimme that they’ll do some stuff together there.  (For reference, there were 4 novels, 2 mini-series comics, 4 reference books, and 11 activity books under the banner of Journey to The Last Jedi.  Journey to The Force Awakens had 5 novels, 5 short stories, 1 mini-series comic, 2 reference books, and 4 activity books.)   SDCC and D23 might be like Celebration, where we mostly just get trailers and behind the scenes looks and talking about the progress of things we already know.  (I’m guessing the focus will be The Mandalorian, The Rise of Skywalker, and Jedi: Fallen Order, with snippets of Cassian Andor and The Clone Wars, rather than new stuff, until TFF.) But you look at how much we already have in store and how close it is together--like, The Mandalorian will debut on Disney+ on November 12, then three days later, Jedi: Fallen Order will be released, then a month after that is The Rise of Skywalker--there are 6 novels, 6 reference books, 28 comics (+ about 50 more that don’t have specific dates yet), 27 activity/trivia/kids’ books, 1 audio drama, 4 manga volumes and graphic novels, 4 artbooks, 2 behind the scenes books, 2 TV series, 3 video games, and 1 movie. ALL OF THAT IS BEFORE ANY FURTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS HAPPEN.  I’m reasonably sure that they’re not going to announce too many more things--for this year, at least--aside from Journey to TROS, because that’s a really, really full schedule already, too much more and you’re taking away from big, expensive projects, but it’s kind of wild to think about just how much Star Wars stuff we’re getting this year.