Hold him like a cat

you can have this as a sticker or keychain in my shop now:

I bought smth at the Nintendo store here and it was an experience for sure

Which is sadly to be expected. As much as I love the love trio calling each other soulmates, shinyuu more closely means best friends and it was to be expected. Especially when you calculate the Ameri stuff following it. It sucks, and tbh I don’t think it fully encapsulates the way Azz and Iruma react afterwards (especially how they use it following this chapter) but this is the nature of the beast. The fan translation used a looser definition and with how slow the translations are for Iruma, of course the word soulmates has become so engrained in the fandom that it’s weird to see something else. And yes, that means it’s even more likely that the episode tomorrow will say best friends.

But tbh, I don’t care. I always knew that it was unlikely to be translated officially to soulmates. And that was, and still isn’t, going to stop me from calling them soulmates. Because while the fan translation did make me ship the love trio (platonically, romantically, and queer platonically) it was never what made them true soulmates to begin with.

It’s the way they can truly be themselves around each other. The way that they were all each other’s first friend. It’s the way they interact with each other, always wanting to cuddle or ready to defend the other. It’s the way that they talk to and about each other. The way that they’ve literally said I love you!! None of that can be taken from us even if the translation says best friends.

And yes, some people will be assholes about it now that the volume is out. They’ll be like “you KNOW that was a mistranslation right” and guess what? I don’t care! Because soulmates will always capture what they are to each other. And it’s too ingrained in the fandom to stop being used anyway.