1079 Ja Matta Ne.

I went ahead and finally had Hiveworks transfer over the site to their servers. They are supposed to be far superior to the service I’ve been using, so hopefully the page will load super fast now and you won’t be held back by the near constant throttling I was getting on Bluehost. Even on my shitty connection it’s been working much better than usual, so I hope you notice the improvement. I can actually load the page in seconds now compared to the sometimes minutes it would take, if the server would let me do it at all. Hopefully as time goes by the other little issues with the site can be repaired.

Here’s a continuation of the story from Monday.

There was no way she could see him. If elves could see this far they wouldn’t need magical bows…
Maybe it was happenstance. Yes, happenstance. Out of all the possible directions she could be facing she was looking directly at where he was crouching, and grinning wryly… for no reason.
As Julius studied her face he couldn’t help but notice that it didn’t look exactly elfish. She was probably half or less, but her ancestors still must have been exceptionally attractive and passed it right down the line. Her whole face was involved in her adorable smile and he studied it intensely. A few stray hairs fell across one side and she brushed them away gently, then pointed at one of her sky blue eyes. She then flicked one of her very large ears and pointed at him.
“I could hear you,” thought Julius, rolling his eyes at his own incompetence. There was no point in pretending he was hidden now. Hopping over the log, he set off towards this seemingly good natured person.
She watched him make the entire, laborious, trek down the mild incline. He fussed and struggled with his cloak as it caught on brambles, stumbled here and there, and was remarkably entertaining. If he hadn’t been flailing around so much she would never have been able to see where he was. His clothing perfectly matched the coloration of his current environment. The distinct sound of cursing and exasperation radiated away from him with every slight failure. In spite of all this he made good time and soon she could make out his features more clearly.
His hair was shoulder length, and parted in the middle. It was managing itself quite well considering its master was whipping it to and fro, like and idiot, at random intervals. In the moments when he was struggling against invisible enemies she could make out weapon handles on each side of his hips. Whoever he was he was well armed in spite of how shabby he looked. Although she was having a hard time seeing this odd man as a danger to anyone but himself.
Rather than stand and wait she decided to to go back to the shaded spot where she’d been sitting, before she heard him trampling the foliage. At length he marched, with as much dignity as he could amass, into the little clearing. She leaned forward, hanging on her pike, and grinned broadly at him. He couldn’t help but notice her prominent front teeth, which were not very elf like at all.
“Hello.” He said after a long moment.
“Hello.” She grinned back melodiously.
Julius held his map out. The two dots had been replaced with text. She read it aloud.
“You have reached your destination.” She held out her own map. The same text stared back at him. “These things are terrible.” She said. “You should have used a proper map.”
“We see most clearly that which has passed.” He replied, slumping onto a patch of moss. “Are you my client, or another member of the party?”
“The latter. I’m an associate loremaster, or mistresse if you prefer to be specific.” And with a wiggle of her spear she added. “In addition to other potentially useful skills.”
She rose and offered a hand. Julius did likewise, but found himself looking up at her a bit more than was typical when greeting a woman. Up close she was a bit more majestic than he was emotionally prepared for. He instantly felt shabby and the sensory perfection that was touching her hand didn’t help this feeling at all.
“Julius Drywood.” was all he managed to sputter out.

I was going to go on from here but I couldn’t think of a name for the girl. The character is being played by Nina in my head, which should be painfully obvious to you. It always takes me forever to name stuff.

36 Comments

You’re welcome to use my favourite character name (I mainly use it when I play Guild Wars 2). It’s Taylara Rayvnthall. Not saying you have to, of course!

It seems Thomas has a thing for redheads, it seems. And yes, it seems Jo is right. But what is up with all of the Japanese words thrown in there?

Ugh. I hate when people combine English and Japanese. It’s worse when they aren’t even fluent in it and the only Japanese they know is a few scraps they picked up from watching anime. That said, it at least be tolerable if Crave could spell the romanization properly. It’s “Ja matane” (“Well, see you”), what Constance said was “Well, I waited” which really doesn’t make sense… (It’s true, look it up!)

I apologise if it sounds like I’m being overly critical, but I tend to be quite obsessive about the use of language, especially those I have some knowledge of…

Well, the thing is, the internet doesn’t agree on a single Romanization of the phrase, so I just used the most common one I saw. I really have no reason to believe you know any more about it than any other random person. I also saw Matta ne and Ja matta as variations of the same basic meaning. So, tell me why I should believe your way. Make your case. If you can do it convincingly, AND without coming across like an ass I will change it. Gauntlet thrown! X3

I was referring to Constance about that, not Crave. I understand that this is a quirk with Constance, I just kind of wondered why she did it.

Also, Crave, I have up until recently glanced at your comics and last weekend decided to read them. I was not disappointed in the least. I love the literary device you used on pg 229 to show the shift in Thomas’s mind, from gloom to somewhat happy. And Reggie… I love to hate that little douche. And I love how you drew Carol. She’s pleasantly curved without being overly plump.

Quite the challenge. I decline. It’s the correct romanization. The reason to believe it is because it’s true. No need to change the comic though; maybe she pronounced it incorrectly.

Damnit, how I’m sposta learn anything that way?

The phrase is written in Japanese as follows:
???????
This should be literally romanized as:
Ja, mata ne!

The confusion stems from the fact that the verb for “to wait, to look forward to”, ?? (matsu), conjugates in the informal past indicative as “matta”. While this makes it a seemingly valid candidate, we instead need to look at the adverb “mata”.

Often written in hiragana (??) instead of kanji (?)[1], “mata” means “again”. As explained at [2], under Literal Meaning 6, the implication is “Let’s meet again.” As Japanese leans heavily on implied context, this is understandable.

While the correct romanization is, in fact, “ja mata ne”, I don’t feel that the errant “ja matta ne” contributes to any loss in meaning. Change it if it bothers you; otherwise leave it be.

[1]: http://jisho.org/kanji/details/%E5%8F%88
[2]: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Lessons/Introduction/Konnichiwa/Formality#Explanation_2

Now that is what I call an acceptable explanation. Clear, concise, and not written like a jerk. GOLD STAR!

All my bad anyway, not Crave’s. May be more typos on the way courtesy of me, too. Blame my writing them out in a feverish pace. And my… not living in Japan for nigh on 12 years now.

Now that he’s past the initial “DO NOT WANT” phase, I think Thomas is may e a bit let down that she’s being so nice.

It’s so depressing when your archenemy moves on with their life. You build them up and get ready for the final battle and it’s all, “Hey there, how ya doin? I was just getting ready to sit down and watch the game. You want a beer?”

NO, WE MUST FIGHT!

TO THE DEAAAAAAATH.

“Whatever, man. I got twenty bucks riding on this game.”

Reading up to this, why do I feel that this is Thomas’s Magnum Opus, and this is all just the events leading up to his masterwork piece that places him on the map? And not only that, but I do hope he stays with Carol. A girl filled with that much awesome is too good to let go.

Agreed. I get the feeling that Crave is going to do something that will change the world back to black and white (life is what you do Between Failures, after all), but I REALLY want to see these two together. Webcomic couples are broken up so much that it’s become a bit cliche and a drag to read through.

I’m gonna guess that he does remain with Carol, as she’s the one who brought him out of his funk, and that they all were at least known enough through their little video (or through Nina’s collab) that Thomas is reflecting on what really changed his life.

Preggers…? Now that Jo mentions it, noticed it on Friday that Constance had a bit of a belly. Might have to read back a bit but I’m pretty sure Thomas and her have been slit up far too long for the possibility of it being Thomas’s. So I guess she must have moved on.

Hiveworks is becoming quite the monster in the kingdom of webcomics. It’s like they somehow got ahold of my bookmarks list and are going around wrangling up any of my favorite books that they’re missing. lol

Did she speak in fan-Japanese a lot when she was dating Thomas?

Fan-japanese, LOL. That is perfect. I am going to use this to describe this phenomenon from now on. The first thought I had when she started to spout the Japanese was that this is the type of person that the Saturday Night Live skit is making fun of.

Pregnant! I didn’t even think of that possibility.

While I’m pondering that, I have a request. SHOW US HER LEFT HAND!

Uh…. Please?

Why?

To ensure she’s not the Six-Fingered Man.

But he had six fingers on his *right* hand. I suspect Yawnitz wants to know if Constance has gotten married.

Or engaged. Either one should work. While it’s possible to get pregnant without either possibility, or even to be so without a ring, it says a lot about the guy if this is the case.

Or the girl, if this isn’t the case.

Or me, if she’s not pregnant.

has anyone mentioned that the writing has been really hard to read for the past two weeks or so? it’s like a gray on a dark blue, and you have to highlight it to be able to read it. i dont know if anyone else is having this issue, but it kinda sucks

Uh….Niona? Sounds kinda elfish, and gives more than a nod to her progenitor.

I actually thought about that one, but didn’t go ahead and use it because it seemed so on the nose. Maybe I should just go with it if for no reason other than to speed things along.

This is more of an accomplishment for me than I have in most weeks. (or months). Don’t begrudge me my mirthful joy.

Loving the little story! Yep, it was pretty clear to me that Nina plays the waiting woman. And guessing by the long hair parted in the middle, Julius is Ed?

I feel like this is my thing now…This is another one where the ADs got shifted to the bottom, but this comic isn’t distorted at least. No stretches, just the ad on the bottom

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