#and it is shorter too .. GIMME THE PLOT ALREADY
Note
Can we have project tom au where Tommy grabs Wilbur to cuddle and Phil freaks out thinking wilburs gonna die,
what if Tommy does to get baths like a cat and decides to bathe Wilbur and of course Phil thinks that this supposedly gentle and nice monster is going to eat his son and reacts by attacking tommy by himself to which Wilbur has to stop him from his place halfway in Tommy’s maw.
The amount of fluff potential this has yes, also two fics today! Yay!
Note: This is not part 3, this is just a side plot since in the main story line it will not be explained how Philza and Tommy meet. So here's their first meeting! (Also possibly new au tomorrow-)
Warnings: Mouthplay, maybe fearplay? (That's about it)
Words: 1.4K
He didn't mean too - Subject T0M au
Philza, despite knowing a lot about Subject T0MMY1NN1T due to how often his son talks about him, isn’t very familiar with how the two of them behave, hence Philza came around for an ‘evaluation’ and by that he means to spend time and keep an eye on his kid, it’s not that he didn’t trust Tommy- okay maybe it was, just a little though. He had his worries.
He trusted other specimens like Techno, Ranboo, Dream and Nikki! (Nikki reveal! :3) But that took a lot of time that he had spent with them so hopefully with this visit that trust could be formed because Wilbur talks so highly of Tommy, there’s no way that Tommy would ever hurt Wilbur, right?
That was his train of thought as he exited the elevator, he stared upwards of the ceiling, the same as his despite Tommy regularly being at a small size. Recently, Wilbur and Tommy had been getting a lot closer, close as to cuddling, which he was happy for! But father instincts had to be satisfied, didn’t they?
He made his way towards Wil’s office, the main place that he and Tommy spent time in, he sighed as he knocked on the door, “Coming! Gimme a minute!”.
Scrambling could be heard as Wilbur made his way towards the door, a whine could also be heard with the movements and a voice said something along the lines of “Tommy it’s okay! It’ll only be a minute bud! No need to follow me!”.
Then opened the door to see a slightly messy Wilbur, “Hey Dad! Sorry I was busy.”, “It’s fine mate, no worries- “. He stopped as he saw Tommy look over Wilbur’s shoulder curiously, “Curious to who this is Tommy?”. He snorted.
“Tommy this is Phil, my dad”. Tommy made a sound, trying to mimic what Wilbur had just said, he seemed to be trying to say his name. “It’s an improvement, anyway, Dad this is Tommy”. “Hey mate!” Tommy seemed to cheer up at what he said, “Seems he’s beginning to trust you dad”.
Okay, maybe Tommy wasn’t as bad as thought, his instincts did always act up. A beep could be heard from Wil’s phone, “Shit I got a report to hand in quick- Could you keep an eye on Tommy for a few? Will only be a couple of minutes.”. He said as he made his way to his computer.
“Wil I’ve told you multiple times to keep ahead of schedule”. He snorted; Tommy looked confused now as to what was going on. “I know, I know Dad! I just- Tommy takes up a lot of attention and time!”. “Really? How bad can he be? I take care of Techno and Ranboo just fine”.
“Tommy is smart, don’t get me wrong- and he picks up on things easily, it just- he mostly behaves like an infant a majority of the time”. He was about to protest when Tommy made a whining sound directed to Wilbur, “I’m busy buddy, play with Dad okay?”. Tommy looked over to Philza in curiosity and approached Phil, which was a bit nerve-wracking since Tommy was still taller than him.
He made another sound, but this time more cheerful and directed towards Phil, what was he supposed to do? I mean Wil said he usually talked to the guy so maybe? “Hey mate?”.
Tommy made a cheerful sound in response, and his form began to shift. It did catch him off guard as he first thought something was wrong but soon after, Tommy was shorter and seemed to look like… Him?
Oh right, his mimicking thing, he forgot about that. He remembers Wil also mentioning Tommy enjoyed the attention, so he patted the boy on the head, Tommy let out a coo at this in happiness and his form quickly changed back to his normal self.
He embraced Phil in a hug, his weight making the two of them fall to the floor, he moved his position to try and get out of Tommy’s grip, but Tommy had already made himself comfortable and began to purr. “Seems like the two of you are having fun!” Wilbur said from a distance as he typed away. Asshole.
In his opinion, Tommy himself wasn’t so bad. He reminded him of Wilbur in many ways like how clingy the two of them are, they do seem like a good fit for each other. Honestly, he’d probably see Tommy as another pseudo-son like how he is with Ranboo and Techno, although Techno would never admit to it.
As the two laid there in peace, he began to draw circular motions on Tommy’s head, with him continuing to purr, it made him smile. And soon enough Wilbur had announced he was done and sat in his office chair with a sigh and as soon as he said that. Tommy had perked up, making his way from Phil.
Tommy slowly made his way towards an exhausted Wilbur, Philza remaining in the same position as before. Slowly, Tommy seemed to grow in size, roughly to the same as Techno’s height.
And when he was close to Wilbur, he quickly picked him up, making Wilbur yell in surprise and got Phil to stand up in worry immediately in case something was wrong. Was he wrong about Tommy?! Oh god?!
“Tommy, I told you to stop doing that”. Wilbur yelled as he pushed away from the nuzzling Tommy, much to Tommy’s dismay, he got a whine in response. “You’re going to give me a heart attack one day, my god…”. Tommy whined again, seemingly in an apologetic manner, “It’s alright Toms, just do it with a warning okay? If you did that with Phil, the old man would probably have a heart attack!”.
He sighed in relief, “Wil- I think I just had a fucking heart attack mate! Does he always do this?”. “Yeah, sometimes. He does it when he wants to cuddle really. He’s been doing it a lot after the Techno incident”.
“Oh, guess that’s fair”. Wilbur sat in Tommy’s hand as Tommy made his way towards Phil. Then carefully sat beside the standing man.
“Jeez, he’s about the size of Techno when he’s like this.”. “Yep, this is why I can barely get any work done. See my point now?”. “Yeah, I do mate!” Both laughed, Tommy, trying to laugh with them barely mimicking the vocals to do so.
The two sat down for a while and talked, Tommy, tuning in occasionally. Barely understanding what the two were talking about. To say the least Tommy himself was getting bored.
Both Phil and Wilbur shrieked in surprise when Tommy picked up Wilbur and brought him up close to his face and whined. “Hey, Toms! Something wrong?”. The moment he said that Tommy opened what seemed to be a mouth and stuffed Wilbur inside.
“OH, SHIT- WIL-“. Phil yelled in panic and worry to see his son sticking out of Tommy’s mouth, clearly struggling. Tommy looked confused at Phil reaction, making a whine of worry himself. Wondering what was wrong.
Phil looked around as quickly as possible to try and find a means to help, instead of finding anything he quickly made his way to Tommy and tugged on his clothing, demanding he spits Wilbur out of his mouth. “TOMMY MATE! LET WILBUR OUT! PLEASE?!”.
Whatever it was, Tommy didn’t seem to understand what he was saying, but he didn’t like how scared both Wilbur and Phil were. What was wrong?
Did they feel unsafe? Did Phil want to be protected? He picked up Phil in a panic but that only seemed to make Phil worse. It made him panic himself.
He whined in worry as he let Wilbur out his mouth, Wilbur coughing in his hand. He continued to whine in panic, but he noticed that the two seemed to be relieved once Wilbur was out of his mouth.
Quickly, Tommy put Phil and Wilbur close to each other, Phil panicking for Wilbur’s safety.
“I-I’m fine dad, no worries”, “Are you sure mate?! He just fucking put you in his mouth”. Tommy didn’t like the panicked noises and continued to whine. Wilbur sighed and looked towards Tommy. “Tommy-“Tommy made eye contact with him, “It’s okay bud, you just did an accident. It’s okay.”.
Desperate for comfort he picked up Wilbur and nuzzled him, making apologetic whines. Wilbur comforted him back in reassuring vocals and hugging Tommy back. Then, he looked to Phil, with an apologetic expression, he whined again.
Phil got the message that Tommy was apologising, “It’s okay mate, don’t worry-“. He was cut off as Tommy picked up Phil and nuzzled him, then the two were transferred to his chest, where he held them protectively whilst purring. “Well, guess we’re stuck here for a while-“.
#mcyt g/t#mcytg/t#dsmp g/t#giant!tommy#sizeshifter!tommy#tiny!phil#tiny!wilbur#subject t0m au#shushi's writings
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Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 8 - The Singer’s Secret
This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.
Original name ~ Dubbed name
Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon
Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda
Tohma H. Norstein ~ Thomas H. Norstein
Chika Daimon ~ Kristy Damon
Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson
Hitoshi “Neon” Hanamura ~ Neon
[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]
Since the dub constantly varies which character reads out the title card for each episode, I have to side-eye the fact that it’s Marcus and not Yoshi reading out the title card for Yoshi’s episode.
Marcus: “And now it’s eatin’ time!”
I am amused by the variation on Marcus’s “it’s fightin’ time” catchphrase. Gotta find something to replace the very-Japanese itadakimasu, and this sounds less awkward than a lot of things would in a very dorkily Marcus way.
Reporter: “We won’t name names, but only because we haven’t discovered who she is… *yet*.”
The dub appears to be leaning into the seediness of this whole gossip thing even more than the original, which I guess is fair, since it was already pretty seedy to begin with.
Megumi: “What’s the meaning of this?”
Miki: “How did you, the meekest of us all among DATS members…”
Megumi: “…Manage to snag Hanamura Neon?”
~~~~~
Megumi: “You’re dating Neon?!”
Miki: “That ring a bell, Miss Keep-Secrets-From-Her-Friends?”
Megumi: “We read all about it in the newspaper!”
I actually somewhat prefer Megumi and Miki’s angle in the dub. Instead of being jealous and putting her down as if she doesn’t deserve to date a celebrity because she’s too “meek” or whatever, they only appear to be upset that she didn’t tell them this because they consider themselves someone she’d share this sort of thing with. (Whether they actually are that is another matter; Yoshi never seems especially close with these two. But at least that is a less tiresomely misogynistic thing for them to be being unreasonable about.)
Megumi: “We’ve been getting phone calls one after another since morning!”
Miki: “We’re also getting loads of hate mail from Neon’s fans!”
Megumi: “They’re demanding to know who Fujieda Yoshino thinks she is!”
~~~~~
Megumi: “We’ve been getting phone calls all morning long asking for Yoshi to give interviews!”
Miki: “Not to mention the mail from Neon’s fans. My papercuts have papercuts!”
Megumi: “Everyone wants to know who ‘Yoshi’ is!”
Neon’s other fans are also apparently being a little more reasonable in the dub. Rather than being jealous and hateful (“who she thinks she is” very much carries connotations of them acting like she’s too ordinary to deserve to date a celebrity), they instead seem to be suddenly treating Yoshi like a celebrity as well. Even though jealousy and hate is definitely the way a fanbase would be likely to act to something like this in real life, I do not mind at all that the dub is toning this part down.
Yoshi: “…and I wore a hat. That’s a foolproof disguise!”
Apparently Yoshi subscribes to superhero universe logic if she believed that that was ever going to work. She had a hat and sunglasses; totally couldn’t have possibly been recognised.
Thomas then pulls up the photo that was taken of Yoshi after she took her hat and sunglasses off, amusingly implying that that’s the only reason she got busted and she totally would have been fine otherwise.
Thomas: “Your name, phone number, even your favourite music… Hmm, showtunes.”
Based on his tone, Thomas appears to be judging Yoshi for her taste in music, which doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing he would do. The dub just threw in that quick gag without thinking about if it fit the character.
Also, if, according to the dub, the information published about her included her phone number, why isn’t Yoshi herself the one getting all the phone calls and not her workplace? The dub does not mention her workplace being one of the details that was made public about her, so why Miki and Megumi have been swamped with letters and phone calls about this is a mystery.
Agumon: “What’s an undercover investigation?”
~~~~~
Agumon: “Under what cover?”
Oh hey, dub, remember how Agumon shouldn’t know a whole bunch of human terms because he only recently came into the human world? And hey, look, you can make jokes with that, too, rather than making jokes with things that it doesn’t make any sense for Agumon to be saying!
Tohma: “So if we carelessly break in, we’ll be kicked out before we know it.”
~~~~~
Thomas: “So if we rush in, the Digimon will know that we’re after him.”
Gaomon: “And he’ll run.”
The dub actually gives a much better excuse for why the building’s hi-tech security system means they can’t just rush in: not because the security guards will kick them out, since they should be able to pull DATS authority on that, but rather because it’ll alert Keramon than they’re coming. Good job, dub, fixing a plot hole!
Unfortunately, despite the dub’s attempts to remove Miki and Megumi’s jealousy of Yoshi and turn it into them just having wanted the gossip, which I appreciated, the dub can’t really change the part where they jealously complain that they weren’t the ones to get to (fake) date Neon. Their animations for that are too extreme to really be interpreted as anything else.
Yoshino: “Neon is my childhood friend.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “I knew Neon when we were children.”
Yoshi doesn’t mention the fact that he was specifically her friend. Their conversation later in the episode is still going to clearly establish that they were indeed on friendly terms back then, but I feel it’s a bit of a shame that their friendship isn’t something Yoshi outright mentions here. Her friendship with him is obviously quite important to her and to how she approaches investigating him; it makes sense that she’d want to bring it up.
Yoshino: “He’s completely different than before. He was shorter than me, and he was fat. When he debuted, I didn’t recognise him at all.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “He’s so different than he used to be. He was just a shy little boy back then. I would never have guessed that he’d become such a success story.”
I am very disappointed at the dub leaving out the part where he used to be fat, because that’s an important detail that makes it significantly easier to imagine that he was probably bullied back then. Yoshi doesn’t mention that she literally didn’t even recognise him as a singer, either. The dub’s take on this is focused more on his personality and less on his image.
Under normal circumstances, that shift in focus might be a good thing, but in this particular context, image is an even more relevant thing in the celebrity world than personality is. And image also tends to be more important in terms of how likely a kid is to be bullied. This is watering down the interesting parts of Neon’s character and it makes me sad.
Yoshino: “Hitoshi!”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Hi, Neon!”
Another very significant change: apparently, Neon just is his real name in the dub? Or, if it’s a stage name, Yoshi doesn’t care and is happy to call him by that rather than by whatever name she knew him by as a kid. Neon having an ordinary real name and Yoshino insisting on using it (and him not liking her doing so in public) was a neat aspect of the original that helped showcase the vast contrast between who he used to be and who he is today – again, kind of the whole point of Neon’s character – so I’m very sad that the dub loses this, too.
(The dub also hasn’t mentioned his surname and just calls him “Neon” at all times. Which really doesn’t actually matter at all, because the connotations of the surname Hanamura that I talked about in the original post would obviously be lost on a Western audience (unless they changed his surname to a Western one with similar connotations – now there’d be an actual reason to give a Japanese character a Western name, for once!). But I am disappointed about it for a very silly reason anyway, because Neon’s English voice actor happens to also voice one of those other Hanamuras that I mentioned in that post (who incidentally happens to be one of my favourite fictional characters, which is probably the only reason I care about this), and it would have been a hilarious coincidence for him to have voiced two Hanamuras. He still sort of did anyway, but only sort of.)
Neon: “I told you not to call me by my real name.”
Yoshino: “What does it matter?”
Neon: “You haven’t changed at all.”
~~~~~
Neon: “Hey, wanna blow off work and come to the beach with me?”
Yoshi: “Sorry, I can’t. Too much to do.”
Neon: “Oh well, I guess it’s your loss then.”
Because Neon doesn’t have an ordinary real name in the dub, we also lose the exchange that told us some interesting things about Yoshino and Neon’s characters and how they see each other and their relationship, replaced with completely meaningless fluff. (Inviting her to blow off work and come to the beach with him is a significantly more usually-romantically-coded thing than anything else they actually do in the episode.)
Masaru: “Is this really a mission?”
~~~~~
Marcus: “You do know this guy’s a criminal.”
Miki & Megumi: “Alleged criminal!”
Marcus: “Gimme a break!”
Instead of being exasperated by relationship nonsense, Marcus is instead really sure already that Neon’s a criminal and writing him off as not worthy of respect as a result. Miki and Megumi are being totally reasonable to point out that it’s only allegedly for now.
Masaru: “But Yoshino…”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Yoshi, he’s hiding a Digimon.”
Marcus is way more sure and making a much bigger point of this than Masaru.
(Masaru may have already basically decided as well that Neon’s probably the culprit, but even if he had, I don’t think he’d really have cared. He’s not here for the crime-solving and human-focused side of things – so long as he gets to fight that Digimon, that’s all that matters to him!)
Yoshi and Neon have basically the same conversation about carrots as in the original, but it doesn’t have quite the same meaning without the detail that Neon used to be fat, implying that Yoshino was probably encouraging him to eat them to try and help him lose weight.
Yoshino: “I was exercising parental love because I wanted you to eat healthy and get bigger.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Hey, I was just making sure you grew up big and strong by eating your veggies!”
The one real difference here is the lack of her mentioning parental love, which is a shame because I liked it emphasising the idea of Yoshino the mom friend. Perhaps they removed that because they’re trying to make this relationship seem more actually romantic. I also liked the idea that it really wasn’t that romantic in the original, at least on Yoshino’s end.
Yoshino: “I remember you were never able to do anything on your own…”
Neon: “Thanks for the meal.”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “This has been so much fun. It’s really a shame that you have to work tonight.”
Neon: “Wish I didn’t.”
Another really meaningful and interesting line about Neon’s kid self (and his subtly telling reaction to it) gets removed and replaced with more fluff. This isn’t even the dub accidentally losing meaningful bits because they’re missing the point; this is clearly them removing these interesting parts on purpose. Why. Neon’s character was one of the most compelling things about the original episode. All they’re doing is deliberately making this episode significantly less good.
Chika: “Neon is so cool!”
Masaru: “What part of him?”
~~~~~
Kristy: “Oh man, that Neon is so cool!”
Marcus: “Yeah, right.”
Marcus sounds so weirdly bitter here, like he really has firmly decided that Neon sucks and doesn’t deserve anyone’s admiration because he’s A Criminal. Why the hell does he care so much? Masaru was just bewildered as to what the big deal about him was in a way that had nothing to do with the suspected Digimon-harbouring.
Chika: “Obviously, the part where he tries so hard to protect his girlfriend!”
~~~~~
Kristy: “Do you think I’ll ever date someone who’s as cool and sweet as Neon?”
Kristy also does not specify that she admires Neon for trying to keep his girlfriend out of the limelight, which I appreciated Chika doing.
Kristy: “Just have him make it out to ‘Superfan Kristy the Most Beautiful Girl in the Whole World’.”
Geez. Kristy: still noticeably more of a brat than Chika.
Masaru: “Look, Chika, you wouldn’t like it if other people were prying about who you like or date, right? It’s the same with Yoshino. That’s to say nothing of the fact that you’re demanding his autograph just because he’s a celebrity…”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Look, you wouldn’t like it if people kept prying into the private details of your life – I mean, if you had any. Well, Yoshi’s the same. Besides, Neon is probably sick of signing autographs for annoying fans.”
Marcus is technically giving the same sort of advice here, but my god, he is being way more of a dick about it than is necessary. The dub is ruining Masaru’s adorable fatherly-advice moment and turning it into a Marcus Is A Jerk™ moment instead and I don’t like it one bit.
Kristy: “You think I’m annoying, Marcus…?”
And so in this version, Kristy is actually pretty within reason to get upset, because her brother was being a dick. (Though she was also being slightly more annoying and bratty about the autograph thing than Chika was in the first place.)
Promotional video: “Hey everybody! Have you heard the new song by pop sensation Neon? Download it today, and tell all your friends, too!”
The dub version of the “promotional video” actually has a voiceover and therefore is vaguely more believable as an actual promotion than just a weird silent two second loop. Fixing another minor plot hole, dub, well done.
The dub completely cuts out the security guard who confronts Masaru at the door, probably because they didn’t want to include the part where Masaru assaults the guy. This is despite the fact that in the original episode, Masaru implicitly gets in trouble for this later when the guy wakes up, and otherwise generally comes across as having acted very rashly and unreasonably for this whole situation. But nah, apparently we can’t have our kids’ show protagonist do a bad thing, not even when the story presents it like it was kind of a bad thing to do.
Marcus: “Open the door, I’m here to protect you!”
Masaru never actually mentioned that he’s here to protect Yoshino, even though the possibility that she was in trouble is most of the reason why he came. Marcus making an explicit point of this is him making things a lot more about himself than Masaru did, like him coming here is mostly him wanting to seem like the Big Hero, rather than him genuinely just being worried about his friend.
Yoshino: “Masaru! What are you…?”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Marcus, what are you doing?! You’ll blow it; Neon’s here! Go away!”
Yoshi gets a longer line here – they’re probably filling in time lost from cutting the security guard – but in the process I can’t help but think that Neon should have heard the “you’ll blow it” part, since he shows up at the door just a second later. Which in fact would have been Yoshi blowing it and not Marcus.
Masaru: “Don’t play dumb! This was all part of your scheme!”
Neon: “Wh-What are you doing? Who are you?!”
Masaru: “What are you plotting, using that Digimon?!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Don’t play dumb; I know what you’re up to!”
Neon: “What do you mean? Who are you?!”
Marcus: “Just confess and tell me what you have planned in that mind of yours!”
So, despite Marcus having been significantly more convinced than Masaru ever was that Neon is definitely hiding a Digimon, he’s… not bringing up the Digimon for some reason now that he’s actually confronting Neon, even though Masaru did. What the hell.
The dub cuts the moment of Yoshino slapping Masaru, albeit not very convincingly, since there’s still a shot of him briefly looking like he’s just been slapped, and then a visible mark on his face a shot later.
Yoshino: “How dare you suddenly intrude into other people’s houses! How about you consider *not* being a nuisance to others for a change!”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “Who do you think you are, barging into somebody’s house just for a measly autograph?! I don’t care how big a fan you are, you better learn some manners, kid!”
I do enjoy Yoshi putting on even more of an act here, trying to make it look like Marcus is some crazed fan desperate for an autograph. Though I’m not sure that angle entirely matches with Marcus’s behaviour of grabbing Neon and demanding that he confesses what he’s up to. Then again, Neon is going to figure out people are onto him from this either way, so I guess it doesn’t matter how convincing Yoshi is or isn’t.
Masaru: “Hey, wait! I said wait! What was that for?”
Yoshino: “You’re ruining my undercover investigation.”
~~~~~
Marcus: “What was all that for, Yoshi?”
Yoshi: “To stop *you* from blowing my cover and all of my hard work.”
I enjoy Yoshi being more pointedly annoyed about this with her emphasis that he’s ruining her hard work. She has a right to be.
Masaru: “What the hell, I was just worried about her.”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Well, I’m so sorry for trying to save you!”
Marcus! This is not about you! Masaru wasn’t trying to make this about himself; he was just worried about his friend – but Marcus is making this all about him Being The Hero and him being the one to save her.
It’s not that I don’t hypothetically enjoy characters who have issues along those lines, but that should not be the point with Marcus here. The dub isn’t going to go anywhere interesting with this because it wasn’t a thing in the original, so instead this just sticks out as another thing making Marcus more self-absorbed.
The security guard showing up here now is still there in the dub, even though they cut Masaru knocking him out earlier.
Sampson: “Keramon’s making it seem like Neon’s selling more songs than he is.”
[…]
Kudamon: “The more popular people think he is, the more albums they buy.”
They have an interesting point here not brought up in the original, that even if Keramon is only making Neon look more popular by messing with the figures, that’s going to result in actually making him more popular. In the original, it was unclear exactly what kind of manipulation Keramon had been doing (until the obvious stunt last night) and I sort of vaguely got the impression that it’d been actually making people download his songs even if they never wanted to. Then again, that might be obvious enough that people would have reported it, so perhaps things were always meant to be how the dub is explaining them to be here. Good job to the dub again for making that clearer. (…Or so I thought; hold this thought.)
Thomas: “Clearly, Neon’s making a fortune through fraud.”
I don’t especially like the dub adding this, though, because Neon should not be doing this for the money. He’s doing this for the popularity. Admittedly Thomas is only speculating and wouldn’t know better, but him stating it like this makes it seem like this is the correct conclusion to make about Neon’s motives.
Neon: “To think that you were one of them…”
Yoshino: “It’s prohibited to give a Digimon refuge!”
~~~~~
Neon: “I just can’t believe you were a part of this. I trusted you!”
Yoshi: “Yeah, that’s why you told me all about your illegal Digimon!”
I enjoy Yoshi actually somewhat responding to the accusation of betrayal by pointing out that he was hiding something from her as well. Though I also do think Yoshino’s response of completely avoiding the topic says something interesting in and of itself.
Neon: “Don’t order me around!”
~~~~~
Neon: “Don’t you judge me!”
While the “don’t order me around” perhaps touched on Neon’s past of not being able to do much on his own, “don’t judge me” would also potentially touch on his past of being bullied. However, I can’t help but think that’s more by luck than judgement on the dub’s part, since they went and deliberately removed so many of the other hints of Neon’s past even being like that in the first place.
Neon: “He distributes my songs around the world and manipulates music charts…”
Wait, so Keramon actually does forcibly distribute the songs even to people who don’t want them, and not just fake the figures so that people will be more likely to check out what the fuss is about?
Yeah, actually, this line is basically exactly what Neon said here originally, so I guess that is what was meant to have been going on after all. Sampson and Kudamon must have missed that part when they were discussing things earlier.
Yoshino: “Hitoshi, stop this!”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “You have to stop this. Fraud is a criminal offence!”
Though the lack of her being able to call him Hitoshi is a bad thing again, I do appreciate Yoshi pointing out that fraud is a crime. Even aside from DATS’s rules that nobody’s allowed to have a Digimon unless they’re a DATS member, Neon has still been breaking the regular law anyway, and the original didn’t really emphasise that very much.
They cut out the moment of Keramon grabbing Yoshi by the neck, but they do still show her being held like that in a shot a second later.
Neon: “No way! Keramon is my partner!”
~~~~~
Neon: “Keramon is my partner just like your Digimon! I wouldn’t betray him any more than you’d betray them!”
Dub-Neon is very deliberately making the parallel to DATS’s Digimon rather than only accidentally invoking it by happening to use the same word – but it really isn’t a parallel he should be making deliberately. Keramon is not a person. It hasn’t spoken or expressed its own desires or sense of self at all; it’s just giggled creepily and done as he’s ordered it to. There is no actual meaningful bond of friendship here for Neon to care about not wanting to betray.
I think the dub added this in because the dubbers actually think that it’s basically the same deal going on with Neon and Keramon as with DATS and their partners. But it really, really isn’t.
Neon: “Thanks to him, my songs are played throughout the world! He’s making me famous!”
~~~~~
Neon: “He made me rich and famous!”
Famous, yes, but the money is not the point, dub. Neon in the original never mentioned money as being part of why he’s doing this.
Also, the past tense implies that it’s only because of Keramon that Neon became famous at all. Which I really doubt is supposed to be the case, because there’s no sense given at any point that Neon just burst into the public eye out of nowhere within the past month since he’s had Keramon. He must have been already doing reasonably well on his own merit before he started using fraud.
Masaru: “What’s this crap about him making you famous?! It’s not through your own efforts! If you wanted to change yourself through your music, then do it using your own merit!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “Your whole career is a giant lie! You haven’t actually achieved anything! That Digimon of yours did everything for you; you’re nothing but a phony!”
…But it seems the dub really wants us to think that it’s only because of Keramon that Neon got anywhere at all and he was never genuinely good enough to deserve any amount of success whatsoever. I think the dubbers might have missed the point of this as well and believed that that was actually what was going on in the original episode.
And of course, because of this, we lose the interesting nuanced moment of Masaru being really good and pointing out that Neon should have kept working at this using his own merit. Instead we just get Marcus boringly shooting him down completely.
Yoshino: “Stop!”
Lalamon: “Stop!”
~~~~~
Yoshi: “No pictures!”
Lalamon: “Give me that camera!”
Lalamon demanding the camera further emphasises the point of Yoshi choosing to do this instead of fight, and it gives more of a vague impression that maybe she really does take the camera and wipe the pictures offscreen, even though we won’t be seeing it. I approve.
Neon: “Everyone needs to quit making fun of me!”
~~~~~
Neon: “My career’s ruined now, and you’re gonna pay!”
Unsurprisingly, after everything the dub has already removed about Neon’s interesting aspects, they also remove probably the most interesting line – the one that very strongly hints he used to be bullied and that this has all been about him breaking away from that in a way that gradually became more and more desperate and obsessive to the point of illegality.
Instead, dub-Neon is somebody who wanted to be rich and famous just because, apparently had genuinely no actual talent or merit to base that on whatsoever, and just faked his entire success story (which the dub expects us to think he could have believably done within a month) using Digimon-driven fraud. That’s just… boring.
It also makes it significantly less interesting and meaningful why Keramon evolves in response to these words, though I suppose a burst of vengeful anger at them for ruining his fraudulent career is still reasonable enough to do it.
Masaru: “Change places! Let’s go, Agumon!”
~~~~~
Marcus: “We’ll take ‘im! It’s fightin’ time!”
I am mildly sad at the loss of the sense that Masaru sees this as him tagging in for Tohma and being equal teammates with him, rather than trying to grab all the glory himself.
Neon: “Even the memory of when we met again?”
~~~~~
Neon: “Even the stuff about you and me?”
In the dub, Neon makes this just about losing what their relationship is now and nothing else. I liked the sense that, after all the fraud had been uncovered and he’d basically given up, original-Neon was mostly sad to lose the memory of seeing her again, his childhood friend who was there for him during that tough time and could be proud of how far he’d come.
Overall differences
This episode has quite a few significant differences, with a lot of them being bad, but at least there’s a small handful of good ones too, for once.
Let’s start with the good ones. This episode’s dub actually has a couple of small fixes to some minor logic issues the original had. They explained that they can’t break into Neon’s building because the high security meant that Neon/Keramon would see them coming and run, which made a lot more sense. Then they gave the promo video a voiceover, making it a lot more believable as a promo video than some weird silent two-second loop.
Yoshi also has a few minor good bits: leaning more into the story that Marcus is a crazed fan when he shows up at the door, pointing out that fraud is a crime. I also appreciate that they attempted to tone down Miki and Megumi’s harshness towards her at least a little.
But onto the bad stuff: the really huge glaring problem with the dub of this episode is Neon. Neon’s character was the big saving grace of this otherwise not especially interesting episode to me in the original, and none of what makes him that way is present in the dub. All of the hints of him being weak and helpless and probably-bullied as a kid are watered down into him simply having been kind of shy, there’s no hints of him remaking his image (no mention that Neon is a stage name; for all we know in the dub, that’s somehow his real name), and way too much emphasis put on him doing this for money, not just fame. If Marcus is to be believed, he had absolutely zero talent and got where he was entirely through Keramon’s meddling, which is extremely unrealistic to have happened in a single month without anyone questioning it and is also way, way less interesting. Dub-Neon is just some boring flat villain greedy for fame and fortune, rather than an interestingly messed-up character.
And it’s really strange to me that this character assassination is so complete and consistent that it must have been deliberate? The dub writers consciously decided to remove everything that made this episode’s focus character interesting. Why in the world would they choose to do that.
Then there’s this episode’s treatment of Marcus, which is standard fare at this point but still frustrating enough that I am always going to talk about it when it happens in any significant amount.
He’s more insistent that Neon’s harbouring a Digimon from the start despite the lack of proof, but then, bizarrely, doesn’t bring up Digimon when he breaks in even though Masaru did. He makes the breaking-in part a lot more About Himself by making a point that he’s here to save Yoshi, which is a very different thing than Masaru coming there in case Yoshino needed saving but not actually caring whether she knows it or not. Marcus is also more of an unnecessary dick to his sister in the bit where she’s asking him for Neon’s autograph. And the interesting nuance that Masaru had in his speech to Neon, about putting in effort and changing yourself through your own merits, is lost in favour of this new boring narrative where Neon apparently had zero talent and deserved none of his fame in the first place.
Oh, and the bit where Masaru attacked the security guard was cut, because I guess your kids’ show protagonist isn’t allowed to attack a responsible adult, even when the narrative presents this as a bad thing that he shouldn’t have done and implicitly gets in trouble for.
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Babylon Vol. 1: A Favor For A Friend
[ID: a blue patterned banner with text reading “BABYLON.” End ID.]
By dragonstoravens and @charlottedotexe
(In keeping with the plan to post an update every Friday, here’s chapter 5. A lot of these early chapters are a bit shorter, in a sort of anthology style as we get to know the characters. Hope you enjoy!)
5. A Favor For A Friend
Trinity leaned back on his couch with a groan, hovering over the ‘send’ button on his chat screen. This had to be the weirdest last resort ever, but this week had been yet another lesson in how not to have a social life in your 20s, by well known business mogul Trinity Jericho. Sure, he and Azure had been talking for some time now, ever since she fixed his eye, and sure, he was starting to consider her perhaps the closest friend he had, but that didn’t make his request any less strange. Still, it was either this, or pay a literal spy to come with him. His younger sister Adriel had offered, in return for as many juice pouches as she wanted, but that likely would have raised more rumors than it put to rest, and that would defeat the whole purpose of this crazy plan. He sighed, speaking aloud to his empty office. “I can’t send this message.”
A quiet ding from his screen’s voice control. He hadn’t realized it was on. “Message sent.”
“Fuck.”
Azure’s response was nearly instantaneous.
[Azure] You want me to dress up and go to some fancy shindig with you?
[Azure] Is the theme of the night bad dates with lacking manners? Surely you’ve got better options, dude. No hot supermodels? Cool alien mistresses? Long lost childhood friends you’ve been forlorn about losing since they moved away, but you just saw them at the supermarket and now your whole world is changing?
A pause.
[Azure] Ignore that last one, that’s the plot of a book I’ve been reading.
Trinity chuckled despite himself. The manners issue had, in fact, been one of his many worries about this whole request. But he couldn’t back out now.
[Hotshot] I’m not going to dignify most of those questions with a response. It was this or pay my 13 year old sister in juice pouches, and that’ll raise more questions than it settles. I promise it’s a one time thing-- I just need the Polinskis to stop throwing their daughter at me.
He paused, biting the inside of his lip as he debated once more if this was actually a good idea.
[Hotshot] You don’t have to. I know you’re not experienced with this kind of event, or this kind of society.
Azure read the message and sat back in her chair, thinking. She hated fancy parties, they required being stuffy and shoved into dresses that wouldn’t last eight seconds in her lab before getting too dirty to ever wear again, and rich people liked to smell like weird fruit these days along with being judgemental to a degree that gave her hives to think about. But still, Trinity had been growing on her these last few months. Maybe once wouldn’t kill her, if it made his life a little easier. She was nothing if not a giver, and it would give her an excuse to use some fun experimental tech she’d been hoping to test out.
[Azure] Yeah, I'll suffer through it once. You owe me, though. I'll have my brother whip up somethin' for us to wear. You think a MiZara original will sell the ludicrous idea that I'm in any way fancy, or am I gonna have to read up on shrimp forks to pass?
Trinity couldn’t quite stop himself from sighing in relief. She hadn’t said no.
[Hotshot] You’re right, I owe you. Thanks.
Message sent and one more stressor out of the way, although he still wasn’t sure this wasn’t going to come back to bite him later, possibly in the form of Azzy being… well, herself, in high society. There was a lot he would have to teach her, and not nearly enough time to do it. He read over her message again with a sigh. At least she was taking care of the… dress?
Azure’s screen displayed the message ‘Hotshot is typing’ for 30 seconds. A minute. Two.
Ping.
[Hotshot] Wait, MIZARA?
He could practically hear her peal of laughter at his moment of realization.
[Azure] My last name is Zaraya. I already told you my brother was a designer. I thought you'd’ve put two and two together by now, hotshot, what happened to that mastermind brain of yours?
Trinity shook his head bemusedly as he typed, even though she couldn’t see it.
[Hotshot] You’re the one who always says I think about nothing except work. Anyway, I have suits, I don’t want to owe you any more than I already do for making you wear a dress.
[Azure] If you think he’s gonna let us go without matching, you’re outta your mind and also you clearly do not know my brother.
Azure sighed as the message whooshed away. They had a lot of ground to cover if she didn’t want to ruin her buddy’s reputation on sight. Cover stories and false names and back up plans, along with how to walk in heels and other weird things that she was definitely not suited for.
[Azure] Alright hotshot, tell me everything I need to be a high society girlfriend. Crimson can help me brush up on manners, but we might want a plan. I haven’t been on a date in ages, can’t say I recall how they work.
[Hotshot] I have a plan, don’t worry. But you don’t have to play a *girlfriend.* I’m not going to ask you to closet yourself for this.
[Azure] Nah, it’s cool. If I’m not acting like a whole different person, it won’t stick, and then I’ll do something dumb and ruin the whole thing. Plus the idea of coming out to a whole lot of new people all night gives me hives. Now c’mon, gimme the rules. I have flashcards to make.
Trinity couldn’t blame her for that. For all that he liked to keep his personal life very, well, personal, he had taken a chance and corrected someone as to his sexuality once. To one person. At the next event, half of his contacts were throwing double the children at him, now aware that men and women were both fair game. The other half had mostly made some inane reference to him being a “player” or the obligatory threesome joke, and a few had awkwardly avoided him ever since-- which he honestly couldn’t complain about. He’d honestly prefer more of his acquaintances to be the specific brand of biphobic that meant they’d leave him alone.
Reading over Azure’s message one more time, he stifled a tiny chuckle. Flashcards, for the rules of dating in society? At least his next event would be entertaining.
Taglist (ask to be added or removed!): @glitterandstarshine @rainbowcoloreddays @the-starlight-chills @erased-in-stone
General: @elywritesbydarkness @residentofthedisc @humour-and-hyperfocus @skyfirewrites
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How I Think The Star Wars Sequels Should Have Happened: Another MrMallard Nerd Moment
(MAJOR SPOILERS)
The Force Awakens:
fine jumping on point. Not perfect, but honestly a return to form in regards to making Star Wars movies fun again. Keep TFA as-is, warts and all - the trick is paying this movie off by the end.
The Last Jedi:
Less faux-Guardians of the Galaxy humor. That's not to say "no humor", I honestly thought Luke Skywalker had the best jokes of the movie, but less "your mother" and less "Finn wakes up from a coma and drips IV fluid everywhere, Wakka Wakka!". The former is corny, the latter is undignified and actively cheapens character development from the prior movie.
Cut the stampeding race-beasts, because it reeks of Disney's "fuck you we're Disney" money, but keep Canto Bight as a whole. The alien designs are charming - it's a nice moment of fanservice, along with the Jizz music. It also serves as a nice character-building exercise for Rose and Finn.
Ultimately, I think it might have been a better idea to kill off Leia in this movie considering Carrie Fisher's passing. I don't dislike her in this movie, and I honestly enjoyed the scene of her in space - my first thought was "holy fuck she can use the force!!" - but I think it would have been better for her to pass on in this movie, both logistically and for her character. That, or they should have scaled back her cobbled together Frankenstein-performance of CGI, cut lines and recontextualised footage in TRoS. Either/or.
Keep the mutiny plot with Poe, but something has to be done with how they treat the secret plan. The resolution to the mutiny plot was the thing that bothered me the most with TLJ, but it's pretty much the only thing for Poe to do in the movie and it adds conflict to the main story I guess. Making the Holdo/Poe seem a little less personal might help? idk. honestly a lot of this storyline felt forced.
Don't try and resolve Rey's backstory in this movie. Keep it as a running mystery. I understand that they were trying to go for a clever subversion in this movie, but it just added another stupid thing that TRoS bad to address and it honestly kinda ruins the trilogy.
Honestly, either cut Crait entirely and make it the beginning of the next movie - bc the movie's already two hours long and it feels like the final battle stretches the movie out beyond its natural ending point - or shorten it a bit and make it a bit more functional. It looks cool, but at that point it's like tacking an extra mile onto a marathon.
Also, don't shoehorn a failed heroic sacrifice with Finn imo. That, or give him more screentime and character development to build up to that moment. Post-TFA, he's really half-baked, and I honestly think he should have been more of a focal character next to Rey. The heroic sacrifice felt like it came out of nowhere, and by thwarting it and adding the Rose Tico scene, it felt like a waste of time even having it in there. It comes and goes with no fanfare.
Honestly, I would have preferred if Luke stayed alive at the end of the movie. I think his death was a movie too soon. Saying that, I think they nailed his death in this movie - if they were gonna kill him off, I think they did it right. Also, don't kill off Snoke. It's a cool scene, but it fucks up the next movie.
Re: Rose Tico - she's not my favorite part of the movie, but I don't actively hate her and I think the response to her character that Kelly Marie Tran had to face was absolutely disgusting. I think her plotline with Finn was a little underbaked, and that scene at the end where she prevents his heroic sacrifice just kinda sidelines them both. I think making her a navigator would have helped her character in TLJ and TRoS.
In short: trim a few excessive CGI scenes, cut a few cornball jokes out, play around with the characterisation and tone of the mutiny plot, dignify Finn's character instead of reducing him to a rehashed coward, comedic relief character and pointless failed Rebel martyr, and maybe keep Luke Skywalker alive at the end. Bring the movie in at around 2 hours max.
Keep Luke Skywalker as-is, bc his character is a highlight of TLJ.
The Rise of Skywalker:
Kill off Luke Skywalker in this movie. Seriously, just cut and paste his death at the end of TLJ into this movie. Work him into a reduced role when Rey junks her ship, like the force projection messed him up and he doesn't have much longer to live, and have him help her when she returns to his island planet instead of adding a phoned-in Force Ghost appearance. Maybe have her there when he passes?
Reduce Leia's role in this movie instead of stitching together a Frankenstein's Monster of a performance. Not to be morbid by that reference - it's just that everything she says feels so stilted and wrong, like you can definitely tell they've thrown all the scraps they have left into her character in this movie. It doesn't feel natural or respectful for her character to spit out non-sequiters for the characters to respond to in an equally unnatural sort of way.
Honestly? Canonise Fey/Rinn, however you want to portmanteau Rey and Finn's ship name. If you give Finn more of a character arc in TLJ instead of side-lining him, and establish that he and Rey are particularly close - which they are IMO - and then pay off that "I have something to tell you" beat with a confession of love. This isn't a stab against Reylo, though I've certainly had words to say about Reylo, I just think Finn/Rey is a more wholesome ship and I prefer this dynamic to the fuckin dark side/light side paradigm of Reylo. I Just don't care for it. Kylo Ren's conflicted nature doesn't have to resolve in romance. Gimme Rey/Finn.
Snoke gets offed by Palpatine. There's no breeding vat for Snokes, but if the movie wants to suggest that he's still just a puppet or a creation, that's fine. That, or build Snoke up as the bad guy, and either follow through on that or have Palpatine be a twist halfway through the movie.
Maybe make Palpatine a Sith Ghost? They do exist to some degree. Or have him stuck in some other limbo that requires him to hijack Rey. Anything is better than that "if I do this you do this, but then I'll do this so you would have to do this, but really I'm going to do this so either way my entire plan was completely unnecessary lmao" clusterfuck where he's a living corpse impaled on a robot arm.
Cut out the macguffins, or make them feel less inconsequential. Okay, so the dagger storyline involves rebooting C3PO. It has stakes and gravitas to a degree. Cool - keep that. What the fuck is up with the wayfinders though? Why are there only two? Why do they need to be so convoluted?
Maybe have Maz Kanata talk about Luke's lightsaber, and/or have her involved in finding a way to Palpatine. It would pay off her appearance in TFA and explain her importance to Luke.
By making Rose Tico a great navigator in TLJ, her role on the team can be expanded in TRoS and she can do like star charts and stuff for all the different worlds they're going to - she can come along instead of being fucked over by JJ Abrams in this movie. She can even help with Maz Kanata's wayfinding plan. In short - make her a part of the team.
Honestly, fuck the Knights of Ren right off. They're a waste of time. That, or set them up in TLJ - hell, have one of them on Canto Bight and another one on Snoke's ship. Maybe even retcon Phasma into being a Knight of Ren. Anything but bringing them back as a mook squad in this movie, with no weight or character.
Honestly? Show Palpatine surviving the Death Star crash. The retcon is all the more painful for being completely and utterly unexplained. Doesn't matter if you have to touch the source material to do it, CG in a force shield as Palpatine falls through fire and have him hobble to a life support pod that takes him to where he is in TRoS. Literally anything is better than "Somehow, Palpatine returned".
Either cut the healing powers, or leave them in sans Reylo kiss.
In short: reduce Leia's role instead of using cut content and a CGI puppet to stitch together a performance, leave Luke alive until this movie, kill Snoke in this movie OR have him be the big bad, make Finn/Rey a thing over Reylo - again, no hate, I just prefer this pairing over Reylo - write more details about Palpatine's survival, either put some Knights of Ren into TLJ or don't have them at all, get rid of the Wayfinder macguffins and/or work Maz Kanata and "master navigator" Rose Tico into a plot to find Palpatine.
At the end of the day, there should have been a planning committee for the Star Wars story, not for the merchandise. You can see from how the sequel trilogy crammed out merchandise that Disney was clearly asking for marketable merch, but the story is a trainwreck - there was a Star Wars committee, just not where the property needed one.
The sequel trilogy was a worthwhile experiment imo - it didn't pay off, but it was worth doing just to see if it was possible. But even then, I would prefer three decent movies over a couple of experimental trainwrecks retroactively ruining one decent movie.
This post was mostly trying to work with what the movies already have, though by TRoS you really do have to start overhauling shit to make it work. In my eyes, the longest that these movies should run is two hours - any more than that is a slog, especially when the movie feels like it takes two hours. The Last Jedi felt like two and a half hours. The Rise of Skywalker felt like a two hour movie crammed into 80 minutes, despite the fact it was longer than 2 hours. The best way to make these movies more watchable is to make them shorter - cut out superfluous money shot scenes like the Canto Bight chase, have more efficient scenes to balance out the stylish scenes. The sequel trilogy is short on efficiency imo, and without a movie where it feels like progress is being made, the style doesn't work.
So tweak some things to make each movie more efficient.
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Rules:
HALLO THERE! Here’s my rules! They’re a bit long, but hopefully you can push through ‘em and we can get a chance at interaction!
1. Themes might vary with this blog. Although I’m typically SFW, I might touch upon dark topics here and there.
Things will be tagged! I’ll try my best, anyways. If you want something in particular tagged, please let me know. The format I use for tagging is, for example, tw: swearing.
I don’t have any triggers but I do ask you tag all of your NSFW content.
That said, I won’t do anything NSFW - gore is okay, though.
I’m of age.
2. I‘m a little selective, but otherwise - I’m open to canon, au, crossover, and original characters! As long as their muns rp literately/write para.
If it’s a crossover, I have to know the fandom and be at least a little bit confident with it. This is so I’m able to work with you, our thread and have muse for it.
Absolutely no godmodding. It ain’t fun, fam. If you’re not sure what this term means, do look it up. This includes powerplaying, metagaming, and other things of that nature. This applies especially in fights if they happen (I’m chance-based and hope that you are too).
I can be picky with OCs. But rest assured, if you’ve followed me/interacted with my promo, I’ll always give your pages a read.
Please don’t be offended if I don’t want to interact with you (and please don’t try to guilt me into doing so!).
As for following back, I usually take a week tops to do so - but if you’ve hit up my promo, I go through that eventually.
As I’ve said, I’m selective and as a result mutuals do take priority - but I don’t have to be following you for you to interact with me. It just means I’m more likely to interact with you if you’re a mutual.
3. Please don’t rush me for starters or responses.
PLEASE understand that I have blogs galore and my muse tends to fluctuate; this can mean I’m everywhere at once and can end up neglecting a blog or two. It’s nothing personal; you know how muses are! Additionally, life happens to be a thing.
Please note the mun deals with anxiety and depression - this might affect how frequently she roleplays.
Chances are, I’ve probably has seen that bit of interactivity and just haven’t gotten around to responding yet.
My roleplaying style being para/multi-para, I may take a while to respond. I hoard drafts like a dragon - it’s really just the motivation to write and ship those out.
Just a reminder I hoard all your asks too, even weeks later. If I don’t respond to it, I’m either keeping it for a rainy day, or just can’t find the muse/interest for it currently. If it’s been a month or two though, just assume it wasn’t working for me unless I’ve informed you otherwise.
4. Shippings? Heck yeah I’m down for the fluffy content, as long as they’re of similar age to my boio.
If I don’t happen to be interested, don’t force anything on my character.
I do not ship incestuous ships. Do NOT follow/interact if you do.
Sontails will not be happening on this blog either, sorry.
The ship has to have chemistry; I’m generally shipping trash, but if they don’t click, they don’t click, sorry.
This is a multi-ship blog, meaning there will be more than one ship without them conflicting with eachother.
If you want to ship and I already have a ship of your choosing going with a duplicate, please don’t hesitate to hmu! My ships aren’t exclusive and each character/relationship portrayal is unique to me!
Relationships are eternal until you deem otherwise.
5. Whilst I am of age, I’m not aiming for sexual content on this blog (and will not be dealing with fetishes). That stuff makes me uncomfortable, and I typically don’t recommend pulling it with my character if you’re interacting with me. Nonetheless, should it arise, I will tag it appropriately. Also, Tails is a child. So no.
6. About reblogs…
I am not a meme source, and reblogs clog up my activity. Please reblog any memes you find on this blog from their SOURCE. The exception to this rule is if there is no source; go ahead.
I don’t feel comfortable with Personals reblogging my IC or OOC posts, so please don’t do that. If I put something in the fandom tags for whatever reason (bar promos), you’re free to, though.
Please don’t reblog my art unless I’ve drawn it specifically for you or said you can. I either have that as do not reblog for a reason, or I am planning to post it on my art blog at some point.
A few times is fine, as it happens, but repeatedly breaking these rules will result in me soft blocking you.
I try to participate in reblog karma as much as I can, but always reblog from the source/a meme source.
If a post or ask is for you, you’re free to reblog it to save it though - but only if you’re an rp blog!
7. I’m a para / multi-para blog, novella if I’m adventurous and have time. Whilst I may roleplay crack threads with shorter responses, this does not apply to all threads I write. This means:
I write my replies as detailed as I can muster.
Short responses (such as one-liners) in more serious threads where I’ve written a decent deal can instantly kill my muse for that thread.
Whilst I’d prefer for partners to at least somewhat match my length, it’s entirely up to you - just try your best and make sure you give me enough to work with. ♡
If my muse happens to go nuts out of nowhere - like, overboard - don’t stress too much about matching them.
If para roleplays aren’t your alley, I’m unlikely to roleplay with you. It’s nothing personal; it’s just finding muse for one-liner threads is incredibly difficult unless it’s dash shenanigans. Anything else outside that is fine, though - we can still have fun outside of proper threads.
If you need further context on the AU, the link to it’s tag is here! Otherwise just ask me!
Tails’ AU is one I’m very proud of and very attached to, so please don’t force your headcanons about him on me. If you’re unsure how certain events play out in the context of his universe, don’t hesitate to ask me about them!
That said, anything that might take place on this blog obviously isn’t canon to the AU itself; I just like writing for this boio and it helps me develop his character. It’s all hypothetical.
Additionally! Don’t worry too much if the headcanoned relationships between Tails and other muses don’t match yours. Those are mostly just guidelines for how Tails would USUALLY interact with your muse. I’m open to altering these relationships to better fit our threads! Don’t ever feel restricted to what I put down; it’s mostly just for context purposes because, well, Tails is absent. I’m an IM away for plotting.
8. Threads typically happen naturally with me, but if you’re looking for interaction opportunities:
I’ll have a permanent starter call somewhere for you to hit up; honestly though, if you’re a mutual? Pls feel free to hit it up.
Starter memes are the BEST way to interact me because they just yeet a prompt at my face and really help me write starters. If you see me reblog one, send one!
If there’s a verse you’re interested in, please specify.
If you want to turn an ask into a thread, go ahead!
I may not roleplay with every starter I am given - I’ll do a ‘background check’ if you’re a new blog on the block. If I don’t feel your writing style/length works with mine, I might not respond. Apologies. ;__;
Please don’t write para / novella starters up for me unless we’ve discussed something, sent something, or I’ve liked a starter call. I really don’t want to leave people hanging if I’m not interested.
IMs are open to mutuals, if you want to do any in-depth plotting.
I also have Discord! If you’re mutuals with me, feel free to ask for it!
9. Guidelines on mains and relationships:
If we’re mutuals and we interact a lot, you’re welcome to ask me if I’d like to be your main!
Please note that MAINS fall into two categories; one pertaining to Tails’ initial universe, and those pertaining to alternates. Although the latter is plenty, for clarity’s sake, there would be one alternate Tails might default to.
Please don’t be offended if I deny, though; I typically want to pick those I trust to be my mains as well as people I can comfortably write with.
Not limited to them! I roleplay with duplicates galore so don’t be afraid to hit me up if you want to interact!
Pre-established relationships are a-okay in my book; if you have an idea for a relationship between our muses we can work towards, hit me up! I reblog those pre-established relationship memes every so often too. Romantic relationships link back to the shipping guidelines.
Also, friendship/family/rivalry relationships are EXTREMELY valid to me. GIMME’ ALL THE PRECIOUS BONDING CONTENT PLS. THIS BOY NEEDS FRIENDS.
10. If you have any issues, please let me know and hopefully we can resolve it!
Mun is actually super nice, so don’t be afraid to hit her up!
I am absolutely terrible with IMs and sometimes even Discord. I either respond quickly or days later, depends on my mood. Social anxiety tends to interfere with this - but honestly, if you’ve sent something, I’ve likely read it and just haven’t gotten around to it yet! It’s nothing personal; trust me! I just need a social breather every now and again.
Please leave me out of drama; I’m here to have a good time, as is everyone else, and it pains me to see people arguing.
11. It’s easier with a clean dash for me, so I’m more likely to follow people who:
Trim their posts.
Have rules and about pages! I always read those before interacting or following!
If you don’t have either of those, I’m likely not to follow you - so make sure that you do!
12. On threads…
If you’re not interested in a thread anymore, and would like to drop it, please let me know! I’d feel terrible if we’re both not having fun with it or if partners feel overwhelmed with the amount of threads we have.
Honestly, unless I let you know, our threads have no expiry date - so no need to worry about me dropping them without telling you. I can just be quite slow sometimes.
13. Mun does not equal muse! Anything Tails might say does not reflect on how I think unless I explicitly say so.
14. Know that if I follow you, I WANT to interact with you.
I literally couldn’t care less about follower counts. I care about YOU guys and our interactions.
15. If you’re OKAY with threads being set in Tails’ universe (and acting as his inverse counterparts), please like / reply to this post! It just lets me know I’m A-OK to shoot you asks pertaining to it, rather than the usual alternate shenanigans.
16. These rules may be subject to change.
Please like this post if you’ve read the rules! You don’t have to, but it’s of personal reassurance to me if you have.
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FEATURE SERIES: My Favorite One Piece Arc with RogersBase
I love One Piece and I love talking to people who love One Piece. And with the series going on 23 years now, there is a whole lot to talk about. As the series is about to publish its 1000th chapter, a true feat in and of itself, we thought we should reflect upon the high-seas adventure and sit down with some notable names in the One Piece fan community and chat about the arcs they found to be especially important, or just ones they really, really liked.
Welcome to the inaugural article in the series "My Favorite One Piece Arc!"
My first guest in this series is RogersBase, a Nintendo Brand Ambassador. For my chat with him, he chose the Zou arc, in which Luffy and his crew head to an ancient civilization that sits upon the back of a giant elephant.
A note on spoilers: If you haven't seen the Zou arc yet, this interview does contain major plot points. Watch the Zou arc starting RIGHT HERE if you'd like to catch up or rewatch!
Dan Dockery: In one sentence, could you sell me on Zou?
RogersBase: Okay, here we go — Mystery, romance, and a little bit of the Mammoth Boyz. I think that’s the perfect way to describe the best story arc in the post time skip era of One Piece.
The best? Really?
Yeah, by far. For me, at least.
Yeah, I feel like post time skip has been a certainly interesting array of storylines. I think my personal favorite is Whole Cake. So much of the back half of it as soon as the wedding goes awry is great, and the entire Katakuri fight is a masterpiece.
I think Whole Cake is a totally reasonable answer, and I think you probably like it for the same reasons that I like Zou: the characterization and the drama that isn’t centered around the characters saving a kingdom. The kingdom of Zou has already been destroyed. There’s no saving it at this point. The only thing they want to save is Raizo. So you don’t have to deal with the villain hierarchies and families of say Dressrosa or Wano. And the nice thing about it is that since it’s a shorter, condensed story arc, it really hammers home the motivations of the characters and gives us this terrifying villain that’s not even present for most of the arc.
I really like Jack. He only appears in a flashback for the most part and he’s a scourge of the kingdom. And then he comes back, only to be hit by that elephant. And that’s one of those things at the beginning of the arc, when I saw this massive thing, I thought “Aw, man. I wanna see what that elephant can do. I hope it hits something” and then IT DOES. I flipped out. It was so satisfying. Did you know that Zou would be your favorite when you finished it?
Yeah, I think I did. All the arcs up to that point had really high highs, but some of it just didn’t land with me. So to have Oda move away from these long story arcs that end in big one on one fights and go to this shorter, mystery-focused arc: What’s going on with these minks? What’s atop this elephant? Is Raizo still alive? What is The Voice of All Things? What connection does Luffy have to these giant creatures? And with so many great designs and characters, too, with the Minks. It’s really fascinating, and you have bits and pieces that lead up to it, but there’s so much here.
I feel like the Minks might be Oda’s purest expression of side characters because he’s playing with all of these animal figures that are both interesting to look at and emotionally evocative. It’s him flexing his muscles as a character artist. And the landscape of Zou as well - It’s beautiful to behold.
Especially when you think about the amount of content that’s there in a short amount of chapters or episodes. There’s so much that’s told about the overall world, the Road Poneglyphs, the relationship between the Minks and the Kozuki Family, the Beast Pirates, so much gets touched upon that will expand in later story arcs. There’s beautiful, immediate payoff there and later.
It has such a comparatively goofy start, too. They’re climbing this giant elephant on the back of a cartoon dragon that Robin thinks is adorable. And I’m glad she gets a little bit of focus here because, with the Poneglyphs, Zou is a really big set-up arc for Robin. So her role in One Piece’s endgame has exponentially increased.
Also, the focus on characterization. In earlier, post timeskip arcs, you have these epic clashes that take down kingdoms, but here you get a cute moment with Robin. It’s so refreshing to see her in a natural element where she’s comfortable.
What did you think of the Mink tribe’s living situation? The giant white whale tree and the treehouses and all. Do you have any favorite parts of Oda’s worldbuilding here? Not just as a story designer, but as someone who crafts actual places where races and species can live.
It’s cool to see the animals he chooses for the Minks, and how he constructs the power structure and who controls the land at what time, with the dog during the day and the cat at night. The big pineapple trees and the ruins that you see in the Jack flashback, he created a full-blown, believable civilization. It’s always a pleasure to see Oda working in jungle vegetation-type areas. He really excels in this in Skypiea and in his color spreads. So it seems like Zou is something that he’s wanted to do for a while. And how much effort he puts into it is why you feel so attached to the Minks at the end.
That’s really cool. There are a ton of anime side character animals, like Kakashi’s pet dogs and the little animals that hang out with Goku and pals, but Oda really lets loose here with a whole species. And as you said, we should’ve kinda seen it coming with all the work he’s done with anthropomorphic animals. But then, you have the big Jack flashback. And the stereotype of the One Piece flashback is “Oh boy, it’s ‘bout to get sad.” But Zou’s feels like an epic piece of mythology, and Jack is just this being of pure cruelty without any kind of sad backstory. How did you feel about it? Did it surpass your expectations?
Oh, absolutely! To see a character as violent and ruthless as Jack was something needed, I think. He’s an overall threat, not goofy. And his Devil Fruit is fascinating, as you finally see the return of the Prehistoric Zoan type fruit after you last saw it with Drake turning into an Allosaurus. So it’s cool to not only see that Jack can turn into a Woolly Mammoth, but it’s a Woolly Mammoth fighting on top of a giant elephant. And with the way he gets teased leading up to his appearance in the flashback, I remember thinking “How cool would it be if there was a Woolly Mammoth fruit!” and sure enough, there it is! Jack feels like a fulfillment of the promise of the New World — It’s not going to be a cakewalk. Your opponents will be devastating and Jack is so determined, coming because he knows Raizo’s there and then coming back because he STILL KNOWS Raizo is there. He’s like “You can tell me all you want that he’s not here, but I know, and I will crucify you and cut off your limbs. I don’t know why you’re trying to defend this one ninja, but I know he’s here.”
Zou is kind of a double feature. We have Raizo and the Minks and the lore, but we also have the stuff that leads to Whole Cake with Sanj and Capone. Now, I see Sanji’s whole arc here sometimes referred to as Robin 2.0, because it’s a lot like Enies Lobby on the surface. Guy gets taken by the bad guys and is like “Don’t follow me because they’ll kill you, etc.” That’s always felt a little hollow to me because Sanji is not Robin and they don’t have the same motivation.
No, absolutely. And I’m glad you mentioned it because it’s phenomenal how well Zou has aged. They manage to give these characterization moments to Robin and Sanji and the crew while introducing all this stuff and managing to make us care about all of it. There are people that are like “I can’t wait for Carrot to officially join the crew,” and it all stems from this story arc.
In terms of characters that get done so well that even though their time with you is brief, they still stick with you for a long time, I think a good example is Pedro. He joins everyone and he’s this stoic, mentor figure, a character type that usually doesn't fare so well when it comes to surviving anime series intact. And obviously, RIP Pedro. But it’s a testament to what you’re talking about because he just joins the crew and you’re like “Yeah, sure. Gimme fifty more chapters of him.”
He’s got this cool eye patch, he has a beef with Big Mom, he knows about the world. And he’s the one who’s sort of the most hesitant to trust the Straw Hats at first after the disaster with Jack and all. But by the ending, he knows that the Straw Hats are the guys that he’s been waiting for. This is the crew that will bring upon that new dawn. And we haven’t even talked about Pekoms yet! He has those ties to Big Mom and to Bepo and to Zou and to Pedro and to Capone, who shoots him.
What do you think of the Poneglyph system? It’s both indicative of the Straw Hat endgame, but it isn’t like this magic map. What do you think of it as kind of a quest marker?
It’s great because you learn that there are a definite few that mean something and that they’re all being held at various places that are run by Emperors. So trying to find them gives you an actual reason to fight these Emperors of the Sea and heading into their territories. They don’t really need to be fighting Kaido in the grand scheme of things, but the Poneglyphs add to the direction of the series.
ONE PIECE LIGHTNING ROUND!
Favorite character?
Trafalgar D. Water Law.
Favorite Straw Hat?
I go back and forth between three, but Sanji.
Favorite villain?
Doflamingo.
If you could live on any One Piece island, where would you call home?
Dressrosa without Doflamingo would actually be pretty nice.
Favorite One Piece fight?
Luffy vs Lucci.
One Piece moment that made you sob the most?
“Raizo is safe!” I was so overwhelmed with emotion, seeing the resolve of the Minks.
One Piece moment that made you cheer the loudest?
Sabo getting the Flare-Flare Fruit in Dressrosa.
Stay tuned for the next installment of "My Favorite One Piece Arc" as we speak with Official One Piece Columnist for Shueisha and Toei Greg Warner about his favorite One Piece arc: Arlong Park!!
Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!
Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.
By: Daniel Dockery
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vamp!patrick drabble
this is. a development of the plot actually and is also like 1000 words so enjoy and tell me if u want more of this asdklfjadk
Joe stepped in as Patrick was pulling his shirt on, a reminder that he really needed to remember to lock his door. “Hey, Rick,” He said, probably with a godawful smile on his face. “Can we look at your pictures, before, um, before we leave? I'm kinda anxious, and your voice is really soothing.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess,” The vampire replied, adjusting his collar and glancing around and finding his box of pictures he didn't like quite enough to pin them to the wall. “What era do you wanna look at?”
“World War Two, maybe? I don't care,” Joe said, sitting down on his bed. Patrick pulled a stack of pictures out of the box and sat down next to Joe.
“Okay, so, uh, what do you want me to talk about?”
“It doesn't matter. Talk about, umm…. Talk about the crew, on the ship, or something.”
Patrick nodded, shuffling through them for a moment before landing on one. It had three vampires and two humans on it, all of them standing on cots, in silly poses. “Um, okay, so these five are who were in my wing, with me. Gabe, Nate, Vicky, Alex, and Ryland, in that order, left to right. They were the best, we broke many rules but Vicky had actual nursing experience, so we were doing pretty good for the ship, and they couldn't bring themselves to discharge us until after the war. Vicky and Alex had a lot of respect, honestly, considering they were humans surrounded by vamps.” He moved to the next one, two vampires, one of which was Gabe and the other, much shorter, Joe didn't recognize. Both were in uniform. “Gabe was a lot taller than me, Ryland took this so I when I came home I could show my brother how tall he was, or, um, how short I am.”
“That's you?”
“Yeah. I wore a crew cut back then—everyone did. I tried to get away from a buzz cut, that was the longest I could get my hair without getting reprimanded.”
“Crazy.”
Patrick pulled out another photo, gave a quick explanation, and then moved to the next and did the same, continuing on until Pete stepped in and said,
“Hey, are you two lovebirds gonna, like, come with us, to the hunt, or are we just gonna sit here and twiddle our thumbs?”
Patrick jumped slightly, barely keeping the stack intact. “Um, yeah, no, gimme a sec, to, like, put all these back, alright? Joe, can you grab me a coat?” He looked at Pete as he stood up and stepped over to his box of pictures. “He distracted me, I was almost ready when he came in, I swear.”
Joe shrugged as he stood up, as well, only starting to move to open Patrick's dresser by the time Patrick stepped over and grabbed a coat and scarf. So he instead took Patrick's hand as they stepped out of the room, smiling when Patrick squeezed his hand rather than swatting it away as he usually did.
They got in the car, Andy having already packed it with their weaponry, and got comfortable for a half-hour drive to wherever the hell the hunt was going to be.
It was a fairly average hunt, Patrick thought, as an all-too-young vampire became dust through a stake held by Joe. He hated it sometimes, he really hated it, but the three had taken him up to be more of a medic than anything. He still, really couldn't get himself to kill another of his own, and watching the other three hunt really, truly broke his heart.
He pulled his scarf over his nose, feeling cold, and stared around at the street, at the poor vamps who were living out their last moments.
A vampire jumped down from the top of a building and landed in front of him, relatively steady. He cocked his stake-gun, not in the mood to get beat up, looked over the vamp, and dropped his aim.
“Gabe?” He said, quietly, as the vampire in front of him stopped mid-punch, obviously confused. “Dude, Gabe! The medic bay!”
He stared at Patrick for a few more moments. “Patrick! Holy fucking shit, Patrick, what!?” Gabe yelled. “Guys, Patrick's still around, stop, stop fighting!!”
Multiple vamps who were fighting stopped, running over to stand in front of Patrick. Five total, including Gabe. Patrick smiled, adjusting his hat and feeling himself start to tear up. “I thought you guys were in New York, dead.”
“Nah, man, we've been travelling some, to survive, 'n’ shit,” One of them… Alex, said. Wait, what?
“Dude, since when’ve you been a vampire?”
“Dude, like, since we got back home from war!”
“Who the hell turned you?”
Alex looked to Nate, and Nate shrugged. “Look, we came to the conclusion that, since we were all gonna be in the same city, we might as well hang out together for a bit more than a while.”
“Gosh, this… I missed you guys so much, I was sure you were dead.”
“We were sure you were dead,” Vicky replied.
Patrick started to laugh, rubbing at his eyes. “I'm so glad you're all around, still.”
Vicky hugged him, and he hugged back, oh-so tightly, and he started to straight-up cry.
When he stepped back, cheeks probably stained red with tears, he saw Joe, Pete, and Andy looking over in confusion. “We were the same med bay, back in World War Two,” He hollered. “These guys are the best motherfuckers I've ever met!”
After a few more moments of laughing and crying and hugging them all, Gabe put his hands on Patrick's shoulders, and gained a serious tone. “Why're you, like, hanging with humans, humans who're hunters, though, man?”
“I… I dunno. I dunno. I'm pretty much just a medic for them, I mean, I haven't killed anyone since I joined them, I'm not the problem with it.”
“Why?”
“Joe, the, uh, the curly-haired one, he spared me after I was caught in a bad situation, he somehow convinced me. I dunno why I joined, but, hey, I have friends again, and I have a nice place to stay, so it's alright, I guess.”
Gabe shrugged. “Fair enough.” He stepped over to the hunters, holding his hand out. “We're his O.G. squad, hey there.”
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in ur opinion, is using characters already linked to dnp a good choice or a trope? like, is there a case in which you would find it lazy because it allows a lack of description and/or in depth story telling & context? gimme all the opinions.
Ok I’m going to put this in bullet points because I’ve had a lot of thoughts about this since I got the ask so forgive me if this comes out a little incoherent. Also can I just preface by saying these are just personal thoughts and opinions and I’m in no way judging anyone or anything.
This is soooo long and probably not what you actually asked, so I’m putting it under a cut.
- You asked if it was a choice or a trope? a ‘Trope’ is a significant or reoccurring theme within a particular medium so I would say the appearance of characters linked to dnp (by which I assume you mean other YouTubers/Their friends we know the names of/family members) is going to be a fairly common one. But, I think it’s both. It’s a trope because it occurs so frequently, but it’s definitely a choice and it can be a good one as I’ll ramble about in a minute.
- In general I don’t think it’s ‘lazy’ to use these characters, especially when aiming for ‘realism’ or ‘canon-compliant’ works as these are the people we’ve been given information about and can help add to this sense of these stories taking place in the ‘real-world’ (whereas I am 100% positive dnp have waaaay many more friends that we don’t know the names of because they aren’t/never have been ‘online people’. Plus even ‘real-world’ fanfic isn’t real, just based on it.)
- Fanfiction in itself pre-supposes the reader is aware of, if not just the main characters, also the ‘supporting cast’ of people. Not to mention that most of the people used as these side characters in dnp fanfic will have their own fanfics about them where they are the main characters. Therefore people like Louise, Cat, Bryony, PJ, Chris etc don’t really need a massive amount of introduction. This can be extremely useful for short narratives (one-shots, drabbles etc). All fanfiction (even chaptered fics) comes with that supposition for the main characters, and therefore allows us to skip to the main section of the plot/scene without the pre-amble of character introduction because we assume that the reader already knows who those people are. This is the beautiful thing about fanfic, but probably also a limitation of it as well. Especially, I find, when it comes to AU where if any traits of the characters you are creating in the story differ from the people you’re basing them on, it could be seen as ‘OOC’ despite it being perfectly in-character for the ones you’re creating. I therefore try to keep my AU versions of dnp how I think they would be if exposed to the particular set of circumstances I’ve put them in. As do most other authors I find.
- Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked. Basically, I don’t think the use of these ‘supporting characters’ or people we already know is lazy in any sense, merely working within the realms of the fanfic genre.
- However, it depends on the function of the character within the narrative. For example, when I wrote Us, As Told By Other People and I needed a previous love interest for Dan to have tried and failed with because of his feelings for Phil, it was easier to use Cat, who the reader already knows, rather than introduce a fully-fledged OC. Mainly because the character needed to have an emotional connection so that their assumptions about dnp’s relationship meant something, (we don’t care about the opinion of a throwaway OC) and Cat would have this emotional significance without needing to be introduced in full and I could therefore keep to the shorter scene I wanted, the same can be said for using all the other ‘known’ characters I did in this fic. However, when I wrote So better Things Can Fall Together Dan’s exes didn’t need to be as emotionally resonant as it was more the circumstances of the breakups and the reasons for them that were the comparative to his relationship with Phil, and each scene with them was framed with a conversation with Phil, who we know. I therefore used 5 OCs without the need to flesh them out as their own 3D personalities.
- That being said, when the use of pre-known supporting characters limits the narrative because you have to stick to their character traits, then I think an OC is better. For instance, if you have to change Louise into a mega-goth-domineering-evil-person rather than the sweet lovely person she is, just for the sake of a supporting character with a recognisable name, you might as well create an OC because you’re going to have to spend narrative time explaining those new character traits anyway, rather than using the knowledge of Louise the reader has going in as you usually would. Which, you know, if it’s an AU and the entire point is that everyone is different so you’ve allocated narrative space to that, go for it!
- I’d just like to also mention that when talking about ‘character traits’ I’m talking about those presented to us. This is always the difficulty with RPF because real people are huge complex beings with many many sides to them so saying what is ‘in-character’ and not is tricky to start with and maybe a little insulting if enforced too readily. But there are main traits and character points people stick to, usually revolving around the ‘branding’ these people have given to us, and that’s okay. What we shouldn’t do is assume these are 100% accurate for the real life human beings out of their online-persona/celebrity context.
- I think my main take away from having all of these thoughts is that I probably think about it too much! It’s fanfiction, it’s fun, people should write what they want to write and it’ll be great! I don’t think it’s ‘lazy’ or anything like that and any opinions or preferences I’ve stated are just mine, everyone writes fic differently and I enjoy the variety we have in this fandom.
I’m sorry if this was all rambley and not really answering what you wanted, I think I got a little carried away.
Please feel free to send another ask if so and I’ll give it another go! :D
#jane answers#on writing#that masters degree in writing really did just make me a pretentious weirdo didn't it?#sigh#shut up jane#lourotic
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Great Characters: Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, Sakyo, Juri, and Koto (Yu Yu Hakusho)
Already did a long one with Toguro, and it really felt like I was saying a lot.... but not enough.... and also too much. Going to try keeping these a lot shorter and hit the highlights.
Sorry to keep harping on this series, but it’s really one worth checking out. It’s a great beginner anime for people new to the medium, working from simple ideas for the most part, but the quality of direction, characters, and voice acting (Japanese and English Dub) puts it in the top echelon of anime. Few manga series have benefitted so well from an anime adaptation. Singling out a few characters of note, we have our main cast; street brawler Kuwabara, demons Kurama and Hiei, as well as supporting villain Sakyo, and referees Juri and Koto.
Kazuma Kuwabara, the great doofus. A great take on perhaps the most common anime character type of all; the rival. By most accounts, Kuwabara shouldn’t have reappeared after the pilot of Yu Yu Hakusho. No matter how you look at him, he has the design of a bit-part character; hair a 4-year-old could draw, basic eyes without color or detail, generic school uniform, with no other distinguishing traits besides a hilariously raspy voice in the English dub and a tendency for fighting people over anything. Look in any anime and you’ll find characters who have a lot more put into them and play a much smaller part in the active story. Which is what makes his mainstay so interesting. For such a flat character to stay relevant so long is a testament to Kuwabara’s entertainment value. In terms of power and skill, the closest Kuwabara ever came to Yusuke’s level was in the first chapter when Yusuke beat up him and his crew for stress relief. In terms of intelligence and moral complexity, he is brainless nit who hits things. How does he survive to the final round of the Dark Tournament and even steal a win from the Elder Toguro? Through tenacity, determination, blind luck, and a terrible ability to get up when he should stay down. His greatest moments come not from a special skill or plot twist, but from his own stubborn, often clueless, personality. Nothing says that better than his victory over Risho. Barely conscious after the mauling he took in the previous round, Kuwabara represents his team to prevent a forfeit. He has no chance and takes a pounding, only to interrupt his opponent’s final move when he sees a girl he’s crushing on. So stupid is his hopeless infatuation, he immediately knocks Risho clear out of the arena and proceeds to flex for her. The contrast between his achievements and his capabilities provides endless enjoyment. The guy is winning a game he doesn’t know how to play.
Kurama and Hiei are possibly two of the most imitated character types in anime or manga; the handsome tactician and the brooding rogue. They are not the first of either type, but they are two of the most memorable and most replicated. Appearing out of nowhere, spying from high perches, dressed in simple but striking outfits of color, always keeping their own agenda close to the chest; they give us two unique versions of a favorite type; the outsider. With Kurama we have a warm and wise personality well beyond his years, contrasted by a seemingly endless supply of deadly techniques utilizing the simplest of objects. In his case, flowers and plants, which can allow for even the tiniest of moves to carry lethal force. Hiei fills the stoic antihero type, sharing a lot in common with Dragonball Z’s Vegeta in terms of character and design, if not temperament. Hiei is almost always around, although he rarely makes his presence known until a battle. Hiei is focused solely on himself, preferring to keep to himself instead of getting friendly with others. Selfish, yes, but also dependable. With two characters so cool on a team primarily made up of knuckleheads, creative measures are taken to keep battles interesting. In his fights, Kurama always remains the calm one, the thoughtful one, but also the vulnerable one. The mercy that separates him from other demons almost always plays against him, forcing him to endure attacks that should otherwise be of no threat to him and winning by the skin of his teeth. Hiei, on the other hand, is a firm believer in violence and bloodshed, with a taste for overkill. His weakness is his refusal to back down when he is outmatched, causing him to draw on more power than he can properly control and suffer the often debilitating side effects. It’s a remarkable display of management that allows two such engaging characters to appear so much without ever taking the spotlight away from the main story.
Switching to the other side, Sakyo is a fresh and alarming take on a villain of ultimate evil. Despite his calm and casual demeanor, complete with the mildly amused expression he always wears, the only words that can properly do him justice are “batsh*t insane”. Sakyo’s mind is a boundless hellscape of chaos and carnage that defies comprehension. From an early age he was attracted to blood and guts, carving his way through animals before moving up to humans, until he found even that couldn’t sate his appetite. His sole passion in life became gambling, which he developed an extraordinary skill for. When pushed to the limit, he staked his life; and only the similarly depraved minds of the Black Book Club would call him on it. Yet even amongst this group of the most powerful and ambitious men in the world, none of them can hold a candle to Sakyo. What it really comes down to is scale; Sakyo cares little for money or power, seeing both as only a means to an end. What Sakyo desires is chaos. What we have here is a villain who never makes a small move. He doesn’t taunt, he doesn’t torment, he doesn’t mock, he doesn’t threaten, he doesn’t laugh maniacally, he doesn’t play dirty, he doesn’t lie, and he doesn’t cheat. He wants to use the $45,000,000,000,000,000 ($45 quadrillion) earned as the owner of Team Toguro to manufacture “a great big hole” between the Human and Demon Planes. One large enough to allow A-Class demons that can outclass Toguro to enter our world, and S-Class demons that can outclass those demons as well. Such a portal would upset all of existence, and that is what makes it interesting for Sakyo. The calm on his face when directing obliteration is unbelievably unnerving; even the bloodthirsty demon audience of the Dark Tournament think he’s crazy. Yet for the sheer unbridled lunacy inside Sakyo’s head, there is also a code of honor and most surprising of all, even hints of humanity. Created solely for the anime, his relationship with Kuwabara’s equally reserved sister Shizuru keeps us asking questions. He saves her, personally looks out for the loved ones of Team Urameshi, kills the scheming backers of the tournament, pushes for fair play in every matchup, skips the VIP box for audience level seats, and displays a lot of very confusing behavior for one so rotten. Then in the final round he stakes his life on Toguro’s win, rigs the stadium with a 200ft perimeter that prevents escape, and calmly sets the whole arena to explode when Toguro is defeated. Somehow all of these conflicting elements still feel true to the character, creating a fascinating enigma of a man.
Last but not least, these two characters may be the secret weapon that made Yu Yu Hakusho’s Dark Tournament arc one of the best in anime. Our lovely referees, Yuri and Koto! Yes, I’m serious. By utilizing likable characters as enforcers for the rules of the matches, we, the fans and readers, are much more likely to go along with necessary plot devices. Partly because these characters have their own hilariously entertaining personalities, combining cheerleader-like pep with ravenous demon bloodlust.
“Gimme an I!”
“I!”
“No, gimme an EYE! Because it looks like that last attack blew a hole in our fighter’s head!”
These vixens display as much enthusiasm for fair play as they do for slaughter, which, when it comes down to it, is exactly what we want from the fights, too. Official rulings that say “yes, this can go on”, and that permit fights to reach crazy levels of intensity without anyone butting in on them. Out-of-bounds announcements that force the combatants back into position for constant head-to-head fighting. And of course, nothing sells “ultimate attack” like seeing one of the refs duck & cover. It seems like such a little thing, but it truly makes a big difference.
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