#he was only half listening during the credits where they confirmed it in dialogue

[mrwinterr]

The Consequence [3]

Series Masterlist || Main Masterlist

Pairing: Charles Blackwood x Female Reader

Summary: The reader is in search of Charles Blackwood as he’s been missing for several days and not once considering the warning that no good ever comes from being associated with a Blackwood.

Warnings: We Have Always Lived in the Castle spoilers (book and film). Smut (unprotected sex, vaginal fingering, oral [male and female receiving], cum stuff - yeah, I said that) and a swear starts below the cut. I don’t have to remind y’all this is semi/non-canon, right? We all know the kind of character Charles Blackwood is, but for fanfic purposes, I had to make him this way without completely tarnishing his other traits. 

Title Inspiration: “The Consequence” by You Me At Six

Disclaimer: There are characters, dialogue and references from the actual book and film, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. They belong to the author and I take no credit for any of these elements. 

A/N: As of this post, I’ve completed transferring what little of a masterlist I had to begin with on this new account. There’s three more parts to this series left. I honestly can’t tell you when they’re going to drop. They will regardless if anyone is still keeping up with this. 

P R E S E N T

On the way to the Blackwood house, you stopped at a rest area and were able to call your friend as promised. She was relieved to hear back from you, but you were kind of skeptic as to how much everyone else seemed to know about your fiancé’s past than you did. You recounted part of the events that had taken place at Stella’s, just briefly telling her about how much this town despised the Blackwoods. Charles never liked to talk about his family other than how his father was strict and had cut ties with his relatives. You needed clarity and that could only be provided by the man himself.

“Did you know about the Blackwood murder?” You asked your friend quietly over the phone and making sure no one was eavesdropping. This town now had you a bit self-conscious when talking freely of the Blackwood family. She reluctantly sighed and admitted to having heard of it. When you asked why she had never once mentioned that fact about Charles’ background during the early days of your relationship, she responded with how it wasn’t in her place and that Charles never spoke to her about it, believing it may have just all been gossip, which people seem to be really, really good at, and besides, the accused suspect was acquitted.

Charles was as independent as he could be before his father, the only other remaining member in his household, passed away. You had met the patriarch a few times and he intimidated the hell out of you. If you thought your dad was bad, Arthur Blackwood was on another level of discipline. He praised Charles for finding a “pretty one” yet questioned your effectiveness as a wife. While Charles told you not to listen to him, it still bothered you because you’ve heard that kind of talk your whole life from your own father. They made you believe to that you had to be the best damn housewife you could be. You didn’t mind having to fend for yourself at times and you had the basics covered but you didn’t believe you were to live a life full of housework and Charles never chastised you about it. Charles was good to you. How both your fathers were wrong.

After speaking with your friend, who tried to convince you to come back home once more, you soon found a road to follow up the hill to travel on. You began to hear chanting and it sounded like children, so the closer you got the more audible it became, and it was definitely children. Deciding to follow it, you soon found yourself staring at a big house, the top half black and destroyed, confirming the house fire you learned about today. This was the Blackwood house. 

The children’s voices broke your gaze from the castle and you watched as a group of kids throw random objects at the door shouting, “Merricat,” over and over, along with a few awful stuff like, “you should’ve burned with the rest of your things,” “I bet you like to eat babies,” and more to provoke someone or something to come out. When did kids learn to be so awful at a young age? This town was a real piece of work, you thought to yourself. 

You continued to stare as one of the kids started up the steps of the house now resorting to name calling. As soon as an explicit word spewed out of an older kid’s mouth, you had enough. You weren’t sure the kind of people you were about to defend exactly but surely these kids were trespassing and harassing the inhabitants for no real reason other than for their own amusement.

Setting your suitcase down, you walked towards the kids and spoke, “Hey, that’s enough! What did those girls ever do to you? Didn’t your parents ever teach you bullying is wrong?” Their heads turned to you fast and soon you found yourself being a target of their ridicule, now calling you a fellow witch but as you paid no mind to their jeers, they went back to calling out to Merricat. 

Then the tumblers of the door started to echo, signifying that someone was coming out. One of the doors pulled open revealing a teenaged girl with a blank expression on her face, clearly unmoved by the teasing. The children squealed in fear, not prepared to face the subject of their torment. They tripped over their own feet trying to flee the area as soon as they could while also hastily apologizing for their nasty behavior.

None of them seemed to remember you standing nearby watching the whole thing as they scattered and disappeared from view. You turned to look back at the front door, still open and the young girl unfazed, but now staring intently at you. You stared back for a few seconds before speaking, “hello,” you greeted with a small wave to her. You were met with no response, so you kept speaking, “do they do that often?” you asked referring to the malicious children, but she still stared at you. “I’m sorry that you have to go through that. I’m sure none of that is true,” but what did you know other than this girl was potentially related to Charles and you needed to gain her trust to get answers, right? It was wrong but you had to do whatever you could to find Charles, even if it meant manipulation.

Proceeding with caution, you decided to continue, “you must be Merricat,” you gathered that much from the children’s bullying and when she still hadn’t moved, you cautiously began to take a few steps forward, only for her to quickly shut the door close. You had barely made it to the steps when you begged for her to wait and hear you out. You knocked on the door and decided to talk through it, hoping she or someone else would hear you.  

“I apologize for intruding on your property. I can assure you I mean no harm, but I couldn’t standby as I heard those children shout those nasty things.” Surely, she had to have still been standing nearby inside, so you continued, hoping to coax someone to come out, “I can’t even begin to understand how children can learn to be so rotten at a young age and let alone their parents condone that behavior.” After a few seconds, you swore you faintly heard a creak in a step from inside; someone was listening to you. You proceeded to tell them your name and posed as a wanderer passing by. Now sitting on the steps of the house, you stared at the damaged furniture scattered in front of the house. It’s a shame to see it all destroyed. You almost let Charles’ name slip from your lips when you recalled how their families had a falling out, so perhaps it was best to not mention Charles just yet. You weren’t even sure if he’d been this way already, you couldn’t take the townspeople word for anything that much you learned.

The door opened just a crack and you quickly turned to your side. You couldn’t see anyone just yet until it opened wider, so you began to stand up from your sitting position. Soon, you were met with a different woman, who seemed to be around your age. She looked pristine with her brown hair up, bright blue eyes and in a white, makeshift dress that you mentally applauded her for being creative with on the fabric. Her clothes must’ve burned in the fire. You noticed the younger one, the one you were having a staring contest with earlier, stood close behind. The woman offered you a small smile, which you returned, and just like that you knew your plan had worked.

The woman introduced herself to you as Constance Blackwood and her younger sister Mary Katherine or Merricat. She explained how she overheard you trying your best to defend them from the children outside and your story. You properly reintroduced yourself to the two of them, Constance shaking your hand and Merricat staring at it. She made you a little nervous, but you knew it was because you were a stranger. You probably would be suspicious too if you were shut out and casted away from society for who knows how long. Social skills weren’t exactly going to be on the top of the personality trait for a person of such. She would be one that would take more effort to ease up to. Constance noticed your suitcase by your feet and your tired eyes. You didn’t even realize how tired you must’ve looked within the last two days of travel. She invited you in much to the dismay of the younger Blackwood as you could tell from her body language. Her face was still unnerved, but you could still sense her coldness.

Constance apologized for the state of their home and you couldn’t believe she even had the audacity to when you knew the fire was an unfortunate event. To lose most of everything one owned and having to rebuild took a lot on a person and you praised the two for their high spirits. While she warned there wasn’t much to work with of the house being in its current condition, she offered you a spot until you figured where you should head to next. It was a very kind gesture of someone to make to a complete stranger, but she must’ve really been appreciative of your actions from earlier. She was definitely one you could work with. 

You mentioned how you were no stranger to bullying and teasing from where you came from. You were picked on during your childhood because you didn’t like to partake in other kids’ version of fun, teachers weren’t that helpful to your cause and added on with the mental abuse your father gave you your whole life. You didn’t know how you managed to hold your ground and keep it up until you met the one person who’d changed your life.

P A S T

Growing up you frequented the library quite a lot, then the moment you got your own notebook and filled it up, you realized you had a thing for writing. You enjoyed documenting and writing short stories. It consumed a lot of your time. You were in your own little world and you were fine with it because it made you happy, but as it turned out, that didn’t mean it made those around you happy. If you didn’t hear it from your parents, who were puzzled that their eldest child wasn’t finding herself a nice, young man or honing up on household skills, then you heard it from concerned teachers because you weren’t socializing enough. You weren’t hurting anybody, but they were hurting you and one day you just had enough.

During another lecture from your father, he actually laughed at the idea of you making a career out of writing. The lack of support really hurt coming from your own flesh and blood. He compared you to the other model kids and the difference in compliancy between you and your younger siblings. You needed to learn your place in society apparently.

You didn’t know exactly where to run off to, but you went as far as your feet could take you from the village without deterring off too far. You plopped down on a curb and were too exhausted to be alarmed when a stranger soon stood next to you. He crouched down to your level and asked what was wrong. You didn’t respond, mind too clouded with frustration, you didn’t even look at him. Maybe he’d go away.  

“I’m not leaving until I know you’re going to be ok,” he spoke up.

Great, you thought to yourself, “I’m ok,” you said unconvincingly.

“Are you really? You wanna talk about it? It could help,” he suggested.

You sighed loudly, still not looking in his direction, “if I tell you, will you finally leave?”

“Anything you want,” he affirmed.

“Fine. Family drama. There. Goodbye,” you kept it short, but he made no movement to leave, “you said you’d leave if I told you. Why are you still here?”

“You didn’t really tell me anything,” he replied.

“Why do you even care?” You pushed.

“I don’t know. I’m drawn to you I guess,” he said.

“You don’t know me,” you stated.

“True, but I’d like to.”

“Why?”

“You’re quite inquisitive, aren’t you?” He said and you could almost feel him smirking.

“I’ve been told that my whole life,” you said as if that’s a real bad thing.

“I like that.”

“Well, you’d the be the first.”

“I’m Charles,” he introduced himself. When you finally turned to look at him, you paused before going to do the same. He was gorgeous. He gave you a smile, his blue eyes swirled, and hair infused with a lighter shade, in contrast to the natural dark brown, highlighted the front end and top of his fluffy hair. Where has he been your whole life?

When you gathered the sense to tell him your name, you decided you had nothing to lose and tell him what was troubling you. You told him about your aspirations, the lack of support you’ve been receiving lately and that you were feeling increasingly discouraged each day about chasing that dream caused by your own father. You told him that your whole life, you had been brought up to become a proper housewife and that your dream wasn’t going to provide for you, that you needed a man. You told him that the very thought and vision of your life made you more sad than angry.

He listened to every single thing. He didn’t judge you. He didn’t laugh or argue against you as you confined in him. He did tell you that you were capable of creating your own future. You could take all that you’d been shoved to learn and use it towards your own goals. If your own family wasn’t going to support you, then they were going to have to deal with it. You needed to start doing things for you. Charles gave you a sense of hope and he enlightened a whole new vision for you.

“Just know, you’re not your parents…you’re you,” he gave one last advice and you didn’t even realize you’d cracked a tiny small then he muttered quietly, almost to himself, but you still heard it, “wow, you’re so pretty.” After he regained composure, he encouraged you to continue writing and that he’d love to read your work if you’d let him. You felt weak because you felt you could dissolve right there in front of him and bare your soul written in your notebooks for him. 

The two of you spent the whole day getting to know about each other. It was a slight stab when you discovered he didn’t live within your village, but he wasn’t based pretty far. He frequented this village for business purposes and nothing more, but you’d give him another reason to. He’d just returned from a trip in Europe, which enthralled you as he spoke of all the sights he saw. You hated to admit it then, but you were drawn to him too.

Not much had changed at home. You’ve been seeing Charles for a few months now, as much as you could when he visited your village. His business here was long over with, but he came back to see you. This kind of relationship with someone was all new to you. You never entertained the thought of being personal or intimate with anyone because finding a man wasn’t on the top of your list. With Charles, it was easy to go with the flow and besides how could you say no to him? You picked up on the trait that he had a way with words and as a result could be very persuasive. It seemed to rub off on you as you were able to escape your homelife easily as often as you had been, which is how you found yourself in a private room of a motel that Charles was a regular at while he visited you.

You both had returned from a nice dinner and a night out at the dance hall, where you didn’t realize how much fun dancing was. There was always something new with him. You sat at the foot of the bed and watched him walk around the small room. He was leaving to go back home tomorrow, and you both wanted tonight to be special.

He sat next to you, facing you, and it was unspoken but there was full consent as your eyes shone with such eagerness, he slowly leaned in to kiss you. The kiss started slow, a hand grasped the back of your neck to deepen and keep your lips locked as you started to lean back and lie on the bed, dragging him down with you. He pulled your body up to the center of the bed with little effort before getting on top of you. As he braced himself with one arm, his other hand ran down your throat, cupped your breast eliciting the first of many noises from you that night. When he gave it a light squeeze you gasped at how it felt, providing an opening for him to slip his tongue in your mouth.

You’d both made out enough times and you knew it worked Charles up judging by the hardness that would rut against your lower region. By now, the kisses became more feral, he had to detach his lips from you for some air. He looked into your eyes, cradled the side of your face again, his thumb grazing your cheek gently, “I want you. I want you so bad, baby,” he pleaded. 

You stared at him for a few seconds as you fought yourself internally. This was going to be your first time. What if it ruined everything? You knew it was coming. You wanted to please him but what if you’d fail miserably? “Charles,” you started and wrapped your fingers around his wrist then voiced how you’d never done anything like this with anyone. He assured you that you couldn’t do anything wrong to him. It wasn’t enough of a confidence booster, but you felt compelled to please him. His hips ground into yours and your body answered for you by thrusting your own upwards to meet his.

He whined burying his face in your neck, “I promise we can stop whenever you want. You just say the word,” he said breathlessly against your throat. You brought his face back up to yours and reconnected your lips. Your dress had ridden up from his hips’ constant gyrations, giving Charles less of a hassle to touch your legs. His large hands slipped underneath your panties from the waistband to grope at your backside then snuck back out to start running them up and down your thighs, reveling in the soft skin. He gently massaged the inner parts of your thighs before his fingers started testing the waters at your clothed core. Your eyes popped open when you felt him push aside the material and his fingers starting to probe your folds and feel the wetness pooling. He must’ve sensed the sudden stiffness of your body as he withdrew his fingers from you. He broke the kiss once more to look at you. He wanted to make sure you were still okay with this. “Do you trust me?” He asked. You nodded, but he shook his head, “no, baby girl, I need to hear you say you want this-“

“I do. I do want this, Charles,” you answered almost too quickly, afraid you’d lose him then and there. You were a little embarrassed for wanting something you didn’t have much experience in, but months of heavy petting wasn’t going to keep you both satisfied much longer. Go big or go home. “I’m going to make you feel so good, you just have to trust me,” he assured you.

“I trust you,” and to prove it, you moved to sit up and remove your dress. His eyes cast down at your chest still confined by your bra. You felt a sense of pride when you caught him biting his bottom lip. His moment of weakness allowed you to take control. You grabbed his hands and placed them back on your breasts. He snapped out of his trance and his hands began to wander behind your back to the clasp of your bra. Once unhooked, bra tossed aside, he lowered his head and his mouth instantly attached itself to a nipple. He paid attention to each and only the increase intake of your breathing and harsh tugs at his hair, were indicators for him to move on.

You watched as he sat up to remove his clothes and the sight of him bare always left you in awe. He reclaimed his position over you and lips with such fervor then started trailing down your body. You picked your head up to see him leave kisses around your abdomen and hips. Your legs spread apart for him instinctively and when Charles hooked his fingers on the hem of your panties, he looked up at you once more only for you to give him a nod. When the last bit of your garments was taken care of, you didn’t realize you were holding your breath until the first bit of contact his mouth made with you. Your head dropped back down, hips bucking involuntarily, as he experimentally flicked the tip of his tongue to get a taste of your arousal. He brought an arm over your hips to keep them buckled down before he began his onslaught.

Charles seemed to love what he sampled; his tongue ran a stripe up your folds before going to suck on your clit. He continued this method until he was sure you were enjoying it and judging by your moans increasing in volume mixed with your ragged breathing, you were. You started to reach a brink you were almost scared of because your body was experiencing a new height of pleasure.

To kick it up a notch, he slowly inserted a finger in you. Your hips jerked once more under the arm, deciding you wanted to feel more, he pushed in another finger, this time the force of your hips bucked up even harder. You subconsciously began massaging your own breasts, wanting to feel pleasure all over. Charles briefly looked up and moaned against you at the sight of you touching your body. He loved the developing sexual confidence you displayed for him. The vibrations of his moans only egged onto the sensation you were feeling. The combined efforts of his tongue and fingers plunging into you soon had your legs quivering and body desperately lifting itself up from the mattress. You let out an embarrassingly loud moan when his fingers curled, brushing the spot to trigger your release. Soon, your pussy clenched tight as you came around his fingers, he was reveling in the juices of your first orgasm, “so good, so sweet,” he uttered while lapping up as much as he could.

Your head was pushed far back into the pillow under your head as you swallowed the lump that formed in your throat from your orgasm. You brought an arm over your eyes, slightly ashamed that you must’ve made a mess on his pretty face and the slight toll it took on your body. You didn’t notice Charles make his way back up to you and when he grabbed your arm to remove it from your face, the sight of his mouth and chin glistening from your arousal had you aching once more. He didn’t think twice when he leaned in to kiss you and you weren’t sure why tasting yourself on his tongue turned you on. With another surge of self-confidence, your hand started to rub the bulge prominent in his boxers. Not that he could see, you blushed at its length and hardness. He took your hand in his and guided it inside to wrap around him, eliminating the thin barrier as he tugged them off fully. Your hands stayed in place, slightly stunned at your actions, “it’s okay, baby, remember you can’t do no wrong,” he tried encouraging you. You moved your hand up and down feeling the soft flesh and ridges of his cock with each stroke. He had occupied himself with leaving tiny bites and marks on your neck as you continued with your movements.  

Charles flipped the both of you around suddenly, you now on top straddling him with your hands now planted on his chest. He shifted his hips to get comfortable but doing so only allowed his member to run past your wet pussy. He groaned at the contact and started shamelessly begging, “help me out, gorgeous. I’m begging you,” while slowly starting to rub up against you. Even though you drilled the fact you were inexperienced in his head, you wanted to please him. He had to have sensed your hesitation and took a different approach. He traced a finger along your lips and poked it in your mouth for you to suck and gather some of your saliva before he removed it to rub the wetness on his cock. Charles repeated this notion and the harder you sucked on his finger, the harder it became for him to control himself, “oh my God,” he whined watching your lips wrap around his digit and the feeling of your tongue as he imagined that sensation on his throbbing member. Seeing Charles that weak and drowning in pleasure gave you another confidence boost as you slid your body down his until you were face to face with his dick. You grabbed him and poked your tongue out to lick the tip. When that initial contact was through with, it was easy enough for you to run a longer and broader lick from the base to the tip before engulfing him.

Once you had a good pace set, your cheeks hollowed around him and hands made quick work to occupy the rest that you couldn’t intake.“Fuck, you look so good with my cock stuffed in your mouth,” he stressed when he made eye contact with you. You soon discovered a distinct taste and texture in your mouth as he started oozing precum. One of your hands slipping down to palm his balls, you tried your best to not make a mess as a mix of fluids started to escape your mouth and slide down his cock. It was a work alright, but knowing you were making him feel that good made you feel even better. You could feel your arousal dripping down your thighs. Charles stopped your ministrations the first time you gagged when you took him in too deep; feeling your throat constrict around his cock almost threw him over the edge prematurely.

You pulled away and sat up looking at Charles, awaiting your next move, your eyes shone with unshed tears from the brief lodge of your airway caused by his cock. You were a mess as you wiped at and licked your lips from any excess fluids.

“I don’t believe you,” he said with broken breaths as he lied there trying to collect himself, “I don’t believe that was your first time,” he clarified giving you a devious smile. You let out a small sigh of relief before blushing once more. “Come here, beautiful,” he commanded, and you obediently crawled over next to him. Charles’ body hovered over yours once more, parting your legs to position himself in between and hooked them over his waist. You let out a whine feeling him drag his hard cock against your sopping pussy, coating himself.

“I need to hear you one more time,” he said, lips brushing against yours, “I need to hear you say you want this.”

“I want this. Charles, I want you,” you confirmed, wrapping your arms around his neck.

He slowly pushed in, while paying close attention to your face beginning to contort with the pain of him stretching your walls.

“Baby, you’re gonna have to relax a bit,” he advised once you started to clench, your body’s response to block the pain, you hadn’t even realized you’d pulled him closer to you. He pulled one of your arms away from his neck to look at you before saying, “I promise it’ll feel good,” then pecked your lips. You nodded and tried to keep his promise in mind as you bared through the stinging feeling of him pushing further in. Once he was fully encased in your warmth, he let out a moan, dropping his head in the crook of your neck. You both lied still for a couple of minutes, taking in the feel of absolute closeness. You felt so full because of him and he was warm because of you. “I’m gonna move, ok?” He warned you.

Charles started to pull away slowly then pushed back in a little faster, eliciting a moan out of you. His mouth agape as he stared at you again, the pain mostly erased and replaced with pleasure, your body was growing accustomed to him. You couldn’t stop the moans escaping your mouth with each thrust he made and Charles smirked as he reveled in the fact that he was making you feel that good and he hadn’t even pulled out all the stops but that would have to take some time. One particular thrust had you dragging your nails down his back and yelp, “oh my God,” that was it. Charles let out a groan from the stinging on his back, but he knew. He found it. He hit the spot. He did it again to make sure and this time you thrust back against him.

You were too lost in ecstasy and from the languid kisses he left all over your body; you didn’t see his hand trail down between where your bodies connected. His fingers started to hastily rub circles on your clit. You didn’t know someone could bring so much pleasure to you, but here was Charles doing just that. His name repeatedly spilled from your lips as your body swam through the waves of euphoria from your second orgasm. Feeling your pussy squeeze his cock, he immediately crashed his lips to yours, letting out a throaty moan and unable to pull out, resulted in him filling you with his hot cum. The kisses became sloppy, your hand tugged at his hair, matted with sweat that it started to curl, as the warmth spread all over you. You let out a whine when he finally withdrew himself from you, some of his cum starting to leak out. He couldn’t stop himself from scooping a small amount on his finger and bringing it up to your lips, which you expertly took in and sucked the digit clean.  

He marveled at your state of bliss. The way both of your hands grasped at his wrist to hold his hand in place, your eyes closed, moaning at his taste, covered in a sheen of sweat, hair stuck to your forehead and sprawled all over the pillow, chest heaving as you tried to catch your breath. “Damn. You’re perfect. You did so good, baby,” he said almost at a loss for words before kissing and praising you the night away.  

Your relationship with Charles only grew deeper and your dad was beginning to get suspicious as to where you were off spending your time and even nights away. It wasn’t until he heard talk of his daughter being seen around town with a suitor. When your dad had confronted you about it, you were almost relieved because you didn’t know how to bring it up. Maybe he would finally get off your back now that you were heading in the “right direction” of becoming a woman of society, whatever bullshit that was. He insisted you invite your new beau over to formally meet him and you were pleased to find Charles having no problem at all with meeting your father. You were reluctant to agree, hoping your father wouldn’t run him out of town.

That night, after preparing and setting up for their first encounter, you saw a shiny, red car from the window. It was a bit puzzling, but when you made it out to the front porch and saw your boyfriend behind the wheel, you shook your head. He always had to show off, but that was a part of him, and you really liked him.

“How’d you manage this?” You asked referring to the new car.  

“Baby, I can be very persuasive,” he said placing his hands on your hips to bring you closer.  

“Oh, don’t I know it?” You teased before finally greeting him with a kiss. You heard snickers and giggles from the inside of the house and pulled away to shoo your younger siblings away.

Once you made it inside, you were greeted by your parents. Charles smiled brightly at them and you let go of his hand when you noticed how your father stared hard at the both of you. You were his daughter after all. Charles didn’t seem to crack at all under the look and confidently introduced himself with his hand out for your father to shake. If looks could kill, you thought that was the look, the one your father was giving Charles at that moment. He shook Charles’ hand out of sheer courtesy before stalking back to the dining room without another word. You were confused at your dad’s sudden coldness in front of a guest but also because not too long ago, he seemed to entertain the idea of you finding someone and finally meeting that person.  

Charles doesn’t show any sign of defeat at all. He knew your dad would’ve most likely not have taken a liking to him. Your dad wasn’t as subtle when he grilled him with unnecessary questions. It went unbothered by Charles. It confused your younger siblings. It somewhat embarrassed your mother. It angered you. When Charles leaves that night with a hushed promise to see you tomorrow, your met with your dad, who is really disappointed that the one man on this planet that you do take interest in is a Blackwood.

“How do you fail to mention that you’re courting a Blackwood?” He demanded once it was just you and your parents.

“What is that supposed to mean?” You were really confused now.

“That boy is bad news. I thought you had better judge of character,” he scolded.

“Charles has been nothing but good to me,” you tried to convince your dad. You looked behind him and the expression on your mom’s face was sympathetic, “Mom?” You asked for her help.

“I’m sorry, honey. It might be best if you stopped seeing Charles,” she advised. You just shook your head in disbelief at the lack of support from your parents, but what was new right? You never seemed to have their support these days.

“I don’t get it,” you said finally voicing how you’ve been feeling less part of the family, “you’re supposed to be my family and be happy for me-“

“We do want you to be happy. You’re just not going to find happiness the longer you stay with him.” Your mother tried to reason.

“I’ve felt nothing but that with him!” You countered, but what success did you ever have with that against your parents? 

“You really don’t know,” your dad scoffed at your naivete, “Charles comes from a crazy family with a dark history. No good will ever come out of being with a Blackwood-“

“His family is not him,” you cut your dad off, “and the both of you aren’t me,” you closed this argument and stalked off to your room.  That was the first of many times you’d hear your dad warn you about Charles and he’d just hope you’d be wise enough to leave him.

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[hypeathon]

RWBY - Volume 6, Chapter 11 Production Analysis

Previous Volume 6 Production Analysis Posts:

Chapters one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine & ten

A lot of anticipation for this episode was built up by various members of the CRWBY and for a few big reasons. Since the episode first premiered, a lot of buzz (pun not intended), debates and speculations have gone around across every corner of the internet within the fan base. So let’s try to make as much sense about everything that went down behind-the-scenes.

What is considered very surprising in hindsight is that despite its run time at only 15 minutes, it is the most action-packed episode since the volume premiere. That means that there is a lot to break down regarding who did what and while there has been some confirmation, it’s not all specified from sequence-to-sequence. No doubt such details will be reserved for audio commentaries in the eventual volume 6 blu-ray release, but for this analysis, much of what will be discussed is mostly educated guesswork.

That being said, one thing made clear is the list of storyboard artists and to a lesser extent, which one them were involved with the boards for which scenes. I made an observation last week how the last chapter had six artists assigned to handle the boards which is the most this volume has had since chapter 2 (though not the most in the series, that honor goes to chapters 1 & 2 of volume 5). In this episode, only Rachel Doda, Kevin Harger, and Cassidy Stone were credited. It is still unclear as to what the rhyme and reason is behind the amount of storyboard artists varying from episode to episode the way they do, though scheduling is a possibility. As for who was responsible for which scenes, it’s not totally certain which segments were done by Cassidy Stone, but thanks to the 11th episode of Crwby - Behind the Episode, it is confirmed that Rachel Doda was greatly involved with the first half while Kevin Harger largely did the latter half. There was one major thing that was the focus of how the visual direction flowed in the first fight, that being how Ruby and the others would each face Cordovin’s giant mech.

Scale was the main idea between eight characters and one giant machine. The camera needed to get the feel of how characters would dodge and defend themselves against every close-range and projectile attack and get closer towards whatever part of the mech they could get to. That represents the bulk of what needed to be considered between the director Kerry Shawcross and Rachel Doda. There was also a conscious attempt to keep things consistent in regards to which character was where on the part of the lead camera & layout artist, Kate Warner. For those unaware, camera layout artists are the ones that take the storyboards and animatics that establish the shot composition and timing of a scene and translate that into how the 3-D character and environment models will be placed through the “camera”, that being the way the viewer will see the scene. As mentioned before in one of the posts about RWBY’s cinematography, this team was established during volume 3′s production and due to sharing a few of the same members as in the storyboard department, communication between the two teams and the director would naturally be constant. For dialogue scenes, what matters between storyboards and camera layout is capturing the right mood and expression while focusing the shot on a character based on what a character is speaking about or interpreting as they listen. In action scenes, it’s about capturing the scenario of the conflict between who is fighting who, the size of the characters, the amount of characters fighting at once, etc..

In the production analysis for chapters 2 and 5 of this volume, I broke down observations of what could be the techniques Rachel Doda applies based on previous scenes she did storyboards for. Techniques such as camera rotation, having an object be placed in front the camera for blocking, having a character from the background be revealed to be in focus and long shots of characters in opposing positions are possibly Rachel Doda’s calling cards and while not a lot of them are seen in this fight due to it being different from most other ones, there is one other possible trick she applies in her boards. In instances such as the Weiss character short and Yang vs the bandits, both of which she did the boards for, they both applied a shot or two of characters that are about to perform an action in brief slow motion. This observation, like many unconfirmed things about these analyses, are of course speculative. But if this were the case, then it wouldn’t be a stretch to say the same technique was a applied in a much bigger way during the Cordovin mech fight, namely when the party split in three ways and when Ruby dodged and rode along each of missiles. It’s not quite like the flair in a missile circus as seen from Japanese animators such as the creator of the technique, animator Ichiro Itano and those inspired by the creator such as Shingo Fujii, Nozomu Abe, Seijoon Kim, and Yasushi Muraki, but I will certainly take what RWBY had to offer. Now if only we knew who animated that sequence.

Though to backtrack, there is some confirmation who at least took part in animating the fight. Among the confirmed animators were Collin McAtee, Nicole LaCroix, and Vince Cappelluti. Vince seems to have specifically animated the sequence with Weiss helping provide split-second cover, not including effects while Nicole and Collin contributed to helping animated Cordovin’s mech such as in the opening cuts, among other things. Timing the mech to even move and function as convincingly slow as they did while also having other characters move in a nimble manner must have been an interesting challenge on their part. Some other noteworthy bits of animation were the way Qrow and Ruby each descended to cut down the mech. Similar to the sequence when Qrow and Ruby took down the Sphinx Grimm, there’s a lot of character between how each of them lunge down with their scythe weapons. One displays more technique due to experience and comes off more acrobatic while the other is more wild and eccentric which aligns a bit with the behind Ruby’s character design as Monty Oum stated working on with concept artist, Ein Lee. Another instance of good character animation in the midst of all the action was the small moment when Qrow and Ren destroyed the shield generator. Qrow would naturally spin his weapon before firing whereas Ren is more comfortable following his lead and time when he fires his weapon at the same time.

One glaring misstep though would be towards the end of the first half of the episode where Cordovin catches the missile Maria fired. Putting aside whether the idea of a missile not exploding on contact the way it did would be able to suspend the viewer’s disbelief, the issue is that it’s timed too abruptly. Up until that point, the mech’s movements have been animated in a consistently sluggish manner. So to have the hand catch the missile instantaneously felt very off though a possible solution in hindsight may not have required changing the animation. What could have helped alleviate the confusion was adjusting the camera in a more three-quarter view behind the missile and having it slowly zoom out as it gets closer to the mech so that when it’s caught, it would be a bit easier to see how it got caught in the viewers mind.

Speaking of camera movement, a much more positive sequence was Jaune dashing over to soften the impact of being swatted by the mech. As stated by Rachel Doda in CRWBY - Behind the Episode, this was a deliberate choice on Kerry’s part to get the sense of power behind the swing. The sequence also helped provide an example of how much camera positioning can make a difference in an action sequence. One complaint some fans expressed about the Battle of Haven episodes in volume 5 was the usage of reaction shots as if they utterly disrupted the flow of fights. However, as certain action scenes in volume 6 show, reaction shots are not inherently a bad thing and the effectiveness of them can depend on the right angle being used. In the shot where Jaune runs covers for Nora, the latter stays in the same position and doesn’t move. If the camera say, remained at a static eye level as we see Jaune run towards Nora, a given viewer might complain that Nora isn’t running away. However, since the camera only tracks to Nora briefly, then back to the mech and then proceeds to follow Jaune til he and Nora get hit, one’s belief is more suspended. 

One aspect that definitely served a big part of what makes the first half of the episode what it is are the effects. We got a taste of this in the previous episode with Cordovin firing lightning dust, but now we get an array of various element-oriented dust effects, both in 3-D and 2-D. between the dust chargers, they each were given nuanced approaches in terms of how they built-up energy and how they were released. The ice dust blast emits energy in a more subdued manner before it interestingly releases cold, poofy-looking air and then unleashes a brief beam that recoils the cannon. When Weiss blocks the attack, the earth wall is in of itself pretty simplistic by just having the effect stretch. But the real charm is the 2-D effects of the smoke around the wall and most especially, the impact of the ice dust itself and how it forms from our direct point-of-view. By the following shot, we see the same impact from behind the characters which creates a combination of white flashes and dimmed lighting that nearly creates silhouettes. Moving on to when the earth dust is fired, small rocks appear and form and since they swirl in mass numbers, the cannon shakes around a bit. Once the dust is launched, rocks and boulders in larger chunks burst out. What helps sell the burst itself is how the light that was behind the rocks shoots out along with them to make the blast seem more fast and powerful. The smoke emitted upon impact and the white flashes from each cannon fire also help make the stalagmites being immediately formed seem more dangerous. Finally, there’s the wind dust blast which has the air swirl around before firing a burst with a couple of flashes and in the next shot, the blast resembles that of a beam accompanied with rings spreading out then dissolving.

Of course, there were more visual effects going on besides the varied dust cannon fire, one of which being the hard-light dust shield. This is apparently the official name of the type of dust seen in the form of shields and barriers as seen in Amnity Colosseum and the shape of Velvet’s weapons through her camera. This was not even the first time this type of dust was used since the CRWBY migrated to using Maya and 3DS Max as their main animation and modeling softwares, as it was technically used to power the train engine in chapter 10 of volume 4. Right now there’s not much to add other than that it dissipates in a manner similar to how each of the weapons appear. Also, since this was part of the scene, it’s pleasing to see how since this volume, the smoke from Nora’s grenades are not only officially given a cel-shaded pink color but that as they fired with enough distance, the trails start to wobble for lack of a better way of putting it. Other visual effects that have been seen and utilized before such as the waves on the bottom of the cliff side and the ice from Weiss’s dust usage have also been a part of the presentation, but probably the best moment outside of the dust cannon was the giant splash from Cordovin’s missiles. Being 2-D animated likely by Myke Chapman, this must have been tedious to animated frame-by-frame and yet the size and timing was effective at making the impact feel as powerful as it did. The most immediate comparison was to a sequence in episode 23 of One Piece animated by Hideaki Maniwa, whose tendency to liberally have effects be on 1s the way he did made his work a treat to watch in the first couple-hundred episodes of the series.

That was a lot to cover regarding the main party fighting against Cordovin and yet that was only the first-half of the episode. There is still the latter half that focuses on Blake and Yang each having their go against Adam Taurus and indeed is their a lot to unpack. As stated earlier, three storyboard artists were tasked with this episode, one of which being Rachel Doda who handled the former fight. Here, Kevin Harger takes over a great portion and this was actually somewhat confirmed since over a week the episode premiered. Back in episode 9 of season 2 CRWBY - Behind the Episode, insight was given about the motion capture process and in it, footage was accidentally shown of the storyboards for this episode that ended up being leaked on certain corners of the internet. This was of course a blunder and currently the boards have been blurred out ever since. But since the episode proper has become publicly available, now is a apt time to talk about them. The drawings within boards match that of previous storyboards confirmed to have been done by Kevin such as in the Yang character short, the Gods of Light and Darkness confronting each other, Oscar vs Leo and Ozpin vs Hazel, as well as some of his drawings outside of RWBY in general. 

With all of that confirmation in mind, this is a good opportunity to briefly study on Kevin’s techniques with doing storyboards. Of course, this is all observation and storyboard artists tend to work closely with Kerry to go over what is the best way to depict action sequences, so take what will be said with a grain of salt. Although it’s not much, there are two traits to assess from Kevin Harger’s storyboards. First is that scenes he’s involved in tend to display a shot where two characters briefly stare at one another or at least one stares at the other in a brief standoff before the fight proceeds. This can be seen in some of the previously mentioned examples. Second, any character that is seen as having the advantage will be framed in a shot or two as being above the other in height. This will naturally apply to taller characters like Hazel and the Ursa Grimm but is not limited to them as Ozpin when he took possession of Oscar’s body is framed similarly in one shot. The third and final observation is that in a given sequence, one character may be seen dodging and maneuvering either around or somewhat away from his/her opponent as seen with Yang and Ozpin.

The reason any of this matters is because for fight scenes, the storyboards help determine the choreography and shot composition just as much as the animation. In fact, depending on how much the animators want to stick closely with them, the boards can determine the choreography even more so. This is something that fan-favorite animator of RWBY, Kim Newman. expressed when talking about animating the Yang character short at the Just the Fights Panel at RTX Austin 2018. stating how important storyboards are and they have helped saved her time and stress. Going back to the Blake vs Adam fight, the observations made earlier about Kevin’s previous storyboards can be seen here such as Adam being framed as bigger than Blake and the two characters in a brief standoff. Also, every action and reaction the characters communicate through their movements and the emotions in Kevin’s boards can serve as great fuel for the team of animators assigned to the fight once they see the animatic. Another possible way of getting the animators psyched up for the fight in this episode and perhaps even Kevin when having done the storyboards would be knowing that Blake intends to dual-wield. As unusual of a source this is, on March 15th, 2018, Kerry Shawcross confirmed to a fan named Casualdoom12 via the live chat of of a stream of RWBY volume 5 in regards to whether or not Blake would dual wield in the future by simply saying, “yeah.” Many fans have accused Kerry and Miles of forgetting how certain characters fight until they suddenly remember to. But sources have strongly argued otherwise, such as with Qrow and the scythe mode of his weapon, Harbinger according to the volume 3 blu-ray directors audio commentary track with his fight against Winter:

Miles: “It was your idea by the way to have the transformation start and stop as the ultimate cock tease.”

<Kerry laughing>

Miles: “To this day, I’m still seeing comments, “WHEN ARE WE GONNA SEE THE SCYTHE?!” It was, I loved it. It was great.”

Kerry: “We just kinda wanted to mess with people.”

Miles: “Y-you and me?”

Kerry: “Nooo, naaaah.”  

And in the volume 4 blu-ray directors commentary track with his fight against Tyrian:

Kerry: “So uh, a lot of people wondered why he never went into scythe mode during the fight. We actually talked about that for a really, really good amount. And really what it comes down to is it’s just not, it doesn’t seem like it would be fast enough.”

Miles: “Yeah, it’s not gonna do stuff to fight against somebody like Tyrian.”

Kerry: “No, because Tyrian has essentially got like 3-5 points of contact depending on if he’s using his feet or not. And to just try and block them with that giant scythe just didn’t seem like a good idea. So that was why because I know people really want to see him in scythe mode, but we just felt it would feel forced and not make a lot of sense for him.”

Then there was the matter of Velvet deciding to use a hard-light dust version of Penny’s weapon, again in the volume 3 director’s audio commentary:

Miles: “What was the um... what was it like-oh, I think you were the one that had the idea to end with Penny’s swords too.”

Kerry: “Yeah, so we knew like, “okay, we’re gonna have her cycle through a bunch of characters’ weapons. Ya know, we named off the main four, we talked about some other ones and then it came down to the last one and for me, immediately it was like, “it has to be Penny.” Like, there’s no other way to do this.”

Gray: “There was the briefest debate about whether or not Penny herself should be able to show up because technically the weapons are a part of her and vice-versa.”

Kerry: “Yeah.”

Gray: “And it would’ve been a different moment.”

And then in episode 13 of season 1 of RWBY Rewind, Kerry and Miles answered the matter of how aura breaking or flickering works and cited the Ghira vs the Albain twins fight, stating that he did not forget to depict Ghira having his aura already depleted so much as he was more okay with the idea of that instance happening off-screens than viewers would’ve been. Kerry is not absent-minded. He spends a lot of time with Miles contemplating in the writing process over whether a character should a particular thing in a fight, depending on the fight itself and communicates that with the storyboard artists, animators, VFX team and whoever else. Having Blake dual wield when fighting against Adam was no exception as this was meant to be defining point in her character story.

So with the matter of the storyboard artist’s and Kerry’s input into this fight established, who animated it? The team responsible for this latter half are the assistant lead animator, Melanie Stern, Matt Drury, John Yang, Megan Pellino and Joe Vick. These same names have popped up before in the fights for chapters 5 and 7. John had also done much of the fight in chapter 10 and he also handled the first segment with Blake and Adam in the forest as I mentioned previously. Seeing the full version, his portion likely extends right up until Blake and Adam enter the ravine. After that though is where identifying who did what gets a bit tricky. My best assumption would be that what follows up at least up until Blake’s Gambol Shroud is broken is all Melanie Stern. A bit of her camera work and timing feels familiar based on previous fights she worked on. Though if she really did this segment, then this is probably one of the most fast-paced sequences she’s ever animated in a fight scene. Instances such as Blake twirling a bit so that she faces Adam’s gun before using her semblance or parrying Adam’s sword in such a way that it slides across her katana and into the sheath portion of her cleaver are so quick and seamless that one would easily miss those moments if he/she blinked.

Once Blake is down and the katana portion of her Gambol Shroud is broken, things die down briefly as we get some facial expressions and character acting. In the shot with Blake, her expressions easily read that she is aware of and understood how and why Adam got his scar and that a part of her felt sorry for him. In contrast from Blake’s more nuanced expressions though, Adam’s are more explicit and seeing him unmasked definitely brings great synergy between what he emotes and Garret Hunter’s vocal performance. Given that Blake’s expression is subtly different between the end of this cut and the start of the next one, most of this segment and Yang’s dynamic entry with having her bike crash into Adam was all animated by Megan Pellino, the latter of which was definitely confirmed by Melanie. This is actually the first time we learn which part of a fight Megan has done and although it’s not much, the moment itself was bound to satisfy viewers.

Now comes the Yang vs Adam portion and there’s a couple of big things to break down from a production standpoint first. Referring back to episode 9 of CRWBY - Behind the Episode season 2, there was more being implied about what goes on in this fight than just the storyboards. The motion capture actually previewed the standoff portion of the fight before Adam lunges at Yang. It seems that in the session, Melanie Stern was doing mo-cap for Blake, either Nicole LaCroix or Nicole “Nyx” Morciniec did mo-cap for Yang and Matt Drury did mo-cap for Adam. The last one is particularly noteworthy and yet unsurprising since Matt has gone on record to liking Adam’s character and having done mo-cap for him before. On top of that, Matt has been absent in the staff credits since after chapter 7 which is not the first time an animator has been uncredited for whole episodes in a row due to going from being involved in one big scene to being involved in another one later in the volume. This same thing happened with Dillon Gu during volume 3 who went from animating the double rounds fight in chapter 4 to the students vs the Nevermore and Ironwood vs the Alpha Beowulf in chapter 10.

One could argue that he had to dedicate time working on Gen:Lock but given the timing, Matt probably anticipated this moment too much to not want to dedicate as much time for this sequence. Having said that, here’s where where the other piece of behind-the-scenes information comes in. Back in 2016, former co-lead animator Shane Newville publicly posted an open letter about various things regarding RWBY’s production, including during volume 3. I’ll spare the details and the source since his perspective and frustration on things regarding Monty Oum’s vision, while understandable given how dear Monty was to him, is also distasteful when taking insight about volume 3′s production from Kerry, Miles, Gray Haddock, then lead producer, Koen Wooten, and every other staff member’s perspective into account. Rather, I’ll refer to a small quote from his letter about a fight Monty Oum was working on prior to his passing:

“Next up was another scene that I had been looking forward to for a very long time. Blake was meant to fight Adam, and then Yang was suppose to come in and take over the fight, protecting Blake from death. Once I was done with Yang vs Mercury, I asked about this long-anticipated, ultra-badass scene.

But guess what-- they didn’t even write it in the script because they didn’t look at what Monty created for the scene before they began! It was all available to them before Monty passed away and after he was gone I made sure all of those scenes were available to them-- that they had them in their hands. It was even more of a surprise to me since I had rendered out Monty’s timelines for them, at the producer’s request, before production even started. they didn’t even look at what Monty, the creator of the show, made for this show.

Let me add that the Yang vs Adam fight was looking beyond badass. Monty was using a Linkin Park song as the soundtrack to animate it to. I was told that they would just find some other place for it down the road. But I know that when they eventually make the switch to Maya, everything Monty and I worked so hard to build up will become unusable and therefore thrown into the garbage.” 

Tonal choice aside, much of what Shane stated is very likely the case when examining the unfinished footage that suddenly surfaced around the same time as RTX Austin back in August 2018 according to reddit user JauneBlackSmudge. Even the temp music for the sequence is from the Linkin Park song, “Session”. It is unclear whether Shane himself uploaded the footage or someone else anonymously did and it’s currently unconfirmed whether Kerry Shawcross himself had possession of the footage and wanted to reserve it. Regardless, it’s clear that snippets of it were directly referenced and adapted into the Yang vs Adam fight seen in volume 6. Even Shane’s claim about Kerry finding another place for this fight somewhere down the road would support past cases where Kerry has talked about usually pushing ideas out of the script or production of one volume and reserving them for another one. Rarely ever does an idea get scrapped altogether and never use it with a couple of exceptions such as dust-powered cars according to art director, Patrick Rodriguez and the double-rounds fight between Pyrrha, Nora, Sun and Neptune which had to be cut or else there would be too much of a strain on volume 3′s production scheduling.

But enough of the behind-the-scenes and on to analyzing the fight itself which is nothing short of exhilarating. As stated, the fight matches snippets of the unfinished clip but has been adapted with more nuance depending on the camera angles and gestures. Case in point, Adam in the unfinished clip throws a slicing boomerang-like wave while the official scene has Adam using his sword like a buzz-saw. It’s also worth noting that when Adam is in the air, his form is very similar to that of when he kicked his sword at the Atlessian Knight in the Adam Character short which was a sequence Matt Drury animated. I previously compared that moment to Ken’Ichi Fujisawa’s sequence on episode 385 of Naruto Shippuden in the Adam Character Short Analysis, it was more likely a direct homage to a sequence done by animator Spencer Wan in the Netflix animated series, Castlevania. Once Yang is done blocking, she briefly dashes in with an upper-body boxer stance and starts a series of counterattacks. Like the Cordovin mech fight, the visual effects greatly compliment the motion by having certain strikes and blows be in the form of arcs. One of my favorite moments in this sequence is how the rapid-fire punches against Adam’s sword have duplicates of Yang’s arms to implement a blinding speed to them. This may possibly be due to having a copy of the same model blend in to give off that multi-arm illusion. Animator Harley Dwortz was actually the first in the animation team to use this technique way back in chapters 4 and 7 of volume 2 when Neptune was on Yang’s bike and Ruby was given pulled in by Yang. Next is another moment adapted from the unused Yang vs Adam footage where Adam runs around with afterimages and then sends a wave of energy at her. Though like previously, certain nuances are added like Yang’s close-up reaction shot to Adam’s direction and the same effects used in the last chapter against Blake where black and red accented lighting is utilized around him. Also, it seems like the wave itself was drawn in 2-D by Myke Chapman.

After a quick pause in-between, we get to the next sequence where Yang lunges right back and then dodges Adam’s strike to the side in mid-air and then spins herself to get a stronger kick at him. The mid-air dodge actually resembles a sequence from My Hero Academia and it wouldn’t be a stretch if what Yang did was inspired by that either since Kevin Harger mentioned using Bakugo as inspiration for having Yang maneuver mid-air in his storyboards for the Yang Character Short. At any rate, what happens next is that when Adam swings his sword again, Yang shoots to propel herself back but because of how instantaneous it is, it’s easy for the viewer eyes and brain to not register that in normal speed. Then comes another one of my favorite parts about this fight where Yang runs forward but she’s still sliding back a bit due to not immediately having the momentum. Then comes a few punches and some kicks interestingly similar to when Mercury attacked Pyrrha in their sparring match in volume 2. Finally, Adam knocks Yang back with his sword and I love how there are a couple of bounces on her fall before lying on the ground. I suspect that Joe Vick did this sequence who has not been explicit about which cuts he did in any of the sequences he has been involved in this volume. The reason it might him though is due to comparing the timing of the animation here to that of one of Joe’s demo reels where a martial artist character strikes at a sandbag in various ways. The animation in both the reel and this portion of the fight share the similar timing, especially compared to the previous sequence which feels a tad harsher and faster though the overall kinetic energy is not lost in what is presumed to be Joe’s portion.

Then comes the moment that caps off the action segment of the latter-half of the episode. Again, having Adam unmasked does wonders for his more explicit expressions as his pupils are shrunken and expresses ferocity. This is followed by Blake’s cat ears reacting to the sound of Adam’s weapon and his growl, which have been a key component in the action as shown earlier. Then we get the best effects in the fight where Adam is once again shrouded completely in black along with the entire screen this time, minus the red accents on him glowing. I just love how the more powerful his attacks seem to be the darker the screen gets, whether or not that was intentional on the compositing team’s part. Complimented with more black and red sparks, what follows is the icing of the cake with the blast shaped in such an extremely monstrous form. These are the kind of effects that anime fans within the Sakuga community become very fond over between individual animators and although this case is more likely from the visual effects, that does not make the spectacle any less pleasing to see. Then comes a few shots of Yang withstanding the attack and I would be remiss to not mention the fact that yes, the shot composition matches that of the climax in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Given that Blake and Adam and somewhat Yang are inspired by the fairy tale of the same name, it would not be absurd to presume that either Kevin Harger or Kerry Shawcross used such shots as a purposeful homage. In the last several shots, we get more of Adam’s expressions that sell his manipulative nature as well as some nice shot composition in the midst of the standoff. Since Adam is focused on Yang, they are both framed in front of the cliffs while Blake is in front of the waterfall. But when Blake’s reaches to hold Yang’s hand, the latter is framed having crossed from the waterfall to the cliffs behind her, thus marking the end of the episode.

Ooh boy, what an episode to break down! A lot happened in both halves of this episode that required more dissecting than the average analysis, especially the latter part. Hopefully, this proved to be an insightful read. Since neither fight concluded this episode, there is obviously more to anticipate and this time things are being teased by Neath Oum, Monty’s brother and the voice of Ren of all people. Once these bigger things come in supposedly more ways than one int he next episode, there will of course be more to analyze about the production.

#rwby #rwby6 #rwby spoilers #rwby analysis #crwby #production analysis #production #analysis #kerry shawcross #kerry #shawcross #matt drury #matt #drury #myke chapman #myke #chapman #kevin harger #kevin #harger #rachel doda #rachel #doda

[thesearchforphantaman]

SUPER-COOL NEWS!

Hey, guys!  It’s sure been a while since I posted here.  I’d thought the trail on this had all but dried up, but just the other day, out of the blue, I got a LENGTHY and super-detailed email from an individual named Andy Shepherd!

Mr. Shepherd has apparently been looking for Phantaman separately for quite some time, though fell out of it recently due to getting busy... go figure!  How cool is that, though?

I’ve included most of it here under the read-more label.  Have a look-see!

Hi.  My name is Andy Shepherd and I saw your page/Tumblr post (Search for Phantaman) and thought I would share some things with you.

Ogon Batto (Golden Bat) was dubbed by Bill Ross and his wife Japanese wife, Michie, at Frontier Enterprises in Tokyo.  They rechristened the show ‘Fantoma’ for sales in the English speaking territories.  I think Ken Fujita hire them to do it.  More on Ken later.

Ross/Frontier was the go-to guy in Japan for a bit of comparatively inexpensive dubbing (when compared to Glen Glenn Sound, Titra, etc.) for Japanese media that was being distributed/shopped overseas.  Bill died a couple of years ago, but I and a few others (Steve Ryfle and August Ragone) corresponded with him via email and snail mail.  I spoke with him several times by phone over the course of a couple of years, and I have at least one taped phone conversation with him.

Frontier/Ross hired local expats and military personnel living/stationed in Japan in the 1960s.  The series, according the scant records Bill sent me copies of (which I cannot find at the moment), was titled “Fantoma” and the only English audio clip that has survived the decades bears this out.  Not sure where alternate spellings/names, Fantaman or Phataman, come from.  Maybe it was printed this way in the Aussie TV guides/promo material.  I’ll have to ask Kelly Patrick Lannan about that.  He’s in the weeds on the series and films shown only in Oz (i.e. The Samurai, Phantom Agents, Gazula, Space Ace, Fantoma, etc.).

Although, Ross never kept records of the people he hired to dub these things, he did recall a couple of names and those were enough to start the dominoes tumbling for me.  The narrator on the Fantoma ‘coming attractions’ audio clip is Burr Middleton, once known in the business as Burr Hoyle.  He’s an actor and announcer, and you can catch him eps of Matlock, Hunter, and such things.  During the 1960s, he was stationed in Japan (military, I think) and was hired by Ross for dubbing in Fantoma and Princess Knight (confirmed).  He also acted in the Bill Ross-co produced sino-American sci-fi movie, The Green Slime. [...]  But he confirmed for me his voice in the Fantoma clip.  He also voiced Duke Duralumon, the villain, in the little-known Princess Knight/Choppy and the Princess dub, which finally saw a release in the U.S. a few years back, after decades of legal issues and copyright mishandling.  I can try to ask Middleton who else worked on the Fantoma dub.  Maybe he’ll remember.

Also, you’ve got the two ‘K. Fujitas’ mixed up.  Yep, two.  Kiyoshi Fujita of Video Promotions was also known as K Fujita in the 1960s, but he shouldn’t be confused with the other and, I think, more important, K. Fujita of K. Fujita & Associates.  Kazuhiko (a.k.a. Ken, or just ‘K’) of K. Fujita & Associates was one of the first, if not the first, to have the idea of marketing Japanese movies and tv content outside of Japan.  For years, little more than an enigmatic name found only in the end credits of Speed Racer, Marine Boy, The Amazing 3, Star Blazers, etc., I hunted for years for him and finally my persistence paid off, found him semi-retired in Japan.  We became friendly and got his story.    

He first took sample footage of what was to become Astro Boy to shop around in the states and was pretty much laughed out of New York by the folks at NBC, ABC, Screen Gems, etc.  Until he later sold a b/w live action Samurai series to Mexico.  It was such an enormous success/ratings hit, south of the border, that the Americans were more ready to listen to him on his second pass.  However, when he returned again to the states to negotiate a sale for Astro Boy, he walked away from the puny deal at NBC Films.  Then, along comes Kiyoshi Fujita, of Video Promotions, apparently now negotiating on behalf of the Japanese producers/Mushi and accepts the same shitty NBC deal, or so I was told.  The Japanese needed whatever NBC offered in order to bankroll future projects.  I think Kiyoshi Fujita of Video Promotions may still be around.  I don’t know him and have never spoken with him.  Since Kiyoshi Fujita of Video Promotions had made the deal with NBC, he/they were well-positioned for the Kimba deal.  You can read most of this in Fred Ladd’s book.  Fred directed the dubs of both Astro Boy and Kimba for NBC Films, as you know.

The upshot is that Kiyoshi Fujita of Video Promotions, while he maybe still around, isn’t the K. Fujita of K. Fujita & Associates that sold Ogon Batto and the other anime and live action Japanese series in Australia.  It was Kazuhiko (or Ken as he liked to be called by his western friends) who did that.  Sadly, Ken passed in 2012.  Kiyoshi probably won’t be much help to you in your search.

Kelley Patrick Lannan and Glen Johnson in Australia have been poking around for years for surviving prints of some of these series, including Fantoma.  Kelley, if remember correctly, works in the TV industry, there, and he has his tentacles out, forever groping and prying to see if somewhere in Oz, somebody has 16mm prints of these series in storage, an attic, a basement.

Sometimes, all of the groping and prying by fans pays off.  Episodes of both b/w live action shows “The Samurai” and “Phantom Agents” were finally located and released on DVDs.  Unfortunately, the “Space Ace” and “Fantoma” dubs seem to more elusive.  When I asked him, Ken Fujita couldn’t remember the names of the producers he sold/licensed the properties to.  He’d thrown out 40 years of old paper work from his former companies, along with tons or original artwork and cels from his company’s (Japan Tele-Cartoons) production of “Marine Boy”.  I nearly had a heart attack when he told me that.  He simply had no idea anybody would be interested in having it, much less paying money to own it.

[...]

Starting in the mid-1990s, I decided that I hated reading misinformation/incorrect crediting in all of the animation reference books and articles about 8th Man and Princess Knight, and spent subsequent years researching Copri, Frontier, and Titra dubbing facilities.  There wasn’t much information out there at all.  I was starting from scratch.  I would get one half remembered name from somebody, which then led to another half remembered name from somebody else, and so on.  I finally got enough to put a picture together of the Miami dubbing outfit in the mid-1960s.

I’ve shared this information over the years with Fred Ladd, Dave Merrill, Glen Johnson, August Ragone, Chris Palmer, etc. and now it’s public information, which is good.  The Copri and Frontier folks, unlike the Titra dubbers (Pete Fernandez, Fred Ladd, Corrine Orr, Jack Grimes, Paulette Rubenstein, Earl Hammond, Jack Curtis, etc.) never got credit for their work because of how it was done (under the table to skirt the union rules and union pay scales in Florida for Copri) and in Japan, it just wasn’t thought important and seen as an added (unnecessary) cost (i.e. cast list/end titles).  Besides, the Florida and Japanese casts were local actors, school teachers, disc jockeys, moonlighting military personnel and their bored wives, etc.  Nobodies, really.  So, what did credits matter to them?  They got paid few shekels and had some fun.  End of story.

Many of the folks are gone, now.  I was lucky that I got to know and speak with many of them and get their stories for posterity.  I have a number of taped phone interviews, and still have some chapters of Pete’s unpublished auto-biography, hand typed, that he sent to me.  He was a real sweetheart, and he is missed.  I’ll what I can do about digitizing this stuff to post for everybody to enjoy.

In any case, I’ve written more than I intended.  Sorry.  I hope you find it some of it useful and if not, at least interesting.

It’s been years since I was actively researching.  Just got busy.  But I can try to reach out to Kelley Patrick and Glen to see if they’ve made any headway on the Fantoma and Space Ace hunt.

Regards,

Andrew Shepherd

What a surprise, right?  As you guys following this blog know, I spoke with Mr. Burr Middleton myself, and he confirmed for me that he voiced not only the Narrator for Phantoma but also Gabby, Dr. Zero, and the big golden skeleton himself!  (Though, granted, Phantoma didn’t exactly have a lot of dialogue in the series -- mostly laughing.)

As I mentioned to Mr. Shepherd in my response, I also discovered some Australian TV listings from the time, which is where the title “Phantaman” came from.  My post about that can be found here:

https://thesearchforphantaman.tumblr.com/post/143665817167

Regardless, this is such exciting news!!  Hopefully we’ll be able to continue the search from here.

Hailey out!

#phantaman #golden bat #ogon bat #ougon bat #fantaman