#okay I'll get off my soapbox now

[roguemonsterfucker]

My cockatiel Bandit is molting right now and he looks so nasty 😂

If I didn't know what was happening, I'd be panicking thinking he's sick. Shoot, even though I KNOW what's happening I still am worried about him. 😂

On the plus side, I managed to get some of his shed feathers before he destroyed them so now I have a few intact wing and tail feathers from him for my collection. 👀

I always say the reason I have birds is so I can collect their feathers. It's a joke, of course. Mostly.

[anonymous-ace72]

Doesn't matter if I like or dislike the subject matter, whenever I see a whole blog fully centered around hating a certain piece of media or something or other, I die a little on the inside.

[agirlking]

“The Sullys didn’t owe Spider anything, they didn’t adopt him.” It is basic decency to not leave a child with the murderers that kidnapped him. Much less a child you knew since infancy, much less a child who at least two of your children love like he’s their own brother.

[sheergeekypanic]

With apologies to OP for tacking this on to this gorgeous gifset -

So I've been saying how much I love this scene but to add to that: people (antis) singling this out, a scene so incredibly, aggressively, *pointedly* steeped in dance, in camp, in *queer* that leads into a frankly better choreographed hand to hand combat scene than we've seen in the franchise in a long time, is so disingenuous and insidious. There's power in being who you are, loudly, and thriving in that, specifically because of people who find it unsavoury.

They're specifically doing it here because they know using the kiss scene as their example makes the queerphobia too obvious.

Remember that, and remember you'll never appease people like that - not in fandom and not in your life.

This is so disappointing. What do you mean? We’re hunting a vampire cult. I was expecting to find a castle. At least a moat.

[autistickaitovocaloid]

I think it's kind of sad when people comment on how wikipedia has to beg for money meanwhile when ao3 does the same thing their goals are near quadrupled within a week or less, and people's knee jerk reaction is along the lines of "well wikipedia doesn't give me 25k words of [insert ship I've never heard of in my life] smut does it 🙄" like. ok

[ladyshandioftheendless]

\m/

[hesawifebeaterdanusethegun]

No because I'm watching Dark City and thinking about the character development in it and how Doctor Schreber is the best character because he's complex. John is so simple. He's such a basic protagonist honestly. But Doctor Schreber is different. He views himself as weak and he's terrified for his life at all times but he still finds it in himself to defy the Strangers, first in little ways, by talking back, etc., but eventually by concocting his plan to help John reach his full potential and being brave enough and smart enough to pull that move at the end with the syringes. But you also see some enjoyment of his work for the Strangers from him. He is in his element in a lab, and that's so fundamental to his personality that we see it shine through even when he's working under threat of death. But anyway he's the bravest character because he was the most afraid but did it anyway. Okay I'll get off my soapbox now. I just love this movie so much.

[vaxilfan]

Look, if God shows up and hands me a guy that He made specifically for me, I will gladly accept. But given that He hasn't done that with almost anyone since Adam, I will continue to attempt to get to know people and decide which one I like the best. Because the Adam and Eve method of being literally the only people on earth is not available to me. I'm not saying don't pray about it, but, baring a voice from heaven, the best way we have is to get to know potential options and choose someone. Dating is not a lack of faith, and claiming it is just because Adam didn't do it has zero biblical backing.

[inkblackorchid]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Drumroll please.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Case in point.)

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

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

So.

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

(Friendship is, in fact, magic.)

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

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

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

(She has a point.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Sigh*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Oh, y i k e s.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Deep breath*

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

[shelbbswrites]

have you seen the new rwrb video!

Have I?! OF COURSE I HAVE. Actually, I've watched it a few times now.

I would like a personal apology from everyone who told me that Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine were bad casting because you could not be FURTHER from the truth. Okay, I don't need a personal apology; I'm just kidding.

But it is SO absurd that people were making that assumption from zero footage. Everything they're giving us in this promotional tour (that is solely conducted by Prime Video's socials because the cast can't promote the move until they get a fair deal and the strike ends) PROVES how well-casted they are.

I'm sorry; I'll get off of my soapbox now.

[thegreenleavesofspring]

Your history books have told you that the Confederate flag is the flag of racism and slavery and white supremacy. Some handful of people use it that way.

For those of us who remember, the Confederate flag is the flag of the hillbillies and the farmers and the families who lost their homes and their sons and their husbands and fathers and land and livestock and livelihood to an invading force - who assaulted our women and burned our homes and killed our children.

No honey, you're not tripping. You met a Southern Boy (tm).

Sure we've got our own problems. But we're not the violent boogeymen that the media likes to paint us. We're just people, and we come in every color and stripe and character.

[msmargaretmurry]

i love the concept of leon getting banished to cringefail MLS and desperately wanting to go back home 😭😭😭 I don’t know if you’ve ever seen people absolutely dunking on leon’s skating skills but maybe he did start out with hockey but got so mad about his lack of grace on skates that he’s just like fuck the stanley cup I will score goals. on my FEET! and then he ends up watching matthew in the playoffs

anon, i'm thrilled to hear this, because i also love the concept. i have no idea what kind of situation would have to occur for a german player who is theoretically good enough to play in the bundesliga to land himself on an mls team for a season but i have full faith that with some magical fanfiction handwaving a quasi-reasonable reason can be invented.

according to generous purveyor of german knowledge @irrelevanttous, when leon tried soccer (football, yes, i know) because all of his friends were playing it, he wound up quitting because he was mad the coach wouldn't let him take free kicks, which is such a funny and petty reason that coming up with an equally funny and petty reason for him to have quit hockey instead would be great fun. it's giving "NO DAD, I WANT TO LIVE MY DREAMS NOT YOURS" vibes, except for how i feel like peter would be like "that's great son let's buy you some new cleats."

anyway, the bright side of landing in south florida for this north american soccer adventure is that inter miami has easily the best logo in the league. which would be no comfort to leon the footballer who does not really want to be there, but it's fun for me personally. he'd look great in the black and pink. this is my soapbox for more pink in men's sports, you cowards.

so, for reasons, leon the footballer schleps across the atlantic. mls season starts in late february and i assume they have training and stuff before then so let's have him arriving in mid-january. he is so grumpy, and the fact that the weather is so nice makes him extra grumpy, because he is determined not to like it here. he will do what needs to be done to get his career back on track but this is TEMPORARY, okay?

except then maybe before the season kicks off, a bunch of the guys get a box at a panthers game as a little team bonding excursion. they don't really know much about hockey, they just think it would be fun. they definitely don't know how much leon knows about hockey — i don't think anyone in the miami soccer community knows what a peter draisaitl is; people in the north american ice hockey community barely know what a peter draisaitl is — and leon's like, he enjoys hockey as a spectator now, he'll play a little pickup with friends sometimes, but once his teammates figure out that he knows literally anything, they are clustered around him while they all watch this game, asking questions and laughing at his judgey little comments, and unfortunately for leon he winds up having fun.

after the game — panthers win, everyone's in a great mood — someone from the cats' pr team or whatever is like, hey, south florida sports supporting south florida sports, do you guys want to come meet some of our guys? yeah sure why not. and obviously amongst the guys doing this little meet and greet is one-man hospitality crew matthew tkachuk, whom leon definitely noticed on the ice, and is definitely noticing now, because uh oh, charming handsome man alert. matthew is shaking hands with every inter miami guy and asking their names in a way that seems genuine, but he's also oozing this easy confidence that really makes leon want to fuck with him a little. matthew gets to leon, shakes his hand as they exchange introductions; matthew says something like "you know, i don't know much about soccer but i'll have to get out to a game this season," and leon says, "yeah, well, i know a lot about hockey and whoever taught you to skate, i think they owe you your money back."

matthew stares at him, and leon has this moment of, ah fuck i was too mean again, why are americans SO sensitive, but then matthew laughs and says, "that would be my mom, and don't worry, i will definitely let her know." he's starting to breeze on by to the next soccer guy, but leon has this weird feeling of really wanting to continue the conversation — he blurts, "tell her don't worry about it, my father taught me and i was never any good at it, either."

this makes matthew stop and catch leon's eye again, and leon can see the shift in his expression from politely friendly to genuinely personally interested. it's subtle — he's not sure he's supposed to be able to see it — but matthew's smile goes a little crooked and there's this spark in his eye and oh, what a nice little win for leon. time is limited, though, so matthew must move on and finish meeting every single soccer guy, except before they all get shuffled out matthew circles back around to oh so smoothly be like, hey lemme give you my number so if you guys want to come to another game i can hook you up.

and thus it begins… an intense flirtation that turns into fucking that turns into feelings…. two elite atheletes desperate to prove themselves in their separate sports for different reasons……… one of them desperate to make a home in south florida and the other one deserate to get out…………… i just think it would be neat :)

[soaps-mohawk]

If you ever did get complaints, that's on the person reading it, not you. "Don't like, don't read" is a thing some people in fandom seem to have forgotten, but is an important rule. If someone doesn't like a thing, then it's on them to quietly excuse themselves and not harass people who make this stuff for free.

I'll get off my soap box now XD but for real, I'm proud of you for your efforts toward self care. It's something a lot of people struggle with even admitting they might need. It can be hard when limitations change and expectations need to be adjusted.

-crow anon

Thank you, love. The internet has inflated way too many people's self importance and makes them think their opinions matter and they should share them with everyone. You don't have to get all up in arms and tell someone you don't like something they did, especially something they do for fun and share for free. It's fanfiction, it's not that deep. You want to get all up in arms about something, there's plenty of horrible things in the real world you could put that energy towards. Think about that the next time you want to come into someone's inbox and complain about their take on a fictional character.

Getting off my soapbox too lol. I just can't with these purity culture pearl clutchers that have invaded fandom. Go away and leave us alone and let us be cringe in peace.

Okay I'm really getting off the soapbox now. Self care is so hard. It really is. I've struggled with it because of my lack of self esteem and self importance. I grew up being taught to just work through things, muscle through and get it done because no one's going to accommodate you in real life 🙄 Don't let anyone tell you that, that's just capitalism bullshit.

But it all comes down to the same thing when people get upset about me delaying an update (which hasn't happened very often thankfully). This is my hobby. I do this for fun. I share because I don't want to. I absolutely could stop updating completely and just keep the rest of the story to myself. (I won't though, I love y'all too much.)

[k7l4d4]

K Reviews and Rants: Miraculous Ladybug Season 5! Episode 21

Alright, onto the episode that is supposedly meant to show Lila finally getting figured out.

Now, I'm gonna ignore the usual Lila Manipulates everyone BS. This episode has two big problems with it.

Firstly, it tries to present Miss Bustier and Damocles as reasonable authority figures... yet neither of them ever actually try and get the students' direct input or seriously question the out of character career requests for them. Additionally, it has Mylene get on a soapbox about kids "being forced to pick their futures so early in life" or something stupid like that. (Takes a deep breath) I literally had to change what I wanted to do for work three times growing up. Now, I'm not that old, I'll admit, but I have firsthand experience with having to make a change in career choice after making a decision. This episode treating Mylene as making some profound statement, when she's basically just rephrasing the simple fact that there's no guarantee a person is going to maintain the same career in life after school as some kind of criticism of the educational system. Now, I know NOTHING about the French Educational system... but when it tries to push an aesop like this right after literally showing everyone cheerfully and eagerly acting as if they didn't have a perfect idea of what they want to do in life, it just comes off as awkward. Oh, and them further making Adrien into a damsel in distress with nothing more of substance to him then his crush on Marinette was... uncomfortable on so many levels.

Secondly, this episode going full sympathetic retcon on Sabrina in the most blatant way possible. For a series that has done basically nothing with her besides have her be Chloe's goon, they are trying very hard to pretend she hasn't been Chloe's willing accomplice all this time. They are acting as if she's never gotten anyone hurt or damaged anyone's lives on Chloe's behalf before, despite this very season showing how she ratted out Marinette's "Crush" to Chloe in Derision and Chloe using that to play a mean prank on Marinette... and ignoring all the times she's lied and stolen on Chloe's request, without a hint of protest. It's hard to see Sabrina as an innocent bystander or dupe when this season is the first time she's ever shown any guilt or remorse for being Chloe's lackey... and it being the first time she's done something THIS bad doesn't really work when she's stating it's because her dad's a cop (when that's never mattered to her before) and because "helping Chloe has never hurt anyone" (which is just a straight-up lie). It feels less like she's turning on Chloe out of guilt or remorse and more because she's upset that Chloe is seemingly replacing her with Lila... when this episode really makes it feel more like Lila is making Chloe HER "Sabrina."

Anyway, rambling Forward over. Onto the review! As always, please forgive my profanity.

Episode 21: Confrontation

Okay, now we get the opening scene of Adrien struggling with an orientation form with Plagg pointing out how simple it is. Just... writing down your request for next year's school and your career goals. Admittedly, I can see why this would be hard with Adrien; bullshit writing decisions or not, Adrien struggling to figure out what he wants to do with his life makes perfect sense. Although I sincerely doubt that this would be a hardlocked "one and done" thing that is absolutely binding, because that would be utterly fucking stupid. Because if this kind of thing WERE absolutely binding, then you could have the biggest slacker in school write down the name of the fanciest, most exclusive school in the area that comes with a lot of perks and then slap down some stupid answer, and I doubt any school in the world would put up with something that easily abused.

...And we hear from Adrien that he isn't even writing down what HE wants, but what his father has DECIDED for him. REAL great development here, nice to know that the kid who literally BROKE OUT OF HIS OWN FUCKING HOUSE is still too chicken to figure out what he wants out of life. Also, the fact that they once again made Adrien's life decisions and attitudes be about someone else (how MARINETTE will feel about his dad making him move to London) is of course just fine. /s

Ugh, fine, I guess hearing Plagg show solidarity with Adrien is nice. Still kinda annoying, since Plagg is pretty much always just the goofball, rather than a serious individual.

Okay, so it looks like these orientation forms do have a safety check, in that the teachers review things with the students to see if they have the qualifications to go to their chosen school for their studies of choice... now how does this get ruined? Oh yeah, Marinette gets a "strange feeling" now that she and Alya aren't the class reps. Clearly this strange feeling has NOTHING to do with the person she KNOWS is a liar and manipulator who will screw over anyone for her own benefit is now the Class Rep, surely not!! Also, "entrusting us with their hopes and dreams!" Dramatic much? It's not as if they can't just apply to schools of their choice anyway... can they? I've got no fucking clue how the French Education System handles this crap.

Let's see what they wanna study...

Alya: Wants to be a Reporter, needs to specialize in Literature.

Nino: Movie Director. Weird how his love of music and DJing disappeared.

Mylene: "Defender of the Earth." Wow, they couldn't even pretend to have her put down a serious job, could they?

Ivan: Stay-at-home-dad. ...Huh, I honestly can't say anything snarky about that, it takes guts to be cool with that kind of life, I just hope he knows what that kind of commitment entails.

Rose: "Hairstylist," okay, not too weird... "For Unicorns." Never mind, they really aren't even pretending to have her be serious, they are straight-up insisting Rose is a delusional idiot. That might sound harsh, but come the FUCK on, there's a line between having an innocent idealism still, and unironically wanting a job that involves working with mythical creatures. Who knows, maybe Unicorns actually exist in MLB, I doubt that her job is even remotely applicable. Wait, she got told Unicorns don't exist... and changed it to "Hairstylist for Dragons."

Juleka: I couldn't even hear what she said, but given Marinette's comment on "that being SO you," I'm gonna assume it's something insanely stereotypically "goth."

Sabrina: A nurse. Because she "loves taking care of other people." I am cringing, because it sounds like they are trying to insist Sabrina being Chloe's enabler and minion is something positive that "Chloe tainted" or some shit like that. Also, she's never shown any indication of wanting to take care of people before, EVER.

Chloe: "I don't need to do anything since I'm already rich." They are seriously this fucking stupid. They can't even give her wanting to be something snobby and "powerful" that will let her pander to her own ego, they seriously are treating her like an unironic "Ideal Rich" stereotype. News flash, even RICH PEOPLE HAVE STUFF THEY LIKE TO DO. God fucking dammit.

Lila: I'm not even going to type her answer since it's a bare-faced lie meant to make her look good, which she even admits to.

Also, I'm genuinely confused on why we never got Nathaniel's, Max's, or Kim's. I'm not even gonna pretend to touch Alix's situation with a ten foot pole.

Seeing Marinette fretting about "entrusting her classmate's futures to such awful girls" really, REALLY annoys me. The entire fucking REASON that Lila is even class-rep is because of the authors trying to pretend that Lila transferred in BEFORE the elections for Class Rep took place, when I'm literally looking at the timeline and she explicitly came LONG AFTER.

Yada yada yada, Lila lying through her teeth again. Wow, not even ten seconds and she's having Sabrina destroy the original forms and forge new ones. UGH. "You're using too many words to explain your plan!" HAHAHA ISN'T CHLOE BEING A DUMB BLONDE STEREOTYPE HILARIOUS!? I AM ENJOYING THIS AND NOT PISSED OFF AT ALL!!! And WOW, Lila's "brilliant plan" is to just... frame Marinette for replacing everyone's forms with ones that would make them miserable. There are clearly no holes in this, certainly not the fact that Miss Bustier KNOWS now that Sabrina can and does forge signatures and handwriting, and that the whole "frame Marinette for doing something awful" routine only has a 50% success record, even with Lila's bullshit in effect. This isn't stupid, nope, not one bit. /s

And we get a reminder from Chloe that Andre is a stereotypical scumbag politician, it's been a while since the show has been willing to do that. I wonder if it has something to do with the show trying to pretend he's a good dad because of Zoe?

Also, apparently the lynchpin to Lila's plan is having Sabrina lie and say that MARINETTE made her forge the papers... wow, people will totally buy that the girl who does anything and everything Chloe says would ever take orders from someone other than Chloe, that's definitely what will happen. Much shock, much brilliance. /s

Wow, literally having Chloe gush over Lila's plan being "utterly villainous." They aren't even pretending to be subtle in the slightest. This is pathetic. And now Sabrina's blowing into her weird whistle in a panic because she "can't do this." Girl, you have been Chloe's lapdog and have had no problem with ruining lives in the past without a hint of regret, don't pretend you have a conscience NOW of all times. Also, what the FUCK is with that stupid whistle? Where did it come from, and why is it only NOW something so important to her??

"Helping Chloe doesn't hurt anyone" YOU LITERALLY TRIED TO STEAL MARINETTE'S DIARY IN SEASON ONE CUT THE BULLSHIT. "Forging documents and lying? It's different!" No. IT IS NOT. YOU HAVE LIED ON CHLOE'S BEHALF MANY TIMES IN THIS SERIES ALREADY!!!

And after a moment of pointless cruelty (and more "I didn't do anything wrong!!" whining from Sabrina) by Chloe, we are now back to the reappearance of... ugh. The "Resistance." What have these idiots accomplished again...? Oh right, they publicly harassed Adrien's father, fell hook line and sinker for Hawkmoth's idiotic "scheme" to conceal his identity again, lead a fairly pointless resistance against Hawkmoth after he gets the Ladybug Earrings... and that's about it. What a joke.

Okay, and somehow Damocles hears them and is looking for them on the basis that they are intruders. He's honestly not wrong, since I sincerely doubt they are supposed to be hiding in that weird nook in the school after class hours. Apparently Nino's "brilliant plan" is for all of them to go to the same high school... for many, MANY reasons, that feels utterly fucking stupid to me, since there's no guarantee that any of them would get schedules that would let them meet up, there's no guarantee that the school would be able to accommodate their future goals and ideals, and, oh yeah, THEY DON'T NEED TO GO TO THE SAME SCHOOL TO STILL BE A TEAM.

And it seems Damocles is a fan of their plan. Not terrible, but that feels like the kind of thing that's gonna get out of hand in the worst way VERY QUICKLY. Also, Nino thinking his plan will be able to fix Adrien's problem would be hilarious if it didn't illustrate how stupid the writers are making the cast for the sake of plot. And yup, the little problem of them having different dreams and goals that are incompatible with all going to the same school immediately crops up.

While Marinette takes a call, Mrs. Mendeleev is tattling on the "Resistance" to Mr. Damocles. For once, she's absolutely right that them lurking in the boiler room is unacceptable. Not only is it breaking several rules, it's just plain dangerous to be in a place like that without a good reason. And... Damocles is covering for them. That would be sweet if it weren't liable to get him in massive trouble. Oh, looks like Mendeleev is unsatisfied with how Damocles runs things. I mean, so am I, but I doubt she'd be any better given her track record.

"It's so unfair that we have to decide what we want to do so early on in life!" MYLENE, IF YOU THINK THAT THIS IS THE BE-ALL END-ALL OF YOUR LIFE, YOU ARE FUCKING DELUSIONAL. Changing careers and exploring different subjects and career paths is NORMAL. People who go into one thing and never divert from it are the EXCEPTION not the rule. I wanted to become a programmer, then got into IT, before I finally ended up as a Pharmacy Technician. Them acting as if "taking a bunch of different courses to figure out what we want" is this groundbreaking thing pisses me off. They come off as spoiled brats, especially when each of them had pretty clear ideas on what they wanted to do right off the bat. This is fucking stupid.

No no no. I'm not even remotely pretending to entertain them acting as if trying to "take a stand" against filing these forms THAT THEY ALREADY FILLED OUT AND HANDED OVER by "striking" is anything other then performative BS. I have had my fill of performative BS for a while now. Fuck this.

Seriously, why the fuck do they have Juleka speaking so fucking QUIETLY? This is just fucking bizarre. She's capable of speaking at a normal volume without issue, she's SPOKEN at a normal volume without issue THIS SEASON, why is she having this problem NOW OF ALL TIMES!? Ding Dong, Rose points out the fucking problem with doing a "strike" when it comes to something THEY HAVE ALREADY DONE.

And it looks like MAYBE Adrien has pushed himself to do something other then be totally enslaved to what Gabe wants of him... and we don't even get to see it. Who bets that it's Adriennette shit? ...Yup, it's Adriennette shit. He literally didn't even list anything, he just said he "wanted to be with Marinette." If that's supposed to be touching, it fails. It's just him basically wasting a form by treating it like a love letter.

And Chloe dumps the form in the emergency bathroom that she and Lila are hiding in. How did no one see them all enter at the same time, and why was no one suspicious? And I cannot repeat myself enough, them trying to act as if Sabrina just NOW has a conscience PISSES ME OFF.

And we get a scene of Caline taking Lila at face value. For fuck's sake, this better not be binding... and Damocles is taking Lila's bullshit rationalization on why Alya obviously put down "Optician" at face value, FUCK. THAT. THIS is why this guy needs to be kicked out of his position, he SUCKS AT HIS JOB. Seriously, why the fuck would ALYA WEARING GLASSES MEANS SHE WANTS TO MAKE THEM FOR PEOPLE!? And Mrs. Mendeleev just saying "her grades allow it" really proves she's no better at this job then Damocles is. Uuuggghhh... your JOB should be to call in Alya and TALK WITH HER since her homeroom teacher has literally JUST POINTED OUT THAT THIS IS UNUSUAL FOR ALYA. FUCK THIS SHIT.

"Juleka wants to repeat the year" NOPE. FUCK THAT. END OF FUCKING STORY. You do not get to CHOOSE TO REPEAT A YEAR!!!! FUCK THAT FUCK THAT FUCK THAT!!! WHY ARE THESE IDIOTS NOT QUESTIONING THIS!?!? Wow, the speech impediment that didn't exist until recently, truly a "brilliant reason" for her to want to be held back WHICH IS NOT A THING THAT HAPPENS. And another sign of Mrs. Mendeleev being just as useless as Damocles in that she doesn't oppose a child apparently sabotaging her own education.

And NOW we get the class reacting to the news!! How will the writers fuck THIS up, I wonder?

"You sure you didn't get mine by mistake?" Kim saying that would be funny if it weren't for the sheer stupidity of the teachers and Damocles apparently being dumb enough to just buy Lila's bullshit at face value AND Miss Bustier doing NOTHING to actually oppose it!!! Oh, and another Dumb Blonde joke, but this time it's Rose who's the butt of it.

And whatever drama this should result in gets sidetracked by what looks to be Juleka getting Akumatized. Let's see if that'll actually go through with it or if they'll bring back the Resistance's bullshit "tactics" again. Also, why is Gabe/Hawkmoth acting like he's got this history of akumatizing people during Teacher Rep Meetings when this is the first time these have ever even been MENTIONED?

And the magical charm proves to be immediately useless! Who didn't see that coming, show of hands!

And it's Reflekta again. UGH. Also, them trying to act as if not being (verbally) understood or listened to is a recurring problem with Juleka falls flat when she's never had this speech impediment prior to this season. Her issue was being SEEN, not HEARD, dumbass writers. Yup, they are using the dumb tactics, and putting themselves in danger in the process. Kiddies, it's WAY TOO FUCKING LATE FOR THAT.

Huh, they actually bothered to give an old Akuma an improved version of their prior power!! Now if only it wasn't the Akuma LEAST USEFUL TO GETTING THE MIRACULOUSES!!! Also, the fact that their classmates didn't immediately run when they saw that the Akuma was Reflekta, especially since this one operates as a hive mind it seems. It's also kinda stupid that they are trying to tie Reflekta's powers of image copying with the motivation of "staying with her friends" since it just plain DOES NOT FIT REFLEKTA AS AN AKUMA.

This plan is even stupider than normal. Not only was the Akuma taken out in less than a handful of minutes, they basically just got lucky that they took out the "real Reflekta." This was a waste of time.

Now back to the school, where Alya and the rest ask Lila what happened at the conference. SURELY this isn't a plot, SURELY this isn't all a trick- Oh who am I kidding, of course it is. Yup, Lila immediately passes the blame onto Marinette. And Chloe immediately pulls out the fact that Marinette's the only one with an unaltered form as "proof" that this is all her fault, and Lila says it's all because they voted her to be Class Rep. Wow, what a "brilliant plan."

Marinette immediately points out the obvious flaw in her being the one to make the fake forms. And when Lila tries to flip it on her, Marinette calls out Sabrina, who Chloe shoves in front of herself. HOW the class can't smell that this is staged, I have no clue whatsoever. AND SABRINA FINALLY GROWS A SPINE!! WHOOPDY-FUCKING-DOO!! WHO GIVES A SHIT!? IT'S TOO LITTLE TOO LATE TO GROW A FUCKING CONSCIENCE WHEN YOU'VE BEEN ACTING AS IF YOU'VE NEVER DONE ANY WRONG UP UNTIL NOW!!!

And Chloe, because of course they are still keeping her the dumb one, loudly calls Sabrina a traitor and says that "wasn't the plan." Lila tries to run damage control... by immediately throwing SABRINA under the bus and claiming that Sabrina is the liar, and was "just being used by Marinette." Seriously, CHLOE ADMITTED THAT THIS WAS THEIR PLAN!!! HOW STUPID IS THIS!? EXTREMELY STUPID!!! Also, wow, calling Marinette a "Civilian Monarch." She isn't even trying anymore.

And Sabrina, no, she is not turning everything you say against you, she's lying. Turning what you say against you is when you repeat what someone says in a way that means differently from what they intend. What she's doing is lying, blatantly, calling you a liar, and trying to gaslight you into going along with what she wants, and she's not being even remotely subtle about it. WHY ARE NONE OF THEIR CLASSMATES REACTING TO THIS!? WHY!?!?!

Yeesh, even if you ignore how stupid and blatant Lila's lies are, this is genuinely creepy how she's openly trying to gaslight and badger Sabrina into doing what she wants and agreeing with her. It's sincerely disturbing to see her being this fucking obvious.

Also, it's kinda weird how Sabrina emphasizes that her dad is a policeman.

And after Sabrina runs off, Chloe literally tells Sabrina to 'heel,' like a dog. THAT'S the Miraculous they think suits Sabrina best... how nauseating. No joke, this part of the episode is making me sick to my stomach.

Wow, a classic "I'll have my dad fire you(r dad)" threat from Chloe. Haven't heard one of those in awhile.

And after Lila begins bragging about how great of a liar she is (SHE REALLY ISN'T PEOPLE!!!), and threatens Sabrina, Sabrina springs her trap and reveals she engineered a public confession. This would be cathartic if it weren't TOTALLY STUPID HOW LONG LILA'S LIES HAVE BEEN MAINTAINED BY PEOPLE TAKING HER AT FACE VALUE OVER ALL ELSE!!!!

Yadda yadda yadda, Sabrina grew a conscience and revealed everything to Marinette, acting as if she hasn't tried to gleefully ruin lives and damage reputations at Chloe's behest before. And they seriously built an entire fake bathroom with a one-way window-mirror thing just to catch her. How obnoxious. Seriously, all they did was put up a "bathroom busted" sign and that was enough, and the school never tried to call a plumber or something!? THIS IS STUPID!!! They should've been aware this ENTIRE TIME that the actual bathroom was perfectly fine, making this entire plan of Marinette's as sound as a pile of SAND!!!

"I'll fix everything." Fix WHAT!? By all accounts you just faked the bathrooms being out of order, switched out a mirror for a back-up bathroom that never needed making and thus probably cost the school quite a pretty penny to make, and wasted several school hours by enabling Lila's idiotic plan involving those orientation forms WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN THAT BIG OF A FUCKING DEAL!!!

Caline says they owe Marinette an apology, they kinda do. They also probably deserve to be fired since they've shown nothing but raw, unfettered ineptitude THIS ENTIRE FUCKING SEASON AND EVERY EPISODE INVOLVING LILA!!! Wow, Chloe actually bothered acting on one of her threats to call her father!! TOO BAD THAT HER DAD DOESN'T HAVE THE POWER TO GET RID OF DAMOCLES!! I agree he needs to go, but Andre doesn't have the power to do that. Mayor of the year, people, Mayor of the fucking year.

I'm just tuning out the rest of this, since it's basically Damocles FINALLY bothering to act like a proper educator and Andre going back to his Season 1 days of being a slimeball politician that throws his weight around to keep his daughter's image clean. Oh, and it looks like the only reason he went along with it was because Audrey was coercing him with her present, CLEARLY they are "in love," and this isn't downplaying Andre being a self-serving spineless leech. Heck, this makes him MORE of a spineless leech since he's getting pushed around by Audrey FOR NO FUCKING REASON.

"Now you're not getting fired either!" Audrey, he's your husband, not an employee, and he has more authority than you. Fuck this bullshit.

And the entire class rallying around Damocles would be more touching if he weren't a fucking joke of a principal on every level. We also see the Magic Charms FINALLY BE FUCKING USEFUL!! Who knows, maybe this unknown until now power will actually be fucking relevant... yeah, I don't believe it either.

Yadda yadda yadda, character shilling for Damocles by acting as if he's always been a good principal and not a fucking joke with no spine. And now we get the scene of Caline joining the "Chloe is pure evil and always has been, so there's no point in trying to change her, point and scorn her as nothing but trash" club. And we get a "I thought you could change if people reached out to you!" speech which acts as if the token gestures that never went anywhere were really meaningful attempts to reform her, blech. And Caline's "punishment" for Chloe is literally just the "extra help" she said Chloe would need last episode reframed as a threat. Idiotic. And apparently Lila has an entirely separate identity as "Cerise" on top of her somehow tricking three women into believing she's her daughter and HOW MUCH FUCKING MORE DO THE WRITERS PLAN ON SHILLING HER AS THIS MASTER MANIPULATOR!? BECAUSE SHE AIN'T ONE!! SHE IS A TEENAGE GIRL WITH FUCKING DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR!! GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!!!

[destinyc1020]

I will also add to my last post though.....

When you work as long and as HARD as Tom and Zendaya do, and travel all the time, having to attend public events, or do numerous interviews, etc. sometimes it really is NICE just to be at home and do nothing. 👀

As an Ambivert myself (with strong introverted leanings), I find that sometimes I really do need to "recharge" my batteries away from people (or with a smaller group of friends) for a while if I've had a lot going on in my life.

I LOVE to have fun and do stuff, but I do still need my "Me Time". Otherwise, I get overwhelmed very easily. 😓  As an introverted person (her words, not mine), Z seems like she probably needs that "Me Time" as well in order to recharge and relax. It may look "boring" to you, but for her, it's JUST what she needs. 😊

When you're in the celebrity world/public eye all the time, I can just imagine that sometimes it can get tiring and take a lot out of you...even more so if you're an introverted person. 😔

I think some fans should be a bit more merciful towards her if she does just want to stay indoors at home in her sweats, or just do SIMPLE stuff w/her boyfriend Tom most of the time. ❤️ She's always having to be "ON" or dressed up, or pulled and prodded in different directions. Like, most of us would probably need a break from that life and just people in general if that were our lives, if I'm being honest.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now lol.

[hush-writes-preg]

i’ve been wanting to say this for a while, and im still not sure i’m gonna say it right, but i really appreciate your blog. i’ve been having issues with my ovaries for a while and it’s still not clear if i’m fertile or even gonna get to Keep my ovaries much longer. it’s been really stressful, because i really want to be able to get pregnant, and i might never be able to. but one of the worst parts is that i’m transmasc, and a lot of people- including my own family- can’t wrap their heads around being a man and wanting to be pregnant. even other transmascs seem to think i can’t actually be trans and genuinely want this. people pity me cus they think Society is what made me feel this way, and they have to “help” by convincing me this is something i don’t actually want.

you and all your followers have been the opposite of that. seeing so many other transmascs who openly (and sometimes desperately) want to experience pregnancy has made me feel like so much less of an other. seeing people who aren’t transmasc but have transmasc friends/partners being so encouraging and supportive when this is something they want has felt so validating. it’s such a positive and welcoming environment here, and it’s so comforting.

so i guess the main takeaway is everyone should keep being horny, because there’s at least one person who really appreciates it.

Hey there, Aster! Thanks for hopping into my inbox with your kind words! 💖

I've said it before, and I'll continue saying it long into the future for old and new followers alike-- this blog exists because I believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to feel appreciated, validated, and seen in regard to this kink. I don't care what parts anyone was born with, what parts anyone has now, or what anyone's age(18+)/gender/sexuality is. Anyone can feel the desire to be pregnant or to impregnate someone else, and that feeling should be celebrated.

I'm sorry to hear that you've had so much trouble with your original plumbing, Aster, and that you aren't sure if you'll be able to conceive. That's a really shitty situation to be in when you actually want to get pregnant. I've known a few people on Tumblr who are in similar health-related situations, and I just wish I could give all of you a big hug (if it's wanted). It's really not fair. The universe is pretty shit for allowing that to happen in the first place. But you're not alone, okay? I don't know how much comfort that offers you, but there are folks out there who commiserate, understand what you're struggling with, and hope that you'll be able to eventually find happiness regardless of what happens.

And yeah... family and society can suck big time sometimes. OFC you can't be male and want to carry a child, right? /s In my opinion, those people are nothing more than gatekeepers who have no business being involved in your body and business. The knowledge that these kinds of opinions are so commonplace really pisses me off. The desire to procreate is a ridiculously ordinary (though not universal) part of being human, so why shouldn't anyone be allowed to use the parts they have to make a baby if they want to? Or be allowed to find other reasonable ways to make it happen? :throws-table.gif:

Ugh. I'll get off of my soapbox now.

All that said, if the space I'm nurturing and the community we're all building is one of support, encouragement, and affirmation, then that's a dream fulfilled for me. We may be stuck feeling like an Other elsewhere thanks to societal stupidity, but not here. Here we're all as incredible and sexy and fertile as we wish to be, and I refuse to hear otherwise.

You're awesome, Aster. Try to stay positive, do what you can to take care of your troublesome bits, and love yourself the way you are. And if you ever need to vent about this stuff, my DMs are open, okay?

I adore all of you horny, breedable fuckers. 💖 Don't any of you forget it.