Comments about 1.3?

While I wrap up the retranslation for The World, 2 Years Later I thought I'd just poke in and ask everyone their general consensus on 1.3 - it doesn't have to just be a standard opinion, it can be anything! Thoughts, favourite/least favourite things, theories, etc. I honestly just want to discuss it generally and beyond a few initial impressions from when it was released, I never really heard much else than that. So I'd love to see what's on everyone's mind regarding it!!

This really doesn't have anything to do with the re-translation, I just tend to stay motivated more talking to people about whatever material I'm working on and I'm really just curious (and need something to come back to between translation lol)!

For starters, my favourite story would have to be the Truly Diseased! It's absolutely insane (to put it mildly), and I have good memories translating it and seeing the initial reaction among my friends when I finished it up. I had worked so hard on Little Sister, the first story in 1.3 I TLed and my first big translation project in general, I ended up getting a bit of a fever, so I finished The Truly Diseased at 4 in the morning with a fever blasting 10's nightcore mixes through my earbuds and feeling ready to pass out. I stayed up an extra hour or so just to discuss and see everyone's reactions when it first came out!!

I have my reservations with what they did with some of the characters - I really didn't care much for them trying to add edge onto Seere, since his lightheartedness in DOD1 did more to balance the game and keep it from feeling just laughably grimdark in contrast to the staff's opinion which this Seere,,, kinda does, tbh? His whole character just felt less like "levelling him out with the rest of the cast" and more just kinda making the whole thing a little unserious, really, though I was happy to see him with Manah! And Leonard I'm 50/50 on. While its a GREAT and utterly terrifying concept for his character, "What if we took away his key trait in going through hell NOT to act out on his desires and he just didn't care anymore", the ambiguous context surrounding what changed to make him so different to begin with kinda makes it fall flat and fall more into "making him worse for the sake of it" territory, which is... ehhhh. I feel like if you take a core trait like that from such a character, you're going to NEED some background on what changed in their story, circumstances, etc. to take it away, otherwise the "different timeline = different person" feels pretty cheap? The story SEEMS to probe at some hint of a backstory for him, and I do have a running theory I've picked up from a few bits in the text that he may have also had something to do with the dragon's blood which could be a potential explanation for why he just seems to slip from his path in DOD1, but in short when it comes to he and Arioch's VERY vague backgrounds, I feel that depending on the details of whatever it is/could have been would be the line that majorly makes or breaks the change they did with him in 1.3. 👀 Till then, he's just kind of a semi-interesting flip on a character with nothing really to stand on, making it nice food for thought! But a bit hollow if you solely go off the source material.

My least favourite story would probably have to be The Land of Dragons, mostly just because of the direction taken with Seere, though I do love the last scene with him in the story!
I also really adore the two original characters we got for TW2YL and The Truly Diseased. I'm really focusing on the characterisation of the former to make him feel,,,, less flat? Than he was in the original translation? He's a nice character, but kinda unremarkable imo
But the half-elf in particular was a sweetheart!! I remember having a LOT of discussion about her character in particular, since there just seems to be so much to be said about her character and her background, arc, etc. coming back to the Truly Diseased I was really excited to get to revisit her character in particular! While retranslating, I made a lot of deliberate choices relating to her arc there especially.

Anyways, that's enough rambling from me!! I'd really like to hear any thoughts or so that you might have, since this is such an interesting little tidbit of the series and there's a lot to be said! As small a chance as it may be, I'd be really happy to see DOD1.3 come back in some way, especially to elaborate on what we already got. There's a lot of unanswered questions I'd love to see answered, especially where Leonard/Arioch in the Truly Diseased are concerned. Just a lot of questions in general...

I hope to get this finished soon, and am really excited to be bringing this back! I can't say for certain, but I hope that reading the re-translation of 1.3 when it's done will be like seeing it again with new eyes when it comes out. I'll be just under halfway by the end of tonight :) I look forward to seeing your thoughts!!