#i'm gonna have to fix the ones without the exclamation point

[natsu-tte-noodle]

A3! Translation - Regional Tour Instablam Posts (Autumn Troupe)

Autumn was a little easier to do than Winter was... you’ll probably see why pretty quickly lol

Also, the like count on the posts seem to be completely random.  This isn’t important to the meanings of the posts, but I think it’s really funny that I’ve gotten Kazu posts with 0 likes lol

Also you can see here that I tried to vary the way they type out their tags in terms of capitalization and stuff!  That’s a purely stylistic choice on my part; there’s not much in the Japanese that implies for it to go either way

Sendai - Zunda shake

Banri

Sendai. A commemorative zunda.

#the fabled zunda #delicious

Juza

Delicious.

Taichi

Sendai was fun! (≧▽≦) We all drank zunda ^^

#MANKAI Company #Sendai #We’ll come again #Zunda #Wasnt sure what station lunch to get (1)

Omi

Thanks for coming to our Sendai play run. This is sweet and delicious.

#Sendai

Sakyo

Thank you for attending our Sendai play run. Apparently this is famous.

Azami

#Sendai #Thanks #Zunda

--

Nagoya - Nagoya morning breakfast set

Banri

Nagoya morning.

#coffee #as for the ogura #just looking at it made me sick

Juza

Ogura bean paste.

Taichi

Morning! （ `ー ´）ﾉ My tummy’s been full all day~!

#MANKAI Company #Nagoya #Morning #Ogura bean paste

Omi

Active since the morning. This is healthy.

#Nagoya

Sakyo

Thank you for coming to our Nagoya play run. Speaking of Nagoya, this is morning. The early bird gets the worm, after all.

Azami

#Nagoya #Morning #Accompanying an elder #Damn sleepy

--

Osaka - Glico Running Man in Dotonbori (2)

Banri

Dotonbori. #THE pose #they forced me to do a pic #not posting it tho

Juza

My souvenir from Osaka was a cheesecake.

Taichi

Osaka was fun! I luv it! (3) Jk （≧▽≦） I ate myself to death (4) with delicious food!

#Osaka #Surprise Kansai dialect #The hells with that (5) #Dotonbori #Variety #Ate too much #MANKAI Company

Omi

A food binge tour with everyone. When you think Osaka, you think food.

#Osaka #Thanks

Sakyo

Thank you for coming to our Osaka play run. As always, there were many people.

Azami

#Osaka #Good work #Dotonbori #Sightseeing

--

Niigata - Red snow crab

Banri

Niigata crab.

#sea of japan #shellfish #massive

Juza

Crab.

Taichi

Crab! So big! Super tasty! ^^

#MANKAI Company #Crab #Niigata ftw (6) #Hype

Omi

We ate crab today. The seafood from the Sea of Japan is fresh.

#Niigata

Sakyo

Thank you for coming to our Niigata play run. Of course the crab is good too, but the rice is delicious.

Azami

#Niigata #Crab #Impressive

--

Fukuoka - Tonkotsu ramen

Banri

When you go to Fukuoka you gotta have tonkotsu ramen.

#best place for it #crispy style #second noodle helping #used it up

Juza

Ramen after the show run.

Taichi

Thanks Fukuoka~! And my long-awaited tonkotsu ramen ^^ I enjoyed it all the way down to the soup!

#Fukuoka fun #Hakata (7) tonkotsu #ramen #MANKAI Company

Omi

Enjoying Fukuoka. This is our last stop.

#Fukuoka

Sakyo

Thank you for coming to our Fukuoka play run. At the end of the run.

Azami

#Fukuoka #Tonkotsu ramen #Light oil #No overeating #No ruining your skin

--

Notes:

1. This was 駅弁悩む (ekiben nayamu), which is literally “worry about the station bento,” but that sounded to me like he wasn’t sure if it would be good or not

2. Dotonbori is a popular tourist destination in Osaka!  Food is huge in Dotonbori, and Osaka in general, which you’ll see in a lot of the posts about it. The Running Man sign is an ad for Glico, the company responsible for Calpico/Calpis and Pocky!  The ad has been up since 1935.

3. Taichi says 好きやねん (sukiyanen) here, which is Kansai dialect for “love it”.  I normally don’t do anything funky with Kansai-ben, but if I didn’t it’d look like he was saying “I love Osaka. JK NO I DON’T” lmao so we had to do SOMETHING.  Shoutout to Moonlight for the simple suggestion!

4. Here Taichi uses the phrase 食い倒れ (kuidaore), which basically means “eat til you drop.  I had to change the TL a to “eat oneself to death” to make it sound ok, but it basically means the same thing, right? Omi’s “food binge” is also originally 食い倒れ

5. The standard tsukkomi retort in manzai as well

6. This was 新潟最高 (Niigata saikou), with 最高 basically meaning “greatest.”  I let myself have a little fun as a treat lol

7. Another name for Fukuoka

[fakeloveaskblog]

Hey, 'tis The Local Demon speaking again! This is the greetings message I mentioned, and I've also taken the liberty to compile some stuff for all our convenience while I was at it?

(If I forgot anyone or you need me to update/change anything, just say so, any of you! Then I can resend it without my diatribes and with the appropriate info! …Now to stop speaking in ‘!’s {exclamation signs} because they prbbly make me sound too loud even through a written medium and let's get into it.)

Usual Blog Watchers / VoidDemonGhosts? Preferred Addresses And Pronouns

• Blog Owner / Lukas (?)

He/him (also okay with they/them)

[Already sent the other ask, but I still wanna say that I hope you're okay and your writing is great! I was very happy to read your response too, so I guess that makes two of us. Also I would so enjoy a hug from a big teddy bear, you have no idea, thanks a lot for the sentiment. And I loved your mental description for me a while back as that void in the corner from whence all darkness comes (and the occasional plushie gets thrown out off), it got a chuckle outta me. Anyway I have no idea how to write send offs so maybe remember to drink some water? Missed writing asks for you!]

• The Local Demon

They/Them (MAYBE he/him?)

[This being me! And oh boy do I agree with your original answer to the pronouns ask, blog owner — it is a very confusing time indeed for me as well. Gender is weird, among other things. I shall needlessly apologize again for the long absence, everything is ugh, but I have successfully caught up now! And it only took me a day, so that's something! Expect that third ask (or more) in a bit, if you do decide to use it (or any of them, in case I do write more today or divide what I have into pieces). Since I'm thinking it may cause something drastic to happen in the story if you do, and this ultimately is your story, so feel free to take what you want from my contributions to it as always]

• ~Ghost

She/Xe/He

[I love how you just stated that! My, do I admire your confidence, I could never! /gen …I also want you to know that I singsong your nickname every time you sign it. I interpreted ‘~’ as that the first time I saw it and now I cannot stop. I physically cannot unsee it. This is not a problem at all btw, I am having fun doing that. You have my respects and it was lotsa fun to read your asks!]

• Hi, Me Again / Lawnmower Ghost / Glow Eyes

She/her

['ey fellow aro aye!!!! I know we didn't really have the time to figuratively cross paths, but I wanna say your facts were entertaining to read and I admire your valiant attempts to fix this asshole of a Virgil. I was glad to see it and commend you for trying — your ask was very well written! — yet I too have tried before, and sadly it panned out as well in the story as you might've guessed. Considering how worse things got in-universe on that front, you actually had far better results in hindsight, so kudos to you! …To be fair to me though, I did punch him I think, so that might've harmed my chances a little. (…I am also glad you mostly kept Remus company while I was gone, so to speak. Was kinda afraid everybody would sent asks focusing elsewhere, and so I wouldn't find much on him when I got back. Which is kinda silly, now I think about it.)]

• Snail / 🐌🕸

(Agender) Any/all pronouns, including neos

[Which is very cool of you btw! You are just generally very gool. That is a weird portmanteau combination of the words ‘good’ and ‘cool’ that kind of appropriately sounds like ‘goo’, now that I've reread it. Don't ask me where it came from. I am currently up far past midnight at the original moment of writing this, and some cables got crossed in my brain when I tried to write one or the other, so I just wrote it that way the first time. Aaand… I'm not gonna go fix it now that I've noticed, cuz it's there now and who am I to argue with my own brain — I mean, no more than usual at least. Point being, since I guess the word exists now, I suppose you are very gool indeed. /lh]

And that should be all I think. Bit of a long ask, but hopefully the formatting will help on that front…? Now @/everyone come be appreciated by an absentee demon! /hj

thanks for compiling all thsi stuff C: my name is indeed still Lukas. I got my big teddy bear to hug the laptop screen so hopefully some of that hug energy transfers over to you 🐻 aw you missed writing asks for lil ol me 🥺 i missed reading your asks C:

it only took you A DAY to catch up!??? That is Wild! You must read so fast holy shit. Well after reading that I'm pretty excited to see that story altering ask. Just so you know it hasn't arrived yet in the inbox. I think we're quite close in time zones? so I kinda hope you choose to catch some extra sleep instead of staying up finishing it. But in case tumblr has eaten the ask I hope you saved it somewhere. I already have 2 asks saved up that I can use to progress the story but I don't got much time to write rn (i uhhh i forgot to write a history essay whoops) so I can wait and read your ask before really digging into those 2 asks

[bellaslilpapercut]

Oh boy New Moon! I've got some Thoughts a brewin' babey:

1. Smeyer: you do not need to remind your audience what happened last book, they aren't stupid. Imagine if SC started catching fire with ANOTHER explanation of what the hunger games are and that's the vibe of the first chapters of new moon. We remember james, we know what vampires are, we know that Bella is white, stop reminding us!

2. Bella has the worst self esteem of all time. Every bad thing that has happened to her since the Van Incident has been Edward's fault but she still blames herself and idk if this is Intentional Insecurity or if smeyer is protecting edward's "character" or both but gdamn it's depressing.

3. The reason I said Jasper was Inconsistently Written jumped out at me again. Smeyer dedicated a whole paragraph to pointing out how terrible jasper is at the diet or whatever but in the guide, smeyer tells us jasper actively tried to starve himself in the past because of how difficult his gift made feeding. He was one of only two Cullens to show bella empathy, he smelled her blood before, why does he attack her? The weakness of this decision is pointed out in the exposition: if it really were likely that Jasper would attack Bella, she wouldn't have needed a superfluous paragraph dedicated to telling us how bad he is at self control. If the story had convinced us of that beforehand, we would have believed the attack without the addendum.

4. The party is my least favorite part of the whole series and I will die on this hill: edward should have attacked bella. Bella should have tripped into something glass and edward should have lost it because he tasted her blood before and couldn't help himself. That way: edwards self loathing makes sense and he's forced to recon with his superiority complex from the ending chapters of twilight AND bella's self blame makes sense. A vamp who was able to starve himself before he even heard of the cullens should not have lost it around someone he spent days in close quarters with, building rapport and friendship. Edward got too high and mighty after he fed from Bella in Twilight, that should have had real consequence.

5. The writing is getting a little better as we near Edward leaving. "Better" isn't a good word actually but it's getting closer to the prose in twilight (which was flowery and annoying but at least it didn't constantly feel like being spoonfed exposition every paragraph). Hm wrote this blurb while I was still on chapter 3 and the vibe of being spoonfed reminders has not really dissipated lmfao.

We remember Sam Uley, smeyer, you introduced him four chapters ago. Just quick question: did anyone proofread this?? I think it's fair to say: when she isn't reminding us of things that we remember the prose is more similar to twilight. A little annoying but interesting enough to forgive the errors (or at least move past them easily enough lol).

6. I'm on chapter 8 now (I'm gonna break this up into three parts so I don't forget stuff like I did during the twilight reread) and there's a very heavy Vibe that smeyer is setting Jake up to be a parallel for twilight-era Bella. This line here is a pretty clear parallel for Bella telling Edward not to hold his breath in Twilight when he tells her she might get tired of him.

7. This line here "almost happy in a shallow kind of way" really jumped out. What Bella's narration says about Jacob versus her conversations with him (and her one paragraph about his happiness being effortlessly contagious) are at odds. It doesn't read like shallow happiness when she's with Jake. However, Smeyer is also a bad writer, she thinks the story she's telling us is literally what the narration says and not what the action shows and I think she realizes this in Eclipse (but obviously I'm not there yet so I can't say for sure).

8. I really can't get over the drop in writing quality. I know that she had already mostly finished Forever Dawn by the time Twilight was published (or was halfway done, I think her website said she had over 300 pages of forever dawn complete when she found out Twilight was getting published). I think the writing quality really reveals that she was not prepared to write New Moon. It's sloppier than Twilight in a way I'm not able to articulate (by that I mean I personally have a more intuitive than technical understanding of grammar and syntax so I don't have the language to break down the differences). Twilight itself is ripe with technical errors and plot errors and awkward exposition so it's not an overt drop in quality but I think it very much reads like a rushed writing job. She was committed to forever dawn, her publishers wanted New Moon, it shows.

9. I think New Moon was when I first started physically editing my copies of the saga lol. Even reading it now I'm so tempted to open up a word document and cut half of the useless shit out and fix all the grammatical mistakes. I can't even talk shit because I am also a comma-abuser but I hoped an editor would at least catch the errors before publishing. Guess not! Brevity is very clearly not meyers strong suit and this would have been a much stronger sequel if she had been able to reign herself in a bit. New Moon isn't supposed to be as narration heavy as twilight, there's already more action in the first seven chapters than the there was in the first 19 of twilight but she always delivers exposition via awkward dialogue or Bella's narration. Again, we already got a lot of the exposition in twilight, we know how vampires work et cetera. You can show us how bella feels instead of making her tell us and the story would run a lot more smoothly.

10. I'll end on a nice note! Little treat!

This is my favorite part of the book so far. I whited-out the useless dialogue tag because the line reads better without it ( line originally ends with "I emphasized" but she could have been brief and just ended the dialogue with an exclamation point for the same effect). The dialogue is natural and shows the J/B relationship that lives in my head way better than anything else I've seen on the page at this point. Like, I literally love this line more than any dialogue that preceded it (including twilight) lol.