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inkblackorchid · 5 months

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Drumroll please.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Case in point.)

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

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

So.

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

(Friendship is, in fact, magic.)

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

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

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

(She has a point.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Sigh*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Oh, y i k e s.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Deep breath*

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

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

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capricornlevi · 2 years

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SHAWTY I HEARD AKI HAYAKAWA AND CAME RUNNING-...Aki as a dad mayhaps? tysm!

aki as a dad!!!!!!!!! yes!!!!!!!!! (wc ~1.5k)

Aki has always been the responsible one.

Ever since he joined the Public Safety Division - even before then, truth be told, since he’s always had an air of seriousness about him, even as a child - he’s been deemed reliable by everyone he encounters.

Trustworthy. The backbone of the force, someone you can depend on. He’s prepared for almost every eventuality, and carries out his work with diligence and stoic dignity.

It’s a point of pride for him. He gets attached too easily, he’s well aware of that, but the fact that other people consider him to be responsible … gives him some small amount of reassurance. Almost as if he’s exuding a little bit of comfort just by being around. It feels nice.

But now, for the first time in his twenty-something years, he feels completely and utterly irresponsible.

Clueless, some could say.

Panicked, too.

Out of his depth.

As he stares down into the bassinet, gazing helplessly at the tiny baby who’s been wailing non-stop for fifteen minutes now, he feels lost.

How can someone so tiny cry for such a long time?

He knew babies were loud in spite of their size - he learned as much from the many parenting books that he read during your pregnancy - but he hadn’t prepared for just how much stamina they have when it comes to screaming. This kid will just not let up. How strong are his lungs?

Aki has tried every trick in the book to get your son to stop crying. The baby has been fed, changed, burped, rocked gently back and forth in the bassinet, has had his temperature checked for a fever at least three times …

Nothing has worked. Not even for a moment. The longest pause was about five seconds long, and it was just so he could catch his breath. The crying resumed immediately afterwards.

Taking a step back to reassess the situation, fixing his posture and rolling his shoulder to try and ease the stress-induced ache, Aki can’t help but notice that he feels a peculiar mix of distress, panic, and shame.

Distress, because the sound of his son crying upsets him greatly. He doesn’t like to think of his baby in a state of discomfort, even though the cause is still completely unknown to him.

Panic, because the cries are only getting louder, and he’s scared that his efforts are only making things worse.

And shame, because he had assured you that he could absolutely handle this by himself.

You had only needed to step outside for an hour or so to go to a dentist appointment, but still tried to bring the baby with you - you spent most of the morning trying to gather your son’s things in preparation for the trip. Outings with a six-week-old are more exhausting than either of you had anticipated, and sometimes you feel as though you should bring suitcases with you, not just a pram.

“No need to go to all the trouble of packing his stuff,” Aki had pointed out, watching you scramble around the apartment to find a clean pair of mittens. As always, his voice was calm and confident. “Since it’s just for an hour - it’s too much effort. I’ll stay here and watch him.”

You paused, a single mitten in one hand and an empty baby bottle in the other.

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. It’ll save you the trouble, plus it’s freezing outside.”

“Certain?” you ask again, trying to keep any concern from leaching into your voice. “Because it’s not that I don’t think you can handle him solo … it’s just neither of us have had to watch him alone before. I haven’t had to do it either, since you’ve always been there to help.”

Aki nods. He’s responsible - he has read all the books, and at this point, he’s spent weeks with his son, learning all about his behaviour and micro-expressions and what babies need to feel safe and comforted. Aki’s as prepared for this task as he is for any other. He’s responsible.

“How different can it be?”

As it turns out, very.

Now, Aki reaches a hand out to give the bassinet another gentle rock - futile, since the last five attempts hadn’t worked, but he tries anyway.

His brows pull together, concern weighing heavily on him. He hasn’t admitted this to anyone - least of all to himself - but deep down, this was always a worry of his.

Because he knows that on some level, the reason why he always acts as the responsible one is that he has to be in order to keep going. He’s spent most of his life feeling the crushing survivor’s guilt from losing his family. That feeling has informed every decision, every choice he’s made in the field, even the way he interacts with the people in his life.

Aki is responsible because he needs to protect. He knows he cannot shoulder the burden of losing another person close to him. He can’t afford to be any less than perfect.

When you first told him that you were pregnant, he had felt surprised, happy, hopeful - the pregnancy wasn’t planned, but his heart still warmed when he saw the barely-contained delight written all over your face.

However, he couldn’t ignore the spark of deep and profound insecurity that ignited in his chest. As the months passed and your due date grew closer, the thoughts started to nag at him.

You’re gonna fuck this up, Aki.

You can’t be a father. You can barely take care of yourself.

How are you ever going to keep this child safe?

He worked for months to overcome those feelings; for all of your sake, not just his own. For the most part, it worked - the first few weeks of your son’s life had been exhausting but rewarding, filled with moments of happiness that helped drown out his worried thoughts.

And recently, Aki had started to think that, yeah, maybe he could do this, maybe you could both do this together, since you make such a good team …

But that confidence seems to evaporate now that he’s by himself.

When he hears the front door push open a few minutes later, Aki’s heart sinks. You’re back home early and you’re about to see his utter failure.

He couldn’t even look after the kid for an hour … how is he going to handle the rest of his life?

“Everything okay?” you ask softly, approaching the two of them once you’ve set your bag and keys down on the counter. You could hear the sounds of crying from down the hall; the sound is never easy to hear, but it’s made all the more difficult when you see the expression on Aki’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“He won’t stop crying,” Aki admits, each syllable laced with shame. “The whole time you were gone. I don’t have a clue what to do, I tried everything.”

“It’s probably nothing,” you answer, and you mean it, too. You’re protective, of course, but you approach these situations a bit more practically than Aki does - as long as the baby is safe, fed, and taken care of, then it’s probably nothing to worry about. “Have you tried talking to him?”

He looks up at you, baffled.

“I - talking?”

You smile, warm as you can. “Talking. Letting him hear your voice, you know? Obviously he won’t know what you’re saying, but it’s worth a shot.”

And well … even though he’s still confused, Aki feels he may as well give it a shot. He’s tried everything else to no avail, and so even though having a conversation with a newborn seems ridiculous, he’s willing to try anything at this stage. He looks back down at his son, trying not to feel discouraged by the sounds of high-pitched crying, and starts to talk.

“Ah … h-hi, there,” he begins, sounding just a little awkward and stilted. It’s strangely endearing. Aki glances at you out of the corner of his eye, and you nod, prompting him to keep going. “You’re … okay. You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay.”

He rocks the bassinet along with the rhythm of his words, his tone now more soft and soothing as he reassures the baby.

“You’re okay. It’s all okay, don’t worry. It’s all fine. I’m here.”

The volume of the cries starts to lower - the baby is still stirring, but is no longer wailing at the top of his tiny lungs. There are even a few moments of complete silence.

Encouraged, Aki keeps going.

“That helps, huh?” he whispers, leaning down a little closer - he knows that babies can’t see too far away, and wants to let his son know that he’s there. The little face that peers back up at him is an almost exact mix of the two of you both, and Aki’s eyes soften even further. “Did you just want to have a little talk? A little talk with your dad?”

At that, the baby lets out a little delighted-sounding gurgle.

You laugh, reaching to take Aki’s free hand in your own.

“See?” you point out when your son’s eyes start to droop shut, ready to sleep, his cries having ceased completely at this point. “He just likes knowing you’re here.”

Aki likes knowing that, too. He knows that he’s going to be here whenever he’s needed, for both of you.

#aki x reader #aki hayakawa x reader #soft aki hours!#lets go!#thank u for the ask!!

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fairy-writes · 1 year

Text

“I WILL DO ANYTHING TO PROTECT YOU.”

Reblogs and Comments are greatly appreciated!!

__________________________________________________________________________

Request: @delvalentine

Fandom(s): Chainsaw Man

Pairing(s): Hayakawa Aki x Gender Neutral!Reader

Prompt: “You don’t understand. I will do anything to protect you.” (Dialogue #19)

Notes: This is a pretty heavy AU where stuff in the manga doesn’t necessarily happen to Aki.

Also, I’m pretty sure the Darkness Devil already exists, but we’re rolling with my version of it.

Also, also, not my best work, but we’re posting it anyway.

This is for my 900 followers event! Check my pinned post for more info if you want to join! It’s going on between May 1st and May 15th!

__________________________________________________________________________

Aki was blind.

Not literally.

Well… sort of.

He couldn’t see anything, but any doctor he went to said his eyes should be functioning fine.

And it was all because of the damned devil.

It should have been an easy mission. It was a low-level devil in an abandoned warehouse. He was confident he could be home by dark.

But everything went wrong the moment he stepped into the warehouse. The second his foot crossed the threshold, his vision went dark.

Was this the darkness devil?

Hadn’t the initial report said it was the canine devil?

At that moment, something sharp dug into his left thigh, and he was dragged to the ground. So there was a canine devil.

The air was rancid with the scent of a wet dog and so thick on his tongue with blood that he could have cut it with his sword. The teeth ripped and tore at the meat of his leg and started dragging him in some unknown direction. He fumbled for the gun in his belt and pointed it forward.

The bang was deafening, and his ears rang for minutes after that. But there was a whining noise on the edge of his hearing that proved he had hit his mark. He wasn’t one to usually use a gun, but you had pushed him to bring it anyway.

Guess your intuition saved his life.

Speaking of you.

He heard your cry of anger, and then the scream of the darkness devil as you most likely shoved your katana into its body. The darkness devil was killed by you and the other devil hunters present with him. The wail of an ambulance was the first thing he heard when his hearing fully returned.

But his sight still hadn’t returned.

Odd.

The doctors put him under for emergency surgery the moment he got to the hospital. When he awoke, his vision was still gone, but he felt something soft and warm in his hand.

He recognized this hold. He recognized the lavender shampoo.

It was you.

He said your name, first it was quiet. But when you didn’t respond, he said it louder and pressed lightly where he thought your head was. Your hair ruffled softly beneath his fingers, and you jumped. There was a yawn and then a noise of surprise.

“Aki!” You whispered, and he felt your soft hands cradling his cheeks. Your hands were calloused from all the hard training and work you put yourself through.

But it was as soft as feathers to him.

“Are you okay?” He asked and heard your quiet laughter. It was as clear as bells and music to his ears. He loved your laugh.

“Worry about yourself for once, love. You got pretty banged up.” You said tenderly, and he shook his head, fumbling for the remote to raise his bed so he was sitting.

“I’m fine. I just—” You cut him off.

“You aren’t fine! Twenty-seven stitches! They aren’t sure if you’ll walk without a limp or cane!” You exclaimed suddenly, and Aki quieted.

You were upset, and that fact alone made his heart twist in his chest.

He just wished he could see your face.

“But are you okay?” He tried once again. He had to make sure you weren’t hurt. Had to make sure he at least tried to protect you.

“‘m fine. Just a sprained arm and a couple of superficial scratches.” You said, and Aki tilted his head as if looking at his lap.

Except he still couldn’t see anything.

Aki had failed.

When you first started dating, he promised your family that he would protect you. He told you as much and felt your hand slip into his.

“Aki, I’m fine. I promise. It’s nothing a few days of rest won't fix.” You reply, and he bites the inside of his cheek.

“But you don’t understand. I will do anything to protect you. I’m supposed to protect you!” He says.

Why aren’t you berating him? He had failed in his goal. He had—

Your lips on his cheek stall his brain, and his thoughts quiet.

“Aki, I love you, but sometimes you are really dense.” You tease, and he blinks.

What?

“A relationship takes two people putting their all into it. So you protect me, and I protect you. It’s a mutual decision because I love you, and I sure hope you love me.” You say and admittedly, he panicked.

“Of course I love you!” He exclaimed, and you laughed.

“I know, love. I know.” You say and press your lips to his. He accepts the affection greedily. He wasn’t worthy of your love, but he couldn’t help but soak it up whenever you showered him with it.

“We’ll find a way to get your eyesight back. I swear it.” You whisper against him and he smiles.

You loved him, and that’s all he could ask for.

#chainsaw man #csm #aki hayakawa #hayakawa aki #chainsaw man aki #csm aki #aki hayakawa x reader #hayakawa aki x reader #aki x reader #csm aki x reader #chainsaw man x reader #fairy writes #fairy writes 900 followers #fairy 900 followers

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peachsayshi · 1 year

Note

Hiiii peachy can pls recommend me some good fics u have read ? What type of works do u like to read? For me I love some delicious angst I’d love to recommend u some but if I remember correctly u mentioned that u don’t like them so :(

Hi, sweet anon! yes, yes! the thing is, I'm just particular about angst, and I don't mind reading it but I don't like it when it's hurt/no comfort. my sad girl brain can't take too much of it lol but here are some other recs which I loved which is more my kind of angst level

"too much" by @lunargrapejuice - this piece is so, so good and I actually teared up reading it. I love some good hurt/comfort with nanami and I feel like the writing and characterization was spot on!

"under the burning sun...feelings become visible" by @suget - I loved reading this piece as well, and I am always in awe with how venecia writes geto. a really good balance of fluff and angst to me.

this drabble by @sxttoruu had me in a million little pieces. I just wanted to cuddle gojo and tell him I love him.

this piece by @dearestgojo made me feel like I was actually going through a heartbreak and hurt my feelings unnecessarily sldkfjsldk

using the safeword with toji by @vilsoo is another hurt/comfort piece that I absolutely loved. my heart was so tight reading it and the sweet ending made it all better.

please check out @half-baked-biscuit writing - especially her satosugu stuff for jjk content but she also wrote this amazing piece with aki x himeno (csm) that was so good!

please note that this is just a very small list, and there other amazing talented writers whose works I also loved dearly! if you're interested in what I read, you can find it on my sideblog at @peachinthelibrary or check out my "reading pile📙" tag on my blog <3 xo

#> secret mail 💌

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minevn · 9 months

Text

Merry Christmas~ Love, Mine

TW: Yani's entire character honestly, Health hazards due to beauty standards, Hoshi says some outta pocket stuff to Jun about starving. Let me know if I've missed anything

You had made a mistake honestly. You should've known that this was going to be chaotic, a mess, and maybe even damper your own Christmas.

You wanted to hang out with everyone though. Was it really too much to ask for? Just a calm, relaxing, fun Christmas with your friends. No! At least you didn't think so. The world had other plans for you though.

About a week ago you went into work, it was the same as usual. While you were taking care of customers orders you couldn't help but think about Christmas and how close it was. Every year Haruto, Aki, Kage, Jun, and you all throw a little Christmas party, a nice gathering to hang out with friends, and family on their end. It's always been fun, even if it gets a bit hectic at times. You've been a little swamped with work though, it's the holidays and people are going to treat themselves to the good ol' Kikuchi restaurant, anyways you haven't had a lot of time to set up things at your place. You'd do that later tonight.

If you weren't exhausted by the end of your shift.

Which you usually are...

"What are you spacing out for, dumbass." A gentle smack to the back of your head snaps you out of your thoughts. Of course, you recognize that voice anywhere from about a years worth of suffering this dude placed upon you. Kikuchi Hoshi. He's mellowed out some around you, you could even classify as friends! Well...that's mainly going off of how they treated you before. It still doesn't look like you two are friends from an outside perspective.

"Sorry! I was thinking about Christmas. I'm throwing the annual Christmas party this year and haven't had time to decorate at all." You explained before quickly getting back to work. You mind barely went back to the Christmas party for the rest of the shift. However, you felt Hoshi's eyes on you the entire rest of the shift.

Your shift was FINALLY over and you were getting ready to close up and head home. Yeah, you'd set up for Christmas tomorrow. "Bye you three." You waved goodbye to the Kikuchi family before turning around and walking.

"Uhm, wait! Excuse me, Y/n?" You turned around to face Mr. Kikuchi. "I heard you were throwing a Christmas party? Would you please allow Habiki and Hoshi to celebrate with you?" He put his large hands on his son's shoulders in a very fatherly way and gave you a smile. "They've always celebrated with me and I would like them to go have fun and celebrate with some friends, or friend, as you are their only friend." Your eyes widened at the request. You gave an awkward smile as you looked between the two. Their body language saying 'I don't want to go and I'd only be going cause my father made me.' but with the way their eyes kept glancing at you with expectancy, their face even faltering when you take longer then you should to respond. That tells you they wanted to go but didn't know how to ask.

"Yeah, they can come. We'd be more then happy to have them." You can't find it in your heart to deny such a request. you feel bad about making such a decision without confronting the rest of the group about it first, but that guilt doesn't last long. Seeing Mr. Kikuchi smile at me before whispering something in his sons ears, seeing Hoshi eyes light up with excitement, seeing a small smile form on Habiki's face, all of that makes you feel good about your impulsiveness. You wave and continue walking home.

When you get home you feel rejuvenated from the pleasant interaction with your boss and his sons. You have enough energy and motivation to set up for Christmas now!

...

You didn't sleep at all, but that's okay! You'll just drink 10 cups of coffee today, it'll be okay! You take a quick shower before work and head out, early, cause you need to get two for the morning. You head over to the coffee shop near your work place and ask for two coffee's. As you go to pay a hand stops you before handing the cashier their cash instead. You look up and see Kei smiling down at you.

"Kei?"

"Good morning, Y/n. You didn't sleep last night?" His eyes examine your face, mainly your dark eyebags. His brows furrowed in worry as he gently cupped your cheek. "You really should take better care of yourself, Y/n. I could take care of you if you want."

"What? I couldn't hear that last part."

"Don't worry about it, I was mainly speaking to myself." He smiled down at you before pointing to his seat. "Can you take a seat and save mine please? Rest, I'll get your drink." He let go of you and you did as asked, relaxing and saving his seat.

In no time he brought back your coffee's and sat them down in front of you, before sitting down himself. "Thank you, Kei." you smiled before taking a much needed drink of the coffee.

"Of course, anytime." He smiled at you before his smile faded. He interlocked his fingers and rested his chin on them. "Why did you stay up so late?"

"Oh! I had to set up for a Christmas party. I got some energy and motivation last night, so I decided to just do it." Kei let out a hum in response as he watched you drink more of my coffee. Good, he can watch you thoroughly enjoy his gift! Gift...Kei... "Hey, you wanna come to the party?" You smiled at him, happily enjoying his startled reaction.

"That sounds...lovely. Thank you, Y/n."

"Of course, anytime." You chuckled as you quoted him before standing up. "I gotta head to work now. Thanks for the coffee once again!" He nodded and waved bye to you, watching you head across the street and to your own work.

You walk into work and head to the staff room to put on your work cap and apron before heading about your daily work activities. 'Maybe I should invite everyone? I already bought their gifts last month. If I invite them all then I don't need to make extra trips to give them their gifts, we can just exchange them at the party.' Hours pass and work goes by as usual, except the coffee is wearing off and the customers voices are sounding more slurred to you.

"Y/n!" You almost don't hear it, you're too sleepy, but you do thankfully and turn towards your good friend, Minato.

"Good night, Minato..." You give him a sleepy smile. His brows immediately furrow in worry, not that you see it. He places a large hand on your forehead before pulling it away.

"Did you sleep well?" Minato crosses his arms as he stares down at you.

"I didn't sleep at all."

"You really need to take better care of yourself!" Getting scolded by someone as kind as Minato actually makes you feel bad for a minute but then you see a smile form on his face as he shakes his head. "Did something happen? You could always call me if you need me."

"I was decorating for a Christmas party. You can come too Minato, I'm sure everyone would be pleased to have you." You smile again, your excitement for a Christmas party with all of my friends sounding lovely. (Must've forgotten who they are😞)

"Am I really allowed?" You smile more seeing his excitement grow as well.

"I don't see why or how it would be a problem. Do you want to come? If you need time to think about it that's okay, just let me know before Christmas." He looked so excited, like he would accept in a heartbeat, but then he faltered, clearly thinking about it. It makes sense, he's probably always spent Christmas with his grandparents and he wouldn't want them to be lonely or have something happen to them while he wasn't there. "Think about it Minato and get back to me, it's okay." You place a hand on his shoulder.

"Thanks. Sorry I would love to come but my grandparents..."

"I know. It's okay, take all the time you need. If you can't make it this year that's okay. I'll find a time to drop by and give you my gift." His face flushed and he nodded shyly as a thank you.

"You need coffee?"

"10 of them" You laugh, letting him know you were clearly joking. He'd probably pass out from nervousness if he knew you were being serious. He nods and then leaves, letting you head back to work just in time as more customers roll in. You feel more energized just from having that conversation. Could still use that coffee though.

Minato comes back and hands you a large coffee. "Here you go." you take the coffee with a thank you before starting to drink. "Make sure you get sleep tonight and don't drink too much coffee. If you need help waking up in the morning I have ways that can help."

"Thanks Minato." He nods before waving bye to you and leaving. Thanks to the coffee You're more awake for the rest of your shift.

You sigh and put your apron and hat back in your locker. "What do you want?" Hoshi asks rudely while Habiki stares you down. You tense up, remembering how they used to treat you.

"Uhm what? I didn't say anything."

"What? NO! For Christmas!" Hoshi rubs his temples as he glares at you.

"Oh I don't need anything, thank you though." You'd feel bad asking for anything when you don't really know how close you two are. Still, you're surprised that they even thought about getting you anything. The first year all Hoshi gave you was a cruel prank.

"I didn't ask if you NEEDED anything, I asked what you WANTED." You tensed again. He's stubborn and absolutely would not let this go until you gave him an answer.

"I think their brain is fried. They drank three coffee's today."

"Seriously! Did you not sleep well?" Despite his earlier angry tone, he relaxed a little, his eyes and voice hold hints of worry.

"I was so excited for the Christmas party after inviting you two that I got energy to decorate, but I ended up not sleeping." You sheepishly admit, playing with your hair.

"So you're saying this is out fault?" Habiki was teasing, though you couldn't tell

"NO! I just got excited. I'm looking forward to spending Christmas with my friends." You yawned before continuing with a smile. "Its been the same four people for most of my life and now we'll have new people. I think that's nice."

"Whatever, just text me what you want when you think of it."

"Night, Y/n."

"Good night Hoshi and Habiki, see you tomorrow." You wave bye to them as they head out. Finally, the day was over. You'd head home and sleep almost instantly.

You open your front door and beeline to your bedroom. Despite feeling like the urge to just plop down on your bed and sleep would be strong, you still had stuff you need to do. You open you door and see Yani sitting on your bed and staring at you intensely before smiling at you. "Hiya Y/n!"

"Yani?! Uhm hi? What are you doing here? How'd you get in?" You ask looking around panicked. "Actually, I don't wanna know. Anyways I'm gonna grab my pajamas and get changed, brush my teeth and go to sleep so..."

"Sooooooo~" Yani looks at you expectantly and you shoot him a confused look. They pout and plop down on your bed dramatically. "You invited everyone else...invite me too please~!"

"Oh! Yani of course you can come...just don't fight with anyone. Promise me."

"I'd never fight with anyone my love~" Yani chuckles before quickly stopping, seeing your unimpressed expression. "...I promise..." It sighs before sitting up and launching itself off your bed, standing up and hugging you. "Carry on with your night, I'll be seeing you~" They press a quick kiss to your cheek before opening up the window and jumping out, waving bye to you. You blink in confusion. You've known Yani for a while and feel like you REALLY should be used to their weird, reckless behavior. Strangest human you've met most definitely. Honestly, they don't even really seem human, but that's a pretty rude thing to think.

You continue about you night as planned getting some well deserved sleep.

And then the week continues, leading all the way up to Christmas.

You may have forgotten to inform the original group of your new guests...

So here you are inside of your place with all your friends, Jun and Haruto looking at the others with caution, Kage more awkward then usual, and Minato and Aki being the only two that are getting along great.

Yeah, maybe not the best Idea to invite others impulsively. Maybe it would've been better if I had actually remembered to contact the original group and let them know. I messed up.

"Kei, it's...amazing...to see you again after all this time." Haruto says with a forced smile. At least he's being civil this time around, he didn't hide his hatred for Kei back in High School.

"The feelings are mutual." Kei sounds as uncaring as usual. It would be humorous if only it wasn't so awkward.

Jun and Kage are talking amongst themselves, which is understandable since they're the same age and had classes together. Jun probably would talk to Aki instead but she's absorbed in her conversation with Minato. Makes sense, they're the easiest people to get along with as they're both sociable and kind. Hoshi and Habiki are talking to each other since they don't really know anyone else, you're pretty sure they're also aware that others know they used to pick on you often too. Yani is...watching you with a lovesick expression.

"Y/n, can we talk? Privately." Haruto looks your way with an unreadable expression, all you can tell is that he's NOT pleased with this. I stand up nervously and follow Haruto to my bedroom. "Why are they here?? Like seriously, Kei, of ALL people! And what about those twins?? Don't they torment you? And that pink haired person, all they've done this entire time is stare at you. Are you in danger? Did these people threaten you?" Haruto's questions and judgements spilled from his mouth.

"I meant to inform you guys but ended up forgetting. I'm sorry. I was spacing out at work one day and Hoshi asked what I was spacing out for, so I told him I was spacing out thinking about the Christmas party. I guess he told Habiki and his dad about it and they wanted to come. Their dad asked for them, and they looked happy when I accepted." I smile recalling the moment, but then remembered that I had made things uncomfortable. "Minato's-"

"Minato's fine. He can come to Christmas parties if he wants I guess."

"Kei and Yani really aren't that bad." You couldn't help but think 'they're worse then bad' to yourself but refrained from saying anything. Truth be told they still had their good moments more then their bad ones, their bad was just really bad. Okay that mainly just applies to Kei. Yani is...how would one describe Yani? How did you become friends with these people again, normal people wouldn't allow them to come even remotely close to them after what they pulled.

"I just...don't trust those two, especially Kei."

"I understand. I'm sorry it won't happen again. Christmas is our time and I kinda broke the tradition didn't I?" Haruto chuckled slightly before nodding.

"Yeah. Let's go exchange presents and then celebrate Jun's birthday." Haruto walked out of you room and back into the living room with his presents, you sat next to him of course.

"Let's start exchanging gifts!" You said cheerfully, trying to ease the awkward tension. Haruto goes to slide you your gift, but Hoshi haphazardly throws his gift at you. Jun pouts.

"I should've been the first one to exchange presents. Especially with Y/n."

"Well then maybe you should've been faster." Hoshi remarks, a slight smirk on his face. Well, this can't be good. "Why should you be the first to exchange gifts anyways. Are you that special? Crazy, since I've never heard of you."

"Hoshi-"

"I usually exchange gifts first since it's also my birthday."

"Oh. Congratulations on being one year closer to death. Did you know people have a higher change of dying on their birthday then they do any other day? Maybe your time is coming faster then expected, you were so slow like an old, deteriorating person."

"I'M YOUNGER THEN YOU?!"

"I couldn't tell with how slow you were. Seriously, if your so good and special then be faster."

"Who are YOU? Seriously, it's tradition that I choose who to exchange presents with first. You can't just waltz in here like you own the place and ruin this for us."

"You ruined it yourself with how slow you are. Must have lower energy then most people because you look like you hardy eat. What? Too focused on beauty standards. Who gives a shit anyways, we all end up looking the same eventually. See you 6 feet under when we're just skeletons, tell me if you care about beauty then."

"Hoshi!"

"Excuse me? Seriously, who the fuck are you? Coming in here and insulting my sister like that! You don't know anything about her and what she's been through so keep your mouth shut." Oh great, now Aki is mad and joining in.

"I don't need to know anything about this person, I can tell just from looking at her."

"Hoshi, can you knock it off?!" You shout at Hoshi. Out of the corner of your eye you see Yani smile. "You should apologize to jun. Also take this back for now and let Jun exchange her gifts." You turn towards Aki and Jun apologetically. "I'm sorry about, Hoshi."

"Hoshi?"

"You mean the guy that's really awful towards you at work?"

"Y-yeah. Those are the horrendous twins."

"I haven't even done anything yet...?" Habiki shoots Kage a confused glance.

"I've seen the way you two treat Y/n at work. I even got some of that treatment." Despite Kage's timid personality, they shot a glare at the twins.

"They've gotten...better. Today just isn't a good example of it..." You sigh and throw your head back, looking at the ceiling and wondering why it went wrong so quickly.

"Y/N! They're fighting, does that mean I can fight too?" Yani asked with excitement.

"NO! I don't want any fighting!"

"I can do physical fighting if verbal fighting is the problem for you?"

"EVERY fighting is the problem to me!?" You're REALLY starting to regret inviting these people. "Minato, Kei, thank you two for being the best behaved."

"Once again, I haven't even done anything yet."

"I haven't actually done anything either! I just talked about it."

"Both of you just need to stop speaking. Habiki I don't like the use of the word 'yet' in your sentence."

"I think Kei's done something wrong by still being alive..."

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear you Haruto..." You shot him a glare and he looked at you confused, feigning innocence. "Gift exchange, we are behind schedule people." Jun hands you her gift first, then she hands Aki hers, then Kage's, then Haruto's. In return you all give Jun your gifts that you had gotten her. You then exchanged gifts with your self invited guests. "Alright Jun, I'll go get your cake."

"I can come with you, cutie~!" Jun stood up and started following you. You didn't notice but Yani followed you too. Of course it did, it follows you everywhere... Jun seemed to notice though and shot a glare at Yani. "Go sit down, three's a crowd."

"I agree!" Yani moved closer to Jun and pulled a pocket knife out of her sleeve. Smiling at Jun's horrified face. "Maybe you should go sit down and celebrate your birthday with your friends, Y/n will be out in a little, kay? Stop being annoying and go be patient." Jun backed away and sat down panicked as she kept glancing at Yani who kept watching her. You brought the cake out shortly placed it in front of Jun excitedly, smiling at her.

"Merry Christmas, Jun. But most importantly, happy birthday!"

"T-thank you." Jun's face flushed as she cut the cake to give a slice to everyone. In the end everything worked out. Jun had a happy birthday and you all had a Merry Christmas.

(Happy Holidays from me and the Mine cast! I hope you all had a good Christmas/ Diwali/ Kwanzaa/ Hanukkah/ Yule/ Just a good day!! :3)

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yarameijer · 6 months

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I hope your doing well

So yeah!! My question is

Does Tenma's parents know about all 5 sector, travel to past, aliens and in space

If yes. How did they came to know

What were their reactions

Also any conversation between Teams coach or any other member with them

Heyhey! Yes, I’m doing well!

It actually differs for each of my stories whether Tenma's parents know about his adventures or not, but specifically in AR, the answer would be ‘’sort of’’. Tenma has quite regular contact with them through phone calls and does tell them a bit about his adventures, but not everything.

For example, in the first season they know Fifth Sector exists and that the Holy Road is a competition to decide its next leader. They know Tenma isn't a fan of the current leader, but they don't know any of the details - they're assuming that the current Holy Emperor is making too strict rules, or not really putting the money where it should go (the soccer clubs), also because Tenma mentioned the Raimon team was in poor state when he first joined. So yes, they know there are issues because Tenma told them, but he also kept out a lot of the details because he wasn't sure they'd take him seriously.

On the other hand, they know nothing about the time traveling, simply because Tenma doesn't think they'll believe him. Tenma may have told them a few stories, but edited out the “oh yeah this happened 500 years in the past” part. Rather, he's told them he made a new friend (Fei) and that there was a problematic soccer team they dealt with, plus some details about specific things that happened during their travels. While, of course, leaving out the time relevant details.

They do know about the Grand Celesta Galaxy, for a very simple reason: the Earth Eleven players were minors, and parental permission was needed for them to be allowed to be part of the team and travel to space. This was handled by the Japanese Youth Soccer Association, most likely Gouenji himself, in hopes of convincing all the parents. That took quite some effort, not just with Tenma's parents but also those of the other members, but eventually they succeeded.

That being said, Tenma has told his parents quite a lot about his time in space and this time didn't leave out the details, also because they were very interested in what space was like. Since they already know the truth, Tenma isn't worried about them not believing him, so he's quite open about it.

As for their reactions, as mentioned before they don't know the full truth about Fifth Sector, so they were mostly just disappointed for Tenma when he told them Raimon (initially) wasn't what he expected, and supportive towards him during the Holy Road. And, of course, happy and proud when Raimon won and Tenma seemed to have found his place in the team.

Their reaction to the Grand Celesta Galaxy was a lot more dramatic. When Tenma joined Inazuma Japan they were proud, but when they found out about the alien part they were against him going, and very worried even after they did eventually give their consent. They worried the whole time he was away, but once he returned to Earth and told them about space, they were very proud of him. But also sort of unwilling to let him do dangerous stuff like this again (not that that's stopping him, he just doesn't tell them).

As for contact with Tenma's team… no, not really. They trust Aki to be his acting guardian while they're not present, so school issues mostly go through her unless it's very dramatic, and so far nothing has happened that classifies as “very dramatic”; Tenma's grades are okay, he's not a troublemaker in class, there's nothing that really needs their interference. They did meet Gouenji and Kidou when they were told about the Grand Celesta Galaxy, and are aware that Kidou was Tenma's coach at one point, but those conversations were really focused on the whole “aliens are real and we need your son to fight them” thing.

They do eventually meet some of Raimon's members, but I'm planning to write one-shots about that for the AR one-shot collection, so I won't say anything more than that!

#inazuma eleven go #inazuma eleven #ie11 #ina11 #ie go #matsukaze tenma #accidental reverse #raimon #accidental reverse ask

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proxythe · 5 months

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the way you draw aki and talk about his body and attitude towards it has brought me so much joy esp as a man who doesn’t want to bind. it is just so neato to see him the way I do in my head, your art means So much to me. idk. hope that wasn’t too corny

this was not corny at all trust me 🫶

i’m really really glad my art can mean so much to you because asks like this mean just as much to me seriously. i will always draw him this way ofc but i always really appreciate knowing that others can relate to it & im not alone in this 😭

i started doing it as a self indulgent thing completely aside from the fact that it makes a lot of sense to me in general, but im really glad its helped me find so many people who enjoy it and can relate … i see this particular hc written more than drawn so i hope more people who enjoy it & draw will share theirs someday as well 🤞

anyways. im sure everyone who’s seen my account for even 1 second knows i constantly say this but im saying it again idgaf: i love when people tell me they feel exactly like i do, love how i draw him, etc bc occasionally i do get disheartened drawing it. i (personally) feel its so rare to see tguys represented this way with a chest and Not wanting to cover it or get rid of it… especially a guy like aki who’s all tough and a boxer and everything. & i feel like some people are kinda weird about tguy chests that arent super small or completely flat (commenting on the size is weird can ppl please stop doing it) 😭 so it definitely always makes my day when ppl come to me and tell me this stuff ill never get tired of saying that…

ANYWAYS i went on and on sorry but i feel like just a “thank you” wouldnt suffice… my akihiko will never change his body…

#ask #tguys and tgirls who dont Want to change their bodies r welcome here #I LOVE YOU ALL #sorry if this is so muddled i’m so distracted but i loved this ask thank you so much #talk to me about tguy aki any time i AM ALWAYSSS open for it i swear to god #10 years down the line u could send me a trans aki ask and i will answer…

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skyloftian-nutcase · 2 months

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Hi Lofty!

Fellow Healthcare worker here, I think I remember you saying you work nights? I'm a dayshifter that will be transitioning to overnights in a month, and am both excited and scared since this will be something new not just for me but for my whole department.

I was curious, did you specifically choose nights, and how do you like it compared to days? I would think nights would be quieter, but I also know to expect the unexpected, and things can go from dead to hectic in an instant.

Also, do you have any advice for going to an overnight schedule? I'm sure my sleep and eating habits will be messed up for the first few weeks until I get into a routine, are there any other challenges you think I should expect?

Sorry to talk work, I know you probably come here to get away from that, but I don't really have anyone else to talk to and felt you are a safe person to talk to.

Anyway, have a good day/night/whenever you happen to be awake! (I am well aware our schedules can be very wacky)

Hello! :D

I did in fact specifically choose nights. On my unit you have the option to do just nights or to rotate, and you can request to go on a waiting list to work only day shift. I prefer nights, but it’s a mixed bag to be perfectly honest. (This got long so I’m putting everything under the cut)

What I like about nights is that there are fewer people (there aren’t eight thousand teams rounding through the room who never introduce themselves to me and come and go without telling me a darn thing, or they ask me a million questions), visitor restrictions apply (I love family coming to see the patient… just don’t love having to entertain them or be interrogated by them while I’m trying to do stuff lol), the coworkers are much chiller it’s a very different vibe between day workers and night workers, and no management.

What I don’t like about nights is essentially not work related - it freaking kills your life outside of work. Let’s say you work three nights in a row. When you get off it’s the morning of the next day, and you can either make yourself stay up and be a zombie but awake to enjoy that day off, or you sleep the entire day, which wastes a day off, and then you’re still nocturnal for your remaining time off, which makes doing normal people things difficult. It can strain your mental health, especially with lack of sunlight, so you just have to find a way to handle it that works best for you.

I will say, there is one more thing that I don’t like about nights: many providers feel like nights are just “status quo time,” in other words, don’t do any interventions to rock the boat. I’ve fought and argued with doctors multiple times for patients who are showing warning signs of decompensating only to be ignored because they don’t want to do anything drastic on night shift. Had it happen pretty recently and just about wanted to punch an intensivist (I had told the resident that we needed to temporize the patient’s K because it was 5.5, and given his AKI and low UO we should consider options like diuresing or even CRRT and since the resident was brand new she listened, but the intensivist later was like “eh you didn’t need to do that” and wouldn’t do anything about the pt’s nonexistent urine output and ATJEIWOAJFDKSALJFEIWO I do not like that man)

Advice for going to night shift! I’ll make it bullet points so I stop having these giant paragraphs:

When possible, try to cluster shifts together. That way you’re not constantly jumping back and forth with your sleep cycle

The day before you work, there are multiple ways to make yourself nocturnal in preparation. I usually push myself to stay up as late as possible, and go to bed between 4-7am. Others will take a nap in the afternoon before their shift.

Black out curtains are your beloved. They make sleeping during the day so much easier. If you can’t afford those at the moment, an eye mask is a cheaper and effective alternative.

Many of us need some kind of noise to help settle our minds after work since many go to bed directly after work. A fan, a white noise machine, anything like that. I personally like ambience videos off YouTube, rain and thunderstorms or crickets and stuff.

If you’re trying to fall asleep after a shift and it just ain’t happening, there are a few things you can try. If benadryl makes you sleepy, you can try using that, though I don’t necessarily recommend making it a habit so much as a backup plan. Some people say magnesium makes them sleepy. I’ve used alcohol before to help me sleep but it doesn’t promise the best sleep. Another option is carbs! I’ll eat just a couple slices of bread or something and then you get a nice little food coma feeling.

Try not to kill yourself with your caffeine intake lol. And note when to stop caffeinating so you can fall asleep! I usually have to stop by 4am or I won’t be able to sleep right after work. (Though lately I’ve given up on falling asleep right after work, it usually takes my mind a couple hours to settle down so I fall asleep closer to 10/11am or so)

Note that working nights is probably gonna take a toll on your mental and physical health. Take vitamin D supplements to compensate for the lack of daylight, it’ll help boost your mood too. A lot of us have light lamp therapy stuff too, especially for winter. Try to find a good balance of letting yourself rest at home to wind down and being with some kind of support system.

Have fun! Night shift crew is almost always awesome, we’re wacky and fun and laid back! :)

#you ask skye answers #Lovely 16mistypaw #I don’t mind talking work all that much #I love helping others adjust to similar work! :D #There’s no avoiding what I do on this site after I started writing the healthcare AU anyway XD #Hope this helps!

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deathbxnny · 1 year

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Hi there! After reading your post about little sister Qiqi request, i wonder how she would be like in CSM So can i request platonic hcs of CSM characters (Denji, Aki, Power, and Makima) x Qiqi like reader.

Context on the reader:

So the reader is the Jiangshi Devil who became a fiend by taking over a 10-12 year old corpse. They are Makima’s assistant and both of them have a relationship that Qiqi and Baizhu have. They aren’t the most liked but they arent the most hated either due to they’re forgetful nature, sure they have their journal to keep track of stuff but it’s a bit annoying. They’re also part of the Tokyo Special Division 4 so that Makima can keep an eye on the team

Also on an unrelated note, what are your thoughts on Jing Yuan’s and Cyno’s VA, Alejandro Saab. I just recently found out he used to voiced a character from my childhood’ so there’s that. I hope your doing well Bxnny, have great day/night!

- Flower Anon 🌸

-----♡

A/N: Hello Flower Anon! I love the idea, so thank you for the request! Also I don't know much about that VA, as I only grew up with German/Arabic television/media when I was younger. But from the short clips I've seen of him as a streamer, he looks really cool and funny!<33

Content: Platonic relationships, child devil fiend reader, fluff, kinda unserious in some parts, sfw

Reader has no set pronouns!

((Not fully proofread))

-----♡

》Makima

Makima always keeps an eye on you at all times. Mainly because you're always at her side anyways, but also to make sure you don't get yourself in unnecessary trouble. You have a tendency to forget things and she tried helping you with the journal she gave you. But unfortunately, you also sometimes forget that you even have it.

For the most part, your job just included following Makima around and attempting to write down things she told you to. Sometimes, you were also send to secretly spy on people in the division for her, which didn't work out well for obvious reasons.

Makima takes good care of you, all things considered, and doesn't usually send you on any dangerous missions. She ofcourse doesn't care that you're a devil either. She begins to see you as a little sibling eventually, as she always craved the feeling of a family. She might even spoil you, if you've done particularly well lately. She just adores you really.

-----♡

》Aki Hayakawa

Aki well... he didn't know what to think of you at first. You were quiet and very forgetful, so you were pretty much harmless. But you were also a devil. A fiend at that. He also had to remind himself constantly that you aren't actually just a harmless child too, which didn't help him form an opinion on you either.

So, in the end, he really just accepts that you simply... exist in the division. He knows you're quite important to Makima and therefore treats you with the necessary respect, but he keeps his distance otherwise. Or well, tries to, as you get lost so often, that he usually has to be the one to find you again. And eventually, that makes him sympathise with you more, as he does feel sorry for you in an odd way.

In the end, he really does feel himself attached to you, as much as he denies it. You're just a kid in his head and it makes him want to protect and help you out. He also gets you some candy or "cocogoat milk" sometimes... whatever that is.

-----♡

》Power

Power saw your existence as a challenge, as were quite important to Makima, and constantly asked you to fight her. However, she was left baffled, when you'd just blankly stared at her and asked her who she was. She told you that 5 minutes ago... but she'll gladly just remind you again.

For some reason, you eventually remind her of a cat. She doesn't really know why, but she finds herself patting your head with a determined look and declaring that you won't ever get lost in her divine presence. In other words, you two will just get lost together.

She slacks off of work with you and drags you along, as you never really protest anyways. She later on gets scolded by Aki for 2 hours and then passive-aggressively told to never do that again by Makima. You seem to find Power fun however, as she isn't very serious and doesn't expect anything from you... though she can get tiring fast.

-----♡

》Denji

Probably the most chillest person for you to be around. He doesn't mind your forgetfulness and has no expectations of you either. The fact that you're a devil doesn't bother him either. He just sees you as a kid he sometimes has to take care of on Makima's request. With that said, he takes his babysitting job very seriously. Perhaps a little too seriously.

Absolutely nothing is hurting or touching you in his presence and he takes you out for a quick snack run often. He'll try out weird combinations of food with you or take plenty of walks around the city, until he finds something fun to do. And doing something fun with Denji around is pretty easy.

Denji and you become great friends, something that shows through you actually remembering things about him. He becomes one of your favourite devil hunters in the division too, which secretly annoys a certain woman...

-----♡

A/N: I hope this was coherent and okay! Thank you again for the request!<33

#chainsaw man fanfiction #chainsaw man #chainsaw man x reader #csm x reader #csm x y/n #csm aki #csm aki x reader #csm makima x reader #csm makima #csm power #csm power x reader #csm denji #csm denji x reader #csm

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cherrylng · 3 months

Text

Coldplay Interview - Chris Martin & Jonny Buckland [CROSSBEAT (August 2006)]

“I don't think we've written what we would call our best song yet, so I get up every night in the middle of the night and work on some ideas.”

Coldplay's first tour of Japan, which will be one of the ‘events’ of the year, is about to happen! What did ‘the best-selling album of 2005’ bring them? Where are they headed after completing the first chapter with ‘X&Y’? The latest exclusive interview with Chris Martin and Johnny Buckland takes a closer look at the band now!

Text/Composition: Hidefumi Harima / Interviews: Henrik Tuxen (Chris), Hidefumi Harima (Jonny) / With assistance from Aki Tamura and Yuriko Banno

"I think Coldplay have just finished the first chapter in a way. We've found two people we can trust with all our hearts. From now on it's those two people plus the four of us who are members of the band, and we're not going to listen to any other people's opinions."

Unlike in the 60s and 70s, when a band couldn't come to Japan until they had released a few albums, nowadays you can see them live before they have even released an album. It's just unfortunate that a band like Coldplay has never toured Japan, even if they are not very popular in Japan: the first Summer Sonic in 2000, the special showcase at the release of ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’, and the Fuji Rock Festival in 2003 and last year [2005]. They only came to Japan on these four one-off occasions. But finally, a tour of Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, including the Nippon Budokan, is coming soon!

Their latest album ‘X&Y’ was certified as the ‘best-selling album of 2005’ (it was released in early June, which means they sold over 8.3 million copies in about seven months). Hip-hop, R&B and pop idols. This is an astonishing achievement considering the fact that non-rock music is now often at the top of the charts. Needless to say, the number of copies sold is not a direct indication of an album's quality, but it feels good to see something so good sell so well.

It's been almost a year since the release of ‘X&Y’, and the new songs that have been developed on tour should be ripe for the taking. Just imagining ‘Speed of Sound’ echoing through the venue and the hearts of the people there, and ‘What If’ seeping through, is enough to give me goosebumps. And what will we feel at the climax of ‘Fix You’? Of course, it's not just the new songs, but also the many classic songs that have been produced so far, and I can't even begin to imagine how much emotion the chorus will evoke. I feel like I'm going to start crying now (laughs).

Ahead of Coldplay's visit to Japan, which is sure to be one of this year's ‘events’, this magazine has obtained an exclusive interview with Chris Martin, the core of the band, and guitarist Johnny Buckland, who supports Chris in terms of sound and spirit! A close-up look at Coldplay, now ‘the biggest rock band in the world’. We start with Chris, who has just had his second child [Moses].

Looking back on 2005, it sounds like it was a really great year for you guys. From the outside looking in, it seems that you have now firmly established yourselves as a band, but are you aware of this? 「We try to take the great things and the bad things equally, but looking back it's definitely a great feeling of fulfilment. It's been a rollercoaster since we released the album. Today everything seems to be going well, but the next day it's the complete opposite. One day you feel like The Beatles, the next day you feel like Bangles.」

Speaking of the Beatles, you were the first UK band since them [The Beatles] to reach the top 10 of the US Singles Chart with ‘Speed of Sound’, weren't you? In that sense, you became the best-selling British band to break through to the US since the 60s. Do you feel that you have achieved a historic achievement? 「I think all that stuff about us doesn't really matter, to be honest, because it's never true. We're doing good numbers in the US, but for us it was a surprise to hit anywhere. You know, it's the same in America, it's the same in the UK. Anywhere in the world, if people like it, we're just happy. For example, we won a music award in Denmark because we played a great show the last time we played there. We've had a lot of good Danish bands, like Carpark North, Grand Avenue and many others. It means a lot to us, because it's a sign of a good performance.」

At the Danish show, you played a song dedicated not only to Johnny Cash, but also to Carpark North and Grand Avenue. How do you know so many foreign bands? 「Whenever I go anywhere, I like to check out what artists are popular where I'm going and what bands are coming out these days. I always feel like we're being taken advantage of because we're an English-speaking band. So I'm really interested in the local bands that sing in Danish or Spanish or German - in short, the most popular local bands in non-English speaking countries.」

So, when you're on tour, do you try to make as much time as possible to meet the people of the country, check out the bands and see the city? I thought you were so busy you only saw the airport and your hotel room. 「Actually, you're absolutely right. But don't forget, ten years ago we were excited to meet anyone and see any band anyway. Just because we've become a bit better known doesn't mean that part of us has changed.」

How does it feel to meet copies of yourself wherever you go in the world? 「I don't think that assessment is necessarily true, and we ourselves are still in the position of being accused of copying someone else. Basically, we don't take criticisms of copying or stealing too seriously. It's just music after all. I mean, we didn't create any new chords or invent the piano. So we don't have the right to say that we've created our own sound.」

"So far I've put melodies and songs above all else, basically I'm passionate about writing songs. And of course I'm still going to be passionate about writing songs. I think I've gone as far as I can go. So I'm thinking of going in another direction this time."

The album ‘X&Y’ was a huge commercial success, but the album received rather harsh reviews in The New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine, which must be depressing to you. 「As I've said before, we're still developing and learning all the time. But people will think it's all right to throw all kinds of opinions at us, but the truth is we don't always know how to deal with that kind of criticism. So there have been a lot of good things that have happened to us in the past year, but we have also had to learn, for example, how to deal with these kinds of people, how to deal with these kinds of opinions, how to choose what to listen to and what to ignore, and so on. And, you know, there was a lot of that.」

You've apparently gone from being a critically acclaimed band to a band for the masses. 「Yeah, I'm sure we'll be ‘everyone's band’ next. But maybe that's a long way off. The next album will be a masterpiece for us.」

Have you already written songs? 「Yes. I'm very motivated at the moment. I get up every night in the middle of the night and come up with ideas for songs, because life is so short and I don't think we've written what I would call our best song yet.」

With the huge success of X&Y, I think it fulfilled a lot of ambitions you've had. How do you feel about that album at the moment? Playing the whole album live on tour……. 「Well, the only regret I have now is that there are a few songs that I wish we'd had a chance to play live before we recorded them. That way we could have rejected some of them and put in other songs that we were more confident about. Well, metaphorically speaking, you buy a new pair of fashionable trousers, but you don't really know how they feel until you wear them to a party.」

So you've grown to like some of the songs, but you've been disappointed with others? 「It sounds crazy, but the songs we put in there for journalists to like, we don't like them at all anymore. On the other hand, the ones we put in that we thought had soul in it, maybe other people wouldn't like as much, we liked them more and more. But it's been a very good lesson for us. Our fans seem to like the latter songs better. In the end, it's very easy to get over weird ulterior motives.」

This will be your first tour since becoming a father, how do you feel about that? 「Oh, yeah, but the soldiers who are in the army, they're deployed for six months and they don't get to come home once during that time. The same goes for other people who work on oil rigs, or in prisons for that matter. So it wasn't that hard for us.」

Have you ever been bothered by the sort of manic atmosphere that comes with touring? The post-show highs that don't quite subside and you find it hard to come back to a calm state of mind? 「It's hard sometimes, but that's why I always keep the music at hand. If I feel restless, I write a song. That way, you can get those feelings you just mentioned out there. If you don't go that way, you'll be out of your mind by the end of the tour, I'm sure.」

Best moment of 2005? 「That's a tough question, let me think…… Well, we played in London last night. It's a bit of a cliché, but it's a great feeling to come back to your home city and have people come to hear you play, you know? It's a good feeling, you know? Of course I love going out on tour, but there's nothing like coming back home and playing for your family and seeing them welcome you back the same way they used to. So these three days at Earls Court are very special for us.」

What was your personal best album of 2005? 「I can name the singles. Madonna's ‘Hung Up’, Arcade Fire's ‘Wake Up’, Sigur Rós' “Takk”, Grand Avenue's ‘Beautiful Mistake’, ‘B.Y.O.B.’ by System of a Down, ‘Outta Control’ by 50 Cent and Mobb Deep.」

So what was the worst thing that happened to you in 2005? It could be something that happened to you personally or to the world in general. 「Personally I don't have any grievances whatsoever. I don't like to talk about negativity, because there's so much negativity in the world anyway.」

On the film ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’ (not released in Japan)… 「I can pretty much guess what you're going to say (in the film, there's an exchange of ‘You're gay, I know you're gay’, ‘Why?’ and ‘Because you're a fan of Coldplay’).」

What did you think when you first heard that line? 「My reaction was, well, I thought it was GREAT, really. I'm happy for whoever it is, whoever they're having sex with, if they listen to our music. I don't mind that at all.」

"The one thing that's never changed is that we're friends, right? Everything else can be whatever you want it to be. It's better for the four of us if we don't mind if the music changes. The important thing is that we're making it together."

One of the peculiar phrases used in the industry is ‘Yes, Paul’, which of course refers to Mr [Paul] McCartney.This suggests that when you're working with someone as big and popular as him, people will reflexively say 'yes', no matter what they are told. Do you ever have the concern that if you get too big, you might miss the chance to have constructive disagreement with them? 「That's an interesting question. We're actually in the middle of a process at the moment where we're trying to work out who we can really trust. I think Coldplay have just finished the first chapter in a way, and we've found two people we really trust. From now on it's those two people plus the four of us who are members of the band, and we're not going to listen to any other people's opinions. And we're going to take their opinions into account, and I'm sure those two people will say 'no' far more often than they say 'yes'.」

What are their names? 「One is the manager and the other is a close friend who gave us the name of the band [i.e Phil Harvey].」

You guys had Richard Ashcroft as a surprise guest at Live 8. What did you think of that? 「We've been involved in the Fair Trade movement for a long time now, and the reason we got involved in it was because we recognised our capacity as a billboard. It's not about ethics, it's not about going around telling people to do good. We just want to promote something we really believe in, rather than promoting deodorant or running shoes. And I thought Live 8 was a great opportunity to spread that kind of goodwill around the world. There's no need to be cynical, and I don't think it's something you have to ask every time you see a musician involved in these activities. I think it's just an opportunity to raise awareness among the general public.」

What about the actual performance, was it any different from your usual gigs? 「There was a special atmosphere, especially when playing with Richard. We played ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ together. It's one of the most enduring songs in history.」

Next, we bring you the latest interview with guitarist Johnny Buckland. His atmospheric guitar work is a key element of Coldplay's music, but he is a shy, unassuming man. Interesting for his humble, yet straight-forward, point of view.

It's been exactly one year since the release of X&Y. What do you think of the album in retrospect? 「I haven't really thought about that album in the last few months. I've been working on new songs and concentrating on that. Of course I still love playing the songs from that album live. But for the last six months or so, we never really thought about it as an album. We were all very happy with it when we finished it, and we still are. But I don't think we're going to revisit it now.」

How did you feel about the fact that X&Y was the best-selling album in the world in 2005? 「I was very happy. I couldn't believe it. I thought that would only happen to Mariah Carey. I was really surprised. I even wondered.」

Why do you think that album was accepted by so many people? 「(With a confused laugh) I really don't know. I'd like to think it's because it was a good album, but it seems that ‘good’ isn't the only reason it sells, because even music you don't like can sell really well…… Is it because we toured a lot? (laughs). I really don't know…… We put everything we had into the songs on the album, but…… I don't know why it worked and why people bought the album…… (getting quieter and quieter).」

(laughs) What did Coldplay get out of making ‘X&Y’? 「Well, I think it allowed us to think that we'd finished a certain chapter of Coldplay. When we finished that album, when we finished recording it, I thought, ‘We've done our first act with this’. After three albums of trying out what the job of being a proper band was all about, we can now do what we want to do without reservation. I think it ended one of our cycles. Up until now, we've put melodies and songs above all else, and basically put our passion into writing songs. Of course we will continue to be passionate about songwriting, but I think we've gone as far as we can go for now. So I'm thinking of going in a different direction this time. We started off small with ‘Parachutes’ too, but then we realised that it was getting more and more……」

Was it getting bigger? 「(Laughs) Yes, it was getting bigger. So now I want to do something new.」

Having played the songs from that album live, did you feel that there was anything different about them from the songs on the previous two albums? 「No. To be honest, I have a good feel for all the songs now. When we first started playing them live, we weren't used to doing them, so of course they had a completely different feel to them. Songs like ‘Yellow’ were definitely more familiar, more ingrained in my body. But after touring for over a year, I feel that way about all the songs. Like they're all part of the same thing. There's no difference. Well, of course there are songs that I personally like to play live and songs that I don't like to play live, but now that we have more songs, we don't have to play them all anymore [laughs].」

What is the most significant thing you have gained from your success? 「I don't know……. We have the freedom to do what we want to do. I think that's the most important thing. It feels like we've gone back to our roots again, fresh and new.」

So what, if anything, has been lost with success? 「That's difficult to say……. I don't think there's anything in particular. Basically, I'm positive. The band is more united now…… We get a lot more attention than we used to, but I don't think things are that bad.」

How long have you been together? 「It's been eight and a half years since we played our first show.」

What has changed most between when you formed the band and now? 「Guy's accent (laughs). I was watching a video of ourselves the other night that we took ages ago, and Guy had a weird accent back then. Everyone's look has changed quite a bit too. And also the sound. Now the sound is much louder.」

What has been the same since the beginning and what seems to be the same for the foreseeable future? 「That we’re still friends? Everything else can be taken care of. The most important thing is that we can make music together. It doesn't matter if the music changes, the important thing is that we are making music together.」

It could be said that your music has been accepted by so many people because it is so universal, but what do you think about the balance between universality and uniqueness when you make music? 「It's difficult. When I'm making music, I don't think about whether it's universal or not. I write songs based on my own experiences and views, and if I'm honest, there's a good chance that quite a lot of people will agree with me (laughs). I don't think we write songs to be universal, and in fact I don't think they are. There are actually people who don't like our music. But if we write based on our own experiences, or if we write honestly about how we feel, I think someone will relate to it and like it.」

Talking about some people not liking you, for example Liam from Oasis, he often says bad things about you guys, but that kind of thing doesn't bother you at all? Like a fame tax? 「Yes, it is. The more successful you are, the more bad things people write about you (laughs). In the beginning, people only wrote good things about us. But when people start praising you, someone will start saying bad things about you. It's nothing to make a fuss about.」

What would you say is Coldplay's greatest achievement in the music scene so far? 「Wow, that's a tough question…… I don't know…… The biggest show would be Glastonbury or something like that…… I don't know if there's one that I would call the greatest achievement. I don't think we've done it yet, although we're making every album with the idea of ‘the best album ever’. But what excites me the most is when I'm writing the songs, when they start to take shape.」

"The last time we played in Japan, at Fuji Rock, the crowd was really great. Even if the crowd is half as big as it was then, it's still going to be a great show. We've been perfecting the show over the last year or so, so I think we'll be able to put on our best show when we go to Japan."

Coldplay's songwriting credit goes to all four of you. Of course there are many different patterns, but what is the most typical way a song is born? 「First Chris writes the lyrics and melody, then we all get together and play it, sometimes a whole song is ready, sometimes only part of a song is ready. Then we play it together for a few hours and listen to how it sounds. Then we keep the parts we like and gradually work it into a song. That's basically how it works. Someone will come up with an idea for drums or bass or something along the way, and we just keep playing until we're happy with it.」

What kind of songwriter is Chris Martin in your opinion? 「He's brilliant. I think he's the best songwriter [laughs].」

(laughs) When you're in a band with him, at what point do you think, ‘This guy's great!’? 「It happens all the time. Especially when he comes up with a new song or a new idea… Sometimes I think it's the best song I've ever heard.」

Which song, for example, did you think so? 「Recently, because people haven't heard it yet. Well, for example, I still remember the first time I heard ‘Yellow’. He played it for me on acoustic guitar. I also remember ‘Clocks’. Chris was still trying it out.」

What new songs are in the works at the moment? 「At this stage, I can't really predict what direction we're going to go in. There's quite a lot of different material and we haven't decided which one we're going to go with yet. The earliest we can start recording is after we go to Japan. Probably next year. So I don't know yet. Well, as long as it's different from what we're doing now, I don't really care what direction we go in (laughs).」

Chris seems to like Timbaland a lot, but could it turn out to be a hip-hop album in the extreme case? (laughs) 「I don't think we'll ever make a complete hip-hop album (laughs). But there are so many elements we could use.」

What have you always wanted to do but never got round to it? 「I've always wanted to do a proper tour of Japan (laughs). Even four shows is better than none, but I'd like to go to more cities. I also want to go to…… I've always wanted to go to India. That hasn't happened yet. Also…… I want to tour all over Japan and make a masterpiece album. That hasn't happened yet.」

Are there any producers, co-writers or collaborators you would like to work with? 「There's a lot of people I'd like to work with, co-write with or play with. It would be great to play in Bob Dylan's backing band. But to be honest, I can't wait more than anything to get in the studio with Coldplay again.」

Who is your favourite guitarist? 「I think my biggest hero was Kevin Shields. Also Graham Coxon, who I liked tremendously.」

You've interacted with a lot of different artists, including R.E.M., Richard Ashcroft and Elton John, what have you learnt most and what lessons have you found most useful? 「Hmmm…… Edge from U2 once told me to ‘act nice to people’ (laughs). That helped a lot. I think that's an attitude I should learn from. Because nobody likes a jerk, right?」

Hahaha, indeed. You played a show at the KOKO club (1,000 capacity) on the day of the release of X&Y, didn't you? How was it playing to a smaller venue? Do you prefer playing to big audiences now? 「It's good to start a tour in smaller venues. You can fake it because there's less people listening to you if you're wrong. But I actually prefer playing in bigger venues now. You can bring in big light sets and stuff. Of course, there's something great about playing in a smaller venue. There's an intimacy that you get to touch everyone who comes. But there's a certain atmosphere at an arena show that you can't get at a smaller venue.」

What kind of shows should we expect on your Japan tour in July? 「A big show (laughs). It's going to be a great show. I think it's going to be one of the best shows people have ever seen in Japan (laughs).」

What do you expect from the audience? 「The last time we played in Japan at Fuji Rock, the crowd was so great we couldn't believe it ourselves. Even if the crowd is half as big as it was then, it will be a great show. No, we're really looking forward to playing in Japan. We've been working on the show for about a year now, so we're looking forward to giving it our best when we get to Japan.」

Translator's Note: Finally got around to having this interview extracted from the scan and translated! Since I got more magazines that have arrived now, I decided to post more and just let people enjoy their day reading these old interviews and articles.

I was surprised to find that Chris liked SOTD back in 2006, more than enough to recommend B.Y.O.B., even. As for Jonny, you can tell that he was still quite shy and giggly during interviews just from the transcripts alone.

I'm still learning how to use the scanner, with the constant challenge on how to keep the pages straight. But it does mean seeing pictures that are both new and familiar to me. And also those beautiful blue eyes...

And also! This same magazine just happens to have more to give. I'll tackle the Muse interview that is available in this magazine as well at a later time.

Do support me on my Ko-fi!

#Chris Martin #Jonny Buckland #Guy Berryman #Will Champion #Coldplay #X&Y era #CROSSBEAT #CROSSBEAT August 2006 #my scan #translation #interview

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