#there's one specific player in the whole thing that this very specific feeling is reserved for. and I've come this far

[hell0mega]

hmmmm

[charles-simmons-fanfiction]

Meeks and Pitts Headcanons (except it's me projecting in all of these)

-> Both of them know how to solve a Rubik's cube and almost always have one around to do something while they're bored. Probably one of them learned it first for whatever reason, then taught the other. And they also like to race to see who solves it first. (and i'm saying this as someone who won't go anywhere without my cube. It's a life style y'know)

-> They're both very geek and nerdy, but Meeks is more of a nerd and Pitts is more of a geek.

-> "Don't worry, I didn't have time to study for this either," they say, but know the whole subject by heart.

-> While Meeks is very sociable, Pitts used to be pretty socially awkward and it took him a while to get genuinely comfortable with all the poets. He is that type of person who's very reserved and quiet, then as soon as he gets used to you he suddenly becomes the most talkative and annoying person in the world.

-> They definitely like boardgames and the rest of this post will be about that, as someone who LOVES boardgames with my whole heart. I know dps takes place before most cool games were invented, but let's just pretend they got to have those in their teenage years. Most of this fandom is constantly pretending stuff didn't happen like canon anyway.

-> Meeks is the type of person who would love games that need tactics and strategy, specially card and deck building games. He would be that type of player that makes the biggest combos (there's always one like that and it is so annoying to everyone else, but he has the time of his life). Like, every single round he manages to do some crazy logical move and win more points than all the others combined.

-> Pitts, on the other hand, likes games with plots, characters, maybe even roleplaying. From more simple games, like Coup to some more complex ones, like Above and Below. And I think he would be more into cooperative games rather than competitive.

-> I particularly think both of them would like space themed boardgames, for some reason I can't explain. Games like Terraforming Mars and Nemesis (I only played this one twice, and each time took like 5 hours, but I swear time FLIES in these games. The other poets would surely complain every time Steven and Gerard decided to play those, because it would take the whole afternoon/night.)

-> Sometimes the other dead poets would agree to play with them. Usually after days of them begging for it. When that happens, they would probably play party games. Those games are faster and easy to learn (there's always someone who struggles to understand the rules, and I think it would be Charlie and Knox, but Charlie would get it as soon as they actually start playing). Games like Exploding Kittens, Cards against Humanity, or even Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza (one of funniest games ever btw).

-> Normal card games (like poker, rummy or canasta) are mostly Meek's thing though and he takes it very seriously, although I don't think he'd go as far as betting money on it.

-> Both of them would love RPGs so much.

-> All of those nerdy things might sound stupid to others, but to them, it's a huge bonding moment and it means a lot when they get the others to engage with their hobbies.

💛.

This post feels SO NICHE, bc it has both my love for these two specific characters but also for boardgames. It was fun though, so it's worth it ^^"

[primojade]

𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄.

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 : 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐘.

"the best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now." - Rick Warren

𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒' 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 | As a veteran AR60 player of Genshin Impact, you pride yourself as someone who knows the ins and outs of Teyvat, even studiously completing Spiral Abyss every reset, and having 100% exploration to some, if not all, of the released regions so far. Everything is fun and enjoyable, especially since Sumeru just recently debuted so you still have a lot to do!

All that ends though, when a mysterious passerby pushes you off the building of your university while playing Genshin. But instead of meeting your inevitable end, you find yourself waking up in the very world you were addicted to! 

It's supposed to be a fun dream, right? Something you could laugh at when you wake up? Right?! So, why is that you were back in AR1 with nothing but a dull blade in your inventory?!

…well, at least you still have those 700+ sunsettias and mints, Timmie's fowls…and surprisingly similar game mechanics you used to merely see on the screen before. But what should you do now? Flirt with the Genshin men??? Good lords...

"Welcome to Genshin Impact, Dreamer. Here, we can show you a happier ever after you've never had before…so, ready?"

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 | In which you were just innocently playing Genshin in your breaktime and a seemingly psychotic stranger pushed you off the building. The next thing you knew, you clashed heads with a rather apprehenshive Forest Watcher you just saw in your phone screen moments ago—quite literally, in fact.

𝐂𝐖 / 𝐓𝐖 | mention of death (but no death, really); a stranger pushed u off the top building, mention of injuries (but nothing graphic), cursing, brain discussion. Let me know if I missed anything cause its 12 am now lol.

𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒 | you will be given two choices at the end of the prologue! And those choices you will pick will then gonna be branched into different scenarios that will then lead to specific routes :3 also, u can tell how much i like tighnari here lol 😂

masterlist | scene i: argumentum ad hominem | scene ii: argumentum ad ignorantiam

Although you love to read romance novels and fanfics, perhaps you never truly experienced true love for yourself. The ones that they describe as knowing that that person is the one, or feeling the selfless contentment even if your love is not fully returned. 

You observed people around you who are in love with each other; your parents, your friends, and even strangers, when they interact with their loved ones, and to be honest, you longed to experience that as well. 

When that someone was looking at you with warmth, with that special twinkle in their eyes and the smile that was only reserved for you. That exhilarating feeling of being in love…the boundless joy when your love was returned in full.

…And when you told this to the unlikely person you met in your more unlikely journey, he only laughed and ruffled your hair in adoration.

"Love is a fallacy." He simply said as he turned his back to you, his tone certain and sure.

And, just like you, this person didn't know what love is either.

×××

You didn't know if you're merely built differently or fate just decided to poked fun at you because they're bored.

Slowly, you fluttered your eyes open. Immediately, you shut them again as a blinding light glared into them. You tried again opening just one and allowing it to adjust before the other followed. Light filtering from the nearby windows danced on a branch inches from your face. They were interesting to watch in their mindless waving that you absentmindedly wondered if that incident had dumped you in some psychedelic in-between space-time or something.

Your whole body was aching all over and you felt paralyse, unable to move. The seething pain settling in the pits of your stomach, and the hammering ache in your head indicates that you must've hit it somewhere hard. 

As if coming out of a long tunnel, sound starts to be recorded in your ears with increasing intensity. Crackling of fire from a hearth, snapping twigs from the near distant, softly flipping of pages before it stopped…and an increasing volume of a gentle voice saying something nearby.

But before you even try comprehending what they were saying, parts of your brain start discussing the sudden turns of events in your life. And hell, their discussion is making you even more confused.

That's what you get for being so stubborn, [Name]. Your cerebrum accused you.

We were just playing Genshin during our break time! And after our stressful midterms, at that! What's the problem, then? Come to the rescue, your thalamus that is.

Instead of reviewing for your next exam, you went to the rooftop and wasted your time playing Genshin instead? Your cerebellum teased.

And then get pushed around by that psychopath to our death? Your brainstem scoffed in disdain.

Wait. Is it just me or I can't remember anything about that psychopath? Even our conversation with them? Your hippocampus is as confused as you.

Hell! I don't know anymore! The panicking hypothalamus said.

Just shut up, guys. There's something wrong with the person we were part of. Let them collect their thoughts first. Your pons varolii calmly stated.

I'm truly sorry, my brain. You pathetically whimpered when the parts of your brain huffed at you in annoyance. It shouldn't be logically possible, but since nothing that is going on right now is as logical as you liked them to be, you just give up discussing stuff with your brain.

First of all, you had no idea where you were. Second, you felt a soft mattress underneath you, and a fresh wind messing with your hair. But you tried to think over the cloud that seemingly covered your mind, giving yourself time and tried to take slow, even breaths.

Ignoring the annoying parts of your brain, you asked inwardly, what was the last thing you remembered?

You just finished your first batch of exams for your midterms, and you decided to take a break from reviewing by going to the rooftop of the highest building on your university campus. You played Genshin Impact to relax, a favourite video game of yours that you were addicted to for over two years now. You were trying to burn resin by farming artifacts for Tighnari, to whom you may (or may not) recently lost your 50/50 to. 

After that…?

A weird woman, a person you're pretty sure you've never seen before, come up to you. Although cautious of the stranger at first, you remembered that she also played Genshin Impact, and you remembered being elated because you have someone to talk to now about your favourite game! 

Your conversation lasted for almost an hour, before you remembered that you have another exam coming up within ten minutes, to your disappointment. But before you could say goodbye to your "new friend", all of a sudden, she…

You clearly remember her pushing you off the railing! You were caught off guard, so you haven't had the chance to brace yourself and prepare to grab the handle to stop your downfall!

Holy shiznits!

…if you estimated correctly, the height of that building was physically impossible for any human being to survive!

But here you are.

You also remember the darkness swirling in, melting your vision to a world of black. You closed your eyes again as dizziness hit you, gritting your teeth.

You could not recall any sound, then. But you remembered the darkness and the billowing wind slapping your face as you fell, the loud noises, remembering losing the ground under your feet and grasping at nothing, your Genshin Impact game that was still open on your phone screen was suspended in the air. You remembered being thrown from side to side in the middle of a non-existent tunnel, your head violently jerked. You remembered dread and void…

And, then…you did not remember anything anymore.

For a moment, you felt conflicted. Were you already dead? You were sure that that fall was enough to kill you, but is this what the afterlife feels like?! It was as if you were just back in your room, flipping countless books and notebooks, endlessly and tirelessly reviewing for your exams…

HOLY SHIZNITS. YOU DIDN'T MANAGE TO TAKE YOUR AFTERNOON EXAMS—

If you saw that psychopath again, you'll make sure to sue her for attempted murder! And then slapped her for making you fail in your midterm exams!

Feeling an intensifying alarm and hearing your breathing turned ragged, you hastily peeled your eyes open and looked around in desperation.

What you saw was not something you expected, though. You were lying on a surprisingly fluffy bed, next to you was a quaint window, then a writing desk (with an odd globe-like apparatus that was suspiciously vibrating with green energy). The wall was decorated with colourful patterns of butterflies and different plants you find oddly familiar.

You frowned. Where are you? Why are you still alive? Shiznits, nothing makes sense at all! 

There's a small part of your brain that is poking in the deep recesses of your memories. It was telling you to remember that…but remember what, exactly?!

And this room, this familiar room that you were certain you've never been physically in before, were sending cold shivers down your spine. 

In your panic, you hastily props your elbows backwards to support yourself as you sit down. Ignoring the dizziness that slapped your head like a hammer to a nail, you threw the soft blankets to the side and tried to stand up. 

"—hey!"

Before you could find your balance, a firm but gentle hand grabbed your shoulders and guided you down to the bed again. You couldn't find the momentum to fight back at the hand, as a familiar voice echoed in your ears. One that cleared the fog of uncertainty in your mind and forced you to remember just where you saw those familiar plants, this familiar room, and an equally familiar voice that you had grown to be fond of in a couple of months now.

"Look, I'm not certain with what you were doing with your life, or why did you decided—quite ludicrous, if I do say so myself—that gliding from that high in the sky is a smart thing to do, but if you don't wish to worsen your injuries and force me to send you to Bimarstan, you'll stay in that bed and rest yourself." The familiar person talked to you in a strict tone, almost exasperated, but the underlying concern for your wellbeing was present. 

Raising your head, you blinked at him once, then twice. You tried rubbing your eyes, praying this is all a wonderful dream, when he was still standing in front of you after that, you poked his gloved hand once. 

Your eyes widened in shock at realisation. "—TIGHNARI?! HOW… W-WHAT…WHY? THIS IS…?! Are you for real?!"

Tighnari, the Forest Watcher  Avidya Forest, a recently released Sumeru character, the first playable 5 star Dendro Bow wielder, the character you were just farming artifacts for before your "death"…is standing in front of you!? In the flesh! 

He doesn't even seem 3D anymore because the more complicated details in his splash and official art, the ones that were left behind in his 3D model, looks even more complicated now that you were seeing in your own eyes. That was definitely real now.

What in the world is going on?!

One of Tighnari's ears twitched along with his eye. "...Oh, Archons. Do lower down the decibels of your voice. It's grating my ears. And I'm quite certain I've never met you before, and I didn't get the chance to introduce myself when you smacked me in the face earlier, so how come you know my name?" 

Confused, you frowned at him, still not believing this is all real. "...uh, what do you mean I smacked you?"

Perhaps he realised that you were still not yourself to answer his questions, so he patiently said, "I saw you free falling from the sky, but before I could have the chance to properly catch you, you instantly smacked right through me, knocking us both right that instant."

His nonchalance was outstanding, especially when you notice the slight reddish bump on his forehead that was probably due to the fact that you knocked your forehead with him when he tried to properly catch you.

After Tighnari finished muttering to himself how it was nearly impossible to have that falling speed, he turned to you with his hands on his hips, his bi-coloured eyes narrowing. "...we'll continue this conversation later, it's time for you to drink your medicine. So, stay there for a moment and don't move. I'll be right back."

Before you could say anything, Tighnari turned his back on you and left the room, leaving you alone with nothing but a quick and curious glance as you watched him disappear behind the doors.

By the way, his real-life tail looks even fluffier than the one in game—

Alone, you finally had time to gather your thoughts. "...This…is not real, right? This must be a dream, right?" You pinched your cheeks and uninjured arms, but the pain that comes with it keeps telling you otherwise, that no…no, [Name] this is not a dream…

Panic started to form at the pit of your stomach, scorching deep as if burning, and you tried your best to relax your breathing by patting your chest multiple times, but instead of calming, you were surprised once again when something appeared in front of you.

"W-What…?"

You stared dumbly at the hologram-like screen hovering before your face innocently. It eerily looks like the Paimon Menu in your Genshin Impact game, minus the Battle Pass, Co-op, and the Community tab. Even the Wish system was here! Though when you tried cautiously tapping it, it was locked, along with the Character Archive and the Handbook.

When your eyes travelled upwards to where your Adventure Rank usually situated, your jaw dropped and you almost fell on the bed in mortification.

[Username]

(No signature)

World Level: 0

Adventure Rank: 1

EXP: 0

Route 1: Listen to Tighnari and wait for his further instructions. After all, what could you do outside of Sumeru with nothing but a body full of injuries and an AR1 on your account?

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR AR60 ACCOUNT?! WHY IS IT AR1? HELLO—?

TAGLIST (open! Send a dm or ask to be added :3) | @xinii , @maehemthemisfit , @abvolat , @crazypriestess , @ghostsaysno , @kittence , @unabashedlyminiaturetyrant , @xiyanin , @toasterinabathtub ...

Route 2: Forget Tighnari! Maybe it was a wifi problem or something? There must be a problem here why you were back at AR1, right!? You're going to find out whether you have Tighnari's help or not!

[lightprkdraws]

ooh okay now I'm curious: what don't you like about v3's ending?

Hhh I hope you won't regret asking this, because I am going to rant a looot about it XDD

SPOILERS for ALL danganronpa main games (also, long rant ahead)

The first thing that I want to say is that it makes me cringe. It makes me cringe so hard when the in-universe characters talk about the previous games and literally say danganronpa. It's too meta for my liking.

Additionally, it feels mean spirited to the player. Sorry, I can't get to the moral high ground here, I just don't like getting lectured for the things I like by the things I like. It's a bit hypocritical too, no? You were the one who made the murder mystery game, not me!

---

Having gotten those two points out of the way, it feels really silly as a reveal in comparison to the previous two games' reveals. The first one basically said that the world as the characters knew it had ended, and the second one not only said that, but it also revealed that they were the ones responsible.

In comparison, DRV3 has a very bizarre (also overused, also juvenile) "we live in a society" kind of reveal. "Ooooh look how uncaring all these people are!"

(also, seriously? who could watch 53 of these killing games without getting bored? that number is ridiculous)

It certainly tries to give it more of a punch with the inclusion of the characters' audition tapes (seeing that they signed up to be psychologically tortured and literally murdered on live TV) in an attempt to make it more like DR2 instead of just DR1, however that aspect is brushed aside in favour of dealing with the bigger issue (the actual murder show). It's so incredibly cartoony and weird, and not in a good way. Maybe if it were some kind of underground, dark web type of deal there would be a better flavour to it.

Also, there were sooo many red herrings in the previous chapters, instead of a slow buildup of the reveal. For comparison's sake:

In 2-2 the characters learn that they've lost their school memories, and, after that, Monokuma starts talking about the world ending on multiple occasions. In 2-3 we read a document about a reserve course that exists at hope's peak. We also learn about protests that were carried out by said reserve course. Then in 2-4 we get the payoff that Hajime is in the reserve course. Finally, in 2-6 we learn that all the people of this game were the instigators of the apocalipse. Hajime's personal struggle is only a small part of the bigger reveal, but it also supports the bigger narrative: the fact that Hope's Peak is an incredibly corrupt organisation that treats people as expendable labrats, and how that led to the protests, and how that helped Junko escalate the situation in a massive way.

Meanwhile, in V3 we get some flashbacks of Suichi talking with a random young kid, him talking with some classmates, him being chased by a mob of people. Then there's a whole thing about getting to the exit through the tunnel and hope's peak building a sanctuary for the last remains of humanity?? And let's not forget Kaede's sister, for whatever reason. I'll admit that I don't remember all the details of V3 because it's been a while since I played it, but all these events are so disjointed and random. There's just so many things shown that in the end don't have anything to do with the reveal (apart from showing how stupid the whole organisation running these killing games is).

Another thing to mention, is the existence of the nanokumas. The creators must have really liked the fact that Monokuma could see everything all the time in DR2, because they had to somehow make that work outside of a digital context in V3. I hate the nanokumas. They are so incredibly dumb as a concept.

And after all is said and done, the game has the gall to say "but who knows what the actual truth is"

Neither of the previous games had such an unecessary open-endedness to them. But ig I have to admit that, specifically with DR1's ending, there is a bias of certainty because we got multiple sequels that confirm what the truth is (although I still believe that it didn't really leave much room for debate).

Both games had a feeling of "and the story continues" but not a "wait, what was the truth after all?", if that makes sense.

---

Now, about Tsumugi specifically. It's really really dumb that she was made out out to be a big bad evil mastermind, when she's just a showrunner. She's got 0 actual power. Nothing like Junko or even Izuru. They were the instigators. Tsumugi is a small cog in a machine.

Idk if I've said this before, but I'd like her a lot better as a mastermind if she'd been some rich spoiled girl who's obsessed with the danganronpa franchise and ends up kidnapping a bunch of her classmates and brainwashes them in order to make her own real-life killing game. That to me, specifically for Tsumugi's character, would be 1000x or even 1000000x more compelling than her canon motivations and role. This way, you can even keep the meta-narrative of the previous games being fictional in the V3 universe, but can completely remove the entire world being in on the joke. AND it would make her more interesting because she'd be so passionate about this game that she's literally willing to die for it!

---

In conclusion: there's probably things I can't remember right now, but these are the main points that come to mind off the top of my head.

Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun playing it until the trial of chapter 5. It became too confusing and convoluted for me after that point. But before that, I liked seeing most of the character interactions.

I do feel bitter that Kaede was killed in the first chapter (it'd be a lot more interesting if Suichi had died and Kaede had then had to learn how to take on his role, there could even be a lesson that one does not need to keep themselves within the confines of their assigned ultimate talent), but it's not like the whole game suffers from this one decision.

I especially liked the interactions between Suichi, Maki, and Kaito during their nightly meetups. Such small moments of bonding time is something that was missing from the previous two games.

[triptychgardener]

What made you decide to linger with the meat timeline peeps after they had accomplished their goal of cracking younger junes egg?

Hoo boy! Well thank you for asking that question, because it is kind of THE question to a lot of my thoughts and philosophy for how I've been tackling the theming for Early June in my head.

(This is gonna be a long one, brief mention of suicide and longer discussion on kinda heavy transition-related things under the cut)

First off, the most honest answer is that, when I started this fic, I planned out the story. It was originally going to be something like twenty chapters, following pretty much entirely the younger crew. However, I am terminally unable to stop writing and expanding on things. So, I decided to write what their plan would be and their particular thoughts and reservations about it.

The second has to do with the premise of Early June as a whole, whose entire core conceit was perhaps... founded on an unhealthy impulse on Older!June's part. And of course, kind of on my part.

I think a lot of trans people, obviously not all, imagine what it would have been like if they had come out younger. At the very least, I certainly have. And that's kind of the core premise of the damn thing:  "what would happen if June came out during the game, and was therefore more "awake" in a personal sense, and can therefore maybe prevent the Meat-adjacent timeline from happening in the first place." That was the set premise with the goal put in place.

But! Most importantly, when this essentially became the largest creative project I have ever put time into, I started to question that premise on a philosophical level. On a practical level, yes, June has absolutely changed things in the timeline that could construed as making the whole thing better. But on Older!June's part, she isn't seeing it at the start as "helping another group of younger players win the game and create a better tomorrow," she is seeing it as herself doing it. Which, due to the passage of time and the deviance between the timelines, isn't really true!

The Ultimate Self as a concept is something I've been ruminating on a lot, as most postcanon-adjacent works tend to do. In a way, I can see it with its intention to both A.) Consolidate the MANY different versions of a character that Homestuck Proper presents and B.) give some weight to them. Even the doomed versions will, in the Ultimate Self, have some influence on who the core of that person is.

But! Like Roxy says to June, to intentionally erase yourself just to add to the ultimate self is kind of tantamount to destroying the "You" that is an individual. And in Early June specifically, I think a lot of characters balk at the idea of essentially being boiled back down to some core concept of who they are as a collective narrative presence. Jake and Roxy at the start, Dove and DS, all of them want to keep their individuality as people and be able to actually choose which parts of themselves they want to keep, discard, or remake, and not just lend cosmic weight to the Ultimate. And therefore, that's why Roxy comes to essentially talk June out of, essentially, deleting them once they've fulfilled their "purpose," which is also me finding out through my own writing that their plan was kind of fucked up, and how I can take these characters much farther. Plus, it is just fun to write these characters as older, and give them some more nuanced positions that they gained as they aged.

Now that's obviously the "In-Canon" reason, which leads to the more personal reason of "someone who regrets not transitioning earlier wants to lose themselves in the idea of a life they, fundamentally, could not have had in their current state." Older!June's life isn't over, even if she feels it is, because, first off, the age you transition at has literally no bearing on your validity as your chosen gender, and secondly, even if you feel like you did all the most important things you've ever done before you transitioned and after that everything's just been a disaster, there is still more life for you to live. Obviously, this is a fictional world that does not conform to our reality, but the author is, as usual, stuck in reality, and given that fiction is often used as a way to process reality through metaphor, Older!June's arc is about learning to salvage what's there instead of starting anew, because this her only has one life to live. Aaaand that of course can very easily be a message applied to people who transition later in life.

This actually WAS going to be partially explained/explored more explicitly in the fic, towards the end of the conversation between Callie and Calliope, (i.e. the [DATA LOST] part), but I decided to omit that conversation between the author figure and them (though I can't promise there won't be any meta/author shenanigans in the future) because A). It got. Really personal at times and even though I'm not opposed to that, B). it was causing me genuine consternation over whether or not I was supposed to include it and I figured that my hobby should probably not be causing me more psychological distress and C). This story is not about me, it is about the characters who I very heavily project onto.

My one regret is that Ado didn't get to make an appearance in the fic proper. Ah well, there's always next time. Thanks for asking, sorry this was kind of a long one!

[tiny-cloud-of-flowers]

void-kissed (Luna/Adriana)

A dark dreamer learning to love the life she has made for herself, and her soul-touched love brought back from a previous timeline. Together, they help to save a city reborn, living together in the grand Vanhanen Castle.

series: Pokémon Reborn romantic F/O: Luna Vanhanen self-insert: Adriana Laverre names for the selfship: void-kissed, lunadri, voidkissedshipping selfship start date: 9th May 2020 (approximately)

Content for this selfship: on this blog | on previous blogs

Some things you may wish to know about this selfship are below the readmore!

Luna's character tag is "love: dark dreamer (luna)", while Adriana's tag is "self-insert: soul-touched (adriana)". The tag for the selfship as a whole is "selfship: void-kissed (luna/adriana)".

In the story of this selfship, Adriana meets Luna upon arriving at Vanhanen Castle to battle her adopted father Radomus, and later rushes to her aid in the Subseven Sanctum. The two confess their feelings to each other after Adriana successfully obtains Luna's Gym Badge, but cannot then reunite until after Reborn City has been revitalised, because of Adri getting stranded in Carnelia for several months. After the events of the main game, Adriana moves in with Luna to live in Vanhanen Castle, becoming the Reborn League's first reserve/Shadow Champion. When Shade steps down from being the Ghost-type Gym Leader, Adriana takes his place, taking challengers in Iolia Valley just like Luna does (until she becomes one of the Elite Four, that is).

This is one of my main romantic selfships, so there is a lot of story!

I headcanon Luna to have a slightly different appearance to how she appears in the game; specifically, she dyes her hair black so that it better resembles the other Vanhanens', and wears coloured contacts (one eye is pink and the other is blue) as a reference to Serra. I still like her in-game appearance just as much, but this headcanon is one that I got quite attached to, so most of how I portray Luna will be with this appearance.

Pokémon Reborn has at least three successive timelines - one where Fern is the protagonist/player character equivalent, one where Adriana is, and one where the player is. My selfship with Luna exists in both the second and third timelines, and the story is fairly similar in both (aside from second timeline failing before postgame). To tell the difference, Adriana has dark brown freckles in the second timeline (and uses Pokémon of lots of different types), whereas she has white freckles in the third timeline (and almost exclusively uses Ghost-type Pokémon).

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this! If you have any questions, or there's anything else you think I should put on this info post, please don't hesitate to let me know by sending an ask!

[motheatenscarf]

I was gonna post about this yesterday, but by the time I got back to the computer, it was almost time for D&D and I needed to mentally shift over to that, but man!

Y'shtola's little scene where she comes to talk to the WoL right before the Final Days kick off is my favorite of them all, I think.

Cracks in Y'sthola's emotional control are few and far between, I think I can count them on one hand. That's a good thing, imo, there are plenty of characters here who need moments of weakness and struggles, and having a character as composed, rational, and in control of their shit as she is gives them room to do that while letting her shine in other ways.

That said, while her quiet, reserved affection is endearing, it's perhaps ESPECIALLY reserved for the WoL, at least in my opinion. She'll lightly chastise them in a well-meaning way, but I tended to get the impression it was more in a sense of camaraderie, acknowledging the WoL as literally the only person who can do what they do and appreciating/respecting that. God knows she can also more than lightly chastise and has little patience for people getting hung up on their personal drama (Thancred), so it seemed to me like Talia would probably not vibe with her despite her also being a mean goth girl.

So, while I like Y'shtola, the closest I felt she was to my character was when Y'shtola was the only one who would respect her enough to warn her that she was probably dying. Y'shtola didn't offer any comfort for that revelation, merely telling her to keep her appraised if something should change. Her concern seemed practical rather than personal.

I don't think I'm alone in that interpretation, either, since out of literally all the Scion visits, she's the only one the WoL doesn't invite in.

That might be because they didn't get the chance, but only because Y'shtola is, as ever, straight to business when the WoL answers the door.

So color me very surprised when Y'shtola's scene visiting the WoL is her examining them to make sure they aren't dying again. That's standard fare, she has repeatedly expressed concern over how much the WoL endures. She then cracks a joke about how the WoL must have offended every god in a past life to be put through so much, mentioning specifically the trauma of Zenos wearing their body like a suit of armor.

The WoL makes a surprised face which the player can interpret to mean any number of things., but the most obvious being the whole "past life" bit, which she catches too. She apologizes, realizing it's in bad taste, mentioning her vision of the Final Days of Amaurot and finally expressing gratitude that if it had to be one of them, she's glad it was she who saw it and not the WoL. The implication there being, of course, "You bear enough, let me carry the portentous visions of doom and worry about them." You can hear a crack in her voice through this last bit, as she's clearly overcome by the sheer tragedy and horror she knows the Final Days have spelled, and will spell again if they're returning.

She then gets the lid back on her emotions and makes the WoL promise to be careful, knowing that they're all going to have to face that horror beyond description together. She specifically tells them to seek her counsel if they feel "unwell."

It's much less direct than G'raha's metaphor about sharing the load, but it's more impactful imo. Y'shtola keeps people at arms length, but she's specifically asking the WoL to let her in, to let her be strong for them; she's got her shit together, she knows what it's like to carry it all for the sake of others, and she wants to carry some of it for them.

And after all that, she leaves by telling them "May the night bless and keep you," the standard farewell of the Night's Blessed, her chosen family, the first people she really let in and felt the need to be strong for, the people she loved so much she threw away her caution and rationality to recklessly risk her life to try and save.

That's what the WoL is to her, is what she's saying, in a very Y'shtola roundabout way, and I love it.

It's just so good in the context of how reserved she is!

I love it a lot, it's my favorite of the Scion room visits ;_;

[popblank]

The Lonely Few at the Geffen Playhouse:

The cast was what originally drew me to the show - first when I saw the listings for the Geffen season and Lauren Patten was listed as starring in this new musical, and then when Ciara Renée and Damon Daunno were announced as joining the cast.  

More notes below:

The theater was set up as a bar, with small tables in front of the stage, bar seating on tall chairs on either side of the table area, and several rows of theater-style tiered seating at the back. In my earlier post on the show I noted that sitting at the Main Bar puts you right in a lot of the action. Because I was at the end of the bar farthest from the stage, actors would often be in the vicinity because they were watching the stage performance (in-character) and there was space to stand, because they just happened to enter the bar from that side, or on one occasion because that open aisle area was was used for staging part of a scene. I was pretty startled at Damon Daunno’s first appearance in the show because I turned to my left and he was standing right next to me. (Funnily enough, I bought that seat thinking it would be reasonably close to the stage but far enough back and to the side that I wouldn’t be in the middle of things. Whoops. I’m glad at how it turned out because it was a neat experience, I ended up sitting next to a very nice person, and thankfully there was no real audience participation element. But it is kind of weird when actors are acting right next to you.)  

The plot is not especially groundbreaking – basically it’s Singer-Songwriter AU, The Musical (F/F, 50000 words, rated Teen). That is not meant to be disparaging – I mean, I’d probably read that story in any number of variations.  Just pick one younger, talented character who desperately wants to escape the mundane shackles of their small town (Lauren Patten, as Lila) and one maybe slightly older, more reserved character who has seen the world and is a little jaded but still wants to carve out a path of their own (Ciara Renée as Amy). Joshua Close is Adam, Lila’s brother. Damon Daunno is Dylan, Lila’s coworker, best friend, and the bass player in their band, The Lonely Few; his character is almost entirely lacking the swagger he used as Curly in Oklahoma!. Helen J. Shen is the youthful and enthusiastic keyboard player JJ, Thomas Silcott is Paul, the band’s drummer, owner of the bar the band performs at, and apparently the closest thing Amy has to a father figure.

The music was pretty good; while I can’t specifically recall the songs after a week and a half, I enjoyed listening to them in the moment and they were performed well. The duet between Amy and Paul was particularly nice and I was impressed by Ciara Renée; she sang beautifully and expressively with both control and restraint. Song styles included rock, folk/country, pop, blues.

One thing that I would have liked to see in the show (or at least see more sharply portrayed) is a little more character buildup, a little more pining, a little more loneliness. Part of the appeal of this kind of romantic drama is to provoke those twinges of emotion on behalf of the characters. It was like I could see what the story was trying to get at, but it wasn’t quite focused - e.g. I gather a character might react strongly to certain relationship stressors because of their past experiences based on earlier things they said, but I was thinking that vs. feeling it.

On the whole I liked it and if time permits I would go see it again (whether from the same vantage point or a new one).

[reyesmarconi]

ysmael and gianna are legitimately one of my favorite relationships that i’ve created and written, and i actually never had any intention of them growing on me the way they have but! they did! much like marce grew on me the way he did, so did his parents, because it only made sense to me that a big personality like him came from equally big, rich personalities. and it was interesting to sort of, retroactively build them – to pick and chose which traits of marcelo’s came from which parent, and why, and to round them up with elements that didn’t cross into marcelo but that made sense nonetheless. i already knew what ysmael was going to do for a living. i already knew what gianna was going to do for a living. but i didn’t know the scope! once i started figuring out ysmael and gianna i had to figure out both the reyes and the marconi families to add even more context and sense to them. and it was just so enjoyable to do so, but that’s not the point of my rant here…….. they are the point. they just fit so well, even better than i could’ve hoped for tbh and yes they’re my own two damn characters so if i wanna say they’re in love then they’re in love and that’s it but, they actually feel in love. they have reasons for being in love, and their love is just so great and grand and passionate, it actually bears significance because it was their relationship the one that taught marcelo what love could be. the way marcelo loves is modeled after the way ysmael loved gianna and the way gianna loved ysmael and the way ysmael and gianna loved him, both very different ways that nonetheless struck a balance in marcelo.

they met at a casino in bogotá. that’s the first thing i had figured out about them. ysmael had been playing baccarat with a few other seasoned players, and, noticing a very important-looking woman watching the game with keen interested, he set out to impress her with a stunt that nearly costed him all his money… except he won, all thanks to his impeccable audacity and a dash of luck. and so, after retiring from the table, he used that same boldness to request a conversation with her.

he had been, initially, infatuated with gianna… no doubt about that. you don’t ask someone to marry you a day after meeting them if you’re not infatuated hard, no matter how much you seem to like one another. and though gianna (obviously) declined, he made a point to continue and court her. which gianna humored, aloof enough to look above it all, yet playful enough to make it clear she was just as interested. because she was just as interested, and not just for the obvious reasons (like the fact she’d been actually there to discuss reyes-marconi business with him all along), but because she found him charming. she found ysmael’s specific brand of cheerful boldness attractive.

ysmael is the side of marcelo that makes his love very evident. he was the one that said i love you first, the one that said let’s live together first, and the one that discussed marriage and children first. he’s the one that discussed his feelings first, and fearlessly laid them all out on the table for gianna to examine and scrutinize. marcelo gets his toothy smiles and slick words all from his father, and the way he treated his mother since he was a child – ysmael was never less than devout towards his mother, in marcelo’s eyes, even when they had disagreements. he never saw ysmael raise his voice inside the reyes household. not toward his wife – not once. and he never heard ysmael talk about her with anything less than positive and complimentary words when in public.

gianna, on the other hand, is the side of marcelo that is much more reserved. the side that’s a little cold but nonetheless just as loving. gianna took her time warming up to the relationship – she was cautious where ysmael was forward, and overall she set the pace of the whole thing from the very beginning. she took the big decisions and did so with a critical, cool-headed mind. which didn’t mean she loved ysmael any less… friends would actually tease about the idea of her being heartless purely for the fact that she was nothing more than pleasant and distant (which, next to ysmael, could actually seem straight up stoic), not realizing (not caring to realize) that she loved ysmael just as much, if not more. but that love was not meant for everyone else to witness. gianna taught marcelo to keep certain parts of himself safely guarded for only himself or a few specific someones to see. gianna expressed her love much more subtly and privately to her husband, an to an extent to her son, but marcelo learned very early on to understand it and embrace it just as much as he embraced ysmael’s loud demonstrations.

they worked very well together. they were an excellent team, love and family and business wise, and they never underestimated one another and played up each other’s strengths. as much both of his parents have sort of fallen from grace over the years in marcelo’s eyes, their relationship is something he continues to idealize. though he doesn’t use the exact phrase, he does consider their love (toward each other and toward him) their main redeeming quality.

and anyhow, i also like that the typically-masculine “emotionlessness” and is instead favored by gianna, whereas ysmael is the more clearly emotional of the two.

[skiyoosmi]

post-break up heartaches

⤷ verse 2. in the dreams that we once shared

⤷ miya osamu, bokuto koutarou

⤷ verse 1 | verse 3

⤷ play. sorrow by sleeping at last, wrong direction by hailee steinfield

commissions: open

⇢ OSAMU stays still in his seat, melancholic eyes contrasting your bright ones while you twirl around in the middle of the ballroom. he admits, your dream wedding gown fit your figure perfectly as it flowed so gracefully the more you moved. but no beauty can compare to the happiness on your face as you danced with his previous volleyball teammate; the latter having a small smile on his face, not even having a single care about the funny looks you've been getting from your distant relatives. despite the minimal expression he adorns, to someone who has known him for a long time, it's clear as day just how ecstatic suna rintaro was to declare you as his wife, just as you were to call him your husband.

that could've been us, his mind screams all throughout the time he's been in the wedding ceremony, that could've been him dancing with you. he remembers little by little— how those smiles and laughters used to be solely for him whenever you try out his new recipes, from tasty to funny, how he used to be the one suddenly dragged to dance with you, how you used to dream of being married to him. him and only him.

but time was a cruel thing. he should've known better than to keep you waiting for more than so many years with nothing but empty and broken promises. i'll be done soon, yn, you know how much this means to me, this is my dream we're talking about here. stop being selfish please— he recalls himself telling you. he fails to see the disappointment and hurt that cross your eyes, fails to protect the already fragile relationship as you say your goodbye's to him a few more arguments and weeks later— i'm sorry for holding you back, samu. make sure to reach your dreams, okay?

i'm sorry. no matter how many times he says it, your fate was already done with him. you only needed him and he couldn't even give you that.

"hey there, stranger. wanna dance for a bit?"

he looks up, blinded by your brightness that almost seemed as if it mocked his sappy mood but he nods nevertheless, taking your hands as you pull him to the dance floor. in his peripheral view, he sees suna give him a wholehearted smile.

"you should stop frowning. it doesn't suit your face you know? what did you do to my lively samu?" you huff after a few minutes of nothing but silence and awkwardness while you swayed side to side with him, pouting when he shrugs, "you're such a gloomy ass! are you still in love with me or something?"

you swear it was supposed to be a joke, something to lighten the air between you two. but how were you supposed to laugh when he replied to you in the way you least expected?

"yeah, actually, i still am."

silence engulfed the two of you as you tried to overcome your shock. and for all the years he has been with you, it was painfully obvious that the answer he hopes for will not come. not now, not ever.

"samu... it's been—"

"i know. almost 8 years, is it? i know but i can't help it, yn. how could i when you're literally all i see everywhere i look?"

you fail to give him back a reply and (un)fortunately, he feels a tap on his shoulder and immediately, he knew it was time. he lets go of your waist and turns around, heart ready to get drowned by the bitter wine he's planning to drink all throughout the night, accompanied by the tears he won't be able to let out until he comes back to his hotel room.

"congratulations on your wedding, yn."

he ignores the hollowness inside him brought about by the unfinished conversation and goes back to his seat and repeats it like a mantra: not all fairytales get their happy ending.

and much to his dismay, his was one of those that don't.

⇢ BOKUTO was a star, luminous and blinding yet always longing to be part of the galaxy that held the awe of many other people. he was a child with dreams that wander all over the world and with confidence, he wants hear it, see that same world cheer for him.

he was an enormous star but his dreams were even bigger— and as he reaches out his hand to take more of what the universe can give him, he unknowingly lets go of yours.

"you look like you've dropped a huge shit on your underwear with the way you're staring down the court," konoha comments as he takes the seat he reserved beside you, hands deep in his pocket while he does so.

you glare at him, scoffing at his vulgar choice of words, "and you look like that shit, asshole. we haven't seen each other for so long and that's how you greet me?"

he laughs out loud, opening his arms and shoving you in them, "here! is this what you wanted instead? so adorable, yn! i knew you loved me at some point!"

you let out a series of groans, struggling to get out of his hold, "no! you're so annoying, get off me!"

he cackles, releasing you as the buzz rings out throughout the whole court, signaling the beginning of the match between msby and schweiden adlers. you shift in your seat, watching the players get introduced one by one, gasping when your ex-boyfriend literally does two cartwheels in his turn. is he... serious?

"where does he think he is... some kind of circus?" konoha snickers, shaking his head in amusement. oddly, you find yourself laughing with your companion. after all, this was typical bokuto, so full of energy and surprises.

"he looks... okay. very much okay," you bitterly state, placing your chin right on your palm as your arms and elbows rested on your lap. envy envelops your whole being as you watch him lively wave to the crowds, a large grin staying on his face. you huff silently, eyes trying to look at the other players but gravity seems to be playing its tricks on you as you find yourself reverting back to his figure. you wonder if time will let you become that happy someday.

"you're not...?" the lad beside you trails off, sighing when you shake your head 'no.'

"of course not yet, aki. it's not that i still love him or anything but he's just... he was everything, you know? he's become part of all my routines and now that he's gone, it... it just feels empty. like the dreams that used to help me sleep at night suddenly went away," he nods, not pushing you to say anything further. you both knew better than to have a shameful breakdown in public.

"god, i keep forgetting that the air conditioning in here is the worst," you grumble under your breath, rubbing your hands together to keep them from freezing out... because bokuto was no longer there to keep them warm, no longer there to offer you his own hands because you both forgot your gloves at home, no longer there to blow on them as if it was effective (it distracted you both at least), no longe—

"here, give me your hand," konoha reaches out to you, palms awaiting for yours to be in contact with his. you blink, surprised by his sudden offer, along with the pink hues that dusted both sides of his cheeks.

"we can't have them becoming numb, can we? i... i want to hold these hands for a very long time, you know?" he stutters as he begins rubbing both of your hands together, successfully getting rid of the cold and providing a new warmth you never expected will come sooner. oh... it's time, huh?

"uhm... yeah... thank you," you felt your face get hot. it seems like something... rather, someone has come to distract from the coldness you've been recently feeling.

"give me your days," he coughs out, still blushing. if anything, he's flushing even more now, "i'll fill the emptiness in them... and... and i can be your dream so you can sleep tight... and you'll be mine."

you gape at him, thousands of scenes flying through your mind but all of them led to one specific scenario.

"i... i have a lot of dreams, yn! i want to become a star player, someone who everyone will look up to and cheer for! and i... i think i want to focu—"

"i get it, bo. i'll get out of your way then. thank you... for everything."

"i-i'll be your dream?"

konoha chokes on his own saliva, "y-yeah! don't make me repeat it though, do you even know how cheesy that sounds? i can't believe i just said that, god... the things you make me do, you...!"

"okay."

it was his turn to blink, "e-eh?"

"i guess this is day one then?"

"eh?! wait... we... we're dating now, right?!"

"shut up now, aki."

as his golden eyes observe the two figures sitting by the stands, bokuto wishes he could've seen sooner that you were the one he had always been dreaming of, yearning for; wishes it could be him that was holding your hands again and he swears to whoever god there is, he won't let go of them anymore.

but then again, it seems like you were finally ready to wander with someone that wasn't him— who was he to stop you from doing so?

he was just a star;

you were the whole universe,

his universe.

© SKIYOOSMI, 2021. reposting, translating, editing, copying and any kind of plagiarism are strictly prohibited, thank you.

[andawaywego]

If you’re still taking prompts, can I make a suggestion? Could you maybe write one about Jamie being busy starting up the leafling (or something) and Dani feels a little neglected so she buys something sexy to get Jamie’s attention.

so i actually had a few prompts for Dani buying lingerie. i guess we were all thinking it, huh? this kinda got away from me, but i hope you like it! smutty smut ahoy.

..

Valentine’s Day, Jamie is learning, is one of the most brutal holidays there is; at least, it is when you own a flower shop. Two years in and it’s a hard lesson. Tiring, even. Exhausting. The orders start pouring in starting about a week out and then it’s practically nonstop until the whole thing is over.

Last year, it felt like they got through it by the skin of their teeth. By the end of it, she and Dani had gotten so good at communicating a lot of information quickly—order sizes, specifics, pickup times—that they’ve almost become mind readers. At least when it comes to each other.

This became especially useful once they hit wedding season that same year and Jamie only realizes how much she’s come to rely on this anomaly once she’s without it.

On Valentine’s Day this year, Dani is sick and at their apartment resting and Jamie is forced to finish everything up on her own. It could be worse, she thinks, because the timing is at least a little less suffocating than it may have been if she’d had to send Dani home early the day before. The only business she’s really had all day were customers coming by to pick up their orders or last-minute love day stragglers coming in to buy whatever she had left.

It could be worse. Really it could.

By the time she closes things up, the whole shop sort of looks like someone took a large vacuum to it, sucking up just about all the plant life from the displays and walls. It looks sort of like a ghost town. Jamie briefly imagines a tumbleweed rolling by. Locks the door behind herself. Turns her feet towards home.

She worries as she walks, the complex where they live only a few blocks from the shop itself. Wonders if maybe she should stop somewhere and get some soup for Dani or something, and then remembers that it’s Valentine’s Day and decides to avoid going to a restaurant.

She can always come back out and brave the headache later. Right now, she’s mostly focused on getting home to check on her girlfriend.

The apartment is quiet when she steps inside. It isn’t as if she was expecting any different, but it still catches her off guard. Only the lamp by the sofa is clicked on, meaning that the rest of the space is shadowed in darkness. The radiators by the window hum and it’s a little too hot—buildings like this, she’s learned, don’t know the meaning of “happy medium.” They spend the summers fanning themselves like southern church ladies and the winter much the same. Fall is reserved for wearing too many layers as they wait for the building manager to decide to turn on the radiators.

She shrugs off her jacket and hangs it on the coat rack. Keeps her boots on for now even though Dani hates that in case she ends up having to go back out. Heads toward the hallway, toward the bedroom, where she assumes Dani must be resting. Walks slowly to keep the floorboard-squeaking to a minimum.

It isn’t until she passes by the bathroom that she hears it: the music drifting gently from the bedroom. A soft drum beat and a voice singing. She doesn’t immediately recognize the song, too busy wondering why Dani is listening to music while she rests. Gives up on tip-toeing and just hurries the rest of the way.

And then, well—

Hot and stuffy in the apartment from the radiators, sweating a bit in her shirt right at the small of her back, and a shiver still trembles through Jamie’s body when she steps into the bedroom, when she sees what’s waiting for her.

“Hey,” says Dani, perched at the bottom of the bed and smiling in that way Jamie knows she only does when she is very, very nervous.

“I thought you were sick,” says Jamie.

“I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted some time to set all of this up.”

All of this being the record she’s got playing from the stereo in the corner of the room, the candles she has lit on top of the television and on the table next to her side of the bed, and, most importantly, what she’s wearing.

Her makeup, her hair, decked out like every single fantasy Jamie’s ever had and never before let herself consider. Worst of all: she’s wearing lingerie. Purple lingerie. Purple lingerie that hardly leaves anything to the imagination. Jamie swallows so hard it hurts a little.

And she’s seen Dani naked before. Of course, she has. Plenty of times. She’s seen her in nice underwear that matched the bra she had on a handful of times, too. But this is different. Lovely on her or not, those things were still functional as undergarments. And this? This isn’t.

This is see-through lace and long, smooth legs. It’s ruffles and a short-sleeved silk robe that’s hanging off her shoulders just enough to make Jamie’s mouth water.

This isn’t functional. This was designed to cause the exact reaction that it has; this was designed to be taken off.

Dani rolls her shoulders back and flutters her eyelashes in a way that should be silly, but only succeeds in making Jamie’s blood race more thoroughly through her veins. “You’re staring,” she says, playing innocence so well that Jamie almost feels guilty about her inability to tear her eyes away.

Except Dani bought this at some point just for the sole purpose of sitting on their bed looking like that. She did that knowing full well that Jamie wouldn’t be able to keep from eyeing the curves and sways of her, the pale skin and soft lines of her jaw and neck. Wouldn’t be able to want anything more than to press Dani back into their mattress and cover every inch of her, lace and all, with her mouth, her tongue, her hands, and—

“Yeah,” she says. “I am.”

“Something the matter?” asks Dani, so utterly dedicated to this flirtatious act of naivete.

“No, I’m good. Perfect.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yep.” Jamie turns to glance at the record player as “All Out of Love” comes on. “Cheery song.”

Dani’s act falters. She blushes. “I didn’t know this was on here. It’s...new.”

Jamie frowns and walks over to the record player, reaching for the unfamiliar album sleeve. “Oh? What is it?”

She feels almost guilty for knocking Dani off her game, but she’s so desperately starved for context, for anything concrete to grasp onto so that she doesn’t just pounce, that she just waits for an answer. As it turns out, she doesn’t need one; the cover speaks for itself.

“Wait,” she says, looking it over. “Is this…?”

“You’re not allowed to laugh,” says Dani, pointing at her sternly.

Jamie smiles. “Not laughing. I just can’t believe you actually bought this.”

“The commercials were very convincing!”

“Did you actually call the place?” is her next question because she can’t imagine her girlfriend calling some commercial-boasted number to buy a four-record album named Secret Love just for this occasion. Jamie usually has to call and make her doctor’s appointments for her.

Dani blinks. “No,” she says. “I sent them a check.”

Jamie grins. Can’t help it. Loves Dani so very much at this moment. “Just one payment of $19.95?” she teases and it works: Dani smiles, too, looking less nervous by the second.

“It’s a good deal, you know,” she says.

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“You had a tone.”

“I did not have a tone.”

“Sure you did.”

Jamie isn’t actually sure how she’s managing to control herself anymore. That silk robe slipping off Dani’s shoulder looks so enticing; she wants to press her mouth to the skin it’s left uncovered. Wants other things, too—so many she can hardly decide where to start.

She sets the album back down and takes a few, slow steps towards her girlfriend. Still too far, but closer. “You went to all this trouble,” she says, “for me?”

Dani’s expression softens and she gets to her feet, moving closer. “Yeah, Jay. I did. We’ve just been...so busy lately, which is great! Don’t get me wrong! But...you’ve had so much on your plate and it’s stressful and I didn’t want us to...not get a Valentine’s Day. You know?”

Jamie isn’t sure what there is to say to that except for: “I love you.”

Another step forward and then Dani is grabbing her hands. “I love you, too,” she says, hypnotizing in this outfit, in this lighting, all the time. Her gaze sticks to the pale skin visible through the lace at Dani’s waist, so distracted that she hardly notices when she’s being turned around and pushed back toward the bed, gently guided by Dani’s hands on her shoulders to sit down on the mattress.

The mattress isn’t very tall, which means that, when Dani sinks to her knees, she’s only really a head shorter than Jamie. Her palms run up Jamie’s trouser-covered thighs, fingers curling around them a bit to guide them open a bit so that she can slide her body between them, get closer. Her body is fever-hot and Jamie has the sudden thought that she may not make it out of this surprise alive.

Dani has a knack for making her feel like she’s two seconds from a heart attack every time they’re intimate already. Now she’s wearing lingerie and looking at Jamie like that and Jamie doesn’t know where to put her hands, or where to settle her eyes.

The swell of Dani’s breasts is enticing, so she looks it over for a bit, and then there’s her freckled collarbones, the sleek and taut muscles of her neck. Her pink lips. Jamie feels hot, sweating in her clothes from the heat of the radiators.

Dani looks up at her, blue and brown eyes bright and eager beneath the flutter of her eyelashes. Normally, Jamie would be filling the air with mindless, nervous chatter, trying to calm herself down before the main event, but it feels different this time. The silence, save for the gentle croon of another sappy love song coming from the record player, seems sacred. She doesn’t want to break it for anything.

She curls her fingers in the ends of Dani’s hair, brushing it behind her shoulders, and then Dani is leaning up and she’s leaning down and they’re kissing. Dani’s hands fist the fabric of Jamie’s shirt right at her hips and Jamie cups her face and cranes her neck, and it’s too fucking hot. They should open a window. But Dani’s kisses are hungry and eager and there’s this knot of pain in Jamie’s chest because of it, so she doesn’t dare break away.

Instead, she lifts one of her hands and curves her fingers around Dani’s breast, pushing her palm against it to make the rough lace fabric brush against her nipple. Feels it poke up against her skin a bit and Dani’s answering moan vibrates her lips, flicking her tongue out to tickle the roof of Jamie’s mouth. Jamie scoots forward on the bed to be closer and lifts her other hand to do the same with Dani’s neglected breast.

“Jamie,” Dani pants as she rips her mouth away, eyes clenched shut, “this is supposed to be about you.”

Jamie smiles. “Trust me,” she says,“it is.”

Dani’s eyes open. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, then?”

A long look of consideration. Jamie momentarily stops her movements at Dani’s chest. And then Dani unbuttons her trousers and starts tugging at them, saying, “Get these off. That’s what I mean.”

Jamie takes them off. Her shirt, too. Drops each of them to the floor carelessly, too eager for the next part to worry about where they land. In all the rush, Dani begins to slip the silk robe from her shoulders, but Jamie stops her with a shake of her head.

Says, “Leave it on,” with the sort of breathlessness that makes Dani smile.

She leaves it on.

Jamie brushes her thumb against Dani’s nipple and then trails her fingers up the bony press of her sternum. Cups her jaw and cranes her neck down to kiss her, hot press of lips together and Dani gasping into her mouth.

Wanting to be closer in a way this particular position won’t allow, she breaks away from the kiss and guides Dani up by the shoulders until she is sliding her knees onto the mattress on either side of Jamie’s thighs, straddling her. She rolls her hips down and now Jamie can feel the fabric covering Dani’s body against her own skin. Fears she’ll go mad from desire before she can do anything about it.

It’s cooler in just her underwear, certainly, but that doesn’t mean the friction of their bodies together isn’t creating a fine layer of sweat between them. Their legs slide together and Jamie is so wet, so ready, that it’s beginning to hurt a little.

She kisses Dani’s neck and slides her lips up to the corner of her jaw, to her earlobe. She nibbles a little, then scrapes her teeth down to her neck again. Nips at her pulse point then smoothes it over with her tongue. Dani curses against her hair, breath a hot spread across Jamie’s scalp as she rolls her hips down.

A moment later, her hand is working its way inside Jamie’s panties, fingertips brushing against her clit very lightly and it’s Jamie’s turn to curse.

“Fuck.”

Dani smiles, kisses her forehead. “Doing okay?” she asks, that impersonation of complete chastity back in her voice, in her lips, the way her head tilts flirtatiously as Jamie meets her eyes.

“Doing great,” Jamie manages through gritted teeth. She is fighting back the urge to simply reach between them and push Dani’s hand against her harder. She drops her head and presses her lips against one of Dani’s nipples through the lace, mouthing at it hotly and making Dani sag against her, a little boneless, with a moan.

Payback, she thinks, is definitely a bitch.

She can be one, too.

She grips Dani’s hips in that tight, fierce way that Dani likes—thinks it must be at least a little painful, but maybe that’s why Dani likes it—and rolls up into her hand in a way that pushes the back of it between Dani’s own legs.

“Jay,” breathes Dani, and her expression is purposefully seductive, playful even as she is genuinely reacting to Jamie’s movements. She flutters her eyelashes with the best of them and she is the only woman Jamie’s ever been with that can make her go mad just by smiling at her. “Lie back.”

Jamie doesn’t understand the order at first, can’t wrap her head around it because Dani’s fingers are circling her clit now. It isn’t until that hand pulls away and Dani gets back, slowly, to her feet to give her room that she gets it. It feels like every part of her is positively vibrating as she uses her hands to slide back and back. Lowers herself to the mattress all the way and tilts her chin down so she can watch her girlfriend climb up her body in this ridiculously erotic and mind-numbing way.

“God, how are you not naked yet?” she asks, pressing her lips to Jamie’s breastbone, dipping down to tongue at the edge of her bra.

“How are you not fucking me yet?” Jamie returns, just to see Dani’s reaction—the way her cheeks go even pinker, the way she blinks in surprise at her sudden vulgarity.

She swallows thickly. “Patience is a virtue, you know.”

“Not when you look like that it’s not.”

Dani tugs the left cup of Jamie’s bra down and ducks her head to hide the way her expression changes, lips curling around Jamie’s nipple. Jamie can feel her smiling. “Like what?”

“You’re a tease, you know that? You’re such a bloody tease.”

Her mouth moves down to Jamie’s ribcage. “Would you like to lodge a formal complaint?” she asks.

Jamie curls her fingers into her girlfriend’s hair and cranes her neck to get a better look at her in that damned lingerie. “If you don’t touch me soon then yeah, I would.”

She feels the blunt edge of Dani’s teeth below her belly button, scraping down to the waistband of her panties. “Your request has been noted,” says Dani, her voice even and sort of mockingly robotic. “Please allow three to four business for—”

Jamie’s laugh cuts her off, fingers combing through her hair until Dani finally lifts her eyes to look at her again. “Dani, I love you,” she says.

“I love you, too.”

“But you have to do something, or I’m going to—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Dani catches the edge of Jamie’s panties between her teeth and begins to pull them down like that, laughing around the material as Jamie wiggles and shifts her hips, giggling like a maniac, to try and help. Eventually, hands are required to finish the job. Jamie isn’t actually sure what Dani was thinking.

Goofy, ridiculous Dani. She’s the only woman Jamie’s ever loved, the only woman she’s been able to laugh in bed with, and she went out and bought sexy lingerie, called a number from a commercial to get the proper mood music, sat here on their bed on Valentine’s Day to surprise her.

Jamie doesn’t understand her life, doesn’t understand how she could possibly ever deserve this.

Once her panties are all the way gone and Jamie is naked, save for her bra, Dani’s eyes linger between her legs, a loose smile fixed on those pretty lips. “There you are,” she says.

“There I am,” Jamie exhales, shakily. “Now—”

She should be expecting it, but she isn’t, and so Jamie makes the most embarrassing sound ever when Dani’s tongue first makes contact. An electric shock between her legs, a match being struck, and she arches a little too much off the bed, one of her arms going back so she can comb her fingers through her own hair. Slams her eyes shut to keep from coming almost immediately—this won’t be her only chance, she’s sure of it, but she wants this first one to last—and then has to look, so she opens them back up.

And Dani is always a sight between her legs like this, but she’s on her knees and bent down in a way that makes her breasts hang deliciously, bumping a bit as she licks and curls her lips around Jamie’s clit. Jamie brings her other hand down and brushes her hair out of the way, over her shoulder, so she can see her mouth work.

“Fucking fuck, Dani,” she says, so eloquent with a beautiful woman bobbing between her legs.

Dani hums in response and Jamie can’t help it, groans a little too loudly. That fucking silk robe and the contrast of purple lace to pale skin, blonde hair fisted in her hand, and then Dani brings one of her hands up and slips a finger inside and Jamie feels, very suddenly, like she is splitting apart at every seam that’s ever kept her together.

The sound of Dani fucking her like this is almost obscene. It’s slick and loud, the suction of her mouth audible as she alternates movements against Jamie’s clit. She’s smiling despite how busy her mouth is and then she slips a second finger in, then a third.

It’s so hot, sweat pearling on her chest and forehead. Her hair feels damp at the base of her skull, she feels sort of like she has a fever but everywhere, and fuck—

She nearly bites through her bottom lip as she comes, trying to keep quiet. Her pulse drums like waves on the shore as it whitewashes through her ears, her veins.

Dani pulls back, licking her lips clean sloppily and her eyes are so dark that Jamie feels like she's burning again in moments.

“Come here,” she croaks, propping herself up on her elbows. Hopes that Dani knows what she means.

She must, though, because she doesn’t come up on the side of the bed. Instead, she just straddles Jamie’s waist, giving Jamie a full and uninterrupted view of what she’s wearing again.

“God,” is the next thing she says. Then, “You know how to pick ’em, huh?” as she tugs a bit on the end of the robe.

Dani smiles, somehow shy despite everything else. “You like it then?” she asks, like she has no idea, like she didn’t just fuck Jamie stupid while wearing the sexiest thing to ever exist. “Successful Valentine’s Day?”

Jamie rolls her eyes affectionately. “And the award for Understatement of the Year goes to—”

Dani pushes at her shoulder, giggling. “Hey,” she says. “Give me a break. I stuck out like a sore thumb in the shop I got this from.”

“I doubt that.”

“No, really! Like, three shop girls came over to help me because I was so lost.” She looks so sincerely flustered by this that Jamie can’t help but be endeared by it. “They kept asking me what my ‘boyfriend’—” and she uses air quotes there, “—likes to see me in. What his favorite color is.”

Jamie laughs. “What did you say?”

“I told them I didn’t have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did they say to that?”

“They asked me what my husband likes then.”

Jamie nearly chokes on her tongue from laughing so hard. Almost knocks Dani to the floor, too.

And, yeah, it’s a pretty successful Valentine’s Day.

[ukaiknowsbest]

Review: Tamayomi

[will contain spoilers]

Lately I have been pretty bored with the recent developments in Daiya no A and Oofuri. New Shonen anime stuff just don't appeal to me, so I bit the bullet and watched Tamayomi for at least one episode a day.

Like me, people would normally think "HOW TF ARE THEY GOING TO PLAY BASEBALL? AREN'T THEY WEARING SHORTS??? IS THIS JUST FANSERVICE?? OMYGOD"

But I did it. I watched the whole thing. 12 episodes.

And I enjoyed it.

THE SETUP/PLOT

pretty standard fare

Pitcher Yomi Takeda accidentally reunites with her childhood friend who's actually a nationals-level in middle school catcher when they both end up in the same highschool.

School: former powerhouse located in Saitama, now baseball club is almost non-existent. Yomi and a few other will try to revive the team from scratch.

Basically Shin Koshigaya is a brand new team where they struggle to look for new members and majority are first years.

They have to face other stronger teams even when they have a few members and some decent players.

Demographic is SEINEN (like oofuri, last inning, one outs, etc.)

CHARACTERS

Yomi Takeda as Main character and pitcher- skilled, resilient, funny, hardworking, does a lot of research which enabled her to perfect her form and hone her breaking ball. She keeps improving in a good pace too.

Tamaki Yamazaki former childhood friend of Yomi. Is a decent catcher in middle school. A bit well known. Good communicator.

Yoshino - team manager and coach. srsly she is a boss. She's not infallible but she tries her best.

and other decent players with adequate skill

For a sports anime they have decent cast. This is probably the closest we can currently get of a story where the girls are just focused on the sport, do their own strategizing/planning/training. All of them are cute but also serious about what they do.

There's no boys here so there's no talk about het-crushes and other distractions. It's a clamfest babyyyy.

I've seen a little of Major 2 (the one abt the son and his coed team) and I couldn't stand it because it was just slice of life in sportsy undertones.

There is also decent communication among all the players. It's pretty refreshing to watch. The catcher is well rounded and the pitcher is good. Everyone talk things out and there is not a lot of drama.

FANSERVICE

Wearing shorts to a sport that involves a lot of making contact with the ground is just illogical lmao.

Their school uniform skirt is pretty short

A little bit of their manager prodding the thighs of each person she meets but with good reason (she can tell how much muscle/exercise a person does just by a little prodding). It's a trope thing.

That's all. There are no panty shots, unnecessary locker room nudity, boob action, see through sweaty shirts. Most of the cringy things I've seen in other girls sports anime aren't present.

Eventually I even forget that they're wearing shorts or that it impedes their performance. It seems like it doesn't matter much to the characters so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't know if like the hugging or holding hands is considered fanservice. In my experiece we ladies just act like that irl. What they do is nothing out of the ordinary.

REALISM

3/5. They wear shorts and dont tie their hair up. The baseball part seem pretty decent though. The pacing of the story and matches was like watching IRL Koshien. It's all very clinical and straightforward.

Plus they include a lot of interesting baseball stuff which I haven't seen happen in early stages of other shonen anime like: specifically training the pitcher in other positions, showing what fielders yell to each other, letting other relievers start to reserve their ace (ppl can yell DnA did this but remember Tanba was injury boy throughout Act 1).

COMPARISON TO OTHER BASEBALL MANGA

based on technicality Tamayomi is prolly one of the top among baseball anime/manga I have seen.

Last Inning

Oofuri

Tamayomi

Daiya no A

Now don't chase me with pitchforks because of this ranking just yet. The fact that Shin Koshigaya coach's decisions and reasonings for plays and lineups are discussed makes the show at par with Last Inning and Oofuri. (we dont see DnA kataoka talk abt this sht like..ever)

Moreover Tamayomi has similar vibes to Oofuri/Big Windup but less dramatic. I do not think it's good for beginners too (especially with just 12 episodes). You need to have prior baseball knowledge to understand what the characters were doing.

However, this show is probably the most no-fuss baseball anime/manga I have watched. It does not rely on hype like DnA and it also don't have heavy topics like Oofuri and Last Inning. It's not wacky like One Outs and it's not uber slice of life like Cross Game. It's just baseball.

My minor complaint is that they don't give numbers when talking about things like pitching speed tho. It would've been more realistic if actual numbers were dropped XD

ART/ DESIGN/ANIMATION

A.k.a the thing most viewers complain about.

Character design is subpar. Everyone's faces are almost the same. You can tell who's the character not by face but by hair and height. Personally I don't mind this. I don't really look for realism in most things I watch. And I think the hair designs are cool.

Lots of people drop this show because of bad animation. There are shots/scenes where it's like I'm watching fanmade AMV's in nicovideo/youtube from the early 2000's. Pitching motions and Batting motions look like character movements in rpg games.

It's not really a problem for me though. I think it's charming for some reason. I don't mind it. A lot of people do but I'm not them.

CONCLUSION

NGL I wanted more. 12 episodes is too short. I hope a better animation company picks this up. I'm rewatching the whole thing because I enjoyed it a lot. I'll even check out the manga if I have time.

If anyone's interested here's my tamayomi livetweet thread

This is one of the closest thing I could get to what a decent girl sports anime looks like. If the character designs, art, animation and the uniforms were just better this show would have gone pretty far.

Compared to Shonen types of manga this was relaxing to watch, especially before bed. I'd honestly recommend it you wanna watch smth that doesnt involve a lot of feelings and drama but still feel like watching an actual sport.

Girls are fun. Finally.

[personal notes under the cut]

I get that people reading this would think I'm being too optimistic about a show they considered shtty but I kid you not, I dropped Bakuten (boys gymnastic's anime) coz even with it's wonderful animation i thought it was boring af.

I have dropped so many prettily animated shows coz i just cant get into the characters nor the story.

I've also said before in my Two Car review that I am actively avoiding shows with popular VA's. Idk much abt female VA's in anime, therefore watching Tamayomi was the perfect solution for me.

The reason I like tamayomi so much is that it gave me the same feeling of watching Summer Koshien 2021. I just think an anime that made me remember that kind of feeling was cool.

I'll rewatch hanebado next. wish me luck.

[bunnysuit-femboy]

The Worst Wingman - Tiger’s Eye and Gold

(Chapter 2 / 3)

Jean x Reader

Word Count: 5.6k

Previous Chapter

Warnings: Mentions of vomiting, Implied sex

Summary: Jean sucks at picking blind dates for you, but at least he’s trying. After one final attempt at finding love at the hands of Jean, he goes on a double date with you and the newest boy he’s thrown onto you. The boy is everything you never knew you needed, and Jean has to push down his growing feelings at the idea of you being happy without him.

Notes: I am not shitting on polpette di cavallo or the consumption of horse meat in general, I understand that it is a popular Italian dish and I was only mocking my ignorance towards the subject! (Plus, I thought it’d be funny to make a horse joke in a Jean x Reader)

Second Saturday

The night air wasn’t chilly, but you stayed by Jean’s side nonetheless. You pressed against his arm, using his body heat to keep yourself warm. And, Jean didn’t mind the close company - he actually liked it when you got close to him, it was the same reason he cuddled with you so often.

You and Jean stood outside of an unfamiliar restaurant, waiting for the last two people of the party to show up and to inform the hostess of their reservation. You normally hated double dates because the other couple always seemed to have more fun than you. But, you felt safe by Jean’s side, you knew he’d go as far as blatantly ignoring his date if it meant he got to have one conversation with you. Maybe that was selfish to think, but you didn’t mind, you’d probably never use him anyways - only keeping him as plan B in a worst case scenario.

But, you surprisingly had faith. Maybe - just maybe - this date will be your last one in a very long time. Maybe you would fall in love with this football player. Maybe you’d marry him and eventually start a family. Maybe you’d make sure to visit this same restaurant every anniversary - a physical monument of where your love had sprouted.

And then, as the years ticked by in your relationship, maybe you’d find yourselves growing sick of each other. Maybe you’d come home early from work and find him fucking his secretary over his desk in his home office. Maybe you’d stay with him, but only for the kids. Maybe - just maybe - you’d be able to ignore the whole affair just to pretend you love him for a few more years until your eventual death.

Oh God, love was exhausting - even to think about. And, it always seemed to end in pain, no matter how in love the couple seemed to be once upon a time.

It was hard to ignore the facts, and the inevitable ending to all things good. It was hard to ignore the over 50% of people who got divorced each year. And, it was hard to pretend you were more deserving of a lifelong fantastic marriage full of love and laughter just because-

“What are you thinking about?” Jean asked with a giggle.

You looked up at the boy, your eyebrows furrowed, “Huh?”

Jean smiled wide, “You look like you’re going to be sick.” He looked around quickly, taking in the sight of the other couples also waiting for a table inside. “Do you want to leave? We can go back to mine and forget this entire night was supposed to happen.”

“No,” You said quickly, “I want to meet him. You went through so much work to convince him to go on this date, why would I throw that away so easily?”

“Not really.” Jean frowned lightly as he looked past you, clearly reliving memories in his head, “I didn’t really do anything, actually.”

It was true, all Jean had to do was show the football player a picture of you and he was in. Jean had started the conversation by asking the football player’s schedule for the next weekend and if he was free for a date that Saturday. At first, the boy continuously refused any date, saying he needed the day to practice before the next game, but Jean showed the boy a picture instead of arguing with his words.

The football player fell completely silent, staring at Jean’s phone with widened eyes. It was hard to say no to a date with you - to put it simply, you were a goddess. The football player continued to stare at the picture of you, taken last Halloween when you and Jean had dressed as a witch and her black cat familiar; you being the witch and Jean being your cat. It was Jean’s favorite picture of you because you showed your candid smile as you laughed at one of Jean’s jokes, instead of your fake smile you saved for pictures.

The football player quickly agreed to the date after seeing the picture. He gave Jean his number, urging Jean to text him the time and place. He’d be there, the football player promised, he wouldn’t miss it for the world.

“Sure,” You said sarcastically, “I’m sure you had to promise him a month’s supply of-” You took a moment to remember what football players liked other than football- “Steroids.”

“Seriously?” Jean asked with a laugh, “Keep the steroids jokes to a minimum when he shows up, okay?” Jean furrowed his eyebrows. “Actually, don’t mention steroids at all when he gets here.”

You sighed, “If it’s any consolation, I was going to say protein powder.” You turned to Jean, slightly tilting your head. “Can I make protein powder jokes when he’s here?”

Jean frowned at you, “I guess-”

“And,” You added with a grin, “Can I make shoulder pad jokes?”

“I suppose-”

“And, can I make football field jokes? Or, is that too much as well?”

“Okay,” Jean said as he threw an arm around your shoulders, “I see what you’re doing.” Jean shoved your face into his chest which had always been his favorite way to shut you up. You inhaled the familiar scent of his clothes, and the unfamiliar scent of a new cologne he wore specifically for this date. “You’re such a smart ass.”

You pushed your head out from between his chest and arm, “You’re ruining my hair, you bastard!”

Jean laughed as he pulled you closer to him, “It still looks great, don’t worry about it.”

“Hey, Jean,” A new voice said from only a few feet away, “And-”

Jean pushed you from his body, allowing you to extend a single hand in the blonde boy’s direction, “Hi, it’s lovely to meet you.” You told the boy your name before he finally introduced himself.

The boy shook your hand with a strong grasp, “I’m Reiner-”

“And, I’m Pieck,” A black haired girl said as she poked her head out from behind Reiner’s broad back. The girl stood in front of Jean and smiled up at him, “And, I suppose you’re my date. Unless she is-” Pieck glanced at you- “Which I’m more than okay with as well.”

“No,” Jean said quickly, “I am.”

“Awesome,” Pieck said with a smile, “Is there a table being readied for us inside or-”

“I have a reservation,” Reiner said, “The table should’ve been readied about ten minutes ago, when we were supposed to be here - Pieck - if you didn’t take an hour just to pick a dress.”

Pieck smiled wide though her words were drenched in venom, “I thought you said you’d stop mentioning that once we got here, Reiner.” Pieck turned to her friend with a tilt of her head. “Am I correct?”

Reiner’s face dropped as well as his stomach, “Of course, I’m sorry, Pieck.”

“So,” Jean said to fill the new silence that had settled, “You all think we should head inside now?”

“Yes!” Pieck said as she ran to Jean’s side, sliding her arm around his and pulling him off towards the front doors of the restaurant. You couldn’t help but pout at their backs as they walked off, noticing how close they immediately got with each other and even the new smile plastered across Jean’s face.

“And,” A gentle voice said suddenly from your left, “‘You ready to head inside as well?”

You looked at the boy by your side and took in the sight of his arm thrusted in your direction. His arm was thick, as much as a football player’s arm is supposed to be. And - if you looked close enough - you could see where his muscle was bulging beneath the fabric of his button down shirt and where the veins of his arms were protruding from within his skin.

You walked inside the restaurant by Reiner’s side, intertwining your arm with his. He talked briefly with the hostess at the entrance, and then walked with you as the group was led to a large table in the back. The table was sensually dimmed and if you were here with only one person, you were sure you would end the night in their arms - the atmosphere was enough to cause your heart rate to accelerate and butterflies to flutter around in your stomach.

You took the seat across from your date, and Pieck quickly took the seat to your right. The night started slowly, a light stream of conversation amongst the four of you. You talked about the general information of each person; their college major, their hobbies, their living situations, their weekend plans, and anything else someone could think of in the heat of the moment.

The night was going swimmingly, you ordered the white wine and a dish going by the name of polpette di cavallo which you hadn’t given much thought to before ordering. It was a smaller dish than what you were originally expecting, a white porcelain plate with a mysterious brown substance surrounding three meatballs.

You pushed your fork and knife through the slightly charred meat, cutting the balls into consumable pieces. You continued to talk with the group and - more specifically - Reiner. You found out more about the boy you were on the date with, from his personal life to his football career to his plans after college.

He was sweet, he was funny, and he always gave you time to speak - continuously asking you questions about yourself.

But, unfortunately for him, you couldn’t take your eyes off of Jean. He talked with Pieck to your right, and you couldn’t help but listen to every word exchanged between the two. Even going as far as cutting into their conversation a few times and answering a question clearly directed at Jean.

“And then,” You said in response to Pieck’s question, “Jean went back to the party to pick Connie up because he finally realized he left him behind!”

Pieck giggled loudly, “That’s amazing!” She completely turned in her seat, now facing you instead of her date. “Then, what happened?”

You leaned closer to the girl, “Then, he called and begged me to meet him at the party.” You grinned wider. “Because, he didn’t want to leave again after going back.”

Pieck quickly turned back to Jean, “Why didn’t you want to leave? Even after Sasha threw that drink in your face?” Pieck then looked back at you. “And, why did he call you to come to the party as well?”

You furrowed your eyebrows at Pieck, “I’m actually not sure-”

Jean shrugged lightly, “I just- I wanted another beer and I needed somebody to drive me home afterwards.”

You turned your gaze to Jean, your eyes lit  with a new fury. That was why he called you that night? For a damn ride, not even for your company? It was always strange to you how Jean could be so casually cruel. He’d speak before thinking and end up breaking a piece of your heart without  noticing - and he did it frequently.

“Seriously,” The word was drenched in hurt as you shouted it across the table at Jean, “That’s seriously all you called me for? You just wanted a ride, Kirstein?”

Jean scratched the back of his neck, “I know you don’t really like drinking so I wasn’t worried about you getting drunk-”

“What do you mean I don’t like drinking?” You thrusted your hand towards your half-full glass of white wine. “I drink all of the time, I’m a real maniac.”

Jean smiled, “Oh, you’re crazy-” Jean leaned on the table, coming closer to you- “I mean, you really are a maniac -  How can you possibly slowly sip white wine at an Italian restaurant?”

And, as quickly as Jean could upset you and break your heart, he could just as quickly mend your broken parts.

You bit your lip to hide your new smile, “I can go crazy-” You leaned towards Jean as well- “Sometimes, I sip from your beers and then I immediately regret it because it’s gross.”

“Oh,” Jean giggled with the word, “You’re wild.”

It was like time had stopped completely - which seemed to happen a lot when around Jean. You were sure it was because he was too beautiful not to stare at, and Father Time helped you by stopping everything altogether. Or, you thought the effect of time stopping was purely psychological considering how deeply you knew the boy. But, whatever the reason, time stopped nonetheless.

You sat motionless, only looking into Jean’s eyes - a color reminding you of a tiger's eye crystal. And - like a tiger’s eye crystal - Jean seemed to radiate confidence and strength, and gave you an unknown balance to your own being. Jean was your second half, a part of you that you hadn’t known was missing. He was like the second half of an undone puzzle or-

“How’s your-” Reiner said, suddenly breaking the moment between you and Jean- “Your- uh, po- polpette-”

“Polpette di cavallo,” Pieck finished Reiner’s sentence for him.

Reiner nodded briskly, “That.” He smiled wide at you. “How is that?”

“It’s good,” You said as you scanned the plate in front of you, “It’s very thick, I think they used a different part of the cow than what I’m used to.” You glanced at the three faces watching you intently. “Maybe the stomach? I don’t know what part they use for hamburgers, I don’t really like thinking about it.”

Pieck giggled and pushed your shoulder lightly, “You’re kidding, right?”

You widened your eyes at the girl, “Oh, is it not the stomach?” You cleared your throat. “Then, the- the thighs?”

“No, silly,” Pieck said with a smile, “That’s not beef-” Pieck thrusted at the meat still sitting on the plate in front of you- “That’s chavelin.”

You gave Pieck a blank face, “Chave- what?”

“Chavelin.” Pieck tilted her head at you. “You know, horse meat?”

Suddenly, the chavelin was making another entrance, just this time coming back up. You smashed a hand over your mouth as the horse meat mingled with your stomach acid, begging to be back on the plate in front of you. You made quick eyes around the table; first at Pieck who was rubbing your shoulder soothingly and asking what was wrong, then to Reiner who was leaning across the table with wide eyes, and then to Jean who was already standing, gesturing you towards the bathroom.

Jean, sweet Jean, you felt strangely guilty for consuming the meat but - oddly enough - he didn’t seem to mind. At least, he didn’t look like he minded as you ran off towards the bathroom, your high heels clicking quickly against the fancy tiles of the Italian restaurant.

You swung the bathroom door open, ignoring the cringeworthy smash that erupted through the room once the door hit the wall behind it. There were other women in the bathroom, but you ignored them as you made your way to the first open stall you could find. The women watched curiously as you fell to your knees in front of the toilet, threatening to throw up the food you had so mindlessly eaten for the last hour and a half.

Nothing came out though, only a few breathless burps into the toilet bowl. You sat there for a few minutes longer than you needed to, sitting against the marble-tiled wall beside the toilet. You pressed your face against the tiles lightly, letting the coolness calm down your sweating skin.

“This is the women’s restroom,” A woman’s voice said from beside the sink.

“I’m sorry,” A familiar voice said back, “I’m just here checking up on somebody. She got sick, I’m here to-”

You lightly pushed the bathroom stall open, leaning against the edge of the door. You smiled weakly at Jean, standing with two middle-aged women who you remembered briefly from when you ran in here. He seemed to be aggressively convincing them of his honesty, swinging his arms around ferociously with his words. And upon seeing you standing in the doorway, the women finally believed him and didn’t try stopping him any further.

“Hi,” You said delicately from across the few feet separating you and Jean, “This is the women’s restroom, what are you doing in here?”

Jean bit back his smile, “I thought you might want some company.” Jean crossed the steps between you, now only a few inches away. “Nobody deserves to puke alone.”

You lightly pushed Jean’s shoulder with a giggle, “You’re ridiculous, but thank you-” You turned around and opened your arms to the inside of the empty bathroom stall- “And, welcome to my humble abode.”

“Oh,” Jean said with a smile, “I like what you did with the place.”

You grinned, “Thank you, I just got done with renovations, so I appreciate that.”

“And,” Jean quickly added as he pointed towards the lone sink in the corner, “The kitchen area looks very nice.”

You shrugged, “I tried to go for something a bit more modern and minimalistic.”

Jean breathlessly giggled by your side, “Well, you succeeded.”

Jean let you take the first seat, watching as you found your spot beside the toilet with the side of your face against the tiled wall. Jean then joined you on the floor, sitting by your side and pressing the side of his face against the tiled wall, but only so he could make eye contact with you.

The bathroom got silent a minute after Jean joined you in the stall. You supposed the other women were either staying quiet in order to eavesdrop or left to return to their dinners. Either way - you didn’t care if the women were there or not - you were going to talk to Jean freely in your secret space.

You weren’t sure why the bathroom now felt sacred to you. It wasn’t at the end of the Labyrinth for only the worthy to find. Instead, it was a bathroom in an Italian restaurant with a purely Italian menu that you should have used Google Translate for. But, it felt like you and Jean’s secret space, a place where you two could always find each other and could spend the rest of eternity together. Nothing bad happened within these stall walls, and nobody was eating horse meat for the past hour and a half within these stall walls.

“Do you remember when we first met?” Jean suddenly asked in an attempt to fill the comfortable silence in the bathroom.

You nodded lightly, “Yeah, of course I do.”

You had met Jean at a house party freshman year of college. You were invited since your roommate at the time was sleeping with the home-owner which happened to be one of Jean’s closest friends. And - ironically - you met Jean on the bathroom floor in that house at that fateful party nearly two years ago. It was strange how things went full circle.

Jean leaned his shoulder into your own, “Do you remember why we even started talking that night?”

You grinned to yourself, “Yeah, I do.”

You only started talking to Jean that night because you found him crying on the floor of the bathroom when you went to find your roommate. He was tipsy and had just seen his ex-girlfriend - who he was clearly not over - downstairs, dancing with another man. You had a bag of popcorn that your roommate begged you to make for her, but you instead offered it to Jean and joined him on the bathroom floor.

Jean tilted his head towards you, “Do you remember what you said to me?”

You looked into Jean’s eyes through your thick eyelashes, “Yes, I remember.”

While sitting on the bathroom floor together, Jean ranted to you about his ex-girlfriend and even the new guy she was dancing with. You heard about why they broke up, who she moved onto, and why he couldn’t bring himself to move on. You then leaned into his side on that bathroom floor, whispering one phrase you had been telling yourself for years.

Jean smiled to himself, “When you go looking for gold, you end up finding fool’s gold - so don’t go looking at all.”

“Let the gold come to you.” You whispered back to Jean, finishing your own quote from two years ago. You hadn’t known the words were so monumentous, you thought nothing of the quote and yet it stayed with him all of these years.

“I followed your advice,” Jean said matter-of-factly, “I followed your advice so well - actually - that I even started to push the gold away when it was just within reach.” Jean looked down at his fingers fiddling with the fabric of his slacks. “I set her up on a hundred horrible dates hoping I could forget about her for only a moment. But, I couldn’t forget about her, even if somebody wiped my memory.”

You felt your cheeks grow hot as you smiled at Jean, “That doesn’t even make sense.” Jean looked at like a wounded deer, wide scared eyes taking up all of your sight. “You can’t remember me if your memory was wiped - that’s not possible.”

“I’d manage,” Jean said with newly red cheeks, “I couldn’t forget you, even if the government tried to make me.”

You pushed Jean’s shoulder playfully, “Nuh-uh - you’re a liar, Kirstein.”

Jean shook his head, “Nope, I’ll always remember you.” He leaned his head in towards you. “I’ll remember your laugh and that little wrinkle you get between your eyebrows when I do something stupid.”

“Oh,” You said with a playful furrow of your brow, “‘You mean the wrinkle I get when you do anything?”

Jean grinned lightly, “Yeah, that one.” He continued leaning in closer until he was only a whisper away. “And how you taste like tropical fruits - like lemons and coconut.”

“And,” You whispered to his mouth, “How do you know what I taste like?”

Jean smiled, “I just intend on finding out.” His lips were pressed lightly against your own, his hand on the side of your head. “So, can I find out?”

You nodded, “Please do.”

Jean gently pressed his lips to yours, and the feeling made your stomach flip with excitement. You moved your legs closer to his, bare thighs on clothed thighs and the hem of your dress shifting up to your hips. You didn’t mind the new coldness spreading over your legs because your insides felt unbearably hot when kissing him.

The softness of Jean’s lips weren’t anything new to you. You had kissed Jean before, a soft smooch during a drunk game of spin the bottle - but never like this. His lips tasted like blueberry vodka last time you tasted them, but now his lips tasted like rosé and mint - a byproduct of the wine he had been drinking all night and the mint he sucked on before you ran off towards the bathroom - It wasn’t the best taste, but you weren’t complaining.

“I’m glad you waited for me,” You whispered into Jean’s mouth.

It became extremely clear to you at some point of the night just how much Jean means to you. Maybe because of one of the many times when you caught Jean’s eyes looking into your own. Or, one of the many times you noticed Jean talking to you when telling a story, as if you were the only one there with him. Or, one of the many times when you watched Jean fiddle mindlessly with the top of his wine glass, his eyes never leaving your frame - mentally undressing you in front of everybody in the restaurant and both of your dates.

He couldn’t help it though, he’s always loved how you looked in that black satin dress. It seemed everybody liked the dress, considering both Reiner and Pieck couldn’t keep their eyes off of your frame as well. Reiner and Pieck, who were still waiting at that table, hoping for some word from their dates who now found themselves sucking face in the women’s restroom.

“Jean,” You whispered, “We should head back.”

Jean sighed, “Okay.”

So, you did. You left the bathroom with Jean and eventually the restaurant, planning on going to where you normally did after dates - Jean’s apartment. It wasn’t easy saying goodbye to such a nice guy like Reiner knowing there wouldn’t be a second date, and it wasn’t easy saying no to Pieck’s offer of a second date with just her, and it especially wasn’t easy staring into that half-finished plate of polpette di cavallo until you and Jean finally made your exit.

The car ride was mostly quiet, both of you ignoring the obvious elephant in the room - what the hell happened in the bathroom. You didn’t regret the conversation on the bathroom floor or even the kiss that came afterwards, but you did regret ever cutting the kiss short. You searched your mind for some way back to that moment, thinking of a plan of either building and operating a time machine or trying again with Jean.

“So,” You said, “Pieck seems nice.”

Jean grinned to himself, “So does Reiner.”

You nodded slowly and turned to look out of the window, “‘Think there will be a second date with her?”

“If you’re having a second date with Reiner.” Jean spared a glance from the road in order to look at you. “‘Think there will be a second date with him?”

“Eh, he’s not really my type.”

Jean stopped the car at a red light. The color red seeped through the windshield, turning the inside of the car a bright crimson. Jean’s features were lit up by the light as his gaze danced across every inch of your face.

“He’s not?” Jean asked, “Then, what’s your type?”

You furrowed your brow, “Are you stupid?”

Jean smiled wide, “What are you saying?”

You shook your head and leaned forward, caressing Jean’s cheeks gently. You pressed your lips to his, smiling against his mouth. Jean kissed you back, quickly turning a sensual peck into a feverish makeout.

You felt Jean’s hands as they moved up the soft fabric of your dress. His fingers moved across your side and then wrapped around your body, landing on your back. He used the new position to pull you closer, much to your surprise considering the gasp that escaped from between your lips to the movement.

You wrapped your arms around Jean’s neck, pulling his face in closer. You pushed your tongue towards his mouth, and he gladly let it enter between his lips. You felt his breath hitch in his throat when you curled your tongue and swiped it across the roof of his mouth. Jean responded to the kiss with a tight grip on your dress only bringing you in-

A car suddenly honked it’s horn from behind you. Jean and you pulled apart as quickly as possible, ignoring that anything had happened. You slowly wiped your thumb across your bottom lip, smearing the wetness from the kiss onto your fingertip.

The rest of the ride was brutal, your desire for Jean was only getting unbearable. He didn’t even have to do anything. His fingers curving around the steering wheel made your heart pound. His slight head bob to the music quietly playing from the radio made your stomach inflate with nerves. And, his perfect posture in the driver’s seat made you want to groan with how badly you wanted him.

It was ridiculous, you were turning into a prepubescent boy - finding anything and everything Jean did as the epitome of attraction.

The car couldn’t have pulled into the apartment building’s parking lot any sooner. You were practically melting in Jean’s passenger seat and you needed to feel him again, you didn’t care why. You opened the car door and eventually walked alongside Jean towards his apartment complex.

You silently walked into the apartment building with Jean, and even rode up the elevator just as quiet. You waited beside him as he unlocked his apartment door. You watched as the muscles in his back moved under his shirt as he attempted to hold the door and unlock it at the same time - a trick the lock needed since the apartment was so old.

Once inside, you quickly kicked your shoes off, leaving them to lay with his shoes. You dropped your purse with the shoes as well, leaving it on the floor beside the door. And once you had discarded your unneeded items, you stood there - waiting for a sign from him, any sign at all.

Jean crossed his arms against his chest, his eyes landing on anything in the room but you. He peered across the kitchen and living room, even eyeing his bedroom door for a few seconds. Jean sighed before mumbling into the awkwardly silent room.

“So,” Jean said, “What do you want to do?”

You pressed your lips together, “I liked what we were doing in the car.” Jean suddenly looked at you, his eyes widened. “And, in the bathroom at the restaurant.”

Jean grinned to himself, “‘You wanna do that again?”

“Yes.” You nodded. “I do.”

Jean crossed the space between you, swooping his arms around you and pressing your chest into his. You bent your head upwards, giving Jean more room as his mouth pressed kisses into your neck and cheek. You giggled with your words as you attempted to speak.

“Jean,” You said as you pushed your fingers through his soft hair. You moved Jean’s face back enough to make eye contact with him. “‘Race you to the bedroom?”

Jean never thought he could let go of you in general, never mind quicker than he’s ever done anything before in his life. As soon as you were out his arms, Jean was running towards his bedroom door. You tried to beat him though, grabbing his arm and pulling him backwards, but nothing stopped him - he beat you into the bedroom.

You left the door open in front of you, standing back as Jean threw his discarded clothes from the bedroom floor and into his laundry basket - a half assed attempt at cleaning up. You supposed the gesture was nice, considering he wanted to clean up for you. But, it was even nicer knowing Jean had never seen his date with Pieck ending here.  

Your eyes peered across the entirety of his bedroom, something so familiar now with a different connotation. You’ve touched Jean plenty of times in this very room, but not the way you’re about to. You knew that after tonight, everything would be different between you two - but a good type of different that filled you with hope.

Your eyes landed on the alarm clock on his bedside table, the red numbers flickering suddenly from 11:59 to 12:00.

Second Sunday

Jean’s body weight was crushing on top of you, but a type of crushing weight that was comfortable. You swore you could live under Jean’s body for the rest of eternity. He was warm and strong and his kissing only made the position all that much better.

Your dress was on the floor and you were mostly naked, lying on Jean’s bed with only a bra and panties on. He pressed his bare chest into your chest, the only clothes on his body being his pair of slacks and the brown belt holding them up.

“Jean,” You breathed into his mouth, “I want you.”

Jean groaned against your lips, the sound coming from deep within his throat. He had never thought he’d hear those words from your lips, he never thought he’d be good enough to. But alas, here you were; underneath him, mostly naked, whispering gut wrenching phrases into his mouth.

You moved your hands down his lean body, dainty fingers finding the waistline of his pants. You undid the belt around his waist and threw it to the floor once it was out of the belt loops. You then brought your hands to his zipper, undoing that as well.

You pushed Jean’s slacks down his legs, moving them out of the way in order to free enough space for what you really wanted from him at the moment. You curled your hands around his body, digging your nails into his back in an attempt to bring him closer. You pressed your fingers into the small of his back as you bucked your hips upwards towards him.

You felt as Jean’s hardness pressed down between your legs, and you couldn’t help the moan that escaped from between your lips. Jean moved his lips from yours, allowing more panting breaths to escape from your mouth as he continued to press down into you. He instead kissed down your neck, taking in each moan and ingraining them into his memory.

You moved your fingers into the waistband of his boxers, and pushed them down over his hips. He was just as big as you had always assumed. You weren’t perverted or dirty minded per say, but some nights you’d catch yourself with an excessive amount of questions; you’d wonder about his size, if he were good in bed, and if he had ever satisfied a woman before.

Sure enough, your questions would be answered after tonight.

You brought your hips to his, feeling him through only one layer of clothing now. You brought your hips off of the bed, pushing your panties down over your thighs. You awkwardly moved your legs around Jean’s, attempting to kick the fabric to the floor.

Jean brought his mouth to your ear before breathily whispering, “Do you still want me?”

You nodded frantically, “Yes, yes- yes, please.”

Jean grinned at your response, finally bringing his hips to yours. It was a moment you had waited for for much longer than you thought. This moment was in the distance for two whole years, and now it was finally here. You had wanted this for so long, to the point where you’d take anything Jean would give you - such as a drunken peck and a date with nearly every man on campus.

Next Chapter

[kaialone]

Kirby Planet Robobot Translation Comparison: Facing Mecha Knight

This will be a comparison of the original Japanese version and the US English localized version.

Specifically, this will cover the cutscene where Kirby encounters Susie for the second time, and ends up battling Mecha Knight.

You can also watch this cutscene for yourself in English and Japanese.

For the comparison, the usual points apply:

Bolded is the original Japanese text, for the reference.

Bolded and italicized is my translation.

Italicized is the official NOA translation.

A (number) indicates that I have a specific comment to make on that part in the translation notes.

As you read this, please keep in mind that with translations like these, it’s important not to focus on the exact literal wordings, since there is no single “correct answer” when it comes to translations.

Rather than that, consider the actual information that is being conveyed, in which way, and why.

--

Meeting Susie Again:

Secretary Susie:

おーお〜 いーだいな ハールトマン〜

Oh, great Haltmann~  (1)

Noble Haltmann, we adore him

Secretary Susie:

おーお〜 いーだいな ハールトマン〜

Oh, great Haltmann~

Noble Haltmann, we adore him!

Secretary Susie:

永遠にー 果てなくー 栄えよ〜

May you prosper, unending, for all eternity~

Every day we wish him glory!

Secretary Susie:

……おっと、 たいへん しつれい いたしました。

...Oh dear, how terribly rude of me.

Oh! Pardon me.

Secretary Susie:

われらが カンパニーの すばらしい社歌、

「銀河に名立たるハルトマン」。

That was our company's marvelous theme song,

"Haltmann, Famed Across the Galaxy".

That was our company's wonderful theme song, "The Noble Haltmann."

Secretary Susie:

ついつい 口ずさんで しまいましたわ。

I was just overcome with the urge to sing it to myself.

Sometimes I just find myself singing it out loud. It's so catchy!

Secretary Susie:

さて… また、お会いしましたね。

Now then... It appears we meet again.

At any rate, I must say, how nice to see you again.

Secretary Susie:

秘書スージーでございます。

It is I, Secretary Susie.

I'm Susie, but I'm sure you remember me.

Secretary Susie:

そうそう、 ワタクシ 最近…

Oh yes, just recently...

Let me tell you a story.

Secretary Susie:

とーっても ステキな 方に お会いしましたわ。

I met with the most wonderful person.

Not long ago, I met someone who impressed me very much.

Secretary Susie:

いさましくて クールで、 ハイレベルな剣士様…

Valiant and cool, a truly high-class swordfighter...

He was strong and full of confidence... A knight of the highest order.

Secretary Susie:

で、せっかく お会いできたの ですから、

And, since I was fortunate enough to meet him,

I was so impressed...

Secretary Susie:

ちょっぴり全身カイゾウして…

I have subjected him to just a tiny full-body reconstruction...

I gave him a complete remodel!

Secretary Susie:

わが社の セキュリティマシンと させて いただきました。

And given him the privilege of being a security machine for our company.

And I hired him as a company security guard.

Secretary Susie:

ウフフ…

Uhuhu...

Heehee! I wonder what you'll make of him?

Secretary Susie:

お気に めして いただける かしら？

I wonder if he will be to your liking?

Please allow me to present...

Secretary Susie:

プロダクトNo. M-７１１０、 「メタナイトボーグ」よ…

Now, Product #M-7110,  (2) "Meta Knight Borg"...

Model #M-7110. Mecha Knight...

Secretary Susie:

おゆきなさい！

Get to it, please!

ENGAGE!

Translation Notes:

I translated the lyrics that Susie is singing here directly, so they don’t go exactly with the melody in my translation, but they do in the original Japanese.

There’s actually a Japanese pun in Mecha Knight’s product number. The number “7″ can be read as “na”, the number “1″ can be read as “i”, and the number “10″ can be read as “to”. When put together, this spells out “naito”, which is a Japanese transliteration of the English word “knight”.

--

Comparisons & Thoughts:

This cutscene is another one without many differences.

If you were to really pick it apart it’s arguably a bit looser than the previous cutscene, like having Susie add a few extra comments, but nothing big.

We do get the first mention of the Haltmann Work Company’s theme song, and there is a lot to say about that.

-

Now, the company’s theme song is hard to talk about without directly addressing details that will come up later in the game, so keep that in mind.

First of all, in English, the song is simply titled “The Noble Haltmann”, whereas in Japanese it’s called 銀河に名立たるハルトマン/Ginga ni Nadataru Harutoman.

I choose to translate the Japanese title as “Haltmann, Famed Across the Galaxy”, but it could also be translated as “The Galaxy-Famous Haltmann” or the like.

So, there’s a bit of a difference between the titles here, with the English version feeling a bit more grounded and reserved in its worship of Haltmann, but that’s not all there is to it.

The Japanese title of this song is a subtle reference to the Japanese title of the “Milky Way Wishes” mode from Kirby Super Star, where it’s known as 銀河に願いを/Ginga ni Negai o, which roughly translates to ”A Wish Upon the Galaxy”.

The reference is definitely intentional, considering how Planet Robobot features several important callbacks to Milky Way Wishes.

The English version lacks such a reference, but it might have been difficult to come up with one, even if the localizers noticed this detail.

Next up, there’s the song’s actual lyrics, and that’s where things get a bit muddy in English.

Basically, in the Japanese version of this cutscene here, Susie is singing the first line of the song. In the next cutscene, she will sing the second line.

Then, the pause screen during Haltmann’s battle will show the full lyrics of the entire first strophe. And lastly, the final unlock of the game is the music video that features a previously unseen second strophe.

Because of that, in the Japanese version, the player ends up slowly being shown more and more of the song as they play through the game, culminating with the music video.

It’s clearly supposed to be an important build up, considering it’s also the main theme of the game that was specifically written to represent it and its story.

The English version is a lot less consistent with the song and its lyrics.

Here in this scene, Susie is singing “Noble Haltmann, we adore him! Every day we wish him glory!”.

This doesn’t match with Haltmann’s pause screen and the music video later on, where the first line is given as “Noble Haltmann, we adore him, kingly lord of time and space!“, instead.

To make matters more confusing, the former actually goes better with the melody of the song, it seems.

The English version of Haltmann’s pause screen description also only features part of the first strophe, rather than all of the first, and the lyrics that Susie will sing in the next cutscene are taken from the second strophe, which isn’t supposed to come up until the music video.

It’s kinda messy, honestly.

I can only assume this is a result of how game translations usually work.

Things like the text from in-game dialogue, the text from in-game menu screens, and the text from additional extras like the music video are normally internally stored in different places, and often you end up with different people having to translate them, with very little context.

Note that I wouldn’t blame the translator(s) and localizer(s) involved here, because they can’t really help their working conditions.

But whatever the case may be, as a result the English version lacks the neat progression of slowly getting to know the song, the way it’s presented in the Japanese version.

-

With all that general stuff out of the way, let’s have a closer look at the lines Susie sings in this specific cutscene.

In Japanese, she sings “Oh, great Haltmann~ May you prosper, unending, for all eternity~”, while in English she sings “Noble Haltmann, we adore him! Every day we wish him glory!”.

Just like with the song’s title, the English version of this line is a bit more reserved when it comes to practically worshipping Haltmann.

It’s not even like it’s not revering him, it’s just that the Japanese version goes even further with it.

But translating lyrics like this is also something that’s especially difficult, since you need to match the melody of the song, so more differences are to be expected with those.

-

Really a minor thing, but I want to point out this section:

And, since I was fortunate enough to meet him,

I was so impressed…

I have subjected him to just a tiny full-body reconstruction…

I gave him a complete remodel!

And given him the privilege of being a security machine for our company.

And I hired him as a company security guard.

In the Japanese version, the way Susie says that she gave Meta Knight a “tiny full-body reconstruction” is of course a bit of a joke, talking about something so drastic like it’s just a small little thing.

The English version doesn’t retain this directly, but it gives Susie’s dialogue a similar energy here, having her declare that she gave him a complete remodel like it’s something to be excited about.

A bit of a stronger difference is the fact that Susie says she made Meta Knight a “security machine” in Japanese, rather than a “security guard” like in English.

In the Japanese version, there is a stronger impression of Meta Knight being literally turned into an object or product as far as Susie is concerned, and that that’s a good thing in her eyes too.

In English it’s more like she makes him an employee against his will.

-

Finally, Mecha Knight’s product number “#M-7110” is a pun in Japanese, as I explained in the translation notes above.

I think it makes sense that the English version didn’t try to adapt it and just kept it the same, because in English you just have a lot less to work with as far as number puns go.

I can’t help but wonder what might’ve worked though, perhaps something like “#M-98”?

-

And that’s it for this cutscene.

Not a whole lot of differences here again, but more subtle differences are starting to crop up and will continue to add up over time, and we will get to that later.

I want to say that I do really like the localization in this one though, particularly the way Susie’s “swooning” over Meta Knight is written.

It stays close to the original without sounding awkward in English, and captures the basic mood the original version was getting at.

All in all, pretty good.

And with that, feel free to check out the next part!

--

< Previous Part | Start | Next Part >

--

[missfiggy]

The Tablet

For dear @clare-with-no-i on her birthday!

I'm always vaguely working on some massively long marauder series for the last three years at Hogwarts but have never come close to finishing it.

Sharing a chapter from the never to be published work that takes place in the summer before Fifth Year. It features some of the architecture and floral and fauna of the beloved Potter House head canon we share, and it's about friendship, so I thought it appropriate for your bday!

Enjoy and happy happy day!

Rating: Probably PG-13 for language and subject matter

The Tablet

“James Potter, you are a bloody idiot,” muttered the boy to himself as he nervously ran his fingers through his unruly mop of black hair.

Standing in a dense oak woodland, James Potter clambered over a few jagged rocks and felled trees to reach his abandoned broomstick that lay near the riverbed of a spluttering stream. He gingerly picked up the gleaming broom handle and gently turned it over in his hands, examining it for any signs of damage. It was his brand new Nimbus 1500, a congratulatory gift from his father for being named captain of his house quidditch team. His brand new broomstick that he just ploughed into the thick old tree trunk.

The accident wasn’t his fault really. James thought back to all the times he whizzed through the forest without incident. His family’s house was situated on the edge of an ancient forest. Since he was a boy, James would run time trials through the trees. First, he’d set the course by hanging scarves over various branches on a winding path. Then, he’d slalom through the trees, retrieving the scarves as quickly as he could manage, each run through an opportunity to shave seconds off his best times.

If I hadn’t been distracted, he thought grimly. James knew that was neither fair nor accurate. He’d flown distracted dozens of times. In fact, he often flew specifically because he was distracted or upset. He knew the speed and the wind and the sky would chip away at his burdened mind until there was nothing left. Just him and pure flight. Still, a niggling memory bounced at the back of his mind, commandeering his thoughts and frustrating him endlessly.

The morning before, James awoke to a dry, high pitch scratching noise: the sound of a writing on a chalkboard. He knew immediately where the sound was coming from. He popped out of bed and stumbled over to his desk. He grabbed a small black slate rectangle upon which white words were appearing in a familiar script. The tablets had been his friend Peter’s idea. A way for James and his four best friends to communicate instantaneously, even when not together. The boys took four pieces of slate and charmed them so that what was written on one would appear on them all. The boys made a pact not to erase til all four of them had initialed the message, indicating it was received (exceptions, of course, were to be made when a slate was at risk of falling into the hands of a parent or a teacher).

Good sirs! Better bring that bottle of Ogden’s next week. I. Am. Now. A. Man. - SB

James knew immediately what his best mate, Sirius Black, meant by that. In their third year, when girls stopped being just slightly better smelling classmates and started becoming the most alluring, terrifying, and confounding creatures imaginable, James and his mates made a pact. If one of the boys ever plucked up the courage to talk to one of the girls, and in talking so persuaded said creature to snog, and in snogging so persuaded said creature to shag, then the other three boys were obliged to chip in and buy a bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey for the conquering hero.

Well then, James thought numbly, laying the slate back on his desk, there’s that.

As he thought back to that moment, James couldn’t account for why he hadn’t whooped with joy for his friend. Nor could he account for the sickening twisting feeling that had been growing in his chest over the last day.

James kicked a small rock, sending it careening into the stream where it landed with a satisfying plonk.

Of course Sirius would be the first. He was the oldest, even if only by five months. He also always seemed to be the one breaking new territory in their little group. Sirius was the first to get told off by McGonagall. He was also the first to discover how to get into the Hogwarts kitchens.

Now that James’s mind was on the topic of kitchens, he thought of the pasties Figgy was baking when he’d left that morning. They’d be golden and flaky now. Perhaps it was just hunger twisting his guts. With his broom over his shoulder, he turned to climb back towards home.

But Sirius isn’t always the first in everything, a bitter voice piped in from the back of James’s mind, ploughing over his theory that he was just hungry and not actually upset.

I’m not upset.

Still, James couldn’t help but search through his memory to recall times that he’d been the first to achieve a milestone. There was the first time he got detention...only Sirius had been there as well. James had been the first to be asked to Hogsmeade by a girl. Though even then, James wasn’t clear on whether that point would go to him or Sirius. It had been a very confusing affair. Elspeth Fitzgerald, one of the most popular girls in their year, asked James out, and then asked if Sirius would take out her friend Tamsin, too. Or maybe Elspeth was asking James to ask Sirius to ask Tamsin out, and James came along as the bonus date. He couldn’t be sure. Girls were confusing like that. Either way, James was definitely the first one to properly snog a girl. He remembers that clearly, because as Elspeth was shoving her tongue down his throat, Sirius was trying to get Tamsin to stop crying her bloody head off.

Of course, James conceded, his one time snogging session was not exactly the model of success. Sirius at least had a few follow up dates with Tamsin, and there were rumors all last year that they’d still occasionally snog. Elspeth and James produced about as much heat as a Chinese Fireball with a sore throat.

You were the first to make a house quidditch team, a defiant voice added.

That was right. James was the first, not just his friends, but of his whole bloody year to make a house Quidditch team. He made reserves for Gryffindor his second year and was a proper Chaser in his third. This year was supposed to be his biggest triumph yet. When his school list arrived earlier in the summer, James was honestly surprised to see the gold captain’s badge tumble out of the envelope. Quidditch captain! James could not think of a time when a fifth year had made captain. Even his father had never heard of it. And the Gryffindor team was an older team. There were several sixth and seventh year players who would have been just as deserving, maybe even more, but McGongall chose James.

He hadn’t even mentioned it to his friends yet. He reasoned that, surely, his good friend Moony would also be named prefect that summer. Moony never really got his fair amount of time in the spotlight, given how brilliant he was, so James was happy to sit on his own news until closer to school. He was planning on telling his friends this next week, when the three of them joined James and his father for their annual end-of-summer camping trip on the moors. Sirius’s latest news totally derailed that plan. With topics like shagging on offer, no one would want to talk about silly old Quidditch.

Is that why it bothers me? Because Sirius is going to be the center of attention? James asked himself, feeling a bit unsettled. He finally reached the edge of the woods, pausing to look out onto the grassy clearing that led up to his home. James stood there and tried to probe his own mind, his own feelings. Yes, he liked attention, but what fifteen year old boy didn’t? Did he like it enough to begrudge his friends their own turns in the sun?

Absolutely not, rebutted a vehement voice inside his head.

He was just thinking about how he’d given Moony the whole summer to enjoy the attention of being a newly minted prefect. And Sirius? James and Sirius were even better friends, brothers even. James didn’t resent Sirius because he’d gotten laid. That was ridiculous.

So why does it bother you?

James thought that over as he looked out on vista stretching out from his family’s land. In the distance, exposed rocks jutted out from the valley’s cresting hillside. A great pile of boulders on the farthest tor gleamed rosy pink as the sun sat low on the horizon. He really was fine with the fact that Sirius had been the first to lose his virginity. It was better really, James argued, that way Sirius could tell James what he had learned, and then James would have a better shot of not mucking things up his own first time. Though James supposed for that to happen, he would actually have to sit down with Sirius and talk about it. It wasn’t the sort of thing that could be explained in a letter.

Or on a slate, a nasty voice snorted.

As James turned as made his was towards the house, he was suddenly furious with that stupid little slate. As if all his friends needed all the same information at the exact same time. It was a ridiculous thought to have made them. Probably just Peter’s attempt to feel more included…

Stop that right now, James Potter, he chided himself.

This wasn’t about Peter (and his Gemino charm really was inspired). It wasn’t Pete’s fault James was feeling this way. It wasn’t even Sirius’s fault, James reasoned. Neither of them were responsible for his feelings. It was his own stupid feelings. They were just being unreasonable and running amok and making James feel ridiculous and hurt because Sirius didn’t tell James first.

There it is, James thought, as a bit of tension slowly eased in his chest. He was upset because Sirius didn’t write to him specifically. James and Sirius were not better than their friends, but they were better friends. For all their bravado and performed nonchalance, there was a level of honesty that James and Sirius shared, a closeness. And Sirius let James find out this really big news alongside everyone else, like he was just anyone else. That action did not feel particularly brotherly.

That still left the matter of James feeling ridiculous. He knew, logically, that Sirius progressing did not mean that James was regressing, but it still felt that way. As if Sirius’s new maturity made James by comparison more juvenile. James tried to reassure himself that Peter and Remus would be in the same boat, but even as that thought crossed his mind he questioned its veracity. Though, at the end of last term, Peter had developed a rather determined fixation on breasts. Size, shape, who had them, who didn’t, whose were the best in their year, whose were the best in Britain: Peter had an opinion about all of it. James thought he was taking things a little far, but maybe he’d just reached a maturity point that James had not. And while Remus did not talk about girls or snogging the same way the other lads in their year did but maybe that was a sign also a sign of maturity -- a sign he was even more mature than Peter’s mature. Kingsley Shacklebolt, a seventh year Gryffindor James thought was a cert for the captain’s badge, never prattled on about all the girls he dated. And he’d dated a lot. James worried that he might have been the only boy at school who spent more of the summer thinking about Quidditch than sex.

When James reached the house, he pushed the heavy wood front door open and walked through. The great hall of Hartscombe Hall featured dark wood-paneling that stretched three-quarters of the way up the grey stone walls studded with mullioned windows. There was a fireplace large enough that James could still stand comfortable inside it that stood facing a long wood table.

James stopped short. What his family's great hall did not usually feature was another attractive and black-haired teenage boy sitting at the end of said table. The very same black-haired teenage boy whose actions had sent James’s mind on a discontented tailspin.

“Sirius?” James inquired, as though there was a possibility his eyes were making a fool of him, too.

Sirius smiled warmly, jumping up from the table and throwing his arms around James.. He brushed the long fringe of his sleek black hair from his face and tucked it behind his ear. Sirius wore torn up denim trousers with silver pins running through the sides and a stiff leather jacket. James did not doubt that this was some new and absurd muggle fashion fad.

“Sorry for the surprise. I know you weren’t expecting me until tomorrow.”

“Mum and dad will be thrilled to see you, of course.” James said, as he released his friend from the warm embrace, feeling even sillier than he had before. “I’m chuffed too, of course, I mean obviously, but why are you here early?”

Sirius’s mood immediately darkened. “Too much Black family bonding.”

Sirius pulled out his wand and flicked it towards the massive steamer trunk he had brought. Evidently, he was all set to leave for Hogwarts directly from their camping trip. James took the cue, slinging his broom over his shoulder and motioning for Sirius to follow him up the front stairs.

“Was it worse than at Easter?” James asked, referring to the epic row Sirius had with his parents over his choice of friends earlier that year.

“Much,” Sirius said as he clomped up the stairs in his great black boots. “One of my idiot cousins is getting married, and Walburga let their whole family use Grimmauld Place as their London pied-a-terre. Apparently you can’t buy dresses in the country or some such nonsense! Parties and teas and a hen-do. It was a nightmare.”

After dropping off Sirius luggage in his designated guest room on the first floor, the boys continued on to James’s room with Sirius. Before Hogwarts, James’s room was on the first floor as well. A sprawling nursery that had its own playroom and connected to his nanny’s accommodations. Being older now, he’d moved himself up to the spacious second floor which had never been used by the main tenants. James loved the unpolished look of it. His bedroom, a converter storeroom, stretched along the end of the west wing. Old raw wood planks jutted out of the white plaster walls and arched up to meet along a central beam in the middle. James thought of it as the house’s ribcage, it’s structure laid bare.

The design scheme, if it could be so generously called, of James’s room was mercurial. The walls were covered, predictably, with banners in the bright Gryffindor colors and drab Puddlemere brown, as well as a moving poster of all the Quidditch players of the last quarter century that James admired. He pilfered his favorite things from other guest rooms in the house to create a chaotic melange of furniture. He had a massive mahogany four poster bed that required a shrinking charm to get through the doorway. To this he added long bookshelves, a heavy armoire, mismatched couches, a dart board, and even a muggle table-football table. Of all these things, James was proudest of his desk. He assembled it himself by plopping an old barn door on top of empty whiskey casks. They still filled his room with the comforting smell of peat.

Sirius walked towards said desk still nattering on about the absurdity of wedding textiles. “Honestly,” he whinged, “I didn’t even know there were different kinds of lace. Since when do fabrics have sub-fabrics.”

“It’s completely ludicrous,” James agreed. “Hopefully, this week will make up for it. Just the lads, walking all day and sitting by a fire all night, I can almost guarantee no one will be talking about textiles.”

“You saw it,” Sirius said flatly.

“What?” James started, confused by the non sequitur. He turned to see Sirius looking down at the desk. Not at the desk, at what was on the desk. James had left his slate tablet out.

“Er-- yeah,” James said in a hearty voice not wholly his own, “Congratulations, or you know, good on you!”

Sirius laughed just once. It was a hollow, quiet sound. Time droned on and the distance between the two boys stretched with it. Sirius traced his hands across the edge of the tablet as he stared out the window over the desk. In addition to Sirius’s initial pronouncement, the tablet now included a loopy scrawl from Peter asking for more details, and in his untidy scratch Moony inscrutably asked, on behalf of a Mr. Kipling, whether Sirius had indeed run a full sixty seconds worth of distance. James felt unsettled. He knew he needed to say something to end this quiet but conjuring any actual words felt beyond his current abilities.

“D’ya mind?” Sirius asked without turning to look at James. He just held a gold pack of rolled muggle cigarettes above his shoulder.

“Go for it.”

Sirius leaned forward to open the window. James heard the familiar clack and swoosh of a lighter. As Sirius exhaled, James watched his shoulders slump forward, as if the expelled smoke had taken all of Sirius’s swagger with it.

“So, who was the girl?” James asked, breaking the silence. “You didn’t mention dating anyone in your last letter.”

“Well,” Sirius said as he turned, softening his stance and leaning back on the desk. “That could be because I don’t know if we were dating, not really…”

“How’d you meet? Is she a friend of your cousins?”

“Merlin, no!” Sirius sneered. “Though I suppose, I have them to thank for meeting her. Like I said, summer was a misery. Bella and Narcissa practically moved in. And Bella’s completely lost the plot. She’s marrying a Lestrange, but you’d never know it. All she talks about is Voldemort and how he’s bringing pride back to Britain. It’s fucking disgusting. I spent as much time as I could out of the house.”

“You said you were riding alone most days on the Get-A-Round…” James said, quoting from one of Sirius’s early letters.

“The Underground,” Sirius corrected.

James shrugged. He wasn’t taking Muggle Studies, so he’d really never need to know the name of the mad contraption that transports people underneath the streets. Merlin knows he'd never ride on it.

“Anyway,” Sirius continued, “I was riding around a lot at the start, but there’s only so many times you can go around the Circle line. Tried hanging around Diagon Alley for a bit, but it was just more of the same. I ended up just exploring. Few weeks ago, I was wandering around Chelsea. I stumbled into this clothing store on the King’s Road and that’s where I met Cyan--”

“Cyan?!” James interrupted.

“Well, it’s Sarah, really. But she dyed the ends of her hair blue, and she was trying to get everyone to call her Cyan.”

“Fair enough,” James said, “I guess, wizards aren’t really in a position to judge someone’s name. We have some pretty weird ones...”

“Hengeist,” Sirius

“Adalbert.”

“Sawbridge.”

“Wilburforce.” James looked at Sirius to discover they were both, finally, smiling at the same time.

“Well, anyway, I just started going to King’s Road on the days she worked. We’d chat and then meet up after her shift ended. Usually just for coffee, but then, well a couple days ago she invited me over to hers to listen to a new record… and well. You already know how that went.”

James did know, and he nodded sagely at the tablet. For all of James’s mental griping over that stupid note and the frustration it caused, he couldn’t help but be intensely curious about the whole affair. Did she just proposition him out of the blue? Or, were there steps leading up to it? Did he bring wine and candles? James heard a rumor that girls liked for there to be candles.

“You know, I don’t really know why I did this.” Sirius said, tapping the slate tablet quickly with the cherry tip of his cigarette. “I guess... the whole affair just felt like it needed a cap off, you know? A full stop. An exclamation point. Some sort of definite conclusion.”

“Hmm,” James mused, not entirely sure of Sirius’s meaning. “I mean. Did it not… did you not… erm… conclude?”

“That’s not….” Sirius started. He held the cigarette gently between his teeth as he stretched both his arms, clasping them behind his back and puffing out his chest. “It’s like yes. You have sex. And sex on one hand is just sex. Just a physical thing, mechanical even. And I know that. Logically, unemotionally, I know that’s true. I guess I just thought, with the way people go on about it… I guess I just thought there’d be something… more.”

“More than sex?”

“More than just the physical bits...yeah,” Sirius leaned over James’s desk and stretched his arm out the window, tapping the ash off the cigarette. “I just expected to feel something more afterwards. But I was just tired… and slightly sticky.”

James shifted awkwardly from one foot to another. He did not know how to answer Sirius as he had no analogous experiences to share. He supposed that, he too, approached the idea of sex at different levels. There was the fantastical element that he would often indulge in before falling asleep at night. In that realm, there was nothing to fear. Then there was the practicality of it. The fact that he didn’t actually know what to do or how to make it okay for the girl. That was terrifying. When he thought of a hypothetical first time it was just as something to get done.

“You could say something,” Sirius muttered.

“I guess, I just don’t know what to say,” James said honestly.

Sirius turned away to stare out the window again.

“I think that’s why I wrote to you all. There was this big thing that happened, and then I just went home and everything was still as it was. So banal. I sat next to Reg at the dinner table and ate mushy peas. It was like it didn’t even happen.” Sirius got very quiet and looked away from James. In a small voice he said, “Does that make me sound like a nancy?”

“What?” James asked. Until that moment, it really had not occurred to him that Sirius would be feeling anything other than elated and slightly smug. Looking at his best friend now, shoulders slumped, hair falling in his face, and staring determinedly at the tip of the cigarette as if making eye contact with anything else would physically hurt, it was clear Sirius was feeling anything but.

“Mate, no!,” James assured him. “Not at all. It’s supposed to be a very big deal. If it weren’t, we all wouldn’t go around talking about it all the time. And, like, look at what Pete and Remus wrote… okay not so much Remus, but he never makes sense anyway. You know Pete lost his mind over it. You know he won't rest until you give him a moment by moment account and draw him a topographical map of her tits.”

Sirius chuckled, and finally brought his eyes up to meet James’s. “‘S’pose we will all have to deal with that. Pete may be the first student to pursue ‘History of Breasts’ at the NEWT level.”

“He’s a trailblazer.”

“Icon.”

“Legend, really.” James laughed and sidled over next to Sirius, perching up on the text beside him. “Feeling better, then?”

“A bit, thanks. Just wish you’d been there--”

James’s eyebrows jumped halfway up his forehead.

“No! Not, there there,” Sirius explained with a chuckle. “Just afterwards, back at the house. I just never thought I’d go out, shag someone for the first time, then come home at three in the afternoon to see my cousins playing dress-up in the living room. It was too bizarre.”

“I ‘spect all the really big events in life are like that. Stranger and way more awkward than you imagined. We’re all just stumbling our way through life.”

Sirius pulled a face of mock shock and clutched at his chest. “What? No! Not even the great James Potter!?”

“Especially the great James Potter,” James insisted, throwing an elbow at Sirius’s ribs for good measure. “You missed a spectacular faceplant this morning after I ran into a hoar oak on my new racing broom. KAPOW- and the SPLAT! Broom went one way, I went the other…”

“Yeah, well, you’re too pretty anyway. Would do your face some good to bang it up. Let’s see this new broom!”

Sirius tossed the remnants of his cigarette out the window and walked towards the broom lying on James’s bed. He picked it up by its glistening handle, flipping it on end to observe the finely trimmed twigs in the tail.

“Pheeeeew,” Sirius whistled low. “That! Is a damn fine broom, my good man. What’d you do? Manage to intercept all of Minnie’s letters home last year or did you catch Monty snogging Figgy.”

“Gross, Sirius!” James laughed, “Neither. Actually--”

James scurried over to the nightstand next to his best and retrieved his captain’s badge from the uppermost drawer. He was so excited to finally show it to someone other than Figgy and his parents, he could not even find the words. Rather, he simply thrust the golden badge engraved with a large “C” into his best friend's hands.

It took Sirius a moment, though no more than a moment to realize what he was looking at. Joy overtook his whole expression, as his eyes shone and he smiled brightly.

“YES!” Sirius roared, raising a fist in the arm. “WE’VE DONE IT! Sweet Merlin! YES!”

He grabbed James and pulled him into another hug, patting him on the back for good measure. James’s heart leapt in his chest at seeing his friend's joy.

Sirius was laughing as he stood back and examined the badge closely.

“It’s not a fake,” James said, “Letter had my name on it and everything.”

“That’s not what I’m-- do you see this? What does that says?” Sirius asked, holding the badge up to James face.

James squinted through his glasses. He did not see anything in the area Sirius was indicated. Only a brightly polished, immaculate gold surface.

“It doesn’t say anything there, mate.”

“Yes it does,” Sirius insisted. “Right there. It says ‘I’m better than Shacklebolt”

James shoved Sirius playfully, but Sirius just held the badge higher as he insisted that his best friend would be the best Quidditch Captain Hogwarts had ever seen. From James’s heart burst forth a wellspring of gratitude and joy. Being an idiot wasn’t so bad, he thought, as long as your friends were idiots, too.

[doufuhua]

Resource tips when playing Genshin Impact, things the game won’t tell you.

I see a handful of new players, *cough* my mutuals *cough*, making mistakes when it comes to saving their resources and wasting their time by staying in a low world level.

Increasing your world level is always a good thing, when you increase your world level you have a better chance at getting larger and more better quality enemy drops, rewards from bosses, and artifacts. I understand there may be the fear of enemies in-game being too strong for your parties to handle, but players agree that accumulating your exp past the limit, like say AR25, is wasting your time, mora, and resin. Spending your resin at AR25 with accumulated exp, you are getting very low quality rewards in return with your world level 1 cap, when you could be getting much better rewards if you remove the cap and were in world level 4 for example. The jump in between enemy levels from world level 1 to 2 or 3 is not a huge gap to be honest, it’s not more than your characters can handle at level 40-50, it will take a little longer to defeat an enemy camp, but your party will survive. So, always remove your world level cap when you get the chance. If enemies really are difficult for you, co-op with someone at a higher AR, some are even willing to do the work for you because most high AR players are at endgame, bored with nothing to do, have your co-op join on and ask for help in your profile status. If the idea of co-op makes you feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, you can descend one world level in the menu, but I find that when I ascend, not once have I considered going down one level, even when my party is 20 levels lower than enemy bosses.

(One of the things I regret doing while playing this game was not following the advice from above, I was AR25 accumulating a lot of exp and not ascending my world level. When I ascended my world level, I believe the cap was 3? is where I stopped. I realized the enemies were not as difficult to fight as they were in world level 1. I’ve been leveling my characters accordingly equal to the world level, by the way, farming for exp books is what you should be focusing on when you’re a lower world level, I will elaborate that on another point. My party at level 50 were actually fine against enemies at level 62 and above, if you fight smartly, dodging and using your elemental reactions correctly, you can defeat them. I lost some hp between each character and the fights took longer than usual but that wasn’t a big deal, upon realizing that, I then realized that I wasted my whole time staying at AR25. It was like a moment of clarity, “oh my god, I stayed AR25 for maybe 2 months for no reason at all...I could’ve gotten more and better materials all this time and level my characters even faster.” So after that, I kept increasing my world level, but every 1 or few weeks, because I was dumb, didn’t listen to any advice, and didn’t farm enough exp books for more than 1 party when I should be when I was a lower AR, I needed to farm more exp for at least 2 or 3 parties. So you see, I wasted time and energy grinding, trying to catch up at higher world levels because I stayed way past than I should be in world level 1. It’s unfortunate when I see players in forums saying they don’t want to ascend because they don’t want to deal with the difficulty, or sometimes there are some arrogant players even boasting staying at a lower world level, asking higher AR players, what’s the point of ascending. Maybe when I was in world level 1, I probably wouldn’t care and maybe even agree, but now that I’m AR54, I realize how wrong that mindset is, it felt really sucky realizing I wasted free time staying at AR25 when I could’ve been like AR45, because now I have to play catch up, get characters to level 70 or 80, so that means wasting more time again to farm on top of already wasted time, it’s like starting the game all over. The game is so much funner when you’re at a higher AR, it feels really nice being rewarded with high quality loot, and if you’re like me, the challenges makes the game more interesting, especially when you have figured out the mechanics by now.)

Focus on getting materials and not artifacts when you’re below AR45/world level 5. When you’re at a low AR level, you should prioritize your daily resin to farming mora/exp leylines and materials for character ascension/talents/weapons. You’ll realize the higher you upgrade your characters, the more exp and mora you’ll need to upgrade all ascensions. Like the chart says in the link, the chances you’ll get any high quality artifacts is extremely rare to impossible at lower world levels. At world level 6-8 (the average that most players playing since launch are at), no one is using 1-3 star artifacts (they’re used as fodder for 5 star ones, so save your 1-3 star artifacts and don’t level them), even most 4 star artifacts stay in their inventory. Every AR45+ player are equipping 5 star artifacts on their characters, because they give them the best stats boost for their dps carries at endgame. Supports can make use of the 4 star artifacts however, if you don’t have enough 5 star ones, because they don’t stay on the field as long as dps characters do, but when you do get enough 5 star artifacts for your supports, replace the 4 stars. I say artifact farming should be reserved for when you get to AR45. When you are at AR45, you unlock the restriction that allows you the chance to get 5 star artifacts. Note that the link in the first bullet point says you’re guaranteed at least one 5 star artifact, whichever artifact you’ll get will also be random, so you may not get the exact artifact that you’re looking for, at that point you just have to try again, domain farming is just like gacha. Players would argue whether you should start farming at AR45 or AR50, I am of the opinion that you start farming at 45 for a couple of reasons. First, you get 5 star artifacts early, second, even if your haul from farming are undesirable artifacts, you can use them as fodder for your eventual perfect 5 star artifact with the right stats, and you’re gonna need a lot of fodder to enhance the perfect one. You’re gonna be farming artifacts for quite awhile which I will explain in the next point. (tbe)

Save your fragile resins for artifact farming, save as much as you can because farming for them sucks so bad (rng). (tbe)

Prioritize what you should be leveling for your characters. What I think people don’t realize is, talents are very important to level up maybe more so than leveling your character’s levels. Leveling your characters only upgrades their base hp, def, atk, and special stat, pretty basic and standard. However, leveling your talents, determines how much dmg your character is outputting with their auto attacks, elemental skill, and burst. Everyone has their opinion but my belief is the order should go: ascend character but do not level to max -> level talents to max (at AR35, if not AR35, level weapons then talents) -> level weapons to max -> level artifacts (at AR45, if not AR 45, skip this) -> go back to leveling characters in order to ascend, and then repeat. As far as character role priority goes, I think everyone is aware you should invest in dps/hyper carries -> dps/sub-dps -> supports. (tbe)

Don’t max every stat for your characters, ie. character levels 90/90, talent levels 10/10, especially if you’re f2p, it is very mora costly and spreads your resources thin. You don’t need to be maxed out in order for your characters to be strong or stand a chance against enemies. As you can see from the second link, the power difference between a level 80 character vs. a level 90 character is a small increment, depending on the character’s multipliers, their increase in damage from 80 to 90 ranges from 1-4%. It doesn’t make a huge difference in gameplay. Stat increases start to slow down or get smaller when your character is ascending towards levels 70-90. Most players, especially f2p, who are trying to save as much resources as they can, invest in at least 8 characters/2 good teams to level 70 or 80 all the way towards endgame, because spiral abyss requires 2 teams. So f2p players have to spread out their resources evenly to 8 characters. If you are trying to get every character in your roster to reach level 90, you will burn out your resources very quickly. Say you’ve been playing and farming materials since launch and you’re leveling characters to 90, you most likely will get about 4 characters maxed while everyone else is too low level to make any damage. Another thing about ascensions is just that it is so costly, it costs up to hundred thousands of mora, on top of that, you spend more mora per level up and you have to do it for 8 characters, a few million mora can evaporate fairly quickly when you factor in crafting, forging, buying ingredients you can’t find in the wild, enhancing weapons/artifacts, and upgrading talents. For point of reference, at AR54 my dps characters are level 80/90 and my support characters are level 70/80, talent levels 6-8 for all (at AR54-55 however, you should have talents level 8/8/8 for dps or support at least, that is a good stopping point), most artifacts (5 stars) at level 20, weapons at level 80 or 90. My teams can take on enemies 10 or 20 levels above them just fine, it may take longer to kill an enemy but it’s more fun than one-shotting in my opinion. Talents are the same as ascensions but they are even more costly than ascensions, more time consuming to level up because they require enemy drops from weekly bosses, and the drops are rng, you’re not guaranteed the exact material you need for a specific character, it may even take weeks until you get the right material (in the 1.5 update however, there will be a converter given to players who want to exchange a material they have for something else, but there is no further info about this yet). The unfortunate thing about this game is that there is too much rng factoring into chance, this is the most common complaint in the community and even though many have sent feedback about this, nothing much has changed since launch, it’s just something you have bitterly swallow. Talents are still very important despite all this, don’t neglect them (Tip: whenever a character banner comes out and they allow you to have a trial with them, you should check their character screen, take a look at their stats, artifacts, weapons, talents, that’s usually a model you should aim for. A perfect example, in Xiao’s trial, Mihoyo made him level 80, gave him talent levels 8/8/8, and gave him 2 Viridescent and 2 Gladiator 5 star artifacts to fight level 90 enemies for testing, and that is the exact set I see a lot of Xiao users in-game and on youtube used after his trial, they all just followed what Mihoyo set up for him). Always max out your weapons, there is no downside to this, your characters gain stat bonuses from them and get stronger, the best thing about it is that you don’t have to spend resin for it, you just have to mine ore as a daily routine. Take advantage of the adventurer expeditions, always keep on top of it, and always assign characters to get ore or mora.

There are some exceptions to maxing out your characters, however. Some people have their favorite characters up to level 90 with crowned talents (level 10), that’s totally fine, mainly the reason they would do that is because they love this particular character a lot, they love their playstyle and don’t plan on ever benching them soon. Youtubers like to show off their maxed out characters as a flex, you don’t have to follow their actions though, it’s not mandatory. Only max out a character because it’s personal for you, don’t think it’s like “oh I have to reach the max because that’s required to play the game,” it’s not that. Another reason for maxing is that maybe this character is a hypercarry and their multipliers are too good to ignore if they were at 90, for example, Hu Tao is a special case, she is a hypercarry and has the lowest base stats with average multipliers I believe, of all released characters, but her Staff of Homa makes up for that by giving her an insane crit damage boost (62%), but for a Hu Tao player who doesn’t have Staff of Homa, the sound of her at level 90 to give her a boost sounds appealing to them. If you’d like a model to follow by, the recommended levels I suggest for endgame would be - DPS: level 80/90 (level 80 ascended), talent levels 8/8/8 at least; 9/9/9 if you can, weapon level 90/90, 5 star artifacts at maxed level (look for crit rate/damage stats on each artifact). Supports/Sub-DPS: level 60/70 (level 60 ascended) or level 70/80 (level 70 ascended) respectively, talent levels 6/6/6 (supports); 7/7/7; 8/8/8 (sub-dps), weapon level 90/90, 5 star artifacts at maxed level (sub-dps), 4 star at maxed is ok (supports), but majority should be 5 stars like 1:4 or 2:3 (look for crit rate/damage, energy recharge, elemental mastery, and depending on what the character scales with, attack, hp, and defense stats). Follow what suits you best by taking a look at the first link.

Prioritize your support/sub-dps characters over dps characters. (tbe)