#anyway that was a very long tangent

[microwaved-cheese-sandwich]

I also have an internal monologue constantly but it's like talking to another person. I mean I'm talking to myself but as if it was another person. So I also think/say "you have to do this", "please be calm", etc .

I thought it was what everyone does... isn't it?

sometimes! peoples thought streams are all different. many people think in first person, some in second or even third; usually ppl use different perspectives at different times. lots of thoughts aren't words at all, just a flow of feelings and concepts. personally I often talk to myself in second person. I also sometimes use 'we', referring to myself as speaker and listener. how and why this kind of thing happens, and how common it is, is probably beyond my expertise. but i promise you are not weird for it lol

[prince-liest]

I just wanna gush bc omg I love the 666 series so much. I think it made me realize I might be... furry-ish? adjacent? I just find it so satisfying how you go into detail about the unique body features of both of them, the way it feels to have deer ears or kiss a TV and just generally how much thought is put into the way their bodies work, and I've realized that my interest in that kind of idea is a pretty good reason to partake in more explicitly furry media lmao. Anyways

I'm also really in love with how you maintain the balance of each of their personality traits. Vox is simultaneously so pathetic and cringefail (also your dialogue for him is perfect, I can hear it crystal clear in my head) but also he has vastly more emotional intelligence than Alastor, no doubt at least in part because he has to deal with Val, and he's able to marginally calm down with his obsession to deal with sticky situations, but even then he still retains his personality and bumbles things sometimes because of the flaws in said personality! It's great. I also really appreciate the balance you've struck with Alastor, I feel like often Alastor is either written to either soften up so immediately that it feels disconnected from his character or is written overly mean and heartless for my liking and the way you've written him is such a delicious balance between softer aspects such as the prey instincts or moments of vulnerability and his untouchable and manipulative self, and also the way this side of him is neither written as wholly a front or wholly his real nature and the complex ways this makes him struggle with his increasing vulnerability. TL;DR arghgr your characterization is so good it makes me go a little feral

Also while I'm here, I'm curious whether you can give an answer to the degree to which Alastor is touch-averse. There's obviously a lot of ways in which he fundamentally dislikes touch but it also seems like there's at least some kinds of touch where he doesn't dislike the touch itself so much as he's afraid of the way it brings about feelings of caring and/or enjoyment being cared for. I'm curious how much, in general, you would say his touch aversion comes from either cause and possibly what kinds of touch do/don't provoke those flavors of aversion

Omg, what a lovely ask to receive. Honestly, everything you said that you enjoy about how I characterize these two is very much what I've been actively gunning for, so it's an absolute delight to see it outlined back to me. Success!!! Thank you so much!

And ahaha - I'm not a furry but I fucking love inhuman characters. Being raised in the pits of Homestuck fantroll RP made me enjoy the whole "they're bug/fish aliens" thing and it definitely rears its head again any time I encounter characters with inhuman qualities. I love writing Vox's TV/computer-ness and Alastor's deer and radio bits, and integrating them into who they now are as people.

As for Alastor's touch-aversion: It's funny that you ask about this, because the next chapter of 666 is going to dive into it a bit. Specifically into the fact that it's not, like, a set of boundaries that is consistently defined, and I write him that way on purpose. The very first time he and Vox sleep together, Alastor bottoms. He becomes significantly less amenable to touch after he goes through an uncomfortable rut cycle that gets sexual. By the time Vox convinces Alastor to fuck him, Alastor would never let Vox do that again and frankly only agrees to topping because Vox gave him an option that didn't involve getting his dick out. Then in the next episode, they're having clothes-off sexual contact. So, what gives?

Things that play into Alastor's willingness to touch and be touched as far as Vox is concerned:

How does he see Vox at that point in time? Disgustingly entitled (ew)? Hilariously beneath him (haha who cares)?

Does he care about what Vox thinks of him? Does Vox touching him draw his attention to positive or negative assumptions he has about Vox's perspective on doing so?

What value has he attached to this particular touch in the power balance of their relationship? Is he humoring Vox? Does he assume Vox thinks he's owed this? Does he perceive it as something Vox is genuinely doing for him?

Has he tried this particular kind of touch before? He's pretty willing to experiment, but that doesn't mean he'll do something twice without a compelling reason if he didn't like it the first time.

Is he getting off on this situation sexually? If so, is it fully willing (read: not a byproduct of uncomfortable hormones) on his part? That only really happens when he's in a submissive role and Vox is hitting a few very specific kinks, a major one of which is basically CNC tilted 30 degrees to the left.

Is he enjoying the touch in platonic ways? How does he feel about that? Is it a vulnerability to want something? Is it feeding his ego to be catered to? Is he worried that what he enjoys platonically is being read into in ways he doesn't like?

Is he fucking drunk? Things that bother you when sober often seem like a non-issue when you're not, both on a physical and emotional level.

How much touching has been happening recently? Has he hit his limit? Did he deliberately put himself into a situation earlier to have his limit be hit and surpassed, and now he's in the aftermath?

He does have a certain fundamental purely physical dislike of touch, but it's something that is really affected by how he perceives each individual situation as well as his relationship with Vox at that time, and his previous experiences!

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[averlym]

4 on the angst list with Araleyn please I need them to suffer

4 : "but it's my fault, right?" (prompt list here)

[cyberscratch]

A new ref for Lemmy, and an official design and introduction of Limmy in This Universe Has Lemons In It! Limmy was created by the Guardian of the Lemonverse (any pronouns) as an attempt to stop Lemmy from what they are doing, which is creating portals to travel through various universes and dimensions to have fun. Not only is that a risk for the balance of the universe, but GotL just dislikes this kid having fun and wants to see them stopped.

Not wanting to do it in it's own hands, it created Limmy, an angel dog meant to be an direct opposite to Lemmy. Limmy, however, doesn't do much to stop Lemmy, other than following them and bickering. Their relationship is very Tom and Jerry rivalry-esk.

(Names color coded for myself to read easier due to the similar names!)

Fun fact, Limmy was originally going to be based on limes (Lime Angel), but I kept that concept for GotL - and made them more angel-like instead.

[grasstimes]

The four of them! You can trust me!!

[faunandfloraas]

No but actually coming from someone with fine wavy/curly hair who had some hair loss and lots of issue I really and truly wish I could sit down and talk with Chan because he really needs someone who understands curly hair to get him some products and show him what to do and he also needs to stop using heat. Like no straightening. No hair drying. Or at least very sparsely.

[snixx]

good GOD can we stop gendering everything. I swear some of y'all just took the futch scale and decided to run with it as gender roles 2.0 (yassified edition)

[dekusleftsock]

I love your analyses so much! Especially the one about why bkdk and togachako aren't toxic. You really changed my mind on bkdk, so thanks for that!!

Awww you’re so sweet!!! Ty!

I feel like fandom has a habit of either exaggerating something, or straight up using the wrong terms because they don’t know what the term really is.

Toxic, abusive, etc are so wildly used for so many different things. And authors intent also gets lost in that. A story and it’s interpretations can easily be taken and malformed and destroyed. Prime example would actually be the first Matrix released in 1999. It’s a movie about trans identity, the allegory being confirmed by the authors years later, yet most people remember the matrix simply because of the “red or blue pill” scene, taking it as a silly joke.

So I feel like it’s really easy to get trapped in the whole “this ship is toxic” mantra, especially on platforms that aren’t tumblr. (Tumblr too ofc, but it’s easy to just find a post and create a new opinion since the algorithm isn’t necessarily built to keep you in an echo chamber)

And it also just feels toxic itself? It doesn’t promote critical thinking to just say “this ship is abusive”, especially when that word is so unbelievably watered down.

Going back to authors intent, if you told me “Yoon Bum and Sangwoo are toxic and abusive as fuck from killing stalking” I’d say, “no shit Sherlock” because it was from start to finish supposed to BE THAT WAY. (And anyone who says they aren’t I fully don’t trust you that was absolutely not the point of killing stalking) BKDK always falls into this toxic/abusive mantra because of the bullying and the general rough dynamic that Katsuki creates. And that’s stupid in my opinion. Most of its hatred is built off of people’s own experiences with bullying and a refusal to let a character grow and change when they have a trait they don’t like. For some reason people see mass murder or serial killers as more redeemable or better people than childhood bullying. WHICH THAT BULLYING???? MOST OF ITS RETCONNED NOW AND BASED OFF OF ASSUMPTIONS OF WHAT BAKUGOU ACTED LIKE.

The killing yourself comment he told deku? Literally retconned. I’m so done with that shit. Like I could attempt to tell these people why character development matters more than their stupid fucking opinions, but atp I’d literally rather just say “it’s retconned” because it fucking is.

Any opinions people have of togachako being toxic or something I’ve just straight up brushed off as misogyny. BECAUSE IF A MAN WAS IN THAT DYNAMIC… IF A MAN WAS THE HERO… IF A MAN FIXED HER EVERYONE WOULD FUCKING LIKE IT

Because people like when men fix women. But ochako doesn’t WANT to fix her. She likes the current toga. She just doesn’t want the murder. Good fucking day.

[heartpascal]

every so often i reread all of your if the door wasn't shut series, just because it's my literal favorite thing i've ever read <3

i always love thinking about the what ifs because the whole series is so so good as you wrote it and you just put so many things into it that open up so many other thoughts and it just hits every single good spot in my brain

and i always think back to those posts you made about what if it was the reader instead joel in part two, because that was such an awesome and devastating thought. but today i was thinking about it and i was thinking what if it was still joel, and what would the reader look like after that, you know? like how would she deal with that for herself, and also how would she feel about tommy and ellie leaving? OR would she have gone too? i don't think she would have, but that's just me. i'm just very stuck on thinking about what the reader's relationships with ellie and tommy would look like during and after part two

okay i feel like i said a lot of nothing😭 but i just wanted to share my half baked thoughts about how much i love that series and all your writing

anon !!!! this is so so kind oh my god hello ??? thank you!!! that series is very near and dear to me, and honestly i’m super glad i paused where i did. and left it so open because it leads to things like this!!! this series is as much your guys’ as it is mine this way !!! also please please always share your half baked thoughts or ANY thoughts i love love love to hear them :’)

but i would LOVE to talk about this. so MAJOR spoilers for tlou part two below the cut!

OKAY so if it WAS still joel, i agree, i don’t think the reader would have gone either!

her relationship with joel was never going to be the same, no matter what he said or did, that’s fact! we know this! but after joel dies, i honestly think r would feel guilty. i mean, this guy practically raised her for years. she loves him. and she can’t help but hate herself for the resentment she always felt towards him through those years. she was valid in feeling that way, obviously, but she feels guilty over it nonetheless.

i sometimes think about what if it had been her instead of or alongside ellie who found joel in that basement. i think she wouldve wanted revenge on those people, but i don’t think she would’ve been able to go and get it. maybe if she was there, the likelihood would absolutely have been higher for her just up and leaving like ellie and tommy did, but i don’t think she could bring herself to do that to maria or jesse - and that’s because of joel. she doesn’t ever want to do to them what he did to her, and so she would probably be able to stay.

would she have hated herself for it? maybe. would she have thought about the people who killed him for the rest of her life? absolutely. would she have felt guilty forever for letting them get away? without a doubt.

i think ellie leaving, reader would understand. she would feel the same compulsion ellie did, but reader had always had less fight in her compared to ellie.

but tommy? tommy leaving jackson? nope. she’d go mad. she would go insane at him. joel lived the rest of his days regretting leaving her behind at jackson, and tommy knew that. so why would he leave her? and after seeing the damage joel leaving did to her? it would upset her to an extent i can’t even explain. AND it would easily have maria kicking him out, throwing her wedding ring in his face the moment he returned, even with his injuries.

now, there are two scenarios here. jesse goes after ellie, we know this. what would reader do?

first scenario, and what i think is possibly more likely, she would go with him. now hear me out, ok, i know this doesn’t go with what i’ve previously said, but this is jesse. this is her best friend. she’s had to save his ass before, and god knows how guilty she felt about that. so what if something happened to him out there? she would never forgive herself. so, she would talk to maria. she would have a conversation. and when she would come back, she’d be back with jesse, or maybe, not at all. because i don’t think reader would handle abby killing joel and jesse. i don’t think she’d give abby the choice of letting her live or not. it would be abby or the reader, and that would be it. but in all honesty, i love r and i think she could save jesse because i am delusional and that is too much angst even for me 😇

second scenario, she would stay behind. there are zero ways that jesse would leave without telling her. ZERO. but i think there could be a world where the reader just wouldn’t be able to leave jackson, that old fear from back when she was travelling with joel and ellie could come back full force, and hadn’t she already lost enough? i think in this scenario, jesse might just convince her to stay. i think he would enlist maria’s help, too. they’re probably the only ones who could convince the reader of anything. now, if reader didn’t go, we know what happens. jesse wouldn’t come back. i don’t think she’d be able to forgive tommy, ellie or dina for that. even though she knows it wasn’t exactly their fault, there would be resentment there that she just couldn’t shake. after all, jesse left for them, right? because they couldn’t let go of the exact thing that got joel killed. the only thing i think would stop r going full no contact with them would be jj. there would be no world where she would let jesse’s son grow up without being involved. just no way. and you better know she’d be visiting jj every damn weekend to tell him stories of his dad. and in this situation, i think that after ellie would leave dina, dina would go to the reader. they would raise jj together, because she would never turn her back on that kid. never. and dina knew that.

so, all in all, she’d resent them. she’d understand them to a certain extent, but i don’t think she would be able to go after abby like they did.

during part two, she would have a far better relationship with joel than ellie did anyway, and therefore a better understanding of him. don’t get me wrong, it still wouldn’t be great, but it was something. she would be able to see that joel wouldn’t want this for them, for any of them. he felt guilty enough for everything he had done, everything he had put them through, and he certainly wouldn’t want them losing everything to avenge him. he just wouldn’t.

basically - there are a whole lot of ways this situation could go, and i think you guys could think of even more. there’s no set ending for this series, which is one of my favourite things about it. we can all think of our own endings for it, and i love that :’)

also, i think the fact it could go just about any way just emphasis that she is human!!! humans are not always predictable, and they do not always deal with things the same way. and given that a very present theme throughout the games is being human and what that means and how it shows and how you stay human even in incredible situations is just :’) pretty cool idk

but hey if you ever want me to try and write a certain scenario, i could give it a go! no promises though!!!

[camellcat]

I keep thinking about this one fic, where amy gets sent back in time to the beginning of s1 by a weeping angel, and like. idk. I want to see clara in s1. idk how'd she get there. probably some wackiness of converging timelines or whatever since we already know she's, like, woven throughout his entire life. but I just wanna see her reaction to nine and rose. specifically nine. and then seeing how different s2 ten is to ANY doctor she's ever known. I want her there!!! plus her and rose would be best friends SORRY I keep saying it but it's TRUE

[gxlden-angels]

I hate going to Christian-based hospitals. There's a bible verse slide show on the screens that other places usually have medical information graphics and resources on and I just got asked "Do you have a source of peace in your life?" like babygirl I'm here for neurological pain my source of peace is Lidocaine 4% and a heating pad

[boyfridged]

What do you think Jason would feel about mothers? Considering he was betrayed by one and then would have gone on and had figures in his life like a mother.

since someone brought up sheila yesterday, i just remembered that this ask has been stranded in my drafts for a while! sorry.

some loose thoughts on the topic, in a "chronological" order:

in the 80s canon, jay grieves after willis and catherine the same. while it's safe to assume that willis was (physically) more absent, there's not much indication that jay had any parental preference (neither of them really could responsibly parent him anyway.) so i believe in general terms jay doesn't really differentiate much between parental roles (and that's why, subsequently, my answer is more about parents in general rather than just mothers...)

i have a post talking about jason's parental relationship with bruce here but i just want to add that atp we also don't see jason having any specific longing for a figure of a mother. imo the reason he gets obsessed over seeking his biological mother out is that in this particular moment he does not feel secure in his relation with bruce. i think if he found out about a biological father instead, he would also want to find him. what he wants is simply a stable family (<- which he does have in bruce; but does not trust to be able to keep without robin.)

i have mentioned before that it's very important to me that jason most probably forgave sheila. of course, the fact that he tried to save her does not alone confirm it; he would probably do it for anyone, and so it's more of my headcanon, especially since the contemporary canon nearly completely erased her from the narrative up until cheer. but as i said, i prefer to think that he forgave her, as he forgave catherine (if he even ever truly blamed either of them.)

i like to think about his relationship with talia as a parental one too (ignoring the two infamous pages of the lost days), but there's not much canon material, and freshly post-res jason seems fixated on the idea that he is "no one's son." nevertheless, he is also just still a kid when first in her care, and i do think that they could grow into that kind of relationship throughout the years (despite his best efforts to deny himself the comfort of familial connections.)

tbh one of the reasons for which i headcanon that, compared with other kids bruce has taken in, 1. he is the only one who used to call him 'dad' regularly 2. he is the only one who actually settled into a more 'standard' parent-child relationship with him 3. he is the only one who got formally adopted (which "on page" happened only pre-crisis btw), is because jay had a rather traditional expectation of what a bond with a parental figure should look like (and because bruce wanted to overcompensate while working through on jay's attachment issues). the others were either older or did not have a past that conditioned them for such focus on keeping the parent close, so it did not matter much. i think in terms of parental relationships, jason needs to call them by that name and needs formal ways of them being recognized, or at least this is what his abandonment issues call for. at the same time, it also freaks him out because he was a parentified child before and he doesn't think he should need it, so it's a game of pulling closer and pushing away, testing the bonds.

my conclusion is that i don't have much to say about mothers in particular; i think he has plenty conflicting feelings about the parental roles no matter the gender.

[cynicalmusings]

i genuinely had the best dream ever last night. it was basically heizou and myself getting into shenanigans in inazuma—sort of a pining best friends thing—and. AND. we held hands at one point. we held fucking hands and after i woke up from the dream (5:11am) i scribbled it down onto my phone because no way am i forgetting a gem like that.

[undermattsun]

miki did you get your back blown out by a skaterat?

no i’m saving myself for marriage amen praise god etc etc

[frauleindermorgen]

for the meme! from RD Chapter 3-13, there was too much to copy/paste, but i'm sure you know the moment...

Micaiah: “All right… I’ll do it… I’ll do it for you, and for Daein.” Pelleas: “Thank you, Micaiah.” (Pelleas hands Micaiah a dagger)

wow radiant dawn spoilers!!!!!

rune & co click away now : )

SOME PEOPLE LIKE TO THINK ABOUT CH 13 AND SUFFER. Luckily for yall I am some people. In order to talk about this line and Micaiah's response I think we need to look at Pelleas' reasoning

13-2 pre battle dialogue

"Individual lives taken before your eyes weigh more heavily than the many lives taken during the chaos of war. If that life is someone dear, the burden is even worse. It's only human. Isn't that true? Micaiah. It’s your caring soul I admire. That's why I want it to be you. I want you to kill me.”

Of note, in the Japanese version, Pelleas specifically says human nature is at its core self-serving, that care for another’s life is based on one’s ego/connections. He continues:

[ペレアス] ミカヤ…… 僕は、そんな君が好きだよ。 だから…君に頼みたい。▼ Rough translation: Micaiah…. That’s the part of you that I love. That is why I want it to be you I ask this of.

(the scene continues on as it does in the localized version)

To put this in further context prior to chapter 12 and the revelation of the blood pact (i.e. Micaiah finding out that no matter what Micaiah does the Senate’s control of the King and his Kingdom means loss of all life in Daein) Micaiah had been pushing herself both mentally and physically to be a general who minimized death and unneeded damage.

Sothe: Micaiah, it's over. The front line is broken. The apostle's army is crossing the bridge. Micaiah: All right, then... Order a retreat. Inspector npc: Wh-what?! No! Are you a simpleton? Just destroy the bridge! [...] Micaiah: Inspector. While I respect your opinion... The final decision is up to me, as commander in chief of this army. Sothe, order the retreat. Get those men out of there before they're routed. -Ch 11, post battle dialogue

Then, in chapter 12 she discovers no matter what she does if she and Pelleas do not follow the Senate’s orders precisely, their entire nation, Micaiah’s reason for fighting all this time, will perish. Micaiah is nothing if not determined.

The apostle’s army, previously, toward whom she showed mercy she now prepares a rockslide/rain of fire death trap for:

Micaiah: All forces, get in position! Our target is the apostle. We will attack her while General Ike is distracted. If we let her through, her army will cross into Begnion. That will surely anger the senate, and the senate will move to destroy Daein. We must fight with everything we have so that Daein may live on! Sothe: But, Micaiah... Is this really necessary? Can't we avoid all of this fighting and somehow pretend to obey the senate? Taouroneo: Micaiah, it was you more than anyone else who used to hate plans like this... Micaiah: The apostle's army has incredible numbers. We wouldn't stand a chance taking them head-on.

The only thing that stops Micaiah from killing Sanaki and her Holy Guard outright is Tibarn taking Sothe hostage and Micaiah freezing up at the prospect of losing the person she cares for most in the world, despite it meaning her entire army would be routed.

Sanaki pleads on Sothe's behalf and Tibarn/Ike's army leaves but Micaiah is shaken. And then when back in the castle Pelleas immedaitely calls for her, asks her to kill him, and upon her refusing citing her recent revelation re: Sothe and Tibarn has the gall to say:

"Even if it hadn't been Sothe in front of you, you would have reacted the same way. That's the kind of person you are."

I think she's fucking PISSED!!!

There's much to be said about Micaiah and her lack of agency in the narrative throughout both part three and four but Pelleas is saying this to her, right before his own request can be nothing but maddening.

From the start, Micaiah has felt kinship with Pelleas and believed in his kindness. In their private moments together Micaiah drops the 王 and refers to Pelleas with just -sama, he may not be part of the Dawn Brigade but he is firmly someone she thinks of as a comrade and perhaps more.

And he's now using that gentle/kind nature that she once so admired to shove Micaiah into a corner. To kill him with her own hands. GRANTED, the game does give you a chance on playthrough one for Micaiah to refuse and Pelleas accept that. BUT STILL!!

Of note, too, Micaiah is tearing up and stammering throughout this exchange in Japanese. I think Micaiah is used to handling grief, I do not think she is used to handling this kind of anger. This is further supported by the fact IF Micaiah accepts Pelleas' request every single line of hers in Japanese is "...". She refuses any further conversation with him, even when he directly asks her to pass on a piece of jewelry to Almedha.

Her last words to him are: わかり…ました…… あなたの……ために…… ………わたしが………▼ "I... understand. If it's for you.... I... I will...."

(there's no mention of Daein here which, while I think is in the back of her mind. does indeed make the scene all the more charged and intimate)

N has thankfully (?) asked me for the rest of the (optional and ng+_ dialogue here so ending for now. But yeah, I think rather than saddened (which she is. The scene in fist playthrough ends with Micaiah breaking her silence to sob openly ala localized) Micaiah is also quite furious in this scene. And it's something I have a lot of fun thinking about. :upside down: