#And it's the reason we don't need to see her take down the entirety of the Slithers

[inkperch]

Just saying, a lot of Edelgard's White Clouds interactions with TWSITD are a hell of a lot more forgivable when you remember its not just an Emperor and the devil she made a deal with, it's also a deeply traumatised teenager forcing herself to continue to interact with her abusers because she's trying to convince herself that her suffering at their hands meant something.

(with a side of a very clearly displayed implication that they won't hurt her while she's useful to them-)

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Talking about Adam and the villians of HB

Adam is such a dissapointing villain for Hazbin Hotel that absolutely doesn't make use of the great opportunities they had for the bad guy of this project. Like, what is Adam? A sexual, irrational, rockstar asshole who kills demons for fun and is shown to be completely idiotic and unable to make any good point for his actions. And that sucks.

Atleast to me, them making Adam an irredeemable asshole type just seems like the show acknowledging that they can't take any actual feedback on Charlies idea. He is a strawman who never really gets to be anything else until his final moments, when they want you to care about his fight. The show doesn't want you to actually think critical about what Charlie has planned it just wants you to think she is right, by making you hate Adam, by making his side actively carry out genocide. The fact that a show all about revealing that people have layers and presenting seemingly morally grey areas in them has a villian who is completely one note and just evil and irrational because the show needs him to be is not great.

There are actual things that can be criticized about the Hotel and the idea of redeeming sinners, but Adam can't call any of these out because then Charlie would have to defend herself, which she can't do and then you would realize that the writers couldn't think of arguments for why she is right. And then Charlie would come off as not as great as they want you to think she is.

What if he had called out the fact that genuinely no demon seems to give a shit about being a better person. We don't get a definitive time for how long Charlie has been working on the Hotel but we can assume that it has been atleast a little longer. We see her advertise her idea on the news in the pilot and the Hotel makes an advertisement in the first episode, so we know that it's pretty open information that a place where demons can redeem themselves exist. Yet in the entirety of the pilot, season one and however much time lays between the two, only two sinners came to the hotel to change (im not counting staff members because they are there to work, not to be redeemed).

Angel Dust and Sir Pentious are the only ones who came to stay, which either means that just no other sinner cares to be better or that Charlie is not taken seriously and that her hotel is viewed as stupid in concept alone. And you have to remember that even these two didn't initially join because they genuinely wanted to change.

Angel just decided to stay because it was a cheap place to live where he wouldn't have to see Val. And while Pentious does decide he wants to be better, we don't know if he would have even done that, had it not been for the agreement he made with Vox (which made him come to the hotel with bad intentions in the first place).

Why doesn't Adam get to point out that sending Sinners to heaven might be a bad idea when there are probably people that they hurt or may have even killed up there. Like, Angel Dust was in the Mafia and you can assume that he has quite the killcount and it's very possible that some of his victims are in heaven. That goes for every other demon too, they're down there for a reason. And while sometimes that reason might be something stupid or irrelevant, just giving every demon the benefit of the doubt and a chance to get to heaven (in theory) seems pretty irresponsible.

That is also completely ignoring the fact that Charlie's method has no proof of even working. Seemingly in the entirety of hell existing no sinner has ever redeemed themselves and went to heaven until Sir Pentious, which was mostly an accident as well.

I'm not saying Adam had to be likeable or relatable, but it's pretty obvious that they made him so hateable just because. He can't just be an obnoxious, sexist asshole because that's not blatantly evil enough apparently. He also has to commit genocide for no reason other than that he enjoys it. Again, im not saying his genocide should be excusable, but he should have a reason that isn't presented as him just doing it for fun because hes a jackass (he should have a reason that would make what he is doing okay in his own eyes where the viewer could understand how he views the world without having to agree necessarily).

Writing evil characters who are purely bad because they just are can work. But in my opinion that shouldn't be the main villian, especially not in a show where the central idea is supposed to be discussing morality and moral greyness.

Cioccolata from Jjba is a villian where this works in my opinion. He is just evil and Araki really plays that up. He isn't just a crazy doctor type who violently experiments on people for fun, his backstory also shows that he has been doing this since he was 14 and started with driving elders to suicide. And also he films everything he does because he just likes watching people suffer. Cioccolata really is just irredeemably crazy and sadistic but it works for him because he is just a side antagonist and therefore doesn't have the burden of playing as a direct counter to our main protagonist and because for all his immoral actions he still has philosophy behind that. A fucked up philosophy but an understandable (not excusable) one nonetheless. He explaines that in his eyes people can only experience true happiness from two situations. Either when your own despair is replaced with hope, or when one watches other people fall into despair themselves. In his eyes, the more people he watches die, the more he understands the human race and the stronger he gets, which leads into another aspect of his philosophy, which is that the strong have have the right and responsibility to rule over the weak. That is why I think he works.

We actually get some insight into Adams deeper character motivation in his last moments. When he gets upset that the demons aren't just falling at his feet, worshipping him, even though he is the original man all life came from. And that would be a good idea to expand on, that Adam has this intense sense of entitlement that leads him to despise the demons because he doesn't have power over them, when he feels like he should. And because a crowd of people that don't worship him, feels threatening to him, he would want them gone as to not possibly risk his position of power with their ideas.

That could be the reason for why he despises Charlie, because she is a demon who makes her own plans to save her people, which would mean they could start to follow her and work with her, rather than idolizing him. Something like that would work so well for his character and would fit this saviour attitude that some religious people have when "helping" atheists by recommending that they should be religious to make all their problems dissapear or something (no shade to people who genuinely find peace and safety in their religion I think that's actually great but it's not a solution for everybody). The last moments he has give great insight into what his character could've been, had they focused on this, rather than always just having him say how much he enjoys killing demons for no reason.

And in the song he has he also nearly approaches giving another possible reason for his actions (that being that he just doesn't care because demons already had their chance to be good, didn't choose that and now don't deserve a second chance), but that is also never expanded on and is pretty much ignored throughout the season.

Also I find it interesting that Adam has to be completely and irredeemably evil, hated by everyone, while Lucifer gets away with just letting the people he is supposed to rule die like it's nothing. Lucifer didn't to anything to stop the exterminations, he didn't contact his daughter in quite some time and actively mocks her idea when first meeting her after these months of not giving a shit for her or what she does (her idea that is supposed to save his people from literal death btw).

We see him easily finish Adam off in the finale which begs the question for why he just never cared to do anything before. But it's fine because he's just so silly and goofy and actually cares a lot for Charlie say's the show. That is why he gets to be redeemed in the same episode he appeared in for the first time and no one is allowed to question him because then you're just not nice and understanding.

Lucifer didn't have to like sinners. I think his approach of basically leaving the sinners to their own devices is pretty interesting. But HH wants you to hate Adam and like Lucifer without acknowledging that people who just watch bad stuff being done without doing anything about it are also shitty. And for Lucifer it seems extra shitty because we see he can literally just defeat Adam and he just didn't do anything for this whole time.

Helluva Boss has this problem too where it picks characters it wants you to like and if you don't like them then you're just wrong. And therefore no villian gets to call these characters out without being shown to be either stupid, irrational or mean.

Striker was genuinely interesting and cool when he first appeared. He was an antagonist who had understandable goals that tied in well with the trajectory of the story. The classism in hell's society is a pretty relevant theme for HB. We see that Blitzø has to sleep with Stolas to be able to even do his job and earn a living, we see Imps just being tossed around and abused and hear Stolas say stuff like "impish little plaything" to Blitzø. Striker wanting to take the demons of high rank down to make hell better for the Imps by ending classism made sense and was an interesting take to see. Especially since at that point the show didn't insist on Stolas being this misunderstood good guy who just cares soo much for Blitzø, there was a sense of suspense maybe to watch wether or not Blitzø will go along with Striker or if this interaction might influence how he views his clearly predatory "relationship" with Stolas.

But all of that got thrown out the window because in s2 we just can't have people criticise Stolas, since actually acknowledging the fact that he benefited and actively made use of hells classist system would mean that we wouldn't see him as a poor confused bean anymore and that one might actually think of some of the pretty bad implications the Stolitz relationship has. So now Striker is a completely obvious, self obsessed bad guy who loves himself so much that he monologues about how great he feels when torturing Stolas instead of just killing him while they also gave him a weird gimmick where he doesn't like it when someone makes a sexual remark and gets so upset that he drags out Stolas' killing and gets defeated by Millie and Moxxie because of it (the same guy was established as a great assassin in another episode).

They also removed all the backbone to his ideology. He still talks about Stolas diminishing Imps in "Western Engery" but it lacks any point because they have gone so far with woobifying Stolas that he is presented as sympathetic and Striker as bigoted. Striker also acts like he can't kill Stolas because Stella called off the assassination on him. I get him being upset that he won't get his money for the kill but he still has very clear reasons for why he would want Stolas dead regardless (atleast he had when he was still a cool character). It's not like suddenly not being hired anymore would make a big change for him.

Killing Stolas could have consequences because Stolas is royalty, but these consequences always existed for him even while Stella was requesting the assassination. Stella would obviously not want others to know that she is reponsible for Stolas dying (then again we don't know if that would even matter since demons generally don't care about killing others until it's plot relevant) and the point of an assassin is that people are killed in a way that can't be tracked back to someone, so Striker should also not face issues, especially since he is apparently a really good and threatening assassin.

Striker was interesting until the show decided it liked Stolas too much for people to call him out and be presented as reasonable. Stella was turned into just an abusive, whiny and stupid bitch who just hates Stolas and wants his money instead of acknowledging that she pretty much has the same backstory as Stolas, who we are constantly told to feel bad for because of his childhood (arranged marriage, forced to have a child and a set-up relationship neither of them wanted).

Verosika is really not relevant but usually also falls into the "bitchy and just rude" category because she doesn't like Blitzø (it's not as bad for her as it is with Stella but still). Asmodeus and Fizzarolli where really mean and exposed and embarrassed Stolas and Blitzø publicly. But the next time we see Asmodeus interact with Stolas he is just chill with him? Why? Blitzøs and Fizzarollis relationship was atleast handled in a way and we see him act rude towards Blitzø until they make up. But it still followes the theme of people who dislike Stolas and Blitzø either changing their mind or just being shown to be horrible to make their opinion seem invalid (also notice how these male characters in the story get to be forgiven for how they acted and show different sides to their character while the women are reduced to being bitchy).

Barbie Wire was also handled soo bad. She only appears in the last few minutes of her début episode and never gets to talk about specifically why she doesn't want to have contact with Blitzø in the first place. The focus is mostly on how hurt he is by the fact his Sister wants nothing to do with him, even after he worked soo hard to find her and just wanted to make things right with her soo bad. They also basically made her a groomer which just doesn't help her come off as reasonable at all.

For a show that wants it's main characters to do bad stuff and have to deal with being called out for that it surely doesn't like people actually calling them out.

The double standards applied to the villians as opposed to the "good guys" are also just amazing. Like Millie and Moxxie can complain about Chaz being a bad partner in hindsight, but when Verosika talks about Blitzø being selfish in their relationship it's all about how he feels. Loona literally throwing stuff at Blitzø, hurting him just because he dared to carefully point out a true fact about her behaviour is played for laughs, but Stella abusing Stolas is super duper evil and we all hate her now (not saying it isn't bad but the show shouldn't pick and choose who is funny when abusive and who is evil when abusive). The I.M.P taking out random people because they were paid to is fine, but Striker attacking Stolas after being hired is bad just because he also happens to have a (understandable) motiv for why he would want to do it regardless of his job and because Stolas just so happens to be a main character. Blitzø and Loona commenting on Moxxies weight is funny, but when Mammon remarks that Fizzarolli gained a few pounds he is just bad.

That's just my opinion on some of the antagonists in HH and HB. Mammon is pretty much the only villian I really care for in both shows (also Stella and Striker before they got ruined). I mainly think antagonist are either really underused (Vox, Velvette, Verosika) or were just incredibly mishandled (Adam, Striker, Stella). Part of this post was just an excuse to talk about Jjba tho, which I always love.

[booksandabeer]

Ramblings on Fandom: Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers, Delusional Shippers, and Alleged Misogyny

So with the release of Season 2 of What If…? emotions are once again running high, the outrage is outraging, and people are up in arms about the whole Captain Carter situation. While I do think that some reactions are a little overblown, even needlessly aggressive in tone to the unfortunate detriment of their otherwise convincing arguments, I share the confusion and frustration about the sudden centering of a long-dead & never excessively popular character, the sidelining of the Steve-Bucky friendship, and the as-inexplicable-as-it-is-total exclusion of Sam Wilson as Captain America. However, I’m not here to talk about the show because (1) I haven’t watched this season and have no plans to (why waste time torturing myself with something I know I’ll hate?) and (2) other people have already written dozens of metas about it, so what could I possibly add at this point.

What I do want need to talk about (lest I explode) is something that has irritated me for a long time and that is now happening again: Every time someone even mildly criticizes Peggy Carter, expresses doubts about her suitability as a heroine, or even just questions her disproportionate importance to the franchise post-EG, inevitably a certain section of fans will come out of the woodwork to immediately throw around accusations of misogyny and yell about how we’re all just a bunch of delusional Stuckies who are mad that she got "in the way" of our ship. Sigh.

This is gonna be a long one, so I’ll put it under a cut. Rant incoming. You've been warned. If you don't want to read, simply keep scrolling.

First of all, let me state very clearly that I’m not debating the existence of misogyny and sexism in fandom spaces—or in the media from which these fandoms originate. At all. It exists, it’s a thing, I’m not denying that. Which is exactly why it frustrates me endlessly to see these accusations thrown around as a gotcha! argument to shut down any and all critical debate around a female character. All it does in the end is escalate rhetoric and radicalize attitudes.  

In the case of Peggy Carter, specifically her treatment by Stucky shippers, I’ve always found 'misogyny as a motive' to be a largely unsubstantiated accusation.¹ Now, I neither presume nor do I want to speak for the entirety of Stuckynation, so I will not claim that there aren't corners of the fandom where people discuss her in ways that I find off-putting and deeply unserious, but I will say this: If you genuinely believe that disliking one (1) fictional female character equals “hating all women” and wanting to suppress and marginalize their presence in fiction and real life alike—then I think we need to take that word away from you until you’ve learned its true meaning.

You might also want to ask yourself how exactly reducing a female character to a mute trophy wife or a heroine who has to act out her love interest’s recycled storylines helps your feminist fight.

As for the “getting in the way of your ship” part of the argument. Very simply put: No character can get in the way of something if there never ever was “a way” to that something to begin with. “Being mad” implies that there was a reasonable expectation that wasn’t met, a substantive hope that was crushed. Now, I’ve said this before and I’ll gladly say it again a million more times: No Stucky shipper in their right mind ever truly thought that there was even the slightest chance that Marvel Studios owned by the Walt Disney Company would allow Steve “Captain America” Rogers and Bucky “Winter Soldier” Barnes to be canonized as an explicitly romantic pairing in their billion dollar franchise. Be serious. That was never in the cards. I wish we all lived in a world where it was, but we don’t, and it wasn’t. The best we could ever hope for was for Steve and Bucky to get a good, satisfying, in-character ending. And if, in Steve’s case, that would’ve included hints (or more) about a possible rekindling of his, uh, aborted romance with Sharon—then so be it. But we never got any of that. The characters never got any of that. Instead they sent Steve into 1950s suburban hell, literally trapped him behind a white picket fence, and condemned him to a life of passivity and lies, all so he could be married to a woman he barely knew a long time ago in a completely different world; who built and ran a top-to-bottom Hydra-infested organization, but apparently never noticed that there was anything wrong with her life's work. For decades. Great. As for Bucky—well, we’ve all seen the devastatingly grim-faced, utterly lonely, and deeply sad version of him that was presented to us in TFATWS. Happy endings all around, I guess.

So. Am I mad that Steve didn’t get to ride into the rainbow-colored sunset with Bucky at the end of EG? No. Because that was never going to happen anyway. Would I have been mad had he ended up with Sharon or another female character in the 21st century? Also no. Granted, I wouldn’t have been ecstatic about it, but mad? No. But am I mad that Steve ended up with this specific female character under these specific circumstances as presented in canon? Fuck yeah, I am.

The thing is: I personally believe Steve and Peggy to be fundamentally incompatible when it comes to the way they view the world and their respective places in it; their morals and values; their capacity for compassion and empathy; their ability and willingness to compartmentalize, compromise, and collaborate with people and institutions whose ethics and/or politics do not align with their own. I have a real hard time believing that a relationship between these two (or worse, a hasty marriage) could be either happy or long-lasting.

I don’t believe Peggy to be inherently evil, I don’t hate her, I simply think she operates within a different moral framework than Steve (and even genuinely believes it to be a righteous one).² Your mileage may vary, but I personally happen to find that framework reprehensible, even indecent, and ultimately dangerous. After all, over the course of the 20th century, we have seen exactly where that kind of “the ends justify the means” brand of pragmatism leads—over and over again. Not to mention that the people who use this line of argument to defend characters like Peggy (or real-life politicians for that matter) never seem to want to look too closely at who gets to define what "the ends" are in the first place and who decides when they've finally been met.

(Never. The answer is never.)

And to be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with depicting, and even centering a narrative around a morally (dark)gray character—oftentimes it’s actually the more interesting option—but you cannot at the same time claim that they are purely good and should be only admired as such when their actions literally tell an entirely different story.

So, no. I will not accept Peggy Carter as the shining aspirational heroine that the MCU so badly wants to sell her to me as—while simultaneously continuing to reveal things that paint an increasingly darker picture of her character. And I will certainly not celebrate seeing one of my favorite characters of all time—whose defining trait was that he couldn't ignore "a situation pointed south"; who used to fight for the little guy and against the establishment; who once said about the very organization that Peggy Carter helped build that it was so corrupt, it all needed to go—rendered morally inert for some hollow happy ending that may as well be a conservative’s wet dream full of false nostalgia for an America that never really existed. I cannot find it in me to be anything less but mad about that.

But that does not make me a misogynist. It does not make me a delusional shipper. It makes me someone who looks at what the MCU has been telling me about Peggy Carter for years now—over and over again—and takes it at its own word.

--------

¹ If you’ve actually read a a fair number of Stucky(!) fanfics you will have noticed that the reverence afforded to and "page time" devoted to her character and her relationship with Steve is somewhat disproportionate to anything that's backed up by canon—well, up until EG, where she was suddenly reanimated as The Great Love of Steve’s Life—and in my experience, it's highly unusual for any fandom to put so much (mostly) positive attention on another character, let alone a potential love interest that is not part of the endgame ship.

² I also want to emphasize that if you love Peggy and she's your fave: good for you! I genuinely have no beef with you. People can agree to disagree. All I ask for is that we maybe stop willfully ignoring the less savory aspects of her character. You don't need to pretend she's perfect to justify your affection for her. I LOVE Steve, and yet I have no problem conceding that he is FAR from perfect.

[chronicbeans]

Wally and a Puppeteer Reader (part 11)

Looks like we are getting close to the end. Idk how many more parts there will be but I, for once, gotta plan in mind! Yippee!

TW: Obsessive Behavior, Idol Worshipping, Interrogation, Derealization, Scopophobia/Eye Imagery, Threats

🎥 You have waited a couple days for this. You wanted to make sure that Henry was alright after what happened. Currently, he and his uncle are out, picking Angela up from the hospital. No one is home, so it is the perfect time for this.

🎥 You place Wally down on your bed, before placing two heavy books on the extra blanket hanging off of the ends of the knot you tied to heep him down. He squirms, looking up at you with the most fearful eyes you have ever seen... on a puppet, at least. Nothing could ever beat the fear you saw in the eyes of Eddie's puppeteer when they handed you the box holding this cursed puppet.

🎥 Speaking of, the puppet opens its mouth, crying out "Let me go! I'm sorry! I didn't hurt her! I think I just spooked her... she tripped on her own!" You shake your head "I don't really care about whether or not you did or didn't do that... Because, even if you didn't, you still hurt people! What about the person YOU filled with staples? Or the one you dropped a bucket of paint on, cracking their head open?! Or these cursed notes and drawings you kept sending me?! You still did damage to people, including me! I have been going insane from fear because of you!"

🎥 His eyes widen more so than they already were. He grows silent, looking around. He begins to mutter "No... no no no... I never meant to... I never meant to hurt YOU!" He then looks you straight in the eyes, the most intense stare held within his own. His pupils seem to expand until they overtake the entirety of his large eyes. "I NEED YOU. I would never hurt you willingly! I thought the notes were lovely! The drawings, too! Isn't it nice to know that your most faithful puppet is watching over you? The paint guy was being mean to you! He deserved it! I even warned him before I did it. I always saw the other guy with Eddie, so I thought it would be fitting if he delivered mail to you! See? I put so much thought into it all so it would be perfect! I love you! I am so sorry you didn't see what I meant to get across..."

🎥 You take a step back, placing your hands on your hips "Oh, you got your message across, alright. I know you love me. You love me too much. You love me to a dangerous degree and you clearly are willing to harm people for the smallest of reasons. I know the boss will probably fire me for this, but I think it would be best if I just burned you-"

🎥"NO! NO, DON'T DO THAT! I mean-!" He looks over to the clock in your room, before saying "I mean... can we... can we have one last round on set? Whatever story you want, you can tell! You can make me do anything you like! I don't care... I can clearly see that I deserve it... I caused so much damage. If you want me burned, I can't stop you. I am your puppet. You are in control, right? Just one more little story. For me? For your good, friendly neighbor?"

🎥 You feel... uncomfortable. However, you think about it for a bit. The studio is far from most other people and since Wally can talk, he can probably scream. It would be... concerning, to say the least, if your neighbors saw you burning a screaming, flailing thing that looked vaguely like a person. So, it might be for the best that you go through with his wishes. "Alright. You want one more story? You will get one more story. You better not double-cross me, though."

🎥 Wally nods, a his permanent grin widening. "Don't worry. I won't. As I said, I would never hurt you intentionally. Let's go! Now! I wanna go now!" You untie him, before slinging him over your shoulder and placing him in your car. You drive to the studio, listening to Wally talking about how much he can't wait to see Barnaby, Julie, and all the others. You tune him out, focusing entirely on the road and your destination.

🎥 You arrive, parking your car and hopping out. You grab Wally, before reaching into the glove box and taking out your emergency key to the studio. You really don't understand why the boss gives everyone a key. Apparently it is so they can have someone open the door if they lose their own? You don't really care, though. All you care about is finishing whatever this puppet has started.

[sisterofficerlucychen]

so i hadn't been able to watch the elevator scene in its entirety until rn because my stream cut off but oh my god.

i personally found that scene so beautiful and what eric and melissa had initially said about where it left them makes so much more sense ♡

for starters, the location — the elevator. at first, their "spot" in mid-wilshire was the garage, then the parking lot, and now the elevator which i think is a really cool metaphor? elevators go up and they go down, which i think is where they're headed because they have a long journey ahead of them to find their way back to one another (and it won't be easy). it's also where they shared that hug in the last episode and it was something both of them needed so much so it was nice to see this kind of continue.

i loved the intentionally behind the blocking that melissa described in their latest interview. there's something about the way how she's behind him literally tucked away in the corner, how they're not facing each other to when he finally turns to face her.

the song selection ♡

at first there's like this inkling of normalcy with tim saying that she probably saved his life and lucy saying that he had the guy — for some reason it took me back to when she gave him the audiobook and teased him about training for the rematch with nico.

and then he turns to her ... while it wasn't the adult conversation or a heart to heart necessarily, it was such an impactful moment because it's the first time he's acknowledged to her face how badly he messed up and the impact of her still being there for him because he wasn't okay until she reached out and we saw how the weight of everything he was carrying melted away as soon as she pulled him into an embrace.

"[...] and i will spend the rest of my life trying to pay it back in whatever small doses you allow" the choice of words here was something i found really interesting and also what it's tied to? because it has nothing to do with the break up but rather paying back the kindness she showed him when he didn't deserve it.

i had to sit with this for a second but ultimately i think the reason why it's better that those words don't have anything to do with the break up is because it wouldn't have been the right time or place (imo he's not ready to give lucy the answers she deserves) but how she's always been there for him. that kindness goes back to the very beginning and plays such a pivotal part in the foundation of their relationship because it was through that kindness that he was able to come back from a really dark place — along the way she became a voice of reason, comfort, and safe place.

just like she set the boundary of checking in on him even though she was still mad at him, he keeps that boundary by acknowledging that she has the control and autonomy here and it's her decision to accept or reject him trying to pay it back. also the "rest of my life" and "small doses" because of the implication of how this is something that will take time, a lot of time and effort.

lastly, lucy's reaction; how she takes it all in and there's this flicker in her eyes as he says that. she could have easily shut him down all things considered but instead she stays silent. that tentative first step as they both leave the elevator, how she continues to process what that could mean as she walks out too. it's not a no and it's not a yes but it's a start, it's hope.

[xinnamonbun]

Xinnimon's Theory Times

Our finalists: Knife and Suitcase; we love them dearly. Both of them definitely deserve the win, between how they interact, and how they've developed, it's a great final 2.

However...

What would they do with the money if they actually won? I've talked about this briefly previously but for this post I want to focus on Suitcase. Besides the fact that I'm rooting for her personally, she also has something interesting that she could do with the money that simply would have less impact with Knife.

Travel.

Seems odd at first but I have multiple reasons to think that Adamation is going to pull a "Steven Universe Future" on us.

(this is pretty long so I'm putting a cut and TLDR at the bottom)

1: She's a Suitcase

My first point is that she's literally a suitcase. Why would this matter? Because of what object shows are known for. Symbolism! Fan being a fan of the show. Test Tube being smart. Knife being aggressive. Cabby being organized. I could find a reason why every single other contestant symbolizes something but we'd be here forever.

Suitcase arguably already has symbolism like: baggage, keeping things to herself (until recently), ect. But that doesn't mean that she can't have more. It would make TOTAL sense for a suitcase to go see the world and travel considering the fact she's made for it, literally.

2: The Big Reveal

I think her traveling could help a LOT with this realization. Why? Because she can see what is real! I've seen some people thinking that Mephone4 made the entire world mainly because of Cobs saying "he basically made a world" but I think that was just his wording trying to trick us. He said "basically" for a reason. I think that there is a reality that the contestants have interacted with.

The first objects that come to mind; the unvitationals! (minus Walkie Talkie and Springy) MePhone4 seemed surprised by Groscar saying she liked the show and she seems to have an audience outside of II. The camera people just aren't there that much (probably cuz they have their own lives) and anytime they are on screen they're just a mild annoyance for Mephone4. Dr. Fizz doesn't have many reasons to be real besides saying that Box needs to go to a hospital but there's nothing pointing to him being fake either. And of course there's the entirety of Meeple! If Meeple isn't real that wouldn't make a lot of sense considering the fact that that would mean that Mephone4 would have had to generate his own trauma. That doesn't add up. So that means that most likely Steve Cobs and all the Meeple products are real in the sense that they were either biologically or artificially built with no generation involved.

We've seen season 3 contestants interacting with unvitationals, and season 2 contestants interacting with Meeple. Which means that there is a probably a real world for them, and they can access, interact, and be a part of it.

3: The Talk

(If you don't feel like watching the whole clip rn, here's what I want you to take away from it for this post)

She quite literally mentions the idea of leaving to move on. Do I think she'd leave forever? No. Do I think that her staying with the contestants to try and fix her issues with them would be the healthiest option? Honestly also no.

I think she had a point in which she needs to be by herself for a while to figure out her issues, how to tackle them, and how to move on from the show in a healthy way; without dragging her friends down with her. (which she doesn't seem interested in anyways)

I don't know about you but after having my entire reality shattered, I would want to see what is real out there, enjoy what is there. In fact I think it'd make me feel more alive, more real if I was in a real environment!

Granted this wouldn't solve all of her issues. Like Knife had a point when he says later in the conversation, "careful there, you're starting to sound like MePhone" if this is the only thing she does she just running away from her problems and trying to forget everything. But instead of doing that she could genuinely take some time to figure out who she is and even if she was made a bit unconventionally she is still real.

She's important.

TLDR:

She's a suitcase, it would make the most sense out of all the contestants for her to travel.

After the big reveal in the newest episode, seeing the world outside of the show (which I'm sure exists) would be good.

It would probably be healthy for her to be by herself for a while and figure out who she is outside of the show.

...

I think it's also worth mentioning that there's a good chance they might not even get the money, it could be a tie/draw, everyone could freaking DIE, we simply don't know. But this is assuming two things that are really unpredictable (suitcase winning and using the prize money, if it even exists, to travel which would be slightly odd considering the past prizes have been for everyone)

If you have any bonus thoughts, please, don't be afraid to reblog! Or if you don't want this on your blog you could always just shoot down a reply. This is a theory post! I want to hear what people think and contradictions! No idea is a dumb one! (...or don't, honestly the fact that you bothered to read all this is enough :)

[atsucry]

Beyond The Thorn Vines

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝐈𝐕

Malleus Draconia x gn!reader

Additional info: again, a bit boring cs this is just a yap session but it is the turning point

cw: none

The young naiad was placed in a serene pond, the water rippled as the group submerged them. they limped backwards as they rested on the damp soil as all the other nymphs gathered around the poor child.

"Will they be alright?" one spoke up, concern for the child laced her sentence.

Your mother cried out, "By the name of all that is mighty, they will!" She brought down her hand to caress your features, tracing her thumb down the bridge of your nose.

You sat at the very back row in the stadium, the sound of cheering surrounded you—though your attention was not fully caught on anything. These things have become partly tedium to you that you wonder why you still come. It was nearing the championship round and it has been three hours since then.

Throughout the entire game, your leg bounced uncontrollably—your heel tapping rhythmically against the concrete while everyone else was enjoying the tournament. The blood that has been inside the book yesterday night had yet to change colour—even by a bit. It gave you a nerve wrecking, nail biting feeling. It had you contemplating on if you had gotten yourself stuck in a time loop, perhaps the reason why you felt so bored. But you chose to mark it as something of an impossible manner. Something a little more mundane.

At that moment, you valued logic over all else—it would take a whole day or two for blood to oxidise and turn brown in colour. Yes—that's what it is, of course it is. It hasn't been a full day yet, there's no need to fret.

A whistle sounded out through the entirety of the area and snapped you out of your own bubble. It was just another score.

You uncomfortably shifted in your seat, trying to ease the stiffness in your legs as the stadium lights blared out for the championship round.

You swept your eyes to the left as Che'nya materialised right before you, slipping into the empty seat next to you with his hands behind his neck with one leg swung over the other. His sudden presence was almost a relief, he looked around with an air of curiosity and leaned in to speak.

“You know, this tournament really does bring out the best and the worst in people,” Che’nya said, scanning the field. Expectantly Waiting for an exciting incident to occur. "And I mean…who even bothers watching till the end anyway? It ain't fun anymore when we got a winning streak over the other."

You hummed in agreement, though, you were sure you had more to say, more to add. "Out of our obligation to support our team, I guess."

"YOUR obligation, not mine though."

You sighed as you leaned back, your eyes wandered the field. "You didn’t have to show up at all, then," you said, half-serious. He was almost above it all.

Che’nya shrugged, tipping his head back lazily. "Me? Well, let's see…why do I bother showing up?" He pretended to contemplate, tapping his chin. "Ah, right! Who else in here are you friends with and would mind to care for you…yes, it might only be me!" He said, sticking his thumb out and pointing towards himself. "No offense to you, of course. But you should really start mingling with the crowd. I mean—I know in magical creature years, you're 'bout the same age as me. But my, you're 178! In those years, an average person would've met at least double-digits of people."

"Oh…don't hit me with that. It's just one more year here and I'm good to go. It'd be pointless to start making friends now."

"Oh but i'm being real, It's kind of pathetic—But do what you want!"

"There’s Neige,"

"Neige is everyone's friend. He doesn't count."

You two sat in silence as the players prepared for the final round, the audience gripped the edge of their seats as they waited, leaning over forward to see even more of the field. "You'd think after almost a century of this crap that they'd just stop holding inter-school tournaments," Che'nya added. "But I don't know, it's worth a shot,"

"I suppose so," You slouched forward and placed your elbows on your knees, you couldn't care for any of this, at all.

Che'nya's voice continued to drone on beside you, a mix of playful banter and casual observations. rambling on about whatever kind of absurdity, as he usually does. Recounting the pranks he's pulled off in the past, present, and acts he'll do in the future.

"Aha! And when I saw the new first years at heartslabyul and when they first saw me—along with the cat—They thought of me as a ghost!" He snapped at his sides as he burst into hysterics—you could almost say he had a passion for shaking people up in the head, especially with his real name being that long.

And in a sudden moment, you felt as if a large sword cave itself in your skull, it pierced your brain in half—Your hands flew to clutch the sides of your head as you let out an agonising groan—an agonising scream if you weren't in public. It was happening again. Not only was the pain unbearable, but made you feel bound down—something out of control. A helpless fish caught in a net. That it made a mockery of you—that all your moves were already predetermined. And even if that wasn't the case at all, you still felt trapped in your own body, and that was the opposite of what you wanted as a nature spirit—a water spirit nonetheless.

"So then in the corridor—wh—hey!" your friend looked at you frantically, leaning to meet you at eye level. The highest level of concern was etched on his face. "No…you don't look so good," His eyebrows quirked as his face scrunched up—looking around to see if anyone else had noticed. No one. "Okay! I think we need to go—what's the point in staying to watch anyway? It's boring, boring!"

He bent down to scoop you up, throwing your arm over his shoulders as he pushed past the rows of people. manoeuvring through them all. "Alright—Excuse me! Coming through!" He exclaimed, escorting you out of the stadium as quickly as possible as you carried your own head in your hands, eyes screwed shut as your forehead wrinkled while your face formed a scowl. You learned not to bother coming to these events at all when you reach your 4th year. The entire way out came across as longer than it actually was, like someone had brought you back to the beginning every time. You two hurriedly scampered down the steps, stumbling on the stairs occasionally your way down.

Once you made it past the threshold the gate, the cheering faded out by a bit. Che'nya set you to lean on a wall, catching his own breath. And at once the pricking sensation stopped all together. Just like last time, and it always left you dumbfounded. No, not how many times it has happened—but the reason why it did. Yes, you've accepted that it happens, but you never found the explanation.

You slid down the wall, resting your back against it as you caught your breath. The quiet outside the stadium was a stark contrast to the overwhelming noise inside, and you relished the momentary peace.

You stared off into space, murmuring to yourself. "Why is that…?"

"Hah…What? You're good now?"

"As far as I can tell, I am,"

He let out a relieved sigh, letting his head hang low as he leaned with his hands on his knees. "Well, it's not the greatest idea to stick around, so let's just retreat to your room to figure out what's going on, yea?"

"Yea, that sounds reasonable enough," You pushed yourself off the floor and dusted down your uniform. "Let's head back!"

"Oh, and thanks, by the way!"

"You're in thinking territory, that's dangerous. Don't pop a vein now!" Che'nya cackled as he basically let himself melt and become one with your bed, overseeing you connect the dots in your thumbtack board with your chin tucked between your thumb and index.

"You've been standing there for a good 3 hours,"

"Che'nya, can you please shut up for a second,"

"I'm looking at an empty board!"

"Because you feel the need to input your own thoughts that I don't have space to think of mine! Just hold on and sit still for a minute!" You shooed him away, turning your focus back to your mind map. You're sure there must be an explanation for…whatever nonsense this was. You could link it to the fact that you have chronological gaps in your own memory—

"Have you figured anything out? Little genius?"

"I'm leaving this for tomorrow! I'm leaving this all for tomorrow!" Your outburst surprised Che'nya, maybe he should also leave the teasing for tomorrow as he sat himself back up awkwardly. you dragged your two hands across your face, letting out a frustrated groan. Your eyes drooped and were ready to fully shut.

"No…No, I'll continue. I'll continue with my work. Pass me that stupid book on my desk,"

"The old looking one?"

"There is no other book on my desk…?"

You held out an expectant open hand, waiting for him to hand it over—you felt a sudden heavy weight on it and brought it to your front. The blood still remained a pretty shade of red.

"No…I'll continue this tomorrow,"

“Seriously though,” he said, hopping up onto your bed like it was his own personal couch. “You should really take it easy. Whatever this thing is, it's getting worse.”

You didn't answer, your eyes focused on the floor. “Hey,” he said, his tone shifting. “You're doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“That brooding thing where you start spiralling. It’s not a good look on you.” He rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling as if it held the answers to the universe.

You pushed the book aside, finally letting your shoulders drop with exhaustion. The pounding headache had dulled to a light throb, but the fogginess in your mind lingered. Che’nya lay sprawled out on your bed, completely at ease while you were drowning in your thoughts. "Alright," you sighed, rubbing the back of your neck, "I’m done for tonight. Let’s call it."

Che’nya stretched like a cat, extending his arms up to the ceiling with a dramatic yawn. “Well, it’s about time! You always overthink stuff, y’know? Let things breathe a bit."

Rolling your eyes, you stood up and moved toward the door, signaling the end of the conversation. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I’m heading to bed. You should probably head back to your dorm.”

Che’nya jumped to his feet, surprisingly spry despite his earlier lounging. “Night, night! Try not to overwork that brain of yours.”

The door clicked shut behind him, and the silence that followed was almost overwhelming. You stood there for a moment, staring at the door, before letting out a slow breath. The room suddenly felt much larger, more empty.

But no, you’d already decided. It could wait until tomorrow. You weren’t going to drive yourself insane over it tonight. The exhaustion settled in, heavy like a blanket.

Your mind, however, didn’t want to fully quiet down. It wasn’t the first time you’d experienced something like this, but it was happening more frequently, and that in itself was troubling.

The ceiling above you was a blank canvas, and you stared at it, wondering why your body had reacted so violently in the stadium. You knew from a young age that you'd been cursed somehow. You didn’t want to admit it, but the idea of a deeper cause gnawed at the back of your mind. It wasn’t just the headaches. It was the fog, the gaps in your memory, the flashes of something you couldn’t quite place.

But before you could spiral too far down that road, you turned onto your side, pulling the covers up over yourself. "Tomorrow," you muttered to yourself. "Deal with it tomorrow."

The fatigue finally began to take hold, pulling you into the welcome embrace of sleep. The last thing you heard before your mind slipped into darkness was the faint echo of the cheering crowd, still celebrating the championship match you barely paid attention to.

Tomorrow would bring more questions, but for tonight, at least, you’d find peace.

In your sleep, you heard a voice call out to you, and an annoying one at that. "Psst, wake up…hey, hey, hey, hey, heyyy—" Che'nya poked at your shoulder, urging you to wake up and stir you from your stupor for some unknown but probably irrational reason.

"Hm…? Huh…?" Your words were muddled and groggy, tossing and turning in your bed—You didn't want to get ready yet—no, not yet. It was too early to be dealing with the world right now. You didn’t even bother to try opening your eyes till a bright light shone down on you.

"Agh—what's wrong with you?!—"

"The headmaster's calling us to the office,"

That sentence alone had you shot up straight into a sitting position, were you still dreaming? No it seems that you're fully awake now, perhaps you heard it wrong. "Hah…Huh? Pardon?"

“We’re considering you two for the exchange program between Royal Sword Academy and Night Raven College,” the headmaster began, his tone measured and formal. “It’s an opportunity for selected students to experience a different academic environment and broaden their perspectives.”

Che’nya nudged you slightly, a playful grin on his face. “Looks like someone’s about to have a big adventure.”

You barely processed his comment, your mind still reeling from the abrupt awakening and the lingering discomfort from the previous day. "...Im sorry?"

The headmaster adjusted his glasses and shuffled through the papers on his desk. “It’s a chance to engage with a new curriculum, participate in unique magical studies, and interact with students from a different institution. It’s designed to be both challenging and enriching. And the main reason being that after almost 100 years of consecutive losses from Night Raven, we decided to send in our own students to possibly get the to learn teamwork and cooperation.”

"Yea, but why us though…?" You took a glance to your friend to the right of you, 'you put me up for this, didn't you?' you tried communicating telepathically with him. Though you were certain it wasn't exactly what you managed to tell him, you knew he understood what you meant. He shrugged and only gave you a knowing smile.

"Well, let's see…" The headmaster shifted in his leather seat, clasping his hands together. "You two rarely participate in any school activities," He listed. "And we heavily encourage our students to get to know each other through school activities and events—yet in your three years here, you two have yet to show that type of enthusiasm."

Ah, so that's what it was. You felt a pang of unease. "I see," you said, trying to mask the irritation in your voice. "But why would you think we'd be a good fit for this program?"

The headmaster's eyes twinkled behind his glasses. “We’ve noticed potential in both of you, even if you haven’t been the most socially active, except for your friend; Che'nya over here. Who does seem to show interest in socializing...Just in his own peculiar way. It’s about pushing boundaries and discovering new strengths. And, considering your unique talents and perspectives, we believe this experience will be beneficial not only for you but for the academy as well.”

"And I expect you both to also participate in the activities and events that Night Raven has to offer, as well as maintaining academic performance—"

Che'nya suddenly butted in. "We'll take you up on the offer, anyways, bye-bye!" He grabbed your wrist, leading you out the office and out into the hallway and closing the large door behind him.

You squinted your eyes at him, agitated and quite frankly, furious. "...Are you serious?!"

Note: guys is it obvious that this was rushed.

btw apologies for any mistakes in my writing😗

[inkblackorchid]

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.

[porlatamconlouis]

louis in panamá! louis back in latam!!! louis is back in his spirit home!!!

the crowd was amaaaazing! listen, every louis show i've been to holds a special place in my heart for different reasons. but being in a crowd where everyone around you gives out the same energy, even when they don't fully know some songs, is something i've been craving for a long time now, and it's just the beginning and i'm sooo excited. the venue itself was kinda meh inside, the way they used the space was terrible in my opinion but as a brightside, gaby and i had lots of space to jump and dance and lose our entire minds.

the setlist order change threw us off, but god i love it. the 'chemical' cover... idk how to explain it but the videos i've seen so far (which haven't been many, i'm on wifi most of the time) don't do it one bit of justice. his voice! his voooooooice! that's all i kept saying throughout the song. because i didn't know the song, and the arrangement was so punk that i thought it was a song from an early 2000s pop punk band that i wasn't recognizing. but duuuude, his voice. i hope we get a good version, because that boi whined away with his whole chest... honestly. and i can't fucking wait to see how more and more comfortable he'll get with the song and more people singing it with him, and just... yeah!

oli, krystle and helen were in the open space where there were no chairs, right in front of us... oli walks to not draw attention to himself, but boi, most of us know you by now. i didn't see anybody coming up to them which was nice. they went to the sound booth for a big chunk of the show. and during ooms krys and helen came back to jump and dance to the side there. i loved seeing them like that!

the happiness we felt when we saw lucia coming down! gaby and i were jumping up and down screaming "lucia! lucia is back! lucia!", hajshajshs. and theeeen, at the end, as i always do if possible, we went to the soundbooth to thank my friends (jdelf, tom and oli c.) for the show, and we thanked them for bringing lucia (the lightbulb) and not leaving her behind, and they were amused (and probably a bit weirded out (they've seen me in the same shirt at least 4 times lmao)) and saying thank you for appreciating them and just yeah. i like to think maybe they already knew her name was lucia, but also, i'm glad someone on the ground straight up told them how fucking appreciated she is. 💚 look at herrrr! (lol)

living all my favorite songs live again was so cathartic. didn't know how much i needed it, wow. also, how are we gonna call that insane set of songs before the encore? my vote is for "rip steve's arms" or "no breathing mix" or "lose your shit time". because going from 505 to bty to kmm to ooms is fucking wild, man. it was absolutely incredible, i think i ascended a little bit and was fully exorcised, thanks.

oh! the kmm lights? soooo good! i know they've been done at all the shows after '22 but like... idk. it felt a bit extra special? and he sensed it as well, he couldn't contain his little smiles. and he gave it a shout out. literally everyone knew they had to do it. so cool!

as a sad note, during sibwawc, the lights from the stage weren't really colourful, they just kinda went from orange to white from what i remember. gaby and i waved our flags for the entirety of the megamix (and a bunch of other songs too, hajshajs, duh) and since we were going off the whole time, and not as many people were, he did see us all the way to the back and pointed at where we were and we looked at each other and just kept going. we then corroborated our stories in the hostal, hajdhaj. enjoy the following video as if you were next to us and just jumping around, okay thanks (when you see everyone else jump around that's when he comes to our side).

anyway, i wrote all of this while on the airplane that's gonna take me to puerto rico, which is a bit delayed. oh, and el puma rodríguez is on this flight, lmao. iykyk. some ladies, while boarding, just stood in front of him and took a selfie, eeep. right, here's some carpet photos.

i'm so lucky i get to do this insane adventure, i'm so happy.

(meant to save this in drafts while the video uploaded but guess it got posted instead, hajshajsh. anywaaaay... thanks for the lovely notes, loves.)

[ilovesjamesbb]

Please Don't Leave Me (Pt. 8)

Bucky x Reader

Warnings: Mature themes

This repetitive sound rang in my ears. It sounded like a slow heart beat. The sounds came and went consistently but there were all the same notes. It wasn’t a good song. The music I liked was jazzy and not flat like this one. There were no words or instruments. Just one note. 

“I am so sorry. This is all my fault.” A voice came through my ears. I can’t make out who it was. I felt something warm in my hand. It was gripped and soft lips were pressed against my knuckles. 

“It’s not, Buck. You couldn’t have known.” Steve. You could hear him but you couldn’t open your eyes.

“How could it not be? This is the second time I led her to kill herself. She needed me and I wasn’t there. I cast her aside. I left her…” He whispered. Bucky. Oh god, Bucky.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Bucky. You left her because you thought she was safer without you. You were trying to protect her. I won’t say it was the right thing to do but at the time you thought it was. Your intentions were pure.” Nat said. 

“She just couldn’t do it without you. She’s been battling demons for a long time and we’ve all seen it. We all should have been there. The past year we had the opportunity to be there for her and we let her down. This is on all of us.” Clint said. Elbows on his knees. How could they think it was their fault? I did this.

“No one knows what happened before she got here. Fury said something traumatic. It could've been that. It’s not on you.” Bruce said. No. No. Not this. This was a secret. This was my secret to tell. My experience to share if I wished for it.

“I know.” Tony said. If only I had more control over how everything happened. I didn’t want anyone to know. Please don’t tell them. 

“Tony, what is it?” Steve asked. Tony looked torn. He sat with his hand across his chin, middle and pointer finger on his temple. 

“She will never forgive me for telling you this. Hell, I wasn’t even supposed to know..” He trailed off standing up. Bucky squeezed my hand. 

“Eighteen months ago y/n was taken. She was dating her boyfriend of almost a year, Christian, things were going great. Apparently they were really happy together yadyadya, whole picket fence type of stuff” Tony said turning the other direction. Bucky stiffened. Not like that Bucky! I never felt the way I did for him the way I feel about you. I wish I could tell him that. I fought to wake up, so hard. 

“Turns out he had been working recon on her for the entirety of their relationship. It was a mission for him but he made it personal. He didn’t have to get her to love him. He pulled the whole ‘spilled coffee - let me take you out to dinner trope’. It was innocent to her. She never expected it. Even with her guard high. She didn’t see it coming. Why would she? He was a CEO at some made up enterprise in the city. She had no reason for suspecting anything.” Everyone was listening intently.  

“Things got rushed, he needed to make a move and fast. So he beat her and I mean beat her bad. He kept her locked up in his flat for weeks. No food, little to no water. He tortured her, trying to get information from SHIELD but she wouldn’t give it up. One day he didn’t come back. She was down there for a while, not looking hot and that's when Fury found her.” He stopped. A picture flew up on the screen. Images of me bleeding, a picture of me laughing with Chrisitan. A tear rolled down my comatose face. I just wanted to tell him to stop. I would tell the story if I had to. Let me tell you!

“Apparently SHIELD caught on to Christian and they took him down but they couldn’t find her. They looked for days until Fury figured it out. But you knew that already, Romanoff.” Everyone was quiet. What? How would she know?

“Yes,” She answered plainly. 

“What the hell, Nat?” Bruce said furious. 

“Fury sent me about some posing CEO scumbag that I needed to take down. I didn’t know it was him until a few weeks before everything happened. I didn’t know y/n yet. It was my mission to wait it out.” She said sadly but not apologetically. 

“That doesn’t matter. You knew who he was! You knew she didn’t know. You knew she was in danger-” Steve said angrily. 

“No. I didn’t. I thought she was his girlfriend. I knew she worked for SHIELD, I didn’t know if she was a part of HYDRA too. I couldn’t risk intervening-”

“What?” Bucky finally spoke.

“I wouldn't intervene, Barnes-”

“HYDRA. This guy is HYDRA?” He gritted out. 

“Yes or he was.” Nat spoke defensively. 

“I promise if I knew what would have happened, if I knew about his mission and that she wasn’t who I thought she was, you have to know I would have killed him on the spot.” She said with tears in her eyes. Tears were falling down my face at this point too. Everyone bega fighting and the voices got loud. 

“Look-” The fighting kept going on. 

“Guys stop! Look-” Bruce pointed to me and walked over to the bed. Flashlight in his hand opened my eyes. I could see. 

“She’s crying, she can hear us. Y/n, can you move your hand?” He said squeezing mine. I tried but I couldn’t. 

[slightlysadfilter]

So Saltburn: a story of obsession and control

Warning: spoilers ahead

You bet I'm gonna dissect this mfing movie. It left me scarred at 3 am on a workday so here I am, giving my own personal interpretation. Enjoy!

So as I've anticipated, I think the entirety of the movie is a battle between obsession and control. Specifically, Oliver's need to control everything and anyone, and his very clear obsession with Felix. But how does it unfold? And are the two conciliatory, or is Oliver a walking oxymoron? Why does he fuck a grave? We'll get to that.

Part I: Obsession.

We know nothing of Oliver's past. We come to know, very shockingly, that he has a peaceful-looking family, in an alright neighbourhood. The only hint we might've been given about his past behaviour is how his mother immediately tries to soothe the situation when he refuses lunch and wants to leave. But still, too little, so for the purpose of this dissection, Oliver starts with Oxford.

I believe that, at the beginning of the movie, Oliver is more inclined towards obsession. He picks his god (Felix) and yearns to please him. Still, we also notice his need to control very early (actually we do at the end, but yk, early). The control aspect is apparent in his manipulations, this new reality he carefully crafts, but all of it is to appeal to Felix. "He's a scholarship guy who buys clothes from Oxfam", he clearly doesn't want to be that. He doesn't want to be part of the equation-spurting loner group, to be a kid from a boringly simple family and a modest, row-house neighbourhood.

He needs to appeal to Felix, so he takes control of everything. Here, obsession and control go hand in hand. The only reason Oliver is doing what he's doing, is to feel seen by his god. To seat at the "olympus" table with all the trendy, rich kids and their godly-like aura. He threads slowly at first: he knows he can't become them, so he plays the poor-guy part. Crappy family, no money, but still so, so generous and ready to listen. His god is surely pleased; not only that, Felix feels protective of him. He's gained a spot in paradise, albeit due to someone else. Then he makes a mistake, he gets too comfortable and lets too much of his desire of perfection slip. Felix gets annoyed and he's kicked out of heaven. Therefore, more manipulation, more offerings: oh no my dad is dead. Please Felix notice me again, make my tragic story part of your entertainment, let me in again to delight you further.

And so he does.

Part II: Control.

It is a gradual event, control eclipsing Oliver's obsession. For a while, the two co-exist almost equally.

It is very subtle at first. He appears shy, but he's not: I reckon runny eggs don't really make him sick. But he gets to order someone around and he surely takes the chance. For the first time, the reality he's crafted doesn't only need to appease a "superior being" but also, himself.

Then, we have Venetia. It's the first time we clearly see what a little of control does to him, his first true sliding through the cracks of Saltburn like termites. Control is a high for Oliver, fusing with arousal. He likes telling her what to do, to share his excitement and make her do his bidding with it. And still, he is entertaining someone: he's the guy who doesn't cower around period blood and actually plays with it. He's stepped up, but he's still surrounded by higher beings.

Of course, we can also see how obsession remains in how he, uhm, slurps some delicious bathwater and also readily denies having anything to do with Venetia. Felix is still his god after all, and the fake reality exists to appease him. Not Venetia. She gets thrown to the side.

Then, Farleigh, who is actively trying to sabotage him. He wants him gone, he looks down on him, he likes to remind Oliver just how ephemeral he is at Saltburn. They already had moments of tension at Oxford, but now it's pathological: Farleigh is a risk of getting kicked out again. And so again, Oliver deals with it through arousal. Being able to bend him to his will is exciting, control is exciting. He's getting a better taste.

Then, the tragedy. Felix finds out about all the lies. Oliver's god is enraged, outraged. He's still in paradise, but on borrowed time and clearly unwanted. But the worst of it all: Oliver's object of obsession can never, ever accept his offerings again. His entertainment. Though he tries to salvage it, it's gone, the sparkle; and he's been getting skilled at control. So the night of the party, last night in heaven, he kills his god. If he can't please him, he'll conquer him. If he can't obsess over him, he'll take his place. (the symbolism is also very strong in this one!!! Felix having wings, and Oliver antlers to represent horns, or perhaps just earthly beings.)

So why does he fuck a grave? Quite simply, in my humble opinion, he's weeping the death of his god and getting aroused by his conquest at the same time. That's what I mean when I say he's a paradoxical character, and the conflicting nature of him is more prominent in this scene than in any other.

Now that Felix is gone, the road is easy. He's taken one of the highest spots and he wants more. Farleigh? Gone. Venetia? Disposed of. The plan halts upon the father's ultimatum (who, though apparently soft, is still head of this paradise) but when he dies, it is back in motion. The mother is too trusting, too desperate for a friendly face. Oliver is now the one with power over her, it's so easy to kick her out. Her slow assassination is partially merciful, partially ecstatic for Oliver, once again. But he's won, he has complete control (and so, he thankfully doesn't fuck her comatose body.)

His crafted reality is now real. He does not only belong to paradise, he runs it. He has become the god he's killed, and his last funky dance shows how control has definitely taken over obsession. No need for that, he sits at the top.

[snapscube]

hihihi ok. so i’m in my last of us fixation mode and i’m being extra silly about it but i NEED to know what’s ur current opinion on the last of us hbo?? also i logged onto tumblr and saw a lot of rly good points defending joel’s final choice and i remember during the last of us pt1 playthrough u had differing opinions so i wonder if u think the show’s differences affect that at all? btw i LOVE ur stuff and cannot wait until u do last of us pt 2 wehehehehe!!! anyway besides all that i just want u to know that u are one of the things in my life that makes it easier to get up in the morning

I still feel exactly the same about the final events as I always have! The show didn't change it for me, and actually being able to remove myself from being in control of the situation in the game and actually just watch the events play out in show format solidified that further. The connection I have to Joel as a player when I play the game really helps me understand his perspective more and stomach the goal a bit more easily, but without that immediate intimacy it puts into perspective for me how kinda monstrous the whole thing is from every angle. Obviously I don't ever lose that sympathy for him, and I never stop understanding why, because the whole point of the conflict is that no one is in the right. Ultimately I think the damning thing for every single person involved is that they removed Ellie's agency from the equation, and I still stand by that. They all should have talked to her. They should have told her the truth. All she wants is for her immunity to matter, and I believe that they may have been surprised at the lengths she's willing to go in order to make a difference, whether it's ultimately the right call or not.

I don't know what arguments you've seen exactly in defense of Joel's choice, but personally I don't really agree with one I see a lot and I'd expect will pop up again now that the show is over, which is the whole "well who's to say a vaccine would have worked anyway?????" angle. I think, while reasonable from a meta standpoint, completely ignores the intended framing of the story in order to more conveniently justify a protagonist that the story through its entire runtime is trying to tell you is a little bit of a piece of shit. It's pretty clear and safe to assume that the ultimate intent here is that... yes, the vaccine WOULD have worked. Maybe not in the sweeping way they hoped, but Ellie's sacrifice absolutely would have done something. The whole moral dilemma of the situation really does not make any sense unless you give them that as fact imo.

So then, assuming that is true, you have to wrestle with the idea that Joel is willing to take down the entirety of humanity for Ellie. And not really for Ellie, because none of this is what Ellie wanted. The game AND the show QUITE LITERALLY SPELL OUT for us that Ellie really really really does not want to go back to Jackson without finishing what they started, regardless of the cost. Joel's reasons for saving Ellie, while understandable, are ultimately selfish and rooted in his own trauma and having just seen the light at the end of his grieving over Sarah. Again, incredibly sympathetic, but it's selfish. I know we like to joke as much, but Ellie IS NOT his daughter. They share a similar bond after everything they go through, but by the end of the game you can already feel Ellie pulling away from that notion because she's starting to realize Joel doesn't have the same commitment to the idea of her immunity being meaningful as she does, they're only a few miles away and he's already asking her to give up and go back to Jackson with him.

Then, of course, I think what ultimately damns Joel in my eyes on a poetic/storytelling level is his decision to lie to Ellie after it's all over. That's the nail in the coffin for me. It would be one thing if he said "they were going to kill you on that operating table without even telling you what was going on and I couldn't let them do that", but instead he lies to her to make sure she's still able to see him as the father he desperately wants to be again. It doesn't change anything. He tells her her worst fear has come to pass: her immunity, this unexplainable thing that has taken so many of her loved ones from her, is completely useless. Not only that, but now even more people are dead. Including Marlene, who's known her since birth. The only thing his lie changes is the fact that he's responsible for it all.

Anyway, part of what I love most about The Last of Us Part II is how it follows up on these threads and you may be pleased to know that I actually just started streaming the game last night after the HBO finale premiered cause I was so pumped up I couldn't wait any longer haha. So you'll be seeing VODs for that soon :)

[hurgablurg]

So, Undertale.

The funny thing to me about Undertale is that anything the game, and it's fangames, try to tell the player about peace and choosing non-violence falls completely and pathetically flat for at least one big reason: no one who isn't a main character takes that lesson for themselves.

Sure, Undyne chills out, you can guilt Toriel down, you can therapize the Amalgamates, you can even redeem Asriel, but what about the random encounters and side bosses...?

When does Washua stop trying to drown a child? When does Froggit stop pouncing? Why does Snowdrake, a literal child, think it's a cool idea to murder someone in the woods? When does Tsundereplane finally figure out that killing her senpai doesn't work? When exactly is Muffet supposed to learn that killing and eating people for not giving her money is bad? Are any of them even meant to go through the same improvement others do?

Are they after human souls? In most cases, apparently not, because much of the Underground doesn't even recognize Frisk as human in the first place. Even Undyne apparently needs to be told what the human is wearing to find them, as if she wouldn't be able to recognize a human right away.

Are they trying to "communicate through magic" but are inadvertently doing harm because magic is like that? No, that was a fan theory people came up with to explain why they attacked first. If monster magic really did work like that, then Frisk would have to avoid projectiles in every. Single. Conversation. You can buy items without dodging the SOUL around heaps of merchandise. You can talk to the Snowdin bear without having to duck around the presents he's setting under the tree. You can hang out with Papyrus without having to dodge his bones during the entire date.

The only explanation we are left with is that some people in the Underground just really love murder, and will happily attack anything that crosses their line of sight.

Hell, even the cripplingly depressed Shyren will STILL make a token effort to kill Frisk. Like, whats her deal?

Why do we want to befriend people like that? Especially if they keep trying it after being spared? It'd be understandable if each encounter only showed up ONCE and then was befriended from then on, but no, every time until post-game True Pacifist they will keep coming back to try to kill Frisk.

Where are all the moralizing friendship speeches about their actions?

Random civilians are free to attack children with impunity, but those same children acting in self-defence or fighting back is abominable, enough to make humanity in it's entirety worthy of genocide.

And genocide is the Underground's goal, in case everyone forgot. The whole purpose of Asgore absorbing the human souls and "becoming god" (that's literally how it's described in the game) is to take revenge on humanity. Asgore may not be willing to go through with it because he's a depressed weeny, but everyone else is pretty hyped for the destruction of humanity once the doors are open.

And for what, exactly? The Underground is perfectly livable. All that's missing is the sun, but unless a lack of vitamin D is what's turning everyone into slavering psychopaths, I don't see the problem. They can probably even just make their own artificial sun with the technology they have. Everyone's just hyped up on propaganda about how cool the surface is.

Is their bereavement worth the explicit extinction of the human race? Is it worth the inevitable monster casualties that will come from humans fighting back? I don't think so, to be quite honest.

I think the hypocrisy of this running thread is best displayed in the Yellow fangame, by Martlet during the game's Genocide route:

"We only took five, but you've taken dozens".

Sure, that's factually true, but it's also a fact that you intend to take the rest of humanity whether they fight back or not. It's not equivalent if the plan was always to do worse damage. It's hypocrisy.

The player (and by extension Frisk) has to put in extreme amounts of work into building relationships with people who will gladly turn physically violent at the drop of a hat, who are literally planning a genocide, constantly defying logic and self-preservation just to get a couple shots in on Some Guy.

Hell, I don't think Frisk as a person even comes into it in the first place. They are just a shell for us, the players, to experience the story.

And why? Because we saw a let's play of it? Because game reviewers said it was game of the decade? Because we want to see what it's like to play? To "befriend" these oh-so-whacky, predictable characters again and again a decade after the game's heyday?

The story, in the end, is all to fulfill a narrative who's foundation is a shaky legend about humans being mean to monsters millenia ago, some immortal, royal brats having bruised egos, and a mutated goat prince scaring a bunch of peasants into violence, told from the perspective of the Underground, with little inference as to what the surface is actually like.

For all we know, Asgore and Toriel are lying and were the conquering tyrants of a human-monster empire who were sealed underground by opposing kingdoms of the surface in the days of yore, causing them to rewrite history (and "rewrite" population demographics) to make themselves look like the victims to their entirely-captive audience. If the barrier was a cooperative measure, it would go a long way to explain why human and monster souls are both needed to break it. if the humans really DID want to kill all monsters to prevent their souls being stolen, why were the monsters allegedly allowed to surrender? The royals even have an equally-immortal "war hero" at their beck and call with a cross-game skill for writing Tolkien-esque fantasy literature, settled down "doing archaeology work" in the region where the Underground's supposed history is written. That's a coincidence, I'm sure.

All that said, and mostly by the by, I say Deltarune is the better game.

The previous, pitiless freaks are friendly neighbours. The foes in the Dark World are overlords, mercenaries, guards, animals, and madmen - people with purpose to capture or kill the Lightners, rather than random civilians who see fit to attack anything that crosses their path. It makes sense. Plus, the story is actually engaging, the mystery is more intriguing, the characters are more entertaining, Kris is an actual character with a will of their own that we are explicitly subverting, and the "evil route" is actually, undeniably evil.

Deltarune came first conceptually, if you will all remember. Undertale is the weird off-kilter AU Toby made for practice. Not the other way around. And it definitely shows.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Dead of the Night - Diluc (Part 1)

Author's Notes: This is the first part of my Halloween/October fic series for Genshin Impact! This is going to be a Vampire! AU, so heads up for the folks who don't like vampires. I wrote and edited this series exclusively to "Is this Love" by Whitesnake which did kind of influence how this series came together. Also, this a fair bit more lengthy than my usual works. As per usual, Reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Type: Gender-Neutral Reader/ Vampire! AU/ pining/ romance/ some drama/ fluff with a touch of angst

Word Count: 2578

{Part 1: You're here!}, {Part 2}, {Part 3}, {Part 4}

Also available on AO3 (link deleted due to glitches)

Trigger Warning: Reader does get attacked by a vampire, but all is well.

I frowned up at the grey clouds overhead that were currently hiding the usually glorious sunset that no doubt painted the sky the same colors as the autumn leaves that clung to trees in a show of their final glory before they fell under the pressure of the strong October winds.

But I wasn’t frowning because I couldn’t see the sunset. No, I was frowning because the forecast called for it to be overcast for the entirety of October, which meant one thing. 

And that one thing was the very subject that I could already hear being discussed loudly at Angel’s Share as I approached the tavern to meet up with my friends. 

“It’s bad enough that it’s October, but it's supposed to be overcast for the entire month now! How are we going to survive the annual influx of vampires when the bold ones will even be out during the day?!”

I sighed at the overly loud shouts from the other people at the tavern, but it came as no surprise. The normally laid-back people of Mondstadt had gotten into the habit of becoming uncharacteristically tense in October, when I’d still been young.

It was back then that they’d come with the Fatui, the vampires. A plague from the cold lands of Snezhnaya, where they thrived in the terminally overcast conditions. They had followed the Fatui, probably laying hidden within their ranks, and come to Mondstadt in my youth. And ever since then, there had been vampires in the land of freedom.

They usually remained quiet, with few attacks ever being heard of. But for unknown reasons, they always seemed to become agitated around the time of Halloween, with October being noted as a month full of attacks. 

Usually everyone got their work done during daylight hours and stayed indoors with every conceivable entrance locked as soon as dusk came. But this year it would be overcast throughout October, and, just as the man had loudly explained, some vampires would inevitably take advantage of the lack of sunlight.

“Loud crowd tonight, hm?” I lifted my shoulder in a half-shrug at Kaeya’s words. It was nice to see that even now Kaeya was managing to be as relaxed as ever, despite the gossip flying around about vampires.

“I can’t really blame them, but I’m sure it’s rowdy with the Knights of Favonius too,” I smiled sympathetically at the calvary captain as I sat down next to him. Watching as he swirled the liquid in his mug.

“When is it not? Jean is taking precautions, though,” Kaeya leaned back in his seat, giving me a look that told me everything I needed to know. Just like always, poor Jean was probably overworking herself and doing her very best to soothe a public who would not be soothed.

“I just hope this doesn’t get in the way of the festivals,” Venti frowned poutily at his wine bottle, earning a grin from both me and Kaeya as we both looked towards the sulky bard. But Venti did love festivals. It was a good time for him to perform for joyful festivalgoers and also get wine for cheap.

“What’ll it be, Y/n?” I blinked in surprise at the voice that sounded from behind me, causing me to twist in my seat to look wide-eyed up at the redhead that I definitely had not been expecting to see but who was currently looking down at me as calmly as ever.

Even though he owned the establishment, it was odd to see Diluc at Angel’s Share. He was usually busy dealing with his massive wine business. Either from abroad, dealing with local merchants, or at the Dawn Winery, one.

“I’ll…. Just some Sweet Cider Lake... Thanks,” I faltered under his expectant gaze, but if he noticed, he didn’t react. Instead, he just nodded and headed off towards the counter to prepare my drink.

But unlike his lack of noticing my faltering, I twisted to find my two friends wearing matching grins as they watched me.

I scowled slightly at the two men, only for Venti to let out a mischievous giggle as Kaeya chuckled and held up his hands as if he were surrendering, “Alright, sorry. I should’ve warned you he was here today.”

I crossed my arms, watching Kaeya closely as he smiled far too smugly down at the warmed wine that he continued to swirl in his mug even as I began to question him, “And is that why you wanted to meet up here today?”

The man’s single visible eye widened at my words, and he pressed one hand to his chest, “What? Of course not! I simply wanted my good friends to partake of these delicious seasonal drinks, that’s all.”

His honeyed tone was impressive, but I was hardly convinced. 

I didn’t get to say anything, though, since Venti spoke up before I could. Leaning forward with a grin as he eyed Kaeya, “Oho, So you’re going to be buying our drinks then?”

I twisted to look towards Kaeya, so that me and Venti were both looking at the cavalry captain expectantly as he raised his hand in laughing surrender, “Just one round.”

“You’ll all need to be headed home at that point anyway… It’ll be getting late,” Diluc’s voice came from behind me, and it caused me to still once more as he sat down my mug.

His bright red eyes flickered my way from where he’d leaned over to set down my drink, meeting my gaze as he gave the slightest of head nods, “Enjoy.”

It was odd. Speaking to him this way. Ever since that day all those years ago, he’d become more withdrawn. 

Just like everyone else in Mondstadt who’d been close to him as a child, I’d awaited his return from his journeys. Praying that, with time, he’d recover from the wounds of his past. But when he’d finally come back, he was still changed, and I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any less considering what he’d experienced.

By now, I was used to it, so in no way was his distantly polite behavior strange to me. But, nonetheless, it was still odd when I talked to him considering that, unlike our other friends, the two of us had never managed to reconnect since our youth.

It was a distant sensation, speaking to someone I’d once been so close to but now seldom saw. Almost like I was looking at him from a long way off, even though he was right next to me.

And I didn’t even know which one of us maintained the distance. Only that it remained between us.

I nodded though, my voice coming out unintentionally soft as I responded with a quiet, “Thank you.”

It was this strangeness, I was certain, that had caused so many to believe that I was smitten with Diluc. And though it was true that I did like Diluc, it was also true that, for the most part, the strange taint to our interactions was what made the atmosphere so awkward.

If anyone realized that, it was Kaeya. Because even though he teased me, he would sometimes go out of his way to have the two of us meet up. Almost like he was trying to ease that strange tension.

Even now, he watched the two of us closely. His brother as he walked away from the table with his usual calmness, and me as I looked away from my old friend and down at my drink. 

The sweet mixture of fruit juice and milk I recalled getting when I was young and always begging Crepus for a decorative cinnamon stick just like the one that currently swirled in my mug lazily.

It seemed that even despite this distance, Diluc still remembered things from our shared childhood. Even the little things.

Conversation flowed freely between me, Venti, and Kaeya. With the cavalry captain keeping his promise and buying each of us another round of drinks before we began to trickle out the door with fond farewells on our lips. 

I lingered the longest, my brain having been preoccupied ever since I’d begun pondering what it was that had changed all those years ago in my interactions with Diluc. 

Was the reason our relationship had not progressed since then my fault? It was possible, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t made an effort. In fact, I’d been one of the first ones to go and welcome him back home when he’d first returned.

I couldn’t blame him either, though. He hadn’t been cold or tried to drive me off in any way. Rather, it was like we drifted apart in the most natural of ways. But it still left a sadness in my heart when I thought about what, exactly, had become of our friendship.

I stood, turning to head towards the door, only to be stopped by a cautious hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Diluc looking at me, his other hand resting on the table that he’d no doubt just come to clean before closing the tavern for the night.

“Be careful going home. Night has already fallen.” Unlike his usual words, these seemed to be tinged with unsteady awkwardness. Almost like he, too, was at long last feeling that same tension that I’d felt all this time.

But I was relieved nonetheless, and I smiled at him, “I will be. But you ought to be careful as well. After all, you’ll be leaving even later than I will.”

A smile flitted across Diluc’s face, so fast that if I’d blinked, I would have missed it before he shook his head, “No, I’ll be fine. Thank you, though. Take care Y/n.”

I left Angel’s Share with a smile still on my face and a brief wave towards the young man, who was once a close friend and now wasn’t quite a stranger. I knew him too well for that to ever be the case.

 Even if the Diluc I’d gotten to know had been the young one, some of the same things still held true for the man that had been true for the boy. And, strangely, it was a comfort to know that. 

I glanced up at the sky as I strolled down the street, noting how the clouds had cleared so that the starry sky was perfectly visible. I smiled to myself at the common sight.

 Perhaps all of October wouldn’t be cloudy, and it would be just as normal as could be, with one only having to be careful of vampires at night.

No sooner than those thoughts had registered, than the sound of something on the rooftops just next to me had me freezing in the darkened street. 

I frowned almost immediately as the sounds stopped at the very same moment my footsteps had halted. But those sounds had been too heavy to be one of the cats from the Cat’s Tail.

With a creeping feeling of dread as all of those comments about vampires came back to haunt me, I turned and looked up.

I swallowed thickly as I gazed up at the ominous silhouette that I was almost positive did not belong to the rumored Darknight Hero. And when the man leapt down, landing easily on the stone pathway in front of me, I didn't wait to find out. Instead, I turned and ran. Bolting down the pathway only to hear the sound of heavy footfalls that signaled that I was indeed being chased.

Internally, I cursed myself for having become so lost in my thoughts earlier that I let the hour get so late. If I hadn’t been so busy thinking about the past and how it had led to the present, I wouldn’t have been in this situation. I would be at home, safe and sound. Free to mope over Diluc in safety.

But thinking about it wouldn’t change anything now, and it certainly wouldn’t help me get away from the creature chasing me.

My hand grasped a light pole as I practically threw myself around a corner and used the pole to help myself keep up my momentum.

The only reason I hadn’t been caught yet was the adrenaline I could feel pumping through my veins, but it would only last so long, and the moment it ran out, I’d be caught. 

After all, it was common knowledge that vampires could go at incredible speeds, and, judging from the lack of heavy breathing to accompany the racing footsteps behind me, my pursuer wasn’t entirely mortal. Or at the very least, if they were, they had incredible stamina.

I slipped on the cobblestones but kept going, my feet digging at the smooth pathway that usually made for nice strolling. But it wasn’t enough. 

Arms snatched at me, forcing me to the ground as I fought back. Kicking out and rolling all at once. As if looking up at my assailant could help.

And, sure enough, the fanged face that greeted me confirmed my fears. Despite the warnings I’d heard for the better part of my life, I’d gotten myself caught by a vampire. 

There were no questions as to what was going to happen next, even as I struggled in its inhumanly strong grasp. Doing everything I could to break free, even though every logical part of me knew my chances were slim at best.

For unknown reasons, I didn’t scream. But tears stung at my eyes as it bared its teeth at me, a hissing sound emitting from its mouth before it made a mad dive for my neck.

I jerked my chin down and over my neck in a feeble attempt to protect myself, even as I squeezed my eyes shut. But the painful sensation of its bite never came.

Instead, the vampire was ripped off of me with a howl of rage that had my eyes flying back open almost immediately, only to see the creature get flung across the street.

I scrambled backwards, looking up with wide eyes, to see the incredibly familiar but unexpected sight of flaming red hair that clearly gave away my savior’s identity.

A curse fell from the vampire’s lips, causing me to flinch slightly as my gaze darted back where it crawled out of the now-cracked fountain with a snarl, “You have no claim on them. Find your own food.”

Food…? What?

My eyes darted back towards where Diluc stood, calmly fixing his glove as he stayed between me and the vampire, “As if you have some sort of claim to them. It’s high time you crawled back into whatever hole you came from.”

His voice was beyond cold. Far icier than I’d ever heard him sound before, but then I’d never seen Diluc like this either.

The vampire gave a wheezy snort of laugh as it shook itself off, patting at its sleeves in an almost mocking way, “As if a child like you could make me. You aren’t even a clan leader, just a pathetic loner who's in denial.”

It stepped back with one foot, rolling its shoulders in a way that could only be described as predatory, and had me grimacing as I pressed myself back further still, even as I kept staring at the scene before me. Somehow unable to look away despite desperately wanting to escape this moment.

“I suppose some before-meal exercise is in order, though,” Its voice was haughty as it spoke, a glint to its eyes right before it dove forward. Arms outstretched and fangs bared as it launched at Diluc, who, at odds with the creature, stood firm.

In fact, he seemed utterly calm as he reached and grabbed the hilt of the claymore that appeared out of thin air the very moment he needed it. 

“Very well,” His voice was calm but held an undertone of irritation as his hand curled firmly around his weapon's hilt. But then, as he swung his weapon, I could see that his face set with a special sort of rage as the weapon sliced through the creature and flames ignited along its blade right as he bellowed, “BURN!”

And in the light of those flames, I saw something so incredibly simple that made my blood run cold. Because as I looked at his enraged profile while he shouted that condemning word and the vampire caught fire and incinerated at unnatural speeds, I stared at a sight that horrified me far more.

The two sharp fangs, that perfectly explained what the vampire had meant when it had mentioned food earlier.

*Sweet Cider Lake is a drink from the Drink a-dreaming event. It was made with juice and milk.

@vera-deville

[andreal831]

I don’t absolutely despise klaroline, although I definitely do not like them either, but one of the most stupid things in the entirety of the originals is Klaus flirting with Caroline while Hayley and hope is abducted. Would you consider this to be a writing mistake or just Klaus being Klaus? I’ve always wondered if he focused more on finding them if he’d of been able to save Hayley in time.

I've made an entire tik tok about this because I despised this episode since the first time I saw it. I laid out all of the dumb decisions Klaus made in the episode in the tik tok as well as a lengthy caption. You can see that here.

Klaus in Season 5 is terribly written. He may not be my favorite character and I don't like klaroline but everything about him and them in Season 5 was wrong.

Starting with Rebekah calling Caroline to go find Klaus. That made no sense. Why wouldn't Freya or Marcel go find him. They are his family. Marcel has known him for 200 years. It's not like Rebekah thought he wouldn't harm her, he had nearly killed Caroline multiple times. Marcel was upgraded, he would have been the best choice to go and talk some sense into Klaus. Or Freya who could have gone and yelled at him for abandoning Hope.

Just the fact that Klaus was ignoring Hope for five years made no sense to me. I get he was terrified that she would hate him after what she saw, but the end of Season 3 and through Season 4, we began to see a version of Klaus that was actually putting Hope's needs first. This abandonment was a complete regression back to his Season 2 narcissism. Also, Hope not continuing to astral project to find him made no sense. She is a powerful witch, if Caroline could track him down, so could Hope.

Now onto the day of the event.

My biggest gripe is that they are literally driving everywhere. Klaus is the fastest being, why is he taking an SUV that can go max 180 mph? Why did they stop at a rest stop to get coffee? Exhaustion doesn't affect them that way. They are literally flirting and joking around as Hope and Hayley are missing. Sure at this point they may not have realized how serious it was, but Klaus would never have allowed himself to be distracted like that. It was bad writing purely for ratings.

Klaus would rip apart the world to save both Hayley and Hope. Showing him doing anything less is a disservice to his character.

Good writing, writing that is true to Klaus' character would have shown him turning into a wolf to track Hope down. Ansel tells Klaus in Season 2 that he was drawn to Klaus as a child and even to Hope because wolves are drawn to their family. It would have been so satisfying to finally watch Klaus at one with his wolf side in order to find Hope.

It also was so out of character to see Klaus walking slowly to the house. Hayley was actively having her wolf side suppressed and fighting Greta. Klaus would have heard this from miles away and sped as fast as possible to the house. Instead we see him walking at a slow human speed. Caroline is also easily snuck up on by Elijah and Klaus doesn't immediately snap his neck? True-to-character Klaus would have ripped out Elijah's heart to save Hope and Hayley. After all, Elijah would have been fine.

Very little of Season 5 was not just poor writing. There were scenes and plot points that directly contradict established canon. The reason the writing was so bad is because the writers were killing Hayley, Elijah, and Klaus off no matter what. Hayley's death was 1000% preventable. Hayley was a hybrid and a member of the strongest family but was somehow killed by a 100 year old vamp? Say what you will about Klaus, but Klaus definitely would have saved her no matter what. She never should have died but Julie wanted Legacies to have an orphaned Hope and didn't care to make the writing good.

Shameless plug: If you want to read how I would rewrite Season 5 to make more sense, check out my story, Don't It Just Break Your Heart, on AO3 and Wattpad.

[starheirxero]

PLEASE, I JUST CAUGHT UP WITH THE LORE ON MGAFS-

WHY IS PUPPET SO FASICANTING- HER ENTIRE CHARACTER IS ONE GIANT RABBITHOLE, AND I AM CURRENTLY SLIDING DOWN LIKE A KID ON A PLAYGROUND/POS-

I NEED TO DISSECT HER UNDER A MICROSCOPE-

SHE IS SO SHTDHJRF-

WHERE DO I EVEN START-

Puppet, in their entirety, is a MYSTERY-

They are this otherworldly, all-seeing being. Not quite like Frank and the astrals, yet similar in the strangest ways, with the ability to erase people's entire existence, the ability to tear them apart atom by atom.

Yet, in the same breath, they are so painfully human.

They USED to be one. She used to be a little girl, whose childhood and humanity was robbed.

And still, they aren't quite the same as Dazzle, or Andrew and Jake.

They are not a ghost possessing a suit. This is their physical being.

Furthermore, they age.

Dazzle is the same she used to be. Jake and Andrew, at the end of the day, are still kids.

In Laes, Gregory mentioned his ghost friends, and the fact, that he'll outgrow them.

They are all stuck in time.

Yet Puppet isn't.

They are not only a adult, but an old one at that. One, that continues to age. They are the oldest in the cast.

They used to be a lover. They are a mother. They are protective and fierce, just like one as well.

She's different, in every way possible.

Furthermore, she's not a normal animatronic either, so much is sure. Yet, she's not human. She's not an astral either, nor is she anything like Frank.

Not to forget, that her entire past is a mystery, one that she has been running from for decades, it seems.

And now it's catching up. It's clawing at her, forcing them to face it.

There's another them now. One that seems…dangerous. This one is erratic, yet calculating. Cold, yet there's humor in their voice. Almost hateful, yet casual.

And they hold even more power than Puppet. And it wants Charlie.

Charlie, who wandered into the woods to chase fairies.

Charlie, who seems much too curious for her own good.

I CANNOT- THIS IS EVERYTHING TO ME, ACTUALLY-

I'm so interested in Puppets EVERYTHING!!!

It's also interesting to note, that the Celestial family is currently doing well!

Sun is learning magic, coupled with goose puns left and right-

Earth is taking it easy, and even got herself a bunny!

Moon has his own lab, and seems suprisingly relaxed, despite everything involving Ruin, Molten and Dark Sun!

Lunar, though nervous, is generally making the most out of their time while waiting for Taurus!

Hell, Moon even got a house for the three brothers! :D Which is just adorable-

I feel as though this is another calm before the storm though-

I REFUSE TO TRUST THE PEACE/SILLY-

-Stardust

RIGHTTTTT?>?!?!!?!??!!

YOU SUMMARIZED MY THOUGHTS ON PUPPET EXACTLY FOR REALZIES !!! We've known the sort of... rough frame of Puppet for so long, and now we're finally getting more direct drops at who and what Puppet used to be and I am HOOOKEDDDDD 🙏🙏🙏

AND YESYESYES HER WHOLE THING WITH STILL BEING CHARLIE ENRAPTURES ME. I also totally didn't know that other ghosts on tsbs have been confirmed to not age?!?!!???? THAT JUST MAKES HER AN EVEN MORE FASCINATINGLY EXCLUSIVE CASE..... And on top of that, just yesterday Puppet had been asking Eclipse how to help with FC being haunted by Andrew, to which Eclipse asked "wouldn't you know more about that?", and she just sort of trailed off going "probably. not really." LIKE ?????

AND THE OTHER PUPPET I CAN'T EVENNNNMI CAN'T EVENWHAJABAKSBSJD IT'S AO FUCJING EXCITINGGGGGG YALLS AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS

Honestly that whole episode just did a fantastic job at dread. We don't even have a full picture on what happened to Puppet's dimension other than it died a long time ago, so we get to experience the horror of watching it start to pick itself back up again alongside Puppet who is horrified for similar and different reasons at the same time!!!!!

IT'S ALL JUST. SO. FASCINATING!!!!!!!!!!!

AND YESYES tsams n tlaes have been pretty mellow as of late too!! It's been leaning more on the sweeter side with bonding time and domestic sillies and prioritizing each other instead of anyone getting totally lost in work. but yea no like u said, it ABSOLUTELY feels like the quiet is going to get sucker punched with 1 million horrors attack HAKABSKAHS