#Jounouchi has ridiculous luck

[saiikavon]

(I neeeeeed this.)

This has got to be some kind of joke. Some stupid office prank that some soon-to-be-fired subordinate thought they could get away with. That, or he’s fucking hallucinating.

Those are the only plausible reasons Jounouchi fucking Katsuya would be standing in front of him right now, dressed in a KC workman’s uniform.

The joke-or-hallucination in question visibly squirms in discomfort at what must be a truly demonic expression on Seto’s face, only adding to the taut silence for a long, incredulous moment. Seto’s jaw is clenched so tight he thinks he may actually crack a tooth. Jounouchi continues to fidget for a minute more, then takes a breath as though bracing himself for a long dive off a cliff.

“You called for someone to fix one of the VR monitors?” He sounds completely deadpan, but the tone is ruined by the slight pout gracing his lips. Seto’s gaze remains fixed on the expression for a second more before his jaw finally unlocks.

“How are you here?”

Jounouchi sighs, rolling his eyes as though to say, Here we go again, then begins to repeat his last statement in the same, disaffected tone, and Seto feels a vein throbbing in his temple.

“I meant how are you working here, you brainless monkey!” he snaps. Jounouchi looks barely perturbed to be cut off.

“So am I fired again or can I fix the thing you wanted fixed?”

“Fi—I’d rather throw you into space; maybe then you’ll actually stay the hell away from me and my company!”

“Look, it’s not my fault you own over half the businesses in the city!” Jounouchi snaps back. “Not a lot of options for me elsewhere, either, not when I have to keep reporting that you threw me out on my ass before the first month!”

Fair, but Seto wasn’t about to concede the point out loud. “That still doesn’t answer my question. I have you on an explicit no-hire list. Every single department in this building alone should know your name and face; even newcomers receive this information in training. You shouldn’t have even gotten in the door, let alone gotten a job.”

Jounouchi shrugs. “Dunno what to tell you. I’m here.” He offers nothing else, looking just as run-down by the constant game of employment tag as Seto is. Three jobs before this, Seto didn’t even blink before sending him packing. But it’s been long enough and he’s positively manic over the thought of just where this gods-blessed cockroach of a human being will show up next.

Seto, for the first time in his life, admits defeat, and slumps bonelessly into the closest chair with a sigh.

“Just…tell me you can do the job.”

Jounouchi blinks, brightens like a puppy being offered a treat, and damn near looks like he wants to comment on the moment until Seto shuts him up with a glare.

“I—yeah. Yeah, I can. M’good with my hands, and Nomura-san will vouch for me, too.”

“Then get to it, and don’t speak to me unless it’s important.” He may regret allowing Jounouchi to speak to him at all, but he’ll deal with that as it comes. The grin that Jounouchi directs his way is absolutely sickening.

“On it, boss!” he crows, giving Seto a cheery salute. Then he takes himself and his toolkit over to the busted monitor, whistling to himself.

Seto curls over his desk, groaning at the beginnings of a headache. He pages his assistant, demanding some strong painkillers and what is likely an inadvisable amount of coffee. She accepts without comment or complaint.

Jounouchi continues whistling as he works, and Seto thinks to himself that he’s just going to have to get used to it.

[honoosenshi-a2]

@ofhardknoxxx send “psst” for 10 things my muse has said about yours behind their back

❝ suzuki-san ... you cannot be serious? him? ❞

❝ what would i know about jounouchi-san ? why are you asking me?❞

❝ i like cats ... not dogs. if you get my drift.❞

❝ he talks like a delinquent & acts like one too ... ❞

❝ shizuka-chan & jounouchi-san are different as the sun & moon...❞

❝ he's a pillar of boundless energy. he's magnetic.❞

❝i like his spirit, that's all. i mean, he has ambition but he's not an ass about it ... ❞

❝ notice his eyes? they're strong. he's got this ... what ? am i not allowed an opinon on something so basic?❞

❝you DO realize i give out good luck charms to people nearly everyday, right? this is no different. its my job. besides, he's gonna need it.❞

❝hey, phobos. deimos. if i prayed for him ... would that ... ugh. forget it. nevermind. i'm being ridiculous.❞

[ryouverua]

In the tags of one of the asks I sent you, you commented that Yami no Yuugi might be the SHSL Gambler if he was DR and Yuugi would be SHSL Card Game Player or something. And now I've been thinking about SHSL talents for Yuugiou characters. I have my own ideas, but I'm really curious what talents you'd give everybody

Oh man, let me get Duel Links open so I don’t miss anyone LMAO

I’m sure this was done a hundred years ago when DR first came out and doing crossovers were all the rage, but let’s see what I can come up with? (I’ll address your next ask too, but I’ll add more detail there ~ you’ll see). Anyway, there’s gonna be some serious overlap but I’ll try to branch out where I can. Also this is an item-less universe, but since the items are such big parts of their characters, it’ll definitely inform the talents.

Yami no Yuugi - SHSL Gambler (his talent will be similar to Yuugi’s, but his denotes the dangerous situations he fought through)

Yuugi Mutou - SHSL Gamer (he has an incredible knowledge of games, though you don’t get to see much of it outside of the first 7 manga volumes/Season 0 - and not that Chiaki doesn’t deserve her title, but I do wish we got to see her do more traditional gaming like traditional card games, TRPG, and the more ridiculous ones of the YGO manga like the battling tamagotchis and rock’em sock’em robots)

Katsuya Jounouchi/Joey Wheeler - SHSL Good Luck (I’ll save that for the next post)

Anzu Mazaki/Tea Gardner - SHSL Ballerina/Dancer (Hiyoko has the specific subset of Traditional dancing so if Anzu was to have to specialize, it would be ballet)

Hiroto Honda/Tristan Taylor - poor guy, I think he might end up being a reserve student or ultimate custodian lmao… though perhaps SHSL Motorcrosser could work?

Ryou Bakura - SHSL Sculptor (I thought hard on this one, and it took a lot to keep me from going to the TRPG area, but think about it - he sculpted all the figurines for his Monster World games, and created the entire Egypt diorama from the last arc, including all the characters and tokens to go with them. Who else would earn that title but him?)

Yami no Bakura/Thief King Bakura - SHSL Thief, because I deserve a softball though ultimate procrastinator can work for just Y-Bakura lmao

Malik Ishtar - SHSL Supreme Leader (honestly, he’s a better fit than Kokichi, though you could argue that if Kokichi is a big YGO fan then he might… literally be emulating him/pulling lines from Malik/Yami no Malik, honestly? But the kid (Malik) created an international criminal organization that both creates fake cards and steals/sells rare ones on the blackmarket. He… has definitely earned it)

Isis/Ishizu Ishtar - The obvious choice is SHSL Clairvoyant but I’m going to propose SHSL politician as a suitable alternative because she’s already working for the Egyptian government at 20. That’s pretty damn impressive.

Seto Kaiba - SHSL Businessman/CEO (differs as he recreated/rebuilt the company he took over as opposed to inheriting and continuing it the way Togami did. A slight, but important, difference). Could also be SHSL Inventor or Programmer, honestly.

Pegasus J Crawford - SHSL Painter. Oho, you thought I was going to go for Mindreader? Nope! He did make all the original card art himself! (also damn it Angie how did you land such a broad title as ‘Artist’…)

Mai Kujaku/Valentine - SHSL Card Dealer (and I bet she and Y-Yuugi have crossed paths lol)

Insector Haga/Weevil Underwood - SHSL Entomologist (I’M SO SORRY GONTA BUT IT FITS….)

Dinosaur Ryuuzaki/Rex Raptor - SHSL Palaeontologist

Ghost Kotsuzaka/Bonz - SHSL Occultist

Ryota Kajiki/Mako Tsunami - SHSL Marine Biologist

oh right

Rishid/Odion Ishtar - SHSL Tattoo Artist because I’m actually The Worst

[the-cryptographer]

My tiny yugioh shrine - before and after pics. The Jounouchi figure still up top, holding a chain and ready to shank you with a scapegoat~ But I thought I’d zoom in so we could see my BEAUTIFUL NEW ISHTAR SIBS CLEARFILE INSTEAD~

I thought my shrine was getting a little too shippy. And especially a little too shippy in the absence of Mai. WHERE IS ALL THE KUJAKU MAI MERCHANDISE?! i need it pls, thx. But, anyhow~ I bought the Ishtar clearfile off of auction. And I thought it might be an old one, but on the back is actually a logo for the 20th anniversary of ygo, last year in 2016. And they weren’t even really in the movie, so now I’m wondering maybe there is also the chance of some recent Mai merchandise out there, hmm, so she will properly be represented in my collection >3>

But yeah, this is just by the exit to my room so i can stop by before i leave for the day and, offer coins or pieces of fruit or whatever and pray at my card game based alter, and maybe then Jounouchi’s good luck will rub off on me a little~

...

And there’s also a gore version of the shrine, but I usually keep that picture in the back so visitors don’t think i’m a creep. i guess i’ll put this picture in the front if i ever decide to host ritualistic demon summonings in my room or smthn~

(Both prints are from toxicosis by the way.)

Doujinshi are in another location. And I was only going to talk about my stupid ygo bookshelf shrine thing today, but then my doujin shipment came in and I decided FUCK IT i will brag about my crippling lack of impulse control cool swag all at once if i want to... Under the cut-

@battymarionette

If you remember this one~

tdah~ Basically it seems like a Kaiba Corp has put out a game, some kind of ridiculous fantasy RPG where Atem is some kind of Ron the Death Eater villain and Jou may or may not be the princess or smthn. And Mokuba invites Jounouchi over to play it or playtest it or something of that nature. Which seems like as good a premise as any for this kind of thing. And it’s got all the cute platonic Joukuba vibes which is a plus~

But yeah, Jounouchi goes over to Mokuba’s place, has some kind of fight with Seto, and some kind of conversation with Atem, and Mokuba’s kind of confused or upset about something, and then Jou gets all cute and announces that he and Kaiba are dating~ which i’m pretty sure Seto didn’t want Mokuba knowing about or whatever~

But, see, now I’m making this doujin sound sweet when, to be really blunt, i didn’t like it. At some point Seto slaps Jounouchi across the face for something.

I guess I shouldn’t pass judgement when I can’t even read the moon runes that explain why this has happened, but- no. (I’m trying to articulate. It’s not that I think Jou and Seto are incapable of being violent with one another (jfc how hypocritical would it be of me) but there’s something about the whys and the hows~? in my mind, Seto doesn’t gets hands on with that kind of thing unless it’s landing a measured martial arts blow in self defense, or lashing out from a place of extreme vulnerability - the kind that involves him being five seconds away from curling up in a ball of self-protection. So... Seto being collected and composed and instigating violence on Jounouchi’s triggers all my ‘no’ responses. And I also doubt Jounouchi would take that kind of thing without complaint, unless he was actually raving or spiraling and it was, like, a calm-the-fuck-down slap. I think he would definitely retaliate with shouting and intimidation, if not a physical blow. With Jounouchi it’s a little harder for me to define what would prompt physical violence, partly because i think his idea of what violence is is narrower than mine, and doesn’t include things like grabbing somebody’s jacket collar and shaking them around. But, hmm, I think by the time he’s through canon he doesn’t exactly break out the fistcuffs lightly.)

The point was that this doujin made it to the top of my shit list very fast. And I was concerned because, see, I had been avoiding buying KaiJou (in that order) doujins because most of them kind of do this thing to me and completely miss the glass cannon type of volatile fragility I see as being kind of central to Kaiba’s character. But then I caved and ordered a whole bunch. But, actually, I was pleasantly surprised by the other couple of ones I bought, so maybe the curse has finally lifted~ I liked this one in particular-

But, tbh, it also knew the way into my heart~

The way into my heart is Wheeler siblings :x

@rainstormcolors

First of all, I got POLARIS and it was good!

I don’t know what to share about it other than that because it was mostly porn. But I felt like it was kind of sweet and sentimental and Kaiba and Atem going on silly dates at the beginning with gorgeous background details. Also they sit on the throne together at the end and look very in love teehee~

But, yes, thank you for reccing~ I enjoyed a lot~!

BUT- !!! More importantly this finally came in the mail!

To answer your question, it’s a normal rivalshipping anthology. 112 pages, comics and fic~ Exciting things happen like Yuugi and Kaiba playing twister~

And in another story they’re out travelling and having punishment games of some sort and Yuugi gets a beard painted on his face~

AND HIS MOM OMG!! I love when odd characters cameo in my doujins. I think you can tell~

But, no, I lied- I addition to the anthology I got all this other stuff too~

I don’t know. There’s a set of tiny playing cards you have to disentangle. Some have exciting images.

Notably Jounouchi and Atem are the jokers, heh~

I still haven’t checked out the CD. This is a very rushed post where I don’t attempt to read things carefully or any of that~ But it comes with a manual with a bunch of character avatars - lots of expressions for Yuugi and Kaiba, as well as one avatar each for Jou, Anzu, baby Seto, Kisara, and BEWD. So I think it may be a visual novel of sorts. Undetermined~

So now you’ll know what you’re getting if you decide to order, in theory at least. I’m not sure because I bought this off the author’s BOOTH, so idk if the extra merchandise is limited in any manner or if toranoana only sends part of it(?)

ugh, let’s see.

I also got another anthology- a Yuugi-centric one.

It’s mostly rivalshipping, which I’d expect. rivalshipping is really popular in the jp fandom. but, tbh, i enjoyed the more odd ships more-

Like Juudai/Manjoume/Yuugi... Kaiba walks in on the Kohais basically crushing yuugi with love after this it’s so cute~

And Otogi/Yuugi. Ah~ I love the DDM chapters in the manga and how softly Otogi warms up to Yuugi~

A Duel Monsters themed art book I spent too much on~ I’m ashamed to say I don’t recognise a whole lot of the cards

but you’ll recognise Yubel, perhaps~

or the lady that Y!Bakura crossdresses as ;)

and there were quite a few dark magician girls and blue eyeses.

from another illustration book~

and i found a couple of apprenticeshipping doujins on BOOTH, but none of them wow-ed me really~

although I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how Mana inherited the Ring in manga canon. I feel like there are things to consider here. This picture struck me as a result.

Alright~ And now for my favourites~

OMG! A WHOLE DOUJIN ABOUT MALIK AND HIS SIBLINGS!!! I think this one was a predictable fave. I loved it so, sooo much. I was absolutely filled with quality Malik and Rishid moments.

EVERYONE IS SO CUTE!!

Malik and Rishid go biking and run into Mai which is very !!!

There are vacation photographs~

It looks like Malik tries to feed Ra a revival slime and gets eaten himself. I don’t know. But it was good. I’m so happy~ Ishtar family doujins. My life is complete. not really. i can’t die until i finish my fics.

Okay, but my other fave I didn’t see coming at all.

I don’t ship this! I shouted into the void. But nobody really believed her, not even herself. It’s too late for me. I’m just multiship trash. I will ship anything you put in front of me...

Okay, but the real reason I decided to get this was because of this preview panel. Of course I knew it was puzzlleship. But actually I love Mana and vaseshipping for reals. And this was so cute and the art was so pretty I thought- We might as well check the rest of it out~ (the idea of top!Yuugi didn’t hurt either...)

And then jackels happened~ And this kind of ethereal magic stuff~

There was some confusion I think with the cultural imagery in the doujin. Some of it looked vaguely Indic to my untrained eye but- I don’t know what to say, the art was so gorgeous and detailed.

And the smut was all facials and frot so obviously the doujin artist has my gd number, smh.

And Jou appeared near the end, looking amazing, and Jou is automatically about +50 points for any doujin.

I don’t know what to say. Very nice. Would recommend.

Also- just fyi- I do buy doujins for things that aren’t ygo. pls forgive my focus on my ygo obsession tho.

I’m really glad I stumbled across this in the hetalia tag~

And there’s a picture of Tifa being so bad at games at the golden saucer that Nanaki, who doesn’t even have opposable thumbs, can defeat her in PvP. Beautiful~

[the-cryptographer]

Extended notes for LT: Dirt, Mahjong.

On the mahjong match:

In the kind of spirit of early manga yugioh, I wanted to spend a little time talking about games. Mahjong is one of my favourites, and it also fit in easily with how gambling actually happens in East Asia, so~ I kind of wonder, if ygo hadn’t gone the route of Duel Monsters, would we have eventually gotten a Mahjong chapter? It seems prudent to assume so. In fact, in the author notes for ygo R, it mentions that Takahashi is fond of mahjong, and had to restrain himself from going to Akira Ito’s place and interrupting his work to play it.

So, I made a graphic for Joey’s dealt and winning hands. This ended up serving as a guideline from where I wanted to start and where I wanted to end up, the intermediary steps I figured out in the process of writing though. I drew out the tiles on a sheet of paper and crossed out tiles that were thrown out and drew in the ones that replaced them as the pongs came together. I think it was maybe a little cut and dry the way I wrote it but *shrugs*

So, yeah, I decided ahead of time I wanted the hand to begin and end on ‘dragons’, and that Joey would have a pong in his own wind – since wind seems to have a kind of connection (in English at least) with the concept of luck, a windfall. I believe the dragons tiles are really just orientations outside the anglosphere, but the idea of Joey being dealt three ‘White Dragons’, and then drawing the illusive fourth from the wall was somehow amusing to me. It’s not something I’ve ever been able to figure out, but the restoration of the torn fourth Blue Eyes with the other three in Kaiba’s possession, and what that means for Kisara’s soul, has always been a point of interest. In any case, I was shooting for a hand that could call on both the symbolic and spiritual aspects of the series, and not be a completely outlandish point-heavy hand filled with honours. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but I did realise at one point it could have been a lot worse. I kind of cluelessly stumbled upon the moment where Joey exchanges the one bamboo for the red dragon. Both are honours and are awarded special points in winning hands, so the exchange was just meant to be one of sentimentality, but I realised suddenly that it was odd to attach meaning to one of those tiles and not the other. The one bamboo sports the image of a bird, often a peacock. If you’re not aware, Mai’s surname, Kujaku, means peafowl, so it could also be a tile for which there was meaning to discarding. I spent a while trying to decide whether or not to rewrite or change the hand to include either a pong or kong of one bamboo, or otherwise exclude the one bamboo altogether, but I rather didn’t like either of these options. Excluding or ignoring the one bamboo and what is or isn’t pictured on it might make a more direct exclusion of Mai from Jou’s thoughts but, in addition to turning the hand even more ridiculously loaded with symbolism and luck, including a pong/kong of it might put it in a place of narrative comparison with the white dragons, which ended up being central to how I was writing the hand. It would just be such an uneven place of comparison all around, especially since the white dragons – to me at least – are not so directly evocative of Kaiba as much as Kisara, where the peafowl is directly evocative of Mai. …So that’s why Jou makes the comment about the bird on the one bamboo not being a peafowl, which is a copout in its own way, I suppose, but that’s how things were decided. I guess a true ettushipping mahjong hand would have a pong of white dragons, one bamboo decorated with peacocks, east/west wind, red dragons, and a pair of three character for (hitori, futari, sannin) …And I can’t believe this is a question I have now wasted precious time in my life developing an answer for…

On the timeline:

I think the year that this fic takes place in actually became explicit in this chapter – which was probably a mistake ngl. Although it’s been set from the start more or less. Last chapter I remember looking up which movies had an opening weekend to match Anzu’s phone call to Jou. My Big Fat Greek Wedding came out on the 19th of April 2002, which is also Honda’s birthday (whoo hoo) so there’s your explanation for why this got a shout-out during the most recent chapter. Jou, of course, gave Honda the worst birthday present ever (being detained in Kaiba Land for fucking up a roller coaster) but Otogi and Yuugi did their best to make up for it. Mmm, although the scene where Anzu talks about the movie comes before the roller coaster and Yuugi’s drinking party (and thus Honda’s birthday) yeah, it theoretically shouldn’t. It’s spliced in where it is to preserve the narrative flow. It’s kind of one of many ‘issues’ the timeline has. Another is it’s over packed – it vaguely hints at more work days existing than actually fit into the three weeks that have passed since Joey took on this job. Another is just trying to figure out what exactly the fuck did or didn’t exist in Japan in 2002. There’s a decent amount of info on modern Japan on the net, but putting a timeline on it is pretty difficult, especially when you’re trying to go this far back. Did Castor Gold and Marlboro Ice branded cigarettes exist fifteen years back? Who knows. And then I do know for sure that the episode of Azumanga Daioh that Mr Mokie watches with the iromate cat didn’t actually air until August 2002 but- shhhhh, he must just have an advance copy because he works for Kaiba Corp in the entertainment industry- shhhh.

So right now, the fic is nearing the end of April 2002. Golden Week is right around the corner. And I suppose the timeline’s going to stretch far enough to include both Yuugi and Mokuba’s birthdays, and since I went out of my way to talk about Honda’s…

But the bigger issue is maybe why I decided to set this fic in 2002, and thus create a walking disaster of a period piece. An easy answer for 2002, is that the ygo manga began serialisation in 1996, and this fic takes place six years after everyone’s freshman year at Domino High. But it’s more than that of course. In terms of the series itself, I think the early manga has a very 80s/90s aesthetic. I think it’s important that during Battle City there’s this whole drama with Anzu being the only one with a cell phone and so everyone has so much trouble locating each other up until they finally meet at the pier. Although DSoD overwrote and gave everyone smartphones – very comic book time. The rest I think I already said best in chat. Official statement™:

I think I might have talked about this before, but it's exactly because I didn't want the characters to have smartphones and skype [note: iphone debuted in 2007, and skype in 2003] that I set this fic when I did. Now everybody has internet and video chat on their phones so there isn't exactly the same stringency on information flow that there used to be. And back in the 80s and 90s the internet was only readily available to professionals and the college educated so it calls back to a vague class divide between those without internet access - Jou/Honda/Anzu - and those with it - Yuugi/Mai/Seto. Mostly it's just a different dynamic for Jou and Mai's long term relationship though. It's not that long term relationships are easier today or anything, but it's a different dynamic if Jou's constantly checking Mai's facebook and instagram versus having these periodic, self-censored phone calls. And that's just not the dynamic I wanted. Ah, I guess I also feel some nostalgia and affinity for the 90s and the turn of the century, lol. I'm not sure I'm able to capture the aesthetic completely though. in the US this would have been right after 9-11 during the beginning of the Bush administration, so there was this kind of mass anxiety that was being capitalised on at the time. I don't know how it was in Japan, though. I know there was an international kind of wave effect to it, but it's kind of difficult for me to look up info on what things were like outside the Anglosphere. Aha, so I feel like the fic kind of capitalises more on the kind of millennial worries about lack of employment opportunity and hyper-awareness of the world more than properly coming off the 90s aesthetic properly

Anyhow, that’s all for now! Thanks to everyone who indulges me on overthinking my silly Jounouchi story.