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etherealluminescence · 3 years

Note

Brothers + the now dateables with an MC who just can’t remember names that are like three syllables or more so they just refer to everyone by their nicknames. The mc is still new and does it and when someone says anything they’re just like “it’s your fault for having a long ass name”

I finally return to writing headcanons wow that only took me a year am I right? Ahahaha I had nearly 200 followers and I’m laughing cause I’m slowly watching them leave me. 😎😭

Jokes aside I’m doing MUCH better after resting for a long time. Mentally and physically! So here you go.

Warning LONG aha aha 🥺😭 I feel like this is shorter than my usual ones. I got to get the hang of it again.

Brothers + Dateables with a GN!MC who can’t remember long names HC

Lucifer

When you were summoned to the devildom, you were pretty confused and filled with a lot of questions. Naturally, you’d refer to the people you were calling out to by name, but for some reason you just couldn’t remember them.

You finally found Lucifer, Diavolo, and Barbatos in the hallways, and approached them to ask a question. You forgot their whole names, but figured since you’ve got the first parts of each, that was good enough.

“Ah Luci, about the tasks for this week, what exactly does this part mean? And Dia, when do you want my report?” You asked them.

Lucifer was pretty mortified. He was also pissed. Did you just call him Luci? And more importantly, did you just cal THE lord Diavolo some kind of stupid nickname?

Diavolo on the other hand was laughing at the nickname you gave Lucifer. You were being scolded by Lucifer, and Diavolo was about to pipe in before you said, “It’s not my fault you have a long ass name, like damn, I could write the entire report by the time I finish saying your name.”

Lucifer is really angry at your behaviour at first but since Diavolo is fine with it... and then he soon realizes you literally can’t remember any of his brothers names with more than three syllables too.

He’ll probably try to give you food or drinks that help with your memory, and eventually finds you calling him Luci cute. Will immediately get angry if anyone else tries to call him that.

Mammon

Mammon was one of the first people you met, and one of the brother’s whose full name you can actually remember. He takes great pride in that!

His name was the first his human remembered and knows by heart! Of course! He is The Great Mammon.

Also kind of sad he doesn’t get a cute nickname! Please give him a cute nickname, he wants to feel special too, or very close to you, he craves contact and affection.

The first time he heard you refer to Lucifer as “Luci” he almost lost it. Thought you were going to die and tried to pick you up and run. So surprised when Lucifer only sighed, and responded to your question.

You had to explain to him you can’t remember names that are long, and his is one of the only so far you can remember. When you refer to Diavolo as “Dia” he just genuinely wonders how you do it, like aren’t you scared?

Well it’s not like it matters! You have The Great Mammon to protect ya’ AND you remember his name, it’s a win for him!

Leviathan

Originally Levi thought nothing of it when you referred to him as Levi, as that’s just what everyone else did. But then he started to notice you’d even refer to anime characters or idols as shortened nicknames.

You could pronounce Ruri easily, so he didn’t notice at first since Ruri was all he talked about, but when he said “Azuki” you kept calling her “Azu” or “Zuki”. He wondered why that was an asked.

You explain to him you just can’t remember “long ass fucking names” and anything with three or more syllables was a chore to remember, so there’s no way you were going to remember Azu’s name.

Finds it kind of sad for you, and difficult to understand what character you’re talking about. One time you kept saying a character from “that one show” and kept pouting while Levi’s head was grinding 3000 gears cause there’s at LEAST 5 characters that start with “Saku” like are you saying Sakura? Which!?

Scared for your life when you refer to Lucifer or Diavolo by their shortened names. Surprised to find out you’re completely safe. Soon comes to a realization you’ll just never be able to remember almost anyone’s name, no matter how hard he tries.

He drills it into your head about a certain character will a three syllable name but after the six hours of listening you just... forgot. Like literally the show’s name has the character’s name in it and you just forgot. Cue Levi sighing and calling you a normie.

Satan

One of the lucky three people spared from you forgetting his name. He didn’t realize it at first since Mammon, Levi, and Beel were all their names or family nicknames.

And then it clicks when you called Lucifer by “Luci”, in front of everyone, at dinner. You just said “Luci please hand me the salt” and Satan stared at you wide eyed.

Were you taunting Lucifer, or did you just have a death wish? Wait neither? You mean THE prideful lucifer just handed you the salt without a retort, or question why you called him that?

Questions you later afterwards about what was up about it, and when you tell him you don’t remember “long ass fucking names” it sort of clicks. Still sort of surprised that Lucifer isn’t pissed at you.

Will research human memory because he doesn’t think it’s normal. Like you can remember words with more than three syllables, but why not names?

Will DEFINITELY make fun of Lucifer for it. “Oh, how was your day, Luci?” And will also flaunt about how you remember his name but not Lucifer’s.

Also, like Levi, kind of sad you don’t remember the name of his book characters and just call them by their physical traits because at that point he doesn’t even know who you could refer to by his thousands of book.

Asmodeus

Asmo finds the nicknames extremely adorable!! Probably makes it a trend on social media to start calling everyone you know cute nicknames.

He didn’t think much when you called him Asmo, but hearing you call Lucifer as Luci, Diavolo as Dia, and Barbatos as Barb or baby just had him smitten.

Definitely wants to use cute nicknames too, but Lucifer is threatening him. After finding out that you physically cannot remember names with three or more syllables, including Asmo’s full name, he feels kind of bad for you.

It must suck not to know the whole name of the world’s most beautiful man! And why he starts hearing you call Simeon “Simmie” or Solomon as “Solly” he definitely steals it and copies you.

Diavolo is happy too to have someone else call him by a casual nickname, and hopes it catches on, much to Lucifer’s dismay.

Will probably want you to call him something even cuter instead of Asmo, as your own special privilege, like “Azzy”. He gets to give you a cute nickname too, though.

Beelzebub

Beel didn’t really notice at first, until Asmo and Satan pointed it out. He asked you if you remembered his name, and you just gave him a blank look and said “Beel, I love you, but you have a long ass name, and that’s not my fault.”

He doesn’t really care though, since you still know his nickname! But he is kind of worried for your memory. Are you okay, can you still remember other words? Do you remember the names of his food orders?

Has introduced you to his gym friends but you for the life of you, cannot remember any of their names. Finds it sort of funny how you just remember them as “leg guy” or “treadmill user”.

If anyone gets mad at you for shortening their name he will stand up for you! Baby understands that you just have trouble with remembering, and will defend you.

Belphegor

Finds this shit fucking hilarious. He’s often called Belphie, which you remember, so it’s not like it applies to him that much.

Kinda pissy how you can remember Mammon’s full name and not his, but there are benefits. He starts calling Lucifer “Luci” from now on and taunts him for being weak to a human.

Finds it funny, too, how you just tell people “your name is too fucking long” and call them by their first syllable or something similar.

He’s not really concerned about why you can’t remember names, okay maybe at first, did he kill you too hard? No? Okay.

He probably thinks you’re like him, can’t be assed to remember people’s shit names at times and remembers them based off looks.

Sleepy baby just wants to nap with you, names aren’t important.

Diavolo

The prince of devildom is extremely powerful, frightening, and no one would dare look down on him. He’s always used to people being formal with him, or trying to get on his good side.

However, one day, this small weak little human came into his realm and didn’t even care to remember his name. It entertained him a whole lot to say the least.

Diavolo doesn’t have a lot of people who’d be casual with him, so hearing you call him “Dia” for the first time made him really happy! He would love to hear you say it more often, and to be super casual around him.

When Lucifer or Barbatos tried to correct you and tell you to use his whole name, you only responded with, “No one has time to say his whole ass fucking name. I’m just gonna call him Dia.”

He’s amused, it’s so daring and bold of you to say that to some of the most powerful demons. Of course, if they continue to pester you about it he would step in and tell them that’s it’s fine and he likes it.

Diavolo also finds it super funny how you can’t remember anyone’s names and just shortens them. He might start calling Lucifer “Luci” too!

Other demons probably look at you like you’re crazy, for addressing their demon lord that way.

Barbatos

Barbatos is pretty stoic, but whenever you call him “baby” you can see a faint blush on his face. He isn’t used to nicknames or affection, so when you give it to him, he’s unsure how to react a bit.

He already knew you couldn’t remember names, and would be fine with you calling him “Barb”, which you did in public. But when it was just you and him, or when you were with the others you’d call him “baby”.

“You have a long ass name so I’ll just call you baby. You’re cute like one. Not to mention, it sounds like Barbie which sounds like Barba- what was your name?”

He is pretty fine with it, except when you call Lord Diavolo just as “Dia”. It’d be fine in private or with the others, but did you really have to yell out “Dia” in front of a bunch of lesser demons?

Overall, he just doesn’t mind. Will probably give you a list or notebook of everyone’s names, and physical traits. In case you forgot who was who based off names again.

Solomon

Ah yes another exchange student! Hope he can get close to you. Okay, maybe calling him “Sol”, “Solo”, and “Solly” is a bit too close for someone you just met right?

When you explain how you just physically cannot remember names he kind of laughs at you and then realizes you’re serious. He knows some people have trouble remembering names, but wow, this was sort of unique. You can remember his first two syllables, why not just one more?

He gets used to it fairly quickly, though. Prefers if you call him “Solo” over the other nicknames, but finds it sort of cute when you call him “Solly” or “Sol”.

He will definitely use a nickname with you and call it a human thing, to try and make everyone else jealous.

The man with at least 5 60+ pact marks, the man who is an amazingly powerful sorcerer, the man who is labeled Devildom 2021’s “sketchiest” individual, is called “Solly”.

When he asked the reason to why you suggested Solly you just responded with “Reminds me of Sully from monsters inc”.

Simeon

Simeon is a really nice person so he first figures you’re just being really nice and want to give everyone nicknames! And then he soon realizes you literally just cannot remember names.

He finds it sad how you can’t remember the name of his characters, or how you’ll never actually remember his full name, but really finds it cute how you’ve given him a nickname!

You call him “Sim” or “Simmie” and he’s soft for it. Will probably give you a nickname like “my sheep” or “my lamb”. He’s silently hoping Luke too, will call him Simmie. He gives off the energy of a grandparent.

He will try his best to help you remember names, but he won’t try to force you to remember! If you can’t remember, you can’t. That’s completely fine. Don’t stress yourself about it.

Luke

He has a one syllable name, so he doesn’t experience this personally. But hearing you call Simeon “Simmie” or Solomon “Sol” makes him feel a little left out and confused.

Why do you call everyone by a nickname? He wants one too! He overhears you though one night. You were explaining to some demon whose name had like five syllables that you just can’t remember long names.

Oh! He’s suddenly really happy again. It means you know his name, and won’t forget it! Also feels sort of bad for Simeon and Solomon, since you’ll never remember their names.

Will be happy if you call him “Lukie” before realizing it makes him sound like a child.

#obey me hc #obey me headcanons #obey me #obey me swd #obey me shall we date #obey me headcanon

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ktheist · 3 years

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02 — show me yours & i’ll show you mine | m

➙ muses. seokjin x college student / gamer!reader ft. best friend! taehyung

➙ genre. best friend’s brother au. university au. working au. fwb au.

➙ word. 1.9k

➙ warnings. explicit content. oral (f receiving).

➙ index. 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | finale | side story 1 |

➙ synopsis.

“can we have morning sex?”

“not today.”

“is that my brother’s shirt?” is the first thing kim taehyung says to you after a whole night of you declaring war against him for choosing his girlfriend over you.

your body clock’s designed in a way where no matter how late you go to sleep, you’ll always wake up at 8 in the morning. the question of whether you can go back to bed or not varies. like right now, when your stomach is grumbling because it’s decided to deem that the spicy carbonara ramen you had has lost its sustaining-abilities.

“uh, is that a woman-choosing, best friend-abandoning human i see?” you say, eyes squinted at said human.

“whatever,” that seems to have taken taehyung’s interest off the creme colored sweater hanging off your shoulders and way past your butt. you could’ve not word shorts when you went out to get yourself a bowl of cereal. mainly because the brothers have a similar habit of sleeping in until the sun’s shining directly into their faces and they’d have no choice but to wake up - that is, in the event that they forgot to shut the blinds.

“what are you doing up anyway?” you ask but it’s a no-brainer because every friday night, kim taehyung and you would never fail to release a week’s worth of pent up frustrations over playing video games until the crack of dawn, “don’t tell me you haven’t slept.”

“unlike some people, i’ve got things to do,” he steals away the bowl of cereal you just finished preparing for yourself, “places to be.”

you can’t even get mad at his brazenness, not when those eyebags make him look like he’ll pass out with one swing of your punch. and you do punch like a girl - besides the fact that you are one, it’s already a settled fact that you’re really not fond of the idea of wasting your energy on something pointless - so you tend to give the least amount of energy for, for instance - if you do choose to - punching kim taehyung who’s walking away with your bowl of cereal.

so you fix yourself a new bowl, savoring it while watching an episode of the tale of nine-tailed and spending the entire morning catching up to the latest episode. it’s only until half an hour past noon, do you strut back into seokjin’s room, noticing the lump under the sheets now shifting with a sign of wakefulness.

“morning!” you greet, hearing the sound of hymns trickling into chuckles as seokjin pushes the sheet off his face and steals a glance at the uncalled for being that’s perched on top of him.

“you’re up early,” he remarks, arms stretched over his head, muscles flexing deliciously.

“can we have morning sex?” you put on your best smile, lashes fluttering in what you hope to be a coquettish manner rather than someone who looks like they have dust in both their eyes.

“not today,” he says but his large hand latches on your right breast, massaging with a expertise before pinching on your nipple and making you jump in surprise.

“ah!”

but before you get to complain, he’s pulling you down and engulfing you into a warm but shirtless hug (on his part at least).

“not fair,” you pout but snuggle closer anyway, forehead leaning against his chest.

but it’s short-lived because thunderous footsteps start echoing in the hallway and sounding dangerously close with each passing second. for a split second, you watch seokjin watch you, panic spreading across his face before your hands instinctively push him away. then the panic dissolves into alarm as he calls your name, accompanied by another timber-like voice that’s shouting out the same syllables.

“___!”

and then your butt hits the ground, then your back and your head at the same time.

“whew chile, that sounds painful, you okay?” taehyung sounds concern, but he doesn’t take any step towards you to further assert your head - you could’ve had a concussion for all he knows!

“um, gee thanks for making sure,” you want to roll your eyes, but you’re too busy rubbing the spot where your head made contact with the floor.

but seokjin, ever the thoughtful person, is already climing over the bed and pulling you up with one heave.

“why are you shirtless?” taehyung suddenly inquires.

the cozy creme sweater clinging onto your body feeling immensely inadequate as you ice up. he looks between you and his brother, screws twisting in that head of his before he asks another question.

“is that really my brother’s shirt?” his eyes scream concluded assumption.

well, it’s true, but-

“would you give me your sweater if i said i was cold?” you don’t give him a chance to respond, “no. right. so shut up. what do you want anyway? hurry up cause i wanna take a nap.”

“let’s play, the squad wanna go one more round with you before we all go to sleep,” he says, the matter of why seokjin is shirtless or if it’s really said man’s shirt you’re wearing now no longer a matter of importance.

you like how his brain works.

“the fuck? you came all the way here just for that?” you narrow your eyes, as if visually asking him if he knows whether he’s making sense or not but you get up anyway, walking towards your laptop that’s perched on the desk where you left it last night.

your friends greet you with less enthusiasm than they did last night - everyone sounded like they either need sleep or need a fuck. there’s no clear answer to what they need but you guess you’re up for one game.

“alright losers, let’s geddit.” your cheer is met with groans and tired version of ‘wooo’s and ‘yeah’s.

five minutes into the game, you feel a peck on your cheek and a smiling kim seokjin gazing down at you with bed hair and puffy cheeks. the smile you offer him back is fleeting because you have a character to maintain and a team to support. this time, you choose the supporting role while hoseok takes on the fighter role.

once you realize that the figure casting a shadow over you remains still and unmoving, you peek up at him for the briefest seconds to ask ‘what?’.

you’re only met with a higher tug of his lips.

and then he falls down on his knee - and you don’t even have the chance to wrap your head around it when he grabs hold of your ankle and spread your legs apart. lifting your ass up as he pulls down your shorts seem to be a muscle response than your brain actually understanding what’s happening. but by the time it does, seokjin’s face is already buried deep between your thighs.

“wah- yikes!” you manage to divert your surprise to the enemy that came on screen, forcing out a laugh, “th-that was a close one, whew i was about to die.”

“the fuck? you already had 8 hours of sleep what are you messing up for?” taehyung says into your headphone.

seokjin licking a strip up your love nub.

but that doesn’t stop you from retorting, “oh my god, did i tell you to play all night and not sl- sleep?” you bite back, barely managing to end your sentence with a consistent amount of sarcasm when the tip of seokjin’s tongue slips into your entrance.

“okay, okay, we’re all a little sensitive here,” jeongguk, the most competitive and non-losing-accepting out of the five of you actually tries to placate.

oh, you’re sensitive alright.

then he says something about how “we’re a team” and “if you wanna fight, fight the enemy team.” or something. you’re not so sure because you’re too busy clasping your hand against your mouth whilst trying to dish out healing powers to your team that’s fighting a few feet in front of you as seokjin tugs on your thighs, positioning them in an angle where his tongue can reach deeper inside you, so much so that your ass is almost hanging off the air.

“fine,” you almost choke on your supposedly vindictive reply as your toes begin to curl, back arching as the only sound that manages to escape you is a sob-like whimper whilst sparks erupt from the depth of your stomach and course through your veins like sweet, sweet poison.

seokjin kisses the inside of your thigh once your breathing slows down and you’re slumping on the chair like you have no energy left in you. jimin’s voice demanding you to cover for him barely registering in your brain as you click an ability that showers him with a protection spell.

“sorry, got distracted,” you say into the mic simply before hearing jimin’s “it’s okay, nobody died.”

literally.

if anyone of you died, it would’ve definitely been on you. last night, you got away with saying you weren’t in your ‘zone’ but today, your underperformance will be the reason you get kicked out of the squad for good. probably.

and because you’re under fire, you can’t stop seokjin when he slips away and out of the room, leaving you to make up for your mini blunder.

the game lasts a good 20 minutes before the golden symbol of victory flash across your screen and more energetic sheers erupt in your headphones. everyone starts bidding each other farewell and ‘good night losers’s before the headphones go quiet.

only then, do you bound down the hallway and into the kitchen where you know the reason of the sizzling, salivating scent is because of kim seokjin. a still shirtless kim seokjin with his beautiful, broad back on you as he chops something on the chopping board and gracefully pours it into whatever he’s cooking.

“that wasn’t fair - you should at least give me a warning,” you stand with your arms crossed over your chest.

“did the enemy you go against give you a warning before ambushing you?” he asks in a matter of factly, teasing smirk on his lips that makes your heart go flip flop.

he’s never smiled at you like that before.

“that’s- that’s different,” you refuse to back down, “they couldn’t even if they wanted to because the system doesn’t let us communicate with the enemy team.”

he nods whilst stirring the - you’d peeked - fried rice that’s sizzling in the pan, “i did give you a warning.”

“um where?” you can fee your eyebrows knitting together.

“the kiss,” he taps his cheek twice before shutting off the stove, devious smirk playing on his lips.

“i thought that was a bona fide peck!”

“that’s on you,” he shrugs, pouring the fried rice into four plates, “like namjoon says - never assume.”

“okay, maybe he did say that,” you concur, taking a seat across from him where he places the plate and offers you a fork and a spoon that he took out from their respective drawers under the counter.

“something smells good,” taehyung comes popping out from the hallway, bowl of empty cereal in hand as his eyes light up at the sight of the two other plates placed between you and seokjin, almost as if knowing that the only other thing that coud summon the kim brothers out from their dwelling is seokjin’s cooking.

“i’m starving,” namjoon announces, seconds apart from taehyung’s assertion.

so you have breakfast - or lunch, really - together like you would. just four kids from the same hometown who found home in each other’s presence.

you might’ve found something else that you like in seokjin’s pants - but that’s besides the point.

note. and here we go for the 2nd installment! hope yall enjoyed!

taglist. @scalubera @aretha170

#seokjin scenarios #bts scenarios #bts smut #bts fic #seokjin smut #seokjin fic #seokjin x reader #bts x reader #taehyung smut #taehyung fic #taehyung x reader #taehyung scenarios #taehyung fanfic #bts fanfic #seokjin fanfic #seokjin scenario #bts scenario #taehyung scenario

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mai-ni-chi · 3 years

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Hello, I’m new at japanese and I’m starting to learn basic vocabulary and kanji. I’m a bit confused with kanji. Like, there are more than one possible readings right? Does the meaning change?Can a kanji be used just as a syllable and be read differently than the word of that kanji? And how will I know how to read one and it’s specific meaning when I see a kanji? I’m very confused over here, i you could give me some basic explanations I’d be very glad. If you’re busy or bored to do so, I understand too. Have a nice day

@hellofellowpeople, こんにちは！I am glad to hear you are beginning Japanese! Kanji can definitely be a bit confusing in the beginning. There are definitely more than one possible reading for each Kanji, though I am not sure if you mean by pronunciation or meaning. However, most often, the Kanji may have multiple pronunciations which therefore lead to a different meaning depending on the context. I will try to phrase this the best I can!

For example, we have 金。This is the character for both ‘money’ and ‘gold,’ however, they are pronounced differently. Money=かね while Gold=きん。While these are similar in meaning, they imply something different. In this instance, the easiest way for me to tell them apart personally is that when saying ‘money’ we often use the respective お before the word. Like saying お酒 for sake.

So you could say, 私はお金があります = (わたしはおかねがあります）= I have money. However, if you want to convey that you have literal gold or something gold-colored or metaphorically gold, you can say 私は金があります = わたしはきんがあります = I have gold. Obviously, if someone were to read this out loud, it would be easy to know the difference because of the pronunciation. However, reading it can be tricky. For me, it all just depends on context. As I mentioned before, sometimes words have respective characters in front of them which sort of gives you an idea, however, for the most part, it may also just be the general context of the conversation.

Let’s take a quick glance at a conversation. Imagine you are heading to the movie theater to meet your friend who is waiting in line to buy tickets (I will use polite sentences to avoid any confusion if you haven’t learned casual sentences yet) and then they text you

財布を忘れました! ＝さいふをわすれました！ = I forgot my wallet!

It would not make sense for you to text back that you have gold (きん）but rather to say, you have money (おかね). While they are written similarly, they sound differently and convey different meanings. The word for money was derived from the word for gold, which led to it being written the same. But then again that isn’t always the case!

This is just one of many examples that you will discover!

On the other hand, there are words that are pronounced the same but written differently, such as early = 早い and fast = 速い, both pronounced as はやい。In verbal conversations, this can be incredibly confusing. However, it makes sense to listen to the context, and sometimes even the word inflections can give you a hint to what word they are saying! It would make sense to say “the fast car” and not “the early car” ya know? As for word inflections, it is sort of like how verbs can sound the same in dictionary form, but sound different when conjugated into sentences (if that makes sense?)

And for your question about if a Kanji can be used just as a syllable and read differently individually than in a group, yes! For example, we have the basic character 日 which may be read as ひ individually, meaning day or sun. However, when writing the day ‘sunday’ it is 日曜日 or にちようび。In this instance, the Kanji is pronounced different. But, as you can tell, the words are similar! This is a particularly good example, because the character appears twice and is pronounced differently both times. にち is referencing more the beginning, or the ‘sunrise’ of the week. and び is more of a reference to the day itself. Hence, why 水曜日 contains び as well, meaning “wednesday.” The 日 often references the day, sun, or a daily task. Therefore, this Kanji is a part of words relating to that, like ‘diary’ which you write in daily, days of the week, sunburn/suntan, daily schedule, etc. Luckily for us studying Japanese, a lot of the time Kanji can relate to the word as a whole and connect its meaning.

As for knowing how to read one and knowing its specific meaning? That’s mostly just memorization! In class, for example, my teachers would give us a list of Kanji for a specific vocab word, and then give us another list containing that Kanji as well.

So for example, let’s say we are learning the word 日 like I listed above. So we would learn that that word means day. And then, we would learn all the pronunciations for that character. Like how it can be pronounced ひ or び or にち depending on the context. My professor would then list examples like 日曜日、日本語、毎日, meaning ‘sunday,’ ‘Japanese’ and ‘every day’ respectively. It is in a similar case with a Kanji like 水 which is the character for water, but is pronounced differently in the word ‘wednesday’. Basically, we learn all the initial pronunciations when learning the Kanji to begin with, and then associate it and memorize it with different words. Most of the time, there seems to not be more than 3 or 4 pronunciations for one Kanji. It is more of a matter of learning the Kanji and memorizing its multiple pronunciations than simply knowing what it looks like! I hope that made some sense!

And just as a little extra to help you out! Once you start to learn harder Kanji, you will start to get into character radicals. For me, my favorite and easiest to recognize radical is the water radical. Water is written as 水, and it evolved into the three-stroke character 氵. For the word crying, the Kanji is written as 涙. As you can see, the water radical is used to indicate liquid or water. And then theres お酒 meaning sake, which also has the water radical. There are so many other words that use the radical though! However, don’t be confused with the radicals, they often do not relate to the pronunciation of their original kanji, but rather, just serve as an additional hint to the meaning of the kanji itself! This is just one of a ton of radical examples though!

I hope this was the response you were looking for and that it made sense! Feel free to send me any other asks you may have and I hope I resolved any confusion!

#long post #japanese course #study japanese #japanese lesson #learning japanese #asks #long ask #long answer #Japanese #my Japanese #sorry for any mistakes I was typing fast

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tbhwhocaresanymore · 2 years

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Nancy Drew Thoughts and Theories: She’s Back!

And by she I mean me! The true protagonist!

Hi everybody slightly-less-long time no see. As previously stated even though my faith in tv writers as we know it has been like completely destroyed, I have jumped back aboard the Nancy Drew train and can I just say I am so happy I did because season 3 has been WILD.

I’m not going to like totally recap the first seven episodes here because that would take way too long so I’m just going to give some general thoughts about the season so far and a few theories I have for where it might go in the second half.

Also can I just say it appears the writers have dropped the god awful voiceovers for good and thank God because things have progressed to the point where I hate voiceovers with a passion. Forward!

The main overarching mystery of season 3 is who is the demon behind the Frozen Hearts killings, and how does Temperance Hudson fit into it?

First off can I just say I absolutely love the work the costume/makeup department did on the freezer demon? (That’s his name btw, freezer demon. Frozen hearts killer is just too many syllables.) Like those creepy long-ass fingers, the teeth with no lip, the overall slightly scarecrow-esque aesthetic? You just don’t get this shit with cgi.

On a second note I love him as a villain but I don’t find him entirely threatening because of a theory I will get to later so mark this as a save spot. ***

Bess is learning MAGIC and I fucking called it all the way back in season one when she was in awe of Victoria, I was all “I want Bess to be her magical apprentice” God I’m a genius. So excited that one of the characters is finally developing supernatural abilities, and also holding out hope for George to manifest psychic powers but baby steps. Truth be told I can see Bess becoming incredibly powerful, especially if she’s going to reform the women in white. They’ll need someone to teach them, probably Bess, so she’s going to have to get pretty strong.

How fantastic would it be, just a quick side note, if Bess went down a similar path to Willow in Buffy and became ultra mega powerful and went to the dark side in a fit of rage and grief and the others had to unite to take her down somehow? I just think that would be awesome.

George and Nick! Oh my what to say about George and Nick. Separately they’re doing like pretty well. George confronted her birth dad about being a deadbeat, something I’ve been waiting on for ages, one Fan dad down three to go! (I feel like they can’t all suck. Like one of them has to be dead or redeemable or something.) How crazy would it be if Victoria came back from China with a new baby? It won’t happen but just saying. I always knew the George shortened lifespan thing would not be permanent, but it is nice to have that specter of impending doom lifted from her shoulders, even though I WILL miss Odette. Like Bess and George are cousins in the book so I didn’t love that she was falling for a ghost in George’s body, but I just thought it was SUCH a sweet and poignant ship. And God that scene where Bess is having to destroy the crystal and is sobbing you better believe I was also crying and I don’t normally cry at tv shows unless it’s about how much I hate it. So yeah George is doing pretty good, and I’m so excited we’re finally getting to learn more about her sisters because Jesse is amazing and I love her. Nick is doing considerably less good! Like yeah he’s finding a purpose and opening his youth center, he’s engaged, but as Addy so kindly pointed out, he never really dealt with any of his jail related trauma. Honestly I feel kind of bad because until the writers literally spelled it out for us I straight up kind of forgot that Nick went through so much (jail, Kate dying, Tiffany dying, murder suspect, supernatural Aglaeca target, etc) in such a short amount of time because he’s always just been rolling with it. I’m glad they reminded us all that Nick has indeed Been Through It and are going to take some time to explore that.

But Nick and George together??

Oh my god don't hate me it’s not really that dramatic I promise. But season 2 was mostly pretty smooth sailing, and now in season 3 it seems like they’re having some kind of big fight every other episode. Episode 5 they have a big fight about Mr. Dad that doesn’t get resolved until next episode, and then episode 7 George refuses to call Nick as she’s possibly DYING and when she is ready to call him Nick has up and skedaddled on some sort of trauma side quest. I don’t know exactly where the show is in universe, but Nick and George have known each other for less than a year and they’ve already moved in together, blended their families, gotten engaged. One of the reasons Nick and George moved so fast is because of the shortened lifespan, combined with a honeymoon phase I feel. Now that George has her normal life expectancy back, even if they don’t break up (which I kinda feel they have to like just for a little while) I do expect them to put a pause on the engagement, just for a bit. I have some theories how that might go down to be posted later because it’s already 2 am and I have work tomorrow.

Ace had a storyline that made me cry tears of joy tbh, that thing with Mr. Bobbsey where Ace saw the blood on his hands and was immediately like “get out of my car”. If this were like any other show on the planet I guarantee you Ace would’ve been all ‘omg is that blood’ or something equally stupid and just given him a ride. But no, this is Nancy Drew and our characters have fucking brains in their head. So Ace kicked him out, solved the problem, low key stabbed his girlfriend in the back (RIP Amanda Bobbsey you deserved better) but hey man you do what you gotta do, and I enjoyed a morally challenging storyline where the character like makes the right moral decisions. It’s refreshing.

Maybe it’s because episode 7 was the last one I watched but God Carson and Ryan are straight up 2 of my current 3 favorite characters. Watching them as teenagers I was absolutely losing my mind, definitely in my top three favorite episodes ever. Their dad duo dynamic (say that three times fast) is beautiful, and comedic, and Carson doubling as a dad to Nancy and a dad to Ryan while simultaneously teaching Ryan how to dad? Poetic cinema. I don’t really think the Carson and Jean relationship is like built to last. I think it would be interesting to explore how much power prosecutors have in the legal system (i.e. pulling Ace’s plea bargain) and their differing philosophies could drive them apart. Also every time Ryan talks to Nancy about Lucy I start crying. Absolutely beautiful. Would it kill the writers to have like her ghost in the background during fucking one of those conversations? Apparently! But yeah no complaints.

Wait I lied I have one complaint. They really should deal better with that Ryan slept with George thing before Nick puts Ryan to work in a youth center. Like the writers will let George acknowledge it, see: conversation with her dad, but not Ryan for some reason. Like Nick. My dude. My guy. He literally low key groomed your fiancee as a teenager, had an affair with her, said he’d leave his wife for her, and you thought to yourself “I’m going to put him to work with kids”. Like don’t get me wrong I love Ryan, and (god forgive me) I am willing to move on from the sleeping with an underage girl thing because (A) it was different show runner and (B) the writers have worked hard to turn him around and redeem him, but it’s something I feel should be addressed you know?

Nancy Drew! Titular bitch. Kicking supernatural ass all over the town. Not going to a four year college, represent. I also didn’t go to a four year college at first, some of us got our general credits at our local community college. Although I do recall reading an interview sometime last year where the writers mentioned a potential post college time jump? So we’ll see if that’s completely wrapped up. Until then though she is pursuing the freezer demon with a vengeance! She’s also much more like emotionally stable this season, so hopefully no more Nancy sobbing alone in her room on her birthday. God that scene wrecked me.

Can I just say I’m in love with Temperance Hudson? Like I’ve been straight the last 22 years but I would marry her if given the chance. She is just so fucking funny, she’s a fun villain! The show hasn’t done a fun villain yet and I’m enjoying it. Every time she comes on screen I clap my hands maniacally and I can just list one liners of hers off the top of my head like it’s my job. “Auto correct is my nemesis.” about stealing Nancy’s blood: “I mean to be fair, she was done with it.” And God I’m so invested in her! I’m like really hoping that even though she’s obviously a villain right now, she’s one of those villains like Dr. Doofenshmirtz where she sticks around post villain arc and becomes an unwillingly rehabilitated good guy who helps out the heroes while slowly learning morals. I just love everything about her and want her to stick around is that so wrong?

While I’m on this character we’re going to switch from thoughts to theories!!!

“Oooooh, Temperance was cast out for seeking a dark power beneath the town, freezer demon is a dark power beneath the town! I wonder if it’s related!”

No but really, how have none of the characters mentioned this yet. Like you just two days ago learned this thing was kept BENEATH THE TOWN and nobody made the connection. Do I personally think it’s the thing Temperance is after? No! I think it’s a misdirect! But it’s not much of a misdirect if nobody brings it up. The freezer demon was free at the beginning of episode one to kill corn maze man, and at the end of episode one Temperance used the cat’s heart to drip blood on a map, hinting she’s still looking for something. What is it, I don’t know but I can’t wait to find out. Plus even if Temperance isn’t the freezer demon’s unlocker the dead guy still had Icarus moths on his clothes, they had to have gotten there somehow. And I’m dying to know, who is it that Nancy reminds her of that she failed to save? Can’t be her daughter who took the wraith making machine upstate and carried on the Hudson line. I wonder if whomever it is was Temperance’s motivation for becoming a woman in white?

Also, it might’ve been just me, but when they were all questioning Temperance she seemed VERY touchy about the wraith of Gorham woods. Everything else she just brushed off with mild annoyance, but when calling the wraith “an ill conceived mistake” there was like a snap in her tone. Like I thought we were done with the wraith but idk, maybe not. If Temperance knew she was going to be killed, why try the wraith trick at all and not just let them kill her? What was the wraith even supposed to do in the first place just suck the life out of people?

I THINK ADDY WILL BECOME A WOMAN IN WHITE. At this point one of Bess’s love interests has to stick, and they can’t get rid of a second Native character, and she’s employed at the youth center, so I’m betting Addy will stick around. Plus she knows about magic already (I think?) since Bess was all “I dealt with a haunting” and Addy was just like “that’s hot”. I’m curious how Nancy’s flirtation/romance with Park will end. My current theory is that he won’t be able to handle the supernatural stuff and skedaddle, but it’s also possible that once the frozen heart case wraps up he’s like “well my job is done off to the next city” but that just seems kind of boring. Temperance could also kill him which I would be into, but it seems unlikely they would kill two of Nancy’s boyfriends. Last small theory, Ace keeps mentioning getting his second job so I’m betting it will be important somehow. Onto the PROPHECIES.

“One of you will be the other’s demise. One of you will betray your true love. One of you will lose your heart. One of you will wreak havoc on this town. One of you will forsake what is dearest to you. Only one of you will fulfill your destiny and that will cause the rest to fall.”

God I fucking love prophecies like this. Just little small short ones, I’m very picky about prophecies cause like free will and everything and this is right in the sweet spot. So before I dive into who’s who I acknowledge that the last line might be saying only one prophecy will come true and that will make the others not come true, BUT I instead choose to believe one of the prophecies is meant for Ryan because otherwise why the fuck was he even there? I am assuming the prophecies wrap up by season’s end btw.

One of you will be the other’s demise. So I have a hesitant theory that this one could be Nancy because obviously nobody is going to die, BUT somebody IS going to lose their heart. And if my Ace mom dying theory is correct, that could be another definition of demise, and if Nancy were to somehow cause it? Potentially to save Ace? God just imagine it. Aside from that idk, we started with a tricky one.

One of you will betray your true love. I’m going to get hate for this but this prophecy is also the main reason I think Ryan should be included, because I think this is his prophecy. I am just hesitant to think the writers would describe any of the current pairings as true love so early on, (Bess and Addy Nick and George Nancy and Ace) especially when two of them weren’t even together at prophecy time. But I think it’s obvious from just about everything that Ryan’s true love was Lucy Sable. And as everyone knows I am a very fierce bring back Dead Lucy proponent, so if Ryan were forced to somehow betray Lucy, probably to save Nancy or something, god that would be gut wrenching in the best way.

One of you will lose your heart. Two main ideas about this one. We keep getting hints about Ace’s mom dying, with the heart problem for example, and in Nancy’s sex dream Ace was literally missing his heart so it’s possible his mom is going to die. OR, Nancy describes Horseshoe Bay as “this town is my home and it’s my heart” so how angsty would it be, if after finally claiming this town as her own, Nancy loses it to save it or something? Like imagine at the end of the season they have to get rid of Temperance by banning ALL Hudsons from the town or something Nancy and Ryan included, so she loses Horseshoe Bay her heart? I think that could be fun, plus then in season 4 we have to find a way to let her back in (and Ryan).

One of you will wreak havoc on this town. I feel kind of confident in saying this one is Bess. Like I feel it’s almost obvious. She’s learning magic, magic wreaks havoc, it even rhymes. Plus I’m not really sure who else it could be, the others don’t fit. But I’m also confident that Bess would never hurt the town on purpose, so mayhap she loses control or something. We shall see!

One of you will forsake what is dearest to you. Again, this one could be a lot of things. Personally, I think this one could be Nick leaving George. Kind of anti climactic for the word “forsaken” but hear me out. Nick could be like ‘hey George turns out I’ve been running from a whole lot of trauma and so I do love you but I also need to like find myself’ or something like that. BUT this one could also be Nancy forsaking Horseshoe Bay or something similar, because it says you will forsake WHAT is dearest to you, not WHO. But unless it’s like Ace sending Florence to the scrap heap I really don’t have any strong feelings about it.

Only one of you will fulfill your destiny. We are also ending with a tricky one and I’m saying George for selfish reasons. I still think she will be manifesting psychic powers at one point, and if it’s genetic from her mother one could argue it’s her ‘destiny’. If she’s doubting it and herself and drawing away, she could withhold vital information from the others causing them to fall in some metaphorical way, which I would of course enjoy.

More theories!

Let me just say Hannah Gruen is not evil. Absolutely no way. So here’s what we know. When Temperance broke the barrier the power went out and Hannah went with the key, presumably to free the freezer demon. She hasn’t been seen since. The freezer demon has two “confirmed” human kills, (SAVE SPOT ***) corn maze man and Jake the racist cafe owner. Becket Dow who made the padlock was around in Civil War time so 1860s, so freezer demon has been in jail for probably just over a hundred years, we assume to keep it from freezing out hearts and idk, eating them? We don’t know what he does with them. Nancy’s theory is that Hannah unleashed freezer demon and he’s now just like having fun idk. There is ALSO something knocking on the Drew/Hudson door every night for like two weeks.

Since Hannah isn’t evil (god she better not be evil or I will be so mad I got back into this show) I have two main theories about this. One, the demon is not the one doing the killing, Temperance is. I know Nancy and Co. have now agreed that Temperance wouldn’t just move in and immediately start killing, but she MIGHT if she knew something else would get caught for it. And she happens to know about a heart freezing entity located conveniently beneath the town. The demon didn’t attack Nancy and Ryan when they were right in front of it twice now. Once at Icarus Hall, yes Nancy keeps saying “it attacked me” but bitch I promise you it was just standing there. A second time in the cage tunnels when it just wanted its doll back. They’ve worked out that the freezer demon apparently has some kind of rules about who it attacks, but what if the freezer demon is not attacking anybody? Maybe it’s only ever wanted to freeze rat hearts and somebody else is killing humans. Or it’s being controlled/magically forced into killing humans against its will. The why of its victims remains unknown, like just the corn maze guy sure because he’s like stalking Hudsons, but all Jake did to audience knowledge was be racist, he wasn’t a threat to Nancy or anyone else. My SECOND theory is that Hannah IS somehow the freezer demon. This one is a little out there I admit it. So I’m thinking way back in yester year the then-keeper subdued the demon, and since it wouldn’t fit into a historical society storage box, they locked it in the basement instead behind glass that read ‘FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY’ or something. Hannah somehow sensed that the barrier fell and went to go free the demon in hopes of somehow using it against Temperance. The doll contains Hannah’s soul/human essence or something, which is why the demon is protective of it. When its job is done, it will somehow use the doll to release its soul.

Theory 2A is that Hannah tried to release the freezer demon as a last resort, Temperance like beat her to it, and Hannah’s disembodied form is now knocking on Nancy’s door every night trying to get help somehow. Not a great theory but it’s all I’ve got.

I would love to hear YOUR theories on the freezer demon, the phantom knocker, and if you’ve totally forgiven Ryan or not. Don’t be afraid to leave your thoughts in the replies or my ask box, and hopefully I’ll be seeing you soon after Nancy Drew season 3 episode 8, the Burning of the Sorrows.

(There is high key a 50% chance that title is referring to how the entity that feeds on sorrow goes after Nick and he symbolically burns some trauma related stuff in a garbage can to Move On or something. Calling it.)

On a final note for all the Nick x Nancy shippers out there I would like to say put into the universe that as soon as Nick and George break up Nancy and Ace will get together and then we can get some pining on Nick’s part which would be fun okay bye.

#Nancy Drew #Nancy Drew cw #nancy drew season 3 #Ned Nick Nickerson #Ned Nickerson #George Fan #Bess Marvin #Ace #Carson Drew #Ryan Hudson #Bring Back Lucy Sable #also Victoria #where the fuck is she #'oh she's in china'#so? bring her back #yeah she's an absentee mom so what she's entertaining

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flushed-for-the-trolls · 3 years

Text

Why I, a MHA fan, dislike the show

I’m posting this here because when I posted this on the MHA sub, I got eaten alive and every syllable scrutinized more harshly than a piece of legal documentation. You just can’t criticize this show. At. All. So here I am, on here, trying to do the same thing. I’m gonna condense my issues and only mention a few of them.

My first issues is character development. There ain’t any. There’s Bakugou and Endeavor... And that’s it? In terms of meaningful change, that’s it. I know some class 1a kids have a mini arc, but they don’t ultimately impact the story at all, so I don’t count them, they’re footnotes in the broad story, they’re just light adjustments to these characters, Yaoyorozu’s loss of confidence, Uraraka feeling like she failed and her motivations of becoming a hero, they all are set-ups for the B plot of the episodes, and are never brought up again, for this reason, I only consider those two to have any proper character development, as they span multiple episodes and seasons, and have an impact on the story itself

My second issue is Midoriya: He’s just not that interesting, is he? He had his character development in the first episode, and by the third episode, he immediately forgot what made him interesting, it was that he was an underdog, that he had a unique position in society as a formerly quirkless person given one of the best powers. In my eyes, the show would have been much more interesting if Midoriya became a vigilante superhero, reforming the broken system, and being a supporter of the quirkless, instead he became a one note character that just... Saves the day, need to put on a show? Deku to the rescue! Need to beat an A* villain? Deku can do it! Midoriya can do literally anything and everything, he’s overpowered to the peak and it makes for a boring show and protagonist when there are no actual stakes in any given battle, the final line is “and this is the story of how I became the number 1 hero”. Great way to shoot yourselves in the foot guys, now I know Midoriya will basically never die, never be incapacitated, and there is no threat to him that will yield serious, life changing consequences. Even when I was enamored by the show I never once considered Midoriya to be in any danger.

My third issue is poorly handled sensitive topics: Bullying in MHA is handled with such abysmal care I question if the writers even knew what the word meant. The world through the eyes of Midoriya, he’s been bullied ever since he was quirkless, called ‘Deku’ and tormented relentlessly. He’s been miserable, his dreams have been shattered, and no one cares, no one listens- Oh, way, what’s that? A girl said “it sound’s like ‘you can do it’?” Forget all the immense trauma and feelings of self doubt and inadequacy, it’s all good babeh! There’s no development, it’s all shoved to the side and without the slightest bit of care, they didn’t even give us 5 minutes to soak it in, nope, tactfulness? Who’s she? As you may imagine, I do have a bit of a bias against IzuOcha, BUT, just to be clear, I’d hate ANY canon (or likely canon) ship that uses bullying in such a scummy way. And make no mistake, that’s what this is, a scummy, crude, and shameless use of bullying as fuel for a pairing.

This felt weird to include in the same paragraph, so I made a new one. The other form of abuse that’s been approved is Rei throwing scalding water on her sons face. All I will say is, If Dabi’s actions aren’t excused through abuse, neither are Rei’s. Rei abused her son, if we saw that case in the real world, we’d be outraged and demanding the harshest penalty. Rei hurt her kid, no matter what the reason is, she hurt a child that looked up to her, she’s a bad person and a bad mother, and Shoto shouldn’t have been apologizing to her, or seeking forgiveness. Rei was the victim of a monster, but she also became a monster and hurt her own child, nothing excuses this behavior. Nothing.

My final issue? The Fandom. Dear god can this fandom not accept criticism, people seem to be of the mindset that to like something is to defend it with your life. My first paragraph wasn’t a joke, people scrutinize the shit out of anything negative and will pull things out of their ass to dispel criticism, people can’t take a critical look at the series and say “yeah, it flopped in some areas, but I still like it in spite of its flaws”. Almost everyone on my post refused to acknowledge ANY faults and often got real damn combative when I was nothing of the sort, people claimed I wasn’t a true fan because I said the show was bad, as if being a fan of a show means that you must never have an issue with the show you like... Ridiculous. I used to scoff at the idea that a toxic fandom could drive you out of loving a show, oh how wrong I was

Don’t get me wrong, I still have a love for aspects of the show, but my love for it has severely diminished because of the antics of the fandom. If this post gave off vibes of incredible agitation, first, I apologize, that wasn’t my intent, and second, that’s the result of not being able to talk with others about issues with mutual interests. I understand some people may disagree, and that’s fine, but could we, like, be civil about disagreement, jk, jk, unless...

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oh-boy-me · 4 years

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Idk if you’ve ever talked about it before, but how does Mammon speak in Japanese? In the translation, he speaks kinda rough and casual (maybe a bit of a southern USA flair? he uses y’all once or twice iirc) Does he have a particular accent or dialect in the OG text?

Oh, Mammon might be hard to break down, but I’ll see what I can do!

So I don’t think Mammon has any particular accent, per se? I think he’s just very informal.

From what I’ve noticed, Mammon’s speech is characterized by informal phrasing and some phonetic changes. I don’t think it goes into any actual ヤンキー (”delinquent youth”) territory, but I might be wrong as I don’t have any experience with that subculture. Regardless, it’s pretty rough, and very informal.

The following example sentences all come from the phone call where he cancels your plans (I think it’s intimacy 25?), his home screen dialogue, and the current Halloween event.

And this time more than any before, Japanese is not my first language and I have never lived in Japan, so if you find anything incorrect about the content below, please let me know so I can fix it.

---Informal Phrasing---

Japanese has lot of different ways to say the same thing with varying levels of politeness. Mammon tends to use (one of) the most direct ways of saying things.

It’s important to remember though that a lot of these “direct” things are characteristic of male speech in general, and I won’t go over those. Mammon says やつ (guy, basically) to refer to others sometimes, but so does Lucifer. Likewise, it’d be weirder if he didn’t use the dictionary verb form most of the time. There might be some that I describe even though they aren’t particularly unique to Mammon, because I’m not an expert on masc-coded Japanese.

悪い！！ (warui)

(Phone call) This literally means “bad,” but in this context it’s “my bad” or “sorry.” It’s a rough way to say it, rougher than ごめん (gomen), which I know Levi says off the top of my head, and すまない (sumanai), which I know Lucifer says.

If you need to apologize in Japanese, I think it’s best to stick to すみません (sumimasen) or ごめなさい (gomenasai) to avoid accidentally coming off as too rude or too stiff.

許せ！！ (yuruse)

(Phone call) This means “forgive me,” but like. As a command. A pretty demanding one at that. An example you’ve probably heard is when a man yells やめろ (yamero) to make someone stop what they’re doing.

その時は何があっても予定を空けろよ！ (sono ji wa nani ga attemo yotei wo akero yo)

(Phone call) Here’s the imperative again. 空けろ (akero) is the command form of 空ける (akeru), which here means to clear your schedule (予定 is schedule). The よ (yo) at the end softens the command a little. The sentence means “At that time, no matter what you’ve got going on, clear your schedule!”

A softer way to say it would be 空けて (akete), and even softer would be 空けてください (akete kudasai). I’m pretty sure Mammon isn’t the only character to use the imperative like this, but he’s certainly uses it a lot.

館中の掃除を言いつけてきやがって…… (yakatachuu no souji wo ii tsuketeki yagatte)

(Phone call) You can tag やがる (yagaru) onto a verb to show your contempt for someone’s actions. You hate that they did something. Like most of these, it’s pretty harsh. The sentence means “He had the nerve to order me to clean the house,” but with the strength of やがって, “He fucking ordered me to” might be closer in attitude.

近いうちにまた誘ってやるから (chikaiuchi ni mata sasotte yaru kara)

(Phone call) If you read the Levi post, you might remember that やる (yaru) is a more colloquial way to say “to do” than する (suru). It’s also a more colloquial way to say あげる (ageru), “to give.” It used to imply that the recipient was on equal or lower standing with you, but I don’t think that’s really the case anymore except for how it’s not really a polite phrasing. Attached to a verb, both あげる and やる imply a favor is being done. This means “I’ll invite you out again soon before long, so”

---Phonetic Shift---

In general, the most common phoneme shifts in Mammon’s lines are cutting the middle and monophthongization. Cutting the middle is a term I’m making up for the sake of this post and is exactly what it sounds like: lengthening the first syllable in place of the next ones. Monophthongization is when a vowel made of two sounds (diphthong) is pronounced as one sound (monophthong). In the case of rough Japanese that we’re working with, that usually means <ai> and <oi> turning into <ee>.

そのなんつーか…… (Sono nan tsuuka......)

(Phone call) つーか (tsuuka) is short for というか (to iu ka). You can see how “to iu” assimilates to “tsuu,” especially if you say というか a few times fast. なんつーか/何というか means “How should I put it?”

だぁっ！わーったよ！！ (Da-! waatta yo)

(A Devildom Halloween, 1-3) わーった (waatta) is from わかった (wakatta), which means “I get it.”

そりゃ傑作だぜ！ (sorya kessaku daze)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-16) そりゃ (sorya) is a shortened それは (sore wa), “that is.” Also, I’m not sure where else to put this, but ぜ (ze) is a very strong assertive particle that I don’t think many people actually use anymore irl. The line is “That’s a great joke!”

すっげースピードで鞭とんでくるんだけど！ (suggee supiido de muchi tondekurun dakedo)

(Phone call) Here we start the examples of monophthongization, which is probably the worst word you’ve had to read in a while but I promise is the easiest phonetic concept to understand here.

すっげー (suggee) comes from すっごい (suggoi), which means either amazing or terrible, depending on the context. Like I said before, <oi> often simplifies to <ee> (the second “e” is written either ー or え). The line means “The whip’s gonna come down real fast.” すっげー is emphasizing the speed.

By the way, やばい (yabai) also means amazing or terrible, based on context, and can be changed to やべー (yabee) in the same way. Mammon’s said that before too, but I don’t think it’s in my example pool.

あー…金降ってこねえかなー (Aa... kane futte konee kanaa)

(Home screen) This time, the negative こない (konai) turns into こねえ (konee), with the same <ai> --> <ee> shift. This time, it got written as ねえ instead of ねー. This is his “wish it’d rain money” line, and the translation is basically the same.

うるせぇ…… (urusee)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-13) うるせぇ is from うるさい (urusai), which means “shut up.” This time the second え is the smaller ぇ!

おっせえよ。俺を待たすんじゃねえ (ossee yo. ore wo matasunjanee)

(Home screen) We’ve got two here, with 遅い (osoi), late, turning into おっせえ (ossee), and 待たすな (matasu na) becoming 待たすんじゃねえ (matasunjanee). Putting んじゃない where a な would normally be makes it a rough-sounding command. And then the ない turned into ねえ like tends to happen with Mammon.

The line is “You’re late. Don’t keep me waiting.”

気安くさわんな！ (kiyasuku sawanna)

(Home screen, UR+ animation) This could possibly be in the first section too, idk, but. The general way to say “don’t touch me” is 触らないで (sawaranaide), and a more casual way to say it is 触るな (sawaru na). Mammon takes it a step further, and drops the る to say さわんな (sawanna). Levi uses the 触るな style, so I assume Mammon’s style is pretty noticeably informal.

他人の為に何か買ってヤンなきゃならねぇんだ！ (tanin no tame ni nanka katte yannakya naraneenda)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-13) やらなきゃならない (yaranakya naranai), is already a pretty casual way to say “have to.” Mammon’s version uses the same んな as the last line, turning やらなきゃ into ヤンなきゃ (yannakya). Also notice the switch from hiragana to katakana, which is often used to convey the conversational tone. And then ない once again becomes ねぇ! The line is “Why do I have to buy something for someone else?!”

And last but not least... そうだ、殿下。　言い忘れてた (souda, denka. ii wasureteta)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-23) This line means, “that’s right, your highness. We forgot to say.” Why is this one last? Mammon says this line to Diavolo. From what I’ve seen it’s about the same level of politeness that Lucifer uses when talking to Diavolo.

It’s worth noting though that Lucifer and Mammon both speak casually to Diavolo.

So this isn’t organized at all, but I hope this gave you an idea of how Mammon’s idiolect ended up giving him a distinct one in the localization!

This is always a hot topic with Mammon’s portrayal as a POC character, so I need to say that I don’t know enough about Japanese subculture and language codes to say anything for sure about whether this makes him sound “uneducated.” Impolite, definitely, but “uneducated,” I don’t know. Regardless, the connotation definitely exists in how he’s written in English. And with that I’d like to remind everyone that your idiolect says nothing about your intelligence. Don’t judge a person’s worth by how many big words they use.

#obey me #obey me translation #obey me mammon

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anokaiwritingblog · 3 years

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Oh hey. I forgot I have a writing blog. Here’s a WIP of my short story collection for my creative writing class. It’s a WIP for one of my major ideas I want to do.

Once every century, it is said that the planets of the solar system align perfectly. In a perfect row, they cast upon the ultimate shadow upon one another; opening the gates to other realms far from our own. It was said that the fallen god rose from this gate and set his sights on destroying our system just like his own. But where evil went, goodness was sure to follow. Out from this gate came the Holy Maiden and her summoned knight. Together, they sealed away the fallen god and cast light back into our system. The two understood that the battle was far from over. “Catch a fish for a man, he would eat for a day. Teach the man how to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.” Despite their love for each other, the Holy Maiden and her summoned knight agreed to go on separate pilgrimages to spread their teachings. The Holy Maiden remained in our system and founded us, the Holy Order, to pass on her teachings and traditions to future Holy Maidens. Her summoned knight, on the other hand, returned into the gate and spread his words to the numerous realms behind the gate. With their sacrifice, we have prevented the fallen god’s awakening over a thousand times…

“Ay yo… so, like… cool lore but like… pretty cringy not gonna lie. You lost me at the “aligning of the planets” bit. It went from horoscope bullshit to cliched pre-teen novels with a bit of a JRPG elements in there,” a voice spoke out, breaking the breathtaking spell that weighed heavy in this beautifully painted dream.

The wind blew soft through the empty courtyard as no one said anything. In a walled-off garden stood seven bodies, each facing each other in a circle with a pond that separated each figure. Each stood on their own path that was surrounded by the water on each side but behind. A mini pier if you wish to imagine. The water was clear, yet the light was too blinding to see past the surface. All seven figures were outlined well enough to show that they were all women, yet a shadow covered their faces to remain a mystery to one another. Sitting above all this was a pink-haired woman. Her hair was braided back and looked far too youthful to be talking like an elder. Her prink eyes scanned each woman to search for the back talker, a glare like a dagger and on edge. Despite that, she kept an icy façade.

“Who cut me off? Head Nun of the Holy Order?” the pink-haired woman spoke up, looking down at the crowd of women below her.

“Uh, me.”

Slicing through the air, the Head Nun’s eyes locked on to the woman who spoke up; her hand raised slightly while maintaining the image of being smaller than what she was. Her limbs were tightly held together like a defensive turtle yet flashing a Chester cat grin in reception of the attention. “No offense lady but I felt like I heard this exact same plot with some gacha game I played last month. Can we just skip all this tutorial nonsense to get to the fuckin’ point already?” the woman continued, her blunt and straightforward words not matching the lowkey appearance she was trying to give off.

“Oh! You played Fate/Grand Order too? I’ve been trying to pull Gilgamesh for my team for months,” the woman on the right of the back talker chimed in. Though she was covered in shadow, the third party was animatedly clapping her hands together in excitement that she found a companion who played the same game.

“Eh, I stopped after two months. The drop rates are insane for that game and you don’t get enough of the in-game currency. I prefer Epic Seven since you actually win the gamble in summoning a strong hero-“

“Silence!”

Slamming her hand against the armrest of her chair, the Head Nun demanded all attention back onto her. The sound of flesh against marble echoing throughout this supernatural courtyard. Zeroing in out the outlier, the Head Nun sized her up before letting out a scoff. Receiving this judgmental look was a young woman of 21 years. If she never stood by herself, she might have blended in with a crowd with her rather ordinary looks. Brown hair, matching brown eyes, and a pair of glasses. Tell that description to any sketch artist and they would draw any other woman. One in five women look exactly like her. Was that statistically correct? Of course not, but most would believe it these days.

The nun craned her neck over these seven girls, peering down with arrogance. Who would have thought that the bold one in this group wasn’t the goth but this… loser. Despite not being affected by the spell, the rebel was overseen like the shadow of her chair or the tree’s. “Are you done speaking over me?”

“No, actually. You aren’t hurrying the fuck up and you rudely cut me off from having a pleasant and stimulating conversation from my neighbor here,” the woman said, “If you aren’t going to tell me what my horoscope is, I don’t want to hear another hour of lore.” From her sides, the woman could hear the reactions from the other girls who listen in to this back and forth. Some ‘tsk’ from her disrespectful actions while others acted a bit shocked. Of course, there were those who snickered from the show while one seemed to be rather disinterested. Tough crowd… To be fair, she wasn’t normally as blunt as she was today. She knew when to keep things to herself but quite frankly, this lady was going on for the last hour about prophecies and cosmic evils. This nun sounds like those writers who only focus on worldbuilding and not writing their story.

“Hurry up? We’re talking about the end of the world- YOUR world. This “lore” is vital. People’s lives are at stake with this information, Two,” the Head Nun said.

“Shit, really? Then why don’t you act it? Literally… no agency. This is the part where a creative writing teacher tells you “show don’t tell”,” Two answered right back; sarcasm dripping from every syllable. She wanted to correct the hag. Her name was Mia, but she understood there was anonymity for a reason. She was tactless, not stupid. Well, Mia would argue she had some tact, but her patience ran thin do this grossly, mishandled magic society. She thought those campy young adult books with groups run by idiots were meant to be… you know, fiction?

It all started right when Mia got to bed. She just got home from a long shift at work and all she wanted was nothing more than lay in bed. And that she did once she took an evening shower before bed. It was normal, everyday stuff for the third-year college student. She had school tomorrow and Mia just wanted to rest her aching body. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she opened her eyes to a completely new world. Looking around, she found herself not alone. There was one other person with her face covered and the pink-haired woman as well. Mia was greeted as “Two” and was told to wait for the other five to show.

That was an hour wasted in waiting and add in the additional hour for the hefty speech, we got our recipe for an irritated Mia. She didn’t go to bed just to stand up for two hours for some fantasy bullshit. Any other time? Sure. It’s cool. But now??? WHEN SHE HAS A TEST TOMORROW?! INCONVENIENT! It killed Mia since this was pretty fucking cool and different from the norm. Everyone dreams of being picked the chosen one but, come on… this was too predictable. If you read a fantasy book or consumed any fantasy media before, then you know what’s going on.

“Rude child. This information isn’t something as trivial as a novel,” the Head Nun spoke, looking down at Mia like a haughty teacher.

“I’m gonna assume that we’re all candidates in being chosen as the new Holy Maiden. We chose our knights or whatever. Compete and whoever wins must reseal the fallen god then tada! Happy ending! Yay!” Mia said. She even raised her hand at the ‘yay’ portion of her phrase. “Listen dude, I play too many games and read a shit ton of books for this. Can we please not do this while I’m in my pajamas?” Mia said, practically begging to be released from this mild inconvenience.

“… You guys weren’t exactly chosen. The universe brought you to us…” the Head Nun spoke, not really arguing with what Mia said. There was a cocky grin on Mia’s face as she just couldn’t help but find it funny how she got some otherworldly person tongue-tied.

“A lottery system huh… sounds about right. An NPC like me wouldn’t be chosen normally… I’m way too smart to be a main character,” Mia thought. She glances to the side for a moment before back on the show.

“Well… I’ll work with Two on this point and speed things up. Time is of the essence,” the head nun spoke, acting as if she was graciously fulfilling Mia’s wish. At this point, Mia didn’t care. Whatever helped the nun feel powerful or whatever… “As Two pointed out, all seven of you are candidates for becoming the new Holy Maiden. You will come into this realm three times a week for your lessons to strengthen your magic and during your regular days of the week, you seven will compete with one another. Your knights are the extension of your magic. When one knight trumps the other, they prove you are the strongest magic user and your defeated candidate is knocked out of the running. This continues until the last one is standing,” the nun explained, “We have hidden your faces and names from each other to keep you guys from cheating and attacking each other when you aren’t ready for combat. If you wish to fight, it’s up to you guys to discuss how to go about it.”

“A battle royal? I thought dystopian novels where kids kill each other in a game was out of fashion? I mean- they already got the Mirai Nikki vibe with the covered faces in the central hub…” Mia thought. She laughed under her breath with mild amusement at the situation. She decided to keep her thoughts hidden now as she surveys the competition. She wasn’t sure if she was going to take this seriously, but she thought she should start hiding her thoughts on the matter now. “The Head Nun never said we couldn’t figure out each other’s identity and jump them… nor any etiquettes of battle… how curious,” she continued her train of thought as she waited for the nun to finish.

“We’ll now do the summoning ritual. One, please kneel down and place your hand into the water to help your knight rise,” the Head Nun spoke. One looked around confused by the order, but she soon nervously did as she was told. She knelt and placed her hand inside. There was a good pause before One jolted. Slowly, One stood up to her feet as a tall figure rose from the water. Just like the girls, his face was hidden from everyone else but his master, no doubt. But his figure was very much noticeable.

“YO! Did you just summon a furry?!” Mia exclaimed before bursting out laughing. She pointed a finger at the girl next to her in a mocking fashion. While she couldn’t see the competition, Mia could at least see a pair of fuzzy dog ears on the knight’s head. But despite her words, Mia knew that, realistically, this knight was most likely a beast man or even a werewolf. She simply didn’t want to lose this chance to taunt her competition.

“Two! Please restrain yourself and respect your fellow maidens and their knights,” the Head Nun spoke. The pink-haired woman coughing into her hand to break up the interaction. “Now, for the love of God. Please shut up, kneel, and summon your knight.”

“Damn, at least ask for my consent before forcing me on my knees,” Mia muttered before kneeling as instructed. She felt rather stupid but seeing how the first maiden got a knight, Mia decided to just trust the action. She submerged her hand in the opaque lake. It was wet alright. Yet despite being in spitting distance to the surface, Mia couldn’t see past her reflection. “Come on RNG don’t fail me now. A hot guy would do wonders for my mental health,” Mia joked, “I hope re-rolls are free.”

On the edge of non-existence and existence, a subconscious mind rose to consciousness once more. He drowns in nothingness and breaths in hopelessness.

There was no sky nor ground to define his abysmal prison. Not even a memory to keep him company.

A hand reached out from above. A hand surrounded by light and a promise of warmth. He attempted to reach for it, yet he was restricted from moving and was forced to watch another steal the opportunity from the shadow. He watched the pair of hands meet and just like that, the light was gone.

He sank deeper into the depths of this unholy waiting room.

Yet again, a hand was extended from the dark with the temptation of freedom. Cautious to reach for it after the first time, he looked around for others who wished to take it. Many came and all walked away. No one wanted to take this hand.

He made an attempt to take it, if only to escape, but found that he was unable to pry himself free. Defeated, he decided to give up on the opportunity. It was pointless anyways.

Left unheld, the hand does not reel empty handed. No. Instead, it curled its fingers until one finger remained up.

One big ‘fuck you’.

What the fuck? So much for an inviting presence. Who did this person think they are? It wasn’t like he didn’t try to take their hand. But seeing this middle finger dangling in front of him like a fishhook with bait, he reached for it once more to drag the hand down into the depths with him. He was tied in place but after some furious tugs, he was freed with a pop.

Taking the hand, it became evident that the one getting snatched wasn’t them but him. Curled fingers shifted forms into a vice grip around his wrist upon skin contact. The dark veil that covered him were ripped off in that instance. Lights, sounds, textures, tastes, and smells flooded his senses as he became a person once again.

Planting both feet on the ground, Mia used both hands to reel up her prey. This summoning was nothing graceful like the girl next to her. It was primal and chaotic as Mia’s partner was floundering under the water. So much for a knight in shining armor. This guy isn’t fighting any dragons anytime soon if he’s having difficulty wrestling against an inanimate substance.

Letting out a battle cry, Mia used all her strength to bring her knight to the surface and onto the pier with her. It wasn’t his entire body but enough of it was on land that it was easier to drag the rest of him out with less trouble. Mia fell backwards on her butt and was slightly out of breath after that intensive ritual. Shiiiit. Carrying a body is a lot harder than it looks kids! Don’t trust what you see on TV. The more you knowミ★

Mia was the image of ‘tired’ with her slightly flushed cheeks and skewed. Fanning herself, she patiently waited for the man she pulled out to make the first move, yet he was belly-down, still as a door nail. For someone who had a lot of energy to fight against help, he suddenly became as complacent as a kitten.

Oh fuck... he isn’t dead, is he? Cause that’ll be pretty awkward ngl ┐(´-｀)┌

Mia leaned forward to inspect what she pulled out. She lifted his pale arm to search for a pulse. It was cold to the touch and she couldn’t tell if the steady thud she felt was his or an echo of her own. Upon letting it go, it limply fell to the ground with no flinch from him. Crap. Don’t tell her that she accidentally pulled out a dead body?! Well, Mia knew that pulling trash can happen during fishing mini games but she thought that this more of a “guarantee knight summoning” deal. Mia refused to believe that she waited five humiliating minutes waiting just to pull out a corpse. She wants a refund, god damn it!

Moving his head, Mia planned to check his pulse from his neck to double check if he was dead. There was no resistance in the action, yet she found herself meeting a pair of responsive red eyes peaking from between snowy white hair. The two of them stared at each other for a moment as they both seemed like caught criminals in the middle of a crime. The man’s chest raised up and down as he breaths; a piece of evidence that doesn’t escape Mia’s attention. He’s…

“HE’S HOT!!!”

Scrambling to her feet, Mia put both her hands in the air and let out her victory screech to the worried silhouettes surrounding her. No wait- she should be yelling how he was alive, not his appearance. Yet here she was, doing a victory dance on top of her knight in a pair of polka dotted pajamas. Give her a pitchfork and a tail then you got the image of an imp dancing on a grave. “Bro! He’s so hot... Edward Cullen lookin’ ass- I mean, not like the musty looking Robert Patterson version but how you imagine he look like based on the description,” Mia explained to anyone listening with a wildly inaccurate and vague description of the man. She waved her arms animatedly as she gossiped with her peers with the person in question crawling to his feet.

“Dude, that should be the last of your concerns,” Five said.

“I think you should make sure he’s okay…” Seven said, joining Five in expressing concern.

“Whoa there! You can’t really blame my maiden here for getting hung up on my dashing good looks. Dead or alive, you’ll notice my face first before anything else.”

Laying a heavy hand on Mia’s right shoulder, the man wrapped his arm around the woman to stand in solidarity it her. Surprised by the action, Mia tilt her head to the side to look at her knight to judge which side he was playing on. She locked eyes with him once more but not on accident this time. His touch was uncomfortable, yet she doesn’t push him away. They were a pair of souls with two different goals yet had a silent agreement to meet in the middle for the moment.

“Good to see you again, Catherine. You hardly look over two thousand years old,” Mia’s knight said, being the first to break their line of sight to look at the Head Nun. The nun sneered as the source of her stress doubled over the course of ten minutes.

“Ashley…” the Head Nun said, nearly hissing out the name. Her knuckles were turning white due to how tightly she held onto her armrest.

“Ash,” he corrected her, with equal amount of distaste in return. Ash was smiling but he on edge just like the Head Nun. But this rivalry was interrupted when Mia pinched Ash’s hand to catch his attention. He looked back down to receive Mia’s disapproving expression at his brief quip with the Head Nun. It seemed hypocritical that Mia was suddenly policing his attitude considering she was flaunting on the competition, but Ash clocked on what’s making her step in. “It’s okay,” Ash said, leaning down to whisper into Mia’s left ear, “This was just between me and her. No one heard me use my name. Not like it matters.”

“I’m just disappointed that you don’t have a chainsaw arm,” Mia whispered back, pretending she never had that concern by throwing out a seemingly random thought. Ash stared at her as if she was insane and as if to say ‘what are you talking about’ with expressions alone. “What? You never seen the Evil Dead franchise?” Mia whispered, “Not a fan of zombies movies?”

“You watched me rise from the depths, fight other knights, and you’re asking me if I’ve seen a movie?” Ash said, in disbelief at her question yet finding himself amused by it at the same time.

“I take it that you don’t have Netflix in the void then.”

Watching the duo snicker and conspire with each other like a pair of high school delinquents, the Head Nun rubbed her forehead as a migraine began to surface. She was losing control once again thanks to double trouble. Even the other girls who were patiently waiting began talking among each other. “Oh my god… like I thought, this was the worst combination I’ve ever seen in my lifetime…,” the Head Nun muttered to herself. She covered her face as she shook her head slowly as if she was contemplating something. “I didn’t realize it would be this bad… Out of all the times for that guy to make an appearance, he had to end up with her,” she continued muttering before ultimately lifting her head to look down at Mia and her summoned knight. The Head Nun needed to separate them. “Ah, Two? I don’t mean to disturb your… fun. But you summoned one of the more… troublesome knights considering his background. I’ll allow you to “re-roll”. How does that sound?” the Head Nun spoke, her voice sickening sweet and obviously fake.

Mia and Ash quickly turned to look at each other for how their partner would react. They wordlessly conversed with Mia gesturing the two of them then to the Head Nun. Ash’s only reply was an uncaring shrug but ended up nervously shaking off the water that stuck to his hair to appear distracted. “Yeah… no deal, Howie Mandel,” Mia said, trailing off for a moment to gauge last minute expressions from Ash before turning her full attention on the Head Nun. “You doing that makes me want to stick with Mr. Abominable Albino even more,” she said.

“Abominable Albino?” Ash said. He had a hand over his chest and appeared almost offending by the alliteration. He was hardly offended by being called such a thing but the fact that Mia wasted a braincell to make an awful pun in the middle of a fantastical end-of-the-world scenario.

“Whenever some untrustworthy figure makes some inflammatory comment about one of the leads, they’re obviously doing that to cause aa divide between the leads for their own benefit,” Mia continued as she ignored Ash’s offense to her words. She waved her hand in the air as if to disperse the fog of misinformation. “You even had a mini aside moment where you muttered to the readers that there’s something more about Ash!”

“Pardon?”

The Head Nun looked completely lost as Mia’s rambling turned to the meta and spoke about invisible audience members. But just like Ash, Mia ignored her words to continue her spiel. “And even if he’s a piece of shit. Worthless. Good for nothing. Pathetic. Dead weight. Only a pretty vase-“

“Okay. I think she gets it already,” Ash said, cutting in as the terms began to pile in his heart. He squeezed Mia’s shoulder to have her move on to the point.

“I will never give him up,” Mia said.

“And... why is that?” the Head Nun asked, wringing her dress in fear that Mia figured something out that she wasn’t supposed to.

“Because he is hot. I made that pretty clear since the beginning,” Mia said. She held her head high and mighty with not even a hint of shame. For a moment, Ash was about to feel touched by Mia coming to his defense. Touched enough that it would make him loyal to her and act as a spark to a turbulent but heartfelt young adult love story which would turn into a mildly popular trilogy with an eventual movie deal before fading into obscurity. But the curtains closed on that sparkling yet oddly specific future as Ash realized that he was stuck with the weird kid. “I mean- I guess I value him as a person too… or something. Power of belief or whatever inspirational term author’s like to use to tug on heartstrings.”

#my writing #this is isekai believe it or not #writer on tumblr #pov you're my classmate who sees me uploading this to our blackboard discussion board

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rideboldlyride · 4 years

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ZW 2020; Reunion

So it begins.... This is a Modern/Gym AU. I swore I would never do a modern AU, but, as Edna Mode would say “and yet, here we are.” My plan for this week is to make these prompts all one story. As this is my first Modern AU of any kind, on top of my first Zutara Week, please feel free to leave all sorts of feedback. I will be adding an AO3 link in an edit in the fresh morning. I’m posting this tonight, because I have way too much crap going on in the morning tomorrow. Anyway. No more intro/distraction from my crapstorm. Here it begins.

[EDIT 1: I forgot to mention-- I aged them up realtime. This means that Zuko;Sokka are 31, Katara;Azula are 29, and Toph;Aang are 27, and all the correlating ages of the other characters accordingly. EDIT 2 will be the AO3 link, I promise.]

[EDIT 2: HERE’S the AO3 - finally. I’ve been super busy all day with a screeching toddler.]

It's the smell, Katara decides. It definitely wasn't the music - she always piped in her own mix of high-tempo, hard hitting music through her headphones. It's not the taste of the crappy tap water from their generic doctor's-office-standard water fountains. It wasn't for the sights of the people who were there.

Well, most of the people that were there. There was one or two…

No, she decided. It was entirely the smell that, no matter where in the world she landed, got her moving. A blend of sweat, rubber, and disinfectant, every gym she had ever walked into had the same smell. This realization settled over her as she entered the old gym. She had recently moved back from one of the old Earth Kingdom settlements at the coast, and was now participating in a research project with Ba Sing Se University, her old alma mater. Fortune had been on her side, however, when her old gym’s membership was reciprocal back again to one in the city.

It had been three years since she had left Ba Sing Se for Selin Harbor, fresh from the university, a master’s degree in Marine Biology in tow. Now, she had been called back due to a troubling disease emerging in the dark, mysterious waters off the coast of the city.

She had begun her workout running intervals, hopping from treadmill to resistance training to machines, and back, forcing the stress and worry of her new work out of her mind. Falling into her rhythm, time began to slip away. As was common, during her physical exertions, she felt the outside world fall away, and a single-minded focus overtook her thoughts, caught up only in the heavy beat in her ears.

Somewhere in between a few of her runs, she stepped away from the treadmill, took a pause to swallow down some more water, and turned to the next step in her pattern. She stopped suddenly. In her next station - a gym mat stocked with medicine ball and resistance bands - a fellow gym member was actively using her set up. A moment of frustration passed through her, but she swallowed it down. Instead, she moved away, trying to preoccupy herself with her next exercise, determined to come back after his set. But as she finished up and returned, she found him still in her spot, this time in between sets. Irritation pricked at her lips, but she sucked in a deep breath and plastered her best “people are oblivious” smile across her face. Pulling her headphones down, she rounded him.

“Excuse me,” she knew her voice was sickly sweet, but she didn’t care, “I hate to be that person, but…”

A glint of gold in his eyes shot towards her motions, in contrast with his light skin and dark hair. It was obvious that he was no stranger to the gym himself, and it took a moment for her to remember what she was going to protest. (About those sights at the gym…? She ascertained that he was one of those exceptions.) Swallowing down the startling nature of his side eye, she pulled her indignation back to the forefront. He still didn't turn to her fully, preferring to shoot her a glare sideways.

"But," she continued resolutely, "you're kind of interrupting my intervals. I need to use this spot before--"

"I'm not interested."

"...what?" It was only then that she noticed the white at his ears- headphones. Did this prick really think she was hitting on him? Her face turned sour, her voice rising. "Now, you listen here, you--"

He sighed, and pulled out the earbud closest to her. The music was just as loud as hers, she noticed abstractly.

"Listen, I'm not in--"

"You're in my spot!" She spat out aggressively.

It was his turn to be confused. "What?"

"My spot. You are literally in my spot. You've interrupted my intervals, but still managed to keep my blood pressure up. Congratulations."

He looks flustered for a minute, and Katara curses the spirits. The red on his cheeks only seemed to make him more striking under the iridescent lighting. She uses that disconcerting feeling to fuel more of her frustration.

"I don't see your name on this particular spot."

A bitter laugh escaped her, and she flipped the edge of the mat up.

"Ka-ta-ra." She emphasizes the syllables as she points them out, written in her tight hand, on the bottom of the mat he was perched upon.

For a second time, he flustered.

"Oh." This time, however, he quickly moved off of it, a hand to the back of his neck. "I'm- I'm sorry. Didn't realize…"

She snorted, still not done with his brand of arrogance.

"You must be pretty narcissistic," she snarls, "to think that any girl who nears you must be ‘interested’."

"It's not- I'm not-," he stutters for a moment, before regaining his composure. “Anything I say is going to make me sound like more of an asshole, isn’t it?”

A brow raised over a sea-blue eye, and he sighed.

“Sorry. I didn’t realize you were here. I just figured somebody left the equipment after they were done.”

Her frustration fizzled a little under his apology.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess I could see how you would think that.” Her eyes scanned the free weight area, strewn with discarded equipment like dirty tissues.

Sighing, she deflated. Blue eyes looked up at him, finally catching a honest look at the man she was unexpectedly not as frustrated with. His dark hair was cut relatively close, seemingly unaware of any attempt to tame it’s aggressive angles. Amber eyes followed her motions, one of them wrapped in an old, angry scar that ran back into his sideburn, hairline, finishing on the other side of his ear. Dressed for the gym, she was able to appreciate his evident focus on lean versus bulk. And appreciate, she did. She dropped her eyes again, reminding herself of his protest when she first approached him. Jet had been enough of a narcissistic asshole for her lifetime. She didn’t need a new one.

But he had apologized and did seem properly chastised. Looking around, she noticed that there was no other open spaces for him to work in.

“Listen, I don’t mind you using it. Just- just let me run my sets? Not, like, sit here in between them?”

“Really?” a small smile pulled at one corner of his lips. He seemed genuinely surprised. “Thanks.”

She waved it off, keeping her head down, as she took over the space, and he moved on to another machine.

An hour later, she wrapped up her mat, replaced the equipment, and moved towards the door. He was on the treadmill near the door, and as she passed him, she nodded. A small smile pulled at his lips and he returned the expression.

Buzzing filled her pocket, and she glanced at her phone.

Toph.

“Hey, Sugar Queen, we still on for tonight?”

***

He was a bit breathless. It was hard to tell if it was from having been sick for the week prior and thereby out of practice, or if it was the brilliant blue eyes of the woman slipping out the door. She had nodded at him, and a glimmer of hope clung to him. Maybe he hadn’t completely screwed up that interaction.

“Yeah, we are. I’m excited! We going to meet at--?” her voice was clear, since he had kept one earbud out since they had first crossed paths. Incredulousness laced her words. “You’re picking me up? I’m hoping you’re not the one driving…”

Her voice faded away, and he couldn’t help the smile that stayed on his face, even as he replaced the second earbud and continued his workout.

***

“So where is it we’re heading?” Katara glanced at her passenger in the front seat, but the young woman’s eyes were unfocused and hazy as she stared blankly ahead. When she spoke, however, her tone belied her strength.

“I already told you, Kat-uh.” Her emphasis merely snapped the blue-eyed girl’s dark brows together, but she continued. “It’s an old friend of mine- he’s playing at some small bar. The one we used to go to on Thursdays when we were all in college together.”

“I’m guessing he’s a new addition to the line up?”

“Nah.” A smirk pulled at her lips. “I just never found a reason to go see him before.”

“Thats… sweet, Toph.”

“I know. So considerate, right?”

A sigh escaped the older woman’s lips. “At least tell me if it’s on the milder scale for your music?”

Toph wasn’t known for having the most laid back choices in music. Her worries were slightly alleviated when the blind girl scoffed loudly.

“No, he’s more your speed. Likes some of the heavier music, though, but only plays the nicer stuff.”

“So, covers?”

Her head cocked to the side. “Maybe one or two. From what I hear, his original music is actually starting to get popular.”

As she pulled into the parking lot, Katara bit back a groan. Had it always been this busy? She found herself asking Toph that. For the asking, all she received was a head shake back.

“Nah, but we also came on Thursdays. Fridays are a whole other beast. And besides, I told you he’s getting more popular.”

Suddenly regretting her decision to come out that night, Katara turned the car off, but only started to move to get out of it when she spotted Sokka and Suki waving frantically after her. They had arrived earlier, and together. As she reached them, Katara sighed, and Sokka wrapped the arm he didn’t have around his girlfriend, to pull his baby sister closer.

“You’ll have fun, Katuh. I know it’s stupid busy, but it’s going to be fun. Just, ya know, relax. Have a drink. Listen to decent music.”

As the doors slipped open, her eyes suddenly grew wide as she instantly recognized the chords. Katara slipped away from her brother’s arm. The words to the songs were already on her lips, and she was surprised to find that she knew this band. She wasn’t one to obsess over the musicians, but their music was a whole other thing. They were an indie band, unknown, unrecognized, so she had never expected to come across them live. Despite her desire to bob and weave to see and get closer to the stage, it seemed like the crowd pushed in on them more, and she was impeded. A shot of disappointment shot through her as the music died off, and the drummer announced a break. Turning back to her friends, she dejectedly joined them.

“Oh Katara, don’t get so down.” Toph smirked, propping her dirty sandals up onto the table. “You know that was their first set. Besides, the lead singer is coming this way as we speak.”

Blue eyes rolled hard into her skull, and she let out a scoff. “Toph, you know I don’t care about the musicians. I just love their music.”

“Uh-huh. Well, we’ll test that theory right now. He’s headed this way”

“Your friend?” Sokka asked.

Toph nodded in response.

Katara turned in time to see a dark head dip and weave through the crowd, along with flashes of a dark button up, sleeves rolled up, and fitted jeans. However, when he finally slipped out of the crowd to join them at the high top they had claimed, it took all of her willpower to bite back the laugh that threatened to escape.

“Hey Toph.” His voice had an interesting grate, she had to admit, but she wasn’t sure she was quite over the way they had been introduced before. But if that was anywhere on his mind at the moment, he was good at not showing it. Instead, he followed the line of their friends as Toph introduced them. When it wrapped around to her, the closest to them both, she found herself sitting straight.

“And this is Ka--”

“We’ve actually already met.”

A cocked head told her of confusion, and his eyes scanned her for a moment. Something like a glimmer of recognition started to blossom in the gold of his eyes. With a motion that was more abrupt, she gathered up her loose curls and pulled them back, as if to put them up into a ponytail. His eyes widened. It was impressive the difference a hairstyle could have on recognition.

“Oh. Yeah. Hey again. It was… Katara, was it?”

“You never did give me your name, you know.”

#zutara week #zutara #zutara is my new hell #atla #atla is my new hell #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #I promised writing for zutara week #SO I GIVE YOU WRITING #I NEVER PROMISED IT'D BE ANYTHING MORE THAN SELF-INDULGENCE #zutara week 2020

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phoenix-downer · 4 years

Text

Kairi’s Story

Here’s a general key for the analysis I’ll be doing this time:

JP: Japanese Story

This time, this part is just the story that I lifted directly from Kairi’s character file. Quotes of dialogue spanning the length of the series were used extensively in her story, and I included those as well.

EN: Official English Dialogue

In this case, I used the official English versions of all quoted dialogue for consistency, as it’s what’s familiar to people who have played the English version of the games.

TR: My Translation

I went for a poetic translation that sounds more natural in English this time. In instances where I thought the English dialogue differed enough from the English dialogue to be worth pointing out, I also provide a more literal translation of the Japanese dialogue.

Notes: things I found interesting, grammatical points, extra thoughts, etc.

First, I will do a break down of the story comparing the Japanese version with my translation, and then I will include a full transcript of my translation plus a full transcript of the Japanese script for Kairi’s character file for anyone who would prefer to read the translated version all at once or reference the original Japanese version all at once.

With that, let’s begin.

Kairi’s Story

Wherever You Are

JP: この世界のどこかにいるあなたへー

EN: Thinking of you, wherever you areー

TR: To the you somewhere in this worldー

Notes: These are the opening lines of Kairi’s letter to Sora in KH2. The Japanese version and the English version do differ somewhat, but the general meaning is the same. As her story in the character files focuses heavily on letters, beginning it with the opening line of her letter to Sora is very fitting.

JP: そんな文章から始まる手紙を出したのは、君のことを忘れている時だった。忘れているという表現が正しいのかもわからないけれど、私の中からーみんななの中から君は消えていた。

TR: That was how I began the letter I wrote to you when I’d forgotten you. Though maybe “forgotten” isn’t the right word. But you had disappeared from my heartーand from everyone else’s.

Notes: Kairi thinks back on the time she’d forgotten Sora and the letter she wrote him then, indicated by her use of the past tense. It should be noted here that there is no mention of hearts in the Japanese version; Kairi more literally says “From within meーand everyone elseーyou had disappeared.” That sounds awkward and clunky in English though, so I took some poetic liberties here to get the same general meaning across.

I’ll also note here that Kairi is not using Sora’s name here; she’s using the second person pronoun kimi “you” to refer to Sora, which is unusual for her, as she usually calls him by his name. In general, Japanese speakers tend to use pronouns a lot less than their English-speaking counterparts, as pronouns can often be understood from context and dropped in Japanese, or names are used when pronouns would be used in English.

So, then, why is Kairi using kimi?

Well, her use of kimi instead of Sora’s name could be referencing how she didn’t remember his name at the time, and thus she had to use kimi instead of his name. Kimi also tends to get used in poetry and songs to express familiarity and closeness, so that might also be why she’s using it here.

When she says Sora had disappeared, she uses you kimi on its own, and this is important. Using kimi on its own means she’s referencing Sora in general, his personality, his appearance, etc., and this is in contrast to something she says here soon.

JP: 「いつも私といた男の子たちのこと、覚えてる？」

EN: “Do you remember those boys who used to hang out with us?”

TR: “Do you remember those boys who were always with me?”

Notes: Not too much of a difference here, but the Japanese version does emphasize that Kairi was talking about the boys who were always with her, whereas the English version goes more for a more inclusive stance where she includes Selphie. Interesting to note too is that she asks if Selphie remembers otokonokotachi no koto. With the no koto part, she isn’t just asking if Selphie remembers Sora and Riku; she’s asking if she remembers anything about them, about the time they’ve spent together, the memories they’ve made, etc.

JP: セルフィに聞いたら、首を傾げてリクの名前を言った。君のことは覚えていなかった。でも私の中には君のことが残っていた。

TR: When I asked Selphie that question, she tilted her head and said Riku’s name. She’d forgotten about you. But all the memories we’d made together, what you mean to meーall of that lingered on inside my heart.

Notes: Again, we see that no koto construction again here, where Kairi says that “Selphie forgot you” kimi no koto ha oboeteinakatta, to contrast how something about Sora lingers on in Kairi’s heartーkimi no koto ga nokotteita. Of course, the “heart” part is an addition of my own, just because it sounds awkward in English to only say “you lingered/remained within me.”

Also, remember how I mentioned earlier that Kairi said that Sora disappeared from everyone’s hearts? There, she used kimi only, but here, to say something about Sora stuck with her, she uses kimi no koto. In the English translation, I added the “all the memories we’d made together, what you mean to meー” to try to capture this difference in meaning that no koto adds.

JP: 私は小さな瓶の中に手紙を入れた。

TR: I put the letter in a small bottle.

Notes: Kairi uses the pronoun watashi here, her usual pronoun of choice, to indicate she is the one putting the letter in the bottle

JP: 「なにそれ？」

　瓶を海に浮かべた私に、セルフィが聞いた。

EN/TR: “What’s that?” Selphie asked me after I’d set the bottle afloat in the sea.

Notes: Pretty straightforward; this quote is referencing the scene where Selphie and Kairi are on the beach in KH2 and Kairi sets the bottle afloat.

JP: 「手紙ー昨日書いたの。思い出さない男の子にあてた。今は会えないけど、一途、またいつかってね。そしたら、私、その子との大切な約束を思い出した。この手紙が始まりなんだ。きっと」

EN: “A letter… I wrote it yesterday, to the boy I can’t remember. I said that no matter where he is, I’ll find him. One day. And when I stopped writing, I remembered we made a promise, something important. This letter is where it starts. I know it.”

TR: “A letterーI wrote it yesterday, to the boy I don’t remember. I said that I can’t see him now, but we’ll meet again someday, no matter what. And then, I remembered an important promise I (made) with that boy. This letter is the beginning. I’m sure of it.”

Notes: The Japanese and English versions of this dialogue are actually pretty similar to each other. Just a few quick grammar things: Kairi uses no at the end of her first sentence to indicate that she’s explaining something to Selphie and nanda at the end of the “this letter is the beginning” sentence to likewise show she’s giving information.

JP: 私は答えて波間に揺れる瓶を見つめる。あのとき私は思い出したんだ、君の名前を。

TR: That was the answer I gave her as I gazed at the bottle swaying between the waves. And that was when I remembered your name.

Notes: The Japanese version is more literally “I answered and gaze at the bottle swaying between the waves.” I’m not sure why Kairi switches to present tense here for the verb gaze, mitsumeru, but I thought I should note that she does, as it’s not reflected in my translation. With the part where she says “And that was when I remembered your name,” she really emphasizes the remembering by adding nda to explain, and then moves the object of the remembering, Sora’s name, to the right of the verb. Japanese word order is usually Subject, Object, Verb (SOV for short), but there is some flexibility with the word order (because Japanese marks case with its particles). Changing it up like this is done for emphasis or to make a point. In this case, it’s to really emphasize that what Kairi remembered is “your name,” AKA Sora’s name (though she doesn’t say it just yet to build up the anticipation in the next line).

JP: 最近はソ。ね、ソ、ラ！

EN: Starts with an “S.” Right, Sora?

TR: Starts with “So.” Right, “So, ra!”

Notes: The Japanese version of Kairi remembering Sora’s name is a little different from the English version, and that’s because the writing systems are also different. Whereas English uses an alphabet, Japanese has three main writing systems: 1) kanji, or Chinese characters, 2) hiragana, a syllabary with most symbols representing two combined sounds (though some symbols are for just one sound) that is mostly used for grammatical endings, and 3) katakana, another syllabary that represents the same sounds as hiragana, but is used for emphasis, animal names, character names, loanwoards, etc.

The Kingdom Hearts characters names are written in katakana, and Sora’s name is no exception. Thus, in the Japanese version of this line, Kairi says, “Starts with ‘So’” because the first katakana symbol you write Sora’s name with, ソ, includes both the sound “s” and the sound “o.” The English version changed this to fit the writing system of English, hence why Kairi says “Starts with an ‘S’” instead.

And the reason the line delivery of “Right, Sora?” in English sounds a little awkward is because in the Japanese version, Kairi emphasizes the two different katakana symbols in Sora’s name, ソ “so” and ラ “ra,” to reference Sora’s teasing earlier and to show that she remembers him. The English version kept this segmentation but changed the syllable focus to a focus on the letter “s,” maybe to match the lip flaps and timing of the scene? Not really sure, but that’s my guess.

JP: あれから時間が経って私は君にーソラに届かない手紙を書き続けていた。

TR: Time went on, and I kept writing to youーto you, Soraーletters that didn’t reach you.

Notes: This line is really lovely, and I struggled with how to capture the nuance going on here. At first, Kairi says she kept writing letters to “you,” then she corrects herself and says Sora’s name. She remembers his name now, and so she’s going to use it, like it’s something special and precious. If I had to spell it out, I might go for something like “I kept writing to youーto you, Sora, I want to use your name, now that I remember itーletters that didn’t reach you.” As it is, I decided to compromise as put it as “I kept writing to youーto you, Soraーletters that didn’t reach you” because I didn’t want to add in too much that wasn’t there, but I also wanted to emphasize how important Sora’s name is to her.

Just a quick grammatical thing, too: “letters that didn’t reach you” is what I have in the translation, but the “you” is not spelled out in the Japanese version because pronouns are implied. I decided to go with “you” here because I get the vibe that Kairi is addressing Sora throughout this letter and English needs a pronoun here.

JP: そして秘密の森の夕陽の見える丘、隣にはリアーアクセルがいた。君はまた長い旅の途中で、私も一緒に戦おうと修行をしているところだった。夕陽を見つめるアクセルの瞳はその眩しさにか、ちょっとだけうるんでいる気がした。

TR: One day, on the hill where you can see the Secret Forest’s sunset, LeaーI mean Axelーwas beside me. You were in the middle of another long journey, and I was in the middle of my training so we could fight together. As Axel gazed at the sunset, his eyes got a little moist, probably because of the glare.

Notes: The narration here turns to KH3 and sets the scene by locating it in the Secret Forest. Kairi quickly corrects herself when she says Lea, changing it to Axel to show that they’re friends now. She uses kimi to address Sora once more as she reflects back on this time. Notice too how Kairi picks up on the fact that Axel’s eyes are watering, though she’s not entirely sure why.

JP:「手紙か？」

EN/TR: “A letter?”

Notes: Pretty much the same in both languages.

JP: 「うん」

　アクセルに私は頷く。私は毎日手紙を書いていた。

TR: “Yup,” I said as I nodded. I wrote letters every day.

Notes: Kairi uses a habitual version of the verb “write” combined with “every day” to emphasize that this was something she did consistently. Writing to Sora was a regular habit for her.

JP: 「ソラに？」

EN/TR: “To Sora?”

Notes: Pretty much the same in both languages.

JP: 「う〜ん、ソラに充てて書いているけど、渡さないから日記みたいなものかな」

EN: “Mmm, technically yes. But I won’t send it. It’s more for me.”

TR: “Mmmm, yes, I’m writing it for him, but I won’t give it to him, so it’s more like a diary.”

Notes: The English and Japanese versions are pretty similar here; main difference is that Kairi mentions that writing to Sora is like writing in a diary for her. She ends what she says with kana to indicate her words are speculative, like “Because I’m not giving this to Sora, I guess it’s more like a diary.”

JP: 私はそのとき島で君を忘れていた頃に書いた手紙のことを思い出した。

TR: I remembered the letter I wrote you back on the islands, when I’d forgotten you.

Notes: This letter of all letters sticks out in Kairi’s mind, and she references it again here. Again, she uses the construction no koto to refer not just to the letter itself, but all the memories and experiences she associates with it.

JP: 君のことをもう忘れたくなかったし、それに君がハートレスになったあのときーあのときみたいな気持ちにもう私なりたくなかった。

TR: I didn’t want to forget about you anymore, and that time you became a HeartlessーI didn’t want to feel that way ever again.

Notes: Kairi uses kimi no koto instead of just kimi to refer to her relationship and memories of Sora as a whole, much like she did earlier. She’s reflecting on some painful memories, the time she forgot Sora and the time he turned into a Heartless, and she’s emphasizing how she doesn’t want that to happen again.

JP: 「今度は私が助けなきゃー」

EN: “This time, I’ll protect you.”

TR: “This time, I’ll save youー”

Notes: This is referencing what Kairi said to Sora in KH1, when he was a Heartless and she promised to protect him this time. The verb she uses in the Japanese version means something more like “help, save,” so I wanted to mention that here. She also uses the nakya construction to indicate it’s something she has to do, that’s how strongly she feels about it.

JP: 私はハートレスになった君を抱きしめていた。私たちのまわりに別のハートレスが襲いかかる。でもあのとき、光と一緒にハートレスが消えて、君が戻ってきた。

TR: I was hugging you, after you’d turned into a Heartless. All around us were more Heartless, ready to swoop in and attack us. But then, as a light shone and made the Heartless disappear, you came back to me.

Notes: Kairi narrates what happened in KH1 here. She knew what the stakes were; she knew they were surrounded by Heartless, she knew Sora himself had turned into a Heartless, but she hugged him tightly anyway (the word for hug she uses indicates a close embrace). Then, miracle of miracles, the Heartless that were about to attack them disappeared, and Sora returned to her.

JP: 「カイリーありがとう」

EN/TR: “Kairi, thank you.”

Notes: She references how he thanked her here. Pretty much the same in both versions.

JP: そう言ってくれた君と一緒に走り出したよね。

TR: I was grateful to hear you say that, and together we started running.

Notes: Kairi uses tekureta after the verb here to indicate gratitude for what Sora said. In other words, she’s grateful that he’s grateful. Clearly, his thank you moved her deeply. After that, they started running together, presumably from Hollow Bastion.

JP: それから君と約束した。

TR: Then we made a promise.

Notes: Kairi references the promise they made after that, brining the story to the end of KH1.

JP:「俺はいつでもそばにいるよ。これからも、ずっと。必ず、絶対帰るから！」

EN: “I’m always with you too. I’ll come back to you, I promise!”

TR: “I’m always with you. Even now, we’ll be together. Because no matter what it takes, I’ll come back to you.”

Notes: These lines represent Sora’s promise to her. He uses yo after “I’m always with you” to emphasize his words. What follows is him reiterating in various ways that he means what he says, using zutto, “all along,” kanarazu “always/without fail,” zettai “absolutely.” He’s serious about this promise to her.

JP: 「約束だよ！」

EN: “I know you will!”

TR: “It’s a promise!”

Notes: In the Japanese version, she tells Sora that “it’s a promise,” which is a little different from the English version, but both get the same meaning across. I mention it here because this line is something Kairi will reference again at the end of this story.

JP: でもあの約束のあと、私たちは一度君を忘れてしまった。

TR: But after we made that promise, I forgot about you, and so did everyone else.

Notes: Kairi emphasizes here that despite their promise, “we” (“we” in the sense of her and everyone else, not “we” in the sense of her and Sora) forgot Sora. She expresses her regret over this happening by using teshimau.

JP: 私、今度は私がソラを助けなきゃ、ってずっと思っていた。いつも助けてもらってばかりだったから。だから待っているだけじゃダメだった。

TR: I kept thinking to myself, this time, I’ll protect you. You’d always protected me before, and waiting wasn’t good enough.

Notes: Kairi thought about how she wanted to protect Sora this time, referencing her earlier words to him (the Japanese version again is more like “I’ll save you, I have to,”). She uses zutto as well to show this was something she was thinking about for a while. She also talks about how Sora was the one protecting (more literally “saving”) her, and she uses temorau to show that she was receiving a favor by him doing so.

I will concede here that I’m assuming from context that she’s referring to Sora protecting her; she doesn’t spell it out explicitly, and it’s possible that she could just be referring to how other people were protecting her in general, but I think given the personal nature of the story and who it’s addressed to, Sora is a safe bet as to who she’s talking about.

She closes out this bit by what I’m guessing is meant to be a reference to her “waiting isn’t good enough” line in KH2.

JP: 小さな頃、秘密の場所で落書き、したよね。ソラが私を描いて、私がソラを描いた。君がいなくなったあと、私あの絵をもう一度見た。君が私の口にパオプの実を運ぶ落書きを書き加えてたって知ったんだ。

TR: When we were little, we made those drawings in the Secret Place, remember? You drew me, and I drew you. After you were gone, I looked at the drawing again. I found out that you’d drawn yourself sharing a paopu with me.

Notes: Here Kairi switches gears and thinks about the cave drawing. The first word she uses for the noun drawing, rakugaki, is more like “scribbles, scrawls, graffiti,” but I decided to translate it as “drawing” here. The second word she uses, when she mentions seeing the drawing again, is more properly “drawing,” e. The third time she uses “drawing,” it’s back to rakugaki, but I translated it as “drawn” so it sounds more natural in English.

In the last sentence, Kairi says something like “I knew you’d added to the drawing by drawing yourself holding up a paopu fruit to my mouth,” if I were to go for a more literal meaning. And once again, Kairi uses nda at the end of the sentence to give more of an explanation.

JP: 『その実を食べさせあったふたりは、必ず結ばれるーどんなに離れていても、いつも必ず』

EN: “If two people share one, their destinies become intertwined. They’ll remain a part of each other’s lives no matter what.”

TR: “After two people feed each other that fruit, they’ll always be joined togetherーeven if they’re separated, it doesn’t matter. They’ll always be together.”

Notes: Here, Kairi uses a different kind of quotes than she’s been using for normal character dialogue. It’s interesting to note that these words are the same words Riku told Sora when he teased him about sharing the paopu fruit with Kairi in KH1, down to using the same type of quotes. He was referencing the legend of the paopu fruit back in KH1, and Kairi is referencing it again here.

While the English version uses “share” to discuss the paopu fruit, the Japanese version is more literally “feed each other the paopu fruit,” which led to a little confusion when KH3 first came out and people wondered why two paopu fruits were involved. But the way Sora and Kairi shared the paopu fruit is consistent with the legend in Japanese and with the cave drawing.

Speaking of which, the word the legend has for “joined together” in Japanese, musubareru, can mean “tied together, fastened,” but it can also mean “to be wedded, joined in marriage.” No wonder Sora was so upset about the prospect of Riku sharing a paopu fruit with her instead, and no wonder he took sharing it with her so seriously in KH3.

JP: こうして今ふたりでデスティニーアイランドのパオプの木に並んで座って夕陽を見つめているといろんなことを思い出す。

EN: And now, the two of us are sitting side-by-side on the paopu tree back on Destiny Islands, gazing at the sunset as we think back on our memories.

Notes: Now Kairi’s story goes to the point in KH3 where she and Sora are sitting on the paopu tree. The story from here on out switches from past tense to present tense, indicating Kairi is recounting things that are happening now. The “think back on our memories” part is more like “think about various things,” but again, I took some poetic license here.

JP: 「リク、ひとりでなにしてるのかな？」

EN: “Hey, why’s Riku all alone?”

TR: “What’s Riku doing all by himself?”

Notes: This is Sora’s line as he wonders if Riku’s okay.

JP: 「でもひとりにさせてほしいって言って宝、そっとしてあげよう」

EN: “He said he needed time to himself. Let’s let him be.”

TR: “He said he wanted to be left alone, so let’s give him some space.”

Notes: Kairi has talked to Riku beforehand and knows what he wants. She suggests that they give him space as a favor to him by using teageyō.

JP: 砂浜に立っているリクを気にするソラに私はそう声をかける。私はパオプの実を手に取ると、ソラの口元に差し出した。

TR: Those are the words I say to Sora as he worries about Riku, who’s standing on the beach. Then I take a paopu fruit in my hand, and hold it out to Sora.

Notes: Kairi simply narrates what’s happening in the scene.

JP: 「はい！」

EN/TR: “Here.”

Notes: This is the moment when she offers him the paopu fruit.

JP: 「えっ？」

EN/TR: “Huh?”

Notes: She catches Sora by surprise, hence his reaction here.

JP: ソラがびっくりした顔をして私を見つめる。私は持っていたもうひとつのパオプの実をソラに渡した。

TR: Sora stares at me in surprise, and I hand him the other paopu fruit I was holding.

Notes: Notice how carefully Kairi pays attention to Sora’s body language.

JP: 「これからの戦いは今までと違うーもう離れ離れにならないように、おまじない」

EN: “Tomorrow’s fight will be our toughest yet. I want to be a part of your life no matter what. That’s all.”

TR: “The battle ahead (of us) is different from (all the ones we’ve fought) until now. This charm will make sure we won’t be separated (again).”

Notes: There’s a slight difference between the dialogue in the character files and the dialogue in the game. In the Japanese dialogue from the game, this is the dialogue:

これからの戦いは今までと違う　もう離ればなれにならないように　おまじない

But in the character files, the hanare repeats instead of going to banare. Just thought that was interesting.

Anyway, in the Japanese version, Kairi mentions that the paopu fruit is serving as a good luck charm, an omajinai. The English version’s lack of mentioning the charm at all may seem strange at first... but then I looked at the English version of the legend of the paopu fruit in more depth again, which includes the following line: “They’ll remain a part of each other’s lives no matter what.” The translators for the English version are actually referencing that line and thus the legend of the paopu fruit here. Just look at how similar Kairi’s wording is: “I want to be a part of your life no matter what.”

JP: ソラは急に真面目な顔になって私の手からパオプの実を受け取る。

TR: Sora’s face grows serious all of a sudden, and he takes the paopu from me.

Notes: Kairi once again pays attention to Sora’s body language and notes how serious he becomes. Again, if sharing a paopu fruit is like getting married, and not just that, binding your destiny to the person you share it with forever, no wonder he’s taking this so seriously. It’s a big deal to him, and he’s not treating it lightly.

JP: 「うん、でもカイリは俺が守る」

EN: “Kairi, I’ll keep you safe.”

TR: “Okay. But Kairi, I’m going to keep you safe (lit. Kairi, I’ll protect).”

Notes: Sora is promising to keep Kairi safe here, which is a Big Deal in Japanese media (it even has its own trope, look up Declaration of Protection). It’s used most often by male protagonists to indicate their determination to keep their love interest safe, and often as a sign of how much they care and as an expression of their true feelings.

JP: 「ううん、私がソラを守るよ」

EN: “Let me keep you safe.”

TR: “No. I’ll keep you safe (lit. I’ll protect Sora).”

Notes: Kairi turns the Declaration of Protection on its head by saying no, she’ll be the one protecting Sora this time. She even uses the emphatic particle yo here to indicate her determination to keep Sora safe. It indicates certainty on the speaker’s part, a confidence and knowledge that she’s imparting to Sora. Long gone are the days where she would let him tell her to stay behind. She’s not asking permission here; she’s telling him what’s going to happen. She’ll protect him this time.

JP: 私たちはパオプの実を食べさせ合う。

TR: We share the paopu fruit.

Notes: Again, this is more literally “we feed each other the paopu fruit.”

JP: これはおまじないで、約束だった。

TR: This was a good luck charm, and a promise.

Notes: And it serves as a good luck charm for them, as well as a promise.

JP: ソラは私を守ってくれたけど、私はソラを守れたかな。だからソラはあきらめないで。消えないで。

TR: Sora protected me… but was I able to protect him? Don’t give up, Sora. Don’t disappear.

Notes: The story shifts again, with Kairi reflecting on what happened as a whole. Kairi uses tekureta to indicate she’s grateful for Sora’s protection, but then wonders to herself if she was able to protect him. Afterwards, she urges him not to give up and tells him not to disappear.

JP: だってソラはみんなの希望なんだから。

TR: Because you’re everyone’s hope.

Notes: She calls Sora everyone’s hope. Interestingly enough, during Sora’s final conversation with Xehanort, the camera very intentionally rests on Sora as Xehanort talks about the World’s hope. Sora being everyone’s hope is likely to be a plot point going forward, mark my words.

JP: 約束だよ。

TR: And that’s a promise.

Notes: Remember how I said earlier that Kairi’s “It’s a promise!”/“I know you will!” to Sora at the end of KH1 would be relevant again here at the end? She uses the same words in Japanese here to reiterate this new promise with Sora: “It’s a promise!”

Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading my translation and analysis! The translated version of the story is what’s next, and finally the original Japanese version will follow. A big, big thank to Kari for looking over the translations for me before I posted them, I really appreciate it! And thank you all for reading!

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

English Version Only

Kairi’s Story

Wherever You Are

Thinking of you, wherever you areー

That was how I began the letter I wrote to you when I’d forgotten you. Though maybe “forgotten” isn’t the right word. But you had disappeared from my heartーand from everyone else’s.

“Do you remember those boys who used to hang out with us?”

When I asked Selphie that question, she tilted her head and said Riku’s name. She’d forgotten about you. But all the memories we’d made together, what you mean to meーall of that lingered on inside my heart.

I put the letter in a small bottle.

“What’s that?” Selphie asked me after I’d set the bottle afloat in the sea.

“A letter… I wrote it yesterday, to the boy I can’t remember. I said that no matter where he is, I’ll find him. One day. And when I stopped writing, I remembered we made a promise, something important. This letter is where it starts. I know it.”

That was the answer I gave her as I gazed at the bottle swaying between the waves. And that was when I remembered your name.

Starts with an “S.” Right, Sora?

Time went on, and I kept writing to youーto you, Soraーletters that didn’t reach you.

One day, on the hill where you can see the Secret Forest’s sunset, LeaーI mean Axelーwas beside me. You were in the middle of another long journey, and I was in the middle of my training so we could fight together. As Axel gazed at the sunset, his eyes got a little moist, probably because of the glare.

“A letter?”

“Yup,” I said as I nodded. I wrote letters every day.

“To Sora?”

“Mmm, technically yes. But I won’t send it. It’s more for me.”

I remembered the letter I wrote you back on the islands, when I’d forgotten you.

I didn’t want to forget about you anymore, and that time you became a HeartlessーI didn’t want to feel that way ever again.

“This time, I’ll protect you.”

I was hugging you, after you’d turned into a Heartless. All around us were more Heartless, ready to swoop in and attack us. But then, as a light shone and made the Heartless disappear, you came back to me.

“Kairi, thank you.”

I was grateful to hear you say that, and together we started running.

Then we made a promise.

”Kairi, remember what you said before? I’m always with you too. I’ll come back to you, I promise!”

“I know you will!”

But after we made that promise, I forgot about you, and so did everyone else.

I kept thinking to myself, this time, I’ll protect you. You’d always protected me before, and waiting wasn’t good enough.

When we were little, we made those drawings in the Secret Place, remember? You drew me, and I drew you. After you were gone, I looked at the drawing again. I found out that you’d drawn yourself sharing a paopu with me.

“If two people share one, their destinies become intertwined. They’ll remain a part of each other’s lives no matter what.”

And now, the two of us are sitting side-by-side on the paopu tree back on Destiny Islands, gazing at the sunset as we think back on our memories.

“Hey, why’s Riku all alone?”

“He said he needed time to himself. Let’s let him be.”

Those are the words I say to Sora as he worries about Riku, who’s standing on the beach. Then I take a paopu fruit in my hand, and hold it out to Sora.

“Here.”

“Huh?”

Sora stares at me in surprise, and I hand him the other paopu fruit I was holding.

“Tomorrow’s fight will be our toughest yet. I want to be a part of your life no matter what. That’s all.”

Sora’s face grows serious all of a sudden, and he takes the paopu from me.

“Kairi, I’ll keep you safe.”

“Let me keep you safe.”

We share the paopu fruit.

This was a good luck charm, and a promise.

Sora protected me… but was I able to protect him? Don’t give up, Sora. Don’t disappear.

Because you’re everyone’s hope.

And that’s a promise.

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

Japanese Version Only

Kairi Story

Wherever You Are

この世界のどこかにいるあなたへー

　そんな文章から始まる手紙を出したのは、君のことを忘れている時だった。忘れているという表現が正しいのかもわからないけれど、私の中からーみんななの中から君は消えていた。

「いつも私といた男の子たちのこと、覚えてる？」

　セルフィに聞いたら、首を傾げてリクの名前を言った。君のことは覚えていなかった。でも私の中には君のことが残っていた。

　私は小さな瓶の中に手紙を入れた。

「なにそれ？」

　瓶を海に浮かべた私に、セルフィが聞いた。

「手紙ー昨日書いたの。思い出さない男の子にあてた。今は会えないけど、一途、またいつかってね。そしたら、私、その子との大切な約束を思い出した。この手紙が始まりなんだ。きっと」

　私は答えて波間に揺れる瓶を見つめる。あのとき私は思い出したんだ、君の名前を。

　最近はソ。ね、ソ、ラ！

　あれから時間が経って私は君にーソラに届かない手紙を書き続けていた。

　そして秘密の森の夕陽の見える丘、隣にはリアーアクセルがいた。君はまた長い旅の途中で、私も一緒に戦おうと修行をしているところだった。夕陽を見つめるアクセルの瞳はその眩しさにか、ちょっとだけうるんでいる気がした。

「手紙か？」

「うん」

　アクセルに私は頷く。私は毎日手紙を書いていた。

「ソラに？」

「う〜ん、ソラに充てて書いているけど、渡さないから日記みたいなものかな」

　私はそのとき島で君を忘れていた頃に書いた手紙のことを思い出した。

　君のことをもう忘れたくなかったし、それに君がハートレスになったあのときーあのときみたいな気持ちにもう私なりたくなかった。

「今度は私が助けなきゃー」

　私はハートレスになった君を抱きしめていた。私たちのまわりに別のハートレスが襲いかかる。でもあのとき、光と一緒にハートレスが消えて、君が戻ってきた。

「カイリーありがとう」

　そう言ってくれた君と一緒に走り出したよね。

　それから君と約束した。

「俺はいつでもそばにいるよ。これからも、ずっと。必ず、絶対帰るから！」

「約束だよ！」

　でもあの約束のあと、私たちは一度君を忘れてしまった。

　私、今度は私がソラを助けなきゃ、ってずっと思っていた。いつも助けてもらってばかりだったから。だから待っているだけじゃダメだった。

　小さな頃、秘密の場所で落書き、したよね。ソラが私を描いて、私がソラを描いた。君がいなくなったあと、私あの絵をもう一度見た。君が私の口にパオプの実を運ぶ落書きを書き加えてたって知ったんだ。

『その実を食べさせあったふたりは、必ず結ばれるーどんなに離れていても、いつも必ず』

　こうして今ふたりでデスティニーアイランドのパオプの木に並んで座って夕陽を見つめているといろんなことを思い出す。

「リク、ひとりでなにしてるのかな？」

「でもひとりにさせてほしいって言って宝、そっとしてあげよう」

　砂浜に立っているリクを気にするソラに私はそう声をかける。私はパオプの実を手に取ると、ソラの口元に差し出した。

「はい！」

「えっ？」

　ソラがびっくりした顔をして私を見つめる。私は持っていたもうひとつのパオプの実をソラに渡した。

「これからの戦いは今までと違うーもう離れ離れにならないように、おまじない」

　ソラは急に真面目な顔になって私の手からパオプの実を受け取る。

「うん、でもカイリは俺が守る」

「ううん、私がソラを守るよ」

　私たちはパオプの実を食べさせ合う。

　これはおまじないで、約束だった。

　ソラは私を守ってくれたけど、私はソラを守れたかな。だからソラはあきらめないで。消えないで。

　だってソラはみんなの希望なんだから。

　約束だよ。

#kairi #sokai #sora #kingdom hearts #kh translation #phoenix translates #kh character files #kh character file #kh3 #kingdom hearts 3 #phoenix downer #long post

246 notes · View notes

mila-dans · 3 years

Text

Drunk and Loving

Characters: Reader, Dean, and Sam

Words: 4000

Description: Sam and Dean get drunk based on the lack of presence from their female friend. What happens when she, the Reader, comes back home to find a train wreck of issues all caused by the boys? Well... let’s just say, there is no easy way to describe the situation. ;)

Author’s note: I wrote this when I was half asleep like two months ago. I’m sorry. That’s all. This is chaotic.

Thanks for the gifs: @starlightcandythings and @impalaimagining

“Y/N!” Dean’s voice carried all throughout the halls.

“Y--Y/N! YYYYYY/NNNNNNN!” Sam repeated, slurring all the syllables.

What now? You thought to yourself. You just opened the bunker door and didn’t get but within a foot of the entrance before you were being summoned by the boys.

“What?!” You shouted, gradually walking down each step of the stairs, carrying the grocery bags that you managed to pick up from after your hunt with Jody. It was a simple salt and burn but the girls were gone for the weekend. You decided to stop by and take a break from being with the boys non-stop. Sure you loved them but every now and again, every once and awhile, God, they were a handful. But bigger than a handful cause there are two of them and both are giants especially when compared to you. They get so stupid sometimes. Though it may be a key component to their character, it’s still not good. When one gets sick, the other one gets sick. You have to take care of them both because if you don’t, they will be stubborn and try to go on a hunt, getting themselves killed. And when one gets drunk… oh boy… well, you’ll see.

“Y/N!” Dean called again, almost going up an octave. “Y/N, come here! We neeeeeddd youuuu!”

“Ya! We um,” Sam starts to giggle, “We need you for something!”

They were drunk. And from what you could tell just by them talking, they were very, very drunk. The boys being drunk wasn’t a rare occurrence but it wasn’t very regular either. It took a whole bar to get Dean really smashed and Sam only got drunk after a grueling hunt or when Dean wanted to show off how he could down a bottle or three.

“Guys, wh--” You started to speak as you set your load on the war room table but were stopped once you saw the library.

Books everywhere. Mattresses, yes, mattresses, everywhere.

“Guys!” You shouted as you stomped towards the kitchen. “What the hell did you guys do?!” You navigated through the halls as you heard continuous childish giggles erupt from the boys. You did not like where this was headed, wherever that may be.

“Y/N!” They both shouted with glee as they put their feet on the ground to stop from spinning in circles from the wheeled brown wooden chairs that they must’ve brought from the archive room. They looked like they had a hell of a time while you were gone. Dean’s hair went in two different directions and Sam’s hair looked as if it gained three inches in volume along with what appeared to be a braid that someone started to weave on the back of his head.

Their choice of apparel was another topic of concern. Sam had on a pair of shorts and his red flannel shirt, unbuttoned, with nothing underneath. Dean on the other hand had on sweats complete with socks, and white tank top with a blue tie hung loose around his neck.

Your mouth hung ajar as your face became washed over with shock and confusion. Both the boys were wearing the biggest lopsided smiles as they looked at you with pure drunk happiness. You were only gone for a week at the most. First time you’ve been gone and away in months. Surely this partying wasn’t due to the lack of your presence. You thought you needed to get away from them for a moment, maybe they needed to blow off some steam without you.

Whatever the situation may be, it was chaos that the minute your boys were sober, they had some cleaning up to do.

“What did you all do?!” You let out as you gave the boys big eyes filled with wonderment of how hammered they got to create this catastrophe.

“Um,” Dean started to say with giggles between each word, “We--we got dr--drunk!” He finished before a hiccup cut him off. Dean tried to speak again but Sam just glanced at him and yet another fit of laughter filled the air between the brothers with hiccups coming from the eldest every now and again. You shook your head in defeat knowing that getting them to bed was not gonna be an easy task. Taking a deep breath, you strided over to the table, crossing your fingers that they would return to wherever their mattresses were compliantly.

As you walked, the boys pushed their feet off the ground, causing them to spin around in circles all along the kitchen floor; chairs sliding, feet and legs hanging out as arms were put in the air while shouting echoed throughout the room.

“Woo hooo! Yeah!” Sam let out as he spun faster and faster. You stayed still, weary of the fact that no trash can was in sight and from the looks of it, they were about to need one. You decided to rush back to the library, grabbing a can, and taking it back to the boys before one of them belched up their supper.

“Dammit, boys!” You shouted, coming back just in time before Dean fell out of his chair. “Stop it, will you?!” You asked in anger as Sam’s legs managed to hit yours as he continued to keep spinning in his seat. The youngest Winchester came to a screeching halt as he lunged forward, face planting onto the floor. That has got to hurt. Especially since there wasn’t much clothing on his person to soften the blow.

“Ow…” Sam muttered under his breath as he tried to stand himself up unsuccessfully. You were with Dean at the moment, making sure he wasn’t gonna copy his brother’s actions. You took the blue knotted tie from his neck before he could unintentionally choke himself with it and threw it to the side out of, hopefully, harm's way. Once you had the green-eyed boy sitting as still as possible in his chair, you went to the other, bringing him up off the ground.

“You two are gonna have some explaining to do when you aren’t eating the floor,” you stated, pulling the 220 pound man back into the clutches of the poor chair that had struggled to keep him up in the first place without creaking.

Once the audience was seated, you took a step back and placed your arms over your chest, making sure to give the boys a look of shame as they watched you. Their eyes followed you as best they could as they sat quietly, minimal hiccups coming from Dean. It was like this for a moment until you decided to get what info you could as to the series of events that took place while you were gone.

“Someone spill,” you said with a huff. The boys looked towards each other in confusion until Dean decided to grab one of the bottles with copious amounts of alcohol in it and start to spill it on the ground.

“No--” You started to say, reaching over to his hand to stop him. “Not literally!” Before you could set the bottle back on the table, Sam fell to the floor as he took off his shirt, and placed it on the ground to soak up the drink. “Sam--Dean--” You took a deep breath and let them continue to play out the scene before you. They looked up to you with smiles as they got met with an agitated frown. “This is why I can’t leave you two alone,” you mumbled under your breath. “Alright, one of you will tell me what happened.” The brothers looked up to you with blank stares.

“Well,” Dean started to speak, fumbling over his words. “When you left, we wanted to do something nice for you so we did nice things and like we knew that you didn’t like your mattress so we switched it out and then we did the library too.”

“What do you mean you ‘did the library?’”

“We wanted to organize it for you. So, we took all the books off the shelf--”

“No,” Sam butted in, “You took all the books off the shelf!”

“But how else do you organize it then?!”

“You don’t make a mess is how!”

“I didn’t make a mess! You made a mess when you tried to mess up my piles!”

“There weren't any piles! Only books scattered everywhere!”

“Yeah, too! I knew what those piles were until you tried to fix it!”

“But--”

“Boys!” You shouted, cutting Sam off before he could go into the scientific definition of what a pile was. “Get to the point, will you? Why are you drunk and tell me why the mattresses are in the library.”

“We got drunk cause we missed you,” Dean said with sad puppy eyes that would’ve made your heart melt if your leg wasn’t in as much pain as it is from when Sam hit it.

“Yeah,” Sam smiled, “We missed you a lot and then Dean was drinking and then got me to drink with him and then we put the mattresses in the library. You’ve never been gone before or at least not as long as this and we just got really,” his eyes became teary as he started to sniff, “really sad because we love you so much.”

“We love you so much, Y/n,” Dean added, in a similar state as his brother with red cheeks and tear filled eyes. “We didn’t mean to get so drunk! We just didn’t want to be so sad without you.”

“Exactly! See, this is your fault that we are drunk and that’s on you cause we are pretty drunk?”

“Yeah. Fairly drunk.”

“Fairyily drunk, and we… wait… what does fairyily drunk mean?”

“I don’t know. It just sounded smart.”

“Good. Fairyily good.”

“Fairyily drunk!” Sam shouted as they once again erupted into laughter, causing you to laugh a little yourself.

“Yeah,” you started to speak, “‘Fairyily’ is not a word.”

“Oh,” Dean said with a happy smile on his face, imitating Sam’s. You shook your head and moved closer to Dean, giving him a kiss on his forehead then doing the same to Sam. Idiots. Your idiots.

“We forgot to tell you something!” Sam let out. He looked at Dean, giving him not so subtle hints as to whatever it was he was talking about.

“Oh, yeah!” Dean grinned.

“What?” You asked cautiously. Before one of them could reply, Sam shot up from his seat, walked towards you as best he could without falling. He put his one hand behind your back to bring you closer to him, who was indeed shirtless at this point, and then used his other hand to bring your head aligned with his as he planted an extremely passionate kiss on your lips.

You were in shock of the situation as Sam’s tequila tasting lips clashed with yours, leaving you out of breath as he took you for a ride of passion and tenderness using only what he had to work with. It must’ve lasted a couple seconds because it seemed to feel like the longest moment in your life.

Finally, he let out of your lip lock and looked down at you with his hazel dewy eyes as his lips formed a proud and joyous smile. His hand that was placed on the back of your head found its way to your hair as he brushed a single stray piece and tucked it behind your ear. He let out a little satisfied hum as he again placed his lips on yours but only for a little peck this time.

“Hey!” Dean shouted. He stood up just as quick as Sam did and stumbled over to you, pushing his brother back. “That wasn’t fair! You got to do one kiss, not two!” He stated. Before you had a chance to question or share your concerns, Dean hands brought your head colliding with his as he then made your lips meet his.

His lips were soft as silk. The whiskey lingered on his breath and the force he used made your heartbeat rise. He didn’t even take a breath as he went all in and all for it with the simplest of ease and the confidence that could rattle a room. His hands moved all over your head and neck gingerly with a softening touch that left warmth radiating throughout your existence.

His lips reluctantly left yours only to create a wide smile that plastered his freckled face. His thumbs gently brushed your cheeks as his green eyes stared into your own. He gave you a moment to recollect and take a breath before he gripped your hair, pulling you closer to him once again, then giving you another intense kiss that sucked the soul out of your body.

“Dude!” Sam called out as he made his way back to you and Dean. “That’s totally not fair! That was like three kisses and we only agreed to one!”

“But you did two!” Dean reiterated.

“But I didn’t mean to!”

“Well, fine then!”

“Fine!”

They both crossed their arms as they sat on the edge of the kitchen table. You stood still, speechless. You weren’t quite sure what was going on. There’s not much else to say.

“You wanna just restart?” Dean asked. Sam looked to his brother and contemplated the thought for a moment. He nodded in agreement.

“One kiss?” He questioned.

“One kiss.”

With that, Dean’s luscious lips were intertwined with yours once more.

If you thought the first was the best, you were happily mistaken. The second time, Dean made sure to let you breathe as he moved between your lips with such a powerful motion, letting you fall into his arms that were gripping tightly around your waist. This time, he was sweet and slower as he did the deed, knowing how to do it just right. He didn’t stop the invigorating affectionate force for a moment as he kept going and going til he was gone.

The second Dean’s lips left yours, Sam’s replaced them causing you to tremble backwards. Sam’s big arms grasped at your waist as he sat back on the table, bringing you with him. His might that he planted in the kiss brought you off of your literal feet as the rushing raging blood flowed through your veins, pulsing throughout your skin. His intensity made sure that the only thing you could think about was his velvety lips as they embraced your own.

As his arms loosened around you and his kiss became nothing but a memory, he leaned back on the palms of his hands, sitting on the edge of the table. Dean was sitting down in one of the chairs but both of the boys were staring at you with glee as you remained standing in between Sam’s legs.

Blushing was an understatement. As was being shaken up. As was every other word that didn’t mean ‘freaking the hell out.’

“Huh?” Sam said with a proud smirk, implying for you to respond as to whether or not it was good.

“So?” Dean let out with the same implied question and even more of a prideful grin on his face. Your eyes went to look at the brother’s faces as they both gave you a wink, almost insync. You took a step back and pulled a chair behind you as you took a seat. Trying to gather yourself together, you took a deep breath and wiped whatever alcohol remained on your lips from the boys.

“Um,” you cleared your throat, “You uh, you guys wanna explain what that was?”

“D--Did we not tell you?” Dean asks innocently. Right about now, you had just remembered that they are smashed though it definitely didn’t feel like it a minute ago.

“No,” you stated with a bit of annoyance in your voice. “You didn’t tell me.” You looked to Sam and Dean who had realization come across their faces.

“Oh!” They both said insync.

“Yeah,” Sam started, “We were trying to decide who was the better kisser and we couldn’t kiss each other or Cas so we decided to kiss you instead cause it’s been bugging us for hours because we only have ever kissed the same person like once. You know, it was that Annie girl who died and became a ghost around the same time Bobby died.”

“Oh no,” Dean added, completely out of it.

“So we needed to have someone to kiss both of us and then let us know who was the better kisser and we didn’t want to use some girl so we wanted to use you and we figured you wouldn’t mind because you love us and we definitely love you but that’s a whole other topic but we had to know cause I know that I am but Dean doesn’t believe me so you see why we had to use you.”

“Sorry we forgot to tell you.” The Winchesters looked up at you with sorry puppy dog eyes and you couldn’t help but let a bit of laughter slip from your core.

“Guys,” you said with a huff, “Do you know how drunk you two are right now?”

“Um,” Sam tried to mumble. “Pretty drunk?”

“Fairyily drunk.”

“Fairyily drunk?”

“Yeah. You know, fairyily drunk.”

“Is that a word?”

“Yes. Maybe. No.”

“Guys!” You yelled, bringing their attention back to you. “You two have had enough of being conscious for now. You’re going to your rooms to sleep and that is final. No more kissing contests, or alcohol, or anything but sleep. Got it?” They both nodded as Sam hopped off of the table, almost falling down. You caught him before he planted his face on the floor again by placing your hands against his bare chest and couldn’t help but feel his abs. He smiled as he started to do the pec pop. “Sa--Sam!”

“What?” He asked knowingly.

“Stop it!” You demanded as he kept eye contact while his muscles danced. You tried to hold in laughter but failed miserably. He leaned in closer to you and brought his head down towards your ear as he began to whisper.

“I know I was the better kisser,” he said not so quietly.

“Stop that!” Dean ordered. “Don’t persuade her! You cheat”

“What?! No! Of course not!” He told Dean as he turned back to you, giving yet another wink. You rolled your eyes in return and sat him back down in the rolly chair.

“I’m taking my shirt off!” Dean shouted.

“Wh--Why?!” Sam asked.

“Cause, you have your shirt off and you are trying to be sexy and do things and I can do things too cause I’m sexy so Y/n, look at my sexiness!” Dean then continued to not just take off his tank top but do what he could to rip it off. You chuckled as you now had two shirtless giants in your possession. Had you been away from these mumbling idiots any longer, they might not be in any clothes when you’d get back considering how they've essentially been stripping all night. But, good things must come to an end.

“Time for bed you two,” you stated.

“No!” The two brothers let out in harmony as they both reached out for one of your hands.

“What?” You questioned as to what would await you if you didn’t take the brothers to bed at this moment. Who knows.

“We--We don’t wanna go to bed yet!” Dean said.

“Yeah! And you gotta tell us who won the kiss!” Sam added.

“Oh yeah?” You shook your head with a smile. “How about I tell you tomorrow?” They nodded yes, not understanding that by then, they’d most likely forget what happened tonight. “Good. Now, let’s try and get you guys back to your bed.”

“To Y/n’s room!” Dean declared.

“I--I’m sorry?” You asked.

“Yeah! Our mattresses are in your room.”

“Wh--Why are your mattresses in my room? You know what? Nevermind. Where is my mattress?”

“In your room!” Sam stated.

“Great.”

“Yeah it is! Now we get to snuggle you!” Dean let out with a childish excitement.

“Yes!” Sam said, copying his brother’s joy at the idea.

“No, that doesn’t mean that you two are snuggling me. That’s not how this works.”

“But Y/nnnnnnnn!”

“Yeah! Pleaseeeeee?” Sam insisted. You took a deep breath and just decided to take the two to your room. You grabbed onto the back of Dean’s chair as you rolled Sam’s forward, through the halls and towards your room.

Many happy sounds came from the giddish children who you were bringing along for the adventure to your room. They just enjoyed getting pushed around the halls and even had their hands in the air at one point.

It didn’t take long to reach your room but when you arrived, you watched as the boys lunged for the three beds that were lined up on your floor, almost perfect for each of you to have your own individual space. Within an instant, Sam took the bed on the left and Dean took the one on the right. You just were standing, wondering where all your stuff was.

“Y/n!” Dean called out, arms reaching out towards you.

“We need you!” Sam stated as he brought his set of covers up to his neck, leaving his arm out in the open. You considered the options you had: either go to sleep on the mattresses in the living room that had no covers or, sleep in here with the boys who were most likely gonna hog all the covers.

“Alright,” you mumbled as you kicked off your shoes knowing that letting the boys sleep right next to you while shirtless was gonna raise some questions in the morning. But at this point, you were too tired to care and so were the brothers.

You slowly crawled up onto the middle mattress which you had hoped was your own bed and moved the pillow so you could lay your head down. Before you could even reach for any covers, Sam took his head and placed it in the crook of your neck all while holding your hand. Dean then threw the covers on top of you as he snuggled on the opposing side by hanging onto your arm for dear life and gently resting his head on it as well. You could barely move having had two grown men weighing you down. It wasn’t uncomfortable, it was actually really really warm. This wasn’t the first time you’ve shared a bed with one of the brothers. Certainly not the only time one of them drunk snuggled you. You spent all week away trying to blow off some steam and be away from the boys but as it turns out, none of you could do much good when being away from each other. Clearly the boys needed you but maybe you needed them too. You were family.

Maybe this wasn’t so bad.

You softly planted a kiss on each of their foreheads like you did most nights, looking down at the children who had each taken an arm and claimed it as their own personal pillow. Idiots. Adorable idiots. You took a deep breath and leaned your head on Sam’s, then shut your eyes to go off into slumber.

“I love you, Y/n.”

“I love you too, Y/n.”

“Goodnight, boys.”

#sam winchester #dean winchester #sam x reader #dean x reader #supernatural fanfic #supernatural #spn fanfic #spn fanfiction #lilliwashere #this is chaos

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