#aki is the best character of the whole show no one can change my mind | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inkblackorchid · 3 months

Text

What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 3)

Trying my absolute damnedest to finish this one and part four sooner now that I've finally covered the Pearson backstory. *Ehem* Hello again! I hope you're ready for more yelling about a certain spiky-haired Blackbird aficionado, because I sure am.

To get some things out of the way first, though, here come the usual disclaimers:

This is part three of a series of posts about hpw Crow's character was handled during 5Ds' whole run. You can find part one here and part two here. Reading them technically isn't required, but things sure will make a whole lot more sense if you do. (Bring snacks, they're long.)

This post isn't meant as a Crow hate post, nor is it meant to convince people who didn't vibe with his character to change their mind. This is my very long winded-attempt to analyse the writing decisions surrounding his character as best I can, without too much bias. That said, full disclosure, I do personally like Crow, so there's a good chance that will shine through whether I want it to or not. But also, I'm trying to have fun here, so please cut me some slack.

In case you haven't read my previous Crow posts (no shade there) and/or still believe the many, many production rumours that have been haunting the 5Ds fandom since the show's original run, please let me burst your bubble(s) with some insanely comprehensive research by someone over on Reddit (thanks again to @mbg159, who's also here on tumblr): No, Crow was not meant to be a dark signer, or the final boss of season 1, and his spike in screentime has nothing to do with his cards. And also, No, Aki didn't get less presence in the narrative because her VA got pregnant. What if you don't have the time to read either of those long posts? In that case, please take away this simple, very easy rebuttal of why the above theories are bullshit: Their would-be "key points" don't line up with the 5Ds production timeline. At all. Not even vaguely. So please, ditch them, let them die, seeing them still talked about makes me feel like I'm gonna break out in hives. And for the love of god, don't use this post or in fact anything else I post to pit Aki and Crow against each other. Both characters have their strengths and their reasons to love them. I am not the least bit interested in starting any character discourse. So please, spare my sanity. Ok? Thank you.

And now, we can get to the good part at last. In my previous post in this series, I stopped my analysis at episode 95, a.k.a. part two of the Pearson backstory. In this post, I will thus be picking up right after, at the very start of the WRGP—with the Team Unicorn match. The goal for this post is to analyse Crow's part in this particular arc, then provide some food for thought/ideas on how things that rubbed some people the wrong way could have been improved.

More below the readmore, and I give you not just my usual warning, but an extra warning, too: The universe will not let me write short things, so tread with caution, stay hydrated, and expect a veritable dissertation below, because this post feels long even to me, who has long since lost her sense of length when it comes to text. (But I'm well aware this is the result of me refusing to split the WRGP part into two separate posts, so I take full responsibility for that.)

Since we left off right after I chewed through all the issues with Crow's rather belated backstory and especially Black-Winged Dragon last time, we jump right into the thick of things now, with episodes 96 and 97, which serve as the preamble to Team 5Ds' first WRGP duel against Team Unicorn. Crow only gets two major things to do during this short stretch of episodes, the first being that he's Team Unicorn's gateway into roping Yusei into a duel during practice, which helps them set up a ruse that baits the 5Ds gang into sending Jack as their first wheeler because they think Jack's deck is best suited to countering Andre's—which, as it later turns out, it is not.

(Arguably the screenshot where Crow gives off the strongest Youngest Sibling Vibes during the entire show. Look at him, all chastised.)

Crow's second role is an odd one that I argue only he out of the main three guys could fulfill at this point: He's the one to get injured right before the Team Unicorn match, rendering him unable to compete, which leads to Aki offering to take his place for that particular match.

(Pictured: Bird Boy regretting all his life choices up until that point simultaneously.)

Here's the first moment I have to talk about in greater detail. See, the thing is, I don't know what the fandom consensus on Crow getting injured here is, but I argue that this moment was a (rare) strategic decision made by the writers at this point. Crow's injury accomplished several things: 1. It sets up the mystery of why his back wheel locked up out of nowhere, which is later paid off through Team Catastrophe's shenanigans. 2. It organically allows Aki to take his spot without introducing any argument about which of them is "worthier" of having that third spot. 3. Through this, it also allows him to actually bounce off Aki for once (a point I will come back to below, during the Team Catastrophe section). And 4. It allows the show to (TECHNICALLY) pay off the setup they did in letting Aki get her turbo duelling license and train with the boys. (Generally, Crow's and Aki's character writing intersects a bit during the pre-Diablo incident WRGP section, something I'll touch on below.)

Moreover, I think this is also the only match where they could have done something like this, and the reason for it is very simple: Team Unicorn are one-off opponents whose presence in the narrative is only relevant as far as it concerns the WRGP, and they are also one of the first teams the 5Ds gang faces. If we think about the opponents Team 5Ds has after this, it becomes very obvious why Crow could only be injured during this duel: If they had tried pulling this stunt later, it would have forced the writers to pull Aki centre stage during a much more plot-relevant duel than this one (which they were apparently allergic to, but let's not go there), not to speak of the fact that it would have forced them to sideline someone they were definitely trying to sell as the third portion of their protagonist trifecta, which would have probably been awkward. (If not for the fact that they literally did this to Crow later in the show, but I'll get there. Yes, I know there's a lot already that I'll still be "getting to".)

The thing is, whether or not it feels like an awkward writing choice to make so early in the big tournament of this arc (you be the judge of that), Crow's injury finally allows him to have a few interesting character moments for once. For one, there is his immediate disappointment about being forced to stay on the sidelines. Aside from the fact that this is a human and relatable reaction to his injury, it stings even more for the character than it does for us as the audience, because Crow got a moment where the Satellite orphans he previously took care of cheer him on for the tournament literally within the same two Team Unicorn preamble episodes.

(Say what you will, this is just stupid cute.)

So when Aki eventually offers to take his place during the match, he's understandably apprehensive—and again, this is human. It may seem mean in the moment, but from a character writing standpoint, it's a natural response. Plus, it's certainly more interesting to watch the group have a bit of conflict among themselves, rather than everyone immediately jumping straight to acceptance. It introduces tension, and, for however brief a moment, raises the question of whether Crow might refuse to let Aki take his spot. This is also the point where Aki and Crow's character writing officially intertwines, at least for the stretch of episodes between the Team Unicorn duel and the Team Catastrophe duel. And you know what? Say what you will, but I think it does a world of good for both of them. The 5Ds cast, as lovely as it is, doesn't get a lot of room to bounce off one another where it concerns personal matters anymore, once the WRGP starts. Arguably, they get little time to bounce off one another outside of plot-related discussions at all once this portion of the show comes around. The characters are treated as "fully developed", and thus, the writing largely doesn't take the time to show us how the group naturally interacts with one another anymore, especially not with how many side characters (chiefly Bruno and Sherry), antagonists, and duels the show now has to juggle. So Aki and Crow getting even a smidgen of personal conflict here is honestly a breath of fresh air. The interaction kicked off by Crow's injury isn't completely plot-irrelevant, like most character interactions during the pre-WRGP were, but it's not something that feels like it's only there to explain the machinations of the antagonists to the audience, either.

Let me go through this in a little more detail to illustrate my point.

So, episode 97. Crow storms off after Aki offers to take his spot, while Aki heads out to prepare her runner, intent on helping her team. The personal motivations here are already very nice and reflective of these characters as we've gotten to know them up until this point: Crow's angry and disappointed (mostly at himself, which is noteworthy!) because he can't compete. And specifically, he's angry because not being able to compete in the first match means he can't show the kids his duelling like he wanted to. Then there's Aki, whose offer to take Crow's place is every bit as much of a strategic suggestion as it is a bid for acceptance from her. Acceptance, which is the thing she's been all about ever since she was introduced, basically. So she pleads with her friends to accept her, see her as an equal, and allow her to duel for the team, which they do. And Crow initially throws a fit, but then...

(Listen. You have no idea how much Crow and Aki getting to actually be friends means to me.)

He comes around to the idea and not only gives Aki his express permission to take his spot, he even coaches her a bit right before the match. Moreover, as his text states above, he literally entrusts her with the kids' hopes, as well as his own. This quickly brings both of them full circle: Crow, who already has a theme of legacy attached to him, passes the torch to Aki for this match, and in so doing, offers her the acceptance she asked her teammates for. (Frankly, stuff like this makes me wonder why on earth people were so eager to pit these two against each other, when their shared moments are actually some of the best-written during the often rocky WRGP arc.) So, though this injury pulls Crow out of the duel, it, funnily enough, ties him better into the story and to the other characters.

From there, we then dive into the Team Unicorn match proper. And well, being injured as he is, Crow doesn't exactly get a whole lot to do there. However, since we're in the portion where his and Aki's writing overlaps a bit, I do need to go on a quick tangent about what Aki's portion of this duel means for Crow.

(Sigh. Okay, buckle up for a quick and rough detour.)

First, something I need to get out of the way and off my chest: I have made no secret out of the fact that I hate Aki's portion of this duel, save for the moment where she summons Stardust. Hell, this duel segment is pretty much universally hated by anone who has even a smidgen of sympathy for Aki. It's regarded by many as the very moment the writers axed Aki's character, and for good reason: After all the buildup surrounding her getting her turbo duelling license, the supposed "payoff" of it all is that she gets to duel against Andre for a depressing four turns before being defeated immediately, which leads into Yusei's frustrating portion of this duel, which, to my knowledge, isn't regarded any more kindly by fans than Aki's segment. It's a massive let-down, simply put. But the thing is, it's not just a let-down for Aki. After all, the brief character conflict she had with Crow about taking his spot here can and should be regarded as part of the setup for this moment, and as such, it can also be considered to be wasted the second Aki leaves the track after barely making an impact whatsoever.

However, I do need to mention that I have a theory on why this segment was handled the way it was, mostly because I feel like Crow's later interaction with Aki, shortly after she's out of the duel, underlines it (mind that this is just my personal theory, though, after having watched the show perhaps more times than can be considered sane): I think there is a cultural aspect to this duel. See, the word ganbaru, which anime subtitles often like to translate with "do your best" or something along the lines, has a greater significance than the translation implies. Though it's not inaccurate per se, there's more than just the idea of doing your best behind ganbaru, because it's something like an umbrella term not just for doing your best and succeeding, it's also the idea that you have to keep trying, even if you don't succeed. It's related to tenacity, to persistence, even in the face of terrible odds. And make no mistake, I don't mean the Japanese equivalent of "if at first you don't succeed, try again" here. I genuinely do mean "you have to keep trying, even if you fail". There is no guarantee of success here. And for that reason, the idea behind ganbaru is also that it's not simply the success that has value, but the effort made in the attempt to attain it, regardless of the result. (Side note: I tried to scrounge up a resource I could link to that nicely explains this concept, but unfortunately, all the promising articles were paywalled and the ones I learned it from require institutional access to lecture materials.) And this is where I will posit the tentative theory that this is exactly what the 5Ds writers were going for with Aki's segment of the duel—it was very much meant to be the payoff for her turbo duelling license setup and her plea to take Crow's place, but it wasn't so much her success that was meant to be valued, as the effort she (and by extension, Crow) made for and during this duel. And this is where Crow's little pep-talk with Aki after she's out of the duel comes in, because it feels like it supports exactly this interpretation:

(This is essentially the whole sequence. Note how Crow, despite so fervently entrusting Aki with his and his kids' hopes prior, doesn't admonish her for making a bad showing in the slightest.)

I don't think it gets any clearer than it is here. During this sequence, Aki is painfully aware of how poor her performance was against Andre, especially after she was so insistent on duelling at first, and despite having been entrusted with Stardust by Yusei, to boot. Yet, Crow doesn't have a single word of criticism to offer her. Instead, he even tells her she did well and that nobody's perfect. It very much reads as valuing Aki's effort over the result she achieved to me, and thus seems perfectly in line with the idea behind ganbaru.

However, if we assume I'm correct about the intentions behind this writing choice, we come back to why Aki's segment of the duel is so hotly debated and why it may have arguably been a disservice not just to her, but to Crow, too, character-wise. Because the majority of non-Japanese watchers of the show culturally don't have a 1:1 applicable concept like ganbaru, this writing choice was more likely to fall flat for them, because to someone who wasn't raised to understand the idea behind it, Aki's portion of the duel doesn't register as a payoff; it registers as a massive disappointment, because it feels like the writers, who had so much setup already done for her, let her fail on purpose, just to later let Yusei attain his arguably dumbest victory of the entire show. Thus, they also essentially waste the conflict she had with Crow about whether she would be allowed to take his spot in the first place, because with how little she achieved during the duel, she may as well not have gotten on the track. (Figuratively speaking. Please Do Not take this to mean I would prefer a version where Aki hadn't duelled at all. That would be worse. It would be infinitely worse.)

(Also, side note: If this post reaches anyone who's actually Japanese and still remembers this duel, I would genuinely love your input on whether my interpretation is feasible or just wishful thinking. Did you interpret Aki's part of the duel the way I did here? Or did it fall flat for you, too? If what I'm saying here feels like an absolute reach, please tell me. I'm honestly just trying my best to make things make sense here and remembered this concept from some classes I took in Japanese studies at uni.)

With all that in mind, it doesn't come as a surprise that some people were just as frustrated with the way Crow was barred from duelling here as they were with Aki's segment or Yusei's later victory. But it is what it is—the Unicorn duel concludes the way we all know it to, and with that, the show begins setting up the following duel with Team Catastrophe.

The only other, non duel-related, noteworthy thing that happens between the Unicorn and the Catastrophe match is a brief appearance at the Poppo Time by Sherry, who admonishes the signers for celebrating their victory early and warns them about Iliaster. Why do I bring this up? Because it's one of less than five times that Crow is in the same room with Sherry. Remember, Sherry. The girl he later, during the finale, talks out of working for the big bad evil guy because he suddenly seems to have such a deep understanding of her motivations and character that he can accurately deduce what argument will make her understand that working with Z-ONE won't give her what she's looking for. So, does Crow get a meaningful interaction with her during this scene, then? Nope. Not even in the slightest. Crow says exactly one sentence that is aimed at Sherry during her appearance, and that sentence is this:

(What a meaningful conversation!)

And yes, I will come back to Crow and Sherry's dynamic in particular. But we'll save that for the Ark Cradle arc post. For now, just keep it in mind as we move along to the other WRGP duels.

So. Team Catasrophe.

During the duel against this team, which was previously only hinted at ominously, the writing for Crow and Aki overlaps again, and this starts with the writers essentially doing a complete switcheroo of what came before: Instead of Crow getting injured and being unable to compete, it's Aki who crashes, ends up in the hospital, and is thus forced to give up her spot during the duel. (This also goes hand in hand with her suddenly losing her powers, which we are given absolutely zero explanation for, but let's not talk about that clusterfuck here. If you're interested in my opinions about that particular trainwreck, I have a rant for you.) Additionally, it's during this stretch of episodes (103-105, which is a whopping four episodes less than Team Unicorn got) that we find out that not only Aki's crash, but Crow's previous one, too, were both sabotage, caused by the rather unscrupulous Team Catastrophe by way of a special card that can cause real damage even when there is no psychic duellist present. (A card we also find out was given to them by Placido/Primo, but this is irrelevant for both Aki and Crow.) Crow's reaction to this piece of information, particularly once Aki gets injured due to the same thing, is where things get interesting for him again, because he gets pissed, to say the least.

(A moment I imagine firebirdshippers must have been positively delighted about.)

Here, I have to reiterate an earlier point: Think what you will of Team Catastrophe, of Aki's crash, and of the sequence where her powers suddenly don't work, but this moment here, where Crow gets angry on her behalf and swears to duel Team Catastrophe into submission—not because he wants his kids to cheer for him, or because he wants to prove himself, but as revenge for his friend—is one of sadly only a handful of moments the writers use to show the strengthened relationships between the individual members of Team 5Ds after the dark signers arc. It's one of the precious few scenes that actually shows, rather than tells us or lets us search for scraps in the subtext, that the signers, and the members of Team 5Ds as a whole, care for each other outside of revolving around Yusei like planets around the sun. Even if it's laughably small, it's at least a hint that there are individual friendships between the other signers, too, that they all stick around one another for reasons beyond gravitating towards Yusei for one reason or another. And for that alone, I'm grateful that they put this here, even if Team Catastrophe was otherwise so ridiculous and made such a bad showing at their actual match that they could barely be taken seriously as antagonists at all.

Speaking of which. The actual meat of the matter. The Team Catastrophe match. What does Crow do here? Well, he duels! Even though he wasn't supposed to, for injury-related reasons. What both his participation as well as the actual duel accomplish, though, are that they not only showcase previously established character traits of Crow's again, but they also make a (possibly unintended) callback to a previous, major duel Crow took part in: His dark signer duel against Bommer/Greiger. Where and how? Let's see.

Firstly, Crow's participation. The reactions of the other characters to this make it very evident that Team 5Ds did not plan for this, with Yusei and Jack even going as far as to say they "had no choice" but to let Crow duel, because he insisted. This is perfectly in line with the stubbornness we already know from him at this point—a stubbornness that was also a major reason for why he took Bommer on and later continued his duel with said man, despite Yusei showing up and telling him he shouldn't be duelling a dark signer.

Secondly, there's the manoeuvring thing, and here's where I can call attention to a fun tidbit: The WRGP isn't what introduces the concept of manual mode during turbo duels to the audience. It's Crow. During his duel with Bommer. Being crafty and a bit shrewd as he is, Crow, during said duel in the DS arc, purposefully switches to manual mode when he duels Bommer, because he figures that attacks that can deal real damage can probably be evaded if you actually have control over your runner and aren't stuck in autopilot.

(Don't believe me? Here it is. And frankly, it is somewhat hilarious, yet also very fitting that Crow is the only one who thinks to do this during a duel with a dark signer.)

The reason this particular bit is relevant during the Team Catastrophe duel is because Crow essentially repeats this trick here. Of course, it's a bit less impactful now, given that manual mode is standard for WRGP duels, but still: Due to Hook, the Hidden Knight, Crow is forced to pay attention to the track and manually evade the monster's attempts to make his back wheel lock up during the duel, mirroring how he thought to manually evade Bommer's attacks during the DS arc.

Thirdly, there's the revenge angle, and this one is a particularly juicy callback. Remember, Crow's major reason for taking on Team Catastrophe, despite being injured, is that he wants to get revenge for Aki. This directly parallels how his major reason for duelling Bommer during the DS arc was that he wanted revenge for his kids, whom he believed to be dead at that point in time. (It also, interestingly, establishes a bit of a connection to his deck, which boasts a fair amount of revenge effects, but I'll not get into that here, seeing as I've talked about Crow's cards a bit before.)

Keep in mind, despite all the things listed above that this duel accomplishes, it's also by far the shortest WRGP duel. It lasts a whole six turns, total, which is ludicrous compared to the likes of 27-turn Team Unicorn, 26-turn Team Taiyou, or 25-turn Team Ragnarok. And I don't think it's controversial to say that the Catastrophe guys are probably the most forgettable WRGP Team, too. Yet, somehow, despite all its shortcomings in terms of memorable antagonists and plot relevance, this is one of the best duels of the WRGP where Crow's character writing is concerned. Now, I'll be perfectly candid: Coming into this post, I did not expect the Team Catastrophe duel, of all things, to end up being as good at actually showcasing Crow's character and his ties to other characters (who aren't Yusei) as it was, but here we are. And we had better hold on to the good the Team Unicorn - Catastrophe segment did for Crow, because the next thing that's coming up is a harsh break from the WRGP, starting with the sudden appearance of Placido's home-engineered army of killer duel robots. And what does Crow get to do during this part?

Uh. Well.

(Pictured: Bird Boy being demoted to benchwarmer while the city's being ransacked by murder duel robots.)

Nothing. A whole lot of nothing, is what.

During the duel robot invasion, we only ever flash back to Crow to ascertain that he is, in fact, useless during this part of the show, something he shares in common with Ruka, Rua, and Aki here, because all of them get pretty much nothing to do while Yusei finally gets the hang of accel synchro. Granted, Aki gets to save a little girl at the hospital, but in comparison to Yusei's lengthy, plot-heavy duel with Placido, this feels like a consolation prize. And for once, Jack is only marginally better off, too, because sure, he gets to beat up a couple of robots, but that's it, really.

Where Crow is concerned, his plot relevance doesn't actually resume once the Placido duel finishes, though. (And neither does Rua's, Ruka's, or Aki's, while we're at it.) Because wouldn't you know it, the next big thing directly after the duel robot invasion are the Red Nova episodes, where three out of five signers (Crow, Aki, and Ruka, unsurprisingly) are removed from the screen almost in their entirety again while Jack gets his much-needed dragon upgrade so he can keep up with Yusei, in order to uphold his status as a classic, almost-evenly-matched yugioh rival.

Speaking of upgrades and dragons, let's make a quick detour while our protag and rival duo take their express vacation to the Nazca plains. It is, of course, no secret that no signer outside of Yusei and Jack ever got a dragon upgrade within the anime. (No, I'm not forgetting about Life Stream Dragon. But that one, unlike Shooting Star Dragon and Red Nova Dragon, was a.) teased all the way back in the DS arc and b.) didn't have a unique summoning method or some other gimmick that made it an "elevated" synchro. So I'm discounting Life Stream as a "proper" dragon upgrade on purpose.) Is this the point where I start arguing that Crow should have gotten one, then? Well, not quite. Not with the writing the show canonically gave us, at least—after all, with how late Black-Winged Dragon was introduced, it would have been bonkers to upgrade him here already, if even at all. However, I do argue that the way the show hands only Yusei and Jack upgrades seems a bit... off. Now, I know why only those two get upgrades, or at least I think I do. After all, they're the central protag/rival duo, and within the framework of the character archetypes the larger yugioh canon has created for itself, this would have always made them the first, if not the only candidates for dragon upgrades. What feels a bit off to me, though, is that specifically the 5Ds cast feels like it... chafes a bit against those character archetypes, for lack of a better word. The problem is this: The signers, as far as the first two arcs are concerned, are sold to us as equals who all have very powerful ace monsters. Yes, Jack and Yusei are still undoubtedly the best duellists among them, but not on account of having uber-powerful extra special monsters that were acquired through supernatural means that are categorically inaccessible to the other signers. However, with the appearance of Shooting Star and Red Nova, this changes. While Yusei and Jack were previously and would have always been the two guys who had a Special dynamic with a capital "S" on account of their character archetypes, their acquisition of the dragon upgrades—and even more so, the lack of upgrades their fellow signers receive—now decidedly puts them in a different power bracket and skews the balance between previous, supposedly "equal" characters. (Which, unfortunately, is yet another thing that makes everyone else easier to sideline.)

Why do I bring all this up in a post dedicated to Crow? Because this new power imbalance arguably impacts him more than the other signers—because he's Team 5Ds' second wheeler and doesn't miss another WRGP match from here on out. Thus, that power imbalance is felt in the upcoming duels, where Yusei and Jack bust out Shooting Star and Red Nova like it's nothing, while Crow is left manoeuvring with the somewhat underpowered Black-Winged Dragon and whatever else he can come up with. This is also why I claimed that the show did sideline Crow in some aspects further above. Because while some parts of his writing go to great pains to establish him as part of a protagonist trifecta that is now supposed to take centre stage before the other characters, he also permanently lives in Jack and Yusei's shadow, ultimately barred not just from reaching equal status as a signer (due to his late and rocky introduction and dragon acquisition), but also barred from becoming the equal of his foster brothers as a duellist. Frankly, I'm surprised the show didn't make this a plot point, because the first thing my mind jumps to when I think about this is whether Crow felt left behind after his brothers acquired such immensely powerful, special cards. But more on my personal writing ideas later. For now, let's just put a pin in the power-imbalance thing.

So, when is Crow back on screen in any meaningful role, then? (Note that I mean this as literally as possible. As per my discussion about "screentime" and my gripes about it in part two, I gloss over the parts where Crow is on screen, but could be traded for any other signer or even a lamppost without affecting the scene at all.)

Well, the next thing Crow gets to do isn't exactly glorious, but it sure is funny.

(I want you all to remember that he has to wear this costume and play this part in Team 5Ds' absurd plan to capture Yaeger/Lazar because he lost at rock-paper-scissors. This will never not be funny to me.)

Ignoring the hilarious outfit and Crow playing the bait at a fabricated cup ramen promo event meant to lure Yaeger in, bird boy does actually get something that's not just for funsies to do during the two episodes where Team 5Ds is trying to get more information about Iliaster: He gets to have a duel revanche against Yaeger, who, if we remember the DS arc, ditched him the last time they squared off. Much like the Team Catastrophe duel, this one, too, calls back to previous duels Crow has had: For one, it's the obvious conclusion to his unfinished, first duel with Yaeger. And for two, Crow repeats a "trick" (for lack of a better term) here that is also unique to him: losing on purpose, which we remember from his duel with Lyndon.

(Identical-looking clown family jumpscare be upon ye.)

And again, much like getting injured for the Team Unicorn duel, I argue that this story beat here is something that could also only have been accomplished with Crow. Because he's the only one who has previously duelled Yaeger, firstly, because not wanting to make a child cry by beating their dad in a duel makes sense for him as a character due to him being a family-oriented person who loves children, secondly, and because losing on purpose in this scenario is a tactic that would seem out of character from anyone else, thirdly. (We recall, the only times Jack and Yusei, respectively, ever consider/offer to lose on purpose is when the lives of people close to them are on the line, in the shape of Carly/Rally. As for the others, aside from not being present, Aki, Rua, and Ruka are so heavily sidelined at this point that they would have never been an option for this. And if his writing is anything to go by, Bruno is mostly purposefully forbidden from accomplishing Plot Things, especially through duels, while he's Bruno.) But hey, due to the way this episode is set up, losing on purpose works out for Crow, because it convinces Yaeger to stop hiding and actually share his knowledge about Iliaster. This, by the way, is the second scene where Crow gets to be in a room with Sherry for a longer stretch of time. And look, him joking that Sherry might kill Yaeger if he doesn't spill the beans about Iliaster soon is fun and all, but in light of the Ark Cradle duel later, I have to point out that he, again, doesn't get to have so much as a shred of a meaningful conversation with Sherry here. Again. But moving on. The scene with Yaeger at the Poppo Time then leads us first to the small sequence in the arcade where the gang has to win a simulated duel to get Yaeger's encoded intel, then to episode 116—the Moment Express episode, where, due to this being a Yusei, Sherry, and Bruno-focussed episode, Crow gets nothing to do again. (And also doesn't get to interact with Sherry again.)

Congrats! We've survived the WRGP break. This leaves us with three more WRGP duels before shit hits the fan and the Ark Cradle arc commences. And full disclosure, I'll be doing a bit of a quick-fire round of those three duels. Why? Because despite them all having their merits in their own rights (they're the better liked duels of the WRGP for a reason), there honestly isn't that much focus on Crow during them. He duels, yes, and I've seen people point this out over and over again as the supposed smoking gun that shows how Crow had so much more relevance and screentime than Aki and yadda, yadda. We've been there. And it's not that I can't see where this argument is coming from—I'll be the first to tell you that it's a travesty that Aki never got to duel in the WRGP again outside of the Unicorn match. But I want to use the final three matches to dig into how the way these matches—and especially the opponents to go with them—were set up made it nearly impossible for Aki to replace Crow again during any point of the WRGP finals.

First, episode 118. This is the only preamble episode we get for the first two WRGP finals teams, and here, our group is split in two: Yusei, Bruno, and Rua introduce us to Team Taiyou, while Jack, Aki, and Crow introduce us to Team Ragnarok. There isn't much to say here, because the only thing this episode does for Crow is a shallow repeat of what the Team Catastrophe duel did: By putting him in a group with Aki and Jack, and letting them decide among themselves, independently, to check out the exhibition match, it implies that he voluntarily spends time with signers who aren't Yusei. Thumbs up. Gold star. You made an effort (I guess). Then, the real fun starts.

Round one. Team Taiyou.

(Pictured: The sweetest country bumpkins to ever grace this earth. Yes, I'm biased.)

So here's the deal with Team Taiyou, from a narrative standpoint, as best as I can grasp it: They are a callback to Team 5Ds' roots. Specifically, to the boys' Satellite roots. The Taiyou boys come from humble origins, have only one, mostly home-engineered duel runner, and play using old cards that are widely considered shitty, as 5Ds canon tells us. They are essentially the non-signer, countryside version of what Jack, Crow, and Yusei once were, which is why this is the first duel where the duellist constellation on Team 5Ds' end couldn't possibly have been altered. Team Taiyou is there to remind us where our boys started, so it has to be our boys duelling them. This also goes for Crow, even though this duel otherwise doesn't accomplish much for him, character-wise. Instead, it's more of a narrative wink at the audience, as well as providing a breather between otherwise extremely tense, plot-focussed duels. But yeah, Crow's part in this match isn't much to write home about; he doesn't get any verbal interactions that are very meaningful to his character, can't get so much as a scratch in on Zushin, even with Black-Winged Dragon, and is defeated so Yusei can take out the legendary giant.

Round two. Team Ragnarok.

(Behold the pizzazz of at least two contenders for Haircuts With The Most Spikes in the show.)

Though this duel is framed as being even more so aimed towards bolstering Jack's character writing than Crow's, given the inclusion of Dragan's personal history with Jack, Team Ragnarok gets significantly more interesting for Crow again than Team Taiyou did. This is, of course, mainly because of Brave/Broder. Where Team Taiyou were a callback to the 5Ds boys' roots, Team Ragnarok are their narrative foils. Dragan is the duellist who lost his pride to contrast Jack, who's brimming with pride at all times, and Harald/Halldor is essentially the rich, "destiny isn't bullshit, actually" version of Yusei. Meanwhile, unlike the first two, who highlight our 5Ds boys' characteristics by contrasting them, Brave acts as Crow's mirror. Through Team Ragnarok's flashbacks, we see that he gets almost exactly the same, lovable-rogue-type backstory that Crow did during the DS arc, just in a different setting. The only, major difference between them is that while Crow is more down-to-earth, Brave likes to be pretty flashy.

(Keep in mind that he's doing this on a runner. Is there such a thing as courses on how to do acrobatics on your runner? Like there are courses for vaulting on horseback irl? I'm overthinking this again.)

Unsurprisingly, the duel thus ends up addressing the similarities between Crow and Brave, mostly through two things: One, the duel essentially becomes a contest of who can out-trickster who, culminating in the famous, ridiculous-in-the-good-way sequence where Crow activates a trap from his graveyard, to the shock of pretty much everyone present. And two, despite being on opposite sides, the two bond over their concern for the children they took care of and their concern for children in general, which is expressed most clearly in the scene where Crow's kids, in an attempt to hold the poster they made for him higher, very nearly fall over the barricade in the WRGP stands. Despite the hefty length of the full duel, these are pretty much the only things actually related to Crow's character that come up, though. They're good, don't get me wrong, but in a duel that is otherwise this dense with plot, Aesir shenanigans, and Iliaster foreshadowing, it's no surprise that the duel doesn't add that much to Crow's character, outside of giving him someone he can bounce off very well and relate to. Again, though, we are faced with the same situation as with Team Taiyou: Due to the way the members of Team Ragnarok are written, meant to contrast/parallel one male duellist each from Team 5Ds, nobody other than Crow could have taken the third spot here, either. It would have felt awkward from a narrative standpoint (as much as I would have loved to see Aki duel more).

Now, finally. Round three. Team New World.

(Welp. Here come the robots.)

I had to check to make sure I wasn't misremembering this, but due to the way this duel was set up so José/Jakob could bust out Meklord Emperor Granel with a ridiculous amount of attack points, Crow gets a resounding four turns total in this duel. (Gee, I wonder which other character got this treatment during a WRGP duel.) During those four turns, there are only two things he accomplishes: One, leaving behind two combo pieces Yusei later uses, and two, showcasing the shrewd tactics that earned him the label of "trickster" during the Ragnarok duel by bringing out a non-synchro monster that can take advantage of a synchro monster's attack points and effects—Aurora the Northern Lights. And arguably, this is a very smart play, moreover, it's the only time anyone in the show has the bright idea to not use synchro monsters against the known and feared synchro-killer Meklords. Unfortunately, as smart as it is, the narrative doesn't reward Crow for this play—José all but shrugs what could have been a turning point in the duel off, then proceeds to steamroll Crow the next turn, leaving Yusei to score the win, as usual. To get back to the "Crow got so much more screentime than Aki during the WRGP" thing for a second, of all the duels in the WRGP finals, this is arguably the one where Aki could still most easily have taken Crow's spot again, because here, it doesn't matter whether it's him or someone else, as this duel isn't tied to his character in any way. Unfortunately, due to the Granel-steamroller-strategy, this is also the duel where letting Aki take his spot again would have been the biggest shot in the foot, because unless they had changed Team New World's strategy, Aki would have gotten brutally guillotined here, same as Crow—something I can't imagine anyone, not even people who hate Crow, being happy about.

With that, though, we've finally made it through the WRGP. So, what's the bottom line here? Frankly, speaking from my own interpretation, Crow occupies an... odd spot during this tournament, to say the least. Though he does get to duel the majority of the time, few of the duels actually cater to his character in any way. Moreover, he only gets to be the star of the show in a WRGP duel once, during the by far most forgettable match against Team Catastrophe. And mind that I use the term "star of the show" very loosely here, because the problem the WRGP arc as a whole has, in my opinion, is that the rather lame Team Catastrophe duel is the only one in the whole tournament that isn't won by Yusei, which categorically means that any of the other character's big moments are usually undermined by the fact that they ultimately still need him to save the day. Thus, moments like Aki summoning Stardust Dragon and Crow using an anti-synchro-killer strategy that for once actually forgoes synchros are somewhat cheapened by the fact that they're not actually the turning-point moments they're initially painted as, because ultimately, Yusei always has to be the one to save the day. What's worse is that this almost feels like a bit of a non-issue that could have easily been fixed—given that the show tells us that teams can shuffle around their line-up for a match any time. But unfortunately, the writing never interacts with this as a possible strategic element, nor does it ever seem to consider letting Yusei lose, or forcing him to give up his spot for a match. I feel the need to say that I don't put the blame at Yusei's feet here, though: This strongly feels like an oversight by the writers, and perhaps a disproportionate need to have a nigh-infallible protagonist (on the duelling side of things) that their audience would never run the risk of calling "lame". For Crow, though, this chiefly means one thing: In any duel other than the Catastrophe one, it was always clear that even if he partook, he would never finish the match. And yes, this is technically an issue Jack has, too. But this is where the character writing outside of the duels comes into play, too.

Unlike Jack, who actually gets to do something during the Diablo invasion (albeit very little), who gets his very own dragon upgrade and who gets a very personal, pre-duel plot with Dragan, the show's writing doesn't bother giving Crow a lot of plot- or character-relevant things to do, once the WRGP starts. This is also why I was so surprised at how much the Unicorn and Catastrophe duels embrace his interactions with Aki—compared to the later duels in the finals, this portion still makes Crow feel genuinely relevant and interwoven with the other characters. Meanwhile, out of the three final duels, only the Ragnarok one actually tries to establish a connection to his characterisation, through Brave. The Taiyou duel only sets itself up in such a way that Aki partaking instead of him would have been awkward. Meanwhile, the New World duel just has him being treated like a floormat in a sad parallel to Aki during the Unicorn duel, seeing as they both get a nice moment where it looks like they might turn the duel around (Aki summoning Stardust Dragon and Black Rose Dragon onto the field at the same time; Crow summoning Aurora the Northern Lights, which couldn't be absorbed by the Meklords), only to have their hopes dashed as they're mercilessly cleared off the track. Outside of the duels, many scenes sadly give the impression that they may as well not have included Crow, though—he often gets so little to contribute to a moment or even to say at all that substituting him with a cardboard box seems like it would not have impacted the scene in any way. And that's without addressing his non-existent connection to Sherry, which feels extra glaring, given his later interactions with her on the Ark Cradle.

All in all, the WRGP feels like a very mixed bag, where Crow's character writing is concerned. His belated backstory, which I talked about in part two, is front-loaded and asks as many questions as it answers. Then the tournament commences, gives him some actually decent character interplay with Aki for once (at the cost of letting her succeed in the tournament, it seems), only for him to be basically irrelevant during the WRGP pause again. And once the whole thing resumes, it becomes this hot-and-cold thing where some duel aspects seem tailored to him, while others treat him as completely expendable. The end result is an arc where I'm left wondering why exactly the writers felt the need to make it seem like Crow made up one portion of a protagonist trifecta, if they never actually bothered treating him as equal to the other two. (The answer, I believe, lies somewhere between the fumbled setup they did for him during the Fortune Cup and DS arc, and the way yugioh in general treats its character archetypes. But that's just speculation on my part.) The one, saving grace the WRGP (outside of the Pearson backstory) has for Crow is that it at least doesn't introduce any new character- and/or timeline inconsistencies. In fact, his character stays remarkably true to form once the tournament begins.

Okay, onto the final bit, then. As I've done in both previous posts, let me delve into completely subjective territory and offer some ideas on how this arc could have been handled to make it seem a little less all over the place with Crow. And since his writing here canonically intersects with Aki's several times, let me try to do it while offering the best of both worlds to both characters, if I can.

As far as Crow's backstory is concerned, I've already offered my solutions to that in part two. Now, to stay consistent with my own suggestions, I'll try to branch off what I wrote in the last post. This means that, as per my previous two analyses, we're dealing with two scenarios again: One, Crow stays a signer and we try to touch canon as little as possible. Two, Crow isn't a signer and we adjust canon in whatever way we need to to make him feel interesting and necessary despite/because of that.

First, though, let's get two adjustments I personally would have made in both versions out of the way:

The way the WRGP is structured puts every character that isn't Yusei at a massive disadvantage, where character moments in duels are concerned. Thus, I propose an overhaul. Among the changes I think could have benefitted the characters (yes, all of them) are: One - Aki actually getting to accomplish something during the Unicorn duel (she can and should still have her moments with Crow, but maybe let her portion of the duel end in her thanking him for coaching her, creating a more upbeat scene that strengthens their friendship, which could double as good setup for their later double-duel against Sherry). Two - letting the Team Catastrophe duel actually play out properly (as in, they become more meaningful as opponents by having a better strategy, for example, and Crow could stick it out longer against them, in order to make this more so his win than Jack's. Also, why not let Aki actually see him get back at Team Catastrophe for her?). Three - giving Crow an actual character moment during the Taiyou duel (what if one of the country boys had played a card or two of the ones he learned to read from? It could have helped drive the parallel between the two teams home.) Four - letting Crow's anti-Meklord strategy get at least a little payoff, if only for two turns (show us at least proof of concept, damn it!). Yes, the Ragnarok duel is the only one I wouldn't rewrite (unless special circumstances are introduced, see below). Additionally, let Team 5Ds alter their line-up more than once, damn it. Let them actually strategise about the duels, let them take into consideration who should go first when and whose deck might be better suited to which scenario. Also, remove Yusei from at least one duel. Doesn't matter how, just let him not partake once. Perfect setup to let Aki duel again, and would also allow for spicy character interactions. (Arguably the best duels where this could have been done would have been any of the final duels, though it would have also required rewriting the antagonists somewhat in any case.)

For the love of god, give Sherry and Crow some setup. Let them actually interact, let them introduce their philosophies to one another, just do something, anything to make Crow understanding and talking sense into her during the finale seem earned. A few chance meetings, or maybe even a tiny side-plot could have done so much here. And if you can't let them interact outright, at least let Aki and Crow talk about Sherry! Double whammy! The two characters who end up duelling against her are made to seem even more like a team, and Crow actually gets to find out what Sherry's deal is on-screen. Just. Set. it. up. I beg you.

There we go. Now, onto the two branches.

Option A: Crow stays a signer and obtained Black-Winged Dragon.

Seeing as Crow's signer status, funnily enough, isn't all that relevant during the tournament itself (save for two notable exceptions), there aren't that many fixes to be made here. Crow can still get injured, miss out on the Unicorn duel and be the star of the Catastrophe duel. But giving him something to do during the duel robot invasion that isn't standing around and hoping Yusei will fix everything would also be nice. It's fine if he can't drive out there and duel, but why not let him do something else? He's a crafty guy, why not let him find, say, a way to fry the Diablos' runners, taking a few of them out even from a semi-stationary position without duelling them? He could at least get as much of a consolation prize scene as Aki got with her saving that child. Then there's Team Taiyou, which, save for what I proposed above, is a duel that doesn't feel like it needs changes. Crow does his thing here. That's it. The same goes for Team Ragnarok, especially given that they're specifically written to oppose an all-signers Team 5Ds. Finally, there's Team New World, which, if I'm being completely candid, I would personally overhaul to change the cyborgs' strategy entirely in order to actually let all three members of Team 5Ds shine. But this is the version where I touch canon as little as possible, so... Aside from what I wrote above, no changes needed. Just make Crow seem a little more relevant, make his strategy have at least a little payoff, even if Granel's back out and menacing literally two turns later.

Option B: Crow, as per my previous posts, isn't a signer and doesn't have Black-Winged Dragon.

This is the version that would categorically require heavier changes, though they honestly don't arrive until the break in the tournament. Unicorn and Catastrophe stay the same, I would still propose that Crow gets to be a little more useful during the Diablo invasion. But! In this version, seeing as he never acquired BWD, the break in the WRGP would be an excellent spot to let Crow acquire an upgrade for his beefy Blackwing ace monster of choice. Give him a little side-plot, too, something to do, something where he proves himself. Maybe let him run into Iliaster here, or maybe call back to Pearson again and introduce the new Blackwing upgrade as a treasure Pearson stashed away before he died (maybe this could have even been the card Bolger was actually after; the world is our oyster here). Then he's beefed up, too, and actually feels a little more on the same level as Jack and Yusei. The tournament recommences and again, the Taiyou duel could stay mostly the same, I think. Ragnarok and New World are where it gets really interesting, though. The way I see it, Ragnarok could go two ways with Crow not being a signer: Either he partakes as he did in canon and his non-signer status is called out as a peculiarity by our Swedish boys who happen to be obsessed with fate (which would make his performance against Brave seem all the more impressive), or, due to this being a duel all about destiny and celestial pissing contests, Crow's spot is given to Aki again for this duel due to her signer status (this would, obviously, require rewriting Brave, perhaps even switching him out for a Ragnarok lady instead). As for Team New World, this duel would honestly be a lot more juicy with a non-signer Crow, because much like he was for the dark signers, a non-signer Crow would essentially be an unknown in their plan for the cyborgs. He would be the guy who's Not Supposed To Be Here. Granted, he would still be beaten, but he could still get an excellent moment where his out-of-left-field anti-Meklord strategy genuinely seems to turn the tables for a bit, angering José and providing even stronger setup for Yusei to win later.

Aaaaand that's that. Somehow, I get the feeling the WRGP had the least things that needed fixing because it also had the least actual character writing. But that might just be me. It's late and I have been writing for A While. But hey, I got out part three faster than part two! I consider that an achievement.

Now, while I get my talking points in order for part four, I hope you'll have fun chewing on this one. See you in the grand finale to my Bird Boy dissertation.

42 notes · View notes

penultimate-step · 5 months

Text

Denji is a character written to be a disruptor, someone who will break through established social norms. When he speaks, this is reflected in his blunt willingness to say whatever he feels should be said, having no care for niceties and not paying attention to the conversational flow. Of course, to skillfully show off such a character trait, that means the author, in contrast, must be very concerned about the flow, to best write the moments to have Denji insert himself.

This isn't an analysis, just talking about a few examples from the series that stood out to me. Examples include spoilers throughout part 1 and well into part 2 under the cut:

Just look at chapter 127 for the most clear cut example.

The whole gag is that there's a serious emotional struggle going on, in the middle of a serious action sequence, and Denji is talking about how much he loves sex. It's like the manga equivalent of a whoopee cushion in a handshake gag: the joke is in the interruption from the established atmosphere and expectations.

If we look at part 1, we can find a few similar times where the same trick was attempted. I'll use chapters 47, since it's the first one that comes to mind for me:

Notice the difference? In part 1, where denji has a much greater focus and the side characters have less emphasis, it means much less when Aki and Reze are playing off of him. Yes, it's still denji having a moment where he breaks the emotional tension with a desire for women, but without Asa's grounding counter presence as co-protagonist he's left to essentially play straight man to himself.

Of course, denji's bluntness is deeper than just playing the fool. One of my favorite moments in the manga is a result of this, from chapter 36:

A more socially conscious character might have offered condolences or said they had regrets, when standing in front of someone whose family is dead. It's pretty common politeness! But denji doesn't care about social graces - the man mistreated him, turned into a zombie, and died, no need to overthink it. So he tells his surviving family to his face that he feels nothing. Amazing. This is a moment where rather than Denji disrupting serious emotional moments to release tension, his honesty instead ramps up the emotional stakes of the scene, getting more personal than things would be otherwise.

Denji's glib brush-off shows his dissonance with the social fabric around him, sure, but also demonstrates his lack of care for the bonds between people - a callback to a few chapters earlier, in chapter 29, where Denji himself has similar worries, and setting the stage for this character thread's resolution in 38. It's a great moment.

Anyway, just one more example before I stop. A bit from part 2, another moment where Denji does something perceived as vulgar, which, through the reactions of those around him, emphasizes his character.

Yoshida sets the stage - he's in control. He is trying to follow in Makima's footsteps in holding Denji's leash. Simple carrot and stick. But he's not her, doesn't have her skills in manipulation, and Denji has changed a lot from the desperate boy he was in chapter 2. So he cuts through - so what if usually cake is eaten with silverware? Denji effortlessly throws Yoshida off his game. See his shocked and disgusted face? It's an early indication that the manipulations that characterized part 1 won't be going as smoothly this time.

In short, look, I know that "character A does something offbeat, character B reacts with shock" is far, far from an original concept, its one of the most classic types of humor. but, nonetheless, I appreciate csm's execution of it. having these defined and emphasized characters react and be off balance by Denji's actions works well as a characterization tool for both Denji and his conversation partner, and can let the author adjust scene tone on the fly.

#chainsaw man #step.animanga #step.effortpost

11 notes · View notes

clandestine-j · 3 years

Text

Gossip Girl Reboot, EP. 3

Review/Reaction

alright, we're here for ep 3 reaction and thoughts &

man, i must say, DRAMA.

love it. i'm going to try and make this short but i fail horribly at stuff like that soooo lets see how this will go. i think imma split it into three groups! adults, kids, other random shit.

adults

you know what? i was here for most of them. people talk about zoyas dad bad acting but he was fine in his little scene, i'm happy that he's forcing zoya to take time with obie or whatever. i know people hate her dad and zobie but it was a little nice scene.

i'm really loving julien's dad. i'm glad he can own up and apologize and i get where he was coming from. honestly 10/10 so far, i love the relationship he has with julien and how's he's learning to cope with her becoming an adult and seeing it happen.

fucking love max's dad and the whole family dynamic thing before it went to shit. obvi, the one day is shitty but his other dad, lovely, i love their relationship. parents are winning in this ep.

teachers? JAIL (maybe not rafa but we'll still see). honestly, i'm not hating the teachers being gg, i like that they put gg out there for other private schools so i'm enjoying it but still JAIL. JAIL. JAIL.

our mains

we didn’t get to see much of monet but her little blow up motion at the end was funny and when the chick offered her name, monet said no. queen. and home girl accepted it.

luna was #theebest from her doing the zoya glow up. i think everyone agrees that her holding up the phone is a fan favorite. luna is my best one liner girl. her delivery is on point.

obie, more of obie, i know people don’t like him but he’s an alright character for me. i see potential but we need to flush him out a bit more. i hope to see more of his interactions with aki, give us the friendship. i want him to take what he learns to heart.

zoya, yes girl, pop off. i guess she can when it comes to her passions but not to her. (just be catty once back) i love that she did call luna when it came to the hashtag and she realized who she couldn’t be fairly quickly. i wonder if the play wright is the new friend.

julien! honestly, she really is a queen and i’m loving her pushing back against monet and luna more and more. i also love the scheming and her night out with max. they’re great together and i just wanna see more of it. (all of the friendships) i also love her relationship with her dad. i like that they talk and work things out and while he shouldn’t have lied, i get why and i love that he thought about her so much.

idk how to even to the next few but here we go.

honestly, i found aud and aki funny this episode. their reactions were so alike but so different. the awkward wave and everything. i get that they’re lying to themselves but damn, if they could find a way to spice up their sex life they’d be good. i find them so cute as a couple when they’re all cuddly and just ugh. guys. talk. i will say that after though, when they met in the hall way, i like that once it was out there, aki was straight to the point. honestly, if they broke up...i don’t think it’d be bad, i think they’d be good friends and understanding of each other.

i saw people saying that they didn’t give enough (aki) but max was on his monologue shit and i think they were in two different mindsets. aki didn’t look blank, he looked pissed. and i would be too lowkey, you say you don’t wanna be in the middle of it but then you put yourself, right in the middle. and aside from the kiss, i don’t think aki tried anything more with him unless it comes out that he did. but a few days passed (julien jetting around) so i don’t if they were that thirsty. audrey probs thought that in that moment, she’d really lose aki and that’s what brought her too tears. i think aki already accepted what might happen and was just pissed while audrey, even when she told julien about it, she was disconnected in her head about what she had done.

max was a rollercoaster this episode. from the taking julien out to posting her with the coke to making the plans. it’s was all chaos. i think the moment i felt the worst from aside from the break down? when he didn’t realize the trouble with his parents marriage at the table but we could all see it. that was heart breaking and my dude though, his planning was on ten. making the profile, switching the seats, the hands on the thigh (aki licking his lips) and then his break down and just telling of the truth, exploding, spilling the tea. whatever you wanna call it. it was wonderful and his reasons for doing it, so childish and backfired but you get it. he just wanted the truth out with his parents and it all went to hell. really, heart breaking but amazing for the show and his character development.

my man is still messy though, even without telling the business. like aud and max were in a relationship but those were yo friends my dude. you legit blocked aki from sitting next to his girlfriend, im crying. (messy and he knows it and aki liked his lips. sick.)

now random thoughts that had no real place

audrey’s actress makes these strange faces sometimes...idk...it’s funny to me because i’m wondering why

the scene when max’s dads and rafa met, jesus

would you spell it buffl-ho?

it’s the least you could do

did aki say shenanigans, boy you are a kid

the moment with max and his dad, still, thinking about and it still cute, all cuddly, idk if the og parents were like this but i love it

since we’re getting mostly reasonable parents i expect the worse ones to pop up soon

the way monet delivered that brad line, it sends

why would he put her doing coke on

aud / aki had reasons to think max would blab because he’s messy

my boy aki flirting with other dudes as rafa

i could see aud asking aki to make out with any boy while she watches, so guys get it together please

how did obie not see aki stops talking and suddenly look at max

i wonder if someone has tried to take advantage of max because those words hit too hard

those teachers really set home girl up, omg, JAIL.

aki needs new friends who’ll love his movie drops. he just gets bullied into things, maybe it’s his kink i won’t judge but he couldn’t change by himself, pushed into the bathhouse, the profile, obie won’t let the group chat name stick #stopgettingbullied

aki’s & max’s relationship summed up into one tweet, he really likes this boi, once i’m SICK (click the sentence)

i haven’t loved all of at school looks but i really liked juliens at the end of the episode

was the music transitions a little jarring to anyone else?

thanks all for now, just my minds ramblings as normal. i could go more in depth about all of this but i’m sure ya’ll are sick of reading it now.

#gossip girl reboot #max wolfe #aki menzies #julien calloway #luna la #c;gg

35 notes · View notes

akaashisbabygirl · 4 years

Text

Words: 1622

Pairings: Nishinoya x reader

Warnings: Characters are aged up, face sitting, lingerie

A/n: since school has been back to making me sleep deprived once more, I haven’t had much time to write the full thing. Nevertheless, I left it where I did to change it around a bit. I’m now going to sit up and write the one for tomorrow so I don’t fall behind

Note: I DO NOT OWN THE IMAGES USED. THEY BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTFUL OWNERS. ALL PICTURES USED WERE FOUND ON PICSART

A whole week had now broken the record for the longest time you hadn’t seen your loving boyfriend. Usually, Nishinoya would be gone for a couple days at most, due to his job, which was completely understandable, but having to sleep every night without your boyfriend next to you, wanting to be touching you in any way possible was slightly hard to get used to.

A smile lit your face up when you received a message a couple nights ago from Noya, where he confirmed the date he will be coming back home. You could’ve sworn your friends were beginning to get sick of you and your constant feeling alone attitude.

Which is exactly why your three best friends, Hina, Aki and Masumi were there to comfort you and treat you to a spa day, the same day your boyfriend was arriving back home. You had argued with them, explaining that Noya was going to be home that day and you needed to be there to greet him when he stepped through those doors of your shared home once again. But nevertheless, your friends only complained, threatening to drag you out of the house by force if they needed to.

“Just try it on. It’s going to look adorable on you!” Masumi exclaimed as she handed you the lace pink lingerie.

Recalling the moments on how you and your three friends ended up in a lingerie store honestly sounded like a whole mystery. All you had revealed was that your boyfriend would be home tonight, however, the next minute you were being dragged into a lingerie store, unable to understand what was going through your friends’ minds.

You admired your body in the dressing room mirror, eyes set on the way the light pink lingerie sat on your body. You stepped out to show your three best friends, Masumi’s eyes widening, but the others shaking their head in disapproval.

“No, a darker colour would look so much better on her,” Aki states.

“I agree with Aki, you can rarely see the light pink on her. how is Noya supposed to get turned on by that?” Hina adds.

You silently curse your friends in your head for that comment, as Aki and Hina run off to get a darker colour lingerie for you. Masumi sits and continues to compliment you. Only seconds later, the two girls run back to you, handing you two sets of lingerie. A red set from Aki and a dark blue set from Hina.

You wondered why you were even here in the first place. Your boyfriend was going to be home sometime soon, but instead of being home, you were out shopping for lingerie.

“woah, the red one suits you the most!” the three girls all agreed on.

You were just happy to go back home, but it didn’t mean that you were somewhat interested in the way the lingerie looked on your body. Noya loved it when you dressed up in lingerie, especially for him. He loved the way the material looked on your body. It always ignited some sort of fire inside of him.

Maybe this would be a good surprise for him to come home to.

After a day which felt that it had lasted forever, you were finally dropped off at the front of your home. As you turned the key in the door, you silently prayed that Noya wasn’t already home.

Thankfully, he wasn’t.

Pulling your phone from your pocket, you decided to text him and ask how long until he arrived home.

[Y/n]

How long until you get home, babe. I miss you so much

On the drive back to your place, with your friends in the car, you had decided that you were going to dress up for him for when he arrived back home. It had been about two weeks since the two of you last had sex, considering the week before he had to leave, you had just gotten your period.

Your phone lit back up, four messages from your loving boyfriend appeared on the screen.

[Yū]

Not too long now babe.

An hour and 30 minutes at max.

I miss you a lot

I just wanna come home already

You smiled. An hour and thirty minutes was enough time for you to shower, shave and prepare yourself for when he would be home.

Sitting on the lounge, you wore your lingerie underneath the large, white robe that you were wearing. Anxiously, but excitedly, you waited for your boyfriend to arrive back home. Your heart almost beat out of your chest as you heard the keys to the door from outside. The living room of your shared home was right next door to where the front door was, so every time Noya arrived home from work, you were able to hear when he had arrived back home.

You threw your phone to the side, pretending like you hadn’t been using it while waiting for him to arrive home.

The door opened and your loving boyfriend head popped in through the door. You immediately ran over to him, wrapping your arms around him tightly. Noya lifted you up, swinging you around as a few tears rolled down your face, mainly from excitement. It had felt like forever since you had last seen him

“I missed you so much,” Noya smiled setting you back down on your feet.

You wiped the small tears which were beginning to pool at your eyes, “I missed you to.”

“Why are you dressed in a robe?” He chuckled, commenting on your appearance.

“Why don’t you take it off and find out,” You smirked to him.

“Alright then.”

His hands moved down to your robe, pulling at the small little bow you had tied at the front. The white material dropped to the floor; your red lingerie now exposed to Noya’s eyes. He sucked in a breath as his eyes traced your body, taking in the way the soft, red, lace material clung to your body, tracing your curves.

“Fuck. You look so fucking hot,” he tried to grab onto you, but seconds before his hands were able to touch your body, you began walking off to the bedroom. Noya chuckled. He knew you were playing, desperate even to have his cock inside of you. He followed you to the bedroom, a soft chuckle leaving his lips as he did.

Noya pinned you down onto the bed, “Got ya.”

His lips pressed onto yours. The feeling of having his soft lips on yours felt like heaven. Your lips were soft. he was able to easily able to melt into your kisses, your touch, everything about you he loved right now.

“Fuck, I almost don’t wanna take the lingerie off of you. Your body looks so fucking good, baby,” He moans against your lips, his hands resting on your waist.

Noya stands up to remove his clothes, throwing his shirt over his head and onto the floor.

“I want you to sit on my face, baby,” Noya states, moving to lie back down, his head meeting with the soft pillow. Your legs moved on their own, your fingers pulling on your panties, leaving the top half of your lingerie on.

Your legs positioned on each side of his head, hands moving to grip the headboard. His hands eagerly gripped onto your hips, pulling you down onto his face. His tongue instantly moved to your clit, sucking on your swollen bud like he hadn’t eaten anything since he left home for work. You thought he would be tired, exhausted from all the work for a whole week straight. It would be a normal and understandable thing if Noya wasn’t interested in having sex, or doing anything, due to tiredness. But with Noya, there was no way he was going to leave you like this.

His hands moved to your thighs, his normal sized hands gripping tightly on the exposed skin. Your hips bucked over his face, knees digging harshly into the bedsheets as your eyes rolled to the back of your head, feeling Noya push his tongue into your cunt. The lack of attention on your most sensitive areas for just two weeks had already made your climax begin to build up as fast as ever. Usually, it would take a little more effort, but just the feeling of Noya’s hands on yours made you throw your head back immediately. Your thighs began to shake the usual feeling of your climax spreading over your body once more.

Noya felt your thighs begin to shake, able to tell that your climax had reached you. He loved having you sit on his face, loving the way your thighs would tighten around his head when you’re about to cum, how your hands would grip onto the headboard tightly to hold yourself in position to make sure you didn’t fall over.

“Yū… y-you’re gonna make me cum,” you announced.

He didn’t reply, but he defiantly heard. His tongue moved faster, trying to bring you to that climax. He wanted to taste you again. Taste the wetness between your legs, the way you’d taste when you’d cum from just his tongue or even fingers alone.

A soft, long moan exited your mouth, your head throwing back as you climaxed, the white, sticky substance now coating Noya’s mouth. He helped pull your hips from his face, setting you down softly on his waist, straddling his crotch, where you could feel his member beginning to poke your body. You saw him lick his lips, cleaning your cum from his lips.

“Fuck, I missed how you tasted,” he commented, a small little snicker exiting his mouth as he noticed the small blush spreading across your face.

#haikyuu #haikyuu smut #haikyuu writing #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!!#haikyū!!#haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu scenarios #nishinoya yū #nishinoya x reader #nishinoya imagine #nishinoya x you #nishinoya smut #nishinoya headcanons #hq nishinoya #nishinoya fanart

298 notes · View notes

seqka711 · 3 years

Text

Ranking the six main boy/girl ships in Yu-Gi-Oh from best to worst!

Not all main girl ships are created equally, I'm afraid. Let's take a look at each ship and see what's up! (Except Sevens because as I mentioned in a previous post, I am way too far behind to comment on anything in that show.)

First up is Anzu and Yugi! And YES I do ship them! However, I don't ship Atem and Anzu. Anzu was friends with Yugi, and started to see him in a different light when Atem started showing up. However, those changing feelings also started to influence her feelings about Yugi as well. We saw that in Duelist Kingdom. Then in season 2 when she realizes they're two separate people, she gets really confused! Anzu doesn't know how to feel anymore! Then Atem and Yugi are both playing wingman for each other, so that's not helping matters. I don't really ship Atem and Anzu because Atem just doesn't seem super interested in their date. I know he had other things on his mind, but if they wanted me to ship it, now was the time to show off some chemistry and they didn't.

We saw in GX that Yugi grows up to look just like Atem and he also grows more confident over the course of the series. After the end of Duel Monsters, I think they're both too hurt by Atem's passing to be digging on each other. But, distance makes the heart grow fonder, and I feel like she's gonna come back from the states and have some heart-pounding feelings when she sees him again. And Yugi's feelings didn't change, they were just put on the back burner. So hopefully when they meet back up, sparks are gonna fly! At least, I hope so. <3

Next up is Asuka and Judai! When I watched their first duel, I was 100% on board with this ship. They were cute, they had great banter, it was a fair fight. I loved it! But over the course of the series, I started losing interest in their relationship, fast. By the end of season 2 I was pretty convinced they had abandoned Asuka x Judai for Asuka x Manjoume, and honestly, I was 100% on board with that, I love a good romcom couple and those two have dysfunctional romcom energy. Plus they had evil power couple vibes when they were running the Society of Light together, so I thought for sure they were gonna have Manjoume and Asuka be better friends post possession.

Then season 3 came a long and I was like "woah, they DID do that on purpose! I was right!" when we saw the Judai x Johan x Yubel love triangle they spent the entire season on. Asuka and Manjoume were of course relegated to background characters, as was everyone who wasn't a transfer student. And then the series ended with a pretty definitive Judai x Yubel ending and I was like "cool I like it".

But then season 4 made me question everything by making it clear that Asuka was still crushing on Judai?!?! Uhhh.... what? You haven't mentioned this crush in OVER TWO YEARS ASUKA. You've both changed so much! I thought the whole point was "she had a fleeting crush on him in year 1, but people change and so do our feelings"! I thought they had her fall out of love with him on purpose!! You're telling me the writers just wanted us to ASSUME she was still in love with him this whole time?!

I honestly love the whole "had a crush on him, now that I know him better, he's an amazing friend but I don't like him that way anymore" dynamic and they RUINED IT so bad. And for what? To say "well they fought the whole time, but now look! They can tag duel together!" Well, jokes on them, because a few episodes later Judai and Johan will show off some of the tightest teamwork in the show and I'll have to throw Asuka x Judai in the trash. </3`

Yusei x Aki!!!!!! AHHHHHH I LOVE THEM. Their first duel is very romantic in my opinion. Yusei lives to help people, and it's actually a flaw of his that he'll help people no matter the cost. Usually that's sort of a "who cares" flaw in a protagonist, but for Yusei, it adds a lot of depth to his character. The reason he helps people even at the cost of himself is because he feels enormously guilty due to his parents' involvement in Zero Reverse, and he feels like he owes the world (but especially Satellite) everything. Yusei tried to go to jail in Kiryu's stead, but failed, and I think that only compounded his guilt even more.

Then, when Yusei sees the chance to help Aki, he does it. He's scared of her, but he rallies his courage to face her so that he can help her. And it's only natural that Aki would fall hopelessly in love with him after he continually put himself at risk over and over again JUST to help her. I love the episode where she rescues him from being kidnapped and then accompanies him on a riding duel. I think it hits me harder because it reminds me of how much I want to drive a motorcycle but can't because of reasons I won't go into. But part of her desire to learn to riding duel is because she wants to feel the same things Yusei feels. And that's so cute!

Unfortunately, I do have a certain headcanon that gets in the way of my shipping desires. I won't get into the whole headcanon, but I think Yusei might have ended up time travelling back in time to fix Zero Reverse and prevent Zone's future. And Aki wouldn't have come with him because we see her in the flashforward. Yusei is still giving her strength though. And I like to think that maybe a much older Yusei was able to help a much younger Aki control her powers and not enter a cult in the new timeline. And if my headcanon isn't true, then GET MARRIED AND HAVE BABIES GUYS. <3

On the one hand, I love Kotori x Yuma. They’re so adorable! Not only is Kotori surprisingly self-aware of her crush (usually the YGO girls love to deny it) but Yuma clearly treats her differently from the rest of his friends, even though he doesn’t know why (yet). Kotori’s confession at the end of the show is SO CUTE AND ADORABLE and Yuma accepts and I love it!

But… I can’t love it as much as I WANT to love it. Kotori’s character, especially in Zexal II is kind of boring. I liked her a lot in Zexal I actually. I thought it was fine to have a character not duel as long as she was doing something else. In season 1 she occasionally gets shit done. Or she’s there for comic relief like when she’s riding the duel coaster. Or arguing with Orbital 7. It wasn’t much, but it was something. In season 2, she’s a total non-entity. I thought the duel where she gets possessed was very funny, but I almost wish that her getting possessed by a Barian was played for drama rather than laughs.

I think what could have been cool is either a) after she can hear Astral, her and Astral team up for a duel or b) when watching Yuma she started to memorize his strategies. Or both. Or neither, just get this girl something to do BESIDES watch Yuma! In the end, my love for how adorable these two are is always somewhat soured by Kotori’s squandered potential. <3

Speaking of squandered potential, Yuzu and Yuya are next on the list. I love these two A TON! I’ll be perfectly honest and admit my biases here, I am NOT the biggest fan of Arc-V. The show had a lot of problems, and I’m harsher on it than most.

But one thing I really did like about the beginning of the show was Yuzu! She was independent, driven and her dueling was getting better as the show progressed. Just like Kotori, she became a non-entity in the latter seasons. However, I ship Yuya x Yuzu more than I ship Yuma x Kotori because Yuya was always keeping Yuzu in mind during the latter seasons. So it still felt like the ship was in focus, whereas with Kotori x Yuma, the ship kind of disappeared since more important things were going on. For Yuya, nothing was more important than getting Yuzu back, so really I had no choice BUT to ship it. How could I not? It was so sweet! She was his whole world! I wish we got more scenes with the two of them together though. Them never tag dueling is a crime against humanity. Also its total BS that only Yuya and Yuzu got to come back, but whatever, I guess. I was happy that the two of them reunited and even HAPPIER that the show was finally over. <3

Last and basically least, Yusaku x Aoi. Or Playmaker x Blue Maiden. I’ll be honest, I don’t ship this at all. The show doesn’t go through any effort to get us invested in their so-called “relationship” and if I had watched this show on its own, unaware of the series’ tropes, I wouldn’t have assumed they were a “ship” at all. With Judai x Asuka, I actually liked the fake out (at least until S4 when I wondered whether or not the fake out was actually on purpose or if the writers are just morons) but with Yusaku x Aoi I get frustrated because it wouldn’t have been that hard to GIVE them some chemistry. They’re both interesting characters, and I think Aoi and Yusaku could have had an interesting dynamic if Aoi had learned Playmaker’s identity a lot sooner.

What I think the show should have done was have Aoi discover Playmaker and Soulburner’s identity at the same time they discovered each other. Then have Aqua come into the fold a lot earlier. Trios are popular in fiction for a reason, and I think Yusaku, Takeru and Aoi would have been an excellent trio. Specifically, with both Yusaku and Aoi being so reserved, their relationship would be very understated. But that’s not a bad thing. It just means that the writers would have to put more focus on the little things. Like, maybe after a while of being friends, Yusaku sits next to her in class. That would be a small thing for other people, but for those two, that’s huge! I could also see there being a fun episode where Ai tries to trick them into going on a date but fails spectacularly. The two of them end up spending time together to foil the plan. That could be really cute! LITERALLY ANYTHING is better than NOTHING.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t ship this because the writers thought they could get me to ship it just by having boy meets girl and then having them shake hands over a hundred episodes later. And no. I refuse. I need a LITTLE more than that, please and thank you. </3

That was a very long post! All in all, 4/6 ain’t bad at all! Or maybe it’s more like a 3.5 since I only gave Kotori and Yuma a small heart? It doesn’t really matter, I’m a multishipper. At my heart and soul, I’ll ship anything. Like I said I don’t ship Judai and Asuka, but I totally have shippy fanart of them on my phone, lol. It’s more like… which of these ships would I defend in court and which ships do I only like because I’m trash that’ll ship anything?

Oh, I guess I did title this as a ranking... Well, I'm sure you can figure out my most and least favourites by how much I used caps lock, so it should be fine.

Give me ANY Yu-Gi-Oh ship (straight, gay or in between) and I’ll dissect it like I did these six.

23 notes · View notes

skampi835 · 3 years

Text

Hell of the Living

I just read about the Unloved Characters Month event, hosted by @the-moonlight-dreams a few days ago and I really wanted to give it a try (besides having a good idea which left me giggling). Caution though, my english isn’t the best. You’ve been warned!

Fandom: Ikemen Sengoku

Language: english

Genre: dark

Warning: blood, angst

Prompt: Day 11 - The Tavern

Word Count: 1.150

This turned out way darker than I thought. Maybe it’s not the best example for an unloving character, writing some dark fiction about him, but let’s just say I show my affection for Motonari by appreciating his madness. Don’t we love him, just because of that? No? - Argh damn!

Still I hope you’re enjoying this, because I had so much fun writing something about Motonari (and a hard time with the research and grammar).

“Yer know, what I mean, aye?”

Toasting to himself, Motonari brings his glass he’s holding to his lips. The liquid burned his throat, drowning down into his stomach and leaves a refreshing warmth. It expelled the weariness that crept in his mind for some time by now. Why was he so tired?

Licking the drops, which had left on his lips, with his tongue away, he silently sat his glass down on the table he’s leaning. The crimson painted sky preludes the end of the day and welcomes the night with its raising shadows which were growing longer. The noises from afar jingles like music in his ears, accomplished to lift his spirits ever so joyfully, while leaving a rarely prickle on his skin.

Motonari weary and lazily searched the inside of the tavern with these unusual magenta coloured eyes of his. The dim lights of candles and lanterns reflected in them, leaving a shimmer, like gleaming rubies. But of course... he was aware since when he took seat on one of the stools at the counter. He knew all along that he was alone in here, besides of the innkeepers company of course.

“Bet ya knew at first sight, that I wasn’t in Sakai for a damn long time, eh?” Motonari asks with a wry smirk, leaning against the wooden table. Resting his head in a palm of his white-gloved hands, his eyes are watching the innkeeper. “Gotta say, a bunch has changed, don’t ya think?” He snickered almost gushing. “Lookin’ pretty vast, if yer ask me.”

The innkeeper doesn’t answer, his stoic expression plastering to the window, as if there was anything special to look at. But there was only the fading crimson light of the night. A soft sigh escapes Motonari’s mouth, ending in a hum. “Say, I’d some time to think.” He mutters, his eyes following the glance of the innkeeper. “Sakai is the front door to the whole country, aye? Like an entranceway.” He explains almost patiently. “Gotta feeling, this’ll be the best place to start, eh?”

Slowly Motonari spins the glass above the table, still leaning on his elbow, which is lazily cupping his cheek. “Better than rotten Aki. But... hell, everywhere’s better than Aki.” His phony laughter fills the air, which is soaked with the smell of iron. “Isn’t it ironic, the place, that’s still mine, I hate the most?” Motonari smirks, inclining his head slightly, facing the innkeeper. “Why, would yer ask? Sorry, but that’s a hell of a story to tell and I’ll not waste my time to some bloody landlubber.”

As fast as the dark clouds rose in Motonari’s mind, he sealed the thoughts of despair and sorrow deep in his heart back again, locking it firmly away. Aki carried a long span of his life, whereas he’d thrown into the depths of hell. The amount of unspoken things he’d done, desperately dragging him out of this hell, just to find himself in an even worse one. It was... anomalous painful. But this feeling lasted not for long, forged into blazing, consuming hatred, as he’d seen the truth on the edge of his own.

Motonari vacantly runs his fingers over his white-gloved hands, like they were armor, realizing a tiny spot of dotted red on the cloth. For a short time, the wounds behind this madman lay open, just beneath the surface. But he was all alone, besides the innkeepers company of course.

Lifting his head, Motonari gazes to the innkeeper. “Ya wanna say something?” He snarls. But the innkeeper remains silent. Suddenly the warlord’s laughing ill, nearly smashing the glass, as he raps one white-gloved hand, formed to a fist on the bar. “This festering cesspit of a world doesn’t deserve peace, aye? It can drown in its own filth.” His frigid magenta eyes were scowling at the innkeeper.

A wicked smile appearing on his face, Motonari slowly lifts his empty glass to the innkeeper. “Pour me another one.” He demands. But like before, the innkeeper remains silent, for he wasn’t the one who had spoken a word at all. His hollow eyes are still staring at the window, wherefrom the orange flicker of fire threw the shadows back.

With a heavy sigh, Motonari rose on his feet, sauntering behind the counter. With one white-gloved hand he takes the opened bottle of sake, pouring the liquor into his glass. “Disappointing.”, he grumbles. “Ya still don’t get it, eh? That might is right and life is war. If yer weak, you’re dirt. And if yer strong, you get to survive by eating the remains of the others. THAT’s the way it is.” Motonari takes a little sip of the glass, gazing resigned over the innkeeper, before filling his glass anew.

Strings of blood leaving the crushed body that lays halfway on the bar with its torso. Its lifeblood’s steadily running over the bar, dripping slowly onto the floor, blending to the amount of puddles and splatters, which had already painted the inside of the tavern red. The flames from the candles, lanterns and from the fire, spreading outside the tavern with cracking noises, are mirroring in the red of the pools, turning the atmosphere gloomy.

The air is thickening with the scent of smoke and iron. The music from afar keeps echoing in Motonari’s ears with the sound of terrified screams and dirty laughers from members of his crew.

After quietly placing the bottle back on its spot, Motonari takes his time, to drink. This is right, wasn’t it? Victory gives control over everything. The lives of the losers, even their deaths, their disgrace, their wealth and their worth...

“I don’t give a damn about it.”, Motonari disgruntled snarls, tossing the glass over his shoulders. With a splintering clang it shatters on the wooden floor, while he’s stepping over a pool of blood, to round the counter. His cloak waves lightly over his shoulder, although soaked with dried splatters of dotted red.

“Told ya.” Motonari draws his sword from its sheath with an metallic sound, looking over his shoulder to the dead bodies he’d leave behind, wearing a sick smirk. “Sakai’s the front door to the whole damn country. I started the party by setting fire in the entranceway for everybody to see.” His vicious smirk creeps among the bloody scene, before he's turning. “If yer all not willed to damn see I simply HAVE to put the hell of a show! And when the blood from your broken bodies turns to froth on the sea and this world shows its glory consumed by an ocean of fire, THEN you just have to realize, that we’re already living in hell!”

As he exits the tavern, Motonari’s maddening laughter echoed hauntingly in the night. It mixes with the raucous sounds of the crackling fire from the burning buildings around and the dreadful, eerie screams in the alleys from the people, while his crew mercilessly ravaged the village. The flickering crimson flaming lights are illuminating the night, while sparks of embers floating up into the dark sky.

#ikemen series #ikemen sengoku #ikesen #fanfiction #ikesen fanfic #ikesen writing #ikemen sengoku fanfiction #ikesen fanfiction #ikesen fic #unloved-otome-2021 #ikesen motonari #ikemen sengoku motonari #motonari mouri #ikesen motonari fanfiction #ikesen motonari fanfic

40 notes · View notes

themattress · 4 years

Text

Rewatch: My Bride is a Mermaid Ep 23 - 24

Two episodes that are absolutely hilarious...and then sucker-punch you HARD with Feels.

Episode 23: The Man Without a Past

The episode opens up with a Masa Today, which launches us right into the main conflict: Masa is revealed to have no memories of his past beyond when he began working for the Seto Gang 10 years ago. At the same time, Akeno reveals that she is searching for her older brother, who disappeared 10 years ago while on government business to the Seto Inland Sea, and she wants to kill him for bringing shame upon the Shiranui family...and on a more personal level, for abandoning her. Yeah, anyone can see where this is going: Masa is Akeno’s brother who got amnesia after being struck in the head by a drunk Gozaburo. Desperate to save Masa’s life, Nagasumi and Gozaburo team up to stop him from recovering his memories, but their crazy attempts only end up causing that very thing to happen.

There is a lot that is funny in this episode: Gozaburo and Nagasumi actually needing to work together for a common goal, Sun constantly addressing Akeno as “Aki” which she never did before and never will again as though she just randomly decided she’d give Akeno a pet name for that day and that day only, Akeno briefly losing her memory and reverting back to her 4 year old state of mind, and the ultimate pay-off to Nagasumi’s homoerotic feelings for Masa with him pretending to be outright in love with him in order to keep his memories suppressed...a choice that he is seriously, hysterically regretting by the end of the episode.

But when Masa actually recovers his memories, the episode takes a shocking turn into true emotional sincerity. Masa has a mental encounter with his past self and expresses shame and disappointment in his whole existence being nothing but a lie, and he is willing to fade away to give the original persona his body back. His past self, however, makes him see all of the friends - family, really - that he made in the 10 years he’s been around, telling him that he can’t just disappear from their lives. And so it’s his past self that fades away, with parting words asking Masa to be there for his sister. Akeno, in 4 year old mode, is crying for her big brother and it’s legitimately heart-wrenching: for all her teenage self’s declarations of hatred and a desire for fatal vengeance, deep down all she really wants is to have him back. Masa goes over and hugs her tight, saying that even if he’s not the brother that she remembers, he wants to be the brother that she has now. And at the end, he even tells the guilt-stricken Gozaburo that he bears no grudges toward him for accidentally causing him amnesia, and that he loves him, Sun and the whole Seto Gang. It’s beautiful, and it actually got to me.

Can the show possibly top it? Yes. Yes, it can.

Episode 24: Farewell, My Friend

Kai Mikawa and Hideyoshi “Chimp” Sarutobi have consistently been two of the most unlikable characters on this show, but this episode pulls off one of the best redemptions for jerks that I have ever seen, up there with Eddy from Ed, Edd n’ Eddy and Lars from Steven Universe. And it must be noted that it’s the other episode in this anime that has no basis in the manga, which means this show’s writers must be applauded for pulling such a fantastic turnaround.

It starts when Kai, in a typical narcissistic mindset, is trying to hide the fact that he was visiting a hospital because he’s developed a boil on his butt. While the rest of his classmates actually guess that this was the case, Chimp refuses to believe it because he’s grown to care for Kai as a true friend and doesn’t think he would keep information from him unless it was something serious. This leads to Chimp staking out the hospital and overhearing part of a conversation that makes it sound like Kai has something terminal. He confronts Kai about it and Kai, thinking Chimp knows the truth about his “ass acne”, swears him to secrecy, which Chimp takes as Kai being so noble that he doesn’t want everyone else distraught and worried over him. However, Chimp is unable to keep this promise as he has to tell his classmates what’s going on so that they won’t act antagonistic toward Kai even when he’s being a jerk. This info then spreads to the rest of the class, and to the teachers, and to the whole freaking town, with absolutely everyone pitching in to pamper Kai and celebrate his existence in order to make his “last days” the best possible for him. What a wacky misunderstanding, eh?

But even amidst the natural humor in this situation, legitimate character insight is being given to Kai. As an agoraphobic who grew up around a bunch of yes-men, Kai has developed the belief that nobody loves him naturally and that he can only get love through flaunting his money, his good looks, his material goods, etc. And from this he developed an entitlement complex when he feels he isn’t being given his rightful due from others. So when everyone starts showering him with love and kindness, he can’t recognize it for what it truly is and instead thinks that everyone has just “come to their senses” and are treating him the way he “deserves” to be treated. Even when he learns of his “terminal illness” from a TV report, he can’t connect the dots between it, the way people have been treating him, and how they feel about him - he’s too consumed by the horror of believing himself to be dying. The fear turns to sadness, and then to anger and hatred toward one target: Nagasumi Michishio. Kai decides that if he’s dying, then he wants to take his rival whom he is so envious of with him.

A showdown at high noon ensues, with Kai even taking off his protective space helmet and suddenly having white hair for...reasons. But Nagasumi’s improved reflexes from all the time he’s spent dodging attacks across the series combined with the emotional breakdown Kai is having leads to Nagasumi being victorious. The scene transitions into a huge tear-jerker once Kai begins sobbing and admitting what his real problem is: he genuinely thinks he has no real friends and no-one that truly loves him, whereas Nagasumi does and he’s jealous of that, and the thought that he’s now going to die without that being rectified while Nagasumi gets to live a Happily Ever After with Sun is more than he can bear. “SOMEONE LOVE ME BEFORE I DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!” he screams up toward the sky, all onlookers choked up with pity.

With Sun and Nagasumi leading the way, all of Kai’s classmates gently protest his claims: they’re his friends and they love him, they wouldn’t have done all that they’ve done for him if that wasn’t the case. And Kai never needed to ask for love from them, or buy it from them, because otherwise that isn’t really love. Sun may not love him romantically, but she still loves him all the same, and so does his rival Nagasumi which is the whole reason why he even accepted his potentially fatal challenge. And then the episode delivers the biggest gut-punch when Chimp, fucking CHIMP, rushes to Kai’s side, crying his eyes out as he declares that he loves him more than anything in the world and that if he could he’d gladly take his place and die instead of him. In-universe, this is what fully breaks Nagasumi, who has to turn away as he begins sobbing uncontrollably (MAJOR props to Eric Vale and Anthony Bowling’s voice-acting; they sell their emotional lines in this episode and especially in this scene perfectly.)

Kai flashes back to the various times he’s hung out with his classmates and realizes that he was never alone, he never lacked love and friendship. He was just too self-absorbed to recognize what was right in front of him the whole time. As he lays down to die, he sums it up by saying “All of you have shown me how big your hearts can be...but me, all I did was show you how small mine was.” He apologizes to Chimp for taking him for granted, saying that he’s the best friend a guy could have, and then he thanks Sun and Nagasumi and tells them to be happy together. And then...he passes on. OK, not really, but the scene plays it totally straight and does it so well that for a moment you might actually forget that his terminal illness isn’t real and was just a misunderstanding. Naturally, this creates a huge mood whiplash when we suddenly get the final scene where the status quo reasserts itself at school, with everyone hilariously reacting to the fact that they went through all that emotional turmoil for nothing.

But as we’ll see in the two-part series finale, Kai and Chimp have come out of this experience somewhat changed: they aren’t the complete pricks they were before and even play a major heroic role, with Kai especially showing how much both Sun and Nagasumi mean to him. While Chimp on his own still isn’t a particularly good character, he is an excellent accessory to Kai, whom this anime has made one of the strongest characters in the cast over the course of just this single episode. Kai, you definitely have my love. (And Kai/Chimp OTP 4evah!)

#My Bride is a Mermaid #Opinion #Analysis

1 note · View note

3w-writer-with-wings · 5 years

Text

Character post: Aoi Zaizen

Why I like them/why I don’t:

Out of all Yu-Gi-Oh girls so far, Aoi feels the most relatable of them all. She is a lot like a grown-up version of Luna/Ruka from 5Ds with a similar mannerism and personality. Aoi has a really timid nature and the fact that she is so sheltered by Akira that she feels he doesn’t even trust her hits home hard. But what I really love about her is her development. She learns from her mistakes and tries to become the best version of herself. The actions she takes in order to change herself don’t always play in her favour and even then she keeps on trying. Aoi represents exactly what you should do if you face failure in life – make changes and learn from your mistakes. Unlike Go, she never succumbed to her own insecurities and rather used them in order to change for the better. While she may appear pretty naïve and stubborn at first, you can really see how she slowly transforms into a person she always wished to be.

She is also a good representation of a celebrity with depression. The episode that showed her life outside VRAINS nearly broke my heart. From the way she talked with Yusaku and members of duel club, to how she just ran away after Yusaku asked her about Akira and how she was lying on bed looking like she was about to cry… it was just hard to watch considering there are people who are actually suffering the same way. But then she logged in VRAINS and instantly became a bubbly Charisma Duelist to entertain people. While a lot of people compare Go to Yuya, I actually see Aoi to be more like Yuya. Her Blue Angel persona is just like Yuya’s goggles, a mask she hides behind to cover up her tears and she presents herself as someone who is always smiling.

When her wings broke after her loss to Yusaku… it just perfectly represented how she finally broke down a lot like how Yuya lost to Reiji and Jack. At that point, I was really afraid she would follow the same road that Go did in season 2 – her insecurities and depression getting the best of her, but she didn’t. No, instead she put some thought about it before she did anything. When her fans were bashing her name, it seemed like she was going to break again. Thank God Emma came to her rescue! What I love about her relationship with Emma the most is the fact that she is the kind of a person that Aoi always needed. Once Miyu was revealed it also made me realize why Aoi had a hard time finding friends – she was afraid of being separated from a friend and didn’t want to be hurt by it again. Emma let her know that she’ll be always on her side and this was the encouragement that she needed to make a step further.

Her style of duelling is also one of my favourites – the burndown strategy. When she was duelling that AI who had the same technique and they were burning each other’s LP down like crazy was really entertaining to watch. I was a bit disappointed once she no longer used that technique, though I liked that she acknowledged it as something that needs to be improved. In overall her character is just as complex as Yusaku’s and I’m glad that it was explored a lot.

The only downside to her character is how her character is treated. Unfortunately, female characters are something that Shin Yoshida doesn’t know how to handle and this plays a big part in her representation. She had many losses that downgraded her lot. While she made a very big comeback in season 2 as Blue Maiden she also had a big downfall as well. In other words, Aoi’s character deserved so much more but was unfortunately pushed aside many times.

What I like about their appearance

The fact that she has so many avatars! I actually cosplayed Blue Angel and this was one of the most difficult cosplays I’ve ever made, but I in no way regret it since it is a very cute outfit and I’ve learned so many cosplay-making techniques while making it. I also really like how each avatar in a way presents one part of her. Blue Angel is her childhood dream, a hero she wanted to become. Blue Girl represents her desire to be like Ghost Girl and make a change. And Blue Maiden is her embracing all of herself and honourably joining Team Playmaker. Her avatars give this Magical Girl feel that combine her kind nature with power in order to save the world. While magical girl anime portrays that more ribbons, sparkle and skirts equals more power, Aoi’s avatar changes are the exact opposite, showing that sometimes less can be more.

And the part I love the most and was the most difficult to make? Her wings! I think I spent nearly three whole days just figuring out how to make those wings stand! In the end, I used some very thick wires, extra strong duct tape and a handmade posture supporter to keep it still. And it was so worth it! I was a bit sad that Blue Girl didn’t have wings, so when Blue Maiden’s wings were shown I was excited as hell! I also really like her twintail hairstyle since I tend to wear my hair in this style too. When I cosplayed Blue Angel not that many people recognized the character, but those few who did really liked it and one of them even showed me all of the Trickstars he had in his deck! I had a really wonderful experience as Blue Angel and I even won the third place in cosplay contest! To conclude – I love absolutely everything about her appearance and I wouldn’t mind cosplaying her or her other avatars again!

Do I prefer their dub names or original names?

While I really like the name Skye, it kinda sounds off for Aoi. I’ve grown really used to her original name so when her dub name was revealed… it just didn’t sound like her. I guess it could work as her user name since Skye goes well with her avatar’s wings, puffy skirt and blue colours like a short nickname for Blue Angel. Aoi is also the name of a hollyhock flower that represents the cycle of life which nicely symbolizes the changes that Aoi went through when changing her avatars and overall personality.

OTP

Definitely Miyu or Takeru, hard to decide. Miyu was introduced really late in the series and didn’t get that much screen time or backstory and yet it was enough to give away all necessary information about her. I made many theories why I thought Aoi was Aqua’s origin and in a way, she is - all because of Miyu. While all cheerful and caring, Miyu could’ve been lonely and even if she wasn’t, she choose to befriend someone who was. It is not clear how long the two of them were friends, though it most likely not long and yet out of all people, Miyu choose Aoi to be her anchor. Aqua basically represents Miyu’s love for Aoi and I’m sure that once Aoi gets to meet Miyu it will be a very emotional reunion.

Then there’s Takeru and let’s face it, he is the kind of a character that can be shipped with anyone and it would still work. Still, I genuinely believe he has a secret crush on Aoi. When he passed Aoi in school, he didn’t appear to have much interest towards her though that could be because that was the first time he saw her as Aoi and not as Blue Angel. The duel they had as Soulburner and Blue Girl was pretty entertaining to watch and the encouragement he gives her in the end was very well-meaning and kind. The second time he meets her in real life is completely different as he approaches her right away and introduces himself. Considering how shy Takeru can be it is very unlikely he would do that with just anyone, so the fact that he did that with Aoi shows that he is interested in becoming her friend. Kiku said that he is not much of a friendly person, so the fact that he approached someone else besides Yusaku really says a lot. Their relationship would really work as they both love duelling and testing themselves. I hope that they get to have a tag duel one time together as they could really fit each other well despite representing opposite elements (water and fire) since this could be the first time for such combination in a tag duel. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a tag duel in the third season since I really enjoyed Aki and Crow tag duel in 5Ds and this could give some nostalgia.

NOTP

At first I didn’t know this even existed, but Aoi and Akira ship just feels wrong on so many levels. I know they aren’t blood-related but they are still siblings. While I really like their sibling relationship, romantic one would completely ruin it, especially how canon it actually felt during the first season. Like Aoi would use –sama for her brother which is reserved for masters and bosses, like she is super inferior to him and the whole reason why she went to duel Yusaku was so she could impress him, which resulted in her falling in coma. Even if they weren’t siblings, Aoi is still a minor and Akira is ten years older than her. At times Akira also acts a lot like her father which would make their romantic relationship that much worse.

I dislike romantic Aoi and Emma ship for the same reason. While I absolutely love their sisterly bond, the thought of them having something more just doesn’t feel okay. Maybe if Aoi was older like over 18 or in early 20s then it could work better. Even if Aoi would have feelings for Emma and she would want to start a relationship with her, I imagine Emma would tell her to wait. Emma is the kind of a person, who has no problem breaking a law, but getting in a relationship with a minor is something she wouldn’t do. I have no doubt that she loves Aoi like her little sister or a young partner in crime so a romantic relationship would pretty much ruin this nicely developed relationship.

OT3

Aoi, Miyu and Aqua! I don’t know why, but this trio just warms my heart. There’s no doubt that all three of them care about each other a lot and would form a really nice relationship with each other. In my perfect reality, both Aqua and Aoi come visit Miyu after everything is over, and together they create new VRAINS avatars in order to spend time with Aqua who is pretty much their lovechild. I see this trio to work in both platonic and romantic way since the three of them show nothing but kindness and care towards each other.

Favourite card they use

Marincess Crystal Heart. I already liked the concept of Crystal Heart, the fact that it symbolized Aqua’s and Earth’s love and that they did everything to keep it from being destroyed in the field. What truly made me love it even more was when Aoi used it in a duel against Bowman and empowered it. I believe that the heart still represents Aqua’s and Earth’s love and the water spirit protecting it is Aoi, protecting them both. From the start of their meeting, Aoi has been keeping Aqua safe and Marincess Crystal Heart perfectly represents that.

Favourite moment they were in

Her duel with Haru. After so many losses, the duel with Haru was the best comeback for Aoi. The character she has been building finally came into action and I absolutely enjoyed watching that duel. From the new archetype Marincess to how she stood her ground against Haru’s hurtful words - Aoi made it clear: she is back and ready to kick some ass! The new strategy, her partnership with Aqua and that badass skill when her wings showed up! And how she outright obliterated Haru’s LP! It was just amazing and it showed how far she has come. At that point, it really seemed like Aoi was set to win more duels...

Least favourite moment

... which is why her loss to Bowman was so sad. While it was no way as humiliating as her loss to Playmaker, Specter and Soulburner, it was still terrible. Bowman is disgustingly overpowered character and the fact that he used so many moves that were outright cheating really downgraded Aoi’s and Aqua’s character. I would be fine if Bowman defeated her with a good strategy, but no he used a literal asspull effect like he did the whole duel. He even tried to scare her and for a moment I thought Aoi would give in. Luckily she didn’t and I was so proud of her. Even the act of “mercy” was a very cheap move since Bowman is a freaking hypocrite and he probably used it just so he could feel better about losing Haru.

Back then when I was still hopeful about Aoi’s further character development I wrote a theory why she was capable of defeating Bowman with very good arguments and how it could play out well in the final conclusion of season 2. (it is here if you wish to check it out https://3w-writer-with-wings.tumblr.com/post/182925730720/lightnings-plans-and-why-i-believe-aoi-will ). I was really disappointed when Bowman won using the cheap moves since it looked like writing staff pushed away Aoi’s promising future for the sake of having Bowman win at all cost.

Would I fuck, marry or kill them

Can I just be her friend? Cuz really if I were to meet Aoi in real life, I would just hug her and take her out for ice cream or coffee and talk with her, letting her know that she is an amazing person and that she should never doubt herself cuz she is doing a great job at improving herself. I would likely be one of those Blue Angel fans in the crowd during her duels, holding banners with encouraging words or I would be writing a blog dedicated to her in order to support her, pretty much the same thing that I’m doing now. ;) If someone would bash her name and accuse her of things she didn’t do or weren’t her fault, you bet I would write a freaking essay similar to the one I made in order to defend Yusaku when someone made a youtube video ranting how boring he is.

Aoi Zaizen deserves more recognition and hopefully, she gets to shine more in the third season.

#aoi zaizen #aqua vrains #yugioh vrains #character anylsis #vrains #Blue Angel #aoi deserved better #I hope she will be back in season 3 #yugioh needs more female characters like Aoi

58 notes · View notes

verwelktesgedicht · 6 years

Text

HELLO. ViSULOG Interview (English Translation)

Original Japanese Source: ViSULOG Pickup Interview Original Interview Published: March 2018 Topic: HELLO.’s formation and first songs Translation: VerwelktesGedicht (most of it in April 2018) Note: These guys are horrible. At least Ria’s answers are deep! xDDD I’m so looking forward to their activities!!!

___

These are the members of HELLO. who have their first appearance at ViSULOG. Please introduce yourselves! Ria: Everyone who just came to know about us and everyone who already knows us, please read this until the end! I’m HELLO.’s vocalist Ria! Please treat me well! Sekiguchi: I’m Sekiguchi. Please treat me well~ 373: I’m rhythm guitarist 373. Please treat me well. Momonari: I’m bassist Momonari. Waai~. Aki: I’m drummer Aki. My favorite type is a girl that’s an Aki-gya. Please treat me well.

Please tell us something about the band’s formation. Ria: The disbanding of my former band and the disbanding of drummer Aki’s former band was at the same time and to be honest, I’m thinking for a couple of years now that I want to be in a band with him. So while going out to drink with him I convinced him. After that we met Momo and 373 and in the end also invited a friend I was in a band together with long ago. Sekiguchi: Before I realized it, I was added as guitarist and my name was added in the office… 373: I’ve met the members and we went out drinking, talking about bands. And before I realized it, I was already composing songs. Momonari: When I got invited I didn’t have a job and thought it looks fun, so they let me join. Aki: After my former band had disbanded time passed by and Ria came to ask me what I want to do in the future. I think that conversation was the beginning? Before I realized it we were searching for members.

Please tell us why you picked the band name “HELLO.”. Ria: Because it’s simple. The deeper meaning is a secret. The reason why we wrote it all in capitals is that it looks strong that way. Seriously. Sekiguchi: I don’t know!! Isn’t this like a connection when you greet others at a neighborhood association? 373: Simple is best!! Momonari: In the beginning I heard it from Ria and thought “That’s it!” It would be so cool if we can get popular with this. Aki: It’s a secret.

Before becoming a member of HELLO., what did you do music-wise? Ria: In my teens I was a drummer and changed to vocal after that. I have always been active in this Visual Kei scene. I love Visual Kei! Sekiguchi: Eating, sleeping… eating, sleeping… Again and again…. 373: I played the guitar on SNS, composed songs and uploaded them. Momonari: I didn’t do anything. This is unrelated but I often cooked meals! But now, that I started being in a band, I don’t do it anymore! Aki: After my former band disbanded I was support in a rock band and also had a session live with Ria. That time was fun but also hard.

Please tell us something about HELLO.’s music and visual concept. Ria: Keeping it short, music-wise it’s “Simple is best!”. Our visual concept is: “Super flashy is best!!” Sekiguchi: Popularity, isn’t it? 373: Positive music. No matter if you listen to it or see us, it’s for you to become happy! Momonari: Something like: It’s also hard to be a human being. But look at it, it’s cute! Aki: We want to make the music and lyrics to be easy to understand. Speaking of the visuals, it seems like I’m the one who took over the role of the cute kirakira person, so look at this kirakira-me!

On May 28th you will release your first single “Kimi to kakusei.”. Which topic led to the creation of this song? Ria: We didn’t just want to make an appeal to our audience and convey the message. The topic is that first of all we are able to make an appeal to ourselves and are able to convey something to ourselves. That’s why we decided for the “kimi to” kakusei. [= awakening “with you”] Sekiguchi: There are so many difficult questions. I don’t really know at all? 373: I include the topic and my thoughts completely in the lyrics of the composed songs. Momonari: It’s the same as before. It’s hard to be a human being. The song is full of that feeling. Also a bandman isn’t a person that can do everything. Aki: The topic of HELLO.’s first song is to not do many all too complicated things.

Please tell us what part of “kimi to kakusei.” Is the one we definitely need to listen to? Ria: As thought, it’s the chorus. Sekiguchi: The synchronicity. 373: It’s the chorus. Positive lyrics and a melody that is easy to remember. I hum it often (laughs) Momonari: I like the part where the lyrics go “Sore de ha sakebimasho?”. Aki: I get angry at this awesome voice when he’s singing “hitokoso saru no dekisokonai nanjanai no?”

Please tell us what the highlights of the PV of “kimi to kakusei.” are. Ria: We decided on “completely free” being the topic of our outfits. It shows our individuality, likes and characters. You won’t get tired of it, no matter whose scenes you’re watching. So light up your room, go a few steps away from your screen and just have fun watching it! Sekiguchi: That it was shot in the city Atsugi in the Kanagawa prefecture. 373: There are differences in the character that show in our outfits. I think it’s really cute, so please watch it properly. Momonari: 373 is cute. That’s a random recommendation. Aki: It has been so long that I shot a music video, so I could shoot it with such a fresh feeling. Please watch it!

Please tell us the highlights of the coupling song “non-perfection world”. Ria: 373’s guitar solo. Sekiguchi: The part when it gets quiet after the outro. Because it makes you think: “Ah, the calm night is the best!” 373: My guitar solo…!!! Momonari: Akki and my interaction is cool! Aki: The drum solo! I definitely want you to jump around at lives during this part!

What kind of concerts will HELLO. create from here on? Ria: A giant tornado live that will drag in everything and everyone = a live that will drag the whole live house in and where you can show your emotions openly and where you can go crazy as much as you like. Sekiguchi: I want to throw out all the dark and grotesque world views. 373: I want you all to go home with a smile on your face and create this together with you. Momonari: Like a great sports festival. After it’s over you will be able to sleep well. Aki: I’d be happy if you all just have fun together. It’s important to be nice to each other! Really!

As an artist during a live, what are you thinking while standing on stage? Ria: To sing with true feelings. Sekiguchi: To put my focus on my guitar. 373: To drag in the audience. Momonari: To become a lion! Aki: To search for Aki-gya.

Please talk about your enthusiasm regarding your first live “kimi to kakusei. In SHINJUKU”! Ria: I definitely want to hold a live that only the current HELLO. can hold, so that I can hear from at least one more person the words “I’m glad I went”. I’m waiting at the live house! Sekiguchi: I’ll insert a trauma into you! 373: This is the beginning of HELLO.’s story. We’ll convey more than 100% to you! Momonari: I like Shinjuku, so I’ll give my best~! Aki: I want to make this into a day that makes you forget all the disliked things and also everything about tomorrow.

Please send a message to our ViSULOG readers that gave you some attention! Ria: HELLO. has just started. I hope we can meet many people through music during our band activity period. We hope we will meet for a long time. As an individual human being as well as as band I want to be active while always having in mind that every minute, every second we’re growing. Please treat us well!! Sekiguchi: (???) 373: Let’s create HELLO.’s story together that is about to start. Momonari: Such a band is good, isn’t it? Let’s give our best all together! Aki: I’m drummer Aki. If you’re thinking “Lately there isn’t enough music…” or “There’s no band I go to lives often for anymore…” then definitely come to see HELLO.’s lives!

In the end, please tell us your ambitions as band and individual. Ria: I’ll be active without forgetting to be thankful for these circumstances that allow me to sing. Right now that’s all. Sekiguchi: I’ll exercise in self-control without forgetting the crisis that can lead to circumstances that erase everything. Right now that’s all. 373: I want HELLO. to turn into a band that helps many people with its songs! Momonari: I won’t reduce my sleeping time! Aki: I want to become famous person so that even if I’m wearing sun glasses and a hat everyone will recognize me.

#hello.#ria #sekiguchi #373 #momonari #aki #hello. translation #my translation #my birthday interview xD

18 notes · View notes

juunedai · 6 years

Text

despite me loving arc-v with all my heart, objectively, arc-v is NOT the best ygo series.

OKAY this was written at first as a reply to someone who said that a lot of yugioh fans are blinded by nostalgia and that arc-v was the best yugioh series and although i LOVE arc-v i really really disagree with that opinion so i replied with my two cents in a brief youtube comment about why i thought arc v had a lot of bad writing but honestly like 5 seconds later i decided that i would never be able to get my point across that way so here’s my expanded mini-essay on why arc-v sucks

huge arc-v spoilers and tiny 5ds spoilers under the cut

honestly arc v's pacing was really bad and the synchro arc went on for too long, causing everything afterwards to be rushed. most of the characters were turned into plot devices instead of people (see: bracelet girls. serena and yuzu had tons of potential but in the end serena’s whole personality was erased and all yuzu did was yell “yuya” like her life centered around him or something - like she wasn’t affected by the ordeal personally at all. the other two had like. only a little personality and were overall kind of boring and it sucked too because i had high hopes for rin and ruri)

yuya actually sorta became a mary-sue near the end of the show (the world warps around him, everyone cares about him even when most have no reason) (see: shun kurosaki, in the end he literally said yuya’s name and talked about yuya more than his own damn sister, who was his entire mission, he just kept talking about how great yuya was despite having no emotional connection, and i get that its supposed to show how much of an impact dueling in peace can have on people, but it just didnt Work)

in arc-v everyone was super one-dimensional?? we never really saw different sides to their characters (well, minus yuya, the only one whose character was like. properly properly developed). everyone else either had a super-rushed, underdeveloped character or was a plot device (see: edo phoenix, a character canonically shown to be stubborn, magically changed by the Great Yuya in one duel. i know his heart was “swaying” and all that but even afterwards you would still have doubt in your newly joined side, especially when you’ve been so stubborn and so brainwashed by authority for so long). everyone else is a plot device pretty much

nobody was... “bad”. nobody paid for any crimes unjustly commited. (see again, edo phoenix, one of my favorite characters in the entire series but he was literally a military commander who ordered soldiers to card tons of innocent people). i think this is another branch of that “peaceful dueling” thing, and how dueling should induce peace and smiles and violence is bad, etc. etc., but this isnt very effective when people who have literally committed war crimes go unpunished because “oohh peace there shouldn’t be violence”.

and they tried to be deep??? they tried?? with their whole “don’t be afraid, don’t cry, just smile and move on!” or like. saying that everything can be solved with peace and happiness and smiles like. nice thought but. hmm idk. and just holding back your tears and smiling and ignoring it and moving on is kinda... bad for you like it’s gonna come back to bite you in the butt later

like!! there were good things!!! i love the show because it had a goldmine of potential. 4 dimensions? 4 yuyas? yuya dealing with losing yuzu? the synchro dimension showed great character for yuya and yuzu honestly, and sora’s whole arc about switching sides was awesome and like. well paced. reira/layra’s whole character was so intriguing to me, and his relationship with reiji and the whole thing was just. awesome. and like, yuto and the xyz kids having to deal with their home being ravaged... i dunno the whole show was just. ugh. so much potential and that was what dragged me in but they WAY dragged out the synchro arc thinking they had time for the rest and that was their mistake.

in my opinion 5ds is probably the best one, as it actually has a consistent plotline/character development, strong female characters (they're doing good with aki so far, but i haven't finished the series so im not sure yet), and they're not scared to deal with real-world issues, like classism, poverty, etc, the main characters are all literally criminals, but they're still portrayed as people, and thats what's important. and 5ds actually has some pretty insane moments and quotes!! like. despite being a “dark” show it’s hilarious with their humor and although characters are portrayed as hurting or sad you get to also see their funny side, or their happy side! the characters actually have substance and there are some pretty good quotes and moments from it too. like

these are all genuinely hilarious/heartfelt moments that show the different sides of the characters!!

basically arc-v was so filled with potential but it is FAR from the best series. if you ask for my ranking, from best series to worst series it goes like this (keep in mind zexal will not be included because i haven’t watched it):

- yugioh s0 (toei version) (one day i’ll write an essay on this its SO good)

- yugioh dm, yugioh gx, yugioh 5ds (they’re all on the same level because they’re the Original 3 and it’d be doing them injustice if i tried to rank them)

- yugioh arc-v (:D)

- yugioh vrains (this series is actually good and i reccommend watching it it’s only ranked lowest here because it’s not finished yet)

anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk.. and goodnight

#IM A CERTIFIED NERD NOW GUESS WHAT!!!#i apologize for putting this in the main tags #sorry abt that :ok_hand: i've removed them

6 notes · View notes

did-somebody-say-exorcism · 6 years

Text

Headcanons: The Children of E Class

I wanted to keep all of my online presences as separate as possible, but the cat’s out of the bag now. I’m Professional Magical Girl on Fanfiction dot net, author of Great Teacher Nagisa, Fake Smiles, and some other miscellaneous AssClass fics. If you are here because of those fics, don’t ask about the url, it’s an inside joke between me and some old high school friends that just stuck. You can follow me if you want, but be warned that my posts are sporadic and generally about Evangelion.

Ah-hem. Anyway, I’m writing a long fic that involves my headcanons about the children of, you guessed it, E Class characters. So here is a master post of all of them. This is subject to be edited at any given time (I will inform my readers in an AN if any major changes have been made). If I don’t list a character here, I probably don’t headcanon them as having children. Or maybe I couldn’t come up with names for the kids yet. But ask away if you have questions about that. I’d prefer to be PM’d on FFN because I get emails for those, but using the ask/message feature on tumblr works too. You can call me Samantha, Professional Magical Girl, did-somebody-say-exorcism, or any variation of any of those.

And yes, I did get this idea from what TheRoseShadow21/Aki-chan2014 did with her headcanons for Ending the End Class. Yes, I did ask for her permission to do the same. Professional Magical Girl is many things, but disingenuous is not one of them.

The premise for Teenage Wasteland (read here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12856407/1/Teenage-Wasteland ) is: Some of the children of former E Class end up in the assassination classroom as a result of time travel. In some cases they will replace their parents, in others they coexist beside them. Not all of these characters will time travel, I’m still debating where to cut the fat. The characters whose names are bolded will definitely be major characters.

Nagisa and Kayano

Backstory: All of Kayano/Akari’s pregnancies were unintentional and back-to-back, leaving her and Nagisa rather unprepared. In spite of their jobs, they were also the first of E Class to have children. Akari managed to hide the children’s existences for many years, often by portraying pregnant characters or by hiding behind countertops. Kayano/Akari, after retiring from show business, now only leaves the house in disguises. All three of the girls are very short and tiny.

Aguri Shiota- Nagisa and Kayano/Akari’s first child, and the viewpoint character and protagonist of Teenage Wasteland. She is very quiet and observant, and as such others seem to see her as dependable, even Kaito (see below) notes her admiringly. While normally an even-tempered person, she is prone to episodes of moodiness, especially after the time travel event. It was rumored that she was born in her mother’s dressing room between shooting scenes for a movie that would later win an Academy Award, but she herself doubts this. She is named after her late aunt (obviously). Very, very much a daddy’s girl. Birthday: June 26, 2024

Hotaru Shiota- Nagisa and Kayano’s middle daughter. She is sweet and bubbly and often plays the comic relief. Her sister describes her as ‘getting calmer the angrier she gets.’ This mood of hers is invoked in the event that she is lied too, which she cannot stand above all else. She also has the ability to hear what people are saying from a distance away, a talent that is made useful many times. Birthday: July 12, 2025

Fujiko Shiota- The youngest of the three girls. She has a severe illness that I will not yet identify (this is a plot point). All of her family is very protective of her. She has a room full of stuffed animals and aggressively sings showtunes at karaoke. She doesn’t feature prominently until the end of the fic. Birthday: June 16, 2026

Karma and Okuda

Madoka Tachibana (Akabane)- Okuda’s daughter from her first marriage, though Karma adopted her when they married and she calls him ‘Dad’. She has very little contact with her biological father and sees him twice a year at most. She is easily flustered and is usually the last one to get the joke. She is very close to her half-brother. Birthday: September 16, 2031

Hikaru Akabane- Prankster and musical theatre geek. He is usually the one to hatch some hairbrained scheme to get E Class to their goals at the moment, however mundane those goals may be. Birthday: March 1, 2034

Isogai

Koyo and Chiyo Isogai- Twins. They both have very jovial attitudes and are excellent students. Koyo is rumored to be the most attractive guy in the whole school. They have no enemies… That we know of. Birthday: February 14, 2031

Maehara

Backstory: Maehara, predictably, continued to be… himself throughout his young adult life. He was married to the mother of his oldest child, but after they divorced he went back to dating lots of different people, and was on again and off again with the mother of his two younger kids for years. He seems to still want to impress Okano, but suspects that she wants nothing to do with him.

Fumihiko Maehara- Athletic, popular, funny, but is seriously clueless when it comes to girls. Birthday: October 5, 2028

Hatsune Nakano- She gets on well with her older half-brother, not so much her younger full brother. She doesn’t seem to have the best opinion of her father either. Birthday: May 30, 2031

Shiori Nakano- Does not feature as a prominent character. I’m only listing him for posterity’s sake. Birthday: January 7, 2034

Kataoka

Takahiro Aruta- He is usually the one to take charge in any leadership role, and the rest of the class seems to trust him and feel at peace around him. Aguri describes him as ‘the protective type’. It is a running gag that cats love him and always flock towards him. Birthday: September 3, 2029

Kinoko Aruta- She is very sneaky and loves to eavesdrop and spy in places where she isn’t allowed to be. Aguri speculates that she “Has dirt on all of them”. She knows all the ins and outs of the main campus, some of which she claims she only knows because she bribed one of the five virtuosos (though this may be a joke). Birthday: October 12, 2031

Sugino

Kintaro Sugino- He and Nobuhiko’s mother left them, in the middle of the night to run away to Fukuoka. It was later uncovered that she was running from the law. Kintaro was five, just old enough to know he was abandoned, and according to Aguri, ‘never really got over that hurt’. They have not seen their mother since, and were raised by their father and stepmother. He is shown to be rather sensitive and gets saddened very easily, he will deadass steal the remote out of someone else’s hands to change the channel if that sad abused pet commercial comes on the tv. He has a crush on Fujiko. Birthday: September 28, 2028

Nobuhiko Sugino- Aguri describes him as being ‘very pure’, he seems to always have an optimistic outlook and doesn’t even remember his biological mother or feel any resentment towards her. He is a terrible judge of character, and is easily influenced by those around him. He seems to look up to Satoru (see below). Birthday: November 2, 2030

Minoru Sugino- Sugino’s son with his second wife. Freaking adorable, but probably will not time travel. Birthday: March 21, 2037

Kanzaki

Satsuki Kanou- The ‘straightforward’ one, usually playing the straight man to the shenanigans of the others. It is a running gag that she is very stingy with money and will attempt to cut corners wherever possible (for example, she suggests that the giant pudding be made with soymilk instead of regular milk, because soymilk was on sale). Birthday: May 15, 2029

Sayaka Kanou- Kanzaki’s younger daughter. Her sister fusses over her endlessly. Birthday: July 7, 2031

Chiba and Hayami

Satoru Chiba- Along with Satsuki, he is seen as the most level headed of the children, thought he is much less straightlaced than her. Kaguya (see below) has said of him that ‘he could be multiplied by 10 and I wouldn’t mind or notice’. By nature, he is very helpful and is especially kind to children and animals. Unfortunately for him, this is excessive to the point that he acts like a doormat and allows people to take advantage of him. Birthday: June 6, 2027

Midori Chiba- She's the sassy and sarcastic one, and gets in trouble frequently for dressing out of code. She always wears the same pink scarf, no matter what time of year it is. She cannot get along with Satsuki, who calls her ’difficult and argumentative’, while she accuses Satsuki of being ‘stuck-up’. Also a massive Daddy's girl. Birthday: August 2, 2029

Nakamura

Backstory here: Nakamura moved to Los Angeles after studying abroad in London, and just wound up never leaving. She married a well-to-do golf course manager, who is 100% behind her prank war on the local Home Owner’s Association. After 19 years of marriage and two kids, he left her for the girl across the street. She eventually marries Gakushuu Asano. When Karma heard of this, he literally almost died laughing because he thought it was a joke. (That does not happen yet during Teenage Wasteland, it’s just sort of an aside.)

Her kids were dropped into this timeline and location, with little skills in Japanese. This is a plot point on several occasions.

Liam Carmichael- Athlete. He is shown to be somewhat reserved and keeps the secrets of others well. He also has a good relationship with his mother, taking her advice to heart. He has a bromance with Satoru. Birthday: December 19, 2027

Jeffery Carmichael- Think of the Weasely twins, but one person. Aguri refers to him as having ‘corrupted’ Nobuhiko by teaching him dirty jokes. He has a crush on Midori. Birthday: October 26, 2029

Hazama

Minami Minnaoka- Her mother is stuck in a loveless marriage to a benefactor of the library she worked at. Minami observes this, and openly wishes that they would divorce. She mostly sticks to herself, but is shown to be friends with Kaguya. Kaito (see below) has described her as a ‘complicated wreck’. Birthday: November 1, 2030

Yoshida

Kaguya Yoshida- She is considerably droll and witty, which makes her admired by some and feared by others. Midori has affectionately dubbed her ‘The Queen’. Birthday: July 5, 2030

Hara

Tadaharu Konoda- Has severe chuunibyou. His current dream is to move to America and become an NFL star. Birthday: April 9, 2028

Fumiya Konoda- For reasons unknown, he has earned the nickname “barrel of monkeys”. Birthday: February 26, 2030

Okano

Kaito Suzuki- He frequently bickers with others (namely Minami), and is generally a bit of an asshole. Aguri speculates that this is because of his parents’ bitter divorce. Whatever the reason, he immediately drops his act around Aguri, as if he respects her. Is shockingly good at math, but not many other subjects. Birthday: November 28, 2029

Kurahashi

Chitose Mizushima- Her father is the mailman, and describes himself as ‘the best damn mailman in history’ (he also moonlights as an amateur musician). She is described as being breathtakingly beautiful, and has several admirers, including Satoru, Masahiro, and Nobuhiko. She is also tone-deaf (this is played for comedy). Birthday: August 6, 2028

Tarou Mizushima- Her beloved younger brother. It is a running gag that he will always try to help with something, but will usually end up unintentionally ruining it or screwing it up even more. A bit bumbling, but well meaning. Birthday: July 27, 2030

Kimura

I don’t have any headcanons for these two yet, just names and birthdays. It’s a work in progress.

Masahiro Kimura- Birthday: April 25, 2028

Haruki Kimura- Birthday: April 30, 2032

Fuwa

Kaworu Miyazawa- He was born through IVF, as his parents had been trying unsuccessfully for a child of many years. As such, he is treated as if he were very fragile, ‘as if he might break’ (according to Aguri’s description), which could not be further from the truth. Birthday: January 3, 2035

#assassination classroom #assclass #fanfiction #my fanfiction #assclass fanfiction #it's so late #i should be in bed but here I am doing this #headcanon #assclass headcanons

25 notes · View notes

riverdames-blog · 6 years

Text

Disappointed But Not Disheartened: Reflections on A Wrinkle In Time

In early 2016, when it was announced that Ava DuVernay was attached to A Wrinkle In Time, I tweeted about how excited I was for it and she favorited my tweet so I screenshotted the notification and showed it to everyone on the planet and have been anxiously awaiting this movie ever since. Jennifer Lee, one of the two screenwriters for the project, is who I aspire to be, and Ava DuVernay is, as far as I’m concerned, one of the best filmmakers of all time, and, although I honestly don’t remember much about the plot, I read at least 3 books in Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet as a child and definitely really enjoyed them. (I may have read Many Waters and completely forgotten it, but I think I was just not that interested in transitioning to the next generation and so peaced out after A Swiftly Tilting Planet.) In the months before its release, I declared multiple times that A Wrinkle In Time would probably be the movie of the year for me.

Now that I’ve seen it, I can say more confidently: it’s not my movie of the year. Just to be sure, I saw it twice this weekend (and I also watched the 2003 TV Movie in between to compare – it’s not great but it’s also not, like… resoundingly worse). The second time around, I enjoyed it way more than the first, and I think it’ll only continue to grow on me with time. Visually, it’s just spectacular: Ava DuVernay and Naomi Shohan have built a gorgeous and imaginative world. Production design is maybe the only element of cinema that L’Engle’s original novel lends itself to easily, and they tapped that to its fullest potential. But something about the storytelling just didn’t quite click for me.

And before I go on, I want to be clear: no one working on this movie had anything to prove. People will frame it that way – can a black woman direct a $100 million movie? or can a little brown girl carry an action-adventure blockbuster? – but none of that is really up in the air. Black creatives have proven time and time again that they can and will carry franchises, so we can stop pretending that was ever even a question. And we all saw The Dark Knight Rises and were like, “hm, very middle of the road”, and yet no one raised an eyebrow when Christopher Nolan got a Best Director nod this year. Ava is still one of the best working visual storytellers in Hollywood (and has increasingly excellent brand recognition – any studio would be lucky to have her helm another blockbuster). Storm Reid is charming and will continue to get work. Jennifer Lee is still my hero. It is dumb that I’m nervous to admit that I was disappointed by A Wrinkle In Time, like if it wasn’t the perfect movie no one will ever try to make movies like it again. Creatives do not have to break new ground with every movie they make for their work to be considered valuable. And in a lot of ways, A Wrinkle In Time was groundbreaking.

So, bearing in mind that this movie doesn’t in anyway reflect on anyone’s capacity for great filmmaking, what made A Wrinkle In Time feel disjointed to me?

My first thought was maybe it was just a failure of casting. They apparently searched for 7 months for someone to play Charles Wallace, and as cute as he is, Deric McCabe felt awkward and stilted to me the entire movie on first watching. Levi Miller was the cutest stalk of celery I’ve ever seen but that’s kinda the most I can say for him. Everyone was charming, but no one – Storm Reid included – really had the chops to carry the weight of all the bonkers exposition this movie demanded of them.

That said, the performances felt less stilted to me when I watched it a second time – Storm Reid and Deric McCabe did have some really keen and nuanced moments, and Levi Miler, despite speaking like he’s never met another human being before, gives truly excellent face. And the adult casting was superb; Chris Pine as the affirming father of a biracial daughter seems like an obvious and sincere choice, and also ZACH GALIFIANAKIS. Clearly Aisha Coley knew what she was doing because it takes some serious insight to look at Zach Galifinakis and think, “this schlubby comedian will play the kindest, gentlest father figure in cinematic history.” No actor is actively wrong for their part, and no one is phoning it in – the younger folks are maybe just still figuring some things out.

So if the performances felt awkward but it wasn’t a failure of casting, I hate to even suggest it, but maybe then it��s a failure of direction. If these actors had the potential to perform this script well, maybe Ava just didn’t direct them appropriately. There are some moments where I think this is actually true: if you’re working with young talent struggling to create a genuine sense of chemistry, maybe don’t block things so they’re standing several yards apart as they exchange intimate dialogue. There were multiple weirdly slow, far apart exchanges between Meg and Calvin that probably would’ve felt loaded with meaning with more competent actors but just felt bizarre and confusing with these kids.

That said, I am reluctant to criticize Ava’s work here, largely because these children have spoken quite sincerely multiple times about how kind Ava was and how safe they felt working with her. When working with young actors, I think that’s the most important thing. And so if these kids felt most comfortable shouting at each other from across a football field, then fine. I’m okay with that. And also, let’s not forget: Zach. Gala-friggin-akis. Ava knows how to get what she needs.

So then perhaps there was something weird about the camera. The cinematography of this movie felt deliberate, like it was meant to create a real mood around this story. It felt like the idea was to shoot this thing in a way that was disorienting to reflect the magic and uncertainty of the world these characters occupy. But that didn’t really click for me: I mostly just felt like the camera placement was in the way. Maybe because the performances weren’t strong enough to come through, but maybe because cutting from a traditional over-the-shoulder shot to a strikingly tight 90 degree profile is always going to take you a little bit out of the moment. (There were two particularly striking moments that made me chuckle they were so disorienting: one when Ms. Whatsit and Meg’s mother talk in such a tight, shallow-focus profile shot, I could’ve sworn they were about to kiss; the other when, in the middle of a conversation between Meg and Principal Jenkins, there was a cut to a close, shallow-focus shot of his name placard, and then a very artistic but completely unnecessary tilt up as the focus racks a very tight shot of Mr. Jenkin’s face.)

Weird cinematography can interrupt the flow of even the best scenes. But maybe – and I hate to say this even more than I hate to suggest Ava’s work wasn’t as good as it could be – but maybe, I am just making excuses here for Jennifer Lee. Maybe this was a failure of script. And I do think that Jennifer Lee and her writing partner, Jeff Stockwell, made some really positive changes. I think they captured and amplified the essential relationships and motivations in this story. I think getting rid of the twins and playing around with the Murry family structure, as well as adding a lot of scenes with the dad and giving him a central character flaw, gave this story a clearer and cleaner direction than the Weinstein-produced adaptation in 2003. And I think that the whimsy of the book was captured in a way that felt visual and cinematic in this screenplay.

But it’s hard to deny that this screenplay felt a little clunky. There was a lot of exposition and no clear moment when a goal or central question was obviously stated, which probably would’ve helped me enjoy the film a bit more on my first watching. It was somewhat unclear when the acts were changing, which made it hard to be totally swept up in the beautiful and immersive imagery. The sequencing at the end is awkward – why does Calvin just watch a deeply intimate conversation between Meg and her dad? (He’s just smiling in the corner of one shot when they hug at the end and I truly burst out laughing in the theater.) What did Calvin and Mr. Murry do in the backyard for all that time when they tessered away without Meg and Charles Wallace? Why did Charles Wallace get so easily distracted by the family dog (for a seemingly very long stretch of time) when he ran into the house to get his mom? Why did Meg not laugh out loud at Calvin when he said, “Funny how it took a trip around the universe for me to have the strength to confront my crazy dad!”? And speaking of Calvin, while I think the decision to trim a lot of the fat around the Meg-Charles Wallace sibling dynamic was a good one, it sort of begged the question: why is Calvin even here? (It’s actually sort of nice bit of commentary – to help save the universe, men simply need to trust women and affirm that their ideas and instincts are correct – but it felt undeniably odd that Calvin came along when all he did was fall off Reese Witherspoon’s lettuce leaf body and then eat a bunch of sand.)

Having said that, it does seem like there were some fairly substantial reshoots or at least major cuts made after principle production, because based on the trailer, what seems like a big expositional scene got left on the chopping block. I’ve also heard in interviews that they shot and were starting to animate an Aunt Beast scene between Mr. Murry’s tesser and Meg’s final confrontation with The It. Perhaps the original script did a better job of integrating Calvin and establishing clearer act breaks and character voices. Maybe, for reasons beyond their control, this script needed to be torn up a bit and it was too late for the writers to polish the rough edges that were left behind. Or hey, maybe Jeff Stockwell took hostage of the whole thing and made a bunch of bad changes at the last minute that Jennifer Lee couldn’t talk him down from and her hands are clean! (I don’t know enough about WGA rules to totally tease out what that cowriting process looked like based on the billing – that is maybe very possible – but it’s not very kind to Jeff to just assume that about the script so I won’t.)

At the end of the day, A Wrinkle In Time did not come together for me like I hoped it would. It’s not easy to tell why major sequences got cut pretty late in the game or why the cinematography decisions and acting decisions came together as awkwardly as they did. Whatever the reason, this movie just didn’t do it for me. But even as I left the theater feeling a little disappointed, I was not disheartened. This movie wasn’t anything like, say, Suicide Squad, which feels like a project that was fought over, a project where everyone involved seemingly knew the movie was a train-wreck but also “knew” it wasn’t their fault. It’s hard to point the finger at anyone here; everyone has something to be proud of (and something to be less proud of). No sequence feels pulled because the studio didn’t trust its creatives or because the director didn’t trust her actors. It feels like a product that was made by a whole, a whole who struggled with this beast together. A Wrinkle In Time feels delightfully collaborative, a movie made by committee in the best possible way.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway, then, is that adapting L’Engle’s bonkers novel is a hard thing to do. To no one’s fault, the stakes of her story are simultaneously impossibly large and surprisingly small. Her characters speak with a rhythm that is odd even when done well, and the world she built evokes more the concept of beauty than actual images of it. (And let’s not even begin to unpack cinema’s troubled troubled relationship with Christian-influenced fantasy storytelling.)

But here is a group of people who all earnestly rose to the challenge. They made the thing. And it is flawed in a lot of ways. But as Meg Murry knows better than most, its faults are not undeserving of love.

#a wrinkle in time #storm reid #ava duvernay #madeleine l'engle #jennifer lee #zach galifianakis #review #reflections #film #cinematography #a wrinkle in time review #jeff stockwell

12 notes · View notes