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#in theory i can but also in theory i would like to continue to be funny and have every other anxiety disorder except for anxiety
vitaminseetarot · 20 hours
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PAC: What Hobby Should You Begin Next? 🎨🛶📯
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Sup y'all, it's time for a new pick a card reading (this one's especially for you night owls out there as I'm posting this at midnight lol). Ideally, I'd like to post one PAC every week after this but eh, lettuce see about that. 🥬👀
This pick a card was inspired by the remaining energies of late Taurus season. The grass is bright, the air is warm, the flowers are blooming, and it's brought out the artist in me. While I've been finishing a leisure painting, I stopped to draw out some cards to help out anyone who's in the mood to do something fun in their spare time but could use some direction or guidance.
Pick any one of the four Prism Oracle cards below, or its corresponding crystal/emoji, to see what hobby you could explore next, or if there is a hobby you enjoy that is calling for your attention:
Pile 1 - Consciousness + Moonstone 🌙 Pile 2 - Happiness + Carnelian 😊 Pile 3 - Creativity + Amethyst 🎉 Pile 4 - Determination + Citrine 🧭
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Pile 1 - Consciousness + Moonstone 🌙
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77 Beginnings, Sound+Resonance+Frequency, The Musician, Capricorn Rising - Aspire; Page of Swords, Page of Wands, 9 of Cups, Knight of Swords, XI Justice
Wow, pile 1, I think you have the most obvious answer of all four piles. You're very drawn to pursuing something musical. It could be in a variety of ways. You might try singing, writing a song, playing an instrument, learning to dance, or perform in musical theater (the purple curtain in the Justice card definitely brings theater to mind). You could enjoy collecting vinyl records, or producing music through special programs and apps. You may desire to publish your music online, or dream of going big on stage and signing major contracts with labels. Two Pages tells me you're most likely into more than one thing, as plenty of musical artists can multitask.
Your pile was the only one to get two Prism cards at first as Anxiety initially wanted to pop out. It's also clear that with two Pages and the Beginnings card, you're very new at this hobby. There's an over awareness of this fact, that on some level you may not know where to even start. There's some doubt I sense that you feel you can't be at the level you wish to stand on. Capricorn energy wants to reach for the very top of the ladder in accomplishment; it is a steady energy although not intent on settling. I get that there are many people here who greatly look up to an artist and wish to have their same talents. Try to look past the smoke and mirrors of all the top 40's singers and know that music is way more accessible than it's made to look.
Try embracing the newness of this pursuit, pile 1. It's okay to be a little lost, or feel that there's a long way to go. The only way to go pro is to start small and grow. There are a lot of free resources online for learning music (try out musictheory.net for free lessons) and free vocal technique lessons on Youtube. Some people are very lucky to have the chance to start learning at a young age, but if we were to set a rule stating that only those who did so could play, that would leave a lot of creative geniuses and successful musicians out of the frame. If you're learning to play the keyboard, practice one song or even one note at a time (doesn't have to be Chopsticks, lol). Consistency is key.
When the inspiration and joy to explore music finally strikes you, take the time to really dive in and make something small. If you're trying to write a song, start with a jingle. If it's music theory you want to go over, start with just 1 lesson and see how it feels. If you're learning to dance, begin with warm ups and slow music before working on the more intense songs. Are you looking for writing inspiration? Keep plenty of notes on hand and learn how to identify music so you can easily write a melody down (there are empty music notebooks for this). If this is something you would like to do in the long term, then continue to practice with that perspective by not overdoing it to compensate for "lost time". You are exactly where you need to be on your creative journey.
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Pile 2 - Happiness + Carnelian 😊
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66 The Selves, You Belong Here, The Wise One, Cancer Moon - Intuit; X Wheel of Fortune, Sagittarius ♐, VI The Lovers, 9 of Pentacles, XVI The Tower
What's going on, pile 2? With the Selves card above Sagittarius, I'm getting that a lot of you may be interested in pursuing theater or comedy, whether that's stand up or it's simply channeled through the projects you create. Your next hobby may involve incorporating a lot of humor into what you do. This pile is the most multifaceted of the four, with many differing hobbies, so I'm going to list a variety of different talents, but what binds them all together is the need to express one's own (very) strong opinions for the world to see.
You may want to be a photographer who documents unusual things, or write something that makes a powerful statement. There's a need here to let go of any of the anxieties that come with expressing your authentic self, because while those feelings are natural, listening to them too much will dampen your creative drive. This is the group that wants to make very surreal graffiti art or provocative dance routines. With the Tower card, here, I feel there's a need for the shock and awe to get your inspiration buzzing. On the gentler side, I can see some of you getting into something nature based like flower printing and permaculture but the caveat is that it's a reflection of your genuine self and beliefs in some way. With Wheel of Fortune, some of you may feel an urge to learn about tarot or pendulum reading, as these things are typically categorized as "unusual".
You may also get into traveling to stay involved in your hobby, or it requires roving about in some way. To break down creative blocks, it might help to actually move yourself to a different location. It doesn't necessarily involve moving to a whole new place, it could just refer to another part of your home or you may benefit from walking or dancing to decompress. I feel that moving your body will stimulate your creative ideas to flow through. A small number of you may have considered trying out extreme sports like free climbing or parkour. I don't really need to mention that these can be incredibly dangerous, so some of you may like something similar like skateboarding or gymnastics as well. It doesn't have to be intense, just active.
With the Lovers, there also exists a social aspect to your hobby. You may be drawn to share you hobby with a friend or with partners. It will greatly help you to be in an environment that supports your avant-garde tastes and not settle for less. It's not always easy to put shocking art with profound messages out there for the world to make sense of it, though some make it seem that way. It's easy to pretend that negative feedback doesn't get to you, but only accept constructive criticism as that will feed you more than shocked reactions. You cannot afford to have others in your life discourage you, as your skill sets require a lot of space for growth. Nourish relationships that want to celebrate your talents with you. Find a community that loves what you love, and wants to see you happy with what you do. Embrace the wild side of your artistic abilities.
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Pile 3 - Creativity + Amethyst 🎉
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54 Security, the Messenger, The Aspirant, Aries Sun - Assert; 2 of Pentacles, Knight of Wands, 0 The Fool, Aquarius ♒, Virgo ♍
Hello, pile 3. With the 2 of Pentacles, many of you may want to explore a hobby that is both online and offline, or the internet and social media are major components. If you like making artwork, you could be into digital art or simply want to upload images of your offline work for others to see. With Virgo, some of you may have a lot to say, by starting a blog or online journal documenting your life or interests, or you could try out freelance editing. If you were a youtuber, you could be really good at creating epically long videos about niche topics, or short videos explaining how to do a certain task (like tiktoks that showcase a person's routines and what cleaning products they recommend).
I see that this is the pile of innovation, as the Creativity card shows a lightbulb. You could have various ideas pop up in your head, only to feel unsure of how to approach them. Your attention span could split into a variety of different mediums for getting the idea out. Aquarius wants to take its genius energy and spread it around the world. For a lot of you, social media will support your ideas by broadcasting them. Your hobby may directly involve interfacing with others; your creative spark is not for hiding away. Web design, for example, is a hobby but it involves creating something that others will directly interact with. Your work is meant for a wide audience, should you choose to put yourself out there.
This may not always be easy for you, since there could be a pull towards more stable and predictable activities. There's a nervousness here, kind of like imposter syndrome. You may get a really cool idea for a mobile game app before you or someone else goes "but that's an unrealistic goal to spend so much time and effort on", followed by, "how could I ever make something like that?" The thing is, you can be the most talented, skilled, and experienced person when it comes to a subject, yet still have these same worries. Imposter syndrome doesn't magically go away with a college degree, a new job, or 10,000 subscribers. It's completely normal, but make sure to not let your doubts tempt you into doing something more boring and unfulfilling. This is the pile most likely to try a totally new hobby that is unrelated to your other skills, it doesn't have to be realistic.
But also understand that it can take time for something to get really good. Your first fiction draft is gonna turn out clunky, or your app could be filled with bugs, but it's part of the process. There's no perfect time; when you get the urge to try, just try it! Reach out to a local community or chat group so you can get a realistic sense of how long it takes for projects and skills develop. Slam poetry may be a great outlet, so if you'd like to do that, attend an open mic and see how others do it. You are allowed to be imperfect with your hobby--if you wish to evolve your craft, remember the passion and curiosity that brought you to it.
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Pile 4 - Determination + Citrine 🧭
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57 Spiritual Guide, What Goes Around Comes Around, The Astronomer, Taurus Rising - Enjoy; 9 of Pentacles, Cancer ♋, Queen of Swords, Knight of Wands, Knight of Swords
How's it going, pile 4? So this is the most active and possibly athletic pile we have here. Staying in the house is not gonna work because something is itching you to get out underneath the stars. Could some of you be majoring or planning in major in STEM? I'm getting a lot of natural science here. With the Astronomer card, you could want to use your telescope to go stargazing or visit planetariums. Are you still feeling the buzz from all the aurora storm and eclipse hype? It would not surprise me if these events awoke an interest for you and now you're looking up when the next meteor shower will show up or when Saturn will be most visible in the sky.
Your next hobby needs or is the outdoors on some level. But Cancer energy is that of a homebody. The most laidback people in this group may enjoy relaxing hobbies like birdwatching or gardening. These hobbies could be spiritually fulfilling for you. I'm seeing someone wearing an apron outside, so could some of you be interested in grilling or being the host to a fun party in the backyard. Do people even have book club meetings in gardens? A lot of enjoying nature is simply finding a good spot and soaking in the scenery with no other goal in mind. Just being near trees and beach sides might be enough.
But I see a lot of you mainly wish to have an adventure and go far out in nature when the weather's just right. You could be thinking about hiking or backpacking out on trails. It all depends on your comfort level as we all have different tolerance levels. I don't know if geocaching and pokemon go are still popular, but they can be unique ways to engage with the outdoors. You could try guided nature tours presented by nature conservationists like the National Audubon, where you can identify and take photos of animals as you wander through the woods and plains. You may like a hobby that is seasonally specific, like swimming in warm waters or skiing down a snowy mountain.
Your hobby may have you think deeply about how humans connect with nature, exploring the ecosystem and how our actions influence our environment. Climate change can be a very serious and, for some, directly impactful topic to mull over. Remind yourself that as long as you're respectful (leave no trace), mother nature enjoys your company as much as you do for her. A small few of you may have the urge to travel to weird locations. Two knights in your reading suggest boldness. If you decide to visit an abandoned or haunted place, Queen of Swords says to please be careful and follow rules if it says no trespassing, and remember that abandoned places can be dangerous from faulty wiring and unstable flooring. Overall, I feel this pile just can't do with an indoor hobby. You have the motivation and courage to explore the vast beautiful world out there. It awaits you.
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This reading has not been evaluated by the FDA to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease or infection. Please ask your physician before going online.
2024, @VitaminseeTarot ™
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anthurak · 2 days
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So I have a hunch that we’re going to find out that Ruby actually has some… special connection to the Relics.
See, let’s consider for a moment the fact that as of the end of Volume 8, all three of Jinn’s answers have been questioned. Which, according to everything we know, means that it should be a hundred years before more questions can be asked, and by extension, before we could see Jinn again.
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Now the thing is, I think we call all agree that it is EXTREMELY unlikely that this is the last we’re meant to see of a character like Jinn in RWBY. If for nothing else than it feels like we’re meant to get at least one more vision from her in a big ‘Once More, With Clarity’ reveal.
Like you know the theory that the main reason for the Unreliable-Narrator nature of Jinn’s vision in Volume 6 was because Ruby’s question was ‘What is Ozpin hiding from us?’, meaning that Jinn’s answer was framed ENTIRELY around what Oz knew, or BELIEVED, ie; all the info/propaganda he was told/fed by the God of Light about what happened while he was dead.
So I think it feels like a pretty natural step that we could wind up seeing someone, likely Ruby again, doing a redux of that moment where she asks Jinn a far more direct question, say; “What happened to Old Humanity?”, to get the TRUTH of what really happened.
Which all means that our heroines are somehow going to get MORE answers out of Jinn. And since a hundred-year timeskip seems… unlikely, to say the least, that leaves us with really just two options:
Time-manipulation shenanigans to ‘speed up’ the normal hundred-year recharge, which we don’t have any kind of precedent for at the moment.
Or, it turns out that there are ways of BYPASSING Jinn’s normal three-question limit.
Which brings us to Ruby, who just so happens to have a mysterious inborn power apparently originating from the very being who CREATED Jinn and the other relic spirits.
Basically, I’ve got a hunch that Ruby’s Silver Eyes, possibly as a result of developing/realizing more of their powers, turn out to give her what is essentially ‘administrator access’ to the Relics, allowing her to bypass their normal restrictions.
Like getting more answers from Jinn.
And the funny thing is, we’ve actually ALREADY seen Ruby get both relic spirits we’ve met thus far to, shall we say, skirt the rules a bit.
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Ruby got what was essentially a freebie out of Jinn to get herself more time to use her Silver Eyes against the Leviathan: “And while you do not seek knowledge, just this once I was give it freely.” Also note that Jinn’s warning was merely that she would not be summoned ‘without a question’ again. What if it turns out that Ruby is actually capable of asking Jinn more questions? It’s also worth noting that this instance feels distinct from what we saw later when Hazel and Emerald summoned Jinn seemingly for free: Unlike Ruby, Hazel was ‘seeking knowledge’ when he summoned Jinn, and the fact that the so-called ‘password’ worked gave him all the answers he needed, which in turn satisfies Jinn’s mandate to answer questions. Which again feels rather distinct from the outright FREEBIE that Jinn gives Ruby.
And then of course there’s the whole bit where Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang got Ambrosius to SUPER-skirt his own rules to make Penny a new body. Which we’re still a bit hazy on HOW they got that to work. Again, given that it was Ruby who summoned Ambrosius, what if it turns out that she was able to get him to BYPASS his normal restrictions?
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Another neat little detail to all this is the fact that we are actually two-for-two on Ruby being the FIRST person shown on-screen using each of the relics. She’s the first person we see using the Lamp to summon Jinn, and again the first person we see using the Staff to summon Ambrosius. So I can’t help but think we’re likely to see this pattern continue with the Sword and the Crown.
I realize some of these on their own might feel like a bit of a stretch, but taken together I think we can start seeing a pattern:
Right now, Ruby is two-for-two on both being the first person shown on screen using a relic AND getting what seems to be special treatment from both relic spirits AND just so happens to have a power that apparently originates from the very being who CREATED the relics in the first place.
I can’t help but feel like this is all going somewhere…
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hiorintruther · 2 days
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An Updated ‘Reasons Why I Ship Hiorin’ — Because It’s Been Ages Since I Made The First One And I’ve Had More Thoughts (and we got more moments!)
Aka: can you tell this ship makes me mentally unwell?
Hi again! It’s been a while. I did make one of these long posts a while back outlining why I choose to ship hiorin even though they’ve barely interacted and on the surface don’t look like they’d make sense at all. Since then, hiorin has gained quite a few shippers in the fandom and I keep thinking about my boys, especially with the Bastard Munchen vs PXG game FINALLY giving us some new moments. Unsurprisingly, ever since making the first post I’ve also had a lot more ideas about the dynamic, it’s potential, some more connections between them that I never touched on before, etc… and rather than editing the other post I thought it would be easier to just make a new one.
Some stuff I go over here might be familiar from the first post. I want this to be a kind of hub for any and all of my hiorin interpretations, analysis, trivia, headcanons, ‘theories’ (which I don’t think will be canon but the narrative potential for them is through the roof) and anything else I think is relevant to the ship. Feel free to jump around and read whatever is most interesting for you. Hiorin is a ship that, for me, is built on mountains of untapped potential. I just want to bring that potential to light all in one place.
Note: for this post I’ll only use information that has been written by Kaneshiro, drawn by Nomura or Sanomiya, or has otherwise been green-lit by Kaneshiro as canon. Merch collabs, voice actor QnAs, the PWC game etc… for me do not count as canon and I won’t use them. Also, the 10-image limit is biting my ass so my formatting for certain bits might be a bit all over the place. Apologies.
So without further ado. Let’s start! Enjoy the yap sesh!
Part 1 — The Manga Canon
Hiorin get their (very sparse and brief) interactions mostly from the Third Selection Arc (chapters 87-108) and the U20 arc (chapters 109-151). We recently got some new moments in the BM vs PXG match (chapters 250-present).
First off, the tryouts. It’s implied here that Hiori and Rin have never met, as Hiori notices Isagi’s response to Rin and asks if Isagi knows who Rin is. Rin also doesn’t acknowledge Hiori in any way here, so we can presume they’re strangers (although some shippers like to headcanon that they met during the first selection).
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That being said during the match, after Isagi has been thoroughly shut down by Karasu, Rin turns his attention to Hiori as a teammate to help him get the ball up the field. Rin has never seen Hiori play before (as far as we know). They’ve never even talked. They’re barely getting familiar with each other’s play styles. And yet, they immediately link up to form a clean, deadly back and forth that optimises Rin’s play style. In fact, this duo helped Rin score 1 goal, and it would have helped Rin score 2 had Shidou not rudely interrupted the second.
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It was so deadly that Otoya had to intervene specifically to break them up, so that they could no longer continue their one-two passes up the field and threaten to go for another goal. (Also notice in this page below how as soon as the kickoff happened, Hiori was already running into position in the background. He understands what Rin wants to do).
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Not only did Hiori and Rin naturally form a link-up, but Hiori was also fully capable of keeping up with Rin, something Nanase admitted he struggled with during this match and even Isagi was struggling with as well, since later on we see Isagi fail to intercept one of Hiori’s passes due to not being able to reach it in time (which presumably Rin would have been able to were he in Isagi’s position). So, from what we see of Hiori and Rin in this match, they’re on a similar wavelength in terms of skills, field vision and gameplay, and are naturally able to link up even as strangers. I’ll note here that neither of them were playing at full power — Hiori was playing on 0 motivation, and Rin was still utilising his Puppeteer play style instead of his Destroyer. More on this later in the ‘Headcanons’ section.
After the Tryouts, we next see them interact in the U20 match. We start with a brief callback to their tryouts link up in chapter 132, where Rin passes to Hiori. Hiori is acting as a relay between Isagi and Rin, which in my opinion would be a good way to utilise him in the current manga after the NEL. Whether or not that’s how Kaneshiro chooses to use him in the future is anyone’s guess though.
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The next big moment comes in chapter 140, after Shidou has kicked Rin in the face and the game has briefly paused. I think this is by far the most ‘iconic’ hiorin moment. While Isagi is analysing the previous gameplay and Karasu is arguing with the ref, it’s Hiori who is the only one to actually go and check on Rin. Even Bachira and Reo were right next to Rin and neither of them were the ones going up to him. Hiori was further down the field but he was the one who moved to help Rin first. Not only is he gentle with and worried for Rin, but by some miracle Rin actually accepts his help! It feels almost out of character given how angry Rin is for the rest of the match, but for this very brief moment he lets Hiori help him up and reassures him that he’s ‘totally fine’ (yeah sure buddy…).
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For many this is the main ‘ooooooh’ moment with hiorin. But what if I told you it actually happens a second time this match? After Aiku goes rogue in chapter 142 and tries to score a goal, Rin ends up slide-tackling him to prevent it. And once again, if you look in the background of the panels following the interception in chapter 143, who is it helping Rin stand? It’s Hiori. And this time they actually hold hands!
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The final hiorin moment in the U20 match come soon after this in chapter 144, when Rin is about to enter his Destroyer mode. When Rin enters Destroyer mode, Hiori is in possession of the ball and so Rin steals it from him in a completely unpredictable move that had everyone stunned.
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The U20 match moments, for many of us hiorin shippers, felt like the last time we’d ever see them properly interact. I at least had zero hopes for PXG. But oh boy was I wrong! Kaneshiro might not realise the dynamic he’s setting up with this duo but I’m gonna milk every interaction for what it’s worth! And so with that, I’ll bring you to the BM vs PXG match (note: currently still ongoing, so I might have to update this section soon). Since the U20 match, we’ve had some changes. The biggest one is Hiori’s personality. After going through his arc in Ubers, Hiori has become more outspoken and confident, playing into his ‘Ultra-Sadist’ style and being more than happy to speak his mind. He’s more argumentative and can whip up a good piece of trash talk (my gamer boy fr!). We see this on full display in chapter 251 when he completely shuts down Rin’s goal opportunity because Rin was too focussed on Isagi to see the bigger picture of the match. He turns around, points at Rin, and tells him “if ya want a goal… come at me with an unpredictable script!”
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Notice here how he isn’t simply putting Rin down for not being able to score. Hiori may be taunting Rin, but he does still technically give Rin helpful advice. In a previous panel he explains how he was able to read Rin because Rin was too focussed on Isagi, and in combination with Hiori’s ‘unpredictable script’ line it forms some rather blunt and rude but nevertheless useful advice. Hiori is telling Rin exactly how to get past him and what Rin needs to do to improve. Notice the focus on unpredictability. This is veering into headcanon territory, but I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to think that perhaps Hiori is thinking about Rin’s unpredictable Destroyer mode. He experienced it first hand when Rin stole the ball from him in the U20 match. He knows what Rin is truly capable of. To Hiori, that version of Rin is a reasonable expectation (and I’ll get to their relationship with ‘expectations’ later) that would be the perfect key to getting through BM’s defence. But Rin isn’t showing that off because his obsession with defeating Isagi over scoring goals is hurting his performance. Hiori’s advice is reasonable and maybe Rin should listen to it.
As of right now, the final moment we have of them together is from chapter 259, where Hiori is aided by Raichi to block Rin in a 2-person press, causing Rin to lose the ball. From a purely indulgent shipping perspective, notice how Hiori and Rin’s legs are touching, their hands are on each other’s chests and they’re looking at each other. Raichi is just there lol.
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This may be it for their canon interactions, however it’s far from all the canon information we have about them that’s interesting for the dynamic. A big part of the hiorin ship is about looking at their individual information and drawing together similarities and/or parallels. While on the surface they seem very different, almost opposites, digging a little deeper reveals a lot of small coincidences about them that build up to make you realise that they’re a lot more similar than you might initially think.
Part 2 — Where Hiori and Rin Align
Analytical players. Both of them have a deeply analytical play style that utilises field vision and high levels of technical skills. They don’t rely on brute strength or pure intimidation to get through the opponents’ defence, rather they analyse, play with and overcome their opponents with strategy and out-play their opponents with sheer levels of skill. This similarity is likely what led to them to be able to so easily link up when they first met.
Sadism. Both are known sadists. Rin’s Destroyer mode is particularly sadistic but in general he revels in being at the top with others under him. He’s open with his insults and destroys chaotically, looking for breaks in his opponents’ defence and completely tearing them down until there’s no hope of his opponents winning. Hiori is a self-proclaimed “ultra-sadist” (personally I think he’s more a sado-masochist but we’re sticking to canon only here). After his arc, he enjoys watching his opponents scramble to try and keep up with him only to be destroyed by his top-tier plays, especially in a ‘best play’ scenario with his chosen striker of the moment. He’s also not loyal to any one striker and will leave them behind if they’re not playing up to his standards or goal vision. Hiori’s sadism also manifests as him teasing his friends, as we see in chapter 241 when he jokingly teases Isagi for getting shipped with Kaiser by BLTV fans.
Sae connections. Rin is Sae’s younger brother and was abandoned by Sae after Sae returned home from Spain. He says he hates his brother after the U20 match, when Sae noticed Isagi over Rin, and now Rin is playing for the sake of crushing Sae (more on this later). Hiori also has connections to Sae though. He’s been compared to Sae twice in-universe, once by Sendou in chapter 129 who said his passes had the same level of skill as Sae’s, and once by Yukimiya in chapter 241 who thinks Hiori’s ultra-sadist mindset is similar to Sae’s.
They’re both gamers. Obviously we know Hiori is one. That’s been a big part of his character ever since we first met him. However, Rin also plays video games, specifically horror games. We get this info from both the Egoist Bible and his prequel light novel, where it explains that he plays horror games to de-stress at night: (chapter 2) “… even games, should be chilling and scary. Playing horror games alone at night is quite thrilling”.
Horror, gore and zombies. As well as playing horror games to de-stress, it’s explained in the Egoist Bible and Rin’s light novel that he watches horror movies for the same reason: (chapter 2) “When he’s done, he watches a horror movie and then goes to bed. This is his daily routine. For some reason, since Sae has been gone, he only watches horror movies. Movies, videos …”. The light novel slightly expands on this to specify he enjoys splatter films, as well as showing an illustration of him watching rather a gory zombie movie: (chapter 4) “Lately, he's been into splatter films. The one where a killer comes out with an electric saw and a big-ass ax, then blood splatters all over the place. The one where a killer chases you no matter how hard you try to escape, and if you get caught, you end up being dismembered. His heart is pounding, but he’s not the type to show on his face, so Rin watching the slaughter scene without any expression on his face is much more horrifying”. Likewise, Hiori is shown in chapter 206 playing a zombie shooter in which he imagines the zombies being his parents and he violently kills them. We see his inner monologue of this in his prequel light novel, showing the depths of how much he wants them to suffer: (chapter 6) “Before he knew it, in his imagination, his parents became zombies. His father and mother are coming towards him, laughing. He shoots without hesitation. Bang! Headshot. The bullet that entered the father's jaw blew off the back of his head. Bang! Bang! His mother's eyeballs pop out and there's a hole in her chest. He aims for vital spots with rapid fire, but they don't fall easily because they're zombies”.
Solitude. They’re both introverts according to their MBTIs. Rin is ranked as the most anti-social member of Blue Lock in the Egoist Bible. He says he “doesn’t have time for lukewarm conversations” (although I do think on some level he longs for approval and love from someone, given how much he craves his brother’s attention). He is also one of the only characters who genuinely has no friends in Blue Lock. He tolerated Bachira for a time and trained Nanase begrudgingly, but no one is very close with him at all. Now, at a glance Hiori might seem far more social. He has a lot of friends and seems to enjoy hanging out with them. However, in a Twitter qna (which tend to have questions compiled for the Egoist Bible but alas Hiori doesn’t have a page) it was revealed that his ideal type in a romantic partner is “someone who can leave me alone”. The wording he used — 放置し合えるん — seems to imply a reciprocal nature of this ‘leaving alone’, ie ‘you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone’. Now tell me that arrangement wouldn’t work perfectly for Rin. Hiori is also shown in chapter 172 (pre-character arc) spending time alone in the BM dorms while others are out training. While Hiori can enjoy socialising, he also needs plenty of time to himself to the point where it becomes a deal-breaker in a relationship for him.
Ochazuke (tea on rice). Rin’s favourite food according to the Egoist Bible is ochazuke, specifically taichazuke. In the new Episode Rin extra chapter we also see him going to enjoy some taichazuke at a traditional restaurant because he was hungry for ochazuke. When Hiori was asked in another Twitter qna what his favourite accompaniment for rice is, he replied that it was the ochazuke brand Nagatanien.
Stripes. Rin’s casual outfits for both the Shibuya collab (designed by Nomura) and Episode Rin feature a striped/ribbed pattern. Likewise, Hiori’s casual pyjamas, childhood design and one of Nomura’s coaster designs all feature him wearing striped clothing.
Eyelashes. Both of them have long under lashes. That’s kinda it for this one lol.
Name kanji (yes, I’m in this deep). In Rin’s surname, the kanji 糸 means ‘thread/yarn’. In Hiori’s surname, the kanji 織 means ‘weaver’. Both of them have kanji relating to weaving, likely in relation to both Rin’s Puppeteer play style (and Sae’s insane control of the midfield), and Hiori’s way of ‘weaving’ together a best play through his skills (and his parents ‘weaving’ his life for him rather than letting him control it himself). To get poetic about it, you could say Hiori is the weaver who knows how best to utilise Rin’s threads and can guarantee their shared goal vision will be woven into place. To get even more conspiracy theorist-y, when Charles meets Hiori he calls Hiori “水色お兄さん” — literally ‘water-coloured big brother’, likely in relation to his hair colour because 水色 can also mean ‘cyan’. To keep it on the topic of water though, whose aura is made of water? That’s right. Rin’s! (yes I know this is really grasping at straws but I did say this post was for EVERYTHING hiorin soooo).
Part 3 — Family Relationships: Love, Expectations and Abandonment
Rin and Hiori both have relationships with particular members of their family that are similar and also unique among the rest of the cast. For Rin, it’s his relationship with Sae. For Hiori, it’s his relationship with his parents.
To begin with Hiori, his parents only wanted a child who could fulfil their dream of being number 1. They held this expectation of him throughout his whole life, pretending to genuinely care about and love him when in reality all they wanted was for him to be the best. If he tried to step out of line, they’d become monstrous, as seen in Hiori’s light novel: (chapter 2) “Can I take a day off from soccer tomorrow and go play with my friends?” As soon as he said this, the smiles disappeared from his parents’ faces. His mother looked very surprised, and then she made the scariest face he's ever seen. “......!” He doesn’t remember what she said. He just remembers that he was scolded terribly. After that, he was hugged tightly. “Hiori, you are born to be the best at soccer.” “You can play with other kids anytime you want.” “But if you don’t do soccer properly from now on, you will never be the best.” His mother was desperate. His father was behind her, looking sadly at Hiori. “Please, Hiori, trust us and play soccer.” Hiori felt that he had done something very wrong. … What should I do? I said something bad. I'm sorry. The air was stifling, as if he had been locked in a room full of needles. He felt like he would get hurt if he moved, so all Hiori could do was nod.” We also see the extent of this in chapter 206, when Hiori overhears his parents threatening to get a divorce if he isn’t the best. This makes him realise that if he doesn’t fulfil their expectations, he’ll be abandoned by them.
With Rin, it’s a bit more complicated. His relationship with his older brother Sae is still pretty up in the air as to what really happened from Sae’s perspective. We need to distinguish between what actually happened (which is difficult to determine as of right now) and what Rin interpreted as happening. From his perspective, Sae pretended to love him while they were growing up, only using him as a stepping stone to get to the world stage. After that had been achieved, Rin was abandoned (as seen in his inner monologue in chapter 125). While it’s difficult to discern, on a broad scale we could argue that instead of this, Sae has a particular expectation of Rin that currently Rin is failing to meet, and as a result Sae sees this abandonment as somehow ‘necessary’ to get Rin to evolve… or he really has abandoned Rin and is just an asshole, but I hope towards the former. This is where I cry on deaf ears for a Sae light novel or spin-off chapter, anything to get his side of the story. My current interpretation of canon is that Sae still loves Rin, however he knows that Rin’s desire to be the world’s best as a duo is impossible, and his way of trying to ween Rin off such a dream was to sever their relationship. No matter what really happened though, I’m more interested in what Rin interpreted and took away from being abandoned, which is an interesting mix of hatred and confusion but also still a desire for recognition.
This to me reads as very similar to what Hiori’s relationship with his parents used to be. He hated them. He wished death upon them. And yet he kept fighting for what they wanted, fulfilling their expectations because he was so afraid that if he didn’t, all the blame would be placed on him for their family falling apart and his parents abandoning him. Rin’s situation is sort of a dark mirror to Hiori’s where instead of just fearing that abandonment, Rin was abandoned, with all the blame being placed on him by Sae. And yet, deep down, he’s still fighting for Sae’s approval and love again, trying to find any way he can to fulfil Sae’s expectations. We see this in the way Rin has chosen Isagi to be his rival, not because of anything in particular that Isagi has done, but because Sae acknowledged Isagi over him. We see his desire for love in the way he travelled to Tokyo in the Episode Rin extra chapter to possibly watch Sae’s match, even though they’d already fallen out by that point. Rin and Hiori both strove for love from their families, it’s just that Hiori has now managed to break free from this mindset and fight only for himself, meanwhile Rin is still clinging to the memory of Sae no matter how much he wants to crush Sae for abandoning him.
This complicated relationship the two of them have with love, expectations and abandonment in relation to family members is what draws me to a lot of hiorin headcanon material. Rin is cold, antisocial and ruthless, and yet Hiori potentially has the capacity to understand his pain more than anyone else. This is especially true now that Hiori has broken free of his parents’ expectations. It gives him the freedom to look at these situations more objectively while retaining an understanding of their emotional core. He knows how difficult it is to both hate your family but strive for their approval, perhaps fruitlessly. And likewise, Rin might be able to actually learn something from how Hiori overcame his situation by going all-in with the egoist mindset, playing only for himself, completely discarding his family members’ expectations.
Part 4 — Headcanons Part 1: The Hiorin Potential For A Joint Arc (which yes I know won’t happen. Let me dream)
Anything from this point on is pure headcanon, taking into account all the canon information listed in the previous sections. This is NOT ‘speculation’. I genuinely don’t think any of this will be canon or else Kaneshiro would have started calling attention to it by now in the main manga. However by the end of this I’m sure some of you will join me in wishing it could be canon, because even if Kaneshiro hasn’t consciously laid the groundwork for Rin and Hiori to have a joint arc together, he has done so by accident and all the pieces are in place.
The bulk of this section revolves around Rin’s Destroyer mode and Hiori’s ultra-sadism, as well as the ‘best-play’ scenario theorised by Isagi and Hiori in the recent PXG chapters. Basically, I think that a ‘best-play’ chemical reaction between ultra-sadist Hiori and Destroyer Rin would be both broken as fuck and would be a great way to showcase Rin’s character development as he learns to break away from wanting to crush Isagi and Sae.
In Rin’s light novel, we learn that as a child playing alongside Sae as a duo, Rin didn’t have the Puppeteer play style he’s known for in the main series. Instead, he was fully zoned in on himself and the game, moving on instinct, looking for the perfect spot to break through the enemy’s defence, trusting fully that he’d receive Sae’s pass (chapter 1): ‘“Rin, what are you thinking about when you play soccer?” Rin scored two goals in today’s match. Meanwhile, Sae scored three points with a hat trick. His Nii-chan is great after all. “Hm? Nothing. I guess it's just about goals. I just run to the bad area and then Nii-chan passes to me.” “What do you mean by bad area?” Sae asks, while playing with the stick in his mouth. “Hm. The area where the enemy panics and falls through.” The area the enemy falls through. Sae let his younger brother's words quietly seep into his mind. “You rely too much on your intuition, you know.” “But Nii-chan always passes to me, so why not? Nobody else is good enough for me.” That’s why it’s okay to move on impulse without thinking. “......What will you do when I’m not around?” “I don’t know but, I guess I’ll look for a replacement.” Rin says nonchalantly.’
This method of running ‘to the area where the enemy panics and falls through’ seems to be alluding to Rin’s Destroyer mode — the version of Rin we see in the final moments of the U20 match after he loses control and goes on a destructive rampage. Indeed, in chapter 152 we also see Rin wondering what this side of him is truly capable of and how he wants to try harnessing it more, but he still only wants to use it to destroy Isagi and Sae rather than playing for himself. His Puppeteer is not his original play style, instead it’s one he developed after Sae left in order to appease his teammates and be a able to carry his team to victory by himself (chapter 3); ‘Even in a high-level club team, no one could handle Rin’s moves’, (chapter 4): ‘Without Sae's passes, he can't play the way he wants to play’, (chapter 5): ‘Rin erases his best image and then captures the whole picture. In his head, he sees the movements of all the players, as if filmed from a drone’, (chapter 5): ‘No one understands Rin's frustration. But they can win, so that's fine. It's as if there are marionette strings attached to his teammates, controlling and moving the team…… That is Rin's new weapon. It is a play that can only be made with Rin's combination of technical, physical, and tactical skills. It has also led him to bring out the best in his teammates’. It was only in the U20 match that the Destroyer was able to come out again after it had been sealed away for so long. It was a completely different way of playing that was more primal and natural for Rin but less controlled and more clumsy due to his lack of practice using it. Still, its pure destructive power was insane enough to almost score.
In the current chapters of the manga, we know that Rin has gotten a certain better grasp of the Destroyer since the start of the NEL. In chapter 239 (immediately after Hiori says he’ll happily drop Isagi for someone else should they come along, mind you) we see Rin utilising a seemingly toned down version of the Destroyer against Nagi in the PXG vs MC match. Clearly he has been trying to improve it since first letting it loose again during the U20 match. However, so far in PXG vs BM we haven’t seen it at all. Given Hiori’s comment about focussing on Isagi and predictability, as well as Isagi and Hiori’s theory of ‘ego types’ and a ‘best play’ scenario, it appears as though Rin’s biggest problem is that he’s using a world-type ego to show off his skills to Isagi (and therefore, by extension, to Sae as well). This is the ego type suited for the Puppeteer, one that utilises teammates and was created for the sake of appeasing others. The Destroyer on the other hand seems far better suited to a ‘self-type’ ego because Rin accesses it when in a state of mind that ignores Isagi, ignores Sae and hyper-zones in on himself and his own ability to score a goal. This would mean that Rin’s ‘true’ ego is a ‘self-type’ but he is hindering himself by using a ‘world-type’ to try and prove something to Isagi and Sae.
Now, undoubtably we’ll see the Destroyer at some point in this match, and I really hope when it comes out we see it decimate Hiori. Since Hiori flat out told Rin to come at him with ‘an unpredictable script’, the Destroyer can be the ‘unpredictable script’ that blows Hiori away. And I think that would catch Hiori’s attention. Remember, his resolve in chapter 239 is to create the greatest striker, and his ultra-sadism means he’s more than happy to drop Isagi for someone he thinks is better. So, no matter what the outcome of the match is, I think Rin’s Destroyer should pique Hiori’s interest as a potential best striker candidate. This is especially so when you remember that Hiori has technically already experienced Rin’s Destroyer first hand in the U20 match, when Rin stole the ball from Hiori (interesting side note here: Hiori’s immediate thoughts before the ball was stolen from him were him struggling to figure out who he should pass to, Barou or Nagi. He thought ‘which one of you?’ but didn’t pass, in my eyes because he couldn’t envision the play working with either of them, and then immediately Rin stole the ball. Rin unknowingly answered the question Hiori was asking in those crucial seconds).
In the next arc (a U20 World Cup training mini-arc I’d presume), I’d have Hiori and Rin slowly start to come to an understanding. I think Hiori’s ultra-sadism would be incredibly useful in helping draw the Destroyer out of Rin because Hiori only passes to the best spot on the field. He doesn’t alter his level of play for the sake of his striker. So, if Rin is in a mindset where he’s too focussed on proving Sae wrong, crushing Sae and defeating Isagi, then his plays become affected and Hiori simply won’t pass to him, likely passing to Isagi instead. This creates a bottle-neck where Rin has to evolve his mindset, discarding the ‘world-type’ ego of the Puppeteer (which is still useful in some cases, but not here) and instead fully embrace the Destroyer. If he can get into that mindset, only focussing on himself and not Isagi, Sae or even the other players around him, zoning in on just the goal ahead, he is guaranteed to be rewarded by receiving Hiori’s perfect pass to the ideal spot where the enemy ‘breaks’. It mirrors how Sae used to pass to him in their childhood (remembering Hiori has been compared to Sae in terms of both skill and mindset), except now Rin isn’t thinking that he’s part of a permanent duo, rather he alone is the star and he can trust his midfielder to aid him and match goal-visions without the need for the Puppeteer.
The key word here is trust. Rin and Hiori would have to develop a level of trust. Hiori has to trust that Rin will embody the Destroyer, and Rin has to trust that Hiori will side with him. It’s why Hiori has currently been able to work so well with Isagi. Their goal visions aligned and they placed the utmost trust in each other to perform at their individual bests, thus leading to Isagi scoring successful goals. For me, if Rin could also reach this state, it would be a showcase of the culmination of his development as he breaks free of Sae and learns how to play fully for himself. It would simultaneously be a return to his childhood, where he was able to freely utilise the Destroyer without worrying about the rest of the team, while also showing his evolution because he no longer places that trust onto just Sae ‘because it’s Nii-chan’. When Rin trusts in Hiori, it wouldn’t be because ‘it’s Hiori’, rather it would be Rin fully focussing purely on himself and his own plays, forgetting about everything and everyone else, and simply allowing the ball to land in the ideal spot at his feet. It’s a completely sadistic, self-serving mindset, just like Hiori’s is from a midfielder’s perspective. Hiori’s ultra-sadism means he likely can’t be controlled by Rin’s Puppeteer style, since he plays for himself fully. Therefore in order to successfully earn Hiori’s passes, Rin would need to fully embrace the Destroyer, abandon Isagi and Sae clouding his judgement, and throw himself fully into goal-scoring. Hiori can’t be controlled but he’s reliable and can be trusted. I do think the road to building this trust should have its ups and downs. Let Rin get frustrated at Hiori not being controllable. Let Hiori want to see Rin improve while also not bending to Rin’s will. Let Hiori refuse to work with Rin sometimes. All of it would be part of a gradual, arc-spanning development for Rin that doesn’t take place in a single chapter.
In my personal opinion, having Hiori specifically be the midfielder who helps Rin most would be more narratively satisfying someone like Nanase (no hate to Nanase or nanarin tho. Love them 🫶). While Nanase works as a nice support for Rin especially at the moment in PXG, plus his sunshine personality might help to make Rin relax and open up more over time, his skill level isn’t quite up to scratch for Rin’s highest level plays. Nanase’s passes are useful with his ambidexterity but they aren’t clean. They aren’t as reliable. Rin still has to pay attention to Nanase in order to guarantee a successful play. He can’t block out literally everything else to hyper-focus on goal-scoring in this state. Hiori on the other hand provides that high level of play which means that Rin can afford to essentially forget Hiori even exists — the ball will still find its way to him. They wouldn’t even have to look at each other (much like the Isagi x Hiori best play we saw in Ubers that was recently recreated in PXG). There’s also the thematic element that Hiori has been compared to Sae before, setting him up as a Sae parallel which I think could be utilised in Rin’s evolution. Placing trust in Hiori would show that Rin is finally able to detach his reason to play from Sae and he can stop striving so strongly for Sae to notice him. Then there’s the shared relationship Hiori and Rin both have with expectations, love and abandonment, which could arguably help them get on each others wavelength to understand exactly what they want from a play and how best to execute a strategy they haven’t even discussed beforehand, as well as have Hiori be the one to help ‘create’ Rin since Hiori has already gone through the mental baggage of his arc and would understand Rin’s mental blocks.
Still, I do think canonically Rin and Nanase will be the duo that continues forwards into the next arc. Rin’s development will likely come from a combination of Nanase’s kindness, Isagi’s yap sessions and a lot of internal monologues. Meanwhile, Hiori will continue to improve alongside Isagi as a plot device who can be pulled out at convenient moments, while occasionally passing to other strikers for dramatic flair (I don’t really like this after Hiori’s resolve so strongly telegraphed that he’d very happily drop Isagi without a second thought, but oh well, what can you do?). I doubt Hiori will canonically play into Rin’s development at all.
Still, from the moment Rin and Hiori met in the third selection tryouts, they were able to flawlessly link up without the need for planning or communication. Hiori understood what Rin needed and moved to the perfect spot to work with him. If both of them were in Flow, creating a ‘best-play’ scenario with the Destroyer and the Ultra-Sadist, it would both be a show of incredible skill and high-level play while also showcasing Rin’s personal development and evolution, as well as utilising Hiori as a narrative support in a way that doesn’t impose him too strongly on the main plot but keeps him relevant and active in the story.
Part 5 — Headcanons Part 2: Some Fun Ideas
This section is all about some fun ideas I’ve had about hiorin, mostly trying to use canon as a strong basis so that they make sense. They aren’t things I think will ever be explored in canon but they’re fun to think about nonetheless. These can range from canon-adjacent to domestic AU material, it’s a whole mix really. I’ll probably come back to this bit every now and again to update it with new ideas I have, so keep an eye out for that.
A shared understanding. Since they’re both familiar with what they perceive to be feelings of false love from family members, it creates a situation where they can understand why they act the way they do better than anyone else. I hc that this would help them to more naturally form link-ups on the field, since they’d be in tune with each other’s mental states as well as general play styles, and off-field in being able to recognise when something has ticked off the other and resurfaced some unpleasant memories. I don’t think they’d really be ones to talk about their family traumas to each other openly, but they’d have an understanding of the things they do find out and wouldn’t think the other is overreacting, especially Hiori understanding Rin. While I think it’s good that Rin has friends like Nanase who he can be more chilled out with, I personally prefer the idea that his partner be someone who can actually understand the depths of his issues and sit with him in the eye of the storm rather than trying to just ‘fix’ him or drag him out of it.
Touch-starved and both slow to physical affection. Since they’re both introverted and Rin is emotionally constipated as fuck, they aren’t really a couple that would be very into PDA. Not even hand-holding. But it doesn’t really matter for them. They’re both not very used to that sort of physical comfort especially in the presence of others. However, while I think in general Rin might be a bit more reluctant to initiate intimacy than Hiori, I do think he’d still be more inclined to initiate hugs. Why Rin of all people? Because he grew up with a sibling. And he was a younger sibling at that. On some level he would have received attention from Sae while their relationship was still good, even if only a little bit. Hiori on the other hand grew up an only child in a household where hugs and doting were used as a tool to manipulate him. He’d likely not be used to the idea of hugs as a genuine show of affection. But Rin’s hugs are always genuine and often given out sparingly and bashfully, after a lot of hesitation. They’re both slow to physical affection but they’d find a way to navigate their wants and needs together, taking their time.
All-nighter horror dates. Be it playing co-op horror games or binging horror movies in the dark, I think they’d both prefer that as a date night over going out to a restaurant. It’s an activity they can both have fun with as a shared interest, just the two of them, alone at home with no need to even leave the house. They can let themselves get more passionate and competitive (and sadistic) while playing horror games too.
Yoga together. While we only have canonical confirmation that Rin both regularly does yoga and is good at it, I hc that Hiori would also be quite good at it due to his parents likely drilling him with intense schedules and being helicopter parents about his health. Yoga would likely fall into it somewhere as a cool-down and a good way to exercise on rainy days. While Hiori initially wouldn’t find yoga fun to do with Rin due to his negative associations with it, I feel like over time it could be a nice bonding activity for the two of them. It requires minimal talking of they’re doing their own things, and as long as Hiori isn’t messing up the moves I think Rin would tolerate the two of them existing in the same space. At the very least, Hiori wouldn’t try to one-up Rin with moves he can’t do and topple into Rin as a result (looking at you, Isagi…). They wouldn’t do couples yoga though, just their own thing in the same space.
Sharing food. In the Twitter QnAs, it states that Hiori’s favourite food is salt-grilled saury (saury shiyoyaki) “including the bitter bits”. His least favourite food is cotton candy because “it’s just sugar”. Therefore, I hc that he tends to enjoy bitter food while disliking sweet food. In contrast, we know that Rin quite likes sweet food because he used to eat ice cream with Sae on the way home from practice, plus in the Episode Rin extra chapter he goes to buy dessert at a special desserts cafe after eating ochazuke (a traditionally salty dish). Because of this difference in tastes, I like to hc Hiori giving any sweet food Blue Lock offers in their meals to Rin. Likewise, if the main meal Rin is given is ever burnt or charred too much for his liking, he gives the charred bits to Hiori since he knows Hiori will eat them so the food won’t be wasted.
Tea and coffee. As an addendum to the previous hc, I think Hiori would be a coffee drinker and Rin would be a tea drinker. This is because coffee tends to be more bitter, especially ones without sugar like espressos, so I can see Hiori preferring it to tea. There’s also the idea that ochazuke is made with tea, which is a bonus for Rin liking tea over coffee.
Cooking. Last food-related one I promise! While Hiori likely has a ton of technical knowledge about nutrition, dieting, calorie counting etc… due to his mother’s frenzied control of his diet growing up, I headcanon that he doesn’t actually have a clue how to cook. Once again, this is because of his parents being overprotective and worrying that he’d injure himself with a kitchen knife or on the stove. So he has zero clue where to start in the kitchen. On the flip-side, while Rin isn’t the best cook in the world I reckon he’d have somewhat an idea of how to cook the basics, plus he likely also has knowledge of dieting and nutrition for the sake of his own health. So while they’d both have things to learn in the kitchen, it would be Rin doing more of the actual cooking and Hiori deciding what meals to eat to optimise their health and training.
A joint-aura that’s a blizzard — in the event that they ever were to team up on the field, I think that the aura they’d give off together should be a blizzard. It makes sense to me for them to have this because Hiori has ice associations with the kanji �� in his surname, which means ‘ice’, and in chapter 239 when he gives his monologue about finding a reason to play, a metaphorical key appears with a snowflake on it to symbolise his newfound resolve. Rin’s connections to snow are less positive though, since it was snowing the day that Sae abandoned him. I think making their joint aura a blizzard could symbolise both Hiori’s ultra-sadist resolve to play, and Rin finally being able to move on from Sae to associate the snow with his sadistic determination. The fact that it’s a snowstorm emphasises the pair of them having a sadistic, destructive take-down of their opponents.
Hiori has a type. His canon type is already ‘someone who will leave me alone’ as I previously discussed in section 2. However, I do like to semi-jokingly say that his type is also ‘dark-haired, analytical guys with an attitude who are really good at football’. Obviously this is meant to refer mostly to Isagi and Karasu (we’ve all seen the heart-eyes you give them, Hiori!), but it is amusing to me that the description also fits Rin perfectly.
Part 6 — Transformative Works I Recommend For New Shippers
These are just some of my favourite fanfics all linked together in one place. I’ll start with a shameless plug of my own fic:
14 Days To NOT Fall In Love (but guess who did anyway)
Summary: This annoyingly mandated break of Ego's was only fourteen days long. That would never be enough time for Rin to fall for this aggravatingly sweet, understanding, level-headed, cyan-haired gamer boy... Okay, maybe he'd need to exercise SOME restraint. Aka: how Rin and Hiori become mutually pining idiots after the U-20 match through a combination of video games, late night discord calls and learning that perhaps they're not all that different after all.
(Chapters: 10 , Word Count: 67088 , Rating: T)
And now for my personal favourites I think new shippers will enjoy, in no particular order (if any of the authors see this and have tumblrs you want me to tag, lmk!):
catch us in the morning by transrightssokka (kellallyourfriends)
Summary: Hiori looks down and brings his hand up to his mouth, hiding a faint smile. “You don’t wanna go home, do you?” “No shit, I don’t,” Rin says. He’d rather sleep on the sidewalk than spend the next two weeks with Sae. Hiori is silent for a minute. His pretty eyes flick to his feet. Up to the back of the seat in front of them. Over to Rin. “So.” “So?” Rin says. Hiori lowers his voice. “So, what if we didn’t?”
(Chapters: 3 , Word Count: 27206 , Rated: M)
Even When It’s Starless by saturnshots
Summary: Everyone’s had an imaginary friend or two — it’s not often they change the course of your life, but who says being imaginary could stop them from bringing your dreams come true?
(Chapters: 1 , Word Count: 2838 , Rating: G)
sine wave by starstruckdove
Summary: Rin discovers Bachira’s “super secret surprise” sooner than he’d thought. There’s a new boy standing next to Ego at practice, and Rin knows he’s new because each of his unfortunate teammates have made their presence (loudly and raucously) known in his life. The boy has a nice face–wide eyes and soft mouth, all rounded corners instead of sharp edges. His hair is a shocking shade of blue and Rin finds it almost familiar. “This is your new manager,” Ego says with about as much energy as a dead battery.
(Chapters: 1 , Word Count: 8990 , Rated: T)
Daydreaming by em_hiorin
Summary: Hiori can’t seem to concentrate during practice, as a certain Itoshi has been plaguing his mind.
(Chapters: 1 , Word Count: 1560 , Rating: G)
My family thinks we’re dating. by akiangelsolos
Summary: “Oh, I see.” His mother hummed, placing her silver fork down on the table. “You must be upset, Hiori hasn’t come over in a while. You have to be lonely without your boyfriend around.” “I’m not lonely-” Rin shot his eyes at his mom, “What did you just say?”
(Chapters: 2 , Word Count: 5486 , Rating: G)
Part 7 — Wow, You Made It This Far? Congratulations And Thank You!
If you’ve made it this far, then I am both immensely thankful and I applaud you. Seriously, thank you for putting up with my insane, delusional brainrot over this silly rarepair that has barely any canon backing to speak of. Hopefully if anything, you now understand why people are starting to take interest in the ship (or at least why I enjoy it). And if you’re a shipper now, welcome to the club! You will now have to watch Hiori and Rin never affect each other’s development, never interact in any meaningful capacity and you’ll be eternally bitter about it 👍. For any aspiring fic writers, I hope this can be a nice hub of info for all of you if you want to consult the hiorin ‘dynamic’ (i say in quotations because let’s face it, I made up like 95% of the dynamic based on analysis and a canon dynamic doesn’t actually exist). Also, bear in mind that in the off chance we do get some more moments, I plan to update this post. So you may end up being subject to even more brainrot in the future.
Until that day comes though, I can only thank you once again. Hiorin is my otp and no matter how much Kaneshiro doesn’t make it come to fruition, he will have to try incredibly hard to make me stop shipping them. The dynamic can change. They can become more and more ‘incompatible’. I don’t care. If hiorin has no shippers, I have passed on from this world.
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britt-kageryuu · 2 days
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It's early evening, things are calm, and Donnie is playing as a Horrible Goose. He has his model dressed in his Dinosaur Onesie, and matching slippers, and on the purple inflatable chair, against a background that made it look like he mas next to a pond somewhere. Animated turtles are swimming in said pond, including a softshell that keeps popping up to 'bite' the chair.
"This game very much matches my more mild Cain Instincts. Maybe I'll recommend this to Blue later. Though I must make sure he's never seen anything about the game first. Dubious Chuckle." Donnie does lets out a sinister sounding chuckle. "Clears Throat. I mean, I must be sure he plays this blind, it would be more entertaining! For you, and for me ofcourse."
Suddenly a loud mechanical hiss and growl could be heard, that startles Donnie. He quickly paused the game, and removed his headphones to check out what made the noise. His model goes off screen which reveals an animated red eared slider now basking on the seat of the chair. It has a little speech bubble that says 'BRB!!'
Chat goes nuts with many already creating Conspiracy Theories, while others are spamming how cute the little turtle animations look.
A few minutes later Donnie comes back, sits back down, and puts his headphones back on, all while looking mildly annoyed.
"Annoyed Sigh. Before anyone asks, that was River. A while back I bought her a game to keep her distracted that she wanted. But now she's annoyed because there is currently a bug that crashes the game every few times she cooks, and she also can't find a collectable, and every search result for it's location is one she already got." He decides to take his frustration out on the glasses wearing kid that is needed to continue the area puzzles/to-do list. "We believe the Collectables might not be labeled properly in the guides because of a different set where the first one in the list order is the last you collect for the area."
He proceeded to steal a bunch of random stuff from the market stalls, even stuff not necessary for the task list. Honking all the while.
"I wonder how hard it would be to re-skin the Goose into something else? I'll try that out later. As for Rivers game problem? It's apparently a common issue, and many have a similarly problem. Including one of the lists saying an item is missing, when the list is fully checked off."
A donation notification goes off that gets 'chased' off the screen by a goose with a purple bandana and Donnies goggles.
"Thank you for the donation, but the message was cut off, again. I guess that's another thing to work on later!" Donnie suddenly stretches out his body while still sitting. Arms stretched above his head with his hands clasped together, his legs held out straight with his slipper covered feet at slightly odd angles. Slight cracks or pops can be picked up by the mic. Ending with a loud yawn from Donnie himself.
"It's still early, but I feel like it's much later, must be from staying up too late last night watching memes... and I'll do it again tonight because I don't always control how easy it is to sleep! Light laugh, or would it be joking?" Donnie looks upward while thinking. He then pulls out his phone to check something. "Darn, it's definitely too late to have my preferred drink, and I'm being lightly threatened to get to sleep before midnight. The horror!"
He says all of this is such a deadpan tone that chat doesn't know how to interpret the moment.
"Okay, let's get the next area completed, then I will have to swim off to dinner. So let's embrace the goose, and annoy more people!!!"
The stream ends an hour later, with at least 4 new emojis of geese dressed in color coded bandanas, and a accessory to match their turtle counterparts.
--------------------
Masterpost
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tornoleander · 3 days
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men whimpering pt 3 still hasnt met the goal!!! do you still plan on continuing the series??
Ah shit someone remembered I made those LMAO
I probably will eventually the clip gathering is a pain but the comments are the best thing ever and it’s quite fun to edit but I have other projects first my YouTube upload plan right now is:
1. Skybound Video
Really the accumulation of my S6 Fixation will talk about everything that I love in skybound but also FINALLY lay out all horrors. Skybound discomfort explained. Trying to see all sides and be as objective as possible emphasizing canon/implications/theory Will be voice reveal also I guess lol. The episode summary’s at the beginning should be funny.
2. Animatic
Been working on since December. I’m like, Half done. Posted some bits. Very angsty keeping it for the adult audience only. Won’t talk to much here unless I get asks. But I will post what can be enjoyed separately here disconnected. Cause I trust YouTube more at keeping out the kids.
3. Ninjago but only when men are whimpering.
Yes my channel’s tone is… eh not what I want but that’s not new. (I’m two lazy for two Ninjago accounts to organize my madness)
Once I’m done with the first two I will likely change the goal to 666 likes which we are close too. The only way I would prioritize 3 is if it was getting close to my ridiculous like goal.
I did collect and edit down clips from just Skybound already because I was rewatching it for other reasons and oof. The tone 😭 it’s so funny in a dark humor way like… Jay after learning he’s adopted. I- won’t say more but it’s a lot.
I need to finish this very important analysis of ninja over the seasons. I am very confident in my accuracy and standards.
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demidokuriya · 2 days
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I see one optimistic scenario in which Izuku can still retain his quirk.
If you watched the second movie (which is considered canon at this point), then you know that the OFA users independently returned to Izuku at the end of the movie.
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Their will was what allowed the quirk to return after Izuku willingly gave the quirk to Katsuki. And in the final battle, Izuku also voluntarily handed over the OFA to Shigaraki, except Shinomori. So in theory, OFA users excluding Shinomori could return to Izuku. The question was whether they survived after Izuku threw them with all his might at Shigaraki. Because, as Kudo said, they should have disappeared after they hit Shigaraki's mental barrier.
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And in chapter 423 we see that they still exist.
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But more than that, Shigaraki is the owner of OFA at this point, and we see him touching hands with Izuku.
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Even if OFA users were unable to return to Izuku on their own for whatever reason, Shigaraki could transfer OFA back to Izuku if he wished. Who knows, maybe Shigaraki could even transfer his own vestige since he also became one of the OFA users. On the other hand, unlike the rest of the OFA users, Shigaraki doesn't have his own quirk, and neither does All Might, and we don't see vestige All Might being among those trying to give AFO the final blow. So, it is not entirely clear whether vestige All might was passed on to Shigaraki originally or not. However, I think that if the rest of the OFA users had the opportunity to return, they might take Tomura with them.
Honestly, I don't think this scenario will happen, but I would really like it to happen. Izuku likes quirks and has always liked OFA. Izuku deserves to have a quirk and he deserves to be a hero. I want Izuku and Katsuki to be a hero duo who always compete with each other, but also always support each other. Izuku deserves to be able to continue saving people like he always wanted. Regardless of whether Izuku became the greatest hero or not by defeating the greatest evil, I want this not to be the last thing he does as a hero. I want to see Izuku keep up with his classmates on the path to becoming heroes.
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chaifootsteps · 3 days
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I can’t wait for enough time to pass for HB/HH to be in their “Wait I can fix it” phase. You know, when enough time has passed that people can make fix it fics/comics/whatever without the rose tinted glasses and most people aren’t so passionate about it so the backlash that we see right now doesn’t exist. Or even better, make their own story with their ocs inspired by these shows! I want Viv to be the animation equivalent to that guy that was so wrong that other people invented many other theories just to disprove him and started a new branch of philosophy, I think it was Freud (though I’m not sure, if I can find the references I’ll send them later).
Like, I can’t be really invested in Vaggie in the show, but I would love to read a story about a girl that is one of the best in their role as a soldier, but is deemed a traitor due a small act of indifference (it doesn’t need to be outright kindness!!) to the enemy side, finds a an enemy noble that wants some kind of peace trough redemption of their people, and the protagonist joins her with the pretense of wanting to help, but really just wanting to fight back those who hurt her.
She may even start to form a crush on the noble and they may enter in a relationship, but with the progress of the story she understands that she puts the noble on a pedestal because she was saved by her, and as she starts to really care about the people in this side, even start to see how misguided the nobles actions are, even if the intent is good. They break the relationship on good terms and continue to work together for a common goal. In this case part of the drama is because of the initial intentions of the protagonists, not because she was “one of them” and didn’t tell anyone.
Eventually the noble’s actions make their situation worse by putting them under attack, and the protagonist goes off to negotiate with an infamous arms dealer to aid them. She finds how much their values align and with the negotiations and preparations for the confrontation that approaches, she starts to create a genuine bond with this woman.
I’m thinking since this story doesn’t need to be placed in hell, it could just be in a fantasy world with many kinds of creatures, and the protagonist just hides her identity in public by
Aside from the fact that you could also keep the fact that Vaggie looks like a moth demon and transform that to the protagonist may also disguise herself as some common species from the enemy side while in public to not cause much commotion with her presence.
This was just one example from one character, and I still haven’t thought enough about Carmilla to see how she would change in this story (and everybody else).
Idk if I’m making my point understandable, but I feel like Viv had the best ingredients and kitchen appliances to cook, and she gave us mac and cheese (unsalted)
✨sewing anon ✨
Even unsalted mac and cheese can be fixed with the addition of more salt and cheese. I don't know that there's any fixing this, not with Viv at the helm.
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infiniteetcetera · 1 day
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Hot take of the day is Gwynriel has loads of chemistry and Elucien plenty of potential but I’d still rather see Elriel together for the sake of the plot…
What I mean by that is I think an Azriel/Gwyn & Elain/Lucien love story is the path of least resistance for SJM. It fits perfectly into the “everyone is mated and happy together” stereotype much more so than Elain/Az, especially if (as most people predict) Emerie and Mor also wind up together.
I love the Valkeryies and their relationship too much for them to just be absorbed by the IC and that’s exactly what I feel would happen if we get Gwyn/Az, Elain/Lucien, and Emerie/Mor. If Azriel winds up with Gwyn it’s highly likely we’ll get an “i told you so” moment from Rhys who will continue believing he is right about everything and that its totally okay to control the lives of his so called family. Nessian will remain strong and Nesta will be even further solidified in the Night Court (FREE HER) if her two closest friends become IC equivalents.
On the Elain side of things, so many people seem to imply her being with Lucien would be an escape from the Night Court but Rhys wants Elain with Lucien because it’s a way to drag Lucien further into the Night Court. He’s already using their bond to manipulate diplomacy with Lucien and no matter where Lucien ends up, if he’s mated to Elain he will be stuck with strong ties to the Night Court and so will she.
I think Elain/Azriel are the only option that could really push and fuel change for the IC. Rhys drawing a line in the sand about their relationship forces the members of the inner circle to genuinely have to pick sides and I think it would really push Feyre and Nesta to confront their own relationships with their mates and the Night Court. And honestly I’ve always found it ironic that so many people use the “Elain doesn’t belong in the Night Court” argument against Elriel because Azriel doesn’t belong in the Night Court either.
As early as ACOMAF Azriel tells Feyre he doesn’t feel like he belongs in the NC. We’ve seen countless times throughout the series he is left out, ignored, and manipulated by his so called family. People like Rhys and Mor who are the “closest” to him have admitted to being lowkey afraid of him, most of the IC admits they know little about his thoughts/feelings, and its not one of his oldest friends but Nesta who comforts him while he isolates himself during a holiday when he’s feeling like absolute trash because he feels that lonely and unworthy.
I think it would make perfect sense for Azriel to leave the Night Court with Elain, maybe even with Nesta and the Valkeryies considering both him and Nesta have been tied to the Dawn Court now and Nesta made a point of saying she is not a member of the NC. I’m not saying we’d get a full on Nessian break up (I can dream) or that Feyre is going to leave Rhys (SJM will never do this) but I do think Nesta and Feyre would both pull for their sister’s happiness. Especially for Nesta, I feel like part of why she takes how Cassian and the IC treats her is because she feels worthless and doesn’t think she deserves better, but if there’s anyone Nesta will stand up for it’s Elain and hearing that Rhys is manipulating her love life could be such a good catalyst for this girl to move on (my dream crack theory, she leaves Cas in Elains book, Lucien’s book is Autumn Court centered and we get a Nesta/Eris redemption romance arc)
Overall I think the effects that would result from Az leaving the NC with Elain however it happens has the potential for the most complex and intriguing story. I’m sure both Gwynriel and Elucien could be perfectly happy couples, if they get books I will read them and they will probably be fine because SJM knows how to write romance (tho sometimes, I have my doubts recently 👀) but these two relationships don’t have much potential to spark the big changes in the ACOTAR universe Id like to see for the Archeron sisters (and babyboys Az and Lucien). If SJM doesn’t keep doing weird things like the necklace situation, I think Elain and Azriel make perfect sense as a couple and the breaking of the status quo they symbolize is just what the world at large needs.
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four-loose-screws · 2 days
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Full Henry (Fire Emblem Awakening) Personality & Support Conversation Analysis Post - English Localization vs. Original Japanese
So a while back I stated I wouldn't be doing full character support convo analyses any more because they are very time consuming, but... well, I can't help myself. They're just too much fun. And Henry himself is just too much fun, too.
The Olivia / Henry's support chain got several translations and conversations about it in the early years of Awakening's release, but I don't think I have ever heard much about any of Henry's other support convo chains. So how do their localized versions stack up to the original Japanese? Let's walk through his entire support convo list and find out!
This post will be a discussion of select snippets of Henry's support conversations - whatever I want to point out. For balance, sometimes, that will be sections changed from the Japanese, and other times, sections translated pretty closely.
Since I will only be covering bits and pieces here, if there's any support chains you would like to see translated in full, please send a request to my inbox! Support convo translations are usually pretty easy for me, and a great way to add more activity to my blog between novel translations uploads, so I love getting them.
Henry / Robin
Henry / Robin just has minor changes. "Minor localization changes," as I define them, are when the localization team adds or takes away small bits of dialogue, in a way that does not change the overall theme, tone, chain of events, etc. of the conversation.
Discussing minor changes doesn't make for much conversation, but it's fascinating to see how localization teams "spice up" video game dialogues to make them more fun to read in English, and analyze how well the succeeded in fulfilling that goal.
(Also, when talking about Robin as a general character and not the female / male incarnation specifically, I use "they/them" pronouns.)
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Robin: Ugh! D-don't wave that thing in my face! I don't want it anywhere near me.
Original Japanese:
[ルフレ]いいよ!(Robin: That's fine!) 僕は遠慮しておくよ!▼ (I'll pass!)
In this example, the localization added to what Robin says. There's no indication in the Japanese that Henry waves the Risen arm in their face. But the same basic flow of events is present in the conversation: Henry is experimenting with Risen -> propositions Robin to join in his experiments -> Robin flatly refuses. This is a great example of a minor change. It follows the events and tone of the Japanese support, while further showcasing the morbid humor Henry is displaying here.
B Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: If I get it to work, we can have them all fight on our behalf! Then we can sip tea for the rest of the war and collect the accolades once it's over. Robin: Well I understand the idea in theory. It could reduce casualties on our side... But there is one slight problem... Have you given any thought to how you'll control these soulless warriors?
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]これを使えば戦いを屍兵に任せて、(Henry: If we use this, then we'll leave the battle to the Risen,) 僕たちはお茶でも飲んでいられるよ~。▼(and we can even drink tea~.) そしたら戦死者も出なくなるし、(Then, we will have no casualties, and) いろいろと便利だよね~。▼ (they'll be convenient in many ways~.) [ルフレ]うーん…いくら戦死者が出ないといっても、(Robin: Umm... even if we won't have any casualties,) 屍兵の力を借りるのは…▼ (Borrowing the Risen's powers is...) それに、召喚した屍兵を (And the summoned Risen,) 操ることができるとは限らないよね?▼ (we won't necessarily be able to control them, right?)
Here's a change that's even smaller than the previous one, really. Robin doesn't say directly that the Risen are soulless in the Japanese, just summoned.
Henry / Lissa
S Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Hey-o! Need your human pillow again?
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]あ、リズ。こんにちは~。(Henry: Ah, Lissa! Hello~.) 今日も枕が必要?▼ (Do you need a pillow again today?)
As you will continue to see going forward, sometimes what surprises me about localization Henry is how little he was changed! What I mean is, I thought something as goofy as Henry calling himself a pillow would have been some silly fluff the localization added, but nope! He does indeed refer to himself as a pillow in the Japanese too.
Henry / Frederick
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Okay, fine! Geez, careful not to twist your smallclothes there...
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]は~い。ごめんなさ~い。▼(Henry: Understooood. I'm sorrrry.)
The English changed the Japanese line here, but I think it was necessary - without the nuance of the Japanese tilde (~), I think it's not as obvious that Henry is being sarcastic. So the localization added a sarcastic joke to bridge that gap. (Also, get ready to see the tilde A LOT going forward in Henry's Japanese text!!)
that Also, this is a bit off topic, but fun to point out anyway. If you ever hear anyone say Japanese has no sarcasm, you have some good proof of the contrary now. Japanese Henry can be quite sarcastic too! It's a common claim that Japanese has no sarcasm, because they don't use it anywhere near as much as English speakers use. But in actuality, Japanese speakers just don't utilize it in the exact same ways English speakers do!!
Now back on topic! :)
B Support
Snippet No. 1:
Eng. NA Localization:
Frederick: Because I know that anything can happen on the battlefield. I do not want my dying thought to be "if only I had trained a little harder." Henry: I want my dying thought to be about blood! ...Or maybe ichor.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]ふ~ん。▼ (Oh, really~?)
Snippet No. 2:
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Whoa, easy there, Frederick! You're bruising my arm! ...Oooo, look at the colors!
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]ちょ、ちょっと~…▼(H-Hey~...)
We see the tilde again! I'll explain it in proper detail this time.
In short, Japanese video game dialogue uses the tilde A LOT to convey the tone of a character's speech.
I find that it can be used very broadly, and in a number of situations. Humor is the number 1 situation though, I think. It is used when characters are joking or sarcastic; or when characters are speaking in a lighthearted, happy, or whimsical tone. You'll also see it when a character is speaking in a sing-song voice, or just actually singing (See: a character like Engage's Timerra!).
In the case of Henry, we can understand in the Japanese thanks to the tilde that he is always joking around, being sarcastic, having fun with everything, lighthearted and never serious, etc. etc..
However... there's no singular symbol that can cover all of that tone in English! I mean, I do think dialogue could use the ~ and some people would get it, but I certainly don't think it is standardized enough to rely on in a video game released to a mass audience.
So what was the English localization to do? Well, a lot of the time, word choice and laughter alone can get Henry's meaning across just as well on its own. ...But it can't always be that straightforward. This is where I think it was obsoletely necessary for the localization to add jokes to Henry's dialogue to maintain the same meaning and tone as the Japanese. The above two samples I pulled from the Henry / Frederick supports are great examples of that. They help get the point across about just how much Henry jokes around, and how sarcastic he is.
That's all I have to say about the tilde for now, as I'm sure it won't be the last time I point one out in Henry's conversations. :)
Henry / Sully
B Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: That's 'cause you WERE! ...You totally still had five or six solid minutes left, though.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]そうだね~。あと数刻もすれば (Henry: It was, wasn't it? After a bit longer,) 死んじゃってたと思うよ~。▼ (you would have died, I think~.)
Again, wow, it really surprises me what lines are very direct from the Japanese sometimes! Henry really just is that morbid, and candid about death!
A Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: I can't remember BEING upset. Folks here are so nice, and even bad guys are pretty great when they splatter. When life gives ya lemons, use 'em to ward off scurvy. That's what I say!
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]僕は怒らないよ~。▼ (I don't get mad~.) 怒るほど嫌なことを (And something so bad it makes me mad) 人にされることも滅多に無いし~。▼ (people hardly ever do to me~.) 大抵のことは笑って済ませられるよ~。▼ (I end most things with a laugh~.)
Even in a case like this, where the localization was a bit more liberal, Henry's tone still didn't change much. "When life gives you lemons" and "I end most things with a laugh~" can boil down to a same sort of connotation. Again, the localization is playing up Henry's humor and morbid optimism to fully get it across, in the absence of the Japanese tilde.
Henry / Miriel
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: You always have to know exactly how things work, huh? Want a demonstration? I could turn Robin into a toad or something. Miriel: No. The experiment is not of such import that our comrades need be imperiled. Henry: But it wouldn't be forever! Just a few days at the most. Miriel: If we were suddenly called to battle, a toad tactician would be most disadvantageous. Henry: Oh yeah. I hadn't thought about that. Well, maybe I could cast a different kind of hex. Miriel: So long as the risk is within acceptable parameters.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]仕組み? あはは、(Henry: How they work? Ah ha ha, 勉強熱心だな~、ミリエルは。▼ (you're so passionate about your studies, Miriel~!) じゃあちょっと見本を見せるから (In that case, I'll show you a small example, so) そのへんの誰かを呪ってみるね~?▼ (I'll try cursing someone around here, alright~?) [ミリエル]その辺の誰か・・・? (Miriel: Someone around here...?) 味方を呪い殺すおつもりですか?▼ (Do you intend to cast a deadly curse on an ally?) [ヘンリー]あ、ダメだった~?▼ (Henry: Oh, would you not like that~?) [ミリエル]えぇ・・・。戦力が減るのは (Miriel: Um... A decrease in our forces) 軍にとって良くないことですから・・・。▼ (would not be good for our army...) [ヘンリー]そっか~。じゃあ死なない呪いにするよ。(Henry: I see~. Then I'll pick a curse that won't kill them!) それならいいでしょ~?▼ (That will be okay, right~?) [ミリエル]はい、そういうことなら・・・ (Miriel: Yes. If that is the case,) じっくりと観察させていただきます。▼ (then allow me to observe carefully.)
Henry decides to target poor Robin specifically in the localization, but otherwise, the support chain has no significant changes.
Henry / Sumia
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Nya ha ha! Looked at all the smashed crockery! That's hilarious!
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]ほんとだ、すご~い。全部粉々だね~。▼ (Henry: You're right, woooow! They're all in pieces, aren't they?)
Another example of how the English made up for the lack of the tilde's Japanese connotation - Henry just outright says he finds the current situation hilarious.
Henry / Ricken
B Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Oh! And Campari used to make little birdhouses for homeless—
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]あと、ポモドーロ様はね…▼ (Henry: After them there was Campari...)
In another one of Henry's stand-out support conversations, in the Japanese, he stops before sharing what made Campari such a great guy, but otherwise the conversation is overwhelmingly the same as in JP.
A Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Judging by your expression, I'd say it's a serious one. Nya ha ha!
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]うん、いいよ~。(Henry: Yeah, that's fine~.) そんなに真剣な顔してどうしたの~?▼ (Why are you making such a serious face?)
Another great little example of how the localization made up for the lack of tilde - in place of the tilde, to convey that he is joking around, the localization has Henry laugh out loud.
Henry / Maribelle
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: I'm not feigning anything. I'm just really in touch with the natural world. I can talk to any living thing you want. Trees. Flowers. Maggots. Ooooooh... Maaaggots... Maribelle: That is a remarkable talent, if a shade disturbing.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]合わせてなんかないよ~。▼ (I'm not feigning, or anything of the sort~.) 僕はねぇ、自然に満ちている あらゆるものと会話できるんだよ~。▼ (You see, I can talk to all things filled with nature~.) [マリアベル]そ、そうですの…。(Maribelle: C-Can you...) 本当なら、すごいことですわね…。▼ (If that's true, then it is remarkable, indeed...)
The localization added in Henry's little pause on the word "maggots," (and added in the word "maggot" to begin with) but otherwise, this is another rather directly translated support chain.
Henry / Panne
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Panne: THAT was your reason?!
Original Japanese:
[ベルベット]…呆れたわ。(Panne: ...I'm astounded.) そんな理由なの…?▼ (Your reason was one such as that...?) 人間は理解しがたいけど、(Humans are difficult to understand, but) あなたは中でも極めつけよ。▼ (you are especially so.)
This exchange from Panne at the end of the C Support was actually longer in the Japanese. I don't see any particular stand-out reason why this is. Perhaps it was even an error, and the localization accidentally left out some of the text.
S Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Panne: We're too alike, you and I. We both lost our families and lived alone too long. But no more. I accept your ring. From now on, we are each other's family.
Original Japanese:
[ベルベット]あなたは似てるの。(Panne: You are like him.) 人間に殺された、私の弟に…▼ (My younger brother, who was killed by humans.) いいわ、受け取らせてもらう。(I will accept your ring.) あなたのそばにいてあげる、ヘンリー。▼ (I will be by your side, Henry.) これからは、私たちは家族よ。▼ (From now on, we are family.)
In the Japanese, Panne does not compare Henry to herself, but to her brother. Her brother is removed entirely in the localization, which at first seems like a pretty big deal. Perhaps it is because he is never mentioned again? It is odd that her sibling (who would seem important to her) is such a throwaway character in this one line of her supports with Henry.
Henry / Cordelia
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh. Say, what if the wife was dead? Could you give it to him then?
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]ふーん…よくわかんないなあ。(Henry: Huh... I don't really get it.) 奥様がいると襟巻きが渡せないんだ。▼ (He has a wife, so you can't give him the scarf.) じゃあ、奥様が死んじゃったら (So, if his wife was dead,) 渡せるようになるの?▼ (would you be able to give it to him then?)
Here's another example I included not because it's changed from the Japanese - but because I was surprised to see this confirmation that Henry really is this morbid in the Japanese as well!
A Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: I asked Lissa for advice, and she told me to take you on a big shopping trip. She said a few hours trying on dresses and armor would fix that broken heart, pronto! (skip a few lines) Henry: Then how about some comfort food? Fruit pies and cream? Candy apples? Macaroni and cheese with fried boar crisps and crumbled horse—
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]リズから聞いたんだ~。(Henry: I asked Lissa~.) 女の子の胸が苦しい時は、▼ (When a girl's heart hurts,) 買い物したりやけ食いしたりすると (things like shopping, or eating a lot) 治るんだって~。▼ (will cure it!) (skip a few lines) [ヘンリー]そうなんだ~。(Henry: I understand~.) じゃあ、やけ食いの方が好き?▼ (So you like overeating more?)
In the Japanese, Lissa's advice to Henry includes not only retail therapy, but also... overeating / binge eating. That's an understandably sensitive topic for the localization team to dodge.
It's true the localization does have Henry propose some comfort food food at the end of the convo... but I think Henry asking if Cordelia wants to eat a treat or two is different than proposing she full-on binge eats.
Henry / Nowi
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Nowi: No! I'm an adult woman who's more than a thousand years older than you! Henry: Oh, right! Nya ha ha! Sorry, short stuff!
Original Japanese:
[ノノ]ノノは子どもじゃないもん。(Nowi: Nowi's not a child!) 千年以上生きてる大人の女なんだから!▼ (Because Nowi is an adult woman who's lived for over 1,000 years!) [ヘンリー]あ、そうだったね。(Henry: Oh, that's right!) あはは、ごめんなさい、お姉さん。▼ (Ah ha ha, sorry, big sister!)
Ah, the 1,000 year old child-looking adult dragon. An FE classic.
But actually, the Japanese line was the same in this case! A young-looking character reiterating that they are totally an adult, isn't always an addition of the localization. (I say this because it was so in the main Fates script with Elise).
B Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Yep! They're probably quivering in fear under their beds and crying like babies. But no worries! There'll be more victim—er, that is, village kids—at our next camp. (skip a few lines) Henry: If they exchanged fire breath with you, they'd end up as little clumps of charcoal.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]うん、たぶん無理だと思うよ~。▼(Henry: Yeah, I think it's probably no use~!) でも、いいじゃない。ほかの土地にも (But that's okay, isn't it? Because in other areas) 子どもはたくさんいるんだから。▼ (there's also lots of children.) (skip a few lines) [ヘンリー]うーん…僕には空を飛んだり (Henry: Hmm... I can't fly in the sky) ブレスを吹いたりできないしなぁ。▼ (or blow fire breath, or anything like that.)
Here, the localization added a bit to Henry's morbidity. In the Japanese, he didn't joke around and start to call the children he and Nowi played with victims, or go so far as to describe that her fire breath would turn them to charcoal.
While Henry is morbid and sarcastic in the Japanese, this is further proof that the localization did add in some extra. Which again, makes up for some of the gap left without the tilde ~ in English.
Henry / Tharja
C Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Sure! You want me to cast a death curse on someone? Tharja: Someone in camp? Mmm... No. That could be problematic. Henry: Hee hee! Yeah, I guess. Too bad, though. See, 'cause I've got one that makes blood come out your—
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]そうなんだ~。(Henry: Did you now~?) じゃ、ちょっと呪いあってみる~?▼ (Then shall I try casting a teensy-weensy curse on them?) [サーリャ]結構よ…。仲間同士で (Tharja: You don't have to...) 潰し合っても、不毛なだけだから…。▼ (For allies to kill each other, would be meaningless...) [ヘンリー]あはは、それは残念だな~。▼ (Henry: Ah ha ha, that's too bad~.)
The morbid joke about exactly what kind of curse Henry wants to try out - one that involves making blood come out from... somewhere - was a small add-on in the localization. This chunk of the exchange otherwise follows the Japanese.
Eng. NA Localization:
Tharja: Ugh... Hale? Hearty? Have you no respect for our ancient profession? We're supposed to be harbingers of pestilence and famine and doom! Henry: Mm... I love doom.
Original Japanese:
[サーリャ]健全で純真ですって…?(Tharja: Healthy...? Pure...?) …呪いを使う者が、よく言う…。▼(...Well said for a spellcaster of curses...) …まぁいいわ…くれぐれも (...Whatever... don't keep) おかしな真似はしないことね。▼ (acting weird, alright?) [ヘンリー]は~い。▼ (Henry: Okaaaaaay.)
The exact ending of the C Support is ever so slightly different. In both, Tharja basically says to Henry to act more like a dark mage, but the little joke about "doom" was added.
B Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Hello, Tharja! Tharja: *Mumble, mumble* *hiss* Henry: Heey! Did you just put a curse on me? Tharja: Yes, Now, if you do not speak the truth, you will DIE! Answer me clearly and without hesitation. Are you a foreign spy? Henry: Nope! Not me! Although I do own a cloak and a couple daggers. Tharja: Who do you serve? Ylisse or Plegia? Henry: Aw, I don't get into politics. I just want to toss fireballs at bad guys.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]…あれ? これって…。▼ (Henry: ...Huh? This is...) [サーリャ]…思ったよりあっさりかかったわね。▼ (Tharja: ...That was much easier than I thought it would be.) [ヘンリー]あ、やっぱりサーリャだ。(Henry: Ah, I knew it, it's you Tharja!) 僕に呪いをかけたね~?▼ (You cast a curse on me, didn't you?) [サーリャ]えぇ…これで私の前では (Tharja: Yes... Now, before me) 嘘や隠しごとはできないわよ…。▼ (you cannot lie or hide anything...) 正直に答えなさい… (Answer me honestly...) 貴方、誰かのスパイじゃないでしょうね…?▼ (You aren't anyone's spy, are you?) [ヘンリー]うん、スパイじゃないよ~。▼ (Henry: Nope, I'm not a spy~!) [サーリャ]じゃあ、貴方は…ペレジアと (Tharja: So you... between Plegia) イーリスと、どっちの味方…?▼ (And Ylisse, which are you an ally of...) [ヘンリー]ん~…味方とか、よくわかんないな~。(Henry: Hm~... I don't really know who's ally I am~.) 悪いと思った奴と戦うだけじゃダメなの?▼ (Is it wrong to just fight whoever I think is bad?)
A few little tweaks here. Tharja is in the middle of casting her curse in her first line in the localization, whereas in the Japanese, it was already over, and she was making a comment as to how easy it was to do. And then, Henry's quips were added onto a bit in localization.
A Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Hecka-necka, jimma-jamma, woozle-wazzle! Aaand presto! Curse dispelled! Actually not dispelled. I tossed it back at the original sender. Hee hee!
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]あ、それなら大丈夫だよ~。(Henry: Ah, if it's that, that's fine~.) 僕がもうはね返しておいたから~。▼ (Because I already bounced it back~.)
Henry's "chant" was added in localization. In the Japanese, by the time Henry says his line, he's already sent the curse back to its caster.
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Well, usually I disarm foes by removing their arms. But your way sounds impressive, too!
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]あはは、だから最初に言ったじゃない~。(Henry: Ah ha ha, that's what I said in the beginning, isn't it~?) 僕は健全で純真な心の持ち主だって。▼ (I have a healthy and pure heart.) でも、嬉しいなぁ~、(But I'm happy~.) サーリャに褒めてもらえて~。▼ (I was complemented by you~.)
And the localization was just taking advantage of an opportunity to make a disarming pun here, it was not already in the Japanese.
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Wizard fight! Wizard fight! Yaaaaaay!
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]わぁ~。サーリャ、こわ~い。▼(Henry: Eeeeek~! Tharja is scaaaary~!)
In the Japanese, Henry doesn't get excited to have a wizard fight with Tharja, but he still does act pretty goofy by pretending to be scared of her.
S Support
Somehow, I don't have anything to add to this one! Henry really does run off to have an engagement ring made after Tharja says she will accept his proposal if he agrees to protect Robin.
Henry / Cherche
C Support
The C Support adds a number of little bits to Henry's dialogue, again just to play up his goofiness more, because English lacks a symbol like the Japanese tilde ~.
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Sure have! She's as cute as a button, that one. ...Well, if buttons were cute. We had wyverns in Plegia, you know, and also the occasional fell beast. But we didn't have a single wyvern that was as pretty as Minerva.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]うん!(Henry: Yeah!) かわいいよね~、ミネルヴァ!▼ (Minerva sure is cute~!) ペレジアにも (In Plegia too,) ドラゴンナイトはいたけど、▼ (there were wyvern knights, but) この子くらいかわいい 飛竜はいなかったよ~!!▼ (There weren't any as cute as this wyvern~!)
There was no mention of buttons in the Japanese version, Henry just says Minerva is cute.
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Yep! I make four-legged friends wherever I go! And even some two-legged ones. I'm also pals with a three-legged bear, but that's a story for another time.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]僕は自然と��達だから (Henry: I'm friends with nature, so) みんなと仲良しなんだよ~。▼ (I get along with all of them~.)
No mention of a three-legged bear friend in Japanese. Not that Japanese Henry wouldn't be excited to befriend a three-legged bear.
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Yowza! Sh-she tried to bite me! Look, I'm bleeding! Mmm, blood...
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]ひゃあっ! 噛まないで~!▼ (Henry: Hyaaah! Don't bite me~!)
And the localization added in the fact that Henry was bleeding, and excited to see it.
B Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Aw, it's fine. I bet I just give off some kind of animal aura. Or maybe she thought I was a big ham? I do smell kind of ham-like.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]あはは、僕って (Henry: Ah ha ha, I) 獣っぽい気配がするみたい~。▼ (it seems I have an animal-like aura~.) だから獲物だと 勘違いしたのかもしれないね~。▼ (So maybe she mistook me for prey~.)
Henry doesn't propose that maybe he smells like ham, rather, in the Japanese, he thought that maybe Minerva mistook him for prey.
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: Well, when I was young, my best friend in the entire world was a giant wolf. My parents ignored me most of the time, so that wolf became my whole family. Then one day she came to visit me, and some hunters in the village... They shot her full of arrows. Killed her on the spot.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]うん! 実は、昔仲良しの狼がいたんだ。(Henry: Yeah! Actually, long ago, there was a wolf I was friends with.) 僕、親に放ったらかしにされてたから、▼ (I was neglected by my parents, so) 小さい頃の親友と言うか、(You could call them a friend I had when I was young,) ほとんど家族みたいなものだったんだけど~▼ (or something like family, but~) ある日その狼が僕に会いに来たとき、(One day, when they came to see me,) 周りにいた大人たちに殺されちゃって…。▼ (they were killed by the adults around us...)
In the Japanese, Henry doesn't refer to the wolf's killers as "hunters," but "adults."
Also, the Japanese doesn't hint at whether the wolf was male or female, so I went with neutral pronouns.
A Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Cherche: I'm very happy that you like Minerva and you two get along so well. But I think you need to spend more time with human friends—namely, me. So I'm going to carry out my patrol on foot, and you're coming with me.
Original Japanese:
[セルジュ]ミネルヴァちゃんと仲良くなってくれるのは (Cherche:) とっても嬉しいんだけど、▼ (I'm very happy that you've become friends with Minerva-chan, but) あなたは本当の意味で人と接することを もっと重ねるべきだと思う。▼ (I think you should have more experiences getting truly close to people.) 偵察は私たちふたりで行きましょう。(Let's go on patrol together.) 私、あなたともっと仲良くなりたいわ。▼ (I want to become better friends with you.)
The localization of the A support was a pretty straightforward translation of the Japanese for the most part, but this bit of Cherche's dialogue from near the end is subtly different.
I think the localization subtracts a little from the real meaning of what Cherche is trying to get across to Henry - it's not that he doesn't spend time with people, its that when he does, he doesn't form meaningful relationships with them. The exact nuance is different.
S Support
Eng. NA Localization:
Henry: I figured the old dogs would be barking, so I brought a homemade bunion salve. Cherche: Why, thank you, Henry! But how did you know? Henry: We've been on so many patrols together, I've memorized your whole routine. After this, you'll put a cold towel on your head and drink a cup of hot elderberry tea.
Original Japanese:
[ヘンリー]はい、これ。(Henry: This is for you.) 薬に漬けた湿布だよ~。▼ (A wet compress soaked in medicine~.) [セルジュ]あら、ありがとう。(Cherche: Oh my, thank you.) 脚が張っていたの、気づいてたの?▼ (You noticed that my legs are swollen?) [ヘンリー]うん。だって、あれから毎日 (Henry: Yup! After all, since then, every day) 二人で偵察に行ってたんだもん。▼ (we've gone on patrol together!) もうセルジュのことなら (If it's about you) なんでもわかるようになっちゃったよ~。▼ (then I already know everything there is to know~.)
Henry's treatments for Cherche after their patrol together were a bit different in Japanese.
The localization even added in elderberry tea when no mention of drinks was made before. Who on the team was such a fan of elderberry tea that it's the only tea anyone on the Awakening cast drinks? I'll always wonder.
Eng. NA Localization:
Cherche: Goodness, Henry, but this is sudden. However, I have found myself...thinking about you a lot lately. Ever since we met, I've wanted to know the real man behind that jolly facade. And this would be a chance to do just that. Very well, Henry, I accept your proposal!
Original Japanese:
[セルジュ]ふふ…やっとその笑顔を (Cherche: Tee hee...) 私にも向けてくれるようになったのね。▼ (You're finally in a place where you make that smile at me!) …私も、あなたが好きよ。(...I love you too.) 友達になりたいっていうのは嘘。▼ (It was a lie when I said that I wanted to be friends with you.) 本当はずっと、あなたの心が知りたい、(To be honest, I've always wanted to know your heart,) 誰よりも近くにいたいって思ってた。▼ (and to become closer to you than anyone else.) 毎日変わっていくあなたを… (You've been changing bit by bit every day...) これからも一番傍で見ていたいわ。▼ (I want to continue to see you at my side more than anyone else is.)
The localization left out the full extent of what Cherche was saying - that she's had romantic feelings for Henry for quite a long time before this conversation.
Henry / Olivia
So I saved Henry / Olivia for last and went a little out of recruitment order, because I remembered this conversation being pretty different in localization vs the Japanese. So I wanted to save "the big one" for last.
First, I want to point out that I did a full translation of this support chain several years ago now (*Checks post history* Wait... EIGHT years ago?! Dang!), so I don't really need to talk about specific lines. You can read and compare for yourself! I also posted the localized version below the Japanese in each post, so you you can save yourself an internet search.
C Support - B Support - A Support - S Support
Instead of discussing specifics, I'll just wrote some of my general thoughts in a few paragraphs.
In the C support, I think it's unfortunate that the localization downplayed Henry's original intentions for choosing to kill the dog. He does not try to fight the dog's death, if it is the only way to relieve its pain. If death is its fate, he accepts it. It's great nuance for his character, that I think was the highlight of the convo.
In the B support, I remembered thinking that the localization really changed this one, but that's not as true as I thought it was. In summary, Olivia thinks that Henry's sense of humor is a coping mechanism and his smiles aren't genuine. But Henry rejects that interpretation and says he just is who he is. That's same in both versions. The biggest change is to Henry's backstory at the "wizarding" school. Now that I look back on it, I actually see a good possibility as to why the localization chose to make this change. Saying that Henry experienced brutal pain and injuries because of "experiments gone wrong" still conveys that his teachers were terribly abusive - because healthy teachers would not be assigning magic training that could be so easily dangerous - but it isn't as graphic as "bad children were beaten senseless!" Child abuse is a pretty common trigger, so I get why the localization team would want to tweak this part of the convo a bit.
For the A and S supports, I don't have anything major to mention.
Also, throughout the entire support chain, Henry calls Olivia "crazy lady." I don't know exactly how I feel about this, because it feels a little out of place with the rest of his sense of morbid humor. But he does get a little sarcastic and sassy with people when they get on his nerves in any way - which Olivia very much is doing, by trying to say his outward personality is trauma coping and not genuine. So the more I think about it, the more I think it fits his personality fine.
So as my final conclusion, I can say that Henry / Olivia is the most changed of all Henry's supports in localization, but even then, that's only saying so much.
-----------------------------
And so, that's that! Generally speaking, Henry's conversations were pretty faithfully translated; with minor changes here and there, mostly to convey his sense of humor due to English's lack of the ~ tilde symbol used in dialogue. I only found a couple of more major changes, none of them particularly conversation-altering.
Henry's such a fun character to begin with that the localization team only had to make some subtle changes here and there to get his exact sense of humor and personality across, wherever it might have otherwise been lost in translation. And they did a pretty good job with that! Only a small selection of changes made me scratch my head a bit. Overall, good work all around.
Thanks for reading! :)
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sysig · 23 days
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Giving nicknames, testing boundaries (Patreon)
#Doodles#SCII#Helix#Max Vyer#Dexter Favin#How /did/ Max come to like him so much in just two years? I have my theories :3#More Teen Max!! Nothing has changed I just continue to love him lol#Two years is a pretty quick turnaround for such a stubborn kid - though I guess for a child two years can be a long time haha#Went from just hating Dex's guts of trying to drive him away and make him quit and hating being kept on a short leash#Does make me wonder how much of him kissing him was an impulse - I mean obviously lol but how much was genuine attraction!#Certainly seemed like a lot :0 Even upon being rejected he couldn't give it up! Still took him another several years to act again tho haha#I mean - in the text lol who knows what they got up to in the time skips hehe ♪#AnyWay lol - them getting used to each other of slowly working into tolerating each other#Max said something in one of his wake-ups that as I read it implied Dexter was something of a polyglot?? Which - love that ♪#If not conversationally-fluent then at tourist-fluent y'know I think that's great <3#Which got me thinking about other languages and insults and curses haha#I like the idea of Dex only really strong-arming Max about Actual deviant behaviour - something that puts himself or others at risk#Harmless little things like any teen would do - like name-calling! Haha - just get a kind of neutral ''Huh''#As well as interest <3 Not an outright dismissal not a lecture but at least the appearance of investment!#Considering Max's home life I can't imagine he had all that many people genuinely (or fake) interested in his shenanigans#All about suppressing the symptoms more than rooting out the cause it's amazing what just showing a little interest can do#I also just think it's cute of Max getting away with something silly and harmless but totally biting and mean! <in his mind haha#Silly lad <3
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aaasherr · 2 years
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being a collector and living with your parents is so hard, my room is so small and i dont have any room for my STUFF but i have so much STUFF
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unproduciblesmackdown · 10 months
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mused on some thesis about how billions uses Indignity to illustrate that something someone does has failed / gone wrong in one way or another, and how the way this punishment is an Emotional one means that it can't land if the character just doesn't Feel that punished by it, or at least doesn't like attribute the supposed failure to something inherent enough to them to particularly stew on it, see for example people heightening/escalating their efforts to embarass someone if even that person doesn't Seem to sufficiently externally react in embarassment. winston able to truck along while (a) consciously crafting or maintaining some persona, of eternal and irrefutable dignity or whatever else is associated with "merit"/status, isn't much of a priority, when to him his skills speak for themself even though to others this is about their own merit in recognizing independently if winston's skills Happen to have use, and putting him down if he tries to speak to that anyways, and (b) he's also just able to move along from L's handed to him, whether he thinks it was warranted (like that he'll accept it doesn't count if he only thought it but didn't say it) or not (why can't you count to loyalty), when even if this resilience To How Others Treat Him isn't exactly peak realistic, that he thinks of himself in such a way that he doesn't need to be striving for some paramount official status, or think he's defined by never failing or indeed never possibly able to be seen within a "wow undignified / embarassing" framework so long as this winningness is recognized, or so long as anything is anything, is sure feasible enough.
but anyways thought about it like this thesis is just "i am cringe but i am free" like yeah that works
#winston billions#just lifelong recognition that like the [the way they are means they generate comedy] type like peripheral characters are the ones like#yeah of course That's who's relatable; never the like supposedly aspirational and/or peak relatable central/main characters#and that can extend easily enough to the [basically just a running joke] Outlier Single Weirdo Always Just Doing Their Own Thing#like boy we all know people like that huh eyesrollingemoji like yeah. we sure do lol#but also like I Love You any time smthing using comedy is like; look: Everyone is funny & ''weird'' & ''uncool'' & ''doing things wrong''#like yeah they and we are lol#billions is creating what we Get to see or hear of in the first place / what info we get; how a character is shown to us....#and boy it just so happens that the characters who aren't epic enough to be brought further into the center of things#also just so happen to inadvertently or advertently Spontaneously share more info abt themselves for ppl to have negative reactions to#while we may be ''surprised'' that axe sucks b/c huh wasn't he so externally epic seeming???? like on what planet; first of all....#meanwhile winston is not here to be like as ambitious as possible & is more like. sometimes he'll play around; since he's here....#but this joie de vivre spontaneity is never Cool(tm) of him & maybe he'd be Cooler if he was like (scrolling) ''beneath me; beneath me...''#(he would not be lol. he's not allowed; fundamentally! it's not Merit in there or out here. nobody has a Deserved greater Air of Dignity)#(but he's getting to have a bit more fun now and then; he'd be punished for his inherent inferiority anyways. and even if like#basically his continuing to be present; continuing to choose to do shit; unacceptably flies in the face of the theory that someone's#inherent superiority will just Make It So that inferior ppl are shunted out of their way or w/e; means that ppl lash out about that by at#least trying to momentarily take Whatever away from him: positive emotional motivation; space to speak unpunished much less be listened to;#space to guaranteed have a Presence unpunished &/or unignored....like well that's the tradeoff to that versus if he tried going for the#tradeoff of much lower highs on average and maybe slightly higher lows on average. not up to You The Individual to simply ''correctly''#strategize your way out of anyways. e.g. rian has to Choose to treat him with basic respect for his being a person. or someone else has to#Choose to intervene in such a way that lends enough support to winston / thwarts the means with which rian can torment him.)#and in the meantime he apparently can only be peripheral & [funny; little] b/c his Dignity is low stakes. no Arc to ''restore'' it in eithe#anyone else's eyes or much more usually the character's own perception of themself. winston will just be like eh yeah i suck then lol#(when like basically the way He Sucks that ppl give him shit for = his being autistic like ofc he can only roll with / ''accept'' that)#and then he can go whee yippee wahoo & have a blood orange flavored doughnut & ppl can go my god if i were him i'd die#mafee i guess exemplifying this too. Generally able to scuff his foot on the ground like aw gee :( yeah i effed up cringefail style huh#and then move on without it really being much of a whole damn thing. even though it's also Often abt taylor likewise being the one like#[head in hands over mafee fucking up having the collateral or direct damage for them] but they're not here to be fueled by grudges#& ofc this all being Perspective; everyone in billions Is cringefailing lol; but not everyone gets continual [joke at their expense] for it
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ironmanstan · 1 year
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alchemiclee · 2 months
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sometimes I say words and sometimes people like/reblog those words (sometimes even adding a tag comment!!!!) and i'm always like "omg do these words make sense to you??? do you like the nonsense that came out of my brain????????" it's always super surprising and makes me do a little happy dance.
part of me wants to talk about that nonsense with them more, but the other part of me is bad at people and too afraid 🥲😅
#lee text#in which lee misses having long autistic rambling conversations with people about interests where we both send paragaraph upon paragraph#as if we are trying to write a novel about the thing and sometimes that conversation would span over a few days and we keep going#until we have thoroughly disussed the thing with as many ideas as we can come up with#its hard to find that kind of person. they have to have the same interest at exactly the same intensity and have a general same opnion on it#same as in they like it and think its good vs disliking and wanting to debare rather than discuss. i hate debate. and they must be creative#and good at continuing the conversation and going with thr flow in a way that we both fit each others conversation style and yeah#i had a few people like that in the past ans miss that. but theyre so hard to come by and you meet them by chance#its not something you can force. its like an accident. so “looking for someone” doesnt work. have to feel their vibe and energy and match#anyway reading people's star rail analysis and theories and thoughts and whatnot is fun#since im too bad at people to talk to ans get along with just anyone. reading posts takes out the pressure to socialize correctly#but its still lonely not sharing my thoughts. thats why when random person likes or reblogs my posts i feel seen/heard#its nice. especially if they add tags. it feels almost like we reciprocated and interacted or something#i was seen and heard and they also are seen and heard by me and im honoured they also said words!!!!!! even if just tags on a reblog#anyway someone reblogged a post i made and added their thoughts in the tags and ive been thinking about it all day 🫣🥲😭🥺
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vaspider · 5 months
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While I'm writing things that I've been intending to write for a while... one of the things that I think that a lot of people who haven't been involved in like... banking or corporate shenaniganry miss about why our economy is its current flavor of total fuckery is the concept of "fiduciary duty to shareholders."
"Why does every corporation pursue endless growth?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.
"Why do corporations treat workers the way they do?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.
"Why do corporations make such bass-ackwards decisions about what's 'good for' the company?" Fiduciary duty to shareholders.
The legal purpose of a corporation with shareholders -- its only true purpose -- is the generation of revenue/returns for shareholders. Period. That's it. Anything else it does is secondary to that. Sustainability of business, treatment of workers, sustainability and quality of product, those things are functionally and legally second to generating revenue for shareholders. Again, period, end of story. There is no other function of a corporation, and all of its extensive legal privileges exist to allow it to do that.
"But Spider," you might say, "that sounds like corporations only exist in current business in order to extract as much money and value as possible from the people actually doing the work and transfer it up to the people who aren't actually doing the work!"
Yes. You are correct. Thank you for coming with me to that realization. You are incredibly smart and also attractive.
You might also say, "but Spider, is this a legal obligation? Could those running a company be held legally responsible for failing their obligations if they prioritize sustainability or quality of product or care of workers above returns for shareholders?"
Yes! They absolutely can! Isn't that terrifying? Also you look great today, you're terribly clever for thinking about these things. The board and officers of a corporation can be held legally responsible to varying degrees for failing to maximize shareholder value.
And that, my friends, is why corporations do things that don't seem to make any fucking sense, and why 'continuous growth' is valued above literally anything else: because it fucking has to be.
If you're thinking that this doesn't sound like a sustainable economic model, you're not alone. People who are much smarter than both of us, and probably nearly as attractive, have written a proposal for how to change corporate law in order to create a more sensible and sustainable economy. This is one of several proposals, and while I don't agree with all of this stuff, I think that reading it will really help people as a springboard to understanding exactly why our economy is as fucked up as it is, and why just saying 'well then don't pursue eternal growth' isn't going to work -- because right now it legally can't. We'd need to change -- and we can change -- the laws around corporate governance.
This concept of 'shareholder primacy' and the fiduciary duty to shareholders is one I had to learn when I was getting my securities licenses, and every time I see people confusedly asking why corporations try to grow grow grow in a way that only makes sense if you're a tumor, I sigh and think, 'yeah, fiduciary duty to shareholders.'
(And this is why Emet and I have refused to seek investors for NK -- we might become beholden to make decisions which maximize investor return, and that would get in the way of being able to fully support our people and our values and say the things we started this company to say.)
Anyway, you should read up on these concepts if you're not familiar. It's pretty eye-opening.
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amiableness · 3 months
Text
Little Lies
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Pairing: Sirius Black x Fem! Reader
Summary: James asks Sirius and Y/n to pretend to date after he blurts out they are to Lily.
Word Count: 11.4k
Warnings: smut 18+, male masturbation, oral fem receiving, fingering, unprotected sex (pls be so careful!), reader wears a bikini top, and jealousy
A/N 💌 Hope you all enjoy this; it's been my baby for a while!
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
“I may have severely fucked up.” James sighs, his features tight with guilt as he stands before you. His chest is heaving like he has run all the way to you—it’s a likely theory.
Remus glances up from beside you; the two of you had been buried in your homework in the common room when James came racing in. He’s disappointed that James has disrupted the productive atmosphere. There’s no way that you or Remus will be continuing to work on your essays.
His admission doesn’t surprise you; James has come to you countless times seeking assistance after making a mistake. Being best friends since you were born, you’ve grown accustomed to being the one to untangle his messes.
Your parents were best friends, which meant that you and James were also raised to be. There wasn’t a memory that you could recall that James wasn’t in. It ended up working; to both of your mum’s excitement, you and James were inseparable. As the levelheaded one between you, you often found yourself trailing after James, tasked with picking up the pieces.
It was in the aftermath of pranks spiraling out of control, times when he impulsively voiced things he really shouldn’t have, or instances when he procrastinated excessively on his work, inevitably turning to you for help with his essays. Surprisingly, it’s become almost amusing to you, a reliable routine in your friendship.
You undeniably held the title of James Potter’s best friend.
Your eyes narrow skeptically, folding your arms over your chest, “Define severely.”
His demeanor turns sheepish as he nervously rubs the back of his neck, his gaze drifting away from you. He looks incredibly uncomfortable, “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“You’re not starting off strong.” You snark, an amused smile finding its way onto your lips. Remus chuckles next to you.
“Y/n.” James sighs, his expression urging you to stop your teasing.
“James.” You mimic.
He shoots you a glare, eyes narrowed in mock irritation, “Lily and I were chatting, like really chatting,” He begins, sighing obnoxiously as he settles into the chair opposite you, his expression a grimace. “She told me why she hasn’t taken me seriously when I flirt with her.”
You pause, confusion etching into your features, “And where exactly did you severely fuck up?”
"She thought we were a couple." He says, his hands gesturing wildly between the two of you, his expression a mix of incredulity and amusement. "Can you believe that? You and me?”
You can believe that, actually. You and James have been mistaken for a couple more times than you can count. Even your parents were convinced the two of you would end up together. While you had told them it wasn’t going to happen, you were convinced they were still holding out hope.
You furrow your brows as you watch him a tad uneasy, “Okay, and where did you severely fuck up in this?”
“I panicked, okay?” James looks guilty when he blurts this out. He nearly shouts it, and Remus hushes him. “She said it wasn’t fair for me to flirt with her because of you. She didn’t want your feelings to be hurt and wouldn’t listen when I said we were just friends. And I panicked.”
“Mate, get to the bloody point.” Remus huffs out, tired of James dragging out the story. Nothing bothered Remus more than when James or Sirius took an eternity to get to the point of their story.
“I told her you’re dating Sirius.” James grimaces, shifting nervously.
“What?” You hiss, your palms smacking onto the table, causing James to flinch, “Have you taken too many hits to the head? James, we are not dating!”
James protests, panicking, "But Lily doesn't know that! If you two could just pretend-"
"No, absolutely not! That is going too far." You snap, sending James a frustrated look, while Remus is chuckling to himself next to you.
"Y/n, please. This could be it! My chance with Lily!" James pleads. He’s desperate to try and salvage the plan he had put all his hopes on.
"Starting your new relationship with a lie, are we?" You snap, massaging at your temples. Most of the stress is from spending too many hours studying, but James is undoubtedly making it worse.
James shrugs, a mischievous smirk starting to form, "Well, not really. You and Sirius already flirt a lot. It’s not that far off from the truth."
James was well aware of your feelings for Sirius; he had watched how you nervously stumbled over your words the first day you met Sirius. He had never seen you like that before, eyes lit up with inflation at first glance.
While he occasionally teased you about it, he understood that what you felt for Sirius was deeper than just a crush. Though you would never admit it out loud.
Your frustration grows, "It absolutely is far off from the truth. Lily probably didn’t even believe you! There's no evidence for her to believe the idea that we are together.” You cry, disbelief evident in your voice. James's casual attitude only adds to your frustration. He doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest.
Remus interjects, an amused scoff escaping him, “There's evidence to believe it."
"Are you joking?" You deadpan, your voice full of incredulity. Remus sends you a teasing smirk. He considers how Sirius flirts with you more than anyone else, but he doesn’t want to deal with Sirius furious at him.
Ever since you met Sirius, you have had a crush on him. Realistically, you knew it was pointless; Sirius had a fan club of admirers. So, you counted yourself lucky that you were one of his closest friends. Being his friend was manageable, and quite honestly, kept your expectations in check.
But Sirius acting like he had feelings for you? You wouldn’t handle that well.
James interjects, "Lily believed it. She even said she wasn't surprised."
"But she thought you and I were together?" You ask, sarcasm dripping from every word.
Your tone was snippier than you intended, but you could feel the stress building. The mere thought of pretending to be with Sirius made you feel nauseous.
"She might've just been jealous, wanting to know if you had feelings for James before she finally goes for him." Remus says casually, and James' eyes light up in excitement.
James is positively giddy as he leans forward, “You think she was jealous?”
"Does Sirius even know?" You interrupt, catching James's eye. He glances at Remus, clearly hoping to hear more about Lily’s supposed jealousy.
James shakes his head, and you scoff, opening your mouth to enlighten James on why you think this is a bad idea. Before you can say anything, Remus cuts you off, “Here’s your chance to tell him.”
You glance up to see Sirius walking through the library, and you resist letting out a lovesick sigh at how effortlessly handsome he is.
Your stomach plummets at the sight of a stunning girl effortlessly chatting with him. His laughter rings out, causing unease to settle in your stomach.
If he was close enough, you probably would’ve tried to eavesdrop.
Despite not knowing her name, you know she’s a Gryffindor; you’ve seen her in the common room. James nudges you, and when you glance at him, he sends you a knowing look.
"Glad to see you guys are having study dates without Peter and me." Sirius calls, settling into the seat next to James and patting him on the shoulder in greeting.
Relief washes over you as you notice that the girl who was with him a second ago is long gone. He glances over at you, and pauses in surprise at your disgruntled expression, "You okay?"
Remus chuckles at the question, finding the harsh look you shoot James hilarious. It’s clear that he’s finding this entire situation entertaining.
“Ask James about what he told Lily.” You say, voice strained with irritation. James sends Sirius a nervous smile, and Sirius looks at him oddly.
"What'd you do?"
Sirius asks, his eyes darting back to you, taking note of your frustrated expression. Your stomach tightens with nerves, scared of Sirius’ reaction. Remus leans back in his chair, excited to see how this will all play out.
"Lily and I were talking today," James sighs, "and she wouldn't stop going on about how she thinks Y/n is in love with me and that it's not fair for me to flirt with her because I could be hurting her."
"She thinks I'm in love with you?" You shriek, oblivious to the barely visible flinch on Sirius' face at James' words. Remus catches it, his grin getting bigger.
James ignores you, “Anyways, I said that it’s not a problem because you and Y/n are dating.” James finishes cautiously, his gaze locked on Sirius, curious for his reaction. Your breath is caught in your throat, your eyes fixed intently on Sirius, awaiting his reaction as well.
"You told Lily that Y/n's my girl?" Sirius inquires casually, causing your stomach to somersault at his words. You force yourself to focus on James instead of the warmth creeping into your skin.
"I panicked, and that's what came out. So, if you guys could pretend you're madly in love, that would be great!" James claps his hands together, and you feel the urge to wack him. You're prepared to snap at him, to explain why asking this of you both isn’t right.
But then Sirius shrugs, "Sure, shouldn't be too hard, right, sweet girl?" He says, and your legs feel like jelly.
You're floundering, not having expected Sirius to agree. He’s never maintained a steady relationship, so pretending that he’s dating you is a big ask. His agreement sends your mind spiraling with different scenarios. For a brief second, you wonder if he agrees so easily because he has feelings for you. But you quickly shut down that thought.
You’re delusional. You truly are.
"Sure, that shouldn't be too bad." You agree, hoping you appear casual about this.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
"I need you two to amp it up. Lily is eating breakfast with us today." James directs, causing you to glance up from your breakfast, disbelief etched into your features. He takes a bite of bacon and casually observes you as though his request is perfectly normal.
"We've switched spots, is that not enough for you?" You ask sarcastically, and Remus shakes his head, wearing an entertained smile as he continues eating breakfast. He can tell you're panicking about pretending to be with Sirius; it’s painfully obvious to everyone at the table.
You're usually seated between James and Peter, but when you attempted to slide into the seat this morning, James slammed his hand down on the seat and instructed you to sit next to your boyfriend, wearing a smug smile. Peter snorted softly but quickly replaced it with a sympathetic smile, silently apologizing for his reaction.
"I mean, we all know Sirius is into PDA, and you look terrified to even be sitting next to him." Peter points out, and you find yourself scrabbling.
Were you two supposed to be super affectionate? Would Sirius find it weird if you initiated it? Questions are flooding your mind leaving you feeling overwhelmed.
"I am not terrified. I just don’t know how to act." You insist.
"Act like you’re in love with him; it shouldn’t be too hard, right?" James quips, earning a glare from you. He responds with a playful wink.
"The boys are right. You need to sit closer to me.” Sirius declares as his arm slips around your waist, pulling you closer to him. You squeak his name in surprise, flustered at how easily he moves you. The boys chuckle at your bewildered expression, finding your embarrassment hilarious.
You feel disappointed when he releases you. Even more so when he doesn't pull you flush against him. Instead, your shoulder to shoulder, the distance between you both feeling more pronounced than ever.
"I'm still waiting on the PDA." Remus says with a playful smirk; his eyes are full of mischief when you glance at him.
You elbow Remus in the side, and he playfully nudges you back, causing you to bump into Sirius' side. Sirius surprises you by wrapping his arm around you, keeping you against him while playfully calling out, "Oi, back off, mate." Being pressed against his side causes warmth to spread through you as you lean further into him.
James watches as Sirius's cheeks flush, a soft smile on his face as he gazes down at you. You appear flustered but content, being so close to him, and James can't help but grin at the two of you.
"We're not going to be all over each other." You say, attempting to distract yourself from the fact that you’re pushed up against Sirius.
"Why not?" James leans forward with a grin, clearly finding everything about this entertaining. “That is what most couples do. Plus, Sirius openly flirts with everyone. But he won’t kiss his own girlfriend? It’s not believable.”
“Merlin, we should have talked about this last night.” You mumble under your breath, and Sirius chuckles beside you. He's entirely at ease. It doesn’t seem like he has any worries about pretending to be your boyfriend. With that observation, you try not to let your worries spiral out of control.
"Listen, we can do whatever you're comfortable with. If you don't want to kiss, then we don't have to," Sirius tells you gently, "but it would be sort of odd for us not to be somewhat affectionate."
The last thing he wants to do is make you feel uncomfortable. But there's a rush of exhilaration at the thought of holding you close and calling you pet names that were once off-limits. And the thought of possibly kissing you?
Surviving that would be inconceivable for him.
"You're right," You nod. “Let's just start off slow. It will be weird if we're all over each other today when we didn’t even sit together yesterday."
"Yeah, yeah! Flirt, be a little touchy, throw some cute pet names in here, will you, Sirius?" James calls out with great enthusiasm. You send him a look that you hope he understands as shut the fuck up. He doesn’t acknowledge your discomfort. Instead, he makes a heart shape with his hands, which adds to your annoyance.
Sirius presses a quick kiss to your temple, “Fuck off, mate. I know how to flirt with my girlfriend, right baby?” You freeze, your eyes widening in disbelief, while the boys laugh at your reaction. How exactly were you supposed to survive this?
You fall into a comfortable silence, happy to enjoy your breakfast as James issues his warnings to the boys, ensuring they behave themselves. Remus, with a subtle eye roll, acknowledges James's words while Peter nods emphatically in agreement. While, Sirius simply outlines every embarrassing memory he plans to share with Lily.
“Y/n, get your man in check.’ James complains in mock irritation, throwing a grape at Sirius, who dodges it.
"Good morning." Lily greets quietly. You all turn to see her approaching, her expression a mix of embarrassment and hesitance, as if she's debating whether to turn around and go to her usual spot down the table.
James abruptly stands up, his hip thumping into the table. He stifles a wince, trying to maintain his composure as he greets Lily, who tries unsuccessfully to suppress a smile at his reaction. Remus cringes and turns back to his breakfast, unable to look at James.
"Y'ready for this?" Sirius leans in, his voice lowered to a hushed tone meant only for you, effectively pulling you away from eavesdropping on James and Lily's conversation. You glance up at him, surprised to find you’re a mere inches away from him.
You're so close that you could individually count each of his eyelashes if you wanted.
You still feel the warmth of his breath mingling with yours, creating an intimate connection between the both of you.
It feels like a magnetic pull draws you closer, tempting you to tilt your head forward and touch his lips with yours. The urge to kiss him is so strong that it nearly knocks the breath from your lungs.
You clear your throat, attempting to push the thought from your mind. "I think so. We're newly dating, so don't go overboard with it." You remind him, a gentle smile playing on your lips.
“When have I ever gone overboard with anything in my life?” The smile he gives you is teasing, and it makes your heart pound to have him this close, his eyes sparkling as he smiles at you.
You hum softly in response, “I can think of quite a few times.”
His voice carries a flirtatious tone, “Can you?”
“Good morning, Lily.” Peter's gentle voice steals your attention away from Sirius. Disappointment and longing settle in his stomach as he watches you pull away and turn to greet Lily, that sweet smile now directed at her.
Lily settles between Peter and James. For a quick second, you feel a pang of jealousy because that's your spot. But when you notice James's pink cheeks and flustered expression, you forget all about it. All you want for James is for him to be happy, and having Lily near seems to do just that.
Breakfast goes smoothly. Lily fits seamlessly into your group, and you can tell it makes James giddy. He doesn't even mind not getting to talk to Lily much. He simply enjoys seeing the girl he's so hopelessly infatuated with getting along so well with his best friends.
You and Sirius aren't acting much differently than you normally do, just sitting close to each other and chatting. However, when Lily turns to you and Sirius, a wave of nervousness washes over you.
“I was so excited to hear you guys were together!”
"Oh yeah? So you can finally go for James with a clear conscience?" Sirius grins, teasing Lily, who looks thoroughly embarrassed. You nudge Sirius in the side, and he responds by giving your hip a gentle squeeze. James sends Sirius an incredulous look, which he pointedly ignores. While Remus and Peter chuckle at the playful banter.
Lily tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and clears her throat; her cheeks tinged with a hint of pink. "Uh, no, just that you two have obviously had feelings for each other for years. Everyone knew."
You're at a loss for words. Is that really what people thought? Clearly, they read you right, but you weren’t sure what to think about Sirius having feelings for you. Maybe he did, or maybe they were mistaking it for how he constantly flirted with you. But that was just how Sirius was; it didn’t necessarily mean he had romantic feelings for you.
"Haven't gotten her out of my head since the day I met her." Sirius says casually, his right elbow resting on the table as he pops a piece of bacon into his mouth. His other arm remains securely wrapped around your waist, holding you close to his side with a gentle yet firm embrace.
You look at him in shock, your eyes widening at his unexpected confession. Even the boys look slightly startled at Sirius' words, their eyes darting between you and him.
“That’s so sweet.” Lily says softly, her eyes glowing with genuine happiness as she sends you a warm smile. The sight tugs at your heartstrings but also stirs up guilt in the pit of your stomach. Lying always made you feel uneasy like a weight was pressing down on your chest.
"Sirius, I can't believe you thought that she—" Lily begins, her voice trailing off as James interjects, his interruption tinged with a hint of urgency.
"Okay, love! I think I should walk you to class, don't y' think?" James stands up from the table, extending his hand towards Lily.
Lily looks slightly confused, but she takes his hand nonetheless. As they walk away, James glances back and sends a wink in Sirius' direction. Your attention immediately shifts to Sirius, curiosity written all over your face as you’re about to ask about Lily's interrupted comment.
Sirius cuts you off before you can ask, shaking his head with a gentle smile and flushed cheeks, "Don't even bother asking; I’m not telling you what she was talking about.”
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
You’re curled up next to Peter on the common room couch, both of you chatting quietly together. For the last twenty minutes, he has been feeding you details about the Ravenclaw girl he has a crush on. He's sworn you to secrecy. Hoping for your advice on asking her out without enduring the teasing of the rest of the Marauders. Your gasp of excitement nearly gives away the secret, but you quickly compose yourself, offering a reassuring smile to Peter.
"Who is she?" You ask, excitement laced in your voice, but Peter sends you an apprehensive look.
"I'm going to keep that to myself. Your squeal almost let the boys know.." He teases, though his tone also carries a note of seriousness.
A laugh escapes you, "I promise when you’re ready to tell me I’ll be so careful about keeping it a secret."
"Oi! Are you two sharing secrets over there?" James calls out, his voice immensely curious. He’s sat with his back to the flickering flames, his palms flat against the floor as he leans back on them. Peter tenses beside you, but you maintain an easy smile. Remus and Sirius are lounging in the armchairs nearby, their attention piqued by the exchange.
"All my deepest darkest secrets." You tease, flashing James a grin. He furrows his brow and sits up, clearly riled up by your response.
“Y/n, as your best friend, I better know all these secrets.” James lips are pouted, his expression tinged with a hint of concern, as if he's genuinely worried that you and Peter are sharing secrets that he doesn’t know.
James has always been fiercely protective of your friendship. Despite being close to the boys, your bond with James was stronger. There was nothing that the two of you didn't confide in each other; he honestly did know all your secrets.
“You do.” You smile reassuringly, and James's expression breaks into a satisfied grin.
The boys continue their soft conversation by the crackling fire, the warm glow casting flickering shadows across the room, while you and Peter sit in comfortable silence. Both of you are lost in thought as you relax in the cozy atmosphere.
After stifling a good five yawns, you glance at the time and decide it's probably best to head to your room, the quiet of the common room signaling just how late it had gotten.
You inch closer to Peter, before finding the courage to lean over and envelop him in a friendly hug, your arms wrapping around his shoulders.
He's momentarily taken aback, his body tenses at your touch, but soon he relaxes, reciprocating by wrapping you in his arms. It's a gesture that feels somewhat out of character for you, but after he trusted you with his secret, it seems like the most natural thing to do, a silent affirmation of support for him.
"I think I'm going to go to bed." You tell him softly, "But I promise we'll talk more tomorrow."
“I’d like that.” He smiles at you as you pull away. You grab your bag and make your way in the direction of the stairs.
“Goodnight boys!” You call out softly over your shoulder before disappearing up the stairs. Sirius watches you go, his gaze lingering on your figure, his thoughts full of you long after you've left the room.
Ever since you moved to hug Peter, his eyes have been on you, curiosity and jealousy settling in his stomach.
"Why the hell did you get a hug?" Sirius asks, his tone laced with bitterness as his gaze shifts to Peter, who appears taken aback by Sirius’ sudden question. Remus and James exchange amused glances, before they refocus their attention on Peter, waiting expectantly for an explanation to ease the tension.
“I don’t know, she just hugged me.” Peter squirms uncomfortably in his seat, his confidence quickly dwindling as he's put on the spot.
Sirius nods slowly, his lips pursing in contemplation. His carefully measured tone betrays the longing and a hint of possessiveness that he struggles to conceal, "What were you guys talking about over there?"
Remus interjects with a teasing tone, "Careful, Pads. You sound jealous." A playful glint dances in his eyes as he notices Sirius' furrowed brows and the discontent on his face.
“He’s got the boyfriend role down.” James quips, and Sirius sends them both a glare.
“I’m not jealous,” Sirius repeats quite grumpily. “I just don’t understand why Peter got a hug, and we didn’t.”
James barks out a laugh while Remus shakes his head, a chuckle escaping him in sheer disbelief.
"You're jealous because you have feelings for her." James states matter-of-factly.
Sirius begins to shake his head in denial, but Remus promptly interjects, his voice firm and unwavering, "’Haven't gotten her out of my head since the day I met her.’ What the fuck was that then?” Remus repeats Sirius’ words from the other day, perfectly mimicking his tone.
James bursts into laughter, the sound hearty and infectious, while Peter offers a small smile, observing Sirius as he struggles to respond.
“Not to mention, you’ve been staring Peter down ever since Y/n touched him.” Remus remarks while Sirius gazes blankly at him, his expression unreadable as he nervously chews on his bottom lip.
“You really have.” Peter adds with a grimace.
“You like her, mate.” Remus concludes, his words carrying a sense of finality that lingers in the air.
Sirius sighs heavily.
The conversation weighs heavily on him as he sinks down in the armchair, his brow furrowed in deep thought. The boys’ words replay in his mind. He was jealous, and he did like you. He already knew all of this. But he had always been cautious around you, mindful of the unspoken boundaries because of your friendship with James. A nagging worry in the back of his mind that James would be against any relationship between the two of you. James was his greatest friend, and he worried he could lose him if he attempted to go for you. The idea of James being unfazed by a romantic relationship between you and Sirius threw him off balance. It vastly differed from the scenarios he had envisioned, where James would react with fierce anger upon learning of Sirius' affection for you. The realization left Sirius feeling torn. Did that mean he could actually go for you?
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
As the air is warm and balmy, birdsong emanating from the trees while the leaves rustle in the gentle breeze. The sun casts everything in a golden haze, letting you know summer is near. The boys are certain of their decision: today is the perfect day to spend at the lake.
Laughter and chatter echo across the shimmering waters as the boys swim around the lake, reaching where you’re draped over a soft towel next to Lily. You have been trading gossip back and forth for the last couple of hours. It’s refreshing since usually you’re glued to the boys’ sides. You were constantly in the company of at least one of the four.
You feel a twinge of regret in your chest, realizing you haven't made an effort to have a close friendship with the girls. And you really should have. It wasn't a deliberate choice; James had always been your go-to person. Then, when you met the boys, you naturally formed close bonds with them, too. The thought of branching out and making more friends never really crossed your mind.
Though you value your friendships with the boys, you decide you desperately need to spend more time with the girls. The possibility of James and Lily getting together has you hopeful.
“You realize Sirius can’t take his eyes off you, right?” You choose to remain silent, only giving a shrug, fully aware that Sirius is merely pretending to be in love with you. To his credit, he's played the part convincingly throughout the entire week. There have been moments when you've found yourself questioning the authenticity of his actions, wondering whether his affection is genuine or merely his acting skills.
For someone who hasn’t had much practice with relationships, he possessed an innate ability to treat you like you were the only girl in his world. Whether it was a reassuring hand on your lower back as you maneuvered through the crowded halls, a tender kiss planted on your forehead when you parted ways, or the subtle exchange of flirty smiles whenever your eyes met across the room.
Sirius' laughter drifts over from the lake, reaching your ears, and a subconscious smile graces your lips. Lily must have seen your reaction, “Merlin, you really like him, don’t you?”
It was driving you to the brink of obsession. If this was the experience of being Sirius' girl, you wanted it more than before.
Despite your efforts to contain it, a sigh slips from your lips, "Yeah, I really do."
Confessing this feels uncomfortable. You've never talked to anyone about the depth of your feelings for Sirius, and now you're doing so under the guise of a fake relationship. You had come close to telling James, but you really didn’t need to. He had an uncanny ability to read you like an open book. Guilt churns in your stomach once more as you think about lying to Lily. What will her reaction be when you reveal that you and Sirius were never actually together?
The silence lingers for a few moments before you gently break it, "What were you about to say at breakfast the other day? Before James interrupted?"
Lily's expression shifts from confusion to excitement, her eyes lighting up, “Oh, in Charms! I finally wrangled it out of Sirius that he had feelings for you. But he insisted that nothing was ever going to happen because you didn’t like him back.”
It feels like you've been plunged into a tub of cold water. Your mind goes momentarily blank, a surge of disbelief flooding your senses as you struggle to comprehend Lily's words. Your body freezes in place, grappling with what this could possibly mean. There’s no possible way you heard her correctly.
“What? When was this?” Your voice escapes breathless and startled, yet Lily appears oblivious to it.
“Just a couple of weeks ago! I’m so glad he finally told you how he felt.” Lily smiles sweetly before laying back on her towel. If she notices you’re in a state of shock, she doesn’t say anything.
You hear a whistle, and no surprise, your best friend throws himself between you and Lily, “Don’t you two look pretty!”
Lily gasps as James leans down, playfully pressing his lips against her cheek, his hair dripping water onto her. Though she protests, you both can tell she doesn't truly mind it.
As James and Lily become wrapped up in their own world, you find yourself drifting back to the conversation from a moment ago. Your mind spins, still muddled by Lily's words. Sirius had feelings for you. Why hadn't he spoken up? Did he not want anything to come of it?
Your heart nearly stops when Sirius drops down and hovers over you, his hands propping him up on either side of your head. You barely register that he's shirtless and above you just before icy water cascades from his hair onto your skin. A startled cry escapes you as the cold droplets trickle down your cheeks, tracing a chilling path along your neck and chest.
“Sirius Black!” You had intended to sound angry, but laughter slips past your lips, betraying your emotions. Sirius grins at your reaction, his eyes trailing down from your eyes to shamelessly check out the bikini top you have on.
The boys had been teasing him relentlessly after witnessing how he practically fell to his knees when you walked into the common room wearing a bikini top and tiny denim shorts. You were oblivious to his gaze, heading straight for Lily and conversing about who knows what.
He couldn't tear his eyes away from you all day.
He feigns ignorance as you whine at him, responding with a sweet smile instead, “What, sweet girl?”
"Get off!" You squeal, though your tone lacks any real irritation. Deep down, you’re secretly enjoying having him so close, enveloping you in his presence.
“Whatever you want, sweet girl.” He mutters as he rolls off of you, repositioning himself so he's sitting behind you. With a gentle tap on your shoulder, he prompts you to sit up, then guides you until your back hits his chest. Once you're settled, he loosely wraps his arms around your shoulders before placing a kiss on your head.
Remus catches your eye as he and Peter make their way to their towels. Unlike Sirius and James, they hadn't hurried over to you and Lily. Instead, they took their time, chatting lazily while the sun warmed their skin. Remus sends you a sly, suggestive glance, and you respond by narrowing your eyes at him playfully.
Sirius and Remus engage in their own conversation, their voices blending into the background as Peter gestures for you to follow him. Sirius protests lightly, his eyes following you as you pull away from him to walk down to the lake with Peter.
You're gone for no more than twenty minutes, offering Peter advice on establishing a friendship with the girl he likes, perhaps making it easier for him to ask her out in the future.
Despite Remus' attempts to draw him back into the conversation, Sirius remains preoccupied, his gaze fixed on you until you eventually return and settle onto the towel beside him, seeking the familiar comfort of his presence. Only then does Sirius relax, draping his arm around you protectively.
He despises the twinge of jealousy that creeps in every time Peter has you to himself.
“Mate, you’re fucked.” Remus chuckles, and you assume it's due to something amusing said during their conversation. Sirius simply rolls his eyes and playfully extends his middle finger in Remus' direction, a gesture of mock annoyance that elicits a smirk from both of them.
The rest of the afternoon is spent wrapped up in Sirius as you chat with your friends and bask in the sun.
You spend the remainder of the afternoon draped over Sirius, basking in the warmth of the sun as you chat with your friends. It's been a while since you've felt so at ease.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
After lounging by the lake all afternoon, the thought of cleaning up for a party you had little interest in attending felt like an unnecessary chore. However, after an hour of James' persistent pleading, you eventually gave in and agreed to go. You were confused about why he insisted on your presence, especially when he'd be busy spending the evening with Lily. You couldn't help but think you could have been snug in bed with a good book instead.
“How long do you think it will take before they get together?” You turn to Remus, who is leaning against the wall next to you. He wasn't thrilled about coming tonight, either. The full moon was approaching, and he could already feel the effects beginning to take hold.
You scan the bustling room, eager to catch a glimpse of James and determine Lily's proximity. Impatience simmers within you as you wait for them to get together. Their relationship seems overdue, and you’re desperate for it to happen, bringing an end to the relationship you and Sirius are forced to maintain. Though being Sirius' girlfriend has its perks, the artificiality of the situation weighs on your conscience.
After a lazy afternoon enveloped in Sirius' arms, you had returned to your room feeling unsettled. The comfort of being held by Sirius felt genuine, yet it was all fake, and that realization deeply unsettles you. The longer this relationship goes on, the more you worry about your heart being left in pieces at the end.
“Probably any day now. Why? You aren’t having fun being Sirius’ girl?” Remus asks, casting a knowing smirk in your direction. You huff and give him a playful nudge, causing his drink to slosh around in his cup. He chuckles in response, amused by your reaction.
"It's not that, and you know it." You respond, frustration evident in your tone.
Remus turns towards you, a genuine smile on his face this time, "You guys are doing quite the job of looking infatuated with each other."
You shoot him a warning look, sensing where the conversation is headed.
But Remus persists, his gaze steady, "You should consider telling him how you feel."
You scoff. "Absolutely not."
"Why not? What have you got to lose?"
You meet his gaze, incredulous, "Our friendship, for starters."
Remus shakes his head, "Do you really think Sirius would end your friendship? I doubt you could get rid of him if you tried."
You meet Remus's gaze, your brow furrowed with uncertainty, "Okay, maybe he wouldn't end our friendship. But things would definitely get awkward, and who knows where it could lead."
Remus offers a small smile, "Or it could go well. You could end up together."
You remain silent, the weight of Remus's words sinking in as you contemplate the idea of confessing your feelings to Sirius. Your stomach churns with anxiety at the mere thought of opening up to him. The fear of rejection and the potential fallout from confessing weighs heavy on your chest.
But Lily had shared with you that Sirius had opened up about his feelings for you. Maybe there was a possibility that confessing your own feelings might not be as far-fetched as you had assumed. Maybe being with Sirius wasn't entirely out of reach.
Remus observes the slight furrow in your brow as you chew on your bottom lip, a clear indication of your spiraling thoughts. The dim light of the common room highlights the unease on your face. "Do you want a drink?" He offers, his voice gentle and reassuring.
You pause, considering his offer, grateful for the distraction, "Yes, please." You respond with a small smile, the tension in your shoulders easing slightly.
As Remus leaves to fetch you a drink, you're left alone with your thoughts, the chatter and laughter of the crowded common room serving as a backdrop to your contemplation. Your eyes wander over the sea of bodies, each occupied with their own conversations and activities, creating a lively yet chaotic atmosphere.
“Y/n, hi!” You startle as Max Townsend stands beside you, his sudden presence catching you off guard. You recall being partners in Charms a couple of weeks ago, but beyond that, your interactions had been limited.
"Hey, Max." You greet with a soft smile, noticing how his shoulders relax slightly at your acknowledgment. He settles against the wall, his posture casual yet attentive, as if genuinely interested in chatting with you.
"I know we haven’t talked much since Charms, but I’ve been meaning to catch up with you." Max says, his voice earnest as he breaks the silence between you.
You're surprised by his remark, "You have?" You ask, genuine curiosity coloring your tone.
"Yeah! I enjoyed spending time with you." Max admits, his voice slightly shaky as he offers you a shy smile. You notice the faint blush coloring his cheeks, a sign of nervousness.
"I enjoyed spending time with you too! I don’t think I could have passed the last exam without your help." You respond sincerely, returning his smile with warmth. His face lights up at your words, visibly relieved.
He regains some confidence and continues, "Actually, Y/n, I was wondering if you wanted to go to Hogsmeade sometime?"
Your smile falters, and you feel a pang of guilt. You have the excuse of having a boyfriend, at least. It makes things a little easier for you. For a second, you debate if you should say yes, go on a date, and move past your feelings for Sirius. But then you think about Lily‘s words and how he might possibly like you back. Not only that but you’re supposed to be in a relationship right now.
You can't bring yourself to say yes; truth be told, you don't really want to, anyway.
"That’s really sweet of you to ask. But I’m dating Sirius." You reply though the words feel heavy on your tongue, wishing they were true.
Max looks taken aback, "Sirius Black?"
"Yes." You confirm, feeling a wave of discomfort wash over you; turning someone down is always an awkward and uncomfortable experience.
Max shakes his head, looking confused, "I didn’t know Sirius-"
"You didn’t know what, Townsend?" Sirius looks hard at him, slipping his arm around your waist and handing you a drink. "Here, baby, Rem said you wanted a drink."
You thank him quietly, settling into his side with ease. Glancing up at him, you notice Sirius isn't looking at you; his gaze is fixed on Max. His jaw clenches tightly, and his usual friendly smile is absent. The message to Max is clear: back off, she's mine.
Max looks uneasy, eyes darting from you to Sirius, “Uh, I didn’t know you and Y/n were together.”
“And why were you talking about that?”
“Uh,” Max looks at you briefly, his expression tinged with panic. He lets out a sigh, reminiscent of a child caught in the act and resigned to confessing. “I asked her out.”
Sirius' entire body tenses, his tone laced with mock curiosity, “Did you?”
He feels sick at the thought of you going on a date with another guy. Images flash through his mind – Max holding your hand on a walk through Hogsmeade, flirting with you over dinner, and the possibility of him kissing you goodnight before you head back through the portrait at the end of the night.
A surge of intense emotion floods him, an overwhelming desire to lash out, to throw a punch and convey the unmistakable message that you are off-limits.
But then the reality hits him: you're not off limits. You're perfectly single, and maybe you actually wanted to go out with Max. The realization sinks in, gnawing at him from the inside, intensifying the ache in his chest.
“But look, man, I didn’t know she was your girl! Honest.”
"Max, it's okay. Really." You interject gently, offering him a reassuring smile. Max nods frantically, clearly relieved, before hurrying off in the opposite direction and disappearing into the crowd of Gryffindors.
“What the hell was that?” You turn to Sirius, but he refuses to meet your gaze. Instead, he drops his arm from your waist and leans back against the wall, taking a long sip from his drink, his expression unreadable
“Playing the part of your boyfriend. You should go find James, he was looking for you.” His mutterings reach your ears, and your stomach clenches with irritation as hurt flashes over your features. He's never shut down before you, and it hurts your feelings deeply.
You don’t bother saying anything; instead, you scoff and walk away. Sirius’s eyes follow you the second you leave, watching as you walk away with a heavy feeling settling in his stomach.
Maybe he did need to express his feelings to you. There might be a chance that you felt the same way. And if you didn't, at least he would know and could attempt to move on from you.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
“I think you need to check on Sirius.” James murmurs into your ear as you stand in the common room, waiting for Lily to join you. You're flanked by the boys, but Sirius is conspicuously absent.
You glance over at him, confused, “Why? Is he not coming down?”
“He bailed, said he isn’t feeling good.”
“He isn’t coming to Hogsmeade with us?” You all had meticulously planned your trip to Hogsmeade during the lake outing yesterday, discussing the shops you wanted to visit and the Butterbeer you couldn't wait to taste.
“Oh,” You mutter, “I’ll check on him and catch up with you guys then.”
You still harbor concern for his well-being, a lingering sense of care that remains despite the the frustration you feel about last night. You ascend the stairs, faintly catching Peter's inquiry about your destination and James' response that you won't be joining them anymore. You contemplate turning around, half-tempted to inquire with James about his statement, but decided against it, choosing not to waste your energy.
You're so deeply immersed in your thoughts as you walk through the hall that you don't even notice the sound at first.
The muffled noise filtering through the boys' dorm door catches your attention, causing you to pause in front of the door. You briefly entertain the idea that Sirius might be genuinely unwell, but skepticism lingers in your mind. The persistent groans don't quite fit the pattern of someone who's just sick.
You were on the verge of turning around, genuinely considering it, until you caught a muffled moan that distinctly sounded like your name.
You pause, questioning the authenticity of what you just heard, wondering if it was a figment of your imagination or if you truly heard your name. But then you hear it, “Fuck, Y/n. Feels so good.”
Your legs turn to jelly, the words coursing through your veins like an electric shock, leaving you feeling stunned and breathless.
Without a second thought or even a plan forming in your mind, you find yourself knocking on the door. Inside, you hear a muffled curse followed by shuffling before Sirius swings the door open nearly a minute later, clad only in pajama pants. His hair is tousled, his cheeks flushed, and he's breathing heavily. The surprise on his face is evident as he takes in your unexpected presence.
“What were you just doing?” Your words spill out more confrontationally than you intended, catching Sirius off guard. The surprise flickers across his face, evident in how his eyebrows knit together and his eyes widen slightly.
“Uh, I-” He glances back into his room, searching for a believable excuse among his belongings. Flustered, he struggles to come up with a convincing lie.
"Sirius," You press, and his eyes flicker back to you. He appears guilty, aware that you've caught on. "I just heard you." You add, your tone that is firm but not accusatory.
“Merlin, Y/n. I’m sorry I-” He stammers, his heart sinking into the pit of his stomach at the mere thought of you possibly feeling disgusted with him or worse, refusing to remain his friend because of what he’s just done.
“What were you thinking about?” You ask instead, taking a deliberate step closer to him. The room feels charged with tension, and you can sense Sirius's unease. His breath hitches as your presence draws nearer, his eyes flickering with a mix of apprehension and anticipation.
He glances over your shoulder, his gaze flicking to the empty hallway outside before he answers, “You.”
“Me?” You take a tentative step closer, your voice barely a whisper compared to before, its tone huskier, laden with curiosity and perhaps a hint of intrigue. You fix him with a daring look, a glint of challenge in your eye, as if silently daring him to take action.
He remains silent, his gaze fixed on you for a fleeting moment before he takes action, grabbing your hand and pulling you into the dorm without a word.
As soon as the door shuts, he presses you against the door, his movements swift and urgent. You let out a gasp in surprise, feeling the sudden shift in atmosphere as Sirius's intensity envelops you. His eyes, usually filled with mischief, now bore into yours with a mixture of seriousness and vulnerability.
“Y/n. Why did you knock on the door?”
You don’t answer at first, your eyes locked with his for a few heartbeats before you let out a sigh, “Because I heard you say my name, and now I know you want me the same way that I’ve always wanted you.”
Sirius doesn’t hesitate, his lips meeting yours with a sense of urgency that sends a shiver down your spine. The moment his touch connects with yours, you exhale softly, feeling the warmth of his lips against yours. With gentle pressure, you draw him closer, your arms wrapping around his shoulders while Sirius’ embrace envelops you, pulling you closer as if he never wants to let go.
He initiates with a tender kiss on your lips, then gently nibbles on your bottom lip, eliciting a gasp. Seizing the opportunity of your parted lips, he intensifies the kiss, pressing forcefully into your mouth. Sirius kisses you as if each moment is the first and last time, molding you into pliancy. You willingly surrender, allowing him to kiss you into a state of blissful oblivion.
As he withdraws, a soft whimper escapes your lips in protest. He casts a questioning glance your way as he lifts the hem of your shirt, and you respond with a nod of affirmation. Slowly, he peels it off of you and lets it drop at your feet. Shamelessly, he admires your breasts and how they sit so pretty in your black bra. For a moment, the thought of apologizing for the simple garment crosses your mind, but the way his gaze lingers on you halts any inclination to do so.
He leans down, pressing kisses and nipping at the exposed skin on your neck and trailing his way down to your chest. It steals your breath away, prompting you to weave your fingers through his hair as you tilt your head back, reveling in the sensation. He's murmuring praises against your skin, ranting about how beautiful you are, how sweet your moans are, and how you drive him crazy. Your heart pounds within your chest, and for an instant, you fear its thunderous rhythm might betray you, considering how near he stands.
“Take it off.” In a hushed tone, you speak, prompting Sirius's gaze to swiftly rise and lock with yours.
He encircles you with his arms, quickly undoing your bra, and you deftly push the straps down, allowing the garment to cascade down, unveiling your skin. Swiftly, you toss it into the growing pile that appears to be taking shape by the door.
Sirius gazes intently, his bottom lip captured between his teeth, and a subtle furrow forms between his eyebrows, “Fucking hell, y’have the prettiest tits I’ve ever seen.”
Before you can utter a word, his mouth is on your breasts. Pressing the softest kisses onto your nipple before gently biting it, causing your breath to hitch. He bends down, mirroring the gesture with the other one.
His hands, possessively grip at your hips, act as anchors, momentarily keeping you in place. However, a growing restlessness takes hold, and you start to squirm, a subtle plea for more of his attention. Silently comprehending your unspoken desire, he wordlessly responds. A gentle tug on your hand is all the communication needed, and without a moment's hesitation, you obediently follow his lead.
Guiding you, he directs you to settle onto his bed, a silent request you readily heed. Your legs dangle over the edge of the bed as you rely on your elbows to bear all your weight.
Sirius kneels in front of you, easily slipping off both of your shoes and tossing them to the side. He reaches up, hooking his fingers into the waistband of your skirt before tugging it down and off of your legs. You’re left in a pair of gray panties that easily show how soaked you are for him.
He pushes on your knees until your legs are completely spread for him, and he can get a clear view of your soaked underwear. A hushed curse escapes his lips, the words slipping out quietly as his gaze lingers on you.
“You’re fucking stunning. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. To deserve you.” You bask in his words, your body thrumming with warmth and delight as his sweet sentiments wash over you.
He glances up at you, and he nearly loses it right then and there. You’re watching him through hooded eyes, your pupils dilated wide, a silent reflection of your anticipation and desire. He doubts he could ever erase the image of the way you're gazing at him, etching it into his memory with the fervent wish to witness it for the rest of his days.
He caresses his hands along your thighs, fingers gently squeezing and kneading with each pass. Occasionally, he leans down, planting tender kisses on your sensitive skin, each one a whispered promise of affection. The closer he gets to your core, the more you squirm and let out soft whimpers.
“Can I take your panties off?” He asks, glancing up at you from between your thighs. The pad of his thumb brushes against your clit, and you jolt in surprise.
A gasp escapes your lips as you're overtaken by the sensation, yet swiftly, you find yourself nodding frantically in response, “Please.”
Overrun with desperation, Sirius pulls at them with such fervor that they nearly tear as he tugs them off. You can't help but giggle at his fervor, amused by his frantic actions and the unmistakable look of pure desire written across his face. He wouldn't be surprised if he was drooling, staring the sight of your glistening pussy.
“I want to be inside of you.” He declares, standing up from the floor, leaning over you to firmly grasp your jaw before capturing your lips in a heady, intoxicating kiss. The moan that escapes you sounds so foreign, so unlike yourself, that it catches you by surprise, leaving you momentarily taken aback. You don't bother vying for dominance, allowing him to take control of the kiss. He withdraws from you leaving your chest heaving and breaths coming in ragged gasps.
“Take your pants off.” You demand, reaching desperately for the band of his pajamas to shove them off. Sirius beats you to the task, swiftly shoving them off himself in a display of impatience.
“Sirius.” Drool pools in your mouth at the sight of him. Long, thick, and pretty. Your lips part slightly, and you look up at Sirius in surprise, caught off guard by him. For a fleeting moment, you sit there, eyes locked, contemplating whether you'll be able to take him or not. He’s bigger than anyone you have ever been with before.
Sirius doesn’t let you stare for too long before his fingers are sliding through your soaked folds and brushing over your clit. Whimpers and moans tumble past your lips as Sirius rubs firm circles over you to get you adjusted before dipping down and pressing two fingers into you. A cry escapes you at the intrusion, and your hand instinctively reaches down to grip his bicep firmly.
Sirius startles you by leaning down and pressing the softest kiss to your clit, before licking you the bundle of nerves softly. Your body tenses with pleasure, hands gripping the sheets beneath you.
“I’ve always wanted to taste you.” He confesses a surge of heat courses through your body, igniting every nerve ending as you absorb his words. He doesn’t waste another second before leaning down and gently sucking on your clit.
"Please don't stop." You plead softly, and Sirius complies, continuing with unwavering determination. He nips and sucks, licking through your folds and holding your thighs open for him. His fingers continue to slide in and out of you; the sounds you’re making are obscene.
You’re struck by the thojught that this doesn't compare to any other times that you’ve been eaten out. But maybe it's not just his technique that feels good; it might be the fact that its Sirius who’s between your legs.
Your thighs tremble, and a euphoric sensation begins to build up in your stomach, making it feel like you are floating on a delightful high.
“Sirius, I need you.” You gasp sharply, your fingers instinctively tugging on his hair, signaling for him to ease up. You wanted to come together for your first time, as cheesy as it may have been.
As he rises to his feet, your eyes meet, and contagious, goofy smiles spread across both of your faces. In this shared moment, a mutual understanding passes between you—acknowledging the absurdity of the situation yet reveling in the fact that there's nowhere else you'd rather be.
You watch as he wraps his hand around himself, dragging his hand up and down a few times. He whispers for you to scoot back until your head rests against the pillow, and with a gentle nod, you comply. He follows suit, settling on his haunches before you, creating a comforting, intimate space between you both.
“Y’ready?” He asks in a hushed tone, leaning in to hover over you, and at that moment, a rush of memories floods your mind, reminiscent of yesterday by the lake. You're convinced you must look rather pathetic with the speed of your nod, but Sirius only responds with a sweet smile.
With a grip on his cock, he slides the tip through your slick, both of you sucking in a breath at the sensation. He gently pushes at your entrance. Sirius steals a glance up at you, silently seeking reassurance, and you respond with a simple nod and a warm smile, letting him know that everything is perfect. Sirius catches you off guard as he leans down, tenderly pressing the gentlest of kisses to your lips, a gesture filled with unexpected sweetness.
His gaze shifts, watching as he pushes his cock inside of you, letting out a string of curses as your pussy grips him tight, pulling him deeper inside.
“Fuck,” Gritting his teeth, he squeezes his eyes shut, breathing deeply through his nose, determined to regain control and prevent himself from losing composure. He’s sitting fully inside you, and he has to take a breather because you feel better than he could have ever imagined. The last thing he wants is for this to end as soon as it begins.
His voice sounds utterly shattered, “You’re so wet, fuck.”
You entwine your fingers in his hair, feeling the soft strands between your fingertips as you pull him closer, urging him to meet your lips with his own. The anticipation builds as his warm breath mingles with yours, creating an intimate connection before the gentle press of his lips against yours. Parting your lips, you deepen the kiss, and Sirius eagerly reciprocated.
“Sirius. Fuck me, please.” You exhale softly against his lips, and Sirius responds with a low, guttural groan of longing and desire.
He doesn’t waste any time before dragging his cock along the sensitive walls of your pussy, before thrusting back into you, “God, your pussy feels incredible.” The cry that escapes you resonates loudly in the room, and you're immensely grateful that everyone is out at Hogsmeade. The absence of others allows you the freedom to be as uninhibited as you are, knowing that the full dorms would never afford you the same level of privacy and volume.
“Feels so good.” You gasp, head rolling to the side, your cheek resting against the pillows. Sirius’ hands rest against the back of your thighs, holding your legs against your chest, giving a clear view of the way his cock is so seamlessly slipping inside of you.
He watches you, transfixed on the way your brows pinch together in pleasure, lips parting to let moans slip past. It's as if a dam has burst within Sirius, an unstoppable torrent of words and emotions pouring forth as he finds himself unable to contain everything he's been holding back.
“Fuck, you sound s’pretty, sweet girl,” The groan that leaves his lips is downright sinful. “Thought about this pretty pussy all day. Pretended to be sick just to get off to the thought of you.”
“Sirius.” You whine, reaching out to thread your fingers through his hair and pull him down to you. You’re soaked and aching, desperate for Sirius to fuck you faster. However, much to your disappointment, he remains insistent on maintaining a slow, teasing pace.
“Pictured, tugging that fucking bikini top down. Watching your tits bounce while I fuck you. Fuck, cumming all over them.” The whine that escapes you feels pathetic, and under different circumstances, you would've been embarrassed by it. However, given the situation you're in, embarrassment takes a backseat.
“I know, baby. I know.” He complies, adjusting his position so that his right arm supports him above you while his left hand gently traces your skin. Brushing over your nipples, trailing up and over your tits, before placing his hand loosely around the base of your throat.
“You’re fucking perfect,” He grunts, admiring how ruined you look for him. Your mascara smudged beneath your eyes from tears, and your lips swollen from his earlier kisses. He loved seeing you like this. Being the one to ruin you, to smudge your makeup and bring you to tears. “Taking my cock s’well.”
You’re incoherent, begging for Sirius to go harder, to fuck you faster. Hands pawing at his ass, desperately trying to bring him closer.
His hand squeezes your throat gently, “Tell me you want me to fuck you harder. C’mon love, wanna hear you beg for it.”
A smug grin tugs on Sirius’ lips as he watches you struggling to form words. You’re getting close if the way you’re squeezing him so tight and rolling your hips is any indicator.
But then a desperate, needy whine with the words he so badly wants to hear slips past your lips. Babbling about needing his cock and wanting him to ruin you. The second he hears your pleas, he thrusts into you harder, setting a brutal new pace that has you crying for him.
“I’ll give you anything you ask for, m’love.” He speaks so sincerely that you feel a surge of emotions welling up inside, an overwhelming urge threatening to bring tears to your eyes.
Overcome with your emotions, you reach for Sirius’ hand and interlace them together before Sirius presses your clasped hands into the sheets. His headboard thumps against the wall rhythmically.
“Need you to fill me up. Please.” You plead desperately, and Sirius curses, his voice rough and strained.
“Shit, that’s my girl. Want me to fill you with my cum?” It's the praise that pushes you over the edge. Your back arches, pressing your breasts into Sirius’ chest and your legs tremble.
“Doing so good f’me.” He’s close behind you. Your tight, wet walls clenching around him is what does it for him.
“Fuck, baby. Gonna cum. Fuck.” Sirius moans, burying his head in the crook of your neck as his hips stutter and you cry out at the feeling of his warm cum filling you up. You clench his hand tightly, your nails likely leaving imprints on his skin. A sob escapes your lips, and your fingers weave through his hair, a desperate attempt to draw him closer.
You both remain entwined, lost in each other's embrace as you gradually come down from the euphoric highs. The room resonates with the sound of your intertwined breaths, each one heavy and labored. Your body feels utterly slack, every muscle loosened, and you're so relaxed that you could easily doze off at any moment.
Sirius presses a couple of tender kisses against your neck, eliciting a satisfied hum from you. When he withdraws from you, a wince escapes you as you feel the separation, and Sirius’ eyes dart up to you in concern.
“Y’okay, sweet girl?”
“I’m okay, just sore.” You grace him with a sweet smile, and Sirius leans in, gently pressing a tender kiss to your forehead.
“Gonna get a towel, one second.” He assures you, rising from the bed and disappearing into the bathroom. You listen to the faucet running and the faint sounds of the cupboard opening and closing. Lying back, you gaze up at the ceiling, absently nibbling on your thumbnail until a smile breaks across your face at the thought of what just happened.
“Here, love.” Sirius says, sitting on the edge of the bed holding a washcloth in his hand. He’s got a fresh pair of pajama pants on, you didn’t even notice him grab clothes from his trunk, too lost in your thoughts.
Sirius gently grips your ankle, encouraging you to spread your legs. His breath hitches at the sight of his cum dripping out of you and onto his sheets, desperately hoping to see this sight again. He murmurs a curse under his breath, his touch gentle as he delicately uses the warm washcloth to clean between your thighs.
“There.” He whispers softly before aiding you to sit up. As you glance over, you notice the t-shirt and pajama pants laid out beside him, meant for you. Your heart swells with warmth as he assists you in slipping it over your head. With a grateful smile, you slide into the pajama pants. Meanwhile, Sirius utters evanesco to fix the sheets up, before joining you in bed.
“C’mere.” He beckons to you, sinking into the pillows, and you nestle against him, finding solace as you rest your head on his chest.
In the silence, you both relish the comfort of each other's embrace, enveloped in a cocoon of intimacy. Lost in contemplation, your mind wanders, grappling with what just happened and what that meant for the both of you.
"That wasn't just a one-time thing, was it?" You inquire, the hopefulness evident in your tone.
"No," Sirius responds, tilting your chin so you can meet his gaze. "I want you to be mine, for real this time."
The fluttering butterflies that dance through your stomach are overwhelming as you absorb his words. A lovesick grin spreads across your lips, unable to contain the rush of emotions coursing through you, “Then I'm all yours."
You settle back into Sirius, and his arms hold you against him. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest beneath your head lull you into a serene state, the sound of his steady heartbeat serving as a soothing lullaby that guides you into a peaceful sleep.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
"I'm sorry, so you asked us to fake it not for Lily, but for Sirius and I to get together?" You gaze at James, confused, knitting your brows, while he sits opposite you at the table. Remus and Sirius are absorbed in their own conversation, and Peter is having breakfast with the girl he harbors a crush on. Despite their current status as friends, Peter seems overjoyed nonetheless.
James grins, casting you a smug look. "I mean, Lily genuinely thought you and I were a thing. At first, it really was because Lily thought we were together, but then I realized that this was the perfect way to get you and Sirius together.”
“James! So you lied to us?” You huff in disbelief.
James shrugs nonchalantly, his demeanor radiating an air of casual indifference, “You already knew I lied to Lily; what’s the difference?”
You sigh softly, "That's true, but what about you and Lily? Are you two getting together?"
James smiles, “We’ll get there eventually. This was more about you and Sirius. And before you start, yes, I’ll tell her the truth.” He sends you a pointed look, and you chuckle, already preparing to remind him to come clean to Lily.
"You're certifiably insane." You tease, exhaling a laugh.
“Well, it worked, didn’t it? You got the guy.” James watches with delight as a lovesick smile effortlessly graces your face before you steal a glance at Sirius.
"Oh, hey. Pick up your clothes next time you're napping with Sirius," He remarks casually, but the emphasis on the word napping lets you know that he's fully aware there was more happening than just sleep. "My shoe got tangled in your bra."
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