#first: the VA said it was THREE WORDS IN ENGLISH
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You ask the hottest girl u know their Roman Empire and she’ll say this:
#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#satosugu#gojo satoru#geto suguru#sugusato#HE WAS WHAT GEGE HE WAS WHAT HE WAS WHAT HE WAS WHAT#did he say I love you? I missed you? I forgive you?#there’s a comma so he said his name#right?#did he call him beautiful?#and before YOU SAY HE SAID YOURE MH ONE AND ONLY FRIENF BLAH BLAH READ THIS:#first: the VA said it was THREE WORDS IN ENGLISH#Gege said: IT (not he) WAS SAID DURING JJK0#the light novel has a comma meaning Satoru probably said his name#it was also said in a fan book that the words were never said before between them and that they made Geto ‘self conscious ‘#he said ‘I love you’#end of story
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Valentino writing tips: language
I’m not an expert by any means, but I thought I might provide some insight into how I, personally, handle the nasty moth's dialogue.
Like all languages, Spanish is highly regional. We don’t really know Val’s actual background as a Sinner, so your guess is as good as mine. Given his VA is Puerto Rican, however, I write Valentino as someone who speaks Caribbean Spanish (like me!). The three Spanish-speaking countries/territories in the Caribbean are: Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. I'm not familiar with Cuban Spanish, so we'll focus on the first two for now.
Some of these are more specific to one place than the other, but I’m mushing them together for simplicity’s sake (don't come at me).
Fun quirks of Dominican and Puerto Rican Spanish:
A habit of shortening words, like “ven pa’ca” (“come here”) instead of “ven para acá.” We frequently eat the letters “r,” “s” or “d” toward or at the end of some words.
Pronouncing “r” as “l” in some words.
Pronouncing “t” as a soft sound between a “th” and a “d.” Although this voice has a Spanish (from Spain) cadence, you can hear the modified “t” sound in “Valentino” here.
Fun Dominican and Puerto Rican words and phrases:
“Coño” as a casual curse, typically used as an expression of frustration (like “fuck!”). My username is basically a really intense version of coño, and is a very Dominican phrase.
“Diablo,” which means “devil,” is also commonly used as an exclamation.
“Hijo de la gran puta,” a classic that roughly parallels "son of a bitch," but literally translates to “son of a great whore.”
“Papi” or “papi chulo” (“cute daddy”) as a term of affection. “Papito” is the diminutive version of this phrase.
On that note, you can add “ito” to the end of just about anything to make it a diminutive (cutesy/smaller version). “Chulo” means cute, for example. “Chulito” is the even more affectionate/smaller version of that.
“Dique,” which is used to express doubt. Vox might say, “I am not obsessed with Alastor!” Valentino might mutter “diiiique” in response. This is a Dominican thing.
“Wepa,” which is something usually shouted in excitement. This is a Puerto Rican thing.
“Vaina,” which kind of means “thing,” often with a negative connotation. So, Valentino might look at one of Velvette’s designs, find it hideous, and say, “que vaina más fea, oof” (“what an ugly thing, oof”).
“Fó,” which is sort of “ew” or “gross,” usually re: bad smells. You shout it.
“Mano,” short for “hermano” (“brother”). Used between friends.
“Dímelo” (“tell me”) as a greeting. Something that would be said when answering the phone, for example.
“Cojer” as a means of saying “to take,” like taking something from a table. This word has a very different context in other regions. In Mexico, for example, the verb “cojer” is vulgar and means “to fuck.”
“Ahorita,” which in my experience means “later.” In other regions, it can mean “right now” or “later” depending on context.
Commonly used phrases in Mexican Spanish.
You’ll want to avoid these if you’d like his dialogue to be consistently Caribbean-inspired:
“Pinche”
“Verga”
“Wey”
“No mames/no manches”
“Qué padre”
“Chingar”
Calling acquaintances “primo” or “jefe”
I mention this Spanish dialect specifically because it's the most common one in the world. And hey, Val could be canonically Mexican or Mexican in your headcanon! That's cool, too. I'm just providing insight for consistency's sake.
Other insight:
“Ay dios mío!” is a generally overused phrase, in my opinion, and not actually said IRL as frequently as TV makes it seem. Just my experience, though.
“Ay” or “uy” are good filler sounds. You hear Val shout it when Niffty snaps at him.
Valentino canonically squeaks like a moth when passionate!
His voice takes on an echo/growl when he’s particularly angry.
Mixing English and Spanish is tricky. Spanglish is not uncommon in PR, DR, and the US, but usually only when speaking with someone else who is fluent in both languages. Valentino seems plenty fluent in English; he uses lots of contractions, complex sentence structure, and slang. He doesn’t need to inject Spanish phrases in favor of English ones when conversing with another English speaker. He does do it sometimes for emphasis (“the devil’s princesa” or “this chiquita”).
As cliché as it is, defaulting to a Spanish phrase in moments of alarm, anger, frustration, or affection is also not uncommon if you grew up in a Spanish-speaking home. If someone surprises me, I shout “coño” by default, for example.
Valentino uses pet names when referring to others, like "amorcito" (“little love”) and "Angie" over voicemail.
Generally speaking, Val likes to stretch his vowels to be theatrical ("he mooooved!"). He sometimes eats the ends of English words, like “fuckin’” instead of “fucking.” He also sometimes rolls his “r” for English words, like in “ungrrrateful whore!”
Val's accent isn’t consistently strong, which could be a stylistic choice, or he could just be prone to a kind of unique code switching, for lack of a better term. My friends say I speak English with a Spanish accent when conversing with my family, for example (it’s not intentional).
Okay that’s it, bye!
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I would never get that effect on you | pablo gavi and pedri gonzalez
part 2 of i'll take the opportunity
summary: after sharing an awkward moment with Gavi and Pedri, they will try to get you but on the day of the match, one of them will let you be happy and he will end up heartbroken, because he will realise that you have always loved him.
pairing: pablo gavi x reader ; pedri gonzalez x reader
warnings: some angst, hard decision, a broken heart
words count: 3.1 k —wow, the longest fic i've ever written—.
author's note: finally here is the second part of this fic. You don't know how much I suffered trying to choose one of them, but you guys already had your favourite, so… I hope you liked it as much as I did!
just to let you know again, english is not my first language so pardon me if there are mistakes —feel free to tell me—
A couple of days had passed since that awkward breakfast with the boys.
Both Pedri and Pablo had sent you messages apologising for what had happened and you honestly didn't know what to think.
It was clear that something was going on between the three of you. Pedri's attitudes did seem a bit strange to you because he acted like he was jealous, although you wouldn't know exactly the reason. With Gavi, on the other hand, you knew there was something between you.
Although Pedri had promised to come to pick you up at the university one day after the breakfast you had had, you cancelled him because your head was a mess and seeing him wasn't going to help, although that day when you got home you found a box in your room. You had asked your mother about it and she had only told you that the delivery company had left it.
When you opened it you found Gavi's shirt, you put it close to your nose and you noticed the smell of fabric softener and his perfume, and also a note from him.
"Sorry for what happened the other day, I will keep my promise and I hope you will too" you couldn't help but smile, he couldn't be more caring.
By now you knew what to wear to the match.
It was Friday afternoon when you had received a message from Pedri asking if he would pick you up on Saturday to go to the match, you weren't sure but you still agreed, you didn't want to lose your friendship with him.
You were about to have dinner when there was a knock on your door, which was strange because it was 8 pm. "Who could it be?" you thought.
To your surprise it was Gavi, "but what was he doing here if it was late and he had a very important game tomorrow" you thought.
"Pablo, what are you doing here?" you asked as you stepped aside to let him into your house.
"hey y/n wanted to see you before the game" He said to you while scratching the back of his neck, he's nervous. "sorry if I didn't tell you"
"yeah yeah, no worries, I was actually just about to have dinner, do you want some?" You smiled at him as you headed to the kitchen. "It's chicken and vegetables, something without so many calories."
"sure, thanks for your interest" he said to which you both smiled.
"I have to, I'm worried you won't be able to score a goal tomorrow" you smiled at him and shook his elbow.
“que va, que lo de marcar el gol ya está hecho" scoring the goal has been done already
You both picked up your plates and sat down at the kitchen island.
"Well, have you spoken to Pedri?" Gavi asked without being able to help himself.
The last thing you wanted was for it to get awkward and he wasn't helping, why are boys so dumb?
"Yeah, in fact, we agreed that tomorrow he would pick me up to go to the game together" You told him in response he tensed his jaw.
"Cool" he thought.
" Awesome" He said to you and you managed to catch the sarcasm in his voice.
"Yeah, but good. Tell me, are you ready for tomorrow?" you said to change the subject.
"Well, I'm excited and confident that we'll manage to win".
So you continued chatting about other topics until he decided it was time to leave because tomorrow he had to get up early to go training before the match and other interview duties.
"I'll see you tomorrow, and I hope to see you in my shirt," he said as he winked at you.
"Okay, okay. Good luck tomorrow!" You were both already at your front door.
"Thank you, and I'll do my best to get that goal". He said as he said goodbye and gave you a kiss on the cheek and you smiled.
You watched as he got in the Uber and left.
The next day, you hurried to change into the shirt Gavi had given you, jeans, trainers and a coat on top.
Soon, you received a text from Pedri letting you know he was arriving at your house.
As you got into the car, you smiled at him.
"Hi, how are you? he asked and you could smell his perfume. How good he smelled.
"You smell great". You regret when the words come out of your mouth.
Why did you say that?
"Yeah, really? Thank you, you always smell so good." He says as you blush.
"Well... Are you ready for the game?" You ask him as he starts driving.
"I'm excited, and I know we'll win." He said smiling at you.
"I like that confidence, I know you will."
"Just to let you know, I'm not forgetting about the goal."
Jeez, you didn't know how you would handle the fact that if he and Gavi scored a goal and they would dedicate it. You didn't know at this point if you wanted to.
"Okay, I don't forget either." You gave him a somewhat forced smile.
"Put on some music I know you have good taste" He gave you his phone, ok... a lot of confidence, "I like it" you thought.
Inevitably you put on a song that you had stuck to thanks to Tik Tol and that somehow reminded you of Pedri because of the video a teammate of his had posted of him singing and yes, you were obsessed with that song.
“Estoy perdido en el club buscando dónde respirar bien o que me entienda alguien, caras conocidas muchas, pero amigos nadie. Dale, caile uh, uh” You both sang smiling.
"It's my favourite song right now, I swear" He tells you as he looks at you sideways.
"Pedri, it's mine too. You should know I've had an obsession with it ever since I saw that video of you singing it." You give him a slight nudge.
"Glad to know we have good tastes, me most of all." He said and winked at you and you smiled.
Was that a hint? Probably.
We continued our journey in comfortable silence listening to the music.
This afternoon was a bit warm, so you decided to take off your coat, just to stay in Gavi's shirt. Pedri turns to look at you.
"Look, you're wearing the team jersey". He smiles at you.
"Pedri, I come with all the attitude. Gavi gave it to me". You say and instantly regret it.
"Ah, ok" He mumbles and from then on you are silent.
He seems very focused on the road with his brows furrowed. You're worried that something has happened to him, or that you've said something to upset him. He's quite serious and not very talkative, which is unusual for him.
I'm so focused on watching him that I realise too late that we've arrived at the Camp Nou. There were already too many cars.
As we walk into the stadium, he turns to look at me.
"OK, I'll take you to the stands. That's where Gavi gave you the tickets, right?" He said.
"No, actually, he gave me to be behind you, behind the dugout." You said, to which he nodded. "Come on I'll take you."
With that, you both headed down some corridors, and finally arrived at your seat.
"I'll leave you here, you already know where to buy food if you want. My brother is actually a few seats away, if you need anything don't hesitate to ask him".
"Thanks Pedri, good luck. I strongly believe that you will get the win". You tell him and give him a hug.
"Thank you y/n, it means a lot to me". He said in your ear, and with that he left smiling.
While you were waiting for the match to start, you were looking at your phone and chatting with a friend. Soon, the boys started to come out of the tunnel as the game started and you could see the two boys trying to find you and when they both found you, they waved at you, and you smiled back at them.
Gavi when he saw that Pedri was also waving at you made that typical face of his, he became serious and tensed his jaw.
"I must score before him". Gavi thought and Pedri did too.
Both of them could define this match as the most important in their lives, and it was because of you.
The match had not gone the way Gavi or Pedri would have liked, the visiting team had scored a goal in just the first 24 minutes, now it was almost the end of the half and Barcelona could not score a goal.
Finally, the long awaited goal came and it was from none other than Gavi. The fans were shouting like crazy for his goal, you shouted in the same way, you were happy because he had managed to score a goal, the first one for his team. The illusion of him dedicating the goal to you was still there, he came closer to where you were and pointed at you while you watched him say " To you, I promised you".
You had a huge smile on your face and you were sure that you were extremely blushing, and even more with the fact that all the people were watching you.
On the other hand, Pedri's blood was boiling. He couldn't believe that Gavi had scored a goal before him. In another situation he wouldn't have been angry and he would have been with his team celebrating, but no, you were there, watching them both play and Pablo, he was ahead.
"Gavi, I thought you understood". Pedri said to him once they were walking down the tunnel.
"What are you talking about? Did you want me to pass you the ball?" Gavi answered him, clearly he knew what he was talking about, but he was playing dumb.
“Tío, no te hagas el tonto” man, don't play dumb. “You know it. I told you I like y/n and I'd go for it”. Pedri said angrily.
"And I told you I wouldn't stay away, I've seen her first. I'm sure that whatever exists between me and her is stronger than what you're trying to build. No me hagas cabrear, por favor" I ask you not to piss me off . Gavi said angrily and walked away.
Pedri was extremely wrong if he thought he would have a thing with you. The moment he saw that Gavi almost had you, he was trying to interfere, well he was a prick if he thought he would get anything.
Back to the match, both boys were more motivated and not only because of the encouraging words their coach Xavi gave them, but also from the fact that they wanted to prove something to a specific person. You.
You watched as the two boys were moving around the pitch trying to take the ball and score a goal, however, they were failing to get the last one.
It was 76 minutes and the second long awaited goal Gavi arrived and everyone celebrated by shouting and jumping up and down. You couldn't be happier for him as you knew how excited he was to score goals, you were proud of him.
Gavi was also on cloud nine with happiness, it was being a great day for him.
Pedri turned to see you and noticed the big smile you had, he could swear that even your cheeks hurt from smiling. He felt sad, angry with himself for not being able to score a goal; jealous to see that you were wearing Gavi's jersey instead of his. Gavi right now was the star of the match.
"Congrats man, what a goal" Pedri came over to hug Gavi.
"Thanks mate, you assisted me to score it". He smiled at him.
The match came to an end, with Barcelona being the winners.
You leave the pitch to wait for both boys in the family area. You were so happy because the team had won and obviously, because of Gavi's goals, however, you also felt sad for Pedri. You couldn't imagine how disappointed he might be that he didn't score a goal, even though he assisted Gavi's goal.
About an hour passed before Pedri appeared down the corridor with his other teammates and although he was smiling, it wasn't the lovely smile he had, it didn't reach his eyes.
When he reaches you, he immediately hugs you. You close your eyes as he pulls you close to his body and you bury your face in his neck. There it was, the smell of his perfume and soap, he was so freshly showered.
" I want you to know that I'm so proud of you" You whisper in his ear and he hugs you tighter.
"Hey, are you okay?" You ask him and you feel him nod his head.
"Yeah, no worries." He says and pulls away just a little to press a kiss to your hair. "I'm just a little disappointed that I didn't score the goal I promised you."
"Pedri... it's okay, you played amazing. I'm really happy just to see you doing what you love, that's all that matters, okay? And I want your shirt though" You tell him smiling and stroking his arm.
"I'll give it to you, just let me wash it and I guess today hasn't been my day, but I understood something today, so... Well, I'm glad you came". He tells you with a sort of half-hearted smile.
"The good thing is..." You don't finish your sentence because you just see over Pedri's shoulder that Gavi is coming towards you, smiling.
When Pedri saw that you didn't finish speaking, he turned to look in the direction you were looking and then he saw him. Again he looked back at you, you had a smile that you had never given him, he could swear that your eyes were shining as you looked at Gavi and he had the same reaction as you. You were definitely meant to be together, he understood that. "I would never get that effect on you". he thought
"Y/N! DID YOU SEE IT!!! WE DID IT!" Gavi shouted as he came with hurried strides towards you.
"YOU DID IT GAVI! I'M SO PROUD!" you told him as you gave him a hug and he carried you and spun around.
"I promised you and it wasn't just one goal, it was two" He told you as he put you down. He had a grin from ear to ear and it was contagious.
You were so happy it just looked like there were just the two of you in that room, looking so in love.
"That was a great match Gavi, you were amazing." "Thank you, you were bringing me luck too." He said to you and you blushed.
"Maybe, maybe..." you said playfully.
"Really, bonita, thank you so much for coming. It means a lot to me, and now with all this I wanted to tell you something." Gavi looked nervous.
"Well guys, I'll leave you. See you tomorrow Gavi, bye y/n." Pedri said with an awkward smile.
You had completely forgotten about him, it hadn't been on purpose, but since you saw Gavi just...
"Pedri, stay." You said, turning to look at him.
"No, I'm going to have dinner with my family. Don't worry." He said as he gave you a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"Congratulations Gavi, you deserve it". Pedri said to Gavi as he also went over to hug him.
Maybe, just maybe those words had a hidden meaning.
"Sorry for how I behaved. Really, you guys are good for each other. Take care of her, she's amazing." Pedri whispered in Gavi's ear.
" Tío..." mate Gavi said. " You are meant to be together." With that Pedri pulled away from him and started to walk away from you.
"I feel sorry for Pedri, he's kind of down" You say to Gavi as you walk down the corridors of the stadium.
"I know". Gavi says.
"He's an amazing player and guy. were you telling me something earlier?" You say as you stop in the hallway and turn to look at him.
"Yeah, I wanted to tell you that...shit, I can't do it."
"Gavi, take it easy," you tell him as you take his hand.
"I just don't know how to start. Well, from the moment we met I knew you were a super nice girl, amazing, also to mention that you are gorgeous. I felt like we connected immediately, I feel like you understand me like no one else. When we are alone or with friends, sometimes I get lost watching you and when you are around me, all my attention is on you. I could listen to you talk about what you love all day , I love to hear you laugh, especially when it's about silly things I say or jokes that aren't even funny, my thoughts are all about you, I want everything with you.
When I say that it's because I want absolutely everything. I want to celebrate goals, victories, championships with you. But also, I want to be in your arms when I have a bad day. I also want to be with you when you're sad or happy because of your exams. I want to be with you in..." You didn't let him finish because you wrapped your arms around his neck to kiss him.
"I want that with you too Pablo, maybe it took us a while to realize it, but it's better late than never". You told him smiling, you were incredibly happy.
"Well then... do you want to be my girlfriend?" he asked you as he hugged you around the waist and brought his face close to yours.
"Of course I do, silly." You said and you brought your lips together again in a kiss, but this time with more intensity, it was a kiss full of love, feelings.
It was just the two of you, everyone had understood that you were meant to be together.
#football imagine#gavi#pablo gavi#gavi x reader#pablo gavi x reader#pablo gavi imagine#gavi imagines#pablo gavi imagines#pedri imagines#pedri gonzalez imagines#pablo gavi oneshot#gavi imagine#pedri gonzalez#fc barcelona#fc barça#pedri#pedri x reader#pedri imagine#pedri fanfic#pedri x you#fcb#fc barca
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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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pag-ibig, traducido (love, translated) || cs55 fic
carlos sainz x ofc (filipino!content creator!ofc)
EXTENSION TO RIDE HOME
Summary: Magdalena ‘Magda’ and Carlos Sainz can bring the two worlds together through words and actions. OR, moments in which the Filipino woman and her Spanish husband learned to love each other while learning more about what they know about themselves.
Content warning: Use of explicit language, shitty Tagalog/Filipino and Spanish translations, a lot of Spanish colonial and Filipino history jokes, parental abandonment, brief reference to religious and cultural practice (weddings), mentions elopement, secret marriage, briefly mentions PR relationships/girlfriends, time skipping, what is beta reading lol
Note: The last part of this story is loosely based on the idea given to me by @clairalle and the song 'Paninindigan Kita' by Ben&Ben so thank you so much! ❤️
Letting you all know that some Filipino dialogue here are translated based on how I know it in both English and Tagalog language??? And also, there are some words in here that are the same in context BUT written in two different spellings - some of the words are spelled based on phonics or how it sounds. Enjoy xx
masterlist
i. 2016 — shit, ayos ka lang?
Ramona Magdalena normally had the patience for Tesco. She wasn’t sure what it was, but everything had her seething with no apparent reason. She tried to figure out what went wrong.
It was only 3 p.m., for goodness sake!
Her third year at the university was supposed to make things easier, but the way she clenched at the handle of her shopping cart as she sped through the aisles of Tesco showed nothing of the sort.
She was so tense, her jaw clenching as she asked herself repeatedly if there was an actual reason for her getting worked up over something.
Her mother, Alma, was being herself; she was merely calling to see how the university was for Magda. Alma only told Magda about her cousins in the Philippines and how they were looking forward to getting the “balikbayan” box in August, only for the younger woman to respond grumpily. Alma was a dear— so clearly Magda’s grumpiness had nothing to do with her mother’s daily check-in.
She appreciated her mother’s efforts to keep up with Magda’s well-being; after all, Alma did everything she could as a single parent who immigrated to the UK long before she took Magda.
So no. She loved her mother so much that she wouldn’t get unreasonably cranky towards her. Not easily, at least.
But her questions withered away when her speed walking was interrupted by her shopping cart crashing into a figure. Her eyes widened, and she shook herself out of her thoughts.
“Mierda!” Shit! An accent escaped out of the man’s mouth.
Now, Magda had been a citizen of the UK for a while now— she knew when to speak English and how to utilize her vocabulary in a reasonable manner. But everything seemed to be in panic mode as she exclaimed, “Shit! Ayos ka lang?” Are you okay?
The man was still groaning, bent over as he clutched to his stomach. He glared at her for a moment as he asked, “¿Por qué no observas a dónde vas?” Why can’t you watch where you are going?
“Hah?” She cocked her head slightly. She only picked up on the first two words. Por qué? Why?
He’s Spanish, Magda deduced. She stepped away from the cart and walked towards him, “I’m so, so, so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going—“
“Obviously—“ he muttered hastily, still touching his aching side.
“I’m also in a rush, and I’m so frustrated and tired. Three years into adulthood and I can’t make shit right,” Magda hadn’t even realized that she was ranting to a stranger as she rambled, “GCSE clearly didn’t do shit to me because I’m still here bitching about what to cook— punyeta naman kasi, ‘di ba.” What the fuck, am I right?
He stared at her for a moment, not even interrupting her as she spoke. But the silence made Magda pause as her face flushed red, earning a soft smirk from the man. “Mama said I have a problem with speaking too much without thinking.”
He chuckled at her rambling before sticking his hand out, “We can call it… truce— I think is the word?”
“Yeah, okay, truce,” she reached out and introduced herself while shaking his hand, “I’m Magdalena.”
“I’m Carlos.”
“So, like… you’re Spanish, right? Or do you just speak Español? I’ve only picked up on some words because they’re quite similar— or I suppose I learned it through some song from years ago.”
“I am actually Spanish; good guess. And you said puñeta— I can assume you also speak Español?”
“Oh, hah, about that— no. That’s not spoken in Spanish. That’s— yeah, that’s something.”
ii. 2017 — irog means love
“Ate Magda! Totoo ba?” Is it true?
“Jowa mo galing Spain?” Your boyfriend is from Spain?
Magda almost died laughing as she FaceTimed her cousins, who were certainly supposed to be asleep at this time. The Philippines was seven hours ahead, and with her cousins being awake at two in the morning, she could assume that they had a holiday. Everybody always sleeps in if it’s a long weekend or a national holiday.
But she hadn’t expected their night to be spent gossiping about Magdalena’s boyfriend, Carlos.
“Niño, bakit ‘di mo gamitin yang utak mo sa school kaysa sa jowa ko?” Why don’t you use your brain for school instead of my boyfriend? Magda huffed out her laugh, making her other cousin Paloma laugh next to Niño. Paloma’s laughter caught Magda off guard as she called out, “Oi, Lomi, don’t be laughing— ikaw ang nagpasimuno nito. Akala mo ‘di ko alam?” You started this. You think I didn’t know?
“Papa brought it up,” Paloma defended herself with a cry, “he kept calling you a national hero, and I had to ask why.”
“Ano ba naman ‘yan,” what the hell. Magdalena cried out as her head slumped against the couch, raising it to look at her cousins on the screen, “Tell your papa to keep his mouth shut. I love Tito Gerry— I do, but he needs to stop making jokes about that.”
“—About what?” Magda seemed to be more drawn towards her uncle’s joke that she hadn’t heard her boyfriend enter her flat with a curious look. He had just arrived from Milton Keynes, and this was a surprise as he normally arrived later than this.
Carlos had taken off his shoes and placed his bag down, walking around the couch to sit next to Magda as he pecked her lips. “Hello, cariño. How was your day?”
“Hm, good! I’ve finished my paper,” Magda grinned.
They were so caught up with each other that the only thing they heard was gagging from the phone that the Filipino woman held. Magda and Carlos peered down on the screen as they watched the two teens exaggerate at the sight of the couple being too sweet for each other.
“Reparations,” Paloma gagged jokingly, “but at what cost?”
“Matulog na nga kayo!” Go to sleep! Magda exclaimed.
“Okay po, master,” Niño rolled his eyes before waving at the camera, “nice meeting you, Carlitos!”
"You're Niño, right?" Carlos grinned as he kept his face in front of the camera before waving, "Nice meeting you too!"
“Yeah! Buenas noches, Don Carlos!” Good night, sir Carlos! Paloma giggled, the other side of the call abruptly ending before Magda could berate the pair even further.
She sighed heavily and tossed her phone aside, giving her boyfriend a look of despair as he giggled at her.
“What did they mean by reparations?” He asked her, genuinely curious at what they were joking about.
How was she going to explain it to him? Did they even teach at Spanish schools about their country’s history of colonialism? Magda didn’t have an answer to that.
“Oh, just you know…” She mumbled, “Filipinos were originally Spanish people living in the Philippines. Apparently, dating you made us a deadly combination. Enemies to lovers, or whatever trope that is.”
“Reparations? Oh… OH!” Carlos exclaimed in realization, earning a nod from his girlfriend as he murmured, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I understand now, mi corazon.”
“Irog,” Carlos said aloud, making Magda hum in a questioning tone. “Irog, bébé.”
“What’s that, bé?” Magda asked mindlessly as she stared at the screen of her computer.
Carlos turned his head in her direction as he said, “I don’t know. You’re the one who speaks the language.”
She paused from doing her work, looking up at him before she pondered the first word he brought up. Then she let out an ‘ah’ before nodding.
“So…? What does that mean?” Carlos asked. One year of relationship and his thirst for knowledge was an obvious factor that came with it.
“It means mahal,” Magda answered, remembering the word. She continued to read Filipino literature as she grew, not wanting to stay away from it regardless of the fact that she spent her last school years in a British school. She asked her mother questions whenever she didn’t have a single clue what a word meant, so this was a helpful thing to do, especially now that Carlos continued to ask her to teach him how to speak her language.
“Mahal, like expensive?” Carlos asked for clarification.
Magda shook her head, “No, not that mahal. Like mahal— you, mahal.”
“Oh,” Carlos let out before he reiterated what she said, “mahal, like love?”
“Yes, mahal,” she snickered quietly, calling him by the term of endearment. “Like love.”
“So irog means love?”
“Yes, bébé. Irog means love.”
iii. 2018 — patata, patatas. what’s the difference?
“Oh! Hey, Mr. Alonso, you’re here just in time,” Magdalena grinned. The older man, who just arrived, shot her a confused look as she stood there with her lips spread out to a grin.
“Magda, hija, call me Fernando. It’s also nine in the morning,” Fernando Alonso sighed quietly, his hand running through his face as he looked back at the girl in the white McLaren shirt. “I think it’s too early for your optimism.”
“You’re right,” Magda’s shoulders slumped, and her smile fell, her face showing nothing but defeat as she walked towards the Spaniard, “but don’t let my sadness get in the way of your duties today. My supervisor said that you have to do your filming for the next two videos of the channel— and you cannot, I mean CANNOT, back out this time.”
“I can’t,” Fernando smirked playfully, “or can I?”
“Mr. Alonso, with all due respect,” Magda sighed heavily, “I started this year. And if you continue to ditch your duties because I cannot convince you enough then I’m going to have to leave not of my own will. I did not last four years at the university just so I can have a manchild act so sassily at the person who’s merely trying her best, so please—“
“Calmaté, Magdalena. Are you okay?” Calm down. Fernando asked, reiterating his question and emphasizing the word you.
Magda had anything but an answer; her lips pursed as she shook her head. “Can I… shit. Sorry, can I be excused for a moment? It's been a morning for me.”
“Take all the time you need, querida,” Fernando told her with a smile, patting her on the shoulder as she gave him a grateful look before she walked out of the McLaren garage with a heave of sigh.
Fernando Alonso pursed his lips as he caught sight of the young British reserved driver, calling him with a whistle as Lando Norris looked in his direction with a questioning expression.
“Norris, you know Carlos Sainz, yes?” Fernando asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Lando replied with a nod. “He’s a friend of mine.”
“Do me a favour, if you don’t mind,” Fernando requested, “will you please tell him Magdalena’s on break?”
“Yeah, of course,” Lando obliged before his curiosity got the best of him as he asked, “Is she alright?”
“I think McLaren broke her.”
“Leche,” she swore quietly as she stood behind the McLaren motorhome. Thankfully, nobody else was there to witness her on the verge of breaking down. Otherwise, that would have been embarrassing.
She had a bad habit of pleasing people. Living in the Philippines, with her mother working overseas and her biological father being a dickhead fuck knew where Magdalena grew up wanting to appease her friends and family. Her immediate family cared very little about the achievements she reached — they were proud, sure, but how she got there was beyond what they wanted for her.
Some kids who grew up in a Filipino household aimed to please, and Magda wasn’t an exception to that. She, however, did more than what she should have been doing. All thanks to the father she had never interacted with before or ever.
Much like now. She aimed to please. Maybe that was why she got to this predicament now; crouching with her head down as she tried to keep her composure.
She knew that everyone would kill to be in her place— working for a racing team. But for some reason, her urge to please was replaced by her fear of discomfort and disappointment. Being in a relationship with a Formula One driver taught her a lot about the sport, and she landed herself a job in a team based in England.
Being able to travel with him was a plus, but she felt that she had disappointed him. She didn’t feel as good as he told her she would when she first announced McLaren’s offer to hire her for the season.
Was this what most Formula One wives and partners felt? Or have they embraced that lifestyle long before the drivers became so popular? She wouldn’t make a good girlfriend for everyone should they find out that she had nothing but anxiety in her system as she graced the grid with her presence.
She was a disappointment of a Carlos Sainz fan.
His cologne lingered in the air as she witnessed him crouch down in her level, his fingers pulling her hair tie off her head, letting her long dark brown hair fall as she smiled grimly.
He was in his Renault fireproof, his race suit hanging off his waist. He made things more angelic than normal, and she loved him so much for it. His lips pursed as his fingers continued to massage her scalp.
“Few more months, mi vida,” Carlos murmured, his soothing voice making her feel at home. “You’re doing so good for them. Don’t let them say otherwise.”
Sure, she could be at the hotel with Ben&Ben blasting on her phone and her figure crying in the bathtub. She could be falling into the deepest depth of her sadness, but with Carlos ditching his team before the free practice — she would rather be here than be in their shared hotel room.
“Now c’mon, mi corazon,” he pulled her up, “I’ve managed to get my manager to come drop off some pancit to the motorhome from the hospitality.”
“Pancit?”
“Malabon,” Carlos beamed at her, pressing his lips to her forehead. “One of the caterers gladly took my request to have some pancit malabon at the menu. It took them a couple of weeks until they finally got tired of my constant asking.”
“Hm, you’re the best, my love,” Magda told him lovingly. “Though, I prefer palabok, remember?”
“Eh,” Carlos paused, “patata, patatas. What’s the difference? Pancit is pancit, mi amor.”
iv. 2019 — magda, maldita
“Carlos, bebe, mahal kita. Mahal kita sobra.” I love you. I love you so much. Magda sighed as she glanced over the notepad that her fiancé left on the end table of the side of her bed— their brainstorming notepad. “But do you really want to get married in a church? In the Philippines while you’re at it?”
“It’s an idea, mi amor,” Carlos said while he continued to do whatever he was doing in the bathroom, making her listen from the bed as he spoke, “Just how bad is it?”
“It’s nothing bad,” Magda said quietly, “it’s just something that I wouldn’t personally do. There is a lot of paperwork to do when getting married in a church. Did you know that? Not only that, but we’d have to attend seminars about family planning— which is not right up my alley, seeing as my mother is an unmarried single mother.”
“Paperwork is what you are worried about?”
“Why can’t we just elope instead? My Lola grandmother and Lolo grandfather did that, and look— they have my mom, my tito uncle and tita aunt,” she suggested out of the blue.
“And risk getting killed by either of our mothers?” Carlos scoffed, “I think we should stick to the church idea, yes, mi amor?”
“Did you not hear the story of my grandparents, love?” Magda asked him, thankful that he couldn’t see the baffled look on her face.
“More than I can count, mi corazon,” Carlos answered, “they ran away from home, didn’t they? Got married and had your Tia Maria, then your Mama after? They eloped because they weren’t close with their families— but we’re both very close to ours. We can’t do what your grandparents did.”
She sighed. He wasn’t even wrong.
The Spaniard walked out of the bathroom, his face now clean-shaven as he sat next to his fiancée. “Look, we don’t have to do the church thing. It was just an idea, hm? I know you don’t want to get married in the Philippines either, so that’s alright. We’ll just send your cousins, your aunt and uncle to wherever we’re going, then we’ll get married. Don’t worry too much.”
“‘M sorry,” Magda murmured, her fingers fidgeting with the gold engagement ring as she continued, “I’m a killjoy.”
“No, you’re not,” Carlos huffed out and clasped his hand with her left hand, “you’re the bride. The bride is more than permitted to weigh out the options. If you don’t want the Philippines, that’s okay.
“Truthfully, I just want to marry you,” Carlos murmured as he pulled her closer, “if we didn’t have such scary mothers, I would’ve already married you. You and your YouTube channel.”
Magda’s chuckle vibrated in his chest as she perched on his lap, “I don’t even know if that will even work out.”
“I am sure the wedding plans will. If it doesn’t, our marriage certainly will work out for you and your channel.”
“You are a dickhead, mahal.” “I can’t speak the truth now?”
“There was no need to bring up the channel, dumbass.”
“Mabuti nalang may passport yung mga pinsan mo,” It’s a good thing that your cousins have passports. Alma San Pedro, Magdalena’s mother, brought up as she sat across the aforementioned woman.
Magda skimmed through the spreadsheet laid out on her laptop’s screen, keeping her eyes on the things Carlos typed out on the guest list as he actively listed who’s responsible for the catering.
Alma continued to speak, “Why didn’t you want to get married in the Philippines? You’ve always wanted to get married in the Tayabas basilica— I could have had your Tita Marie look into it.”
“That was mainly because I thought you got married there,” Magda glanced at her mother before leaving a comment on the name that Carlos had just typed down on the guest list sheet.
“Lando Norris” — Magda San Pedro (monamagsp) commented: “He finally RSVP’d?”
Carlos Sainz (carlossz) replied: “Yes. He said he forgot to do it, but I managed to get him to fill it.”
He was still at Monaco for the race, but between the busy days of partying and racing he decided to abandon his friends and stayed at the hotel to plan his wedding with Magda instead. “Besides, Ma, the wedding’s in two months. Travelling is also time-consuming for most of us.”
“You’re so picky, anak,” child. Alma replied with a playful scoff.
“And you’re not married, Mama,” Magda shot back with the same amount of humour in her tone. “People complain about both, but we can’t find ourselves to care, hm?”
“Hay nako, Ramona Magdalena,” Alma rolled her eyes and sighed exasperatedly. A rhetorical question escaped her mouth, “Bakit ka kaya maldita?” Why are you so cheeky/sassy?
Mona shrugged, “Tita Maria didn’t take any shit from my private school teachers, Ma. She’s the one who took care of me while you worked here, remember? Go figures.”
“I can’t believe you’ve invited me to the wedding,” Lando’s eyes glimmered under the warm light of the ballroom hall as he excitedly spoke to Magda. “I know we didn’t speak as much last year, but the fact that you allowed Carlos to invite me? I’m so grateful, mate.”
Magdalena San Pedro— or wait, Magdalena Sainz stood across from the British man with a grin as she tucked her hands into her pockets (she had pockets on her wedding dress that she began to think that God was treating her right today).
The San Pedro-Sainz wedding ceremony took place in the Westin Palace of Madrid. With the hopes of celebrating the love that they shared for years, Carlos and Magdalena managed to get through the hour-long ceremony without a fuss. The romantic venue created an environment full of celebration while keeping it as intimate and private as it could be for their guests and themselves.
Carlos had already made his name known to the Formula One world, his talent being recognized by every fan as the season went on. But nobody knew who Magdalena was to him, and he intended to keep it that way — thus prompting him to keep his marriage a piece of confidential information. Everyone behind the scenes knew he was in a relationship, and with the hopes that he’d get even more popular, PR relationships were introduced and tossed in his way.
None of the women he was put in the spotlight with ever lasted, and he was slowly earning the title of a Casanova. He didn’t care; he was just doing his duty and driving his car around the tracks while he worried about his partner, who now worked for a designing company based in London— where they both lived. Nobody else in the grid nor anyone in the motorsport community knew who he was romantically involved with.
Magdalena was another story. She only began to record some videos about her lifestyle as she continued to work for some local designing firm, telling whoever was watching her videos about what she knew about this field of work or what kind of food she’d eat on certain occasions.
She wasn’t as popular as him, but she continued to keep his identity a secret. She lived an average life and she was quite content with it. She’d rather post a video of herself fucking around, but they’ve made a choice to stay private for as long as they could.
Now Lando Norris was known to be a blabbermouth, but Magdalena had grown quite fond of him when he was still a reserved driver for McLaren as she worked as a PR coordinator for the team. They rarely spoke, sure, but she was certain that she could trust him with anything and he wouldn’t blab about it. Carlos was also friends with Lando, and they continued to be close friends, so Magda never protested against Carlos’ idea of inviting the younger man to the wedding.
Lando then said, “I find it quite enjoyable— your wedding, I mean. It’s clearly not as big as I would have expected because well… Carlos told me that Filipino weddings are often big, but I love it! I’ve learned more about your wedding traditions than I have in sixth form about geography.”
“Gah, don’t even say that,” Magda rolled her eyes, earning a giggle from Lando as the woman continued, “It’s barely there, I think. We tried not to pour our hearts out into what they would normally practice in the Philippines or here in Spain. Some Filipino things are here — the food, my dress and my family — but it’s just something superficial, you know?”
“It’s not even just the wedding that taught me a lot!” Lando exclaimed as he laughed, “Your cousins, Lomi, Niño and Lucia? Yeah, I sat with them during the whole ceremony so they kept telling me about wedding traditions and some superstitions: like how you shouldn’t have any relative marry at the same time as you because it’s cursed.”
“Really? I’m surprised they haven’t said anything mundane,” Magda saw Lando nod at her statement.
“They also started to say that you took one for the team—“ Lando’s forehead creased as he said, “I asked them what they meant by that, then they only said you’re heroic.”
“Diyos ko.” My god. Magda scoffed. Her cousins spelled nothing but trouble and god did she despise them at times.
“What? What did that mean, Mags?” Lando asked.
Magda sighed exasperatedly, and with a defeated tone, she answered, “Making up for the challenge we’ve lost, apparently.”
“Huh?”
“It’s— just ask Carlitos,” Magda waved off, “I’ve had to explain the concept of colonialism to too many people before. I think it’s time Carlos did it for me.”
v. 2024 — paninindigan kita (stand by you)
Mamahalin kita buong-buo. I will love you completely.
“So, tell us about yourself.”
“I’m Carlos Sainz— or wait, do you want me to speak Tagalog?” The Ferrari driver asked as he stood in front of the camera, his linen shirt in the view of the lens as he waited to be instructed.
“Directing this music video is the dumbest idea I could’ve ever made,” Magda deadpanned from behind the camera as the videography crew laughed alongside the band members, her voice being picked up by the microphone easily.
Their Philippines trip, which they should’ve made a while ago, was something of an experience for the couple.
It was the first time they’d been seen in public— with everyone finding out about their marriage after Carlos’ Instagram story slip-up when he accidentally posted a photo of Magdalena’s selfie that she sent when she travelled to the country long before this.
It really was an accident if you were to ask him. But it was something inevitable, and all Magda could do was laugh and make her presence known not only to her fans but to those who were more than interested to know about her. His fans.
Now, they were in an Airbnb somewhere in the Quezon Province as they filmed some form of documentary. It was meant to be a storytelling music video about their relationship and the romance that came with it, but after seeing Carlos’ script reading at the Shell commercial, Magda practically banned him from acting.
She was a popular content creator in the Philippines regardless of her living situation; she lived in Madrid with her husband for almost five years. And with her popularity in the Philippines came acquaintances who were more than willing to collaborate with her. The folk-pop band called Ben&Ben asked if she was more than willing to shoot a music video with them. Direct it, even.
The song they released practically spoke about her life with Carlos. At first, she didn’t think too much of the lyrics and just enjoyed the rhythm of the song, then she realized how similar it was to their relationship, from the courtship (and her outward refusal to continue this romance with him at the very beginning) to their vows to love each other as they grow old, and decided that perhaps it was time to show to the world how they truly love each other.
Carlos agreed, knowing that outside of his life as a Ferrari driver and a Formula One figure, he had nothing else in life but her and her alone. He knew that she was the one thing that he kept from everyone to provide security for his wife. He waited patiently for her — and it was now paying off. Now, he was standing in front of a camera, waiting to be filmed for his interview.
It was better than the countless documentaries and the Netflix series that he had to do interviews and filming duties for. Because this time, he got to discuss his wife, Magdalena Sainz, instead of his car.
“Can I speak Tagalog?” Carlos repeated, his typical confused expression being displayed before the others.
Magda shook her head, “You’ll butcher it, Carlitos.”
“Excuse me, Ramona,” Carlos gasped in mock offence. “I can speak it!”
“Clearly not good enough,” Magda shot back, making the others laugh at the banter between the pair.
“Your Español isn’t any better then, mi vida,” Carlos scoffed, placing his hand on his chest.
Magda said, “There’s a reason why I only listen to you and your family when you speak, honey.”
“This is what I have to deal with every day, by the way,” Carlos pointed out to their audience, making the others burst out laughing as he offered his wife a playful glare.
One of the videographers spoke before Magda could make a comeback, “Wait, the camera’s still on.”
“Oh shit,” Carlos and Magda both swore before they both laughed. Their banter was caught on camera and they were laughing about it.
It took them good ten seconds to return to their composure as the camera stopped recording.
Magda cleared her throat, clapping her hands as the camera began recording, and she instructed her husband, “Carlos, we can both speak English— it’s fine. Just speak in English, alright?”
“Okay, fine,” Carlos rolled his eyes and muttered, “mi esposa. Muy quisquilloso.” My wife. So picky. The microphone attached to his shirt picked up on his comment.
“This is so going to the music video,” one of the band members giggled.
Magda then continued with the recording segment as she spoke to her husband while she stood behind the camera, “Alright, please state your name and how long you have been with your partner?”
Carlos nodded and beamed slightly as he stared back at Magda, who was smiling as she expected his answer. With a cheerful tone, he said, “My name is Carlos Sainz. I have been with my wife, Magdalena San Pedro Sainz, for seven years and three months and have been married to her for four years and six months.”
“What prompted you to stand by her?” Magda asked as she continued to beam at him, not even noticing the heart eyes of the other people in the room.
Eight years and still extremely in love.
He answered, “Her determination, wits and her ability to stand by me no matter what kind of disaster came and went made me realize that falling in love with her was worth the effort to make.”
It was no wonder people thought their relationship had nothing to do with two worlds colliding.
Even with their constant light bickering, Magdalena and Carlos Sainz learned how to love each other through words — whether it was their native languages or their secondary ones. What mattered was that they understood the meaning of their love, regardless of what kind of language they had to translate it to.
fin.
#carlos sainz fluff#carlos sainz imagine#carlos sainz jr imagine#carlos sainz x reader#carlos sainz fanfic#carlos sainz fic#formula one x oc#formula one fic#formula one imagine#formula one fanfiction#f1 fic#f1 fanfic#f1 imagine#carlos sainz au#carlos sainz x oc#cs55 imagine#cs55 x oc#ferrari imagine#ferrari f1#cs55#formula 1 fic#formula one fluff#f1 fluff#f1 au#formula one au
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Octavinelle Dynamics
Although the word “sir” appears at least six different times in dialogue for Jade and/or Floyd when they are talking to Azul on EN, they never once refer to Azul as “sir” in the original game (or any Japanese-language equivalent).
Azul himself explains, “The Leech brothers do not work for or answer to me”, and Floyd’s VA has said that the relationship between Jade, Floyd and Azul is one of his favorite things about the characters. “It is never just the two of them obeying Azul”.
In-game, Floyd himself says they are equals.
So where did “sir” come from on EN? I do not know!
If Jade and Floyd always used polite verb forms while Azul used a more casual form, it would make sense for that to be translated as Jade and Floyd using “sir” with Azul, since English doesn’t have those forms.
But that’s not what’s happening.
Here is an ADeuce-based example:
We have Deuce (in honor student mode) using polite forms of verbs, and EN added “sir” to his dialogue. He isn’t actually saying “sir” (or any Japanese-language equivalent), but he is specifically using polite verb forms because he is speaking to Riddle, a figure of authority.
Ace should technically be also using those verb forms with Riddle as an underclassman, but he isn’t (Ace regularly slides in and out of using polite speech, as a part of the character), and EN, in turn, does not give him a “sir” to his dialogue.
Riddle, as the oldest, the senpai and the housewarden, also uses casual verb forms. He also does not use “sir” with the younger students on EN.
This is all perfect: a great way to recreate the dynamic between the three characters in a language that doesn’t have different verb forms for different degrees of politeness.
But Octavinelle’s dynamic is completely different.
Jade and Azul both use polite speech patterns with whoever they are speaking to, regardless of age or authority, and with each other. If EN wishes to keep to their own “sir” continuity (to denote polite speech, as with Heartslabyul), they need to have Azul and Jade saying “sir” to each other.
But they don’t. They added “sir” only to Jade (and sometimes even Floyd), as if he is deferring to Azul, when he is not. Azul is speaking in the same way to Jade as Jade is to Azul, but while Jade’s politeness is being carried over, Azul’s is not.
Presumably this is because Azul is “the boss”—except Azul is not the boss.
In a normal situation he would be, as the housewarden if nothing else, but the twins do not see or treat Azul as a figure of authority; a very important point.
They never call Azul “sir” or “the boss” in their original dialogue. The three are equals to one another, as explicitly explained, in-game, by the characters themselves, and refer to one another exclusively by their first names with no honorifics or nicknames.
On the opposite side, Floyd doesn’t use polite speech with anyone.
Much like how Jade and Azul speak in polite forms no matter who they’re talking to, Floyd speaks to everyone in casual forms. So not only is Floyd not referring to Azul as “sir” or “boss” or any Japanese-language equivalent, Floyd is actively using casual, borderline “rude” Japanese to Azul’s face, while Azul is using polite speech back at him.
If EN is to keep to their own “sir” continuity, they would need to have Azul calling Floyd “sir” and Floyd saying “whatever” in response.
While none of this is ever going to make it into EN in any detail because English just doesn’t have different verb forms for being polite, it’s unfortunate that EN has chosen to localize the characters by changing their dynamics for the sake of making them more into a stereotypical movie-trope, mafia-type group with lackies and a don instead of portraying the actual interpersonal relationships at work.
As for how to even do this in English, it might be as simple as either adding “sir” to Azul’s dialogue when he speaks to Jade and Floyd, or just not adding it to Jade’s and Floyd’s when they are speaking to Azul. This is all very much a part of why Octavinelle is so popular on JP, in a game that is all about the relationships between its characters.
EN players are getting a very different experience from what the dynamic between these characters actually is; Floyd is still saying “we are equals” but—in English—they do not act like.
Translators have a heavy responsibility, and it is fascinating how mere phrasing is capable of rewriting entire character relationships, veering away from the creator’s original intent with the simple addition of “sir” :>
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FRANKELDA AND HER GHOSTS 1. (Part 2)
Seeing how more and more english-speaking audience is apparently watched Frankelda now, I feel like it's a good moment to post the translation transcript I did of the first live event with the Ambriz brothers, 'Frankelda y sus Fantasmas'. Posting on parts for easy reading because it's over 20 pages long. These are basically Q&A of making-of aspects of the series, going from concepting and design to even edition and post-production, going through Voice-acting and even trivia. They do sometimes comment some lore, but are restricted in how much they can talk about it as it would apparently spoil upcoming things. Latter episodes have some guests, including Mireya Mendoza herself (Frankelda's VA both in english and spanish) Kevin Smithers, who composed the score and songs in the series and even the edition team in the most recent one! (It honestly gives me life to see how much Cinema Fantasma values the whole team.)
It's fair to warn you that it's probably better to have watched the entire first season before checking it out, as it contains commentary on things that might spoil you if you haven't. It's also worth noting that this one was recorded on November the 26th in 2021, back when we had no word of the film being made or the new dub and USA release.
Some additional notes:
-El Coco and the Boogeyman are both used for the same character in this one because it's how they do it in the dub.
-Something happens in there that I cannot describe with the screencaps alone and the transcript would feel naked without, so description is provided. It's magical, you'll see.
Arturo Ambriz: Good, let’s move to this question which is also really nice- well, we already replied to Val Guerrera’s question, which is: ‘Are you thinking about publishing a book for the show?’. Well, that one’s already settled. Let’s do… let’s move to the next one, which is: ‘Is there one puppet per character and a lot of changes, for instance, mouth, eyes, etc.? Or are there multiples and a lot of changes?’
Roy Ambriz: They’re one-of-a-kind.
Arturo Ambriz: Ah, wait. The question is by Bailey Val… Bailey Valquion.
Roy Ambriz: All the characters are unique, they’re priceless, they have a personality and that’s why there’s only one for each… no, but seriously, yes, there’s only one, because…when you watch the ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ making-of and you see there’s ten Jacks or something like that, I don’t know when- sorry, how many. We… I reiterate, being a Mexican production, new, and the such, we obviously didn’t have the budget to make a thousand copies of each character. So, what we did was make them the smart way in the puppet wing, so that we could fix them, and we had a very talented and… arrrgh! Super strong and buff puppet hospital team, just constantly fixing them again and again. Frankelda… yeah, there’s two Frankeldas, which is… something we hadn’t mentioned up ‘til now. There’s two Frankeldas because she was the character who had the most animated minutes on-screen, and the cool part is, if you look really closely, you can actually tell which is which, and that’s something we love.
If you watch the original ‘King Kong’ movie, the one from the 30s, there’s like three… the King Kong puppets were hand-made, they didn’t even cast them, Ray Harryhousen made them with wet cotton on latex and built them over… over skeletons he made…
Arturo Ambriz: Willis O’Brien.
Roy Ambriz: Ah, my bad, Willis O’Brien. I said Harryhousen but it’s Willis O’Brien. And he made them by hand. So, they’re not identical and there’s like three King Kongs, but it doesn’t matter because the illusion of life is there and, and you know it’s real. But, yeah, the hardcore ones, which I think is all of you, can figure out which one’s Frankelda mark one or mark two. But really, she’s one and the same, don’t worry, she sometimes just… likes to do her hair a little bit different, or arrange her dress some other way, because Frankelda never sits still and her… her spirit can take any shape she wishes to.
Arturo Ambriz: Next question… and it’s from Noemi Juárez… I wanted this one to show up. ‘¿Did you use the same figurine for Frankelda’s grandma and Magali’s hen witch?’ Let’s see, we can answer this one very plainly. It’s not that it’s the same figurine, it’s not that it’s the same puppet. Could it be that perhaps, perhaps, it’s the same character…? Anything you’d like to add?
Roy Ambriz: Well… Frankel- I mean. Frankelda, her stories, to write them she has to base them off her own life because, and this is a tip I’m giving you, we’re giving you, if you want to tell your own stories, write about what you know. Write about what… what you’ve learned, what you like…
Arturo Ambriz: What you’ve lived, what hurts you.
Roy Ambriz: But this doesn’t mean it has to be hyper-realistic and like… a copy, an exact replica of what is. You can tackle it from fiction, fiction can help to make-up and transform, because you can transform yourself. So you can create characters from an aunt you knew or your friend’s mom who is really interesting, and you can create… and that’s what she does, and so, ask yourselves why Frankelda drew inspiration on her grandma, right? To… to make the witch- who, by the way, her name’s Totolina.
Arturo Ambriz: Good. Next question… ‘What was the production process for the songs? Did you guys make the concepts for the lyrics?’ Alex Rosas asks.
This question is really interesting, we’re definitely inviting Kevin Smithers to one of these, he’s the composer of our songs and our orchestral pieces, and we’ll be able to talk more about this. But look, here’s a really fun little history tidbit… originally, we’d only planned for one song in the whole series, and it was El Coco's.
It was the very first one we wrote, it was the very first one that got recorded. Actually, that one… the Boogeyman’s story only exists because when we… I think it was literally the day we got greenlit to produce this, Roy and I were talking about what we wanted to see on-screen and we said: ‘Ooooff… this hobo monster, El Coco. All scruffy and ragged… in an alley in Coyoacán… playing a thousand instruments and flying ghost kids out of his hat and forming a dead kids orchestra.’ We were like: ‘Yes! That’s what we want to do for this season of ’Frankelda’’. And we started working on the story, we started creating everything and that’s when we made the lyrics for what at the time we still called ‘The Boogeyman’s Waltz’ …
...and here’s El Coco dropping by, and- hang on, let me get this out of the way… we started to work on the Boogeyman’s song. Sergio Carranza sang it, it turned out amazing, it turned out absolutely breath-taking, and, well, we realized...
[Here Hernevalito hilariously falls off Herneval's arms and Roy tries to silently non-react to it...]
...maybe it was worth it for the whole series to be a musical and have one song per episode. Why? Because we love musicals, because at the end of the day… think about this, I mean, each song… and here’s a little tip in case you like to write songs… each song is a poem.
[Roy then discreetly sits Hernevalito on El Coco's horn.]
Each song is actually a poem, that’s why Herneval tells Francisca ‘Hey, why don’t you read me that poem you just wrote?’
[Success! No one saw that, right?]
and it’s a sung poem. Well, songs are poems, right? I don’t know if it’s our way to put in a little bit of… creative, poetic and philosophical writing into the show, on top of it making it a lot flashier, making it more memorable. You listen to the song and it reaches faster. So what we worked on with Kevin was, while we worked on the lyrics…
Roy Ambriz: Specially him.
Arturo Ambriz: We kept working them, writing them, and like… turning them over, looking for… concepts, which, come entirely from the scripts, because the scripts were there first, and once we were clear on which ones they were- what it was we wanted to say and how it could have a nice ring to it- it was then that Kevin Smithers got involved and he helped us to, well, create the music proper, and there’s some… some texts that got edited, and some got longer or got shorter, and it was a very organic process where we included parts of the script, the poetry part, the conceptual and musical part, and everything got combined. And, believe us, we’re really glad to see you liked the songs, you’ve sang them, you’ve posted videos, you know the lyrics. That’s a dream come true for us.
Roy Ambriz: Besides, soon you’ll be able to sing with Frankelda or Herneval. So stay tuned to our Tik Tok channel on the next weeks.
Arturo Ambriz: Yes. Yeah, that’s right.
Next question… ah, this is a good one. ‘Will new kids inspired on your crew show up for the next episodes?’ Danitza Rivas asks us.
Roy Ambriz: Yes! We’re really excited, we have a lot if ideas, we want to see them already. I really like how… I want to clarify, just because they’re based off… as a fun little nod, from- the characters, it doesn’t mean they’re, like… exact copies, right? Of… I mean, they’re fictional characters, that should always be clear.
But yeah, we’re really, really excited about getting to include more kids. Tormenting even more characters; because a writers job is always to torment their characters, that’s how you put them to the test and depending on how they face the challenges you make for them, that’s how you discover what their nature is like. In this case, we like how… they don’t make it, and it’s something really fun to do because there’s a nice little reflection in there. But yeah, there will be many other children- but also expect to catch a glimpse of old acquaintances, of old friends in there, for sure.
Arturo Ambriz: And… I was precisely trying to look for the question to see who made it a while ago… the truth is I lost it, hope someone can help me over here…
Roy Ambriz: Tinta Invisible.
Arturo Ambriz: Someone… no. Someone was asking how we got the idea to use members of the Cinema Fantasma team to be the inspiration for the kids. And yeah, that’s the reality, not everyone may know this but, all the kids that app-
Female background voice: Daniela Herrera.
Arturo Ambriz: What? Daniela Herrera? Daniela Herrera was asking this just a while ago. And we realized we needed a bunch of kids and we didn’t want them to be generic. We wanted each one, even the ones in the background, just walking by, to have something unique to them that took a step away from cartoon stereotypes, where you always have… the chubby one, the red-haired one, the goth one. I mean, those stereotypes get on your nerves, right? So, we wanted everyone to be a combination of very particular elements, and we were like: ‘Well, people who work in Cinema Fantasma are visually fascinating, it’s like a whole new range of personalities, of shapes, of colors, of voices, everything.’
So, that was the best inspiration because it really is also an homage for our team, they do so much. I mean, this, the stop-motion, the series, the movies, it’s teamwork! And for the next seasons, we’ll keep using people from the team and new people too, people who’ve joined this crew to create more and more characters. I mean, this is part of ‘Frankelda’s DNA and will always be.
Roy Ambriz: Mm-hm.
Arturo Ambriz: OK. Let’s see… ah, this one. Go on and answer this one, Roy. It’s a question from Valeria Palacios: ‘Do people turn unto Spooks when they die or are Spooks born some other way?’
Roy Ambriz: No, a normal person doesn’t necessarily turn into a Spook when they die. It’s actually quite strange but, there’s Spooks who want to be human, like the Gnome- the Gnomes. They want to be human because they don’t like the… the place they were assigned to as Spooks. There’s Spooks who are fascinated by humans, like, from an anthropologic point of view. Like the Boogeyman, who loves to study them and has been doing it since he was… his dad used to bring him to watch him work when he was a kid.
Arturo Ambriz: Don Coco!
Roy Ambriz: Don Coco would bring him to watch him work, and he’d be gawking at them, and he loved them, and he’d say: ‘I just don’t get them. They’re so fragile and so… so stupid…’
Arturo Ambriz: ‘So temperamental!’
Roy Ambriz: So, they loved that. There’s Spooks that absolutely loathe humans, like the Mermaid, who used to have control over the territory and was worshiped as a goddess and now she hates that no one is even aware she’s there, and on top of it they polluted her world, and her pyramid lays forgotten. It’s undiscovered, it’s in Xochimilco but no one’s discovered it yet, it’s underwater.
And then there’s humans who want to be Spooks because they aren’t happy with their lives. Like Tamazola, Tochina and… which one am I missing?
Arturo Ambriz: Totolina.
Roy Ambriz: Totolina! Who are the three witches. In order to become Spooks, they had to figure out a lot of things, I can’t really give away too much because it’s a spoiler. And they had to perform a ritual which they’d been constructing for a long time before they could actually do it, and they hadn’t accomplished it until Magali came along… but there’s a reason they have so many caged animals in their kitchen, y’know?
Arturo Ambriz: You touched upon one of the questions someone… someone else made. This one’s by Alexa Casas: ‘Will we be seeing Don Coco in the next seasons?’
Roy Ambriz: Don Coco! Who can say?
Arturo Ambriz: What do you guys think? A bit of homework for you, you’ll see.
Next… ah, this one’s great: ‘Why did Herneval’s attitude change so much when he became a book?’ Picture this. You guys are maybe, I don’t know…
Roy Ambriz: No spoilers!
Arturo Ambriz: Yeah, no spoilers. You guys are… I don’t know if in middle school, high school, college or already graduates. What were you like five years ago? Picture yourselves ten years ago, the kind of personality you had, the way you spoke, OK? It’s been a hundred and fifty years. That’s all I’m saying.
Roy Ambriz: But, Herneval aged, didn’t he-? ahhh.
Arturo Ambriz: Spoiler! Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler… soc! OK, next question. Ooff, no, I’m not answering this question because it would be a huge, huge, huge spoiler…
Roy Ambriz: Let me see, what is it?
Arturo Ambriz: I’m gonna skip it.
Roy Ambriz: Read it and I won’t… they’ll just see my expression.
Arturo Ambriz: You sure?
Roy Ambriz: Yeah.
Arturo Ambriz: They’re asking, and there’s actually more than one person asking: ‘Whatever happened to Francisca’s body?’
…next question…
Roy Ambriz: Tinta Invisible.
Arturo Ambriz: Yes, yes, next question: ‘What’s Herneval’s biggest fear?’ by Meru Chan. Look how- this is a really nice question, it’s true, Spooks have fears too, right? I mean… specially Herneval, Herneval shows himself as… fragile, vulnerable despite… he’s such a good… I was going to say ‘Good person’, but, let’s say he’s such a good Spook, and…
Roy Ambriz: A handsome lad.
Arturo Ambriz: And a handsome lad.
Roy Ambriz: The fussy book.
Arturo Ambriz: He’s gentlemanly, he’s kind, he’s passionate… but I definitely think that… not to give away to much: Herneval is very scared of loss. He’s afraid of having- people he loves and…
Roy Ambriz: Ah-ah! Erm…
Arturo Ambriz: OK. Yes. Yeah, that would have been a spoiler.
Let’s see, this question has no, no, no spoilers at all, and it’s… they’re asking… ‘What can I do if I want to learn animation but I’m already studying for a different career?’ Paulina Cortés is asking.
Roy Ambriz: I think this question might also be exemplified better along the next sessions as we get more of our friends parading here, who also created ‘Frankelda’. But in order to animate, to make an animated production, you’ll need lots and lots of different talents and abilities. It’s really funny because sometimes we get called ‘Animators’. The two of us. It’s like- that’s not true, we don’t animate. Well, I animated… a couple of things, but we’re not animators per se, we’re directors, were writers, we’re sculptors. So, an actual animator and with a big range too… I think that might be… too much, and it might be- what’s that word again? Like, overwhelming. Right? Like… too much. It’s… when, really, when you shred animation into tiny pieces, you realize you need someone who knows how to write, someone who knows how to administer a project, someone who can paint, someone who can draw well, and design. Someone…
Arturo Ambriz: Book-keeping.
Roy Ambriz: Book-keeping! You need a musician, or someone who knows about music, you need actors and voice actors. It’s endless, right? Someone who knows about tech, someone who knows about IT, someone who knows computer programming, who can do motion-controls. Who can do post-production-
Arturo Ambriz: Social-media.
Roy Ambriz: So… college is always a starting point, and this is something we always say, from experience. We graduated more or less, ten years ago, give or take. College is a starting point, it’s not that you have to stay there just because you got your degree in that area, it’s a starting point you chose for… a project. But from then on, it’s up to you and your guts, and your continued studies of many other things you didn’t really see in school, and to living, it’s up to you where you lead your life to and where you want to go, and whether you achieve that your calling is… aligning what you want to do for work, with earning money, and on top all of this, with your reason to live, because it’s your life project; and this is how you feel accomplished, and this is how you know you can do some good in the world, and if you manage to align all of that, it’s beautiful. We’re very happy we’re able to do this for a living, but it implies a lot of work and for you to move to where you want to be.
Arturo Ambriz: Next, it’s a question by Bets Chan Ching, and it’s: ‘What is the Spooks’ life cycle and is it the same as humans?’
Roy Ambriz: Hmmm…
Arturo Ambriz: This question is a really good one, such a good one, it’s something that will be gradually answered as the next seasons roll by. What we can say is, it’s definitely not exactly like a human being’s. But I think you can reflect on, I don’t know… have you realized there’s times you don’t want to do a specific homework, you’re scared of doing it because you’re convinced that you’re going to mess it up? And maybe if you’d done it immediately you would have spent half an hour doing it and then you’d be done, but because you didn’t do it during the week, well, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger in your mind, and it’s gigantic by Saturday and it’s even bigger by Sunday? And by Monday at four AM this homework, this fear of doing homework is just massively huge and it’s crushing you? And now something you could have gotten done in half an hour ruined your entire week? I think if we understand, like… fears, we can get a better idea of what the life cycle of Spooks is.
Roy Ambriz: ‘Anything? Heeheehee…’
Arturo Ambriz: Yes, exactly. It’s a very, very interesting question, but… actually, if we tried to completely explain it right now, it wouldn’t make any sense to you, you have to see it, you have to watch it happen little by little in the next seasons.
Ah, this question is really nice, Mansand Saga asks: ‘Did you have any problems with friends or family when you picked your career and to pursue your passion?’ …no. We happened to be in luck…
Roy Ambriz: In our specific case.
Arturo Ambriz: The two of us, specially, were lucky to have our parents, our friends, our family always supporting us. We specially got a lot of artistic stimulation- and corporate as well, from our parents, that’s how it’s always been. Our mom always made us draw, made us sculpt, made us get our hands dirty… I’m even exposing her a little bit here, but my mom would sometimes even let us skip school so we could go to an amusement park, or to the movies, or because- I don’t know, maybe even something like the weekend’s game got a bit too long and we wanted to finish it properly, like, we had those kinds of permissions.
So, it did help us big time to have that kind of help. In conclusion, if you see one of your friends wants to do this for a living, support them, cheer for them, because yes, there is a professional life for arts. Now, obviously, we’re aware that not everyone has this kind of family support, we have a lot of friends who experienced rejection in their homes in order to be able to make a living with this. But what we’re saying, the best message we can send about it is episode four of ‘Frankelda’s Book of Spooks’. That’s why we created the El Coco, that’s why we created Tere, that’s why we created these ghostly children who dance and make music, it’s because we’ve watched a lot of our friends and acquaintances get their passion stolen by the Boogeyman…
Roy Ambriz: And they just settled…
Arturo Ambriz: They settled, they dedicated themselves to something they didn’t even want to do, and suddenly it’s been ten, fifteen years, and they’re like: ‘Oh, my God, I wish I could turn back time and give myself unto the things I’m passionate about.’. So to keep that from happening to you guys, we made the Boogeyman and Tere.
Roy Ambriz: Play it for your aunts and uncles, the Boogeyman episode, when they get on your case.
Arturo Ambriz: Oooh, this one’s really, really good, only detail’s that the username of the asker is JICJ2442. They’re asking in Tik Tok, and it’s… ‘Will we see…?’ ah, we’re mixing our sources for the questions from all the social media, eh? They’re asking if we will ever see the Spooks’ world.
Roy Ambriz: Tsss… it’s what we want to show you the most!
Arturo Ambriz: It’s not so much the world, it’s the Kingdom of Spooks.
Roy Ambriz: Herneval’s Kingdom, y’know? And that of his parents, hm? So… that’s what we want to show the most. That’s where Francisca’s headed to right now, Frankelda, and, well, we hope we get to show it to you.
Arturo Ambriz: Alright, Camicatura is also asking when they’ll get to watch the series if they’re in Spain. This is a very, very good question. Look, there’s no precedent for this kind of series made in México or Latin-America, like… a stop-motion, horror musical, and one of such a high quality. I mean, it’s like a very odd mixture of elements, and there’s definitely plans for the international launch, so it can be watched all over the world, but that’s something we’re going to achieve little by little.
For us, the ideal scenario would be to get to a point where… where season two can launch simultaneously in every country that has HBOMax. But it’s a matter that’s not really in our hands, rather, they’re completely strategic on the part of HBOMax and Warner Bros.
Roy Ambriz: Now, if you want to watch it, you can write to HBOMax’s social media about wanting it to also arrive on Europe, and that would be great help, y’know? If more people around the world start requesting it, there are more chances that it’ll be authorized for more countries.
Arturo Ambriz: Great. Herneval’s little wing is covering your face quite a bit. Let’s see, you’re going to love answering this one, Roy, I’m sure. It’s: ‘Do Spooks only haunt kids or adults too?’
Roy Ambriz: They haunt everyone. Really, I think… children can get a better grasp of what a Spook is, and humans… they look for another explanation…
Arturo Ambriz: Adults.
Roy Ambriz: Adults. Like, children will see them as Spooks, and adults will too, but the Spooks won’t… won’t allow themselves to be seen quite as easily, because Spooks live anywhere you look, but you can’t see them for lack of knowing to look.
Arturo Ambriz: Great. This question is very nice, asked by Axel Imanol and it’s: ‘What was your inspiration for making ‘Tinta Invisible’? Honestly, I love that song a lot.’ Look, the lyrics to ‘Tinta Invisible’, like we said just a while ago, are a poem. It’s literally a poem, its inspiration comes from what writing implies, what making fiction implies. For instance, this line about… it’s one of the lines we like the most, it’s: ‘Reading, you inhabit the hidden.’ Picture it, right? If I have my ‘Harry Potter’ book here, well, it’s just an object, it’s like some sort of brick, right? A paper brick, my ‘Harry Potter’ book. But within those pages lies in hiding all of Hogwarts, and all of Diagon Alley, and it conceals… I don’t know, Azkaban Prison within. And it hides… the Weasleys with all of their kids.
So, within a paper brick, there’s this whole world, hidden. So, when you read it, when you read a book, when you read a story, you inhabit the hidden. Because, I swear to you, I’ve been in Hogwarts- because when I read Harry Potter, I picture myself walking around and climbing the magic stairs, and getting into one of the rooms… I don’t know, the classroom for Potions Class with Professor Snape. I mean, I’ve lived in Hogwarts by reading fiction. That’s what ‘Frankelda’ is about, that’s what ‘Tinta Invisible’ is about. ‘Tinta Invisible’ is a song that pays homage to the art of writing and fiction. If you analyze each line, it becomes very clear… well, not all that clear but all of the… the symbolism of what writing and creating something that doesn’t exist is hidden there.
Roy Ambriz: Here’s Frankelda’s ‘Harry Potter’ collection.
Arturo Ambriz: Oh, that’s so cool!
Roy Ambriz: The books.
Arturo Ambriz: Where did that come from?
Roy Ambriz: Walmart.
Arturo Ambriz: I’d never seen it. It’s really cool! Ahh, goody. Well, let’s see… ‘Frankelda and Herneval’s personality, did you plan it in advance or did you base it off someone?’
Roy Ambriz: Yes… our task as writers is to plan out the personality of each character, it’s… when you write a character, it’s like you’re living it, it’s like you’re placing yourself in their shoes and seeing the… I mean, you’re within their perspective and looking at the world from their eyes. Counterweights start emerging, right? And Dramatic Orchestrations, as they’re known, start emerging, like… Herneval, you’ve seen it yourselves. Young Herneval with Francisca isn’t the same as…Herneval-libro with Frankelda, and it’s not the same as Herneval-libro with Procustes, right? I mean, he changes, depending on who he’s with. Why? Because that’s life, you’re not the same when you’re alone with your friends to when you’re in a Christmas dinner with like family members you rarely see, you only meet them once a year, or when you’re in class. It changes.
So yeah, each personality and each character has to be written, has to be pondered, has to be rewritten, has to be erased and… and raised again, and gradually discovered. And, obviously that process starts with writing but is run by character design, art design, animation, run by voice actors, who also permeate it, and the character is uncovered throughout all of these processes.
Arturo Ambriz: Very good. Also… that’s the thing, I mean, you guys can see that so many of the characters we’ve seen in TV or movies are opposites, aren’t they? And Frankelda and Herneval-libro, spending so much time together on-screen, well they had to be opposites, right? One of them is red and the other is blue, it’s that simple, I mean, it’s a visual-psicological-narrative codification. Frankelda is an optimist, Herneval’s a pessimist. Frankelda’s cheerful, Herneval’s a grump. Frankelda always moves in circles, her hair has circular curls, her hand movements are circular; and the book is a small square, and everything about him is a square, right? So, this is a good tip for writing characters, thinking about opposites, thinking about complements, thinking about the Ying and the Yang.
Next question… this question is Meru Chan’s: ‘What made you change Herneval’s appearance from the Pilot?’
Roy Ambriz: It was a… that’s a rather interesting question. As we’ve said, when we made the season as opposed to the Pilot, we agreed that we had to improve everything. And the Pilot- we didn’t really wonder about that many things because it’s a Pilot, y’know? Obviously, we’d gotten less time, and the top priority was to show that the series could be great, so what we did when they greenlit the season was to think better about the characters. At some point, as you’ve seen in the concept art, Herneval was thought up as more of a demon, but it was way too obvious, and it could also have religious connotations we really don’t want there to be, so, we decided to ponder it. He’s not the Demon Prince, he’s the Prince of Spooks, I mean, he has to be a Spook. What’s a Spook? It’s something new.
So, we started to ponder and around this time, Ana Coronilla, who is the art director, had the idea- she was like: ‘I kind of see him as an owl.’ Because with Herneval, in order to make him princely, we kept thinking and got- we were creating with the Awesombrosos, trying to make him more reptilian, or some other thing, and when we said ‘Owl’, it was like ‘Wow, he looks amazing!’ and on top of that, he has to… like, the personality we want, and that’s when we said ‘It’s just, if this were a live-action, he’d be played by someone along the lines of Timothé Chalamet-‘ not sure I’m saying that right.
Arturo Ambriz: Timothee.
Roy Ambriz: Timothee Chalamet, so… well, we said ‘Him, plus owl, plus some other elements.’ And, well, we got hunk Herneval, and then we saw the book and the character progression made no sense anymore, the one from the Pilot, because he’s more snakelike. So it was like ‘OK, how are we going to rebuild the character so he still has Herneval’s essence that we’ve already gotten to know from the Pilot, but make it make sense that this character turned into the book?’. And that was the ruling on which we decided to make… to change the Hernevals.
Arturo Ambriz: Well, next question, by AB_8A_7: ‘If Herneval used to be the Prince of Spooks, does that mean the King will show up in a flashback?’
Roy Ambriz: Oooh…
Arturo Ambriz: You’re getting close to the… the heart of the matter. Definitely, obviously, we’re going to meet the King of Spooks, we don’t want to disclose anything else about him, but… but props to you guys for realizing it, right? If there’s a Prince, then who’s the King?
Roy Ambriz: Besides, somewhere… well. Nope. I was just about to spoil it!
Arturo Ambriz: No spoilers.
Roy Ambriz: But that’s the thing, it’s… how cool is it to think, who is Herneval’s dad? Why… why does Herneval have to go to the human realm? Why wasn’t he in the prologue? That is, why was he with Procustes and not his father? So you start to… to develop and sprout a lot of fun things…
Arturo Ambriz: Why is there an hourglass that’s close to the limit?
Roy Ambriz: No one’s talked about the hourglass, have they?
Arturo Ambriz: I haven’t really seen that much…
Roy Ambriz: Hmmm… go figure.
Arturo Ambriz: Anyway… well. This one was by La Reina Cuervo, who we’re already familiar with because we had an interview with her this week, real fun. She’s asking how much time Frankelda spent with Herneval before they got trapped. And that question, well, can’t be answered because it’s something we’re going to see in the next seasons, what happens during this process. That is, once they cross that threshold at the crypt, at the graveyard, what Herneval and Francisca had to do, how they got to where they are right now. For sure, it’s in there, this story that’s still going to develop further.
Next question… ah, well, this one’s really simple. 199501 asks: ‘I don’t know whether you already answered this one, but what are the three witches’ names?’ And, the witch who speaks the most, the one that turns into a hen, the one that sings, her name is Totolina. We just barely realized we never had them mention their names, but in production her name was always Totolina. Then, the witch that turns into a toad, her name is Tamazola, and the witch that turns into a rabbit, a hare, her name is Tochina. Yeah?
Next question… ‘Does Herneval have some sort of power?’ question by Blackroses.
Roy Ambriz: Well, you saw that already, he does, right? And… his power is used three times along the first season. We can’t say more, but he definitely has. Well, he’s the Prince of Spooks, he has to have something special to him.
Arturo Ambriz: OK, next question… ‘Why does Tere play the theremin?’. Question by Lagunas X. Look, we realized long ago that… the theremin is like, the musical instrument of ghosts. The theremin, in every B-movie in Hollywood where there’s ghosts or aliens, zombies, it’s like… a sound that doesn’t seem to belong to this world, because it’s really similar to a human voice. But at the same time it sounds like the mix between a robot and a… a howl. So, it’s like, hard to decipher. So, the theremin has this whole symbolic weight which we love, ever since we created this studio ten years ago, the bumper of the intro we had, which was the Cinema Fantasma bumper, you can hear a theremin. So, for us it’s always been like the theremin is the Cinema Fantasma musical instrument. Personally, it’s my favorite musical instrument.
So, when we started to unravel this episode which I’ve told you about a while ago, that we wanted to get to this big moment of the orchestra in the alley with the dead children and the Boogeyman dancing, we start to realize we needed, like… a character who wanted to make music in order to get to this moment, and we realized it would be very original to have her play the theremin, because we’ve seen a million boys and girls who play the violin or the guitar, even Coco and Book of Life have this, right? You can always look for something different to… to give the show a unique flavor.
Moving on, Yara Edith asks: ‘Why is Frankelda from Hidalgo?’ And, get this, originally, this was only going to last one hour and we’re at, I think, an hour and a quarter. Let’s… let’s answer a few more questions and we’ll call it a day, also so you guys can have a nice Friday and not just sit there listening to us. Right, so let’s go back to Yara Edith’s question. Why is Frankelda from Hidalgo?
Roy Ambriz: Because, well, something both of us really wanted to do is… make something that felt… a series that felt Mexican but by someone who actually lives in México, y’know? Like, for there to be these little elements no one else who didn’t live in México could have, and it’s mixed in with experience. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to is the Panteón Inglés. I love it. One of my best friends hails from there, from Pachuca, but she’d take us… back in college we went a lot of times, to- Hi, Rosa, if you’re watching.
Arturo Ambriz: I don’t think she is.
Roy Ambriz: I don’t think so because I didn’t even give her a heads-up, but OK. But we traveled a lot, and we made a lot of- she’s a photographer. And we did a lot of photography exercises at Panteon Inglés, and it’s just gorgeous. And… truth is that when we were framing this series, we said: ‘It just would be so cool that she was a Victorian ghost, right? In this big house.’ And back at the Pilot we couldn’t really get into it, show it, how we want to break away from that cliché, I mean, she is Victorian, and she is from that period, but it’s not in Europe, it’s in México. Because mixing in with history -which is something we also love, like, mixing in bits of truth- it’s around this time that the British arrived in there to, well… care for and extract from the silver mines, they brought in a lot of things, right? Soccer, the pasties, which turned into pastes, and whatnot. We figured it’d be really nice if Frankelda’s house is European because his dad is British, but he’s a British man who fell in love with a Mexican woman, and Frankelda’s born from that union. Why? Because Frankelda- as you know, well, in México we’re a mixture of the European and the Mexican-origin, and, and we’re not- it doesn’t matter anymore, to us, origin doesn’t matter anymore, just that we’re Mexican, and that’s very Mexican.
And so, Frankelda is Mexican. She makes her stories up with the mixture of things, of elements within her head, and what better place than… I mean, if this beautiful place that actually exists in real life inspires us, well, we wanted to also pay homage to that place, and even though it’s not exactly identical, it is a rather latent inspiration for us.
Arturo Ambriz: Alright. Now, Emily Delgado asks us whether we’re giving some kind of courses or bachelor, and, yeah, actually yes, we’ve given several of them. Next year, we’ll reactivate our section called ‘Cinema Fantasma EDU’ which is where we give our courses, bachelor degrees, workshops, conferences on stop-motion. That’s a great way to learn. Stay tuned to our social media, cause that’s where we’re giving notice. Thing is, between COVID and all the work we had with ‘Frankelda’, we had to put this project on hold, well, this whole year. But we’re eager to get back into it and get it done. This is something we love, and we’re exploring other options, really cool ones too, with a certain… how do I put this, brand that makes online courses to make a very specific kind of thing. Really cool, we’re working really hard, I don’t want to spoil that either, because it will be announced in due time, but we’ve got more options coming up so we can talk and we can try to impart some of the knowledge we’ve been saving up all these years by making these productions.
Roy Ambriz: Good.
Arturo Ambriz: Very good. And… I think this will be our last question.
Roy Ambriz: Last question!
Arturo Ambriz: Let’s see… I’m looking for one that’s real good.
Roy Ambriz: Yeah, close it up with some meat, go on.
Arturo Ambriz: Something that makes fans speculate?
Roy Ambriz: Yeah.
Arturo Ambriz: …there’s just so many good ones. Let’s see, for instance… ah, look, this one’s nice because it additionally comes all the way from Chile. Sent by Gabriel Beltrán, and it’s: ‘Are the Spooks’ stories told on the show based on real legends or inspired on something of the sort?’
Roy Ambriz: And, well… it’s a mix of everything, right? We aren’t basing them on anything specific per se. I feel like we’ve already seen so much in México, in Mexican adaptations about Mexican legends. Which is really cool, but it’s already been done, even in animation. So, we wanted to do new ones. There’s characters like, for instance- in the… originally in the pitch, back when we hadn’t thought so much about it, the witches… the original concept art is somewhere around, they were more… European, more classic, or United States-like, with the hat and the broom and the stockings. And we were like: ‘No, we want it to be…to feel more like… witches who have somehow been living around a lot of places in México or Latin-America for a while, and who, as luck would have it, right now are living around Colonia Roma maybe, or La Condesa, something to that effect. How do we make it feel specific?’
So… it obviously comes from, well, people- we can’t say ‘We invented witches, we invented mermaids.’ Or anything. But they’re more like… characters and archetypes we take and resignify to things we’ve lived through, things within our imagination, and things we want to see. Maybe the one that’s more inspired in an existing character which we felt had barely even gotten representation in Latin-America is El Coco. The Boogeyman, always-he comes from… our mom always tells us this story, we’d mentioned it a couple of times, but my grandpa used to say to her, because we collected toys, and back in the nineties they were all monsters and stuff like that, really cool stuff. And my grandpa used to tell my mom: ‘Why would they ever be afraid of the El Coco if they have that kind of toy and aren’t scared by it?’. So, this Boogeyman character, like… a bum, or, just something that’s not exactly what we have in the collective imagination, but we had that idea floating around, and, well… we decided to capture it. And I hope we can see more of the El Coco in the future.
Arturo Ambriz: Totally… well, I think we’ve reached the limit with this session. We’re obviously absolutely thankful to you, this is why we want to keep creating these opportunities to chat. We know there was a lot more questions but, think about it, we’d be here for five hours. We’d be happy to, but we also don’t want to ruin your Friday, so I think the good stuff has to be, like… like, in moderation.
We’ll also take this chance to tell you that we seriously are on the constant lookout for everything you’ve posted on social media- look, for example, I have a physical fanart right here, and it’s so cool! But trust me when I say all the digital ones, all the ones I’ve found, I’ve shared them on my Instagram account and I’ve been saving them. I feel like it’s like I’m filling up my Panini album, I’m logging in all the time to see what I can find and save it. And something we would love to do here in Cinema Fantasma, we’d just have to rearrange the space, is to print all the fanart you’ve made, print out all the fanart you’ve made and post it over a wall in Cinema Fantasma even just a small print. Because, trust me that, for both of us as well as the whole crew it’s mind-blowing to see you liked what we worked so hard on, what we toiled so much to make. Right now, we’re seeing some of the fanarts we love on screen…
Roy Ambriz: Just not Tik Tok because…
Arturo Ambriz: Uh-huh, not Tik Tok.
Roy Ambriz: Because we’re… on a different one.
Arturo Ambriz: But it’s not that…
Roy Ambriz: Look how gorgeous! Wow!
Arturo Ambriz: It’s not that we’re only seeing the ones we like the most, y’know? We like all of them, it’s just that we did a quick search right now and these are the ones we had close-at-hand to show, but really, we love all of them, and all of them have their charm.
Roy Ambriz: Yes, and they’re beautiful, thank you so much. We’re very, very, very grateful with all the Fankeldos and Fankeldas…
Arturo Ambriz: Or Spooks.
Roy Ambriz: Or Spooks, or…
Arturo Ambriz: The Owls.
Roy Ambriz: The Owls and the Writers.
Arturo Ambriz: The Quills.
Roy Ambriz: Anything you like, thank you so much because Frankelda is alive thanks to you. Something we can say is… ‘Frankelda’ is a celebration of fiction. So although there’s a… an official storyline which comes from us and Cinema Fantasma, Frankelda, the thing she likes the most is to be alive. So, consider the stories you make for her, when they’re in your minds, in your hearts, to be canon as well. To you, to the one reading right now, it’s real, because Frankelda is alive. So… draw her, write her, think about her. It's so nice to see it, really, we’re super thankful. It’s… this is the best possible present for us after… for the whole team, after… such difficult years in order to keep it afloat, where we had to, well… work so much, sacrifice some things in order to get it out there. So, this is super gorgeous, and we’re sending hugs to absolutely all of you guys and… an announcement. A fun one.
I think it should be up by now, a new filter that you can find, called ‘Frankeldízate’. If you want to turn into Frankelda or in… if you want to be real Fankeldos and Fankeldas, you can use that. Please, use it, it’s really fun. You can use it to sing, you can use it to write, for anything you want, it’s up. Start using it. Tag us, please, we love to see everything you make.
Arturo Ambriz: Something very important we nearly forgot is… we have a little surprise giveaway, OK? We have 5 posters, signed by the whole team. By the team who made ‘Frankelda’s Book of Spooks’, the Cinema Fantasma team. And we’re going to give it to the first five people who answer the following question and sent it to our mail, [email protected]. Repeating the address, [email protected], OK? First five people to send the answer to this question, we’ll get in touch with you through the mail to see about sending it. If it’s within México City, it will be through our messenger boy, our dear Arturo, but if you’re not in México City, well, we’ll look for a way to get it to you through national or international mail. OK? So, the mail is [email protected] and here’s the question, OK? And it’s: How… where does-? We mentioned it a while ago. Where does Herneval’s name come from?
Roy Ambriz: Go!
Arturo Ambriz: There it is, we went into it in detail a while ago, so if you paid attention, you can answer that question. And we’ll look for a way to make… make some other dynamic so we can give away this kind of things. Is there anything else you want to add, Roy?
Roy Ambriz: Well… please use the #Frankelda. You can use the other ones, they’re really cool. The ‘Que Listo Sos, Herneval’ one, all the ones you’re making up, but also use the #Frankelda on its own, because that way we can get everything thrown together and it’s like evidence for us to show the producers of you wanting a second season. Be insistent. If you wish, insist at the Cartoon Network LA and HBOMax LA social media accounts in your different kinds of posts, but use… flood them with requests for ‘Frankelda’s second season because that’s the only way we’re getting it. So, if there’s a massive second season bombing, it’s way easier, I hope no one kills me for saying that, but it’s the truth and I have to ask. So, well, I think that’s all for this session. If you liked it, expect more. We’ll be announcing the date for the next one along with our guest star soon.
Arturo Ambriz: Also, believe us when we say, as Roy did a while ago, if we can talk for a bit about what ‘Frankelda’ represents, well, we highly, highly, highly recommend for you to read. It’s never too late to get close to literature. We already made it easy for you, why not start with ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley? I’d be very surprised if you didn’t love it, truly, it’s fascinating. It’s a beautiful, philosophical, horror, science fiction book, it’s got everything, y’know? It has family drama, it has traditions, it has murder, it’s an incredible book. Read. Write. That’s something I struggle with a lot regarding my students, as we’ve mentioned, we teach in a handful of classes, and I do see sometimes how they lack… reading, and this is also why we were so insistent on the main character of the show being a writer.
So, well, we’re finishing up and, I just read a great suggestion and it’s that we should leave but first we should put Herneval and Frankelda together, and we should leave them like that for a minute, leave them like this for a minute… and leave. Thanks, goodbye.
Roy Ambriz: Goodbye!
Arturo Ambriz: It’s been great.
#Frankelda#Sustos Ocultos de Frankelda#Frankelda's Book of Spooks#Cinema Fantasma#cc translates#And now you know why the latam fandom makes so many jokes about Hernevalito falling on his face
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Giant Wall of Text, about Mo Dao Zu Shi
So....my small trek into Link Click got me into Chinese animation, and of course I stepped into the black hole that is Mo Dao Zu Shi (or Founder of Diabolism, or The Untamed, or more weird names. You know, if it were up to me I'd call the show something like Rise of the Necromancer, because, my dudes, that's what Wei Ying is, a necromancer. We already have a perfectly good word in English and 'diabolism' ain't it). And...yeah...I am so stuck haha. I have a lot of thoughts. But first, let me talk about the animation, because that's my foot into this particular door.
The animation, what can I say? It's absolutely stunning. Beautiful. Completely captured my attention since episode 1. The voice acting is top notch. I thought Link Click's VA work is already great, this one is better. China doesn't have as much of a robust animation department compared to Japan, and even less so with voice acting, so I am very pleasantly surprised. The music, oh my god, drove the whole show for me. Especially the flute/guqin parts. It made everything more vibrant and the fight scenes much more intense. Seriously, whoever did the music accompaniment and sound editing deserves a raise/promotion. I would recommend this show on these three things alone, if only to have something gorgeous and very enjoyable to watch.
But of course, a show's not just those things, right?
(Seriously giant wall of text of my thoughts, and spoilers ahead)
So, in general, I really like the show. I found the characters amazing and the plot very enticing. The side story with Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan and Xue Yang is one of the most tragic things I've seen in a while, with just the perfect amount of love and loss. (I'm actually listening to the audio drama right now and, yeah, those chapters definitely broke my heart.) The main storyline, and I mean the past one with Sunshot and not the less depressing current one, is great, especially the part about Jiang Cheng's golden core. That reveal was so sad and...wonderful haha. I was like "I knew there was something fishy about that whole mountain hermit restoration bit!" Jiang Cheng really made it out terribly in, uh, everything, huh? (That boy was broken after the Lotus Pier saga, and ain't quite right ever since imo.)
However, I do have some complains about...plot structure haha. It's the writer in me, really. So, first of all, the whole thing with names in this story. Look, all the main characters already have two names (just ancient Chinese tradition things?) They also have a title relating to the place they're from, another one for their status, and some locally acquired nicknames. So that's at least 4 different names for each character that they use interchangeably throughout. It would be one thing if there're only like a handful of characters, but no, there's a giant cast that span two generations with a 15-year time jump. Yeah...many times I had to go back to the first episode to figure out who was who and how they're related, and I actually speak Chinese! I imagine there's a handy-dandy flow chart for non-Chinese speakers? It feels so unnecessary. Second, the plot really could use some restructuring. There were times I was like "why the hell are they doing what they're currently doing??" that I imagine were unexplained due to time constraints. Many times I was watching them chase the demonic hand and I was like, why the hell do we care??? (Like, if they actually said it belonged to Nie Mingjue from the get go I would be more invested, but then I guess you couldn't have the "surprise it's Nie Mingjue motherfucker!" at the end.) A lot of times I feel like there's a lack of proper setup and foreshadowing. I would like to get some hint of what comes next, not just watch people go from one plot point to the other for very arbitrary reasons. I feel like season 2 actually did an okay job with build up and conclusion, but being so short probably helped.
I watched the show in Chinese, with Chinese subtitles, but I did switch to English a bit with difficult, ancient Chinese phrases, and I have to say the official English translation is, uh, just okay? It's not great, because it's missing a ton of nuance and mood. You know how you read some beautiful paragraph in a book and it gives you this "feel" of the story? Well, the English translation doesn't do that at all. Chinese, especially ancient Chinese in this kind of setting, is all about using various metaphors and phrases with hidden meanings. That's the beauty of it. But this show's translation just tells you the meaning right away and I find that kind of lacking. I'm sure if you don't speak Chinese it's perfectly fine, but since I do, the comparison is a bit glaring. (I've only experienced the official Tencent version. Maybe fansubs would actually fare better.)
But I guess those are very minor and specific complaints. Again, overall I recommend this animation, and I have not stopped at that, ever since I learned that there's also the manhua, the live action, the audio drama, and of course the original novel. However, because of censorship I will only recommend the animation and the audio drama for now. I will 100% talk about why in another entry, because this entry has gotten a bit crazy long.
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[Part 3] [M4F] Drowning in lust within the prince’s web [Spicy] [Love triangle] [Prince VA x Listener] [Yandere? Dom Prince] [Dark romance] [Fantasy] [BD/SM] [Drugged/willing listener] [Ropes] [Oral] [S3x] [Dirty talking] [Praise]
Author's note: Hi everyone!
It’s been so long since I’ve last written something this spicy and now I just want to go hide somewhere and ask forgiveness for my sins lol, but still, I hope you will enjoy this!
Part three of the series is here now, and soon I’ll post the 4M and 4A version of part three, available on ScriptBin. There you can easily find part 1 and 2 if you missed them!.
This part it’s just… smut. So if you feel uncomfortable, you can either skip the more explicit scenes and just stick to the spicy stuff at the beginning and the ending, or you can just skip to part four directly, as this part doesn’t give much more to the story itself, sooo it’s up to you!
You can monetize with this script and, since it’s NSFW, you can paywall it too as long as you provide me a copy of the audio, in both cases please credit me and let me know, I’d love to listen to your fills!
You are free to edit sfx, moods, as long as it doesn’t change too much the story or the character(s) involved, and since English is not my first language, you are free to edit anything that might sound weird to you!
NB: You can find the full NSFW script on scriptbin (I'll put the link below when things gets more explicit)
Summary (for listener): The prince led you into his chamber and formally asked you to become his wife. To ensure that there is no room for anyone else in your heart, he is willing to use any means necessary. Now, trapped in his web, you can only surrender to his love: your skin craves his touch, your lips his kisses. And, kissing your shivering butterfly wings, the Prince desires nothing more than make you his.
____________
[Action/Things/Moods]
Emphasis on a specific word/Thoughts
[Charming] I wonder, princess, is this your first time? You look so adorable when you’re embarrassed, and I must say, that your trembling turns me on even more. I’m eager to touch you, and I’m sure that you too want it so badly, but there’s no need to rush.
[Dominant] Remember, princess, that when I tell you to do something, you will do as I say. You are allowed to beg, and you can talk to me only if asked a question. And whatever your answer will be, you will always address me as Master. Be sure to remember that, princess, or I’ll have to punish you.
Now… [Charming] Your dress is gorgeous, but it’s kind of in the way now, don’t you think? [Whispering] What shall I do now? Should I tear it apart? Should I order you to undress in front of me? Should I just… creep underneath with my fingers? Caressing gently your legs, your waist…
[Chuckle] We only just started, princess. I knew it, though, that you were a greedy girl. You can’t even wait for a little bit, and you already want so much more. [Whispering] I’ll give it to you, if you behave, princess.
Oh, this is going to be so much fun. Finally. You don’t even know how I longed for someone like you. [Whispering] Start begging, princess, because I’ll hardly be able to control myself tonight. [Kiss]
[Darker] Don’t move. I don’t remember giving you permission to touch my cheeks or hair when I kiss you. Maybe I should just bind your wrist, to make sure you won’t make any more mistakes here. And, this ribbon here… might be useful for that. I have plenty, to be honest, but isn’t this so much better? Removing it from your dress, will make it loose too. [Sound of fabric, the ribbon is removed]
[Charming] What’s that expression? You’re being turned on for so little? [Chuckle] Get up, princess.
[Dominant] I said, get up. I won’t punish you now, not yet, for not doing as I say right away. But I wont’ be so merciful next time you’ll make me repeat myself twice. [Whispering] Do you understand, princess?
Good girl. Raise your arms. [Wrists are getting tied] And, for now, let’s leave you like this. Isn’t it nice? This balcony bad has a bar on top of each side, it’s so useful when I just want to hang a rope from there. The ribbon works just fine too, doesn’t it? Even if you wanted, you can’t lower your arms like this. I wonder, now… [Curious, but in a creepy/horny way?] how long will I have to wait before your dress falls off, with nothing let to keep it up? [Chuckle]
[Soft dom] The more your cheeks turn red, the more I enjoy it, princess. [Kisses] The more the dress comes off, the more I can kiss your skin. Tell me, do you like it, princess?
[Slap]
[Darker] I thought the rules were clear to you. You should address me the way I told you. And I went gentle here, don’t challenge me: your face won’t be the only red thing otherwise. Since we have just started, I’d love to wait a little more bit before ruining you. [Chuckle] [Charming, but still dark] I’ll make sure that you will remember how I made every mark your body will have tomorrow morning. And, if you don’t, I might have to make some more.
[Charming] Oh… it looks like your dress isn’t bothering us anymore now. Look at you, princess, your body is just perfect. I adore your curves… [Kisses] Where is it more sensitive, princess? Is it your neck? [Kiss] Or maybe your belly? [Kiss] ...Maybe your inner thighs? [Kiss]
[Chuckle] It looks like the more I kiss you, the more you moan. Doesn’t matter where, you still enjoy it. You just want it all, don’t you? [Mocking, in a horny way] What a greedy princess you are.
[Serious] Hm? Your arms are getting numb? If you behave, maybe I’ll let you lower them. You’ve been making so much noise here, if you manage to keep quiet, I’ll let your arms get some rest. [Gentle] How does that sound, princess? Will you be a good girl and stay silent?
[Chuckle] We’ll see that. [Footsteps] I hope you don’t mind if I blindfold you. Not that you can do anything to stop me anyway. [Putting blindfold on] Isn’t it better now? You only need to focus on my voice, on my touch…
[Spank] [Whispering] Quiet, princess, quiet. Or you’re going to stay like this for a long time. [Spank] That’s better. [Spank] You’re being such a good girl. [Spank] Do you like it? Do you like being spanked like this?
[Laugh] [Charming] How clever, nodding instead of answering directly. You really are a good girl, so obedient. I wonder how much should I push you until you’ll break the rule again? [Chuckle] Oh, I can see it now. My princess just wants to rest her arms, right? You act like a good girl because you want your prize, not because you really are one. My princess is a bratty girl underneath the obedience mask, isn’t she? [Kiss] I like it more this way, princess. It will be much more fun forcing you to behave, than seeing you obeying right away like a well-trained pet. Because... if anyone is going to train you to behave [whispering] that’s going to be me. [Spank]
[Chuckle] [Gentle]You earned your prize, princess. Let’s untie the ribbon from the bar. [Pause] There you go. Can you feel the blood going back to your fingers? Good. And what do you say when someone does something for you?
[Choking the listener] [Whispering, creepy] I don’t think I’ve heard you well enough. Say it again, maybe correctly this time, and I’ll let go of your neck. It must be hard breathing now, but I’m sure you’ll put an effort in saying what you should. [Pause] That’s better, princess. [Happy sigh] Stay still, I’ll make your body much more beautiful. [Footsteps]
[Grabbing the rope, tying the listener up, sound of chain form the collar] [Charming] Tied up like this, is so much better. The pattern of the rope is so pretty on you, just like the collar you wear. When I hold the chain, you look exactly like a cute little pet. Now, slowly, on the bed. There you go… How does it feel? You’re so exposed to me, and yet you can’t do anything to stop me. Based on the way you changed the rhythm of your breathing, you really are into this. [Laugh] I don’t even remember the last time I had so much fun. I knew it, I knew it, you would have liked it. I told him, and I was right. Oh, princess, this definitely wasn’t a coincidence.
If I have to be honest, even without making you drink that, I’m pretty sure you would have enjoyed it anyway. Because that’s who you really are, right? [Darker] A greedy girl who wants to be tied up and used, a bratty princess who loves to be punished. [Whispering] Oh, my darling, you don’t even know how hard you make me. But if you want to be fucked like the slut you are, you’ll have to implore me.
[Pause]
[Mocking] I can’t hear you, princess, raise your trembling voice a little bit. But careful, if you’re too loud, some of the servants outside might hear you too. You don’t want to let everyone know how much you want to be fucked, do you? [Chuckle]
[Darker] How I love it when you beg like this. But, you keep forgetting something important. Are you doing that on purpose, princess? You really want to be punished, don’t you? I wonder… how should I punish you now? [Chuckle] You know, I really love your stubbornness on not following my rules. It really makes this a lot more fun. But what’s the point of punishing you with something you like? I might spank you again, but that’s what you’re looking for. You want to be spanked, choked. And here that a punishment becomes a prize. No, no, this is not how it works, princess.
I guess… you’ll just have to wait some more. You begged for me to fuck you, so the best punishment would be to make you wait even more that moment. On the other hand, though… why should I give up having fun myself with you? It’s your punishment, not mine. So…
[Sound of chain being pulled closer] [Whispering] Why don’t we just put that mouth of yours to good use? Maybe, like this, you will learn how to properly address me. Come on, princess, open up your pretty lips… [Laugh] [Charming] I knew it. Gosh, you’re so impatient. You don’t even care where, you just want my cock inside you. Oh, princess. If you want to suck me, and I’m pretty sure you do, you’ll have to earn it.
Oh, now, you beg in the way you should? [Laugh] Unfortunately, that’s too late, princess. But keep your mouth open, I’m not going to be so merciless with you. [Dominant] Good girl, now that’s better… Just stay like this, and feel my fingers on your tongue. Suck them, lick them. Careful with your teeth, you don’t want something that forces your mouth open all the time, right? That would be so uncomfortable for you to wear. That’s better. Look at you. [Chuckle] Oh, I definitely can’t give up seeing your pretty eyes now. Let me remove your blindfold. [Blindfold removed]. Hm? You won’t look at me? What if I pull your hair, will you then raise up your pretty eyes?
[Charming] Oh, yes, that’s a wonderful expression. Your beautiful eyes say a lot more than what your mouth would say. Especially now, that’s pretty busy sucking my fingers. “More, more” Isn’t that right? You want more? [Pause] Then, since you’re so greedy, I will give you so much more, princess. [Whispering] And I’ll make sure, it will be unforgettable for you.
///If you want to read the full NSFW script, you can find it here. The password is "SpiderPrince" ///
[Panting] Gosh, that was so intense, princess. And look at you… I got all of your belly dirty. Fuck, how amazing it was. I can’t even remember last time I felt so much pleasure when fucking someone, you really are something, princess.
[Gentle] Did you like it, princess? Did you like being fucked, while being unable to resist me? How does it feel when you have to accept everything that’s done to you?
Amazing, right? Yes, definitely. I’m so happy you enjoyed it, princess.
What? [Laugh] Do you really think I’m done? [Getting darker] Oh, princess, the night is still long. I won’t be able to stop myself at all. The more I look into your craving eyes, the more I want to use your body. I’ll keep going until I’ll be satisfied. And after all this time waiting for the right person, it might take a while. I’m sorry, princess, tomorrow you could be a little sore. [Gentle] But you don’t have to worry about that: I’ll take responsibility and I’ll take care of you. I told you, with me by your side, I’ll make you the happiest.
I’m so grateful I’ve found you, princess. And I’m so happy you chose me.
Tell me, my dear: [creepy] do you know who is the one who takes care of the royal garden?
Hmm? You don’t? [Chuckle] It’s not that important, after all. You don’t have to worry about it. [Gentle] Say, princess, are you ready for more? [Kiss] You’ve been such a good girl until now, will you keep being one for me?
Of course you’d be. Oh, greedy princess. [Kiss] We’re going to have so much fun tonight.
[Darker] I won’t stop, until your broken wings will be completely unable to move.
#asmr#asmr boy#asmr boyfriend#asmr roleplay#asmr scripts#roleplay#fantasy#prince#knight#asmr community#yandere#soft yandere#yandere boyfriend#not safe fw#bd/sm kink
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Go Rush Character Style Guides
This came as a question but I felt as if it deserved its own post in case this was helpful to anyone else.
The characters in Go Rush have a lot of different ways of speaking in Japanese that are specific to them and them only, made to have them come off a certain way to Japanese-speaking audiences. In order to replicate that feeling, I try and translate these characters to speak a certain way in the subs that will come off the same way (or at least as similar as can be) for English-speaking audiences.
This is a style guide that I tend to use when translating, so I can stay relatively consistent on character dialogue.
This only contains guides for the main three (Yuudias, Yuuhi, and Yuamu) but has some miscellaneous notes for other characters.
Yuudias
because he uses 某 (それがし / soregashi) as his pronoun and a variety of rather old-and-flowery-sounding words and exclamations, he must sound the same in English (-> knight-like, ye olde fantasy feel)
cannot use contractions anywhere in his dialogue (no “don’t, can’t, I’m, that’s” etc. It MUST be “do not, cannot, I am, that is” etc)
use more flowery language for his dialogue when possible if it doesn’t sound wrong/forced (ie, calling planets by “stars” instead, saying “indeed” instead of yes, etc)
one key point from an interview with Arthur Lounsbery (the VA of Yuudias) is that he feels Yuudias is always “very simple and genuine” in his speech and usually holds no ulterior motives, so his dialogue should always reflect his “real and genuine” feelings in a simple manner
Yuuhi
he speaks using a lot of phrases and words specific to people from the countryside in Japan, so his dialogue in English should reflect that
uses a multitude of contractions, more so than any normal person would (stuff like “what’re”, “’cause”, “he’d’ve”, etc)
translate some of his “you”s to “ya” instead, but sparingly (instead of “you know you can just do it” it can be “ya know you can just do it”)
avoid going too far with the previous points however or else it feels forced. His dialogue should still be understandable and he speaks relatively "normal” despite some country lingo thrown here and there
Yuamu
though more eloquent than Yuuhi, she also has some country colloquialisms that slip sometimes. Maybe a more “Southern Belle” feel
don’t shy away from contractions for her, but don’t use them to the extent you would for Yuuhi
her “yare, yare” should be more like “goodness gracious” to fit her way of speech
again don’t lay on the Southern too thick, Yuamu herself only slips into that sort of lingo sparingly and we don’t want it to feel forced
Miscellaneous Notes
Zwijo’s pronoun is 我 (われ / ware), which gives off an authoritative, royal feeling. We aren’t entirely sure how to stylize his speech just yet as we need to hear him speak more first, so while he may be using contractions now, he may not later. He is a lot less formal than Yuudias, however
Manabu likes inserting random science and chemistry tools into his sentences because the Go Rush writers hate us, so make sure to write the sentence around said instrument when he does (twisting the translation a bit is fine for him, as some of these sentences are literally untranslatable with the pun)
Nyandestar has a very sultry, low voice and generally speaks the same way as well. She should sound a little like a stereotypical Bond Girl; a very high class, rich, and attractive woman vibe
Chupataro speaks in third person, so make sure all of his dialogue is third person. He likes using “chuparu” as a verb sometimes, so we keep that in the translation, even if we have no idea what it actually means (it is not a real word)
Anyway, everyone is free to interpret their dialogue as they wish; this is just how I tend to translate it so I can get the same feel from the Japanese across in English. Some other translators may do it differently; it all comes down to opinion.
#yugioh#yugioh go rush#go rush#yudias velgear#ygo go rush#there's too many characters for me to tag sorry#miscellaneous
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Frágil
Druig X reader
First at all. English isn't my first language so am really sorry if there's some mistakes.
"Y está va, para el pendejo que me abandonó en un genocidio pero al mismo tiempo me dió mi libertad / And this one is for the fucker that leaves me alone on a genocide but at the same time, given me my liberty" You said playing a air guitar, to later take the microphone and pretend playing the drums to start sing.
'Me como las uñas, todo por tu culpa
Acaso no sabes que mi alma es tuya
Maldita la hora en que te vi a los ojos
Te veo y yo creo que todo es un sueño'
Someone knock at your door but you can't hear it for the song that was loud and the fact that you were singing through a microphone.
'Dime otra vez que me quieres y
Que no te irás
Dime otra vez que eres mía y
De nadie más'
There was other knock this time more louder but again, you didn't hear anything.
'Me encantan tus ojos que son como el cielo
Los veo y no creo que pueda tenerlos
Si estoy en el cielo y me voy al infierno
Todo por tu cuerpo, maldito deseo'
Maybe if you weren't so focus on the song probably you would hear when someone open the door of your house or the footsteps of the group that were now looking at you with funny expressions.
'Dime otra vez que me quieres y
Que no te irás
Dime otra vez que-'
You turn and was in front of 9 pairs of eyes looking at you.
"¿Pero que carajos hacen aquí? / What the hell are you doing here?" You said feeling really embarrassed and angry for cutting your moment.
"Hi y/n is good to see you too, please, don't stop, keep going with the concert" said Kingo while giving instructions to a short men of recording you
"We need to talk, is really important" said Ikaris
"Yeah, I mean if you and Druig are in the same room without killing eachother, it most be important, anyway wheres Ajak and Gilgamesh?" You turn off the song and made a sign to the others to take a seat "Any of you want something? Water, coffee, tea"
"No, thanks" said Sersi calmly "the thing is that..." She stops trying to find the correct words.
"I don't have the whole day guys"
"The deviants are back" said Ikaris.
"Oh really, I thought I fighted a dinosaur, is good to know that in fact was a deviant" you said sarcastically.
"You fought a deviant?" Sersi ask worried "When? Where?"
"Three days ago, I was on the road when one attack me, I was coming from the airport"
"You knew about the deviants and don't said anything? Try to warning us or something" asked Ikaris.
"I don't know where the others are, thank you, and I sent a message for Instagram to Kingo"
"Are you okay?" ask Phastos ignoring Ikaris.
"Of course Phastos, I'm not a porcelain doll" you look at their worries expressions "What, now that the deviants are back, the gang too? Or there's any reason of you disturbing in my house?"
Sersi open and closed her mouth, and she shrugged in the couch, you look at her waiting for her to try to start the sentence and then look at Makkari.
'C'mon, tell me what's going on' you sign to her.
'Ajak is dead, one deviant killed her and Gilgamesh, now he absorb their powers and the end of the world is in a few hours' she signed to you so fast to only react at the end.
"Ajak's gone?" You said sad "but she... We just... She" you sighed and walk to your window "you come to tell me this bad news because"
"We need you"
"For what?"
"Stop the end of the world"
"Just that? Yeah sounds easy" you go to the kitchen and take your stuffs "how many time we have?"
"A few hours, maybe a day" said Sersi.
"Okay, Makkari can put me on day with the news, now, I don't know how all of you think we can stop this but in a way I guess is better doing it in family than die alone, let's go"
You made your way to the door to leave and open it to let the others go out before.
"Hey have you ever think start a singer career? I have contacts and with me supporting you, you can have a big future" Kingo told you on his way out while you close and lock the door "You have a great voice, has anyone told you? So whatever you were singing, it sounds great." Rolling your eyes you start to follow the others.
"Thanks Kingo but in this moment I don't give interviews or any internet content, and by the way, your not the first to say I sing well, maybe that why I decide to become a singer" Kingo take your arm stoping you "WHAT? You're a singer and don't tell me? Hey if you wanted I can put you in my next movie, that could help you, BTS is gonna be there"
"Oh really? How are the guys, is being a while, a month actually, since a talk to them" you said smiling "I don't need help, I can do it myself, but thanks Kingo" you walking to go with Makkari when suddenly a black shadow stepped in your way "Well hello there" said the mind controller finally talking to you "Hi Druig, what you want?"
"Someone's angry"
"No I'm just tired"
"Of what? Look like you were having fun"
"I was having fun, now I'm on my way to a suicide mission"
"Did you miss me?" He ask taking your hand
"Not really, I was more focus on live my life"
"And the way you dedicated to me that song was just a moment?"
"The song? Nah, definitely isn't for you, it was just me making a fool"
"You know that I can understand Spanish, right?"
"You can?" You ask surprised "Well yeah, maybe that song was for you in some way, but the music was in shuffled"
"Aha and you have that song in your playlist because..."
"Because is a great song, you hear that and want to jump and sing, you can't blame me"
"No, I can't, but you can blame me for leaving you"
"We don't gonna have this conversation now" you put you hand away from his and start to walk away.
"Y/N"
"Not now Druig" you made your away from the group leaving all confused.
"Where she going?" Ask Kingo.
"She need a minute" said Druig.
"We don't have a minute" exclaim Ikaris wanting to follow you.
"I take care of this, all of you stay here" without an answer Druig start to follow you.
You walk to a little park and sit under a tree cover you from the sun.
"I said that I don't want to have that talk to you"
"Why México?
"What?"
"Why you living here?"
"I guess the same reason that you locked down in the Amazon" you shrug and put your attention at the wall in front of you.
"I'm really sorry"
"I really mean it"
"What?"
"What I said, before sing, you left me but I can't denie that thanks to you I could have a free live" he take sit at your side "Druig I don't blame you for leaving me, but makes me sad that you didn't want me to go with you, I thought we were... friends or whatever our relation was"
"I wanted you to come with me, but I didn't want to steal your freedom, you deserve live a life, like everyone"
"So do you" you look at him with teary eyes "With you never felt in a cage, but I would like spend time with you, enjoyed our liberty and not only being on my own"
"I guess I was selfish trying to let you live your life and keeping you away from me"
"You were rude, I know everytime I came near of your home in the Amazon you made me turn and go back to my home"
"Sorry for that" he looks really shame for his actions and you feel your heart inch at that.
Shaking your head you stand up, Druig look at you and stand too, offered your hand to him, he take it and you walk to the wall in front.
Climbing the wall you gave a signal to Druig to follow you and you both will cross the fence. On the other side was something like a little garden with a small creek.
"Did you like it?"
"You made it?"
"I wish" you scoff "this grow here, on his own, is impressive what nature can do, the other side of that fence there's a park that looks like if was about to die surrounded by houses and civilation and here lays a small piece of nature, coexisting in they're way"
Druig take a breath and close his eyes letting feel the sun in his face, you admired how calm he looked and sigh.
"If everything goes fine, and we stop the end of the world... Can I go and stay with you?" You asked afraid of his answer.
"When we stop the emergence, I would love to come and live with you, if you let me of course"
"You're more than welcome" you smile and hug him.
He take your face, making looking at him and he kissed you, it was a nice and sweet kiss, not rushing or desperate, just a innocent one.
"Were definitely more than friends" he smile and bring you back to him, hugging you. "We're coming back here after the emergence, and we're going to spend a lot of time here"
You laugh and nod.
"Considered our secret garden"
#druig#eternals#druig x reader#druig fluff#druig x you#druig imagine#druig fanfiction#druig oneshot#barry keoghan#marvel#eternals marvel#marvel eternals
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some latinenatural for my benefit mostly. read the first two chapter on ao3 aqui
Dean was still wearing a big smile when he finally kicked his boots off at home. It took everything he had to finally let Cas leave his Baby, wanting to keep pulling him in for one final kiss after another. Cas now knows what “Otro Besito.” means. Enough so that every time he heard it, he rolled his eyes, but he always leaned in. Until finally, he closed the car door and promised to text Dean tomorrow.
Cas’s number is now saved under an angel emoji porque Dean es un romantico first and foremost.
“Apenas estas llegando?” Dean looked up to see his Tio sitting on the couch with a novela playing on the tv. “Como te fue?”
“Awesome.” Dean picked up his boots and walked over to kiss the top of his Tio’s head before heading to bed. Ignoring his fake protesting of the affection. “Me voy char un baño.”
They asked about Cassie in the morning, and Dean made up some casual date, a believable one, but told them they were probably better off friends anyways. It made it harder to think of excuses to sneak out at night but working for Victor at night made it easier for Bobby not to question him.
He wished he could tell them about his actual dates. Talk about Cas’s stupid two left feet and his beautiful smile. He wished he could talk about the way Cas looked, eyes squinting and head tilting como un pajarito when Dean spoke more than three words in Spanish. But he loved it so much, and just getting those good morning texts from him made his days so much better.
[Read more under tag <3]
It was Monday again when Dean walked by Cas’s house with the raspados.
“Mi Angelito,” Dean wanted to reach and kiss him, but eyes were still watching him. So instead, he reached down and handed Cas a grocery bag filled with Tupperware. “I brought you a real lunch so you can eat it instead of just some ice.”
Cas had admitted that he came home for his lunch break to see Dean. Giving him no time to have an actual proper lunch, and Dean won’t have any of that. Su hombre va a estar lleno y feliz con su comida.
Cas took the bag in shock before handing it back to Dean. “No, Dean, I can’t take this.”
“I woke up extra early to make it for you y no lo quieres?”
“¡Si te quiero!” Cas reached to touch Dean’s cheek, blue eyes watching Dean’s reaction as he quietly added, “Mucho.”
Dean swallowed hard before taking Cas’s hand and giving it a quick little kiss before letting it fall. “Cas, cariño, I was talking about the food. I said ‘no lo quieres’ not ‘no me quieres’. Do you hear the difference?”
“Oh.” Cas stepped back and looked at the plastic bag in his hand. “Then I um-thank you.”
Dean chuckled, stepping forward to wrap Cas in his arms for a quick squeeze. “Ay, pendejo.”
“Dean!” Dean could picture the roll of the eyes without even looking at Cas. He tried to hold in his laughter as he pulled away just a little, just enough, so their faces stayed inches away.
He raised an eyebrow at Cas as he asked, “What? Ya no me quieres?”
Dean could see Cas’s wheels turning in his mind as he mouths the words Dean just said to him. The blush on his cheeks growing as the realization hits him. “Me. You said-yes! I mean, si! I mean, yes or whatever!”
Dean was sure Cas had no idea what he was saying. It’s not like he said amo. No, Cas said quiero. It was the less intense version of ammo, but still,l it relatively meant the same thing, and Dean wasn’t sure if he was ready to repeat it.
“Quiero un beso.” Dean says instead, wanting to rest his forehead down on Cas’s but restrains himself. The hug was already pushing it out in public.
“Dean, my brother is home.” Cas looked at the house behind him before looking back at Dean, eyes sad, but Dean only smiled back at him. His hand reaches to pinch Cas’s cheek gently while he winks at him.
Te quiero. Es lo que quiere decir pero ahorita no es el momento. It’s too early for that. Ahorita, Dean está feliz nomás en tenerlo. No tiene que decir nada. No tiene que decirle a nadie que se está enamorando muy rápido de un güero con ojos más azules que el cielo. Más brillosos que una estrella. Más hondos que el mar.
No. Dean didn’t have to tell anyone que se está enamorado de los pies a la cabeza. It’s fine.
Dean lifts his hat enough to scratch his sweaty hair before he jumps back on his bike. “Pick you up later then?”
Cas nods as he holds the grocery bag tight in his right hand before lamely waving at Dean with his left.
Dean leaves with a loud ring of his bells.
A month of sneaking around goes by with Dean asking Victor to tell Bobby he was working for him during his date nights. It was obvious Victor knew, but Dean was way too scared to confirm it. Either way, Victor agreed to help him sneak around and didn’t push for details.
Though he always eyed Cas like a challenge whenever he came around, Cas never seemed to notice as he was caught up rereading the same menu he has been looking at for weeks.
It was a Thursday night that Cas called to ask, “So what are we?”
Dean was in the middle of mopping the bathroom stalls in the office building, with Bobby doing a different one on the same floor. Sam was somewhere throwing away the trash from the offices while a few other folks that worked for his Tio cleaned up whatever they had to do. The only sounds in the offices were vacuums and music coming from someone’s speaker.
“Cas, I’m kinda busy working right now.”
“You said I could call Thursday nights cause you get bored.” Fuck. He did say that. “Unless you don’t wanna answer.”
“It’s just…no es algo-”
“English, Dean. I can’t read your expressions over the phone.” Oh, so that’s how he catches on.
“Exactly! It’s not something to discuss over the phone. We can go out tomorrow and talk about it.”
Cas didn’t say anything but Dean could hear him moving some stuff around.
“Cas?” Dean pushed the mop bucket out of the bathroom as he finished. Trying not to think about how here Dean was, working late as a janitor while Cas was staying late at his fancy corporate job. Fuck, si piensa mucho en eso se va a volver loco. “Cariño? Andale Angelito, don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Then talk to me.” Dean hears Cas make a loud and tired sigh. “Mira, que suspiro!” He teased.
“Dean, I don’t know-Ah! Fuck!” Dean hears Cas’s phone fall against something hard. Dean’s heart raced, not knowing what to do.
“Cas? Castiel!” Dean calls to his phone, already abandoning his bucket to start jogging to the door to drive wherever Cas was, even though he didn’t know where that was. “Contestame, cabron!”
Dean stops when he hears Cas awkwardly laugh through the phone. “Oh no, I’m sorry. I usually never stay this late. I’ve just been behind the last few weeks.”
Dean couldn’t hear what the other person said, but Cas sounded fine, so Dean took a breath of relief.
“Dean?”
“You scared the shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry. The janitor walked into my office, and it scared me. I didn’t realize how late it was.” Dean can already picture Cas running his hand through his hair. “Don’t think I didn’t hear you call me…cabron.”
Mierda. “Well, you scared me! I thought something-Don’t do that!”
“Dean,” Oh, good. Cas was smiling. “I didn’t think you cared so much.”
“Shut up.” Dean heard the echo of his own voice. “Oye, cariño, take me off speaker! I don’t wanna hear myself.”
“Sorry, but I need my hands to pack up my things. But please, continue talking about how much you care about me while I do so.”
Dean grumbled, “I’m hanging up.”
“But te quiero!”
“You can’t keep using that against me, Angelito. Es tu culpa.”
Cas was silent for a second before Dean heard, “Excuse me. If you’re done, you can just-Sir? Hey!”
“Cas?” And before Dean can panic again, he hears a familiar voice call his name from the other end.
“Dean?”
Dean’s heart sinks as the voice echoes in his mind. Dean’s head falls into his hand as he starts to shake just a little before answering. “Sam. Tell me where you are.”
#sorry to leave you like this but i had to post it now or I'll never finish this story#next part most likely this weekend and that will be that!#again sorry for my bad spanish pero google docs sucks man#and i can read spanish pero not write so well#okay excusas over#latinenatural#sobrenatural#destiel#deancas#fic#destiel fic#destiel fanfic#destiel au#wormstachwrites#my writing#yes i do realize it is a bad timing with the dash but what can we do#i lack patience#but once again if you have a word you wanna know you can google or leave in the comment and i will do my best to explain#though you are better off asking google but 'pies a cabeza' is head over heels btw#so niceeee
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Thunderbolt Fantasy English Fancast ideas (Contains Spoilers):
Well this was a long time making. This took a while to really come up with, some were simply easy while others were very difficult to come up with, especially with the minor characters. Wanted to figure out who I felt would work if they did do an English dub, having to listen to various voices to be certain of my choices. Also didn’t want to go with obvious choices so wanted to add variety between known and lesser known. One detail I’m uncertain about that is if Thunderbolt Fantasy got a dub, should they use their Chinese names or their Japanese names, personally I think since it is done by Pili Puppets, I feel the Chinese names work with that universe’s setting, but that’s just me. To make things simpler I did add both Chinese/Japanese names minus a few for reasons. By this time there’s only been three seasons and two movies (plus April Fools specials), no word on Season 4 yet or if there’s a third movie planned. With that said, here are some of my choices for the Fancast idea.
Protagonists:
- Shäng Bü Huån/Shö Fu Kan: Chris Guerrero
Was my first choice but wasn’t really sure at first, but the more I listened that I decided his voice worked well
- Lin Xué Yä/Rin Setsu: Benjamin Diskin
Another choice that was difficult but hearing his range could show he had potential, I can see him use a slightly pitched version of his young Xehanort voice for Lin.
- Dän Féi/Tan Hi: Carrie Keranen
One I pic for meta reasons later down the line, but felt Carrie could fit her very well listening to the range Carrie has like her Mami or Lavenza voice.
- Juǎn Cán Yú / Ken San Un: Johnny Yong Bosch
JYB was not my first choice originally but listening to his range, I can kind of feel it working. Having that blend of naivete and stubbornness but still kind hearted in doing what is right.
- Shöu Yün Xiäo/shu Un Shö: Keith Silverstein
A difficult one that was really difficult to choose, gave Silverstein a listen and felt some of his voice range could work.
- Shä Wü Shéng/Setsu Mu Shö: Ian Sinclair
Another one I wasn’t too sure of at first, but felt Ian could have the range to make this role work.
- Lång Wü Yéo/Röfu Yö: Jonah Scott
Now this was one that I was back and forward on, between him and Zeno voicing him, by the end I decided to with Jonah since I felt his calm voice could work with Lang, plus his singing is pretty good and think it’d be cool seeing him make an English version of the theme songs along with Amalee,
- Ling Yå/Ryouga: Zeno Robinson
Was back and forward in whether Zeno could work as the talking Pipa, but seen his demo which shown his range and felt he had a range that hasn’t been seen yet and thought this would be the character to utilize it, plus Ling Ya/Ryouga gets to talk more so there’s that.
- Mü Tiän Ming/Mutsu Tenmei: Amalee
This one was a little more easy to pic, I try not to be biased with the choices I pick but felt her actress was cool and her singing is amazing so I felt she fits the role. Also thought it’d be cool seeing her and Jonah sing the theme songs.
Antagonists:
S1
- Mie Tiän Håi/Betsu Ten Gai: Crispin Freeman
Was a little difficult but was recommended this idea by a pal of mine when I brought up the idea of having Crispin be the voice, I did give a listen to see if it could work and I believe it does.
- Xing Håi/Kei Gai: Cristina Vee
Was a little difficult but felt Vee could do this voice justice and like with Carrie, I also added Vee for meta reasons (I’m certain some will figure it out the more you see the connection).
- Cán Xiōng /Zan Kyö: Chris Tergliafera
Another one that was difficult but listening to his voice range I felt his Sigma voice in MVCI could work with Cán since he is only around for an episode plus a small role in the first movie.
- Lie Méi/Ryö Mi: Lauren Landa
Like the past female roles, I add this VA for meta reasons, but was difficult whether Lauren should be her or another character down the line, but went with this one cause I felt she fit Lie more.
- Diäo Ming/Chö Mei: Zach Aguilar
This one was another choice that was difficult but the more I listened, the more I felt he had the range, plus don’t see him do a lot of villain roles so thought I’d add him to his roster.
- Yäo Tü Li/You Ja Rei: Casey Mongillo
Another tough choice but decided to go with Casey since I felt they could make it work with the range they have.
S2
- Xiåo Kuång Juån/Shö Kyö Ken: Ricco Fajardo
Another one that was very difficult but the more I listened to Ricco, the more I felt he worked so well, I can see him hamming it up, probably not at the same level as his Kotaro from Zombieland Saga but still have that craziness when Xiao snaps.
- Xié Ying Luö/Katsu Eiraku: Sarah Anne Williams
Another choice that I picked for meta reasons like the previous female characters, but didn’t just throw them into whatever, I do pick the characters I feel they can do best with and I felt Sarah worked with Xié quite well.
- Hub Shi Ming Huång/Kasei Meikou: Kellen Goff
Added him in Season 2 since I recall him being mentioned before his on screen debut later in Season 3, as for the voice, I wasn’t gonna pic him originally, but then I heard his Fenrir’s calm voice in Smite and thought “Holy S**T, this works and needs more notice” and so I decided what the heck.
- L6u Zhén Jié/Ro Shinkai: Matt Shipman
Always saw Matt tend to voice crazy characters and felt he could use his Cuttthroat voice from Akudama Drive voice, especially when he gets obsessed with his princess coming up next.
- Qi Shä Tiän Ling/Nanasatsu + Zhåo Jün Lin/Shou Kun Rin: Cassandra Lee Morris
Another choice that was meta but was not gonna be this way originally, eventually I decided to go with it since I found it fitting having her voice a character that manipulates those who wield her.
S3
- Wän Jün Pö/Ban Gun Ha: J micheal Tatum
Another difficult choice, I was hesitant at first since I’ve mostly heard his voice as Okabe and Tenya, but then remembered he voiced Scar in FMAB and felt a more elder version of that voice could work with this character.
- Yi Piäomiäo/Hyou Byou: Kyle McCarley
Here’s one I’ve had to really think about and even second guess a few times, but listening to his voice over roles on YT, I could hear the potential plus don’t see him doing villains often so thought this would be one that could work.
- Azibélpher/Ajiberufa: Rich Brown
A lesser known VA but that is the reason why I went with him, with King from One Punch Man being the one thing I know him for, I felt he had potential to do more and hopefully Azibélpher will get more to do in later seasons.
- Chåo Féng/Chou Fu: Christine Marie Cabanos
Introduced in the 2nd movie and became a recurring character in the 3rd season. I felt Christine had the voice range for this cheery psycho, I wasn’t gonna originally but then I figured adding the 6th VA from that series to fit the quota even if she Doesn’t meet That certain character.
Minor Characters:
S1
- Dän Héng/Tan Kö: Aaron Dismuke
When choosing it was really difficult, having to look for various choices but decided to have Aaron portray the brother even if his screen time is short lived.
- Liån Qi/Ren Ki: Xander Mobus
This was another difficult one to choice, even second guessing, but felt Xander had the range to pull off an old man voice.
S2
- Mö Wéng/Botsu Ou: Patrick Seitz
Was originally gonna have Kallen be the voice but after hearing his Fenrir in Smite worked better for another character. In the end I decided to go with Patrick since he tends to do a lot of growlling characters like in Danganronpa and Beastars.
- Bö Yång Höu/Haku You Kou: Christopher Sabat
Picking smaller characters is surprisingly difficult, after thinking about it I went with Sabat, figured with a lot of roles he portrays, I figured he’d work with this smaller role
- Bi Shü/Heki Suu: Bryce Papenbrook
Kept second guessing but felt it’d be a decent choice.
- Yöu Qing/Yuu Sei: Brian Beacock
Like the past ones I was going back and forward with whether to have them be this character or not, decided to keep it this way for now.
S3
- Gui Duö Tiän Göng/Ki Datsu Ten Kou: SungWon Cho
Was considering having ProZD be in this series, but with a lot of other choices, it made it more difficult, but felt I could have him voice Gui, he has a lot of range and I feel he can go nuts with this out there character.
- Bailian/ Byakuren: Kyle Hebert
Again this was a difficult choice, by the end I went with Kyle since I felt his voice could work with this mysterious character that created the magic swords.
Movie/Specials:
- Tie Di Xian/Tekkisen. Travis Willingham
Had a lot of difficulties choosing this one, but like most, went with Travis since I felt he had the range for it.
- ??? (IShang/Shou mposter): Chris Guerrero
Was second guessing but decided to have Guerrero also do his Impostor’s voice as well, I figured it’d be funny seeing both of Chris’s characters interact with each other and overact with the butchered recap
- The Xuan Gui Zong: Various
This was almost difficult but I think we could use more the actors mentioned previously to provide grunt voices like Aaron Dismuke, Patrick Seitz and a few others for example.
- Zhöu Xün Yin/Shün In: Anairis Quinones
For Lång’S mother, this was difficult choice but after thinking about it, I figured Anairis would work, I feel she is a very underrated compared to most and show her range with a character most disliked to now seeing why she became the person she was.
- Tiän Göng Gui Jiång/Ten Kou Ki Shou: Alejandro Saab
Had a different actor in mind, but after listening more I felt this was a neat choice.
- Mikazuki Munechika: Austin Tindle
Well here’s an out there idea, yeah I figured since this is a theoretical idea, I’d even try dubbing the April Fools specials, something they’d often do other than recently but that’s beside the point. For those unaware Mikazuki is a character in the Touken Ranbu series and shares the same Japanese VA for Lin Xué Yä, hence the meta joke of the two feeling a connection, while the VAs are different, there is a Touken Ranbu connection......granted they were in different seasons but it is a small connection. Speaking of VA’s I was going to have Mikazuki’s English VA reprise his role, until I realized who voiced him and went “NOPE, Never mind (for obvious reasons)” so had to think of another VA that did voice the anime and decided Austin could work, an odd choice since he was the voice of Hakata, but seeing his range would make it work.
- Sengo Muramasa: David Wald
With Touken Ranbu having a dub, having David reprise his role made sense. Like Mikazuki, Sango is brought in since he shares the same voice as Shang’s Japanese VA, but like the previous one doesn’t apply, however David and Chris have worked in the same Touken Ranbu series (Guerrero being Tonbokiri) so that sort of works.
- Kyubey: Cassandra Lee Morris
For those wondering, this was what I was setting up with most of the female casts, the thing I did was have the cast of Madoka voice a majority of the female cast just to have an excuse of them meeting Kyubey again but this time finally get their revenge on the chaotic being, which would be pretty satisfying.
- Saber/Artoria Pendragon: Kari Wahlgren
Was originally thinking of having Elizabeth Maxwell do the voice as a meta joke of her fighting Shang (since they’re Albedo and Ainz in Overlord). but didn’t want to break my reprisal role kick, so I figured it’d be easy.....until I realize she had three English VA’s, after listening to their voices, I decided to go with the current VA for Saber since most say she’s the best of the three.
There is one voice I’m not sure if I should’ve included or not and that is the Narrator since 90% of it was unchanged when they have Huei-Fung Huang’s poems describe the character’s true debut. But since this is theoretical, I’d likely have Keone Young narrate in both English and Chinese, he is mostly known for voicing mostly Wester media but have seen him do some anime recently like in Godzilla Singular Point, plus he is Chinese from his father’s side from what I’ve looked up.
With that, that is my initial fancast idea, some may agree or disagree with the choices but I am interested in hearing if there’s other VA’s you’d think would suit these characters better, I’m not too fluent in knowing every anime VA like most, but I did my best with what I could do. Hope you enjoyed this and remember, the land is cloaked in deepest blue and the shadow of eagles are across the moon
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Episode 9's blog post (Spoilers under the cut!)
This post by Balletta is dated 8th June 2021. It apparently took him 8 hours to write...which is why I took so long putting this post out. (I had to skip a lot of the descriptive stuff and it still took me over 4 hours to do this post...)
There are also some tweets from Hishida below, including one regarding ep. 10. If you don't want any info about ep. 10 until you get to it, skip reading tweet 2.
Due to the nature of the ep., there is a mention of suicide below.
Hishida's tweet 1:
そういえばF蘭９話でゲスな男の久ニさん役で鳥海浩輔さんが出演してくれました。僕にとっては初監督作の陰陽大戦記でタイザン役を演じてくれたとても恩のある方です。ありがとうございました。そして明日放送の１０話でも非常にお世話になった方が登場します。これも逃れられない縁なのでしょうか！？
Now that you mention it, F-Ran episode 9's male sleazebag Kyuji was voiced by Kosuke Toriumi. For me, he had the role of Daizan in my first directorial work, Onmyou Taisenki, so I have a big obligation towards him. Thanks a lot. Also, episode 10, which is airing tomorrow, has a person who's taken extreme care of me. Is this an inescapable fate?!
(Who is this he's talking about? Read on.)
Hishida's tweet 2:
まさか福山潤くんに会えるとはね。り��くん、生まれ変わってギャンブラーになってました…w #フィクションです
Unexpectedly, I was able to meet Jun Fukuyama, huh? Rikkun was reborn as a gambler...LOL #ThisIsFiction
"Rikkun" = Riku Tachibana, protagonist of Onmyou Taisenki.
Hishida's tweet 3:
美梨香ちゃん、プリチャンのルルナ…。僕はキャスティングには関わっていません。
Birika-chan is Pri-chan's Luluna...My casting has not changed.
Pri-chan = Kiratto Pri-chan. Luluna and Birika share the VA Hibiku Yamamura.
On to the post (note Balletta goes backwards and forwards in time a lot in this post, so with that on top of my omissions, it's a bit hard to keep track of):
Post's name: "The Perverted and Slightly Sad Episode 9". (You know why it's perverted, but the "slightly sad" will be revealed later on. Balletta specifically uses a word for "slightly sad" used by teenage girls, ぱおん.)
Balletta starts by giving various greetings (this matches last time's), asks if everyone enjoyed Fairy Ranmaru ep. 9. It's Uruu's second turn, so he's going to give real-time thoughts and comments on the ep.
The ep starts with Uruu painting "blue roses" (according to Balletta). "収録の時に、第3話の時みたいにうるうくんの英語から始まったらどうしよう…と台本貰うまでドキドキしてたのはここだけの秘密です…" - "It's a secret between us that when we were recording, I was nervous until I got the script, wondering what would happen if we started with Uruu-kun's English like in episode 3..."
Balletta goes on to discuss how people call Uruu "Blue Rose" (from Tiger and Bunny). People have been making this connection ever since the key visual (the one with the fairy forms) dropped. Even now, when watching the anime on Nico Nico Douga, he'll think: "Hi, Blue Rose's older brother!").
He skips to Uruu's mother's suicide scene. Her wings are broken like glass and Balletta thinks this is when Uruu's heart was broken too. This is also where he thinks Uruu's ideal of "always be proper" was born.
The blushing Homura, being healed by Bakkun and reading an article on Shiina's manga, is "transcendently cute".
It's at this point where Balletta starts introducing quotes from the discussion with "ワン！トゥー！！スリー！！！" ("One! Two!! Three!!!") (<- For the curious, there are 6 of these in the post, but they're not entirely the same.)
Balletta wonders in small text if there was tongue or not during the CPR scene...
"この時のうるうくんの表情が完全に悪役の悪い顔になってて、正直自分もアニメ見てて「うるうくん！顔わるいなぁー！！」ってなりましたね！" - "That time Uruu's face looked like a villain's, and straight up I also saw in the anime, 'Uruu-kun! You're making a bad face-!!'"
Balletta is relieved Homura has been revived.
The sloth's lump is moving...
Balletta introduces Birika and the plot of the week. "不倫！ダメ！！ゼッタイ！！！" - "Adultery! Don't do it!! Absolutely don't!!!" (he repeats this through the post and counts the times he says it - the editing Chesarka from the future says he ends up with 3 instances of this)
Balletta recaps that Uruu is good at painting, as we know from ep. 1. It seems to be the same painting, but then he puts red paint on top. This made Balle-san think of Homura so much, he couldn't concentrate on the painting. In short, FIRE (insert flame emoji, obviously referencing Homura's shirt).
5 to Heaven synced up on how they thought during recording. When Uruu is talking to Birika and she says "心が清廉だからだよ" ("Because you have an honest heart."), they all thought, "心が清廉、どうも清怜うるうです。" ("You have an honest heart - thank you, Uruu Seiren.") Balletta thinks they increased their bonds as a result. (Note "honest" in this case is "seiren".)
Some descriptive bits later, we get to this sentence: "第1話から今回の第9話までに、うるうくんの心情や見えている世界が大きく変わったことを意味しているのではないかと自分は思いました！" I thought from ep. 1 until ep. 9, the world he is seeing has changed greatly!" A bit further down: "先程も話した、第1話から第9話にかけて、うるくんの心情や見えている世界が大きく変わってきていると言ったもう一つの理由がこの言葉なんです！第1話では世界に対しても常に正しくあるべきと考えていたうるうくんが、第9話に至るまでに色んなことがありました。
過去のトラウマ、火焔族への憎しみ、焔くんに対しての嫉妬。" - "That's another reason why I said earlier the world Uruu-kun sees has changed greatly from ep. 1 to ep. 9! Ep. 1, where Uruu-kun thinks everything should be correct about the world, to the Uruu-kun in ep. 9 who has had various things happen. Past trauma, the hatred of the Ignis clan, the jealousy which he feels towards Homura."
Balletta can't believe how Birika's mother came back and had a kiss mark on her neck. He gets so angered he starts making puns on his own name (bareru means to leak a secret, while barebare means a transparent lie) and ends with "あ、どうもバレッタです。" - more along the lines of "Ah, sorry, I'm Balletta" than the previous "thank you"s - before returning to the previous discussion.
Some more description later, Balletta mentions the appearance of Sirius. "素晴らC！いや！すばらシリウス！！！" - "SubaraC (shii)! No! SubaraSirius!!!" (subarashii = wonderful) He then discusses Sirius's musings.
End A part. Balletta stops for a bit to note "You only noticed all this incredible impressions and comments are [for] the A part? Didn't you see the previous post?" He also comments Hori's post was short and that was fine. "ま、イケメンだからいっか！！！（うるうくん達が）" - "Well, they're handsome, so what?!!! (Uruu-kun and co. are)"
Now to the B part. Balletta notes there's a piece of art that is a pot in the art gallery. Pot quota: check.
Some description (and more yelling about how adultery is bad and unforgivable) later: we get to the kiss scene. This transformation is voiced differently to the one in ep. 3 in terms of the pan upwards part and the sound effect of boots scratching you can hear during the "Taboo rescinded! Love! In abundance!" callout. "自分もリアルタイムで第9話見てて、「あれ！？ボイス変わってるし、音が追加されてる！凄い！！」ってテレビの前でなってました！ありがたい限りです！" - "Even when watching ep. 9 in real-time, I was in front of the TV, going, 'Huh?! The voice changed and a sound was added! Amazing!!' I'm nothing but grateful!"
Hotel Tsubo returns. "なんかもう毎回このアニメをリアルタイムで見るたびに「今回はどこに壺が隠れてるかなぁ〜♪」ってなってる自分がいてビックリしますよ笑" - "Basically every time I watch this anime in real-time, I'll be like, 'Where will they hide the pot this time~?♪', so I'm surprised. LOL"
"そしてそんな「HOTEL壺」では、美梨香さんの母親と久二さんがS○Xしてるシーンが出ましたね。申し訳ないけどもう一回だけ言わせてくださいね…
ふざけんにょ！！！" - "Also, at that Hotel Tsubo, Birika-chan's mother and Kyuji have a scene where they're having s_x. I'm sorry for saying this, but please let me say this once...stop screwing around!!!" (The "screw" pun is intentional on my part.)
Enka scene. Balletta calls Uruu "sexy & beautiful" because of his black lace wings and strong gaze.
Head back to Bar F. "バックンはこのアニメの癒し…
いつもありがとうバックン！" - "Bakkun [being] in this anime is healing...thanks as always, Bakkun!"
Some description later, around the part where Uruu's mother says Uruu is just like his dad...you can see germ-like objects that look like water fleas and Uruu gains some damage from them sticking themselves down his throat. There are various versions of this scene and after all the yelling from recording them, he felt considerably more passionate.
Some more description later, Balletta doubles back to the scene slightly beforehand. where Ranmaru and Chilka are in the same place.
Balletta then continues for a bit about the plot and is at the scene where Kyuji is relieved he's free of the old hag when he goes, "ワン！トゥー！！スリー！！！ 「エヘッ、ぱおーん！」 こんの野郎ーーーー！！！ぱおーんじゃねぇんだよぉー！！！！！ガオーってライオンだらけの檻の中にぶち込むぞぉーーーー！！！となったのはこのブログだけにそっと記しておきますね。" ("One! Two!! Three!!! 'Ehe, that's kinda sad!' These bastards---!!! This isn't 'kinda sad'!!!!! I'll throw you into a cage full of roaring lions----!!!...This blog became a place where I can quietly write this precisely [because I can], huh?")
Balletta discusses the final scene and then draws attention to Takara's scene by going, "「あっちゃー、もう一山残っちまったかぁー」 えっ！？何が残ったの！？" - "'The worst is yet to come.' What's coming?!" (<- Translation using the CR line)
He then tells everyone to look forward to next time's Fairy Ranmaru ep., says he's finished, that was ep. 9's comments and impressions, apologises for his long post again and puts some promotional stuff I've already covered on magicalgirlsandcerulean (in order: character song CD, the live show in Sept., Sweets Paradise, Vivid Army, Otasuke Heaven, BD/DVD 1, the curry plate, Bakkun plush, key necklaces, Fairy Ranmaru's official Twitter + YouTube). He then ends by saying he's done (again) and he's Yutaka Balletta, who voices Uruu.
Takara's comment: "原稿用紙40枚やで～気合い入れて読んでや～" - "You took 40 sheets of genkou youshi~. We read it with effort." (referencing the line where he apologises for his long post: "今回また2回目の当番回だったというのもあって気合い入れまくった結果やっぱり長文になってしまいました！ご容赦くださいまし！！" - "This time was the 2nd time I was in charge [of the post], so the result was, of course, me putting in effort! Please forgive me [for my long post]!")
Update: Minor fixes for accuracy and clarity.
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Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 3 - The Return of Thomas!
This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.
Original name ~ Dubbed name
Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon
Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda
Tohma H. Norstein ~ Thomas H. Norstein
Sayuri Daimon ~ Sarah Damon
Chika Daimon ~ Kristy Damon
Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson
PetitMeramon ~ DemiMeramon
[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]
In the original, Masaru’s VA is always the one reading out the title card, but the dub mixes it up with different characters depending on the episode. This time, we get Miki and Megumi reading it, complete with fangirl squealing over Thomas. Uh, thanks, dub.
Sarah: “I think Agumon has been a really good influence!”
Marcus & Agumon: “More, please!”
Sarah: “See, he even says ‘please’ now.”
Agumon giving Marcus a reason to wake up early on a non-school day, that makes sense, but Agumon giving him a reason to be more polite? I dunno.
As you can see, there is no dub equivalent of “Agu-chan”. This is understandable and not the dubbers’ fault since English lends itself a lot less to casual terms of endearment like that, but it is a shame.
Marcus: “You served him first?! What did you do, adopt him while I wasn’t looking?”
Marcus says this like it’s not exactly what she’s literally done, and also like it’s not what he’d want. Don’t you want Agumon to be your new little brother, Marcus?
Sarah: “Keep it up, tough guy, and I’ll give your portion to him, too.”
Her affectionate ribbing calling him “tough guy” is cute.
Sarah: “After all, Agumon is a growing boy.”
A neat little nod to the time Agumon said that about himself in episode 1 (even if it didn’t make sense for him to have known that human phrase, but).
Agumon: “I won’t hand over the last of Sayuri’s fried eggs, not even to you!”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Boss, the only way to get this last fried egg is to take it out of my belly.”
Alas, since dub-Agumon is only referring to this particular last fried egg, we lose the future relevance the original line will have. The dub is not watching ahead to be able to pick up on these things.
Chika: “What a child…”
~~~~~
Kristy: “What a doof.”
Similar snark – he definitely is a doof – but there’s something I like about Chika calling her older brother a “child” that isn’t quite there when all she’s calling him is a doof.
Most of Thomas’s shower scene is cut. I will grant the dub that one improvement it consistently makes is doing its best to remove all the unnecessary fanservice bits.
[as Agumon tumbles from the bike basket]
Kristy: “…Doof Two.”
Agumon: [sighing] “I guess…”
What do you mean, Agumon admits and agrees that he is a doof (and implicitly agrees that his boss is one as well). Original-Agumon would not have nearly enough self-awareness to acknowledge that.
Marcus: “Why can’t you travel in the Digivice like all the other Digimon?”
Agumon: “Those other Digimon just show up when they’re called, but you’re lucky. You have me all the time, Boss!”
Unlike in the original, Marcus does actually bring up how Agumon ought to be in the Digivice. But Agumon doesn’t protest with “but I don’t like it in there”, despite him having made even more of a point of not liking cramped spaces in the previous dub episode than he did in the original. If the dub was going to have them discuss this onscreen, it would have been better to take the claustrophobia angle and show Marcus respecting Agumon’s wishes than to make it seem like Agumon’s just being contrary for the heck of it.
Marcus: “This one? No? Oh, just press everything!”
I enjoy the dub being even more obvious about how Marcus figures out which button on his earpiece is the right one to press.
Street punk #2: “Nothing’s going on at all…”
PetitMeramon: “Nothing at all!”
~~~~~
Street punk #2: “Nothing ever goes on around here any more…”
DemiMeramon: “I agree!”
This is significantly different – here, the DemiMeramon isn’t just parroting the dude’s words, it’s definitely expressing its own opinion about things. The implication here is therefore that it starts setting things on fire because of its own boredom, and these dudes here who happen to also be bored have nothing to do with it. That is categorically not how this is supposed to work.
Masaru: “Let’s fight!”
PetitMeramon: “Fight…”
~~~~~
Marcus: “There it is! Fightin’ time again!”
DemiMeramon: “Oh yeah?!”
Again, it’s not parroting his words; it’s responding on its own terms like it’s lucid and thinking for itself. Not how this should work.
Masaru: “You’re not solid enough, damn it! If I could just hit you once, I could get Agumon to evolve!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “It’s not solid enough to land a blow! But I’ve gotta punch it to start the DNA Charge! Otherwise, Agumon can’t Digivolve!”
The original version of this line sounds reasonably naturally like Masaru is just expressing his frustration at the PetitMeramon. But in the dub, it reads a lot more like awkwardly stilted exposition just to make sure the audience understands why this is a problem.
Marcus: “Stop setting things on fire! I just got these shoes!”
This is one of those dub additions for comedy, but I’m not sure I like the resulting impression that Marcus is somebody who cares that much about what he wears, because Masaru definitely never seems to be that kind of person.
Agumon: “Now be a nice fireball and let us punch you!”
Pfft. This episode in a nutshell. More of that dub-Agumon trait of saying things that would be snarky if it didn’t sound like he obliviously means them completely seriously.
Gaomon: “Yes, Master!”
~~~~~
Gaomon: “Sir, yes sir!”
“Yes, Master!” (spoken in English) is Gaomon’s catchphrase in the Japanese, and… I have no idea why the dub couldn’t just keep it exactly as-is. “Master” is a perfectly reasonable thing for him to call Tohma (especially since he’s a dog!), and it even comes already translated.
Instead, he calls Thomas “sir”, which on its own is… fine, I guess. But in particular, the “sir, yes sir!” catchphrase just makes dub-Gaomon come across as some kind of army grunt, rather than as the very good and loyal dog that he is.
Masaru: “Damn it… That thing pissed me off…”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Urghh… I am exhausted. Whew!”
Masaru here is complaining that he didn’t win, but Marcus is basically just neutrally expressing being exhausted without any sense that he’s specifically frustrated at the DemiMeramon for getting away from him. Since the entire ensuing several scenes are supposed to be a lot about Masaru’s frustration that he’s not good enough, the dub is not starting this off on the right note.
Yoshino: “Well, I didn’t think it would go easily for you from the start.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Don’t worry, Marcus, you didn’t let us down! No-one here at DATS actually thought you could do it anyway!”
Yikes, that’s some way more backhanded reassurance than she gave originally. And also, why does she even feels she needs to “reassure” him? Marcus was not expressing any sort of notion that he felt like he’d failed in the first place.
Agumon: “Hi there, pal.”
[Gaomon ignores Agumon and walks past him]
Agumon: “Hmph! No birthday present for that guy!”
How does Agumon even know about birthdays, and birthday presents, and the concept of giving birthday presents to people you’re on friendly terms with? These are not things he should reasonably have learned about yet when he’s only been with humans for like a week.
Masaru: “You bastard! You took away my prey!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Hey, you! When we talk, you listen!”
It makes perfectly reasonable Masaru-ish sense for him to be mad about Tohma winning what was supposed to be his fight. But Marcus? Isn’t even thinking about the fight, apparently, and is instead just being a jerk.
So far, all Thomas and Gaomon have ignored is Agumon’s greeting and a brief “who are you, blondie?” from Marcus (the “blondie” part is dub-only, unsurprisingly), which is a little rude but not really warranting this response already. Heck, “when we talk, you listen” implies Thomas has been ignoring something substantial that Marcus has been trying to say to him, rather than just a question and a greeting.
There’s a record scratch in the BGM as Thomas ignores Marcus’s attempt to challenge him to a fight and just walks past him. I liked the comedic record scratch they had in episode 1, but this one feels a little cheesy and unnecessary.
Megumi: “His stern-looking profile is so wonderful!”
Miki: “It really is!”
~~~~~
Megumi: “He’s so on top of things!”
Miki: “He so is!”
I appreciate the dub changing the topic of Megumi and Miki’s fawning into admiring Thomas’s work ethic, rather than the original admiring of his appearance. (He is fourteen, you are adults, please stop.)
Tohma: “…it seems rather peculiar that there are a large number of Digimon detected in this country lately.”
…
Satsuma: “Is the frequency not as high in EU?”
Tohma: “No. It must be because it has a larger area.”
~~~~~
Thomas: “It seems there have been an unusually large number of Digimon appearances lately.”
…
Sampson: “Hmm. So do you think these numbers could eventually overwhelm the Data Squad?”
Thomas: “No. But of course, that all depends on having the right team in place.”
Seems the dub is ditching the fact that it’s specifically this country that’s been getting so many more Digimon appearances. Instead, Thomas just takes the opportunity to be a passive-aggressive jerk about Marcus sooner than in the original.
Satsuma: “Oh, let me introduce you. This is…”
[Tohma barely even glances at Masaru; Masaru gets angry]
Masaru: “Hey! I don’t care if you’re called Tohma or Tonma… but around here, I’m your senpai! I’ve only been here for three days, but make sure to call me ‘Daimon-san’ or ‘Daimon-senpai’!”
~~~~~
Sampson: “Oh. Go ahead and introduce yourself, Marcus.”
[Thomas barely even glances at Marcus. Marcus gets angry]
Marcus: “Say what?! Why doesn’t *he* introduce himself to *me*?! I’m the one with seniority, even if it’s only three days.”
This reads a lot less like Marcus getting angry has anything to do with the way Thomas just barely even looked at him, and more that he’s mad at Sampson for thinking he ought to introduce himself first. In that vein, it’s somewhat more reasonable for him to go ranting about seniority, I suppose. However, I liked the way that Masaru suddenly ranting about that with no real provocation was unreasonable and was very transparently him trying to assert some kind of superiority, not really about the appropriate-honorific-respect that he tried to insist was the point.
Marcus: “Who does he think he is, anyway? Look, kid! Agumon and I are the top fighters around here, and don’t you forget it!”
Meanwhile in the dub, the lines specifically asking for honorifics have no English equivalent, so we get this to fill the gap. I guess it has a reasonably similar effect and is a similarly uncalled-for assertion of superiority.
(I do like the “kid”, trying to make Thomas seem beneath him despite their equal age.)
Satsuma: “Already blazing down the warpath, eh?”
~~~~~
Sampson: “You are completely out of line.”
Satsuma was being reasonably tolerant of Masaru’s argumentative nature, accepting that this is just how Masaru is and he’ll hopefully be able to rein it in if he just understands the situation better. But Sampson is simply having none of it.
Sampson: “Marcus, Thomas is *your* superior. Deal.”
I guess it’s a lip-flap issue, but Sampson just telling Marcus to “deal” sounds weirdly colloquial for him. Also, “superior” is not quite the same thing as having seniority in terms of just having more experience. This implies that Thomas is going to have the right to give Marcus orders and Marcus will be obligated to follow them, which is not quite it.
Marcus: “You mean I have to take orders from him?”
…Okay, apparently that literally is what the dub wants us to think, even though this is not how things are actually going to work here.
(This is in place of the line establishing that Masaru and Tohma are the same age, but that will be a fact that gets mentioned in a later dub episode.)
Satsuma: “Be sure to get along with each other, as you are colleagues.”
~~~~~
Sampson: “Unlike some teams, *they* have got discipline.”
Satsuma was trying to mediate between the two, but instead Sampson is very clearly taking Thomas’s side, which he really ought to know is only going to rile Marcus up more.
(If Marcus and Agumon’s lack of discipline is really such a big dealbreaker for you, Sampson, why did you even want to recruit him in the first place?)
Tohma: “I think it will be futile to do so, Captain Satsuma. There is not a chance that this person could benefit DATS.”
~~~~~
Thomas: “Commander, please allow me to say a few words about the new recruit. Based on my first impression, I feel he could never benefit DATS in any way.”
Thomas is being a lot less out of line here, asking politely to speak his opinion and qualifying it as being only based on a first impression. This is also not him pointedly refusing to even try and get along like Tohma was, since Sampson didn’t ask him to. The blame in the dub version of this argument is a lot more heaped onto Marcus’s side rather than equally with both of them, and Sampson obviously siding with Thomas doesn’t help matters.
Masaru: “Say that to my face! Look into a person’s eyes when they’re talking!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Say that to my face! Look me in the eye! If you have the guts!”
There’s slightly less emphasis on Marcus caring about people looking him in the eye when they’re talking to him, since he turns it into a general jab about Thomas not having any guts, but I do appreciate that it’s pretty much still here and unchanged.
Marcus: “What fighting skills does Your Highness possess, you royal jerk?!”
Ehh, I don’t really like Marcus bringing in jabs about the nobility thing at this point. Thomas has just insulted his fighting strength, and in that particular fighting context, Masaru would not care about anything except his opponent’s strength and would not make uncalled-for jabs at something unrelated.
Yoshino: “This is the worst… Go ahead, do whatever you want.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Oh well… Good luck. Protect yourself.”
This is after Marcus refuses to put on his headgear in the boxing ring. Yoshino sounds like she’s just exasperatedly washing her hands of his self-destructive recklessness, because hey, at least she tried. But Yoshi still seems to be genuinely trying to help him, even as the “protect yourself” falls kinda flat because he literally just refused to do so. (It doesn’t sound especially sarcastic – the “good luck” at least sounds very genuine.)
Tohma: “Why did you join DATS?”
Masaru: “Huh?! It was so I could win, obviously!”
Tohma: “Against who?”
Masaru: “Against strong guys!”
~~~~~
Thomas: “What made you join DATS in the first place?”
Marcus: “Huh? It was so I could meet guys like *you*!”
Thomas: “Seriously?”
Yoshi: “He means, he wanted to fight. Strong guys, like you.”
Marcus: “Not him…”
I think what the dub is trying to get at with “guys like you” is similar to a change they made last episode, in which Marcus apparently specifically wants to beat up bad guys, and Thomas is totally one of those, right. I guess props to the dub for at least trying to keep that vaguely consistent? Even though it’s a change that I very much do not like.
I presume the “not him” after Yoshi just said “strong guys like [Thomas]” is Marcus wanting to insist that Thomas isn’t strong, because it otherwise wouldn’t make any sense for him to deny the thing that he literally just said himself.
But, hey, notice something else here? Yoshino doesn’t have a line here in the original. They edited the footage to take away Marcus explaining his own goals and put those words into Yoshi’s mouth instead. Why? Why would you do that. I’d say that maybe they only did so to remove some of the punching from the fight because oh no violence (there will be some Issues the dub has with removing punching from this anime which is very heavily about punching), except they still keep the bit where Thomas punches Marcus in the stomach, so that can’t be it. They actually keep all the punches in this fight uncut, which is Rare for the dub.
Tohma: (He’s beyond help.)
~~~~~
Thomas: (I’m getting tired of this.)
Thomas’s thought is a lot less unreasonable than Tohma’s. Thomas is still coming across as significantly more in the right than Marcus in the dub, rather than them being equally as bad as each other.
Masaru: “A fight doesn’t end until one side admits defeat!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Sorry ‘bout that. Why don’t you run along and catch up with Sampson. Maybe you can read a report together.”
Ughhh, I really, really don’t like this. The dub has apparently decided that, since Marcus is A Jock™, he must be disdainful of Nerds™ like Thomas and make jabs about that. Masaru doesn’t frigging care! He does not give a damn in the slightest how book-smart and workaholic Tohma is; the only thing that would ever matter to Masaru is how he fares in a fight.
And we get this instead of that fun line showing Masaru’s philosophy about street fights, giving more insight into why he insisted on getting up and continuing the fight even after the “match” had ended.
I also don’t like Marcus’s “apology”. He is very obviously not sorry for deliberately punching Thomas, and trying to act like he is when he obviously isn’t is such an insincere dick thing to do that would never even cross Masaru’s mind.
Yoshino: “Tohma’s beaten Olympic champions in the past.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “I’ve seen Thomas routinely beat Olympic champions in that very ring!”
…What, in that ring in the gym that’s presumably at DATS? Even if this is the dub assuming it’s not at DATS and is just some gym somewhere nearby in town, you’d have thought that if Tohma had fought champions, he’d have gone to them to do so, rather than inviting them to him. To them, he’s just some random rich kid; why would they go that far out of their way for him?
The “routinely” also serves to make Thomas’s talent sound even more ridiculously over-the-top than it already was.
Yoshino: “Really, the only things worthy of a gold medal around here are your pride and your competitive attitude.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Marcus, I’m not impressed by your bragging, and Thomas isn’t even in the room!”
I miss the snark. A lot of characters the dub makes snarkier, but Yoshi kinda becomes a bit less so, it seems.
Kudamon: “If even a small flame from PetitMeramon’s body remains, it has the ability to develop and multiply in a short time. It should have been prevented from doing so earlier.”
~~~~~
Kudamon: “A DemiMeramon can regenerate itself over and over again, multiplying a hundred times in as little as half an hour. Apparently, the area wasn’t sealed off earlier.”
The dub manages to completely leave out the part where this is Masaru’s fault because embers from the PetitMeramon were scattered everywhere from his failed attempts to punch it and then he ran off and left things on fire for new PetitMeramon to regenerate themselves from.
Instead, apparently DemiMeramon can just multiply… whenever? It doesn’t do so from the flames it leaves behind, it just copies itself? Except, if Thomas secured the single DemiMeramon that there was to begin with, it literally should not have been able to do so. Sealing off the area would have been irrelevant once it had been safely turned into an egg. The only way it could have multiplied itself like this is if it did so before Thomas neutralised it – but it clearly didn’t do that in front of Marcus, so this is hardly his fault.
Marcus has the same flashback to punching the DemiMeramon and the same thought that this is his fault, but this makes absolutely no sense with the information the dub has given us. Great job there, dubbers.
Sampson: “And now, the DemiMeramon has been left on its own to multiply at will!”
Um, dub? Do you not remember the part where Thomas brought in the DemiMeramon’s egg? It was not left anywhere. That is not how this happened and not why this is (supposed to be) Marcus’s fault.
Masaru: “Wait! Those fireballs are ours to beat!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Hey! Hold on a second, that’s our case!”
They really are watering down any sense that Marcus sees this as being about finishing his fight. Instead he’s apparently invested because this is a case, like he ever really cared about the official DATS investigation side of things.
Masaru: “Damn right! We’ll pull it off somehow using our spirits!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “You bet! And we’ll do it with style, too!”
I miss the “somehow”, making it clear that Masaru has absolutely no idea how he’s going to do this and is willing to basically admit that, yet still wants to throw himself into it anyway.
Marcus: “You two can’t handle that many alone! We’ll help!”
The “we’ll help” is a dub addition, but I am surprised by the notion that Marcus sounds willing to just help Thomas, essentially working together with him. That definitely shouldn’t be something he’d want to do right now. (Suddenly the dub is making Marcus come across as more reasonable and less of a jerk than it’s been doing the entire time, because what is consistency.)
Megumi: “His lightning-fast techniques look great!”
~~~~~
Megumi: “His reflexes are lightning fast! And he’s cute!”
Okay, never mind what I said earlier, I guess the dub is still keeping the idea that the computer ladies think Thomas is cute, adding in a reference to that where there wasn’t even one originally.
Agumon: “Wow…”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Cute?”
And because of that, we also lose Agumon being in awe of Tohma and Gaomon’s performance and accidentally making Masaru feel worse, in place of him simply irrelevantly questioning Megumi’s comment.
Kudamon: “Aren’t you going to stop him?”
Satsuma: “Leave him alone.”
~~~~~
Kudamon: “You’re not going to say anything?”
Sampson: “Not yet.”
So apparently, Sampson is planning to give Marcus some kind of talking-to about this at some point probably fairly soon. We’re really losing that sense from Satsuma that he understands that Masaru will be Masaru and is being patient and giving him space to sort his issues with Tohma out on his own, which I enjoyed and am sad to lose.
Agumon: “Aniki… Why are you angry?”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Don’t be upset, Boss! Just because Thomas is better than you!”
Originally Agumon didn’t really understand what was going on in Masaru’s head. Meanwhile, dub-Agumon seems to have Marcus figured out perfectly – and yet is also tactless enough to outright say the thing he’s already realised is upsetting him.
Agumon: “Well, I think Tohma and Gaomon are nasty guys too, but…”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Boss, I’m sorry I said that about Thomas. You’re better than him.”
At least dub-Agumon realises this and apologises after Marcus is clearly not thrilled by it, but his “you’re better than him” reads as pretty empty reassurance when he just said the exact opposite.
(Meanwhile, original-Agumon still didn’t realise this had anything to do with who’s better than who and just thought it had to be about Tohma being kind of a dick, while still being confused at how that would make Aniki this upset…?)
Masaru: “No… It’s myself that I’m mad at, not them.”
~~~~~
Marcus: “No, I’m not. I’m just pig-headed and I let my pride get in my way.”
Marcus, like Masaru, is capable of realising that the problem is himself here… but he goes way further than Masaru does as to why that supposedly is.
And the thing is, this isn’t actually supposed to be the problem in the original! Originally, Masaru’s issue was that Tohma is “better” than him simply in the sense that he’s a stronger and more capable fighter, making Masaru face the fact that he might not be as strong a fighter as he thought he was. But here in the dub, apparently the problem is that Thomas is “better” than Marcus because of Marcus’s personality, because Thomas is supposedly just a better person than some pig-headed arrogant jerk like Marcus.
Which is not the point! Masaru can be reckless and prideful sometimes, but it’s never in a way that makes him a bad fighter or a bad person. He’s been a bit of argumentative jerk in this episode in particular with regards to Tohma, but Tohma himself has been equally bad in that regard in his own very different way. The original was great in having both Masaru and Tohma be equally the problem in this clash between them, in very parallel ways.
Yet apparently the dub wants us to think that, no, Thomas is a perfectly reasonable guy and the problem really is that Marcus is such an arrogant jerk compared to him. Which I guess is somewhat consistent with some of the small changes they’ve been making to the rest of the episode to make Marcus slightly more of a jerk and Thomas slightly less of one, and having Sampson clearly come down on Thomas’s side, to make it look like Marcus’s attitude alone is the problem.
But, urgh! I hate that the dub is doing this to Masaru’s character, presenting Marcus as more of a jerk and as if this is his biggest character flaw, when that has nothing to do with what’s going on with Masaru and just makes Marcus significantly less likeable! Why would you ever think this was a good thing to do with the story’s main protagonist, seriously.
Masaru: “Damn it! What am I doing? Really… what the hell am I doing?”
~~~~~
Marcus: “It’s time I realised it. I still have a lot to learn. Face it. I’m not the ultimate fighter.”
And now, while originally Masaru was unable to properly articulate what it actually was that was frustrating him about himself, Marcus has just fully completed this 100% self-aware reflection. From this, what you’d assume it’d lead into would be, presumably, Marcus trying to be less “pig-headed and prideful” and more like Thomas, since apparently Thomas’s way of doing things obviously makes him better than Marcus as both a fighter and a person?
Yeah, raincheck on that supposed character development. I’m sure you can already tell that’s not what’s going to happen here, since it isn’t in the original, because it doesn’t freaking need to be.
Also, remember how I made a point of how the original changed Masaru’s “already the number one street fighter” into Marcus’s “trying to be the ultimate fighter” in episode 1? That’s becoming extremely relevant right here.
This whole episode is a bit of a wake-up call for Masaru in terms of realising for the first time that maybe he’s not actually the greatest fighter like he thought and there’s still more growing he can do. But Marcus? He’s supposed to have already known that. “Face it, I’m not the ultimate fighter”? You literally never said you were in the first place. You were supposed to already know you had a lot to learn, so why is it only just now “time I realised it”?
There wouldn’t necessarily be anything inherently wrong with the dubbers changing Marcus’s ultimate fighter thing into this if they’d made sure to follow through on it and also change every character moment he gets to be consistent with the new version. Buuut they’re not doing that. I don’t think they realised how meaningful of a change it even was to make in the first place.
Old man: “It’s hard lighting up a fire… The sparks go out easily whenever the wind gets a little too strong.”
Masaru: “Well, obviously!”
~~~~~
Old man: “I’m having trouble starting a fire, though. Y’see, the flames keep dying out on me because the wind’s too strong and it keeps blowing it out.”
Marcus: “Yeah, that’s happened to me, too.”
Unlike Masaru, who was just expressing exasperation at this old guy telling him something obvious like he didn’t already know that the wind blows out flames, Marcus appears to be… getting the metaphor? His own experience that he’s referring to could just be his literal problem of not being able to punch fire, but based on what he’s just been reflecting on a moment ago and also judging from his tone of voice, that doesn’t seem to be it.
Which makes me sad! Masaru is a ridiculously straightforward doofus who wouldn’t know a metaphor if it punched him in the face, and I am disappointed to see the dub water down that delightful part of his character and make Marcus into some kind of regular person who can actually recognise that kind of thing.
Old man: “But… once I get a larger flame going, it burns strongly no matter how much the wind blows. Fire is an interesting thing, isn’t it?”
Masaru: “…This is…”
~~~~~
Old man: “Well… If you learn to use the wind instead of fighting it, you can make the fire burn brighter than ever before. Harness power, don’t extinguish it.”
Marcus: “…He’s right!”
But then, the dub’s version of the metaphor becomes something quite different. Instead of saying that Masaru’s “flame” will soon get so strong that no wind can blow it out, he’s saying that Marcus should harness the “wind” to make his “flame” stronger.
Originally, the metaphor was basically meant to be a reassurance to Masaru that he’s already doing fine – that he just needs to keep going as he has been and continue to grow and soon enough nothing will be able to stop him. But here in the dub, the metaphor appears to be prompting him to take new action of some sort, warning him that his flame will keep getting blown out if he doesn’t do whatever “harnessing the wind” is supposed to mean.
It’s ambiguous exactly what the “wind” could represent here. If it’s something that was getting in Marcus’s way until now, is it meant to be his “pig-headed pride” that he was just thinking was his big problem? Is the point of this supposed to be the old man telling Marcus through metaphor that actually he should keep being exactly the way he is and should just do that harder?
On the one hand I’d be okay with that because hey, guess what, newsflash, there is actually nothing wrong with Masaru being the way he is, and the dub is wrong to try and act like his personality is the issue and to distort his personality into being more of a jerk to make it an issue. But then that just serves to completely undermine the supposed realisation that Marcus had back in the tunnel and set him back on the track of not trying to change at all. (Which, yeah, again, spoilers, he’s not going to; of course he’s not going to be actively trying to make himself more like Thomas, because that’s not something that Masaru would ever do. Masaru has very strong convictions in who he is and wouldn’t change that for anyone.)
And somehow, despite this metaphor being a lot more metaphorical and ambiguous than it was in the original, and despite this being Marcus, he appears to completely understand what the old man is trying to say to him and take those words to heart. Whatever those words actually are. Somehow.
…I suppose it’s possible that actually the “wind” in the metaphor is supposed to represent Thomas, and that this metaphor is trying to encourage Marcus and Thomas to work together to make each other stronger. This would sort of make sense, since GeoGreymon uses fire-based attacks while Gaogamon uses wind-based attacks, and we’ll actually be seeing some metaphorical stuff being done with those attacks of theirs in the next couple of episodes. Still, if that’s the case, it’s nonetheless definitely not what Marcus gets from this metaphor right here.
But you know what else this dub version of the metaphor very much isn’t? It is not remotely useful literal advice about how to punch fire. At no point does it explain the part where a stronger flame won’t be blown out by anything (and will therefore be punchable). So whatever Marcus is getting from the old man’s words here, it isn’t that. This is kind of important for what’s about to happen next.
As Marcus hears about the trouble at the gas tanks and rushes off, the old man has an added line that’s just silence in the original:
Old man: “See what good fire does?”
…which makes even more of a point that this is definitely only meant to be some kind of metaphor. Though, wasn’t he trying to say that the wind would do Marcus good? Marcus already is the fire in this metaphor, so stressing that fire is good seems besides the point. I’m getting increasingly convinced that the dubbers just didn’t have an actual meaning in mind for their version of the metaphor at all and were half-assing this entire conversation. (Yet they somehow still felt they knew better than the original writers enough to change it at all.)
Thomas: “There’s no chance he can secure the DemiMeramon. There’s too many!”
[cut to precisely *three* DemiMeramon flying around]
Yep, sure, three of them is totally too many. Originally the “too many” comment wasn’t there, and Tohma thought Masaru couldn’t do this simply because he hadn’t shown he could handle any PetitMeramon at all. Numbers are not supposed to be the issue here, or at least not the primary one like Thomas is making it sound like it is.
Masaru: “Fire sparks easily go out whenever the wind blows on them. But… Once they burst into flame…!”
[Masaru leaps to punch the Meramon quite solidly in the face and lands with his Digisoul flaring]
Masaru: “They won’t be extinguished so easily!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Just like the old man said, a fire can be blown out by the wind. Then again… you know what I always say…!”
[Marcus leaps to punch the Meramon quite solidly in the face and lands with his DNA flaring]
Marcus: “You gotta fight fire with fire!”
So… yeah. In the dub, the old man’s words were not actually advice on how to solve this problem, and Marcus’s decision to deliberately make the DemiMeramon stronger had nothing to do with what the old man told him. He had no reason to believe this would work. He really was just being dangerously rash and hot-headed with no sense of actual plan or strategy, and it really did only work out of sheer luck.
(I mean, okay, maybe he could have just figured on his own that making the fire stronger would make it punchable. But Masaru is definitely not supposed to be the kind of person who could figure that out without being nudged in the right direction by someone else. And if Marcus really is perfectly capable of figuring that out on his own, why did he not do so the first time?)
Thomas: “Marcus made Meramon Digivolve on purpose so he could activate his DNA…”
It is very debatable that this was on purpose here, Thomas.
Megumi: “Not bad!”
~~~~~
Megumi: “Marcus proved he could do it!”
Thanks, dub, we needed it made obvious that this fight was about Marcus proving himself, because we couldn’t figure that out on our own.
Thomas: “Don’t get cocky. You just got lucky this time, that’s all.”
This line is basically unchanged, but guess what? Thomas is right to say this, where Tohma wasn’t.
Tohma: “Don’t be absurd. You don’t come up with any strategy or tactics. Do you think using force all the time will let you win at everything?”
Masaru: “Hah, sounds like a sore loser to me.”
~~~~~
Thomas: “Just as I thought, you had no plan and no tactics, just raw power.”
Marcus: “Hah. For a genius, you’re a real sore loser.”
Still basically the same, but again, Thomas is right this time, not being a sore loser. In fact, the added “just as I thought” (and this line comes after the cut back to HQ, so there was conversation prior to it that we didn’t hear) suggests that Thomas has just heard from Marcus himself that, yes, he really did just recklessly charge in with no plan.
I mean, sure, in a sense Thomas is still being a sore loser because Marcus’s raw power still worked. But the point of the sore loser line in the original was that Tohma insisting that Masaru used no tactics in and of itself was him sorely refusing to admit that maybe Masaru actually did have some idea what he was doing after all.
Tohma: “What did you say?”
Masaru: “Wanna make somethin’ of it? I’ll knock you out with one hit to the face this time!”
~~~~~
Thomas: “What did you say?”
Marcus: “Oh, just this: I’ll take my raw power over your tactics any day!”
Granted, outright saying he’d prefer raw power over tactics is definitely something Masaru might also say (of course he would; look at how he never tried to point out that he actually did have a strategy because he doesn’t care about that). But this is a bit of a different way for the dub to show Marcus having his confidence back, since his “conflict” this episode was apparently about “oh no what if raw power is bad and I should be more like Thomas”.
(…Did the dub actually deliberately remove the part where the metaphor was literal advice about punching fire so that Marcus could win through nothing but raw power in order to facilitate this complete backpedal in what briefly appeared to be some ill-advised character development? Ugh, but even if that was on purpose, it’s so much more interesting to show that Masaru actually can do strategy sometimes, and it’s just that his strategies are a lot more risky and head-on than Tohma’s!)
Tohma: “You want me… to act alongside him?”
Masaru: “You’re joking! I’ll never accept him as my partner!”
~~~~~
Thomas: “But sir, he’s completely undisciplined!”
Marcus: “This clown?! I’ll never be his partner – he’s way too annoying!”
Thomas and Marcus get given specific reasons to object to working together in the dub – and while Thomas’s complaint of “undisciplined” is perfectly reasonable, Marcus’s complaint of “annoying” seems rather beside the point. Too pompous, too uptight, (too makes-him-feel-like-maybe-strategy-and-not-just-raw-power-might-be-useful); something like that would be more relevant to Marcus. Is this supposed to be another Marcus Just Hates Nerds™ thing? Because ugh.
Overall differences
Oh boy. There’s a lot going on in terms of changes in this episode, and basically all of it is bad.
Rather than Masaru and Tohma both being presented as equally out-of-line for their own reasons in their initial arguments, the narrative firmly comes down on Thomas’s side by making Thomas less unreasonably harsh in his comments and by having Sampson clearly taking Thomas’s side.
The bit where they explain how DemiMeramon multiplied makes no sense and certainly doesn’t logically leave it as being Marcus’s fault at all, yet he still claims it is for no reason and we’re just expected to believe that.
Then there’s Marcus’s whole, ahem, “character arc” for the episode, if it can even be called that. Rather than some delightful subtle exploration of how Masaru deals with the realisation that he’s not necessarily the strongest fighter out there like he professes to be, it becomes this heavy-handed thing about how Marcus’s whole problem is that he’s Such A Big Arrogant Jerk. Marcus is way more self-aware about his supposed exact problem than someone like him really ought to be (including admitting he’s not the ultimate fighter when he never said he was), and for a moment it seems like his character development is going to be about him learning to be less of a jerk and more like Thomas. Except it won’t, because this won’t happen in the original, because this is not remotely Masaru’s problem in the original.
Then there’s the old man’s metaphor. Originally he was effectively saying that Masaru is doing fine the way he is and just needs to keep growing and getting stronger like this. Here, the metaphor is changed to imply that Marcus needs to take some kind of new action, except what new action is extremely unclear and is not actually going to happen, because, again, not how it went originally. Marcus apparently somehow gets this metaphor, which is ridiculous because I’m not even sure what it was on about, never mind that Marcus should be the last person who’s any good with metaphors, just like Masaru is.
And then there’s the part where the old man’s changed metaphor had nothing to do with teaching Marcus how he could literally punch fire and defeat the DemiMeramon. So his victory in the climactic fight really was complete boneheaded reckless luck without a semblance of strategy, and Thomas was right to call it that.
This entire dub version of the episode firmly wants you to come down on Thomas’s side and agree that Marcus is a huge dumb arrogant jerk whose personality is the entire problem here, and, urgh. I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate that the dub writers consciously chose to do this to Masaru’s character. Masaru does not deserve this.
(You’re probably starting to see why I’m actually quite glad that Masaru has a different name in the dub. Marcus may be a somewhat different character that the dub is insistently making worse, but at least Masaru will always be untainted and separate from the dub’s nonsense.)
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Amira Wayne - Chapter 6
Tbh, not quite satisfied not writing so much angst (or this chapter in general), but it twas necessary to take a break from it...
Day 6 of @biodad-bruce-month event!
Chapter 6: Meeting the Justice League
Edit: I fixed the alias...
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P.Tag: @theatreandcomicfreak @damianette-is-life @toodaloo-kangaroo @elijahcrevan
Tag: @vixen-uchiha @we-want-mini-mini @ramos123 @bluesimani @redscarlet95 @greatcatblaze
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MASTERLIST | FIRST | PREV | AO3
When Amira woke up, all she heard was yelling and shouting, causing her head to ache even more than what it did. Cradling her head, Amira slowly got up, noticing that she had her black gloves on, meaning she was still Ladybird.
They still don’t know her identity.
Good.
“-supposed to know that it was Bruce Wayne of all people!” Amira noticed it was the glowing man from before. He was sitting in what seemed to be a hovering green chair.
So he was a magic user...kinda like how she was.
Speaking of her father, where was he?
“I tried to warn you.” Another man muttered, running a hand through his hair. He wore a blue bodysuit, an ‘s’ for an emblem on his chest. “But you decided to jump ahead, disregarding my warning of a civilian-”
“I don’t follow the orders of a person who just self-appointed themselves as the leader.” Greenie sternly said, crossing his arms. “Wait a minute. Last time I checked-”
“Will the two of you stop arguing like children and restrain yourselves?” The woman from earlier spoke, Amira relaxing when the woman looked at her with soft blue eyes. “Ladybird is awake.”
Amira watched as the woman approached her, the two men following right behind her. “Hello little one. Sorry, Ladybird.” The woman sat next to Amira, Amira scooting a bit away from her. “I mean no harm. My name is Diana. Diana of Themyscira.”
Amira remained silent, looking between the three adults.
Who the hell were they?
“Maybe she only speaks French?” Greenie suggested.
The woman looked back at Amira with a smile.
“Est-ce que tu vas bien?” The woman asked her, Amira having to register her voice a bit before realizing what she was saying.
“I’m-I’m alright.” Amira responded, not missing the way both Diana and Greenie looked at her in surprise. “And I can speak and understand English perfectly fine...if that makes it easier for everyone.”
“A bilingual hero…” Greenie muttered.
“Multilingual, actually.” Amira wanted to say with a smirk, but held herself. “Who are you and where am I?” Amira held her tongue about asking about her father, knowing it might jeopardize her identity, if they didn’t know it yet.
“As I said before, my name is Diana.” Diana gestures to the two men standing in front of them. “These two gentlemen are Hal Jordan and Cla-”
“Superman.” Superman cut off, Amira noticing how skittish he was acting and how Diana gave him a quizzical look. Her heart stopped. Did he know?
“As for who we are, we’re the Justice League.” Diana explained, getting up and kneeling in front of Amira. “We happened to see the broadcast of your fight against Remediator and I have to say, you’re quite the skilled fighter.”
Amira felt heat rise to her cheeks, pressing her fingers against them. When was the last time she was ever praised? She couldn’t quite remember.
“Diana, you broke her.” Hal pointed out, Diana glaring at him before looking back at Amira.
“Usually, we wouldn’t come in direct contact with other heroes from other countries, but I just had to go to Paris to greet the new Ladybug holder.”
At those words, Amira felt her blood freeze. She quickly bolted off the sofa she was on and pushed it towards them, her yo-yo out and twirling in her hand as she glared at the three who looked at her wide eyed.
“How do you know about the Ladybug?” Amira asked, hating that her voice came out more like a growl than she wanted to.
“Ladybird, I didn’t mean to alarm you.” Diana explained, rising slowly. “The thing is-”
“Her mother -Queen Hippolyta- was a Miraculous holder, the previous Ladybug holder to be more precise.” Superman cut to the chase, earning a huff from Diana. “She got giddy at seeing the Ladybug miraculous back in action after hearing countless tales about it from when she was a child.”
“Well, there’s that but-”
“He’s here!” A voice interrupted, the group turning to see who it was, but Ladybird never let her guard down. Yes, her yo-yo was now back on her hip, but her hand hovered over the dagger on her back.
Tikki didn’t approve of Ladybird having a sharp weapon on her person, but Amira argued that it was necessary. After all, a yo-yo could only do so much.
“Who’s here?” Hal asked, watching as Flash entered the room.
“The one and only-”
“Batman?” Superman asked, watching the Dark Knight enter the conference room.
When Clark had spoken Batman’s name, Diana noticed the way Ladybird tensed, Diana picking up on her change in stance. Ladybird was no longer in a defensive stance, her body now forgetting about keeping a distance from them. Now, Ladybird only had one thing in mind: escaping.
Just what was the relationship between Ladybird and Batman?
“Spooky? What are you doing here?” Hal asked, walking up to Batman. “Last I heard from you-”
“I’m here because of Mr.Wayne.” Batman spoke, looking at Amira. “He wants to know why three heroes thought it was a good idea to break into the civilian home he was visiting, nonetheless his friend’s home. While he’s not concerned about the damages, he is concerned about-“
“Odd way to show concern, sending Gotham’s vigilante instead of Mr.Wayne himself contacting you guys to give his piece of mind.” Ladybird said, everyone feeling the tension between the two...vigilantes?
Ladybug did say she wasn’t a hero.
“Wait-” Hal started, but shut up when Ladybird glared at him.
“Seeing as you have not else to say, Diana.” Ladybird addressed. “Why did you actually seek me?
Diana watched as Ladybird walked towards her, now standing between Batman and herself.
“Aside from paying my respects, I also wanted to ask you something very important.” Diana looked at her fellow members before continuing. “Do you want to join the Justice League?
Here at the WatchTower, you’ll have access to all the information everyone helps to collect, use our gyms for practice and a nice home to stay in. One of us could even mentor you if you would like. Oh! If you so choose to become a member, you will have to report everything that happens in your city. Of course, you’ll only be asked to do a daily report about the things in your area and be made to attend weekly meetings.”
Diana watched as Ladybird weighed in the pros of being a League member, watching her glance back towards Batman.
Just what was it that had Ladybird on edge?
“As intriguing the offer is, I decline.” Ladybird said, looking as Diana with narrowed eyes. “I won’t join your League of Heroes.”
“But Ladybird-” Diana started, only to stop speaking when Ladybird held up a hand.
“Yes, the offer is nice, but you mentioned having to make reports and sharing information. That is something I cannot do. I can’t just expose the information of every victim to Hawkmoth’s manipulation because it’s simply that, manipulation. These ‘villains’ are actually victims of Hawkmoth’s power, the people aren’t actually in control of their bodies once they are under it.
For that matter, I can’t risk the possibility of having one of you guys in Paris. Having to fight one of you isn’t something I want to do.” Ladybird reasoned.
“Okay, what if we agree to not step into your territory?” Hal asked, wondering what new excuse this girl was going to say.
“Highly doubt all of you will keep your promise. After all, the three of you stepped into Paris without a letter of advance. Using your excitement isn’t an excuse to just bend the rules to your favor. Rules and regulations are there for a reason. If the rules keep getting bent, what is the point of them then?”
“What about information? If I’m correct, you still don’t know much about-” Superman attempted to point out, but was stopped.
“I can handle manhunting my enemy on my own. Might take a while, but I rather do it alone. With less miraculous out for Hawkmoth to attempt to obtain, the more trump cards I will have at my possession.”
“Ladybird, please, reconsider.” Diana asked, holding Ladybird’s hands into her own. They were small. “We can help you. You're a child and you don’t deserve to have all this pressure on you. You don’t have to do it alone.”
Ladybird slipped out her hands, now glaring at Diana.
“Did you ask me to join the League because you thought I couldn’t handle this?”
“I know you’re capable of handling-”
“Then why do you want me to join the League so badly? So that you can keep an eye on the Ladybug miraculous? Or is it because you don’t trust a child with the miraculous your mother once wielded?” Ladybird asked, waiting for Diana’s answer. She never got one, but from the look in her eyes, it seemed to have been the latter.
“Ladybird. Thank you for coming.” Hal said, earning a glare that seemed all so familiar.
“If I remember correctly, I was brought here against my will. Not to mention you were the first to greet me with an attack meant to knock me out.” Ladybird hissed, turning to Superman. “Can you walk me to your door? I need to leave. I have to patrol in a few minutes.”
Superman nodded, gesturing Ladybird to follow him.
As the two walked out the door, Superman couldn’t help but notice how Ladybird stood as far away as possible from Batman, even going as far as using him as a shield between the two of them.
“I’ll be guiding you to our zeta tubes. They’re how we get from place to place without the use of any type of vehicle. Comes in handy when you need to go to Paris and you live in the US.” Superman tried to lighten the mood, but only got a huff for an answer.
As the two continued to walk, Ladybird decided to speak.
“So, what’s your name? And I mean your real name.” she asked, Superman raising a brow. “It’s only fair for you to tell me your actual name when you already know mine is Amira Wayne.” Amira didn’t stop walking when Superman himself stopped.
She finally decided to when Superman wouldn’t recover from the shock. Turning around, Amira sighed. “It took me a while to remember you, but I vaguely remember your face from this one time I waited for my father to come back from patrolling. Aside from super strength, you also have very sharp hearing. I know you heard the conversation between my father and I.”
Superman gulped, knowing he had to tell her that yes, he knew she was Amira Wayne. That she was Bruce’s kid.
He had the biggest scoop of the year, of his entire career and he couldn’t say a single word because it could potentially get him killed. Because yes! He also just found out today that Bruce Wayne is Batman and just like the hidden child scoop, he couldn’t say anything because it meant death!
“Name’s Kent. Clark Kent.” Clark reintroduced himself, extending his hand for a handshake. Amira shook it.
“Kent from the Daily Planet?” Amira asked, a smirk coming to her face, Clark not liking that expression one bit. It looked eerily the same as her father’s. “I’m pretty sure you already know that you indirectly work under my father, yes?”
“Yes. Well aware.” Clark sighed. Damn Bruce and his countless wealth.
Now he wished he hadn’t heard the conversation from the apartment.
Diana had wanted to greet the new Ladybug holder, something that took Clark a few minutes to process as he absorbed the information.
After hearing Diana say she wanted to recruit the young hero, Clark made it his mission to go with her, seeing as it could be a potential story for the Daily Planet. Hal invited himself, Diana too eager to tell him no.
When the three made it to Paris, they were lucky enough to find the girl just entering her room, a red light enveloping the room before disappearing.
Diana wanted to quickly introduce herself to the new Ladybug, but Clark quickly stopped her when he heard Batman’s voice. Or at least the argument started with Batman’s voice, only for it to continue in Bruce’s.
When Hal asked if they could go now, Clark told them to wait since there was someone else in the room.
He kept listening to their arguing until the red light enveloped the room again, causing the three to become concerned.
Clark kept listening to the conversation, accidentally muttering that the person inside was going to possibly take the miraculous. A decision he regretted.
“Then we have to save her!” Diana voiced, rushing over to help her mother’s protege with Hal following her shortly behind.
“Diana, Hal! Wait!” Clark tried to call back, but the damage had already been done when Diana returned with an unconscious Ladybird and Hal. “What-”
“The other person in the room sedated him. Or made him go to sleep. One or the other.” Diana said. “I’m going to go on ahead.” In other words, Clark had to deal with the mess his two teammates left behind.
He had to deal with almost being killed by a kryptonite batarang Bruce had (for some terrible reason) after explaining to him why they were there.
Never again.
As Clark huffed upon recalling the events from earlier today, a blur came up to them. There, bouncing in front of them was Kid Flash.
“Superman! There you are! I heard we were getting a new recruit!” Kid Flash said with a smile. “Heard they were going to be the youngest one yet!”
Clark wondered how Kid Flash hadn’t said anything about- where was she? It wasn’t until he turned a bit that he saw her hiding behind him, her eyes looking at Speedy with curiosity.
“Well, we weren’t able to recruit her, but she’s right here.” Superman motioned Ladybird to come forward, which she attempted to do before Kid Flash dragged her out.
“You’re tiny! Probably younger than me too! Name’s West!”
“Ladybird.” Amira managed to say, still looking at Wally as if she had seen him somewhere before.
“Oh. We’re using our made up names.” Wally sheepishly said. “Name’s Kid Flash, but feel free to call me Wally!”
“Wally?” Amira repeated, Clark seeing tears pool in her eyes. “Wally...West?”
“Yu-” Wally stumbled back as Amira launched herself at him, hugging him. “What are you-”
A red light enveloped Amira, the girl dropping her transformation, looking at Wally with tears running down her face. “A...mira?” She nodded.
“Hi Wally. I’m sorry I never-” Her words were cut off as Wally hugged her back, squishing her in the process.
“If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me.” Clark stood there silently, watching as both teens kept crying into each other’s shoulders, not expecting Wally’s next words. “I should’ve begged Bruce to not send you to Paris. Especially when he didn’t even let you go to Jason’s funeral.”
-
Amira settled into her bedroom, surprised to see how quickly the league repaired her damaged skylight.
When Amira walked through the bakery doors, Tom and Sabine quickly pulled her into a hug, checking her for any scratches, Amira pulling away from the smothering attention.
“Feels so weird being in here. It’s so small compared to your room in Gotham.” Wally mentioned, deciding to sit on the bean bag near the door. “So, how’ve you been?”
“Aside from Father continuing to isolate me from the world? Terrible.” Amira spoke, placing down the box that held her earrings.
Thanks to Tikki telling her that she would not be able to see nor hear anything if she was renounced, Amira did just that.
As soon as she dropped her transformation, she renounced Tikki, making sure to limit what Tikki knew about her.
Yes, she trusted Tikki and in herself to not get her miraculous taken from her. However, not everything was set in stone and the possibility of having her actual identity being leaked by the Kwami was something Amira wanted to prevent at all costs. “I haven’t been able to contact Dick either.”
“Did he not give you his new number?”
“New number?” Amira asked, watching as Wally put the new number in her phone.
“He moved to Bludhaven around the same thing Bruce sent you here.” Wally flinched as Amira glared at him, although he knew who it was truly for.
“It’s been that long? And he never told me?” Amira whispered. What else didn’t she know about the things back home? “What about the new Robin? Do you know his name? Age? And my father. Is he part of the JL?”
“For that first one, I only know he’s younger than you. Nothing else. As for Batman, he turned the offer down before they were even able to finish their presentation.” Wally provided. “Amira, does...does your dad know you’re-”
“First one to find out.” Amira spat out, her phone deciding to go off at that moment. She sighed as she got up.
“Patrol?”
“Patrol.” Wally got up, hugging Amira one last time.
“Along with Dick’s new number, I up my number in there too. I’ll be there if you ever need me.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Amira said, smiling at him. Grabbing the miracle box, Amira headed to the skylight. But before she left, she turned to Wally. “It was nice being able to catch up. If you want, grab my black card from my desk. I never use it, but you can go ahead and use it to buy yourself some of the bakery’s pastries. Although if it’s cookies you want, I suggest the sugar ones. I made all of those.”
Amira giggled when she saw Wally dash for the bakery with a grin on his face.
Now facing Paris, Amira put on her earrings, Tikki appearing before her.
“Is it time to go on patrol, Marinette?” Marinette nodded.
“Tikki! Spots on!”
NEXT
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