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inkblackorchid · 2 months

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What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 4)

*Deep breath* Okay, everybody. Let's do this one more time.

First off, hello, or welcome back. Let's get the introductions and disclaimers out of the way, shall we?

This is the fourth and final instalment in my very, very long-winded attempt to analyse the character writing of Crow over the course of the entirety of yugioh 5Ds. For everyone who hasn't read the previous parts of the analysis, you can find part one here, part two here, and part three here.

This post, and my analysis as a whole, is neither meant as a Crow hate post, nor as a manifesto to convince people who don't like him that they're wrong. It's as genuine an attempt to simply look at and dissect what the show gives us about him as I can make, though I admit to personal bias because I do like Crow. That said, I'm trying to stay as neutral as possible, because the aim of this entire post tetralogy is to look at the writing decisions made for this character and how they impact him—and how they possibly influenced the audience's perception of him.

My previous three posts all reference this as well, but since I still see these things parroted all across the internet to this day: Please don't read this post under the assumption that any of the 5Ds production rumours are true, especially not the ones surrounding Crow. Because, to make this as short as possible, every popular theory as to why certain characters were mishandled during the later parts of the show fails to line up with the production timeline of said show. Chiefly among those theories, the idea that Crow was meant to be a dark signer and that his popularity correlated to his cards, and the idea that Aki, specifically, had to give up her screentime for him because her VA got pregnant, which both lack any basis in reality, as you can read in the posts I linked. (One final shoutout to @mbg159 here, who compiled these incredibly comprehensive posts and can also be found here on tumblr. Huge thanks.) So if you can do me one favour, please just let the 5Ds rumours die already and read this analysis without the hope of seeing any of them confirmed. I'm so sick of these crackpot theories at this point that I can hardly find the words for it. And while we're on the topic, I also don't want to see this post used as a means to pit Aki and Crow against each other in any way—both have good reasons to be well-liked and both deserve their spot in the narrative, all right? All right.

And now, at last, let's get down to business. The last time I got on a virtual soapbox and yelled about Crow, I covered the entire WRGP, murder-duel-robot induced break included. That means that for this, final stretch, we'll be looking at everything from episode 137 onwards—the Ark Cradle arc. (A side not for dub aficionados here: Episode 136 was the last episode that got an English dub. In other words, everything I talk about here never even made it into the English version. Because 4Kids, I guess.) As we've done before, we'll take a look at what exactly Crow gets up to during the final stretch of the show (and, notably, the epilogue), then see whether any of it needed improving, and if so, how it could have been improved.

You'll find all further yelling below the readmore, and I'll leave you with the other, usual warning here, as well: This will be long. Even if the Ark Cradle arc, relative to the rest of the show, isn't, this post most certainly will be. So get some snacks and perhaps don't start reading this late at night unless you're good at knowing when to stop and reading stuff in bursts. (I'm not.)

As I concluded at the end of my last post, the WRGP ended up being a bit of a mixed bag for Crow. He's there, he duels, but at the same time, despite being positioned as an equal third of a protagonist trio, he's notably less important and arguably also weaker than Yusei and Jack. Moreover, where the plot is concerned, he sure didn't get too much to do—not to speak of the fact that the writers didn't grace him with any meaningful interactions with a certain character who'll become very relevant here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, the preamble.

With the end of the Team New World duel, the final arc of the show drops the by this point unexpected arrival of the Ark Cradle right on our heads. So, what does Crow do here, at the start, other than be shocked? Well, not much. A lot of the first episode that introduces the Ark Cradle focusses more on the imminent threat said structure poses to New Domino City, and we flash back to our protagonists mostly to ascertain that things are, in fact, going to shit. Even once that focus on the city evacuating shifts again, the episode concerns itself more with Yusei than with Crow. However, meagre as it is, we do get the first interaction between Crow and Sherry during the Ark Cradle arc in this episode.

(Uh.... at least they're technically talking to each other?)

And frankly... It's not much. Unfortunately, up until the duel where he faces her, the Ark Cradle arc continues a trend regarding interactions between Crow and Sherry that we already saw in the WRGP: They barely get to interact, and even when they do, they never have anything so much as resembling a meaningful conversation, mostly because Sherry basically never addresses Crow directly, nor seems very interested in him, while Crow is usually there only to react to what she's saying, rather than actually talk to her. While digging through my mountain of screenshots, I found that latter part to be especially interesting, because as it turns out, this is a trend not just in Crow's interactions with Sherry, specifically. Many moments that probably contribute to the nefarious "screentime" (I've explained my gripes with this term in part two) some people like to accuse Crow of hogging have him only be part of a scene so he can react to what happens in it, to the point of him sometimes feeling like a stand-in for the audience reaction the writers might be hoping for. The above is a perfect example, because as far as character writing is concerned, Crow's "interaction" with Sherry here is utterly devoid of meaning. He's just there to communicate his disbelief over the ominous prediction that Yusei is guaranteed to die if he goes to the Ark Cradle, which feels like exactly the kind of reaction the writers probably wanted from the audience. After all, it's a bold, shocking statement to make. The protagonist, dying? In a card game anime geared towards twelve year-olds? It's downright preposterous. And Crow seems to agree with that, if his dialogue is anything to go by.

This one and other scenes (mostly the kind that contain plot elements that Crow doesn't actually interact with) got me thinking, though, and after having gone through so much of the show with a fine-tooth comb now, I think I've come to a conclusion, so permit me a tangent here: I believe the choice to let Crow, specifically, be a character who often only reacts to events or interactions after the DS arc, rather than contributing much himself, is deliberate. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's the only character who is frequently put in this position—Aki, the twins, and even Bruno, especially when they're on the sidelines in the WRGP, also often only seem to be there to react or comment on things, perhaps partially to remind us viewers that they still exist, despite not being in a position where they contribute anything to the plot. With how much the twins and Aki got pushed to the side after the pre-WRGP and the Unicorn duel, respectively, and with how toned-down Bruno's entire character is until the very end, as not to spoil his tragic antagonist status too much, Crow in particular ending up as an often reactive, rather than active character stands out a bit more, though. And I think this has everything to do with his personality, because it contrasts that of Jack and Yusei. Think of it. Sure, Crow is shown several times to be just as cool and competent as the other two, but what he has that the other two crucially lack is the ability to freak out like a normal person. I'm being hyperbolic here, of course, but I do genuinely believe this, because when I think back to the show, Jack and Yusei, due to their character writing, only ever seem to be allowed to lose their cool during pretty specific circumstances, and only in very specific ways. Jack, for example, only ever gets to freak out either when a scene paints him as the butt of the joke (like during his infamous, dramatic outburst over cup ramen), or when the freakout is caused by—and expressed as—righteous (or not so righteous) fury (like when he storms off angrily after catching everyone watching his old duel with Dragan). Meanwhile, Yusei is played so straight that we barely ever see him lose his composure at all, outside of intensely dramatic, high-stakes situations (think his dark signer duels with Kiryu, his confrontation with Roman, his initial failure to accel synchro). Hell, the closest we get to ever seeing him be mildly upset about something like a normal person, as far as I can recall, is when he gets embarrased by Martha calling him out on his perceived crush on Aki. That's it.

Crow, though. Crow's allowed to do something the other two aren't: He's allowed to react to the world around him like your average guy. Jack blows through their household money for expensive coffee. Crow gets upset. Understandable. Crow gets injured right before his big debut in a turbo duelling tournament and is upset to the point of snapping at his friends over it. Understandable. Seeing Yaeger's kid cheering his dad on and knowing that this kid will cry if his dad loses makes Crow relent and throw the match. Understandable. Sherry predicts Yusei's imminent death due to hocus pocus and Crow calls bullshit. Understandable.

Do you see what I'm driving at? With how the show treats the other two Satellite boys, I'd argue none of the moments above would have worked anywhere near as well if the writers had tried to make Jack or Yusei take Crow's place in any of them. Because while Yusei and Jack, I feel, were certainly written to be the coolest characters (at least to the target audience), Crow seems like he was written to be the most relatable. He's the guy who takes on a delivery job when they need money. He's the guy who complains about his cranky landlady. And he's the guy who reacts to insane nonsense happening around him a little more realistically than his defeated-an-ancient-devil-to-absorb-its-power brother, his shouldering-the-guilt-of-a-cataclysmic-event-decades-ago other brother, their mutual previously-violent-psychic-who-was-part-of-a-cult friend, and the one-of-us-can-see-spirits-and-we-share-a-weird-kind-of-magical-bond twins. As such, it doesn't feel too out there to me to claim that in many situations, they made Crow the stand-in for the audience, because he has a less iron composure than Jack and Yusei, is readily available in many scenes by virtue of living with the other two, and happens to be the guy who has the arguably most normal backstory out of the signers. (Save, perhaps, for Rua, but I've already addressed before why the writers barely ever pulled Rua centre stage for anything. And they certainly wouldn't have pulled him centre stage for this, either.)

Now, as far as character writing is concerned, assuming I'm at least halfway correct with my hunch above, I feel that whether or not this decision is good or a shot in the foot on the writers' part depends largely on every audience member's individual perception of Crow after the DS arc. If you liked seeing this scrappy guy introduced during the DS arc, of course you would have been happy to see more of him! Even if he's only present in scenes to comment on what's going on and doesn't actually get to do anything meaningful. If you didn't like Crow that much, though, I can see how him popping up so often only to yap a bit and contribute essentially nothing could have grated on you. And as I said, I think this is where the "screentime" discussion comes in again, because yeah, Crow is very much on screen in all these little-bit-of-nothing scenes. He doesn't get to do much and his character isn't fleshed out or reinforced in any way, but he sure is there. For better or for worse.

And this—this is where I can finally get back to him and Sherry. Because in his interactions specifically with her, it is for worse, due to the fact that all the scenes that contain both of them before the Ark Cradle duel are pretty much exclusively these kinds of little-bit-of-nothing, reactive scenes. Crow doesn't get to interact with Sherry meaningfully, and he never—and I need to empathise this—, not once gets to interact with her one on one, not until the end-of-series duel both of them take part in happens. What makes Crow's lack of meaningful interactions with Sherry even worse is that his later duelling partner against her is Aki, of all people, who by contrast gets to interact with Sherry a whole bunch, most notably during her duel against Yusei. Not only that, but Sherry is also shown to actually be interested in Aki, which cannot be said for Crow. Yet, still in the same episode I was describing above, while the Ark Cradle begins its descent, it's not Aki, but Crow who is entrusted with this card by Mizoguchi/Elsworth:

(I'd like to point out that the dialogue following this moment doesn't make it clear whether Crow even knows what Sherry's connection to this card is. For all we know, this could be the first time Crow sees it, without being aware of any of the context surrounding it.)

You know, the card that's essentially a symbol of Sherry's attachment to her parents and her commitment to revenge. The card that basically her entire character revolves around. For a single piece of cardboard, this thing comes with a lot of narrative baggage attached, yet canon doesn't even take the time to assure us that Crow knows what Z-ONE means, other than it being a memento of Sherry's parents, as Mizoguchi explains. And frankly, this all feels like a rather ham-fisted attempt to get some last-minute setup for the later confrontation between Crow and Sherry in. It's like the writers desperately wanted to feel the emotional moment in the duel later to feel earned; they wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. There's only one problem: They didn't even bake the damned thing, the ingredients are just sitting around, untouched, as if staring at them long enough will magically make a cake manifest.

But, well, since I'm already talking about this, I may as well get into the actual meat of the matter, because frankly, it's not like Crow gets much else to do at the start of the arc. Yusei takes off because he at first wants to go to the Ark Cradle alone (like an idiot), leading to the signers coming after him (and telling him he's an idiot). Joining this effort and assuring Yusei that they won't let him die alongside the others is as much as Crow gets to do before the inevitable three-way duel starts.

(That said, while it doesn't accomplish anything, I've always appreciated this little moment while Yusei still tries to pull his stupid kamikaze plan—Crow would know more shortcuts in the BAD area than he does. After all, he lived there for a good while!)

After that, everyone gets up to the Ark Cradle and, as we all know, the signer group is forcibly split up by Z-ONE before deciding to go to a Yusei gear each in order to shut down Ark Cradle's negative Moment. (Top ten sentences that wouldn't make a lick of sense to anyone who isn't up to their neck in 5Ds lore.) And the very first duel on the menu in this final stretch of episodes is also Crow's final duel in the entire show.

(Drumroll please.)

Here's the thing. I love this duel, actually. I get extremely hyped every time I rewatch it. BUT. But. I do not love it so blindly that I couldn't see that it has not one, but several issues. Not only that, but those issues don't just rest on Crow's shoulders, they sadly rest on the shoulders of all three participants in this duel, because frankly? Alongside the four-way Jack/Rua/Ruka/Aporia duel, this duel is one of the Ark Cradle arc's desperate attempts to tie up loose ends. Because as much as I enjoy this arc, that's exactly what it is: A race to the finish line, an attempt to tie as many loose ends as possible up in as little time as the show could get away with. To make clear why I think this, let me just list off all the things this arc resolves or at the very least tries to tie up with a neat bow:

It reintroduces Aki's psychic powers, which we were previously led to believe she'd lost. Notably, we didn't get a reason for why they disappeared and don't get a reason for why they reappear, either. It also turns them into healing powers in an attempt to establish a reason for why she later studies medicine.

It explains what happened to Sherry and what actually drives her revenge. Furthermore, it releases her from her narrative fridge-prison in order to actually let her duel Aki (yes, Aki, specifically), which is a confrontation that was subtextually implied several times previously.

It resolves the question of Bruno's identity by revealing him as an antagonist.

It finally reveals Life Stream Dragon, who was at this point teased over seventy episodes ago.

It also finally rewards Rua, who was teased to possibly become a signer during the DS arc, with an actual signer mark. (As short-lived as it may be.)

It actually explains Iliaster's real plan, which is Z-ONE's hope that the 5Ds gang can actually save the future.

Speaking of which, it actually explains who Z-ONE is and why he's a big deal. (Remember, this guy was first teased a good while ago at this point in time.)

Alongside Sherry, it dusts off several protagonists who didn't get an opportunity to duel on-screen and lets them duel one, final time. (Notably, Aki, Rua, and Ruka, who at this point haven't been seen duelling since the early WRGP or even pre-WRGP.)

You may notice that none of these bullet points contain Crow. They do, however, contain Aki and Sherry, both of whom went into this finale with several unanswered questions as to their characters. Crow, not so much. But let's just put a pin in that for now while we actually jump into the duel.

*Cracks knuckles* Aki & Crow VS Sherry. Here we go at last. Fair warning, the character writing of all three participants of this duel overlaps a fair bit here, so expect to hear a bit of a mishmash about our revenge trio.

So, how does this duel start? Firstly, with Sherry waxing poetic about why she's even opposing Team 5Ds now.

(A dramatic switch of sides that sadly doesn't hold a candle to Bruno turning out to be Antinomy. Which, funnily enough, might be why this duel is front-loaded and Bruno's comes later.)

I won't dig into this too much, but I just want to point out the one thing this moment gives us: It establishes character motivation. Sherry claims she can no longer get revenge and has thus lost her purpose. (The reason why she can no longer get revenge, if you're interested, is because Moment Express, her final lead, vanished in its entirety, as far as canon is concerned.) Thus, she took the bait when Z-ONE offered her a new purpose, and, more importantly, a reward. Now, Aki and Crow at this point in the episode don't get to hear what that reward is, but for our analysis, it's important to keep in mind: Z-ONE promised Sherry he'd alter the timeline so she would get her parents back if she helps him. And I think this is immensely important because this is not only Sherry's goal in the present, I think it's actually the core of her character from the very first moment we meet her. In classic, tragic-avenging-type character fashion, she claims to want revenge when what she's really doing is trying to numb the pain of the awareness that she'll never get her parents back. (Though I'll admit this may also be my generous read of her as a person who likes revenge-obsessed characters.) And then, Z-ONE dangles the actual thing she wanted all along before her. Of course she took the bait.

This brings us to the start of the duel itself. As we know, Sherry employs some tactics that feel quite different from what she previously did in this duel. First and foremost, she messes with the mechanics of the duel itself by using the field spell Ecole de Zone, creating an illusion that confuses Aki and Crow into duelling not her, but each other at first. Sherry, meanwhile, takes a very passive role, clearly intent on letting the two destroy each other while she sporadically activates card effects to accelerate this. What makes all this stand out as even more unusual for her is that she sets this up by lying. At the beginning of the duel, she tells Aki and Crow that there's two of her, and that each duellist will fight one copy of her on a seperate field each, but this is a misdirection to make the two signers duel each other instead of her. And, look. I don't need to tell you this is out of character for Sherry. Canon literally does that for me.

(Case in point.)

It's only after Crow and Aki catch onto the fact that something's wrong and after Aki destroys the field spell that Sherry uses her "real strategy", switching to Soul Binding Gate, which inflicts real damage every time a monster with less attack points than her life points is summoned, in order to whittle away at both other duellists' life points. This is also the point where she reveals to her opponents that she's doing all this to get her parents back. While she does that, we get a bit more back and forth in terms of cardplay, until Aki sets the field up just right so Crow can land a very high-damage hit with Black-Winged Dragon to end the duel. And that is pretty much the gist of it on the duelling side of things.

So what's going on on the narrative side of things, then? Well. Let me front-load something I've noticed on the narrative end: This duel heavily interacts with Crow's and Sherry's characterisation, but barely at all with Aki's. I'll make clear what I mean by that below. For now, let's just get an overview by going through the character moments as they occur in the duel. Why go through all of them? Because most either interact with Crow in some way, or set up a later interaction in the same duel that he's a part of, that's why. I'll get into the nitty-gritty of what this duel did well and what it didn't after that. (Mostly. You may have noticed I like tangents and rambling excessively.)

So.

The first moment belongs to Aki and Crow in equal measure, and happens just as Ecole de Zone is destroyed—which Aki accomplishes by using Crow's monster to synchro summon Black Rose Dragon, as well as prevent that synchro summon from being negated through the same monster's effect, so she can use her dragon's field wipe to get rid of Sherry's field spell. When Sherry is surprised by this, Aki and Crow explain that they memorised each other's cards as part of a strategic effort as a WRGP team.

(Friendship is, in fact, magic.)

Not only does this explanation make perfect sense, it's also an excellent little tidbit to tie Aki and Crow together as a tag-team here, as it strengthens the connection between them. The only gripe I could possibly see with this is that it feels like this didn't necessarily need to be a surprise, end-of-the-show reveal. Frankly, it could have been pretty cool to see this much earlier, to have members of Team 5Ds realise what their teammates were getting up to during the WRGP duels, for example. (Instead of so often having the other signers react just as shocked as the announcer to their teammates' plays—I'm side-eyeing the infamous "a trap from the graveyard"-moment in particular. Like, Aki, sweetie, if you memorised Crow's deck, why are you surprised that he has a trap he can activate from the graveyard? I digress.) Moreover, this could have built anticipation for this particular duel, as viewers would have been excited to see what Aki and Crow would come up with to defeat Sherry as a team. So this moment is not bad, really. Just a bit underutilised, at least to me. (The word "underutilised" might become a trend in this post.)

Every other character-driven moment from here on out is shoved into the second duel episode, 140. Speaking of which, this episode starts with Aki and Crow getting the reveal of why Sherry is helping Z-ONE, where she admits that she joined the bad guys because she wants her parents back. She even goes as far as stating that because Z-ONE showed her the future, she has no hope that it can be saved and thus at least wants her lovely past back so she can have some solace before everything goes to hell for humanity. But we already went over that above.

Next up, albeit this moment should probably be considered more of a running theme than just one self-contained thing, we have Crow's struggle with Soul Binding Gate. Remember, the effect of this field spell causes all players to take damage every time a monster with less ATK than Sherry's LP is summoned. And at this point in the duel, Aki is barely above 1000 life points, so Crow worries about triggering the field spell's effect and hurting her, which leads to him playing suboptimally because he's more concerned about his friend than about winning the duel. Notably, Aki calls him out on this.

(She has a point.)

Outside of providing an internal conflict for Crow to grapple with, this isn't much to write home about. (Side note: I do find it interesting that they introduce the fear of physically hurting someone in a duel specifically in connection to Aki here, though, given that through her psychic powers, she had to grapple with this exact issue many times in the past. I have no idea if this was intentional, though.)

Between this and the next moment, there's a nice bit of interplay between Crow and Aki again, where he activates a card to refill her life points just in time so she doesn't drop to zero through Soul Binding Gate, while Aki uses a defensive trap to protect Crow in return.

(This is just here because it's a money shot to me. The juxtaposition of their faces and their life points, showing that while Aki may have the lowest life points, she still has the coolest head in this duel, and while Sherry technically has the upper hand, she's beginning to falter because she didn't anticipate the other two to work so well together. It's chef's kiss. Mwah.)

What follows after this, is, of course, the Big Moment. Where Sherry tries to convince Crow to forfeit so she can win and have Z-ONE change the past. And this is the one I really need to dig into.

With Sherry's earlier admission that she's on Iliaster's side because she wants her parents back acting as setup, she begins her attempt to sway Crow by telling him that if he had the opportunity to change the past, he would do it, too. And while Crow initially protests, Sherry challenges this, then proceeds to show him what Z-ONE's power could accomplish, and we get a lengthy sequence where Sherry, through weird cyborg-techno-magic-shenanigans that are never explained, takes Aki and Crow to a dreamlike space where Crow sees the orphans he used to take care of being happily reunited with their parents. Sherry also ominously tells him that this is "what he desires deep in his psyche" before promising him that if he surrenders the duel, Z-ONE can give him a world where Zero Reverse never occurred and all the kids can have happy lives with their real families. (I wanted to post most of this sequence in screenshots, but while I have them, I've realised I'm only a few images short of tumblr's limit already, so forgive me because I will need those remaining image spots.) This moment proceeds to introduce some serious doubt on Crow's end. Aki, meanwhile, remains steadfast, telling him not to fall for Sherry's manipulation, which leads to her giving an almost Yusei-style speech. In a moment where Crow wavers, both because he's genuinely considering whether taking Sherry's offer might be the wiser choice, and because he doesn't want to hurt Aki by triggering Sherry's field spell effect, Aki calls out to him and tells him to snap out of it by reminding him of how Yusei reached out to her during their second duel. This speech is a bit, um. Clunky, I feel. (At least if the translation is correct. If it isn't, then that may be the issue.) See, she tells him that Yusei "saved her from the darkness of her psychic powers", that "he wasn't concerned about his own safety and risked his life to persuade her", that, because her psychic powers are now gone, she's "renewed" and that this somehow brought her to the epiphany that as long as she believes in her own potential, she can change the future. This is lifted almost verbatim from the scene, by the way. Leaving aside the fact that half of this feels like a mild to severe misrepresentation of Aki's character arc during the DS arc (don't talk about it, don't talk about it, I need to make this another post of its own, damn it), I, personally, can't exactly follow how she ended up with that final epiphany from the circumstances she listed. But lucky for us, Crow apparently gets what she's driving at, because he quickly echoes her statement and they both conclude that Crow's kids also believe in the future and fight to live, that they're not sad about their lives the way they are right now, even though they don't have parents. Thus, Crow catches himself, echoing Aki's sentiment and telling Sherry that he, too, believes in the future. And through the power of Friendship and Believing in the Future, he manages to use Aki's cards to land the final hit, nicely mirroring how she used his to destroy Ecole de Zone.

...Phew. Okay, look. First off, that above, large section is basically several character beats stacked on top of one another. On Sherry's end, we have the intriguing fact that she's specifically trying to manipulate Crow, not Aki. In fact, she doesn't so much as try to sway Aki, as though she knows it's no use. Then, on Aki's end, we've got her pulling a real Yusei, staying level-headed almost the entire duel and reaching out to make sure Crow stays on track. This moment also ties back to her own conflict with her powers again. (Which, unfortunately, I will talk about, and yes, I'll be chewing drywall the entire time I do it.) Finally, on Crow's end, we've got a nice, proper moment where he doubts himself and, by his own admission, nearly makes a terrible mistake because he wants nothing more than for the kids he used to take care of to have good lives.

Now, before I go over what worked about this moment and what didn't, let me just chew through the rest of the actual duel itself, too, then circle back too highlight some things. In other words, time for me to chew some drywall.

*Sigh*

At the very end of the duel, there are two more character moments that are noteworthy.

First, right before the final hit, we get Sherry desperately defending herself against Aki and Crow's newly strengthened belief that the future can, in fact, still be saved, which she does by (rather heartbreakingly) asking what's so wrong about wanting her parents back, about wanting their love and warmth back. It's at this point that Crow's allowed to get back at Sherry by challenging her beliefs, telling her that people "work hard to live because they only get one chance at life", and that there's no point in trying to go back to do things differently, that the only way to keep going is to believe in the future, regardless of whatever painful and sad events one has had to live through. I'd say this sentiment certainly fits Crow, character-wise, especially given his rough Satellite background. It does partially fall flat because it feels a bit weird for him, specifically, to now be acting like he knows Sherry inside and out, much like she did with him earlier, but again, this is simply a matter of setup and I'll try not to belabour that point again. The horse is already dead, no sense in beating it. It's after this speech and the final attack that Sherry finally realises her error.

Buuut this leads us right into the next character moment. Because as the duel ends, Sould Binding Gate physically falls apart, pelting all three of our duel participants in debris and threatening to crush them under it. While everyone does briefly fall over (and Sherry gets a moment to realise that her father wanted her to live strong, not accept seemingly inevitable doom and die weak), they soon realise they were not, in fact, buried under rubble, though. Because guess what! Black Rose Dragon to the rescue. Black Rose Dragon, who can suddenly physically affect her surroundings again. You know, that thing we were led to believe Aki could no longer make her monsters do because she lost her powers completely out of nowhere. And there's more! Because not only does Black Rose Dragon take care of the debris for the trio, as she disappears, she also heals all three of them, and in response, Crow gets a line that I unfortunately cannot for the life of me discuss without bias because it kills me every time.

(Crow. Crow, please. You're killing me. I beg you.)

This line out of Crow's mouth feels extremely weird to me, and in the process of typing up this post, I've been trying to find the reason why. Here's the conclusion I've come to: Firstly, it feels a bit out of place from him, somehow. A line hypothesising about what psychic powers can or can't do—this is something I would have expected out of Aki's mouth, but not out of Crow's. I believe what makes it feel so out of place, though, isn't necessarily that it seems a bit odd for him, specifically, to theorise about this, but that when I hear it, I don't feel like the character is saying it. Instead, in this moment, moreso than in some others that suffer from the same issue, I hear not Crow, but the writers speaking. I hear them telling me "look, we know we made it seem like Aki's powers are super gone and like they were super, irredeemably bad, and like she and you should be happy that they're gone, but here, see, this is what they're really like. Don't you think we came up with something clever here, to set her becoming a doctor later up nicely? No, this isn't because we needed to backpedal on our decision to make her lose them and be happy about it at the last second, why do you ask?". And yes, I concede this might just be me. (So feel free to disregard this in terms of analysis, I just have some weird kind of vendetta against this line.) But still, even without my personal issues hampering me, this line of dialogue out of Crow's mouth is just plain odd. After all, how would he know what "real" psychic powers are? Since when is he the expert, especially considering we've never so much as seen him comment on Aki's powers before? (And for the record, this line would have seemed just as weird had any other character other than Aki said it imo. It just has that unmistakable "writers trying to justify something at the last second"-tang to me.)

And do not. Do Not get me started on the fact that the writers, despite going to such great pains to paint Aki's psychic powers as an exclusively negative thing especially during the WRGP arc, decide to reintroduce them here, suddenly as a good thing that can also heal people, which directly contradicts every choice they've made when it came to Aki's relationship to her powers ever since the Team Catastrophe duel. While crucially also lacking the one thing this entire duel is practically begging for: Fucking. Setup. But at this point, the handling of Aki's powers, specifically, really needs its own post, so I'll hold off on any further comments here and come back to that another time. I feel like I'm beginning to talk in circles, anyhow. Setup. Setup, setup, setup. This duel wishes it had it, because then the ideas presented here—which, in a vacuum, are compelling—might have worked smoothly.

But, with that. We have finally made it through the duel itself. Sherry, at the very end, gets her change of heart and at last cements herself as a good guy, and that concludes the first duel in the finale, and also both Aki and Crow's last duel in the entire show.

And good lord, was this duel all over the place. Though I think my meandering scene-by-scene breakdown of it showed as much. Now, onto the proper evaluation of what worked and what didn't here. First, let's get the good these two episodes do out of the way, shall we. (Because there is a lot of Bad I need to yell about, unfortunately.)

By virtue of being one of the final duels, this is Aki and Crow's last chance to shine, and shine, they do. Both in the duelling department and in the character department. Aki makes two major plays that upend Sherry's strategy and Crow's perfectly in sync with her, showing that the two truly are teammates, and paying off all the character moments they had specifically in the Team Unicorn to Team Catastrophe section of the WRGP. Their friendship and cooperation is believable and entertaining to watch. Then on the character side, Aki's growth is (somewhat) paid off—where she used to be a character that doubted herself and was afraid of hurting people, she is now the one who can keep a level head and help others fight their self-doubt. Meanwhile, Crow gets to show off his unfailing dedication to community and family again, both by watching out for Aki and by selflessly desiring not for himself to have a better life, but for the kids he used to take care of. And Sherry, who was previously removed from the narrative in such an unsatisfactory way, finally gets to duel again, gets to explain why she actually does what she does, and gets to join the heroes at the end, permanently joining the ranks of the good guys instead of the villains. Happy endings all around.

Ehem. And this is where I'm gonna be less nice about this duel. Because the problem is, due to the specific constellation of characters involved in this duel and how they previously interacted in the show, there's a lot of stuff here that doesn't work nearly as well on a second watch as a first watch would like to make you believe.

First, a broader issue on the card game end of things: The way this duel feels, it's very much more Aki's duel than Crow's, which is also kind of confirmed in the card plays being made. Though it's Crow who's first shown to catch onto the fact that a third party is activating additional card effects out of nowhere, it's Aki who fully solves the mystery, uses Crow's monster to synchro summon Black Rose Dragon, then activates her dragon's effect to get rid of the illusion for good. And while Crow gets to land the final hit, it's Aki's setup and her trap, Synchro Stream, that make it possible for him to win for both of them. And yet. On the dialogue- and character-interaction side of things, this duel is made out to be much more Crow's than Aki's. Because, perhaps surprisingly to some, Aki doesn't waver one bit in this duel. She's got her head in the game the entire time. She's here to do business—that business being defeating Sherry—and by god, does she do it. Moreover, unlike Crow, she has much, much better setup to be duelling Sherry than he does. And this comes right back around to the main thing this duel suffers from, which I've already harped on about: Crow and Sherry, up until this point, have not interacted in a way that would make the connection between them seem in any way significant. Unfortunately for this duel, though, Aki and Sherry have.

From the first episode where we're introduced to Sherry, she's shown to be interested in who Aki is and what she can do. During the duel between her and Yusei, she comments on Aki's powers. Later, when Aki is getting her turbo duelling license, Sherry watches on with interest. At some point while Aki's training, Sherry drops by to speak with her and Yusei again. My point here being, of course, that Aki, unlike Crow, got several scenes where she interacted with Sherry or had Sherry meaningfully take note of her existence before this point. Yet, whatever dynamic the writers may or may not have been aiming for between these two is, at best, underutilised in the final duel, if not completely ignored, at worst. Instead, the writers shift their focus to Crow and try to make us believe that Sherry, a character who has barely acknowledged his existence thus far, would know him well enough to consider him the better target for her attempt at manipulation. (And don't get me started on how the hell Z-ONE's weird robot magic is supposed to expose what Crow "desires deep in his psyche". That is simply a chasm the show expects us to suspend our disbelief over.) And look. The thing is, I don't think the Big Moment where Sherry tries to convince Crow to forfeit is terrible in isolation. Like, they could have made this work, had they given these two setup, had they given us, the audience, reason to believe Crow could be swayed like this (which they, notably, also didn't), and had they given us the impression that Sherry knows Crow well enough to pull something like this. What hurts the scene immensely, however, is that it's preceded by everything before, starting from the WRGP, where there is no setup between these two, no reason to believe Crow could be convinced to forfeit a duel against a major antagonist, and no meaningful interactions to support the belief that Sherry knows who Crow really is at all.

What also stands out to me is that Crow really doesn't feel like the best character to parallel Sherry, here, either. Parallel in the sense that she tries to get to him by expressing a desire she believes they both feel—getting a certain, nicer version of the past they never had back. Because the thing is, Sherry and Crow hardly feel like they have very much in common, and there's certainly no previous hints to make anyone believe they would have this in common. (So for all we know, Sherry could have just been taking a shot in the dark by trying to convince Crow.) You know who could have made for an excellent character to mirror Sherry, though? Yeah. The third person in the room during this scene. Aki.

See, here's the thing about these three as characters, in relation to what this scene tries to accomplish (getting a protagonist to waver by having the antagonist appeal to certain emotional similarities between them): While Crow may perhaps be more relatable to the audience, he isn't all that relatable to Sherry. He comes from dirt poor origins, she from rich ones. He doesn't even remember his parents, she defines herself by the memory of hers. She's a lone wolf, he's incredibly community-focussed. The only parallel you could have drawn between these two, up until this duel, is knowing what it feels like to want revenge. (Sherry with her parents, Crow with his kids back in the DS arc.) But guess what, unfortunately, Aki knows that too, what with her past as the Black Rose Witch and wanting to make people pay for ostracising her. And to make matters worse, she has a lot of other things going for her that parallel Sherry much, much better, too. They both come from well-off families, both have had major, traumatising events in their lives revolve around their parents, both left their initial family structure by way of drastic changes in their life, both are intimately familiar with the desire for vengeance, and, most damningly, Aki knows what it's like to stand on the side of the bad guys—like Sherry is doing in that very scene—because you feel like it's the only place that gives you hope/meaning. Not to speak of the fact that Aki, given her turbulent past with her psychic powers, would probably know exactly what it feels like to want a past you never had back. There would have been so much to work with there, and it makes whatever they were gunning for with Crow look... lacklustre, to put it mildly, by comparison.

The worst part is, I think, that the blame lies neither with the characters nor with the scene concept here. Solely with the execution. Because I truly think they could have made this work. They could have made the entire duel work, big character moments and all. But the keyword is and always has been setup. Setup, which the writers, at least in part, strangely gave to Aki, but not to Crow, which is what hurts particularly his portion of this duel, and, arguably, his character writing in general. Because—and this may be a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but permit me this—while Crow wanting a better future for the kids he used to take care of over a better future for himself feels perfectly on brand, the idea of him forfeiting a duel against a major antagonist, while the threat of the entire city being destroyed is hanging above his head... doesn't. Like, yes, I've talked about the fact that Crow is the only character in 5Ds who ever actually loses duels on purpose. What you may remember, though, is that both occasions we've seen him do this—against Lyndon and Yaeger, respectively—were much lower-stakes duels than this. Not to speak of the fact that it also feels a little odd that Crow, of all people, would buy into the idea that Z-ONE's genuinely powerful enough to just give those kids their parents back, given how liberally he called bullshit on pretty much any and all supernatural mumbo-jumbo claiming that fate is inevitable, or that the gods have this-and-that power, or what have you the entire show. (Also, doesn't he strike you as the guy who'd wonder why Z-ONE's not using his fancy powers for better things, if the extent of them is so great? Or is that just me?) It's a moment of character doubt that tries to sell itself as believable, even though we've never been given any hints that this kind of temptation, specifically, could work on Crow.

Ultimately, Crow & Aki VS Sherry feels like a very hot-and-cold duel. On the cardplay side, the teamwork between Aki and Crow is well done, yet the duel does feel like it skews more towards Aki than towards Crow. Sherry, meanwhile, plays tricky and mean like a proper antagonist, but does so at the expense of sacrificing all her previous tactics and monsters (and, arguably, some of her character, though this is probably on purpose, given her transformation into an antagonist). Then, on the character side, we've got Aki in an interestingly Yusei-ish role, which, while it feels like a good way to show how she's matured and learned, wastes her character dynamic with Sherry. On the other side, Crow and Sherry interact in several personal ways throughout the duel that leave you wondering when exactly these two got to know each other so well, because the show certainly didn't give us a visible progression of their dynamic. The only dynamic that leaves nothing to be desired is that between Aki and Crow (stilted speeches aside), because it excellently showcases their friendship and teamwork. Very weird decisions made in the writing here all around.

We'll get into the nitty-gritty of what changes I would have suggested to improve this duel below, but first: What happens after this duel? Well, two more Yusei gear duels, Aporia briefly standing up to Z-ONE, and then, the final, big clash between Yusei and Z-ONE.

Given that Crow isn't even present for two of these duels and then barely gets more to do than stand on the side and react during the final two, I will dare to skip all that, though. Because really, Crow's occasional comments and the play-by-play he sometimes joins the others in giving when spectating a duel don't exactly contribute anything to his character. They're just there so he gets something to do and doesn't fade into the background entirely when a duel that doesn't involve him is going on. This includes the moment where he, much like the other signers, gets to give Yusei Black-Winged Dragon for the final duel, as well as the later moment when Yusei uses it, chanting in tandem with Crow as BWD arrives. And other than that and the tear-jerking moment when he later reacts to Yusei returning despite all odds, he really doesn't get any noteworthy scenes.

In other words, we are skipping straight to the end. So, where do we find Crow there?

(Oh, y i k e s.)

There's a popular post circulating around this site that goes something like "the worst thing you can do to a character is make them a cop during a timeskip". And, look. I don't think I need to tell anyone that becoming a sector security officer is an extremely jarring character choice for Crow. Crow, of all people! The guy with the face full of markers, who used to be part of a duel gang, who was introduced in the show gleefully stealing from security Robin Hood-style, and who has every reason to despise law enforcement! (Leaving aside the obvious logistical issue that Crow in no country in the world could have completed his police training in the few months between the Ark Cradle debacle and this scene. But given that 5Ds generously brushes realistic concerns like this one aside on multiple occasions, this is, funnily enough, the thing I'm also more willing to overlook here. The character dissonance, however, less so.)

I'll try to be generous and guess that the writers were aiming to convey a message somewhere along the lines of "even someone who's done bad things in the past can become an example for others" or something like it. The problem is just that Crow didn't need any such message because he was already the good guy while he was still actively stealing from security. He was the lovable rogue to a T, damn it! But this, in particular, is a surface scratch hinting at a bigger issue, I think—namely, the issue of the show's complete pivot when it came to the depiction of law enforcement after the DS arc. Because when we think back to that part of 5Ds, good security officers were the exception, rather than the rule. And this is exactly what makes Crow of all characters becoming one even weirder. He would know, would remember how security used to treat him, his kids, his friends, his brothers. And if the idea here was that, well, he's trying to improve sector security by joining it and changing it from the inside, so to speak, then guess what was missing again: Our good, old friend setup. I'm starting to feel like a broken record. So yeah, I don't think a ton of people, whether they like or hate Crow, would disagree that this is a supremely weird position to put his character in.

As we find out through 5Ds' epilogue, however, his sector security job isn't quite what Crow actually wants, though. (And thank god, because that would have been such a bizarre position to leave him in.) Instead, we're shown fairly quickly that several duelling leagues are apparently trying to scout Crow out, and that he's tempted to accept one of the offers and go into pro duelling. This is at first shown in a short scene where something like a league scout follows Crow, then later, when the whole group—sans Jack, at first—is getting together and everyone starts discussing their futures. Aside from complaining a bit about his job and upsetting Aki without meaning to, Crow doesn't get much to do here, either. For what it's worth, at least him feeling tempted to ditch the security job feels more in line with the original Crow we got than with whatever strange twist the writers were going for after this shorter timeskip.

What follows is the very last duel of the show, the long-awaited Yusei VS Jack rematch, of course. And while he doesn't get to participate in this one, Crow, much like Aki and the twins, spectates the duel and ends up having an epiphany about what he wants to do. This epiphany ends up being that he does want to turn to pro duelling, and as a reasoning, canon provides us with this:

(As is known, intense card games are the only way to make children smile.)

Personally, I wouldn't say this is a terrible or out of character reason for Crow to decide to go pro. But there's more to that I'd like to discuss. First, though, let's take a quick look at where we find Crow after the second, bigger timeskip, which is inserted right in the middle of Yusei and Jack's final duel.

(Okay, yeah, I'm a sucker for the bullet earrings.)

The quick scene Crow gets here makes it unmistakably clear that he did go into pro duelling, just like he decided during the duel in the past, and not only that, he went into tag-team duelling and apparently managed to reach world champion status with his teammates. The above scene, however, is the exact same moment he decides to leave said team, so he can instead go solo and (presumably) try to beat Jack.

Now, we can discuss this in a bit more detail. Personally, I'm extremely in two minds about Crow being one of three characters, total, who ends up becoming a pro duellist after canon. Jack seems obvious, especially given the pivot back to his more Fortune Cup-esque persona the writers did around the Red Nova episodes. Rua also makes sense, given that Jack was his idol from the start. Crow, though, feels a little more complicated. The thing is, like so many things surrounding Crow in the Ark Cradle arc, the writers gave us no indication pro duelling is something he's really passionate about before this point. Worse, they didn't even really tell us what reason he saw to participate in the WRGP with his brothers beyond "could be fun". So there isn't really a connection here. The same thing goes for the fact that he specifically talks about teaching his teammates above, which is also something he wasn't associated with all that much previously. Though this one is admittedly less egregious, because at least Crow was seen briefly coaching Aki as she prepared to take his spot during the Unicorn duel. Still, while I wouldn't go as far as saying it's an out of character choice for Crow to go pro, it still feels a little odd that he went down the same route as Jack. Personally speaking, it feels like the writers didn't quite know what to do with him. Because as I said, Jack is obvious and Rua also makes sense, and I'd say the same goes for Yusei. Then there's Ruka, who is treated about as in-depth in the epilogue as she was throughout canon, and Aki, whose "setup" for her timeskip self was done extremely hasty and last-minute, but at least it was there. Between all of them, Crow occupies a weird spot where it doesn't so much feel like he ended up on the wrong trajectory for his life, as it simply feels like there were choices the writers could have made that would have fit him much better. What with his theme of legacy and community, trying to make Pearson's dream of a place where disenfranchised children can learn good life skills a reality would have been a good fit, for example. Especially considering his close ties to the Satellite orphans he used to take care of, which, funnily enough, are reinforced one more time as canon flips back to present day and Crow is seen bidding his kids goodbye.

("Come back"? When, precisely? And what part about "literally saved the world twice" doesn't qualify you as a hero to a bunch of kids ten times over already?)

Considering canon seems hellbent on making sure we know the signers went their separate ways and that they aren't anywhere near each other by the very end of the show, though, my guess is that Crow had to end up doing something like pro duelling, in order to get him out of New Domino City and away from the friend group whose shenanigans we were so accustomed to following by that point. Of course, there's also the argument to be made that Crow staying in NDC and getting a more community-focussed ending would have also been significantly less cool than making him a kickass pro duellist with bullet earrings, which circles back to how the writing interacts with its target audience.

The only thing that follows after this, then, is the big goodbye, and with that, ladies, gentlemen, and other lovely 5ds nerds, we have successfully followed bird boy's path throughout the entire show. And what a ride it was. (I did not think this analysis would end up stretching over a whole four posts.) Time for some closing thoughts before I do my thing and suggest some rewrites that could have made all this feel more coherent one more time.

Crow's character arc, if it can even be called that, feels about as hot and cold as his and Aki's final duel with Sherry over the course of the show. His introduction is fast-paced, he's made to be likable quickly, and his integration into the main protagonist group is as quick as everything else about his narrative. Between the way he shows up out of nowhere, briefly disappears without fanfare, and is then reintroduced with even more importance before slipping into the signer group like he's always been there, it truly feels like his entire inclusion in the narrative was a last-minute decision by the writers to include that one, additional character concept Kazuki Takahashi had originally created after all. If there was one way to describe his whole arc, it would be that it's a rush. At the start, the writers are in a hurry to make him likable, then they're in a hurry to make him a signer, then they're in a hurry to give us a whole backstory for him, then they're in a hurry to give him a believable character dynamic with Aki, and at the end, they're in a hurry to pay off a character dynamic with Sherry they didn't properly set up with him. You may notice that leaves significant gaps, and the lack of balance between those gaps and the rushes surrounding them, I believe, are part of why he's such a polarising character.

Crow is integrated so thoroughly into the signer group at the end of the DS arc that, much like Aki and the twins, he gets stuck in the position of being a character that cannot simply be removed from the narrative for a longer amount of time. And this, I think, ends up biting him in the ass, because in the gaps where the writers don't rush to do something big with him, it often feels like they don't quite know what to do with him at all. So, he instead gets relegated to small side tasks, like inane duels that don't affect the plot, or becomes the person who reacts to unfolding situations in whatever manner wouldn't fit Yusei or Jack. He feels like he's the third portion of the protagonist trifecta only in theory—the status of an equal third player seems to be what the writers had in mind, yet, looking at the show, it feels like an honorary title, at best, because the writing choices made for him don't convey anywhere near the same amount of thought and effort as those of Yusei and Jack. Crow's backstory doesn't intersect significantly with that of his brothers, his dragon is introduced way too late and never given an upgrade, he never gets to clash with Iliaster until the Team New World duel, and throughout the entire WRGP and Ark Cradle arc, there isn't a single duelling victory that's solely his. People who prefer other characters over Crow like to harp on about how much screentime he gets; I argue that this is exactly what showcases how poorly the writers took care of him in many instances. For as much as Crow is plastered onto the screen and given the aesthetics of an equal player in a protagonist trio, his many appearances are as much of a curse as they are a gift, because too many of them aren't spent setting up anything meaningful or developing his character in any way. Speaking of character development: There is none. Crow exits the show pretty much exactly the same as he entered it, brief security stint aside. And, look, this need not necesarily be a bad thing. Static characters exist and they have their place in stories. It's just that in Crow's case, his utter lack of development feels like another damning indicator of the writers' cluelessness when it came to utilising him, given his weird, sort-of-elevated-protagonist. Aki, who is so often weighed against him, gets significantly more development than he does. And though Jack also ends up in almost the same place at the end of the show as he was at the start, at least he had a dip in the middle where his character was somewhat malleable and not set in stone. Crow didn't.

What we end up with, then, is a character whose concept is perfectly fine on paper, but whose execution proceeded to turn him into the one and only favourite for some, and the embodiment of piss poor writing for others. Having now looked at pretty much his entire run in the show with a bloody microscope, I end up somewhere in the middle, myself. He's a good character and much of his writing is confusing at best, utter dogshit at worst. As for what decisions in the writing room led to him turning out like this, I'd still pay good money to know them. For what it's worth, I've tried my very best to make an educated guess as to all of them.

And now, for the final time, allow me to do my very best to suggest how the issues of the Ark Cradle arc could have been addressed in order to make Crow's part in it less messy.

In previous posts, I've split up my rewrite suggestions depending on one circumstance: Whether or not Crow stays a signer. However, this time, I will deliberately forgo this, for one, very simple reason—Crow's status as a signer doesn't matter one bit for the Ark Cradle arc. Regardless of whether he has a mark or not, his duel with Sherry remains unaffected, and so does his later timeskip-self. Thus, pick your favourite, both versions work for the Ark Cradle.

Now. Onto the elephant vengeful Frenchwoman in the room. Let me repeat my favourite word in this post one more time. What the dynamic between Crow and Sherry needed, more than anything else, in order to satisfyingly be paid off during their Ark Cradle duel, was setup. There was so much time Crow spent on screen doing fuck all, and some of that time could have so easily been allocated to him interacting with Sherry in a meaningful manner. (I'm side-eyeing especially his pre-WRGP duels. Those did nothing to add to his character and could have easily been replaced with episodes where he actually gets to talk to Sherry one on one.) And if not that, then the writers could at least have done themselves the favour of letting Aki talk to Crow about Sherry, which would have arguably set up their three-way clash even better. Moreover, show us how the hell these two characters parallel each other and how they differ, damn it! The main issue with the big moment Sherry and Crow had in the duel was that Crow's faltering and his sudden, deep understanding of Sherry came completely out of nowhere. So what if they had shown some of that earlier, then? What if they had shown where the lmits of Crow's resolve lie, what could get him to doubt himself? What if they had drawn the parallel of Sherry and Crow both supposedly being characters that sometimes wistfully think about a past they never had earlier? It would have done so much to make that duel hit exactly the way it was probably meant to. As a bonus, if we had gotten Aki and Crow talking about Sherry, too, the scene of talking Sherry out of helping Z-ONE could have been a team effort, just like their card playing was. Both of them would have reasons to know different aspects of Sherry each, and both could have brought up good arguments. And this is really all this duel woild have needed to be better on the story end, I think: A solid, narrative foundation to make it obvious to us why it has to be these three characters duelling, why it could have only been this setup, why it made the most sense to let these three bounce off each other. Crow only needs that extra step to slot in better with the girls here.

As for the epilogue, I don't think anyone will be surprised to read that I would have never made Crow a cop, not even temporarily. The depiction of law enforcement 5Ds gives us during the DS arc is too damning for that. However, given the way the ending is structured, he does need some sort of occupation that feels like it's not quite the right thing so he can later change his mind about it, of course. Here, though, is where I, purely in service of Crow's character, would suggest a change that probably doesn't work with the ending's final aim of separating the 5Ds gang by hundreds of kilometres each. I would let Crow go into pro duelling first, then let him figure out that's not what he actually wanted. Crow, to me, is a character who is so intrinsically tied to community and family that turning him into a solitary pro duellist—even if he claims to do it to make the kids back home smile—feels off to me. Thus, from a character standpoint, I would let him pivot back to wanting to take care of those kids. Either through what I suggested above, letting him carry on Pearson's dream, or, which also feels fitting to me, by letting him help out Martha again and setting him up as the guy who'll take over when she can no longer run the orphanage. It's not the cool, glamorous end the show gave him, but it's what feels more like the family-focussed guy we first met in the show. It doesn't gel with the idea of permanently separating him from the other signers, though, unfortunately. To do something like that while keeping his community theme, one would probably have to send him away to shack up with Brave or something, to help orphans in other countries. But this, I think, nicely showcases the dissonance between what Crow's character writing would suggest he might do at the end, and what the show demanded he needed to do so he'd no longer be close to the others. Because my focus, as always, is only on character here. And Crow, with his personality and his writing, feels like the character who chafes the most against the idea of striking out solo, abandoning his ties to the community he was so invested in previously. To that extent, the above suggestion is the best I can provide with what we were canonically given. If we wanted to keep the canon ending he gets and actually make it make sense why he suddenly wants to be a lone wolf pro, the only thing I could suggest would be more setup for that. (Ah, there it is again. One final time.) Show Crow having some actual competitive drive, show him enjoying the whole tournament thing more than he thought he would during the WRGP. Just give us something that shows why he would want to go down this path, and why some other things that were previously important to him might not be a priority anymore. It all comes back to setup.

*Deep breath*

So, here we are, then, and this is it. This is all I could make of Crow's character writing in the entire show. To everyone who read this post in its entirety, a heartfelt thank you. To everyone who read the whole series of posts in its entirety, I'm so glad you're as insane about this show as I am, it makes me feel incredibly appreciated. Hope you enjoyed the ride, more meta posts will come eventually, just about different topics. In the meantime, see ya.

#yugioh 5ds #crow hogan #ygo 5ds #5ds #sherry leblanc #yugioh meta #IT IS DONE #HOLY SHIT IT IS DONE #I can't believe I've reached the point of my life where I do gratuitous media analysis for fun #this was such a ride god damn #but I completed it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#I'm sticking a gold star on my forehead as a reward #anyway hope you enjoy this last part #feel free to yell at me (enthusiastically) about it #orchid rambles

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 7 months

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Hey Raven, are you going to watch the upcoming new Disney movie "Wish"?

I've seen mixed reviews, but i'm lowkey excited since we get to see a new Disney villain, especially since Disney got really lame villains after all the old classic movies!

Have you seen the trailer for the movie? What are your thoughts so far?

I saw Wish with a friend recently! I'll give my thoughts on the trailers here (in case you don't want spoilers for the film itself) and put my full thoughts beneath the cut (if you're okay with spoilers).

Looks-wise, I think Disney was definitely trying to go for something more stylistic and painting-esque for this?? And while I commend the effort, it definitely doesn't look as interesting as Puss in Boots 2: The Last Wish. The humor also definitely isn't for me, it feels very "quirky" and "so relatable" (Asha reminds me of Mirabel in that sense), and other times too juvenile (like the goat butt joke). I do like the idea of the villain passing as a good guy in-universe and actually being vain and selfish, especially since the marketing is making it clear who the bad guy is rather than making it a "twist" villain scenario. Not sure if I like Magnifico himself though??? All the ads with him in it feel like Disney is trying too hard to make people thirst for him. From just the trailers, Magnifico does seem interesting and like more of a return to the traditional "villain" rather than the protagonist having to deal with an existential dread or concept.

***Spoilers for Wish beneath the cut!***

Right off the bat, my first impression is the narrative is SO ham-fisted. Within the first 5 minutes alone we're establishing so much information and in such a clunky, unnatural way. Like... Asha says hi to her friends but then they robotically have a dialogue where they overtly call each other "friends" just so it's clear to the audience (when in reality no one talks like that). It's telling instead of showing, and this happens sooo many times early in the film.

Could not for the life of me remember the friends or their names. There were just too many of them when 1 or 2 would have been just fine to move the plot along and to help Asha. (Yes, I know they're a reference to the 7 Dwarves but it's STILL not necessary to have so many just for a reference.)

Bruh, the makeup in this movie is on point. Every time there was a close up of a character, I was staring at their eye makeup (especially Asha and the queen's).

Asha as a protagonist was... fine? She feels very close to Mirabel and at times Rapunzel in her character. I didn't dislike her by any means, but she didn't reinvent what it means to be a Disney protag. Her motivations also come off as… really “out of nowhere”. We’re told she “cares too much”, but she initially only wants to save the wishes of her mom and grandpa; she randomly decides she has to free ALL wishes midmovie and that was jarring. There could have been a smoother transition. Instead, it was abrupt and Asha didn’t change in any meaningful way. Even her “I want” song was vague (what exactly is “to have something more for us than this”?) and didn’t connect well with her character.

I do really like her design though! Her freckles, earrings, and how her hair moves are my favorite details.

Valentino was not as annoying as I thought he would be. Still didn't care for his sass and brand of humor, but at least he helped out a few times.

I called it, the film is trying so hard to make Magnifico "hot" 🤡 I don't get it but okay, Mouse. I see your effort.

Loved his fit!! Very cool cloak and diamond/star motifs everywhere! His lab and study was also fun to look at.

I quite liked the moments when the queen talked to her husband and tried to smooth things over with him. “I can fix him energy”— Their relationship seemed very genuine at the start of the movie.

NOT THE WISH NEPOTISM...

If they were going for “sympathetic” with Magnifico, it didn’t work. He gave this backstory about how he was traumatized before + left as the only survivor of a great tragedy and so now he wants to use his magic to prevent that from happening to anyone else. Thing is, we only ever know about this via his word and staring at a half-burnt tapestry. We never see the event on screen, nor what was left of the tapestry. I was expecting a twist where it’s revealed that he lied all this time about his backstory and rewrote history so he could more easily manipulate the people of the kingdom he founded and live out the fantasy of being worshipped as a “good guy”. That was such a missed opportunity!!

Something else I was thinking of (this was during “This is the Thanks I get” was??? Maybe Magnifico started off genuinely good but became worn down over time as people’s wishes grew more selfish and they became ungrateful for what they had?? Then he could have become bitter and disillusioned by the behavior of his people.

Another idea is maybe Magnifico was “villainous” only in Asha’s eyes, since they don’t agree on how to best handle granting wishes. This would be more of a clash of ideologies rather than the traditional Obvious Evil vs Obvious Good that Disney is so known for, but hey, it could be a neat evolution of their storytelling from classic fairy tale roots.

This is to say that there were so many more interesting directions they could have gone with Magnifico’s motives, character, and portrayal 😭 but the second half of the movie never commits to any of these, they just blame his complete insanity and turn to the dark side on Forbidden Magic which is such a cop-out.

The trailers gave away the twist that Magnifico was the villain. It wasn’t revealed until like the second song into the movie. Would’ve worked better as an on-the-spot reveal rather than part of the marketing, in my opinion.

When they showed the wishes, the TWST fan in my was shouting, "OMG IT'S WISH UPON A STAR, THE LIMITED TIME STORY EVENT FROM THE HIT DISNEY MOBILE GACHA GAME TWISTED WONDERLAND!!!"

As Wish is Disney's anniversary film for 100 years, there were tooons of easter eggs scattered throughout. (I had fun looking for them!) Some were visual (I saw Aurora's dress, Snow White’s well, Peter's Pan's costume, Ursula's green smokey hands, Asha's robes resembling those of the Fairy Godmother, etc.) or extended imagery/scenes (Asha recreates Mulan's dinner and “Reflection" scenes), others were more overt lines of dialogue (Magnifico says the "Mirror, Mirror" lines along with others, a deer named “Bambi”, Valentino mentions an animal metropolis in reference to Zootopia, etc.).

In theory, the wish magic sounds cool but has so much that isn't explained??? And yeah, it's magic so it technically doesn't have to be. However, there are things not explained even when it is important to the plot. For example, Magnifico crushes some wishes and seems to absorb their power for himself (including the wish of Asha's MOM, so you'd think this would be important)? The consequence of this is that the wish's owners... become sad??? Okay, what are the long-term effects??? Why isn’t this fully explored?? But then later in the film we see the same people whose wishes were crushed... regenerate their wish??? So what, he has to keep reaping them??? And why are the wishes only taken at 18 years old? What if a wish changes? Ironically, the townspeople of Rosas have a scene where they question the technicalities of this wish magic. Magnifico essentially tells them to shut up, and it kinda felt like Disney was telling us to not question their lore www

It was weird that they never fully explored the ramifications of going without your wish. You’d think they’d show us people without ambition or hope (which would incentivize Asha to return their wishes), but everyone seems blissfully happy without their wishes?? The only exception is Asha’s friend that betrays her (cannot for the life of me remember his name), and that’s namely because his asshole friends keep ragging on him for it.

I thought the movie was going to go in a “you can make your own wish come true!!” direction but NOPE, turns out it’s just magic. Felt like Disney unintentionally wrote a whole movie about "wishes not coming true unless some big powerful entity allows it to come true” (Asha literally becomes the fairy godmother of Rosas at the end, making her ultimately no different than Magnifico)… ie a metaphor for how Disney owns so many properties it practically owns our childhoods www

"The power of friendship saves the day" ending 🤣 It was very Paper Mario ending-esque...

A song saving the day though?? It’s giving the Illumination Lorax film…

I was right about the humor. Too "quirky" and/or juvenile for me.

Animation was alright? Nothing awful about it, it just didn't feel as detailed or as experimental as other films with a similar style.

Songs were mid, which checks out with the recent Disney music excluding We Don't Talk About Bruno--

Some of the lyrics however were awful. “I let you live here for free and I don’t even charge you rent” is redundant. “So I throw caution to every warning sign” means you’ll show more caution than usual, not that you’ll forego caution. The correct expression is “throw caution to the wind”. Etc, etc, etc.

There was a cute after credits scene where they reveal that Asha's 100 year old grandpa (same age as Disney omg) wrote the "When You Wish Upon a Star" theme, which was sweet since his wish was "wanting to make a mark".

THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE WAS STAR!! It was very cute (partly because it couldn't talk and just jingled and giggled, I was dreading another annoying mascot animal voice) and reminds me of my own pet… The way Star infused everything with glitter and formed unique shapes with the red twine was so fun 😭 I'M A STAR STAN, IT WAS ADORABLE AND KINDA BRATTY AND I'M LIVING FOR IT

Decent ideas, "meh" execution. Enchanted and Shrek did it better in terms of self-aware, fairy tale defying stories. It felt as though the movie was trying to deliver a profound message but got lost in the sauce of making as making Disney references possible and didn't fully commit to actually saying something meaningful. As a result, the film feels somewhat… hollow.

That one friend betraying Asha was the biggest surprise in the film but I still saw it coming 😂 I do get where he’s coming from though (being worried that his wish won’t ever come true) but it also felt like his conflict wasn’t resolved??? It might have gone better if the movie actually fully tried to push the “you can make your own wish come true” message (to reinvigorate the traitor to make his dreams a reality on his own) but they don’t 💦

Wish didn’t end up being “the wishing star’s origin story” because not once did anyone question where Star came from or why it was different from other stars (or what the significance of Magnifico blotting out the other stars was).

I think the people that would enjoy this movie are the people that are already highly invested in Disney and the nostalgia of it.

... Anyway, stan Star 🤩 (and the talking mushrooms 🍄)

#wish #disney wish #spoilers #question #notes from the writing raven #puss in boots 2 #the last wish #puss in boots 2: the last wish #Mirabel Madrigal #Encanto #Asha #twst #twst wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #Rapunzel #Enchanted #Shrek #Queen Amaya #King Magnifico

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lotus-duckies · 4 months

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boboiboy canonically having no friends before moving to pulau rintis is very important to me because girl same and gives me so much room to make headcanons about what he was like Before TM

In my mind's eye, he was probably one of those kids who just hung out with his parents and/or their friends instead of playing with his peers, especially since they had Mechabot. Why would he need to make friends when he has the coolest friend right here?

And his parents saw this and started talking to Tok Aba like "hey we're really worried about boboiboy, he's not very social and only wants to play with Mechabot and i don't think that's good for him"

Meanwhile Tok Aba has this group of kiddos that just. screw around him while he's trying to work. So he's like "Hey there's some kids here his age that are all very friendly, I can make him socialize with them"

and he proceeds to tell all of said kids about Boboiboy and forces him to Socialize TM and he makes Friends

but not before befriending another robot

#i'm extremely normal about this btw #it's very plausible within the original series' writing #boboiboy #yaya yah #ying #gopal kumar #tok aba #mechabot #amato #bbb #boboiboy season 1

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yaz-the-spaz · 2 months

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I just came on here to share something of note related to my job that I felt was somewhat relavent to fandom. I don't tend to like to reveal too much about my personal life on here especially as it relates to my job since I don't necessarily want anything irl connecting back to me on here so I'll keep this very, very general but I currently work for a nonprofit that centers around a very specific subfield within an acronym of the STEM umbrella. Most of what we do involves public outreach and education on that specific field through online articles, videos, magazines/journals, and events, etc. (as well as helping fund research, grants, and mentorships/job opportunities for people in the field, particularly of underrepresented groups).

Anyways I'm saying all this to say that today I saw we'd made arrangements to pay for media training for a few of our more higher up volunteers to help prep them for media interviews and to be good brand ambassadors for our org. The training includes things like reviewing talking points and going over sample interviews and interview tips and is expected to encompass at least a couple of hours per person. We dropped well over 10k on this expense. And this is all just for a few VOLUNTEERS for a relatively small nonprofit org in a very specific subfield/subject. Like I said we're a non-profit so we're obviously not just in this for the money or the good PR it may bring, even if we do still realize that those things are integral to our success as an org. And yet we still dedicated a sizable chunk of money and time to this endeavor for people who are not even technically employed by us. I just want y'all to let that sink in for a second and think about how much the scale of that extrapolates to ppl like celebrities doing what they do on the world stage.

Imagine how much more intense and in-depth something like media training gets when you/your image is literally the brand you're acting as ambassador for, and a shit ton of ppl behind the scenes all have their own stake in your success as a brand in the particular image/version of you (accurate or not) they want portrayed. now imagine you're a young impressionable child being made to sit through potential hours of mock interviews, being drilled with questions and "appropriate" talking points and the like until the ppl in charge of you are satisfied (tbh it's not hard to see how/why rebecca ferguson described it as akin to being brainwashed), and being foisted with all that responsibility/pressure in every single thing you do or say in front of a camera. Is it any wonder that you might eventually get to a point where you just paste on a smile and say/do whatever you're told to like a wind-up robot playing along with the role you've been given even to your own detriment (liam)? Or that you might get to a point where you just stop wanting to do almost any interviews at all cause you're sick of being party to all the fakery and bullshit (z@yn)? It's two sides of the same coin but both could very much be read as a trauma response

Anyway I just needed to rant a bit cause the stuff with work brought all this to the forefront of my mind and it forever infuriates me to no end that people still don't see (or don't want to see) how much of what we're shown and/or told is fabricated in the name of staying on brand for whatever version of their image a celebrity may be trying to sell in that moment

#media training #ziam #i have more thoughts on this re z's current image that I may or may not get to today #but I wanted this to be a stunts free post #so if I do get around to it any other further discourse (i.e. rants) will be addressed in another post #thx for coming to my tedtalk lol #✌🏾

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chewysgummies · 3 days

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Omg, not me thinking about "The bounty" again. The more I think about the episode, the more I realize how much of a MESS it is. For both Killbot 86 and Commander peeper. Especially for commander peepers since everyone always thinks "the bounty" is good for him cause it foreshadowed/reveal peeper to be badass, when in reality, it is not. Yeah, it did- but only temporarily before they made peeper cry over lord hater and exaggerated how much of a whiny crybaby he is.

Like honestly, remember how in "The prisoner" or something, Peeper managed to easily trick Wander into the ship? Yeah, he didn't capture him, but it wasn't hard to manipulate him inside the skullship, right? And I believe that episode came BEFORE the bounty so It wasn't hard to do that job of simply luring in wander into the ship. So like- Why was that so difficult of him to do?? And remember that line lord hater said?

"You can't seem to do the one thing I continually asked of you"

Noticed how lord hater mentioned he "continually" asked peeper to capture him? So he failed multiple times to get wander in despite how easy it was to manipulate him the first time. So HOW DID HE NOT SIMPLY DO THAT AGAIN??? You can argue that stuff happened off screen and there's a time skip for sure, but like- this is Commander peeper we're talking about. Isn't he supposed to be the "smartest" person? Y'know, to think of a plan instead of playing cat and mouse chase? Anyway, Peeper had his chances multiple times in a row until Hater had enough and straight up called in the bounty hunter cause he was so incompetent at doing his job.

And this is where I start to have issues. literally the first thing we see is Peeper whining to lord hater about what he's doing wrong instead accepting the facts he knew he screwed up and tried to apologize to lord hater for his failure before trying to convince him to give him another chance. Anyway, he proceeds to abuse his soldier, basically lashing out on other, and just- my god he fuckin suck holy shit. I get that the point but like- it made me question why I was into him to begin with.

So like yadda yadda, stuff happened. Sabotaging the bounty hunters. And my poor sweet, dearly beloved badass of robot man I love- I cannot go into details about how much I wanted to cry over him. Like genuinely speaking. I love him so much and realizing how horribly they mistreated him- holy fuck I'll never forgive this show. Fuck this show man- I already mentioned about what they done to him, but they literally robbed him. If given the chance, he would've been important. Especially since it was shown that he was actually crucial to Sylvia and peeper's parallel and the flashback as well. If Sylvia lost that fight, wander would've possibly ended up with killbot 85. I'm so pissed off that they shafted him like this. HE LITERALLY HAS THE MOST ERROR IN HIS DESIGN OUT OF EVERYONE AND THIS IS HIS FIRST INTRODUCTION- HOW DO YOU SCREW HIM UP LIKE THIS⁉️‼️⁉️

So yeah, anyway, my sweet robot got his shit kicked in by Peeper and near the end. Lord hater called him out on his shit and peeper admitted he screwed up. But then you see that fuckin peeper- HE LITERALLY DROPPED ONTO THE FLOOR AND START CRYING LIKE A BABY- i know that peeper is just a "pathetic little meow meow" but like- you gonna at least side eye at this part cause like wtf? Jesus Christ, they exaggerated the worst part of peeper's character here and genuinely I start to think that I kinda regret being into him in the first place?? Literally The Axe does a better job of displaying peeper competently and didn't make him into a full on crybaby.

So sorry for rumbling on about this, all of this come from the fact that I genuinely love killbot 86 so much that if anything bad were to happen to him, I'll cry. Or at least I wanna cry for him. And knowing how everyone seems to think this is a good peeper episode with the knowledge how messy it is, it just- idk. It really is not?? So sorry for the long rant. If you got this far, thank you for reading. Maybe you can argue with me but I'll be honest when I say that I have the tendency to overwhelm myself with bad thoughts and act out on emotion. This episode just made me so upset that maybe, just maybe killbot 86 would've been liked by the whole community instead of being so unpopular. I tried my best to get him noticed and put all my effort & love into him after YEARS of having nothing. It's not fair for him. It's not fuckin fair.

#chewys notes #killbot 86 #woy #wander over yonder #just random ramblings #so sorry for that last vent i wrote down #Genuinely went off there for a moment #Please just understand that Killbot 86 never had the chance to shine because of shit he went through #That evil karaoke thing was the one thing that gave him the chance to have more line and such #Literally please let him have something #it not fair for him #Also so sorry for anyone who into Commander Peeper and got a bit upset reading this #Idk im just frustrated #Do you understand why i wanna take him away and leave the show and the fandom?#Like holy shit??#commander peepers

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deadlysoupy · 9 months

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Could you tell me more about IDW Bumblebee, I found people rarely talk about him pre-ghost era. English is not my native language and IDW got so many hard word and advanced theme, even when I read them in my mother language i understand 78% what they are talking about at best 😿

oh i got you dude. there is definitely something about the wording that confuses me sometimes too, it takes energy to fully comprehend what everyone is saying. glad i wasn't the only one thinking that! (beware long post below)

before becoming Cybertron's "assigned" ruler, Bumblebee didn't even appear much in the early days of idw, he just kinda popped up here and there, most notably spying on the decepticons. only when the autobots start to work with humans does he get involved, and eventually pressured into a leader position when Optimus surrenders to the humans who want to work together, but truthfully just using them for their own gain

so the humans (if they are in some kind of organisation that actually has a name i don't remember so i'll just continue referring to them like that) propose a "cooperation" for the autobots to capture decepticons or any rogue transformers in exchange for their safety

this is where Bumblebee shines, in my opinion, as best as he can in a leader position. at this point Rodimus (i THINK he isn't Hot Rod anymore) leaves because he can't stand working for the humans and tries to find a way to get off Earth (that doesn't go well) so Bee is basically left as the only one in charge. poor guy didn't even want to be a leader and to be perfectly honest idw tries to push this way too hard since he's really not this. he's the support guy, the one who can level the situation, but leading does not come easily for him

anyway, the tipping point comes when humans order autobots to capture Blurr, who was just hanging around and literally not hurting anyone, so when Bee decides "fuck it we're not gonna out one of our own" he stands his ground and shows that the autobots won't be pushed around. a bunch of stuff happens. i forgor. Optimus Prime returns and they arrange a team to fly off to Cybertron, leaving Bumblebee and a couple of others to wait

they hang out, Bee gets to be a scout for one issue (Spotlight: Bumblebee (how do i remember this??)) and captures a few decepticons while others space-bridge out of Earth to Cybertron. and then they?? go to Cybertron???? i think

and from here on out Bumblebee is part of Cybertronian government and it's the entire Robots in Disguise thing. it's pretty cool i like RID 👉👈

so! for characterization! my personal take is that idw focuses way too much on external plot than on internal character development (the whole get off Earth and cooperate with humans plot). like, i get it, you have to have story to progress, but it's like Bumblebee isn't Bumblebee anymore, he's just a device and a Representative of the autobots to rule. anyone else would have been a solid leader, but the voting showed him to have the most Leader position?? out of all of them??? he didn't even appear much before this arc. i LIKE that he gets attention, he's my favourite character, but it doesn't have to be him. idk

but sure, we'll move on from that. what i actually like is how he changes from A Background Character Who Seems Nice to Holy Shit I Have Trauma. he gets progressively fucked up as the story goes on, especially in RID (or is it exRID????? i can never remember), taking several unethical actions under pressure when everyone expects you to make a decision and then everyone gets mad at you for making it. i get it little guy. fuck them up i say

trying to be kind in his position is really hard when everyone is at each other's throats, when your government is collapsing, when you seem like you have the upper hand but then something horrible happens. but Bumblebee still tries to make right and just decisions, even when most public would be against him

and then he gets almost killed by Megatron in a coup! that's fun. i'm kidding i actually really like the transition from cute little Bumblebee to Goldbug (even if it was for only a couple of issues). he wasn't the same person before, and now it's solidified that he's different on the outside too

while i have you i can cry about his death which is so so so good and meaningful - it literally drives Megatron to become an autobot - but then it never goes anywhere except Starscream's arc!!!!! Megatron never mentions Bumblebee (as far as i know!) and how he's actually made such an impact on Cybertron and Megatron and his entire arc. like!!!!!! still makes my blood boil

but that's it for pre-ghost Bee! he's neat, i love him, starbee is the best, send tweet

#is this my character analysis post i've always wanted??? maybe #this got long but i love bee so much #transformers #transformers idw #idw bumblebee #bumblebee #mine #asks

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disco-elysium-via-polls · 16 days

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🎵 Bookstore

Looks like Guillaume le Million... that hair poster.

PLAISANCE - "Hello again, esteemed officer," she keeps reciting like a robot. "And welcome to Crime, Romance, and Biographies of Famous People."

3. "Plaisance, I have something to tell you... I've found the actual source of doom."

PLAISANCE - "What do you mean the *actual* source?" She clutches her pendant anxiously. "Are you talking about the... *Third Presence*?"

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - She remembers. Good.

"Yes, the Presence, the Entity, the malicious Energy -- however you may want to call it…"

"My investigation has led me to discover a two-millimetre entroponetic hole in reality. That's the source of doom -- both in the commercial area *and* in Martinaise."

PLAISANCE - "She Who Has Many Names..." she nods solemnly. "I imagine things must be rather bleak for you to return to me. Tell me, what have you found?"

"My investigation has led me to discover a two-millimetre entroponetic hole in reality. That's the source of doom -- both in the commercial area *and* in Martinaise."

PLAISANCE - "A... a what?"

"A tiny hole... in reality. It may be connected with pale, an origin point of sorts. It would explain why historically so many things have ended in failure here in Martinaise."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Ma'am -- what he's saying is true. We found an entroponetic anomaly in the Small Pinewood Church down the coast. I don't mean to be an alarmist -- and more research *is* needed -- but... it's not looking good."

PLAISANCE - "But... but... *that's* not in any of the ancient texts! How am I supposed to protect my bookstore from *that*?!"

"You can't protect it -- not against *pale*. Close up the shop and try to get as far away from this thing as possible."

"You can protect it with hope, by refusing to give up. That's what people have done in the past -- by building a church, a place of worship around this thing."

"You'll have to find your own answer. I've spent too long on this quest as it is."

PLAISANCE - "You're *right*, officer. I mustn't lose faith -- especially now that Annette is finally settling in at school and making friends." She looks at her daughter, quietly studying in the corner of the shop. "No, we can't just leave!"

"Besides, didn't I have some Seolite hope catchers around here somewhere...? I must find them; everything will be alright if I can just find them."

"Thank you for your help, in any case. You're welcome back here anytime."

Task complete: Inform Plaisance about the Source of Doom

+10 XP

3. "Farewell for now, book peddler!" [Leave.]

You know, since we're here, and we already have more money than we can possibly spend...

MOUNTAIN OF BOARD GAMES - A small mountain of colourful board game boxes. There are numerous types of games for all ages. A lot of shelf space seems to be taken up by Wirrâl-related merchandise.

4. "I want to buy the *Suzerainty* game."

PLAISANCE - "Wonderful choice, sir." She smiles at you. "A wholesome *family* game."

4. "I want to buy the *Wirrâl* game."

PLAISANCE - "If you say so." She gives you a curious glance. "But you better stay away from those immoral occult rituals."

4. [Leave.]

BOARD GAME "SUZERAINTY"

A civilization-building board game where you get to choose a nation and set off to colonise and exploit other cultures. A star-shaped note on the box proclaims the game now includes a completely new "Genocide" option.

>INTERACT

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - In your hands you hold a brand new copy of the game 'Suzerainty'. It's snugly wrapped in a skin of plastic...

The cover features a charming illustration depicting a mass of grinning labourers loading goods onto a ship while a richly dressed administrator oversees their work.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - The exact location and time period are left deliberately vague, but it's clearly meant to represent the economic relationship between the Revacholian Suzerainty and its many vassals.

Shake the box.

Remove the plastic wrap.

[Leave it perfect and undisturbed.]

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - The box has a nice heft to it. You hear the rattle of individual wooden tokens and feel their weight shifting back and forth...

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - What treasures wait in store for you?

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - Even before you open it, you can tell that this will be a meaty game of grand strategy and complex player interactions.

2. Remove the plastic wrap.

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - The plastic wrap rips off as easily as a bodice in a tawdry historical romance.

Open the box.

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - There's a hiss as the lid slides off. Inside you find a thick, full-colour rulebook and more than a dozen pouches of various wooden components.

PERCEPTION (SMELL) [Medium: Success] - Ahhh! Savour that new board game smell! A mix of wood, paper, and ink, all wrapped in the sweet must of cardboard.

Read the rulebook.

Examine the components.

"Hey, Kim, wanna play?"

[Put the game away.]

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - 'Welcome to Suzerainty: A game of economic strategy for the whole family!' The rulebook is sumptuously illustrated and thick as a Graadian novel.

'Economic strategy'? More like rapacious plunder and exploitation.

Keep reading.

+1 Communism

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - The colourful illustrations depict cheerful workers picking apricots, hauling marble sculptures out of crumbling temples, and harvesting a strange, magenta-leafed plant. Everyone is smiling.

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - You begin to suspect there may be a *political* agenda to this so-called 'family game'. Only one way to find out...

Keep reading.

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - The instructions are opaque at first, and introduce many concepts you're not familiar with. Fortunately, there are many diagrams and examples throughout...

You soon figure out the basic conceit: Each player represents an administrator for the *Suzerain of Revachol*. Your objective is to increase the suzerain's wealth and renown by accumulating *victory points*.

How do you accumulate victory points?

Fuck the suzerain, what about *my* wealth and renown?

I've read enough. (Put the rulebook away.)

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - There is no path to wealth and renown but through the suzerain. As one of the suzerain's trusted administrators, your very function is the glorification of Revachol...

That's where the suzerain's vassals come in. The game features four vassal nations, each one home to an economically important resource...

Each turn the player collects resources from vassals where they've placed workers. They may then rearrange their workers, fulfil contracts for coin and bonuses, or build structures back in Revachol...

REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success] - As you leaf through the pages, your eye catches on a sidebar labelled 'ADVICE FOR BEGINNERS'.

Read the advice.

Ignore it. Just tell me how the winner is determined.

REACTION SPEED - "Remember, there are many paths to victory in *Suzerainty*, but successful players will find *one* strategy and commit to it wholeheartedly."

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success]- Boring, boring, BORING. Tear up this rulebook and commit some old-school atrocities!

How is the winner determined?

Isn't there any way to invade or commit atrocities or anything fun like that?

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - Suzerainty is a family game. The only 'atrocities' you'll be committing are against the social standing of your rival administrators, as you bring in ever more resources and power for the suzerain. Speaking of...

The actual scoring system appears infinitely complex, with a series of tables and appendices required to compute each player's final victory point total. You skip that part for now.

2. Examine the components.

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - You open up a number of pouches containing wooden tokens. There are also several punchboards with other cardboard components that will need to be punched out before you can play.

Punch out the cardboard pieces, one by one.

Check out the wooden tokens.

Put the components away.

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - Each cardboard token makes a satisfying *chhhk* as you pop it out. Soon a neat pile of cardboard coins and counters has accumulated before you.

KIM KITSURAGI - "What, you're not going to offer to let *me* punch any of them out?"

2. Check out the wooden tokens.

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - In addition to the worker and building tokens used by each player, there are also several piles of colourful resource tokens, each representing one of the game's four principal resources...

From the Empire of Safre: orange apricot tokens. From Ile Marat (the ancestral name of Iilmaraa): gray marble block tokens. From the Semenine Islands: white sacks of sugar tokens. And from Supramundi and Saramiriza: magenta tokens for unprocessed cocaine leaves.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Oh, those are nice." The lieutenant picks up a sugar token and admires it.

3. Put the components away.

SUZERAINTY: THE BOARD GAME - You hold the open game box before you.

3. "Hey, Kim, wanna play?"

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant looks over the rulebook before he sees something that makes his eyes go wide...

"Holy shit, the average playing time for this game is one to six hours…"

"I'm not sure we can afford to set aside *that* kind of time for a *game*."

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] - So he says, but his gaze lingers a moment longer on the rulebook than is strictly necessary. He could *make* time, if he really wanted to.

This unlocks a Suggestion check to convince Kim to play the game, but let's not get stuck into that now.

4. [Put the game away.]

BOARD GAME "WIRRÂL"

A high-pasternal *fantastique populaire* board game, illustrated with bucolic vistas and featuring odd-looking humanoid creatures. It's the 3rd edition mega-setting supplements module and can't be played without the main game.

>INTERACT

WIRRÂL - Large letters on the front form a title: "Wirrâl." The colourful box is illustrated with bucolic vistas. The cover art also features odd-looking humanoids, some short, some taller, some with pointy ears, others with ephemeral wings.

Examine the box.

Open the box.

Put it away.

WIRRÂL - Text underneath the title, in smaller typeface, reads: "Third Edition, Mega-Setting Supplements Module." The side panel adds: "A sword and sorcery adventure board game. With new maps and miniatures."

Shake the box.

Look at the back.

Enough inspecting.

WIRRÂL - Mysterious things rattle inside. What could they be? Dice? Plastic miniatures? A fantastical alternate world full of magic and wonder?

None of that witless Man from Hjelmdall fascist dross hidden behind faux-realistic allegory. Wirrâl is no cliché-ridden apologia for colonial violence. Wirrâl is pure *imagination*.

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - Yes, the Wirrâl setting is known for its complicated system of political alignments. But if you're not into that you can just hack your way through dungeons in search of loot. That's what most people do.

2. Look at the back.

WIRRÂL - A blurb on the back reads: "Tired of the tedium and toil of modern life? Escape to Wirrâl! Leave behind isolas and nations with their petty squabbles. Discard electricity, magnets, and boring technological widgets..."

"Succumb to a world of high-Pasternal fantastique, unleash your imagination and create an adventure of endless possibilities. Discover the terrible secret threatening Wirrâl -- can your band of adventurers save the world?"

Yes, we're ready to take on this challenge.

I'm not sure I can handle all this responsibility.

Definitely not, it sounds too dangerous.

WIRRÂL - Man up, this is about having structured fun! All you have to do is read an intricate rulebook, study an assortment of maps, unfold the illustrated gameboard, and start rolling dice.

In no time you could be romping through grasslands with low-level characters, hunted by iyskel riders… or battling unspeakable monsters in endless dungeons fraught with danger and despair, conjuring up forceful maegics to aid your quest.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - Don't forget heated arguments escalating to physical confrontation with your friends.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - And beer. Lots of beer.

DRAMA - And most importantly, never forget to rage-quit if the dice don't go your way!

2. Open the box.

WIRRÂL - You pry open the box. Inside you find a folded-up map, a small booklet, a 24-sided die, and a little plastic figurine.

Look at the map.

Look at the booklet.

Look at the die.

Look at the figurine.

Close the box.

WIRRÂL - A reprint of a crude hand-drawn map. The top left corner reads: 'Lands of Wirrâl.' The map features both small villages and mid-sized towns (with odd names), in addition to meadows, forests, hills, lakes and seas (also with odd names).

It doesn't seem to correspond with anything you've seen thus far. It's not a very helpful map.

2. Look at the booklet.

WIRRÂL - A quick guide to the maegical races of Wirrâl. Create your own hero choosing from any of these completely unique and fantastical backgrounds.

The options are, in order of importance: the welkin, the dweorgr, the humans, the faerie folk, and the pygmies.

Read about the welkin.

Put the booklet away.

WIRRÂL - The welkin -- tall, lithe and graceful, with long flowing hair and pointy ears. They're known for being powerful maegic users, but can also hold their own in a brawn-driven fight.

The welkin come with a variety of exciting sub-races: high welkin, forest welkin, lake welkin, and snow welkin. But if you're not feeling experimental -- a basic welkin will always do.

Read about the dweorgr.

Put the booklet away.

WIRRÂL - A grand race of industrious mountain people. They're short, stout and muscular, and enjoy digging for gold and other precious minerals. They're also well-versed in the art of combat, where they prefer to use axes and hammers.

The dweorgr also come in a few different sub-races: hill dweorgr, shield dweorgr, and dark dweorgr.

Read about the humans.

Put the booklet away.

WIRRÂL - They're just humans... what else is there to tell? They're average in all stats and jacks-of-all-trades.

Read about the faerie folk.

Put the booklet away.

WIRRÂL - A very small race of flying people, known for being mischievous, full of trickery. They often lure people into their maegical traps. There are no sub-races for the faeries.

Read about the pygmies.

Put the booklet away.

WIRRÂL - The least popular of the Wirrâl races, the pygmies are short, rotund and dim-witted. Pygmies live in small villages made of shoddy wooden dwellings. They spend most their days tilling the earth and smoking their pipes. There are no sub-races for the pygmies.

3. Look at the die.

WIRRÂL - It's made from some sort of wood and has been decorated with peculiar plant motifs.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - You don't know much about dice, but this one looks pretty damn fancy.

Level up!

4. Take the die.

Item gained: Standard Wirrâl Die

WIRRÂL - You place the die into your pocket. It's always good to have luck on your side.

3. Look at the figurine.

WIRRÂL - You see a man in ragged clothes wearing a lopsided hat and wielding some sort of a firearm.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Huh, interesting. A communard."

"A what?"

"What's so interesting about that?"

"That doesn't sound very Wirrâl-like."

KIM KITSURAGI - "A communard. One of the leftist revolutionaries in the Antecentennial Revolution."

2. "That doesn't sound very Wirrâl-like."

KIM KITSURAGI - "It is not. The communards are not a part of the game setting... I guess someone misplaced it during the packaging process."

"Does this mean we can't play?"

"Maybe someone should make a role-playing game set during the Revolution."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Hmm. Good luck finding people who'd want to play as communards."

4. Take the figurine.

WIRRÂL - You pick the figurine up by the base to meet your gaze. The little plastic man stares back at you, his face contorted into a disturbing shout. Then you pocket it.

Item gained: Figurine Set "Revolutionary"

3. Close the box.

STANDARD WIRRÂL DIE

This basic 24-sided role-playing die can be used to get results for several dice. It's made of East-Semenese Snakewood and embellished with plant motives. It reminds you of plain- and hill-welkins. NOTE! Look at the MAP tab in Journal to see which White Checks have opened.

This die is not actually useful to us at this point in the game.

FIGURINE SET "REVOLUTIONARY"

What a nice little figurine! A turn-of-the-century leftist revolutionary in ragged clothes. On his head lies a lopsided hat, seemingly an ushanka. In his hand he carries a little musket.

I guess we could also give this to Dolores Dei... if we ever figure out what that actually means.

#disco elysium #kim kitsuragi #harrier du bois #plaisance

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backtothedisaster · 3 months

Note

You asked for asks on Fl4k and Zer0 so here I am

When playing as Fl4k and you first meet Zer0, they comment that Zer0's familiar to them. Why do you think that is?

Also, what's your story for how they wound up together? What prompted them becoming a couple?

Is it a sexual relationship or an asexual one?

Does Zer0 have a favorite pet of Fl4k's?

What does a typical "date" of theirs look like?

Does Fl4k know and/or care about what's under Zer0's suit, or are they just kinda like "it's irrelevant, because Zer0 would still be the same person whether I knew or not"?

Barrage of questions, obviously don't have to answer all of them I just adore these two. Tbh they're my faves of their respective games.

anon i think we're friends now? legally speaking

When playing as Fl4k and you first meet Zer0, they comment that Zer0's familiar to them. Why do you think that is? - honestly i dont think about this nearly as much as i should because its such a good concept. i think theyve definitely encountered eachother before (like Long long before. maybe during fl4ks archivist days. personally i think since zer0 and fl4k are both nonhuman they r probably significantly "older" than the rest of the raiders at least like..physically? if that makes any sense. Especially fl4k. i think it hasnt been *that* long since they gained sentience probably only a few decades or so but theyve been around for a. very long time) i really like the idea that zer0 is some kind of man-made alien cyborg...thing? so maybe they had the same/similar creators (considering they share some abilities) Either way i hope so so bad we get an actual canon explanation eventually

Also, what's your story for how they wound up together? What prompted them becoming a couple? - i dont think they ever formally acknowledge theyre together or whatever they just kind of fall into it. after they meet eachother on promethea they get really into this weird alien/robot courting thing of giving eachother bits of dead guys or loot or whatever like theyre fucked up cats. and from an outside perspective they hardly ever talk directly. And it confuses everyone around them so so so much but they both know exactly what theyre doing. its like evil flirting

Is it a sexual relationship or an asexual one? - sexual wahoo

Does Zer0 have a favorite pet of Fl4k's? - broodless ... she is very loyal and focused but also calmer than the rest of them i think. zer0 likes that. Close second is mr chew because who doesnt love the dog lets be real

What does a typical "date" of theirs look like? - tbh they just go out and kill things together and thats like the closest approximation of a date they can get

Does Fl4k know and/or care about what's under Zer0's suit, or are they just kinda like "it's irrelevant, because Zer0 would still be the same person whether I knew or not"? - i think fundamentally fl4k is driven by the desire to know exactly what zer0 is and where they came from (i think this goes both ways but its especially true for fl4k) so obviously they want to know so badly whats under the mask. still though if they did know i dont think it would change anything about their relationship too much...i think they just want to know everything about eachother and their pasts. (speaking of which i have a solid concept in mind for unmasked zer0 i just. really need to draw it)

#my post #ask #long post #borderlands #fl4k/zer0 #thank u Sooooo much for this omg i had so much fun spilling all my thoughts #feel free to send more i will always have more

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lousypotatoes · 2 months

Note

Hello! I read your Korekiyo x Reader post, it was really good! I just wanted to ask if you could do an Izuru x Male! Future Foundation reader who rehabilitated him, and brought out more of his humanity? If you don't write for Izuru, that's totally okay! If you don't, could I get a Future Foundation Makoto x Male! Future Foundation field agent reader who's the Ultimate Theorist?

Thanks, and I hope you have a good rest of your day/night! <3

I'm so sorry, I tried writing for Izuru, and it was absolutel garbage. So please enjoy this Makoto one instead. Enjoy~

Song Recommendation:

Say You Won't Let Go - James Arthur

It's Just A Theory - Makoto x Male! Reader

You, Makoto, and Kyoko were sitting on your hospital bed, going over the details of the latest Remnants of Despair attack.

Being a field agent, you witnessed the attack firsthand, your leg getting pretty messed up.

"When the attack was over, they went south," you said, pointing at the map. "And if my theory's correct-"

"Oh, enough with the theories, Y/N," Kyoko sighed. "Just because you're the Ultimate Theorist doesn't mean that you have to bring them up every single second."

"That's exactly what that means," you said. "My theories have been helping us a lot so far."

"He kinda has a point," Makoto sheepishly said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Y/N did lead us to location to where their next attack was gonna be."

"That doesn't mean he should talk about them all the time."

"Can I finish what I was saying or not?"

"Yeah, of course," Makoto said sweetly, making you blush.

"I think they're holding up somewhere here," you said, pointing to a street in the southern part of the city. "Some other agents and I scoped that area out and found a shit ton of scrap metal. They could be-"

"Building the Monokuma robots there," Kyoko interrupted.

"Exactly,"

"Okay, we need to have a meeting with everyone else, share this information with them." Kyoko said, writing everything down in a notepad.

"Can we do that later?" you asked. "I still can't move my leg, and I don't feel like being in a wheelchair right now,"

Kyoko sighed. "Fine, thirty minutes," she said, walking out of the first aid area. "Makoto, keep an eye on him,"

"Sure," he said smiling at you.

There was an awkward silence for a moment.

"How's your leg?" he asked

"It doesn't hurt as bad anymore," you said, rubbing your leg. "Thanks for asking.

"Of course,"

More awkward silence.

"Do you think the Neo World Program will work?" you suddenly asked.

"It's our only hope,"

You started thinking. Thinking about the Killing Game. Thinking about Sakura and Mondo and Taka and Chihiro. Thinking about how painful it was to watch your friends die. Thinking about how none of you deserved it. Thinking about how Junko was a psychopath.

"What are you thinking about?" Makoto asked, snapping you out of your thoughts.

"What's gonna happen if this doesn't work," you said quietly. "I mean The Remnants are brainwashed, they don't know what they're doing. And if The Program doesn't work, will we just have to execute them? They don't deserve that. I don't think I'll be able to make that decision, especially after watching-"

Makoto suddenly grabbed your hand, silencing your rambling.

"I agree, those people don't deserve death. That's why we're trying out the program," he said, giving your hand a gentle squeeze. "It's gonna work Y/N, I promise."

"You think so?"

"I know so,"

With his other hand, Makoto gently cupped your cheek, leaning in, he placed his lips on yours. His lips were soft, and they tasted like vanilla bean. He squeezed your hand as he continued to kiss you. You had been waiting for this moment for so long, since the middle of the Killing Game. But he was always either with Sayaka or Kyoko then, so you didn't really have the chance to build this kind of relationship. You wanted to make up for lost time as much as you could.

You pulled away from each other, slightly out of breath, but the both of you smiling.

"You're so handsome," he whispered, kissing your cheek. "I suggest you lay down, the meeting's gonna be a long one."

"Aren't they always?" you joked. "Will you stay here with me till then?"

"I was already going to," he said, laying on your chest. "Now tell me some more of your theories."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

it's just a theory

A GAME THEORY

lowkey though, i wish there more men in the world like Makoto

stay safe and drink lots of water

xoxo, Izzy

#danganronpa #danganronpa x reader #danganronpa imagines #makoto #makoto x reader #makoto naegi #makoto naegi x reader #character x reader #kyoko kirigiri #remnants of despair #monokuma #junko enoshima #sakura ogami #mondo owada #chihiro fujisaki #kiyotaka ishimaru

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zhongrin · 2 years

Text

𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓅 𝑒𝓉𝒾𝓆𝓊𝑒𝓉𝓉𝑒

❝ 𝗉𝗅𝖾𝖺𝗌𝖾 𝗆𝗂𝗇𝖽 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗆𝖺𝗇𝗇𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝗐𝗁𝗂𝗅𝖾 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖺𝗋𝖾 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗏𝗂𝖼𝗂𝗇𝗂𝗍𝗒 𝗈𝖿 𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖾𝗌𝗍𝖺𝖻𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗁𝗆𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗌! 𝗆𝗒 𝗁𝗎𝗌𝖻𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗂 𝗉𝗋𝖾𝖿𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝗍𝗈 𝗄𝖾𝖾𝗉 𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗒𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗇 𝗈𝗋𝖽𝖾𝗋. ❞

𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬

ー ’ageless blogs’ refers to blogs who don’t have any age indicators in your bio or pinned. carrds do not count - if you have the time and skill to make a carrd, you have the time and skill to put it on your bio or pinned. 'adult' or 'not a minor' do not count either - your definition of 'adult' or 'minor' may differ from mine and i'm not taking any risk.

ー ’minors’ refers to people below 18 years old.

ー 'interaction' refers to: asks, replies, mentions, and messages. asks and replies violating the rules will be deleted. mentions and messages violating the rules will be ignored. likes and reblogs are an exception, simply because i don't have time to go constantly monitor those.

ー ’selfship’ refers to the act of shipping oneself (it can be me or my friends) with a fictional character. it may be romantic, platonic, familial, or otherwise in nature.

ー ’tone indicators’ refers to things like /j, /lh, /silly, /amused, etc.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

✼ if you are an ageless blog or a minor, i will not be interacting with you. you can still follow me, since most of my works are still sfw by nature, but please don't interact with me or my content.

✼ if you send n.sfw or dark topics on anon, i will not answer them and they will be deleted. i'm trusting you lot and feel comfortable to answer these, but please don't exploit it.

✼ minors are required to block/filter the tag #minors dni.

✼ i write and consume n.sfw and dark topics (yandere, gore, blood, horror). still, i do have a few topics i am not comfortable with: gatekeeping, cheating/infidelity, one-sided love, vomit, scat, extreme eating disorder.

✼ i selfship (zhongli, al haitham, wriothesley) and support my friends' selfshipping endeavors a lot. if that's not your thing, it won't be a good idea to follow me. if you don't want to "share" f/os, you do you, but please dni (explanation here). also, don't talk about 'stealing' my f/os or anything along that line, even as a joke.

✼ i don't allow reposts, translations, feeding my works to ai, or any kind of plagiarism.

✼ i'm not a roleplay blog primarily, but some of my content can be considered roleplay (selfship, ebg content, my s/i's interactions, etc.).

✼ dni you're unable to differentiate between fiction and reality. dni if you think that someone is inherently "bad" just because they create / consume dark content or for liking "problematic" / morally grey-borderline-black characters (e.g. childe, dottore).

✼ dni if you're in my dni list (duh), and dni i'm in your dni list (i can't believe i need to say this).

✼ i don't accept writing requests and i have no plans of doing so.

✼ i don't accept criticism / complaints about my writing. i understand that my works are lacking, especially compared to other amazing writers in tumblr - but i only write for my own self-indulgence and fun. i just want to enjoy what i do; if you don't like it, block and move on.

✼ i don't want character x character content in my blog. i only write character x reader content. most of my sfw contents involve gn!reader, while most of my n.sfw contents involve afab!reader.

✼ don't trauma dump in my inbox if we're not close.

✼ don't ask to be mutuals.

✼ please don't put me on a pedestal (i don't want any parasocial relationship in this blog) or treat me as your friend if we don't even talk regularly. if you have a discord but don't know my discord, chances are, i am not your friend. please keep that in mind. in the same vein, i can only hope you don't see me as a content creating robot.

✼ i personally believe that there's a max limit number of consistent typos a message could have for it to be crossing the line of 'just plain disrespectful'. if you can't find enough care in you to type properly before sending it to me, i'll assume that it's a reflection of the amount of respect you have for me.

✼ tone indicators are required if we're not close, especially if you say stuff like "i'll kms" / "i want to die" / (insert degrading nicknames e.g. bitch, slut, etc. as 'endearment').

✼ i block freely and believe that i have the right to do so for a lot of reasons. you might be in my dni. i might be in your dni. you might be blatantly ignoring my rules. i might not vibe well with you or you make me uncomfortable. i might suspect that you're lying about your age. these aren't an exhaustive list. if i do block you, just ignore or block me back and move on.

✼ i appreciate every comments and reblogs on my work. please know that i read all of them even if i can't reply to them all.

#byf #dni #rules #navi

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thegayestofbats · 4 months

Text

We're Dancing in the Sky

This is the first fic I've ever written, so don't hesitate to give me your thoughts or criticism.

Rating: General Audiences

Pairings: Space Core/Wheatley

Summary:

Getting stuck in space with the most annoying core you've ever met seems like a punishment worse than death, but maybe it won't be as bad as you thought it'd be.

Wheatley and Spacey are stuck alone together in the endless void that is outer space for the foreseeable future, why not get to know each other and become friends? (Or perhaps more?)

2,417 words, 1 chapter

Read on ao3:

---------

“ I am genuinely sorry.”

Those were the last words Wheatley had said since he and the Space sphere were hurled into space.

The two of them had been in space for a few days, at least as far as Wheatley knew. It was hard to tell up here, and he wasn’t too confident in the accuracy of his internal clock, especially after all of the adventures he’d been through just a couple of days ago with Chell.

He meant what he said, he really was sorry. Now that he’s had a while to think about it he still isn’t sure if the body he’d been put into was the thing that’d corrupted him or if it was of his own accord. “SPAAACE! Space! Need to see it all!” His thoughts were cut off by his partner’s incessant ramblings. He’d been talking since they’d gotten here, and he showed no sign of stopping or sign that he’d ever change the subject. It was really starting to give Wheatley a headache, or whatever core equivalent to the human sentiment was.

“Will you stop that, mate? I’m trying to think here!.” Wheatley yelled, losing his patience with the chatty robot.

“Oh- okay.” The space-obsessed core replied, actually listening to him for once, before finally shutting up for the first time since they’d arrived. Wheatley let out a sigh of relief at the silence. “Look! A comet!” the Space Core broke the silence before blabbering on again. Well, at least he got a couple seconds of peace.

☆

It’s been about a month since the last time Wheatley had been on Earth’s surface.

It seemed that the other core had finally run out of energy to speak and had decided to go into sleep mode. Now Wheatley had a moment of peace and quiet to think.

Yep… time for some thinking

In silence.

In the vast, endless void that is space.

All alone.

It seems that after listening to his partner talk for a month straight that he’d gotten used to it. His mind began to buzz with the emptiness as he slowly turned around to stare at the Earth from afar. It was quite a beautiful sight, he had to admit, but he couldn’t really enjoy it due to the unadulterated dread that began to set in.

They’d probably never make it back home. He was stuck in space forever with a bumbling idiot to talk endless chatter into his ear until one of them got crushed by space debris or succumbed to the death of a dead battery. He’d never get to talk to his rude self-centered manager again. He’d never get to talk to that nice mechanic again. He’d never be able to talk to any of his friends again, and it was all his fault.

God, he really was a moron, wasn’t he? Why couldn’t he have admitted it sooner?

“Are you alright?” A familiar, light robotic voice chipped next to him. He yelped in surprise, it seemed like his moments of silence were over. He braced himself for more space talk before he noticed what his companion had said.

He’d finally said something that wasn’t about space. Wheatley didn’t even think he was capable of that, but I guess he still had a lot to learn about this guy he’d probably be spending the rest of his life with.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Wheatley replied apprehensively.

“Okay!” The Space Core said before getting distracted again. “ Hey, look!- It’s the Earth!” He admired the scenery in front of the two of them. They’d probably seen the Earth from this angle at least a hundred times by now, but this time was different, he had someone to enjoy the sight with.

“She really is beautiful from this height, isn’t she?” Wheatley remarked with a slight chuckle in his voice. The Space Core nodded in agreement beside him.

☆

It’d be a few days before the other core would say anything real again. During the wait Wheatley worried it’d be a one-time thing. God, he hoped not, he wasn’t sure how he could live with that.

“What’s your name?” Wheatley asked the other core during a few rare moments of silence between them. The core didn’t respond, and Wheatley almost repeated himself thinking that maybe he hadn’t heard him.

“I don’t remember.” The Space Core admitted a bit forlornly.

“How about I call you Spacey?” Wheatley offered.

“That’s a great idea! How’d you come up with that?” The core seemed to light up at the idea, forcibly turning his body in space to look at Wheatley. His gaze was piercing, as if Wheatley was simply a specimen he was studying closely. It was the first time he’d focused on him, come to think of it. Did he look at everything else with such intensity?

“U-Um.. It’s just that- you like space, so why not name yourself after it?” He stuttered from the core’s burning gaze. He couldn’t hold eye-contact long, glancing to the side every now and then before looking back to the core’s unfaltering eye.

“I LOVE SPACE!!” The core enthused, spinning around happily, finally breaking eye-contact and conversation. Wheatley was a little surprised that he’d been able to keep up a whole conversation with Spacey, sure it hadn’t been long, but it was progress.

Spacey spent the rest of the day rambling about space as he usually did, and now Wheatley enjoyed hearing him a bit. It was better than the infinite silence that was space. Eventually Wheatley grew tired and went into sleep mode. He’d recently learned that the personality cores had built-in solar batteries that charged best when in sleep mode, so he didn’t have to worry about losing power as long as they had the sun’s UV rays around.

☆

Wheatley woke up a few hours later according to his internal clock. Spacey was still floating around, awestruck at all the stars around them. Wheatley wondered how he could stay so interested in them. The stars hadn’t visibly changed since they’d gotten here. Sure, they were pretty, but aren’t you bound to get bored of them after hours and hours of staring at them?

He drifted towards his companion, trying to look in the same direction that he was.

“Good morning-..” Spacey greeted, not finishing his sentence “What’s your name?” The core asked

“Wheatley. The name’s.. uh.. Wheatley.” He answered awkwardly, he didn’t expect conversation with Spacey to become a regular thing so soon. “Good morning, Wheatley!” Spacey sang, continuing where he left off.

“ How do you know that it’s morning?” Wheatley asked curiously

“I don’t.” Spacey replied casually before going back to stare at the stars.

☆

It’s been several months since they entered the cosmos. Wheatley doesn’t remember what month it is. Maybe August or September? He wasn’t entirely sure. It doesn’t really matter, does it?

He’s learned more than he’s ever wanted to about space from his space-obsessed companion.

“Hey, hey Wheatley!” Spacey yipped, trying to get Wheatley’s attention.

“Yes, Spacey?” He sighed, he wasn’t exactly in the mood for more endless space talk.

“What’s your favorite color?” Wheatley hadn’t expected the question, and to be honest, he hadn’t ever really thought of a good answer to it. There were so many colours to choose from, why choose just one?

He thought about it for a moment. Blue was a nice colour, it was his eye colour, but he wasn’t sure it was his favourite colour. He wasn’t too fond of himself, anyways, after what he’d done. Green was nice, organic, but it reminded him too much of the humans. Red was pretty, but too passionate for him. Purple was overrated, in his opinion, and he never really had an opinion about orange.

He looked to Spacey while thinking, and he just looked back at him patiently waiting. Over time he began to get a little more used to the intense studying look that he gave everything. Spacey was the only person who’d ever looked at him with such undivided attention, and it was pretty nice to feel so seen.

“Yellow.” He finally answered confidently as he stared into his companion’s golden yellow optic lens.

He was the first person to really care about Wheatley or pay any real attention to him. Chell was a nice friend, but she only liked having him around when he was useful to her escape, he could easily see that. His friends back on earth never paid much attention to him, just seeing him as a moron that would never mean anything to a conversation, laughing at whatever he said. After spending so much time with the other core, he found that he began to grow fond of him.

“What’s yours?” Wheatley asked in return, wanting to learn more about his space friend. (Were they friends? He supposed they were.)

“Blue.” Spacey answered quite a bit quicker than Wheatley had with the same strong confidence. He didn’t break eye contact while saying it either. The single word made Wheatley feel his heart skip, despite not having one. It was a feeling he’d never experienced before, it felt so foreign. He never thought there would be someone out there that cared for him as much as Spacey did. How could he forgive a monster like him so easily? Shouldn’t he hate him for what he’d done?

“How can you forgive me so easily after what I did?” Wheatley said his thoughts aloud. He was beginning to doubt that Spacey actually cared for him as much as he thought he did, was he just assuming things?

“Are you sorry about what you did?” Spacey retorted with another question.

“What- of course I am!” Wheatley defended.

“Then shouldn’t that be reason enough?”

He’d never thought about it like that. He did something so unforgivable by his standards. He made other people’s lives so much harder for his own personal gain, and he feels horrible about it. If he could go back and change what he’d done, he wouldn’t hesitate to, but he couldn’t, so why did it matter? Spacey seemed to read his train of thought easily.

“You clearly regret what you did. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone. So, what’s the point of holding a grudge?” Spacey added on to his point. Wheatley wished he could see it that way as easily as Spacey could.

“Thank you, Spacey. For forgiving me.” If Wheatley could cry, he thinks he’d probably be on the verge of tears right now. He didn’t think that anyone would ever truly forgive him.

“Anything for a friend!” Spacey chipped. You could hear the smile in his voice. He quickly got distracted by a meteor that flew by near a distant planet. He always seemed to find a way to entertain himself in the most boring places.

☆

It’s been a while since their last meaningful conversation. Wheatley is fondly listening to Spacey’s ramblings. It gives him something to pay attention to in the vast and exhausting emptiness of their current predicament. Spacey is happily spinning around while explaining something random about the moon and what it’s made out of and why it makes such a good portal conductor. Wheatley wonders how he’s able to navigate the vacuum so easily, it’s pretty challenging to move even a little bit out here, at least for him, but it seems that Spacey had gotten the hang of it fairly easily.

He appeared to be almost dancing out here. It was quite an amusing sight to see him jump around so happily like an excited puppy.

“How do you move so easily out here?” Wheatley asked his companion. It couldn’t hurt to speak what’s on his mind. He’d been making a habit of doing that more often than he ever did back on earth. He can trust that Spacey wouldn’t make fun of him.

“It’s pretty easy. You just build up a bunch of energy, and launch yourself!” Spacey explained, pausing his prior moon explanation to pay all of his attention to Wheatley and his query.

“That seems like a lot of work. How do you not get tired?”

“ I guess I just have a lot of energy,” Spacey answered simply

“That makes a lot of sense, knowing you.” Wheatley chuckled, and Spacey giggled in unison. After a moment, Wheatley decided to try it for himself. He closed his eye and braced himself before throwing himself forward, almost bumping into Spacey in the process.

“Woah!” He yelped while flying a few feet past Spacey.

“There you go!” Spacey praised. Wheatley did it a few more times, trying to get the hang of it. Before long, the two of them were jumping around in space while laughing together.

They eventually began forming a sort of rhythm, dancing together across the inky black sky. Wheatley was clearly more clumsy than Spacey was, still struggling to get used to steering himself across space, but they were both still having fun together.

Wheatley ended up accidentally bumping into Spacey mid-launch, causing him to launch Spacey a bit. Spacey didn’t mind, erupting into a fit of laughter at the action. As robotic as it was, Wheatley thought that his laugh was the most contagious and beautiful one he’d ever heard, so it wasn’t long before he began laughing as well. They both drifted back together, pausing their dance to laugh together.

“Heh heh, I love you.” Wheatley admitted breathlessly without thinking as their laughter waned. After noticing what he said his happiness broke immediately as he became absolutely mortified. He looked to Spacey as he looked back. He didn’t appear angry, or upset in any way.

“Awww, I love you too, Wheatley.” Spacey giggled, a smile appearing in his voice. He looked at Wheatley with such adoration that it was hard to doubt his words.

“Wait- really? Like.. more than just platonically?” Wheatley puffed, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, maybe even more than space itself.” Spacey admitted his thoughts aloud. Wheatley hadn’t expected his feelings to be reciprocated so easily.

“Oh..” Wheatley didn’t really know how to process the sentiment, it’d happened so suddenly. “Would you like to be something more than friends?”

“If that’s what you want.” Spacey responded patiently as always.

☆

It’s been a couple days since Wheatley started his first and probably last relationship, and now he thinks that he doesn’t really mind that Spacey is the one he’s going to be spending the rest of his life with. He wouldn’t want it to be anyone else.

It’s nice to finally be loved and appreciated for who he is.

---------

Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day/night!! I'm thinking of expanding onto this story in the future, it'll likely include GlaDOS, Chell, and the stories of the other cores while all of this goes down.

Here's the playlist I listened to while writing this

#portal #portal 2 #wheatley portal #space core #spaceley #space core x wheatley #fanfic #portal fanfiction #my art :))#I love them <33 #fluff #getting to know each other #falling in love

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