#also rishid

[lully-jo]

Ishizu Ishtar doodle cuz she is gorgeous and deserves much love

[deathandnonexistentialdread]

wow there are way more than 5 of you guys and here is pt 2 because what is self control

part 1

[kujakumai]

People seem to be under the impression that Jonouchi hates his dad but he. doesn't. He never says anything like that. The only thing Jou ever says about his relationship with his dad is an earnestly expressed optimism and wish that if he just does well enough then the guy will quit drinking and they will return to a happy family life. He never seems to blame his dad at all, and is instead knee-deep in denial while hiding it from his friends and externalizing the problem--that it's not that his dad is awful, it's the debts, it's the drink, it's that Jonouchi hasn't fixed it yet.

And that's frustrating because we as the audience know that he's 16 and being abused and needs to get the hell out of there, and that as he gets older he'll need to come to terms with those facts. But as far as analyzing past and canon-present behavior goes, I don't think it ever makes sense to say that Jonouchi Is Doing X Because He Hates His Dad. He doesn't. Jonouchi is still deeply attached to the always-just-steps-away fantasy world where his dad cleans up his act and tells him how proud he is and they go play catch together.

[alliebirb]

Had to cut the title slide so: welcome to vol. 2 of brainrotted ygo fan assigns character styles, boys edition!

[superspecial-awesome]

Had another yugioh dream last night. DM got a revival series that wasn't canon and didn't focus on the card game. It was episodic and focused on a different type of game every episode, like the early manga.

The one (1) episode I watched was about Marik doing some public scavenger hunt with a cash reward, and cheating his way through it. And his family kept being like "Marik are you sure you wanna do that" and he insisted that he needed to do anything to win because he was giving all the money to a loved one.

That made his siblings start actively competing against him because the mysterious loved one is someone they didn't think was worth all this because he's "slimy" and so is this strategy. Like they kept emphasizing that this was a slimy guy.

And at the end of the episode he did end up getting the money and it was revealed that the loved one he had done all this for was a pet salamander or something that he really wanted to build a big terrarium for.

[acrylicfirefly]

I was looking at the YGO Master shipping list

and it's no secret that there are LOOOOTS of ships but i'm genuinely surprised that RishidXMahad isn't a ship people have thought of before. I know they could never meet in canon but I feel like that has never stopped people. To be fair, for every time Marik revives Bakura from the millenium ring he could also be reviving Mahad and Alexander the Great sooooooo Also the list has RishidXMai as Falseshipping... a pair so rare the like 4 people that ship it do so independently and have named it different things. I like Soloshipping better

[rainstormcolors]

I felt like pondering how the cast of YGO might answer the question, "what is love?"

I feel Yugi and Jonouchi and Anzu might land on variations of "caring about someone," with Jonouchi and Anzu adding on "passionate about something."

Atem might feel a little taken aback due to his incorporeal status but would also answer in the line of "caring about someone." And also "willing to protect that something or someone."

Seto would also be taken aback. I think he might answer something like "sacrifices." I don't know that he'd want to willingly tie the idea of passion into "love" even if on some level he's aware there can be a connection there in some form. And it's not that the previous characters don't understand "sacrifices" as an answer for love but rather it wasn't so immediate in their minds.

(In the back of his mind, indeed Jonouchi may hold the word "sacrifices" in regards to his family situation.)

Rishid would not be taken aback by the question and would immediately answer "sacrifices" and "loyalty."

Mokuba and Ryo Bakura might answer "caring for" and "routines."

I feel like Malik and Isis would be stumped by this question on a personal level even if they know the "proper answers" to give. And then they may answer, separately, "willing to die for." Both of them.

[devilsgrins]

so about marik and souls...

whether you believe in them or not, the modern idea of a "soul" is typically a single, whole Thing attached to each individual person. right? and for the most part, yugioh doesn't really contest this idea. it's pretty clear that bakura is a single, whole soul attached to the millennium ring, and the same can be said for yami yugi and the millennium puzzle. bakura and ryou are two different souls inhabiting the same body, and yami yugi and yugi are two different souls inhabiting the same body.

however... marik is an anomaly.

it's pretty clear through context clues that he has some kind of dissociative disorder, probably DID, and that yami marik is an alter as opposed to a discrete soul inhabiting marik's body. but for the most part, canon treats them exactly the same as yami yugi/yugi or bakura/ryou (see yami marik and yami yugi's climatic duel during battle city).

and to this i say: what the fuck? is the implication here that dissociative alters have distinct souls from each other? how the fuck does that work? usually one soul = one person, but dissociative alters are not literal whole, separate people—while they may have distinct identities, personalities, appearances, etc., they are ultimately all parts of a whole. DID is also, crucially, a very real mental disorder that has nothing to do with the soul, which is a philosophical concept. what the hell is yugioh saying here?

i've spent a lot of time thinking about this. a lot of time googling. a lot of time in a conversation that led to me positing the question "can you create a soul from nothing?"

you can probably tell all that. and i think i might have reached a solution.

so it turns out that ancient egyptians did not conceive of the soul as one singular entity like many people in the modern day. they believed that the soul had multiple aspects to it. and given that the egyptian gods are literally, actually real in the yugioh universe (see rishid getting smited for playing a fake god card, and also duat just... existing at all), i think it's fair to assume that souls having separate parts to them could also be very plausibly canon.

so, with the aid of ancientegyptonline.co.uk and egyptfwd.org, i have constructed this very professional-looking diagram:

so, basically, marik (the host) and yami marik (his alter) share the khat and ka, but have differing and distinct ren, ba, ib, and shuyet. you can survive without any one of the branches (see atem surviving without his name or memories), but not without all of them or without the trunk, and you cannot exist within the physical world without the roots. when yami marik was trying to destroy marik's soul, he was specifically trying to nuke his ren/ba/ib/shuyet out of existence and replace it fully with his own. and when marik was reaching out to ishizu through anzu, the part of his soul that was inside her body was just a twig off of one of the branches, or even one twig from each branch. this also agrees with what bakura did to get inside the millennium puzzle—he used one twig from each of the branches, and a little bit of the trunk.

(it's important to note that this is not meant to be a historically accurate representation of what the ancient egyptians believed the soul to be, just one inspired by their beliefs that also fits within YGO's canon.)

this... this satisfies me! it's not perfect but i think it's as close as i'm going to get to explaining how plurality works in a universe where souls are literally real and impact the plot at every turn. i hope this satisfies you too (or at least was interesting to read)! i'd love to hear your thoughts 😊

[ramenrescue]

I don't think I can believe that Ishizu can be like, "alright I've taken the necklace off and now I feel 7000 kg lighter" and just start experiencing life like a Well Adjusted Individual Who Didn't Spend Half Of Her Life Underground Under The Watchful Eye Of An Abusive Parent... I think freedom would terrify her, at least, initially. Freedom from preordained visions of the future is just plain uncertainty. For a lady who just spent her whole life following a recipe, following "what she knows is supposed to happen" and "what she thinks she SHOULD do", what is she going to do now that it's taken away from her... I think the newfound "freedom" weighs on her like a pile of bricks.

And it's not just the Abusive Parent and Being Under the Control of the Millennium Item that she needs to get over. There's also that guilt of not being able to protect her siblings. I know Rishid is technically older than her but I still think conceptually she is the "eldest". She is the one who agreed to let Marik outside, she is the one who didn't notice the boobytrap, she is the one gave permission for Rishid to mind the fort, which ended in disaster. She feels like the trigger that started the series of events leading to the death of Mr. Ishtar which led to Marik creating a gang to kill the Pharaoh. Big Sister carries so much!! TT

[everyrishidpanel]

I want to go back and reiterate because the version of this post getting reblogged, while a really good analysis that I really like, kinda loses the point I was making.

This post is, very specifically, about the fact that takahashi wrote a detailed storyline about the horrors of slavery--a real and sensitive real life phenomenon that most stories do not zoom in on because it's extremely distasteful to risk making light of it--and ended that story with "and then the slave owners were nice to him and treated him like a brother and everyone was happy"

This, in context, is the natural conclusion of his arc, because he has never known a meaningful relationship outside of these generally well-meaning people. The fact that it ends this way wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't framed as overtly wholesome, and devoid of the psychological horror that it realistically is. The audience wasn't supposed to think about that. Regardless of the hints of subtle characterization in the story, you're ultimately supposed to empathize with the people with power over him for gaining empathy, instead of empathizing with the person hurt the most by this power imbalance.

The problem is not that Rishid isn't a developed character, it's that he IS one, they just choose to ignore that the second it means they aren't able to handwave slavery away

I just want us all to take a second and acknowledge that like. Rishid is a really fucking weird character right? Like it's weird to have a character who is explicitly a slave and have his entire story being just, dedicating his life to his "master" and eventually getting the hollow title of "family" as his reward right? Can we all just. Keep that in mind. That this is a weird arc.

[bakawitch]

Oh my god

Au where after Mr Bakura fuckin dies from ring/zorc exposure (dsod) and Yami Bakura/Zorc kills Shadi (and the child cult???) Ryou is left alone in the temple. A few days later, representatives from the Ishtar clan arrive, and they decide to take Ryou in since a Millennium Item chose him as its true host. So underground he goes!

Upon his arrival, Forefather (Mr Ishtar) tries to take away the ring from him because surely this heathen can't be the one true bearer of the ring, but the ring spikes dig themselves into poor baby Ryou's chest so that's a no go. Ryou is down for a few days, and Rishid ends up taking care of him during that time. Malik barges in once, demanding Ryou to play with him, but Rishid manages to persuade him to leave Ryou to recover.

After he gets back on his feet, Forefather graciously allows him to keep the ring, and he gets adopted into the Ishtar clan to the same degree as Rishid. So he's sort of like a lower class servant? Rishid and Ryou grow closer while he teaches Ryou about his duties and chores, while Malik gets increasingly more jealous in the background because Rishid is paying some newcomer kid more attention than him. It gets even worse for him when Isis starts babying the timid kid despite Ryou literally being older than him and not even being the sane class as them. He gets a bit more aware of his alter, and he starts getting more withdrawn.

Something happens, which causes Ryou and Malik to get trapped in an abandoned dark room together, and they are forced to confront each other. Malik is fully on the offensive, but Ryou is mostly just trying to diffuse the situation. Malik freaks out when their oil lamp flickers, but Ryou manages to distract him with stories of the surface world. They talk a little, and Ryou opens up about the ring and the voices which Malik can sort of relate to. After the light burns out, Malik nearly snaps and switches, but his new friend(?) is able to soothe him with a big warm hug and maybe lullabies his mother used to sing to him and Amane. Rishid and Isis manage to find them.

Plot progresses as usual, but now Ryou is present. He goes up with Malik and Isis to the surface to show them around and unconsciously lifts the motorcycle magazine Malik liked. When they go back down, they see the Forefather nearly killing Rishid and Malik snaps. Yamima comes out to front and catches the whip midair before it could strike them. Yami B also subtly takes over just in case to protect the host body and to observe. Yamima gets the rod but is embarrassingly clumsy with it, clumsy enough to warrant Bakura tell him the key to using it properly. Isis is mortified but quickly puts two and two together and realises that the baby is possessed by a fuckin demon. Yamima does the murder/skinning bit, and Bakura just laughs. He says goodbye and gives control back to Ryou while Yamima goes after Rishid. Ryou again manages to calm him down and Rishid whisks them away after he comes to, leaving Isis and the rest of the clan behind.

Ryou and Malik grow up and start the Ghouls together. Bakura takes care of a lot of food and resources in the early days, but Ryou eventually learns from him and becomes just as good. He's also trying to tame Yamima part-time, which is not going as well as he'd like.

Timeskip to when Yugi lends the puzzle to the museum. Malik gets notified of the completed puzzle being exhibited in Japan, so he sends Ryou ahead to scout and establish himself as a friendly face to Yugi. The rest of the plot again progresses as normal with the difference of Ryou being a bit more cheeky and pushier than in canon, Bakura and him actually working together and an extra reveal of him being involved Malik the whole time.

I'm gonna cut it off here because I don't know how to continue from here... But rest assured, there's definitely some weird ass conspireshipping dynamics involved here XD

[deathandnonexistentialdread]

look at this sweet ride

[kujakumai]

On the subject of being good with children, which characters do you think WOULD be good babysitters?

YUGIOH CHARACTERS AS BABYSITTERS, RANKED

TOP PICKS:

Seto Kaiba runs an entire company dedicated exclusively to safely entertaining children, and unless his parks are getting continually sued I believe he knows how. Your kindergartner is not only safe with him but will probably leave knowing how to play chess and write in C++. He may allow them to play with knives, but only if they're 9 or over, plus he has all the emergency numbers on speed-dial.

Hiroto Honda babysits his niblings on the regular. Can warm a bottle and change a diaper. A level-headed and practical guy. He’ll be fine as long as his friends don't drag him into a horrible game-themed deathtrap. Don't ask why that caveat exists.

Rishid Ishtar is safe, experienced, has dad energy, however he will crumple like wet paper at the first sign of conflict re: ice cream for dinner / no bedtime / blood-soaked cross-country quest for revenge / an extra episode of cartoons over the screentime limit.

Ishizu Ishtar would make a great babysitter. I don't really have a quirky joke here she just would.

"MAYBE"S

Jonouchi used to watch his little sister and I think he'll do about as well as any other teenager you're paying minimum wage, and with a lot of earnest enthusiasm. Your child will be fine at the end of the night, though they will probably have eaten some junk food and played a T rated videogame.

I do not think Atem would know what to do with a baby, and may panic about it, though if you have an older child he will be happy to offer a rousing speech and some deep-voiced mentorlike advice while teaching them to play board games. Not a bad choice, just try not to leave him with anyone under seven.

Yugi knows zilch about kids and often appears a little annoyed by them. Same general rules as Atem--do not leave him with a baby, but he'll probably just teach an older kid to play shogi or something.

Mai Kujaku will put the kid in front of the television and order pizza while she paints her nails. Honestly, though, what more are you paying her for?

Listen, I love Anzu. I do. She’s smart, driven, and big-hearted, but she is also sort of short-tempered and impatient, and patience is like 90% of child-rearing. Please do not ask Anzu Mazaki to watch your children. She WILL say yes because she needs the money, and she WILL go into it with optimism and gumption, and yes, both she and your child will both be in one piece at the end of the night, but it will be clear from both of their frazzled expressions that she lost most of her sanity an hour in after the fifth "Why?"

DEFINITELY NOT

Ryou Bakura would in theory be a perfectly good, if kind of spacey, babysitter, but you cannot trust him to remain Ryou Bakura, and the other guy is definitely not someone you want anywhere near your children.

I don't think Marik Ishtar has ever interacted with a child for very long and the number of people he talks to that are even his own age is in the single digits. And he is definitely not getting spat on or dealing with any bathroom stuff. I'm not saying he can't figure it out but the learning curve is going to be steep.

I have to put Yami Bakura here in principle and yet for some reason I think it wouldn't go that bad? I mean he definitely doesn't care about the safety of your child. And he may enlist them to the armies of darkness. And he's not cleaning anything up. But he's like, a weird socially awkward over-the-top guy? And children love those? Honestly I think they would both have fun. For at least an hour until everything goes horribly wrong.

Please do not summon Zork Necrophades to babysit your child.

[yugiohmangaoutofcontext]

i do admire the way that the villains in ygo became incredibly nuanced vs how the generic episodic villains of s0/beginning of the manga are (rambling below the cut)

by no means is yami bakura a good guy, but there's the conflict of the fact that he's using the body of a completely innocent person who is also yugi's friend, so you can't just kill him outright or anything. also yami bakura/tkb's motivations are sorta justified, given kul elna. kul elna was labeled "the village of thieves" but who's to say that they were all bad people inherently? i like to think they were just outcasted and/or marginalized and very poor/low class (hierarchy in ancient societies was very rigid, and can still be incredibly rigid today). i mean, the guys that forged the millennium items KNEW what they were doing was fucked up. also marik/yami marik, with yami marik not being a ghost or anything but a literal split in marik's being from his trauma. and the way rishid, despite not being accepted by his adoptive father, was such a devoted brother to their clan and to isis and marik, that he went out of his way to also get carvings to help marik to contain the hatred and evil within him. pegasus is also done wonderfully, he has his own motivations and wasn't a totally evil dude at first. and kaiba is sort of a villain? mainly a constant antagonist/rival, but he changes and grows thanks to yami yugi, and it's revealed that he was fucked up because of trauma also, and he's learning to overcome it and become better as a result of yami yugi helping him, making his relationship with his brother better. i fucking love yugioh man this shit rocks

[superspecial-awesome]

Yugioh DM english localized names list I have no idea who this is gonna be useful for but it's out there now

Feel free to tell me if I missed something or got something wrong.

Jonouchi Katsuya: Joey Wheeler

Anzu Mazaki: T��a Gardner

Hiroto Honda: Tristan Taylor

Other Yugi: Yami

Ryuji Otogi: Duke Devlin

Mai Kujaku: Mai Valentine

Shizuka Kawai: Serenity Wheeler

Pegasus J. Crawford: Maximillion Pegasus

Insector Haga: Weevil Underwood

Dinosaur Ryuzaki: Rex Raptor

Ryota Kajiki: Mako Tsunami

Esper Roba: Espa Roba

Ghost Kotsuzuka: Bonz

Sugoroku Mutou: Solomon Muto

Rishid Ishtar: Odion Ishtar (I'm like 90% sure "Rishid" is also a failed localization of the Japanese spelling of "Rashid" but I'm mostly chosing not to be annoying about the Ishtars' names here)

Rebecca Hopkins: Rebecca Hawkins (Arthur Hopkins got the same last name change)

Miho Nosaka: Melody

Tomoya Hanasaki: Lint Greendale

Isono: Roland

Amelda: Alister

Cyndia Pegasus: Cecelia Pegasus

Princess Mary: Princess Adena

Pandora: Arkana

Doll/Pantomimer: Strings/The Quiet One

Mask of Light: Lumis

Mask of Darkness: Umbra

Mei: Para

Kyū: Dox

Player Killer of Darkness: PaniK

Imitator of Death: Mimic of Doom

Mr. Crocketts: Croquet

Saruwatari: Kemo

Soichiro Ota: Nezbitt

Chikuzen Ouka: Johnson

Konosike Oshita: Gansley

Kogoro Daimon: Leichter

Shuzo Otaki: Adrian Randolph Crump III

Takaido: Sid

Satake: Zygor

Juan: Aaron

Tom: Sam

Miruko: Mikey/Micheal

Barry Ginger: Balfry Ginger

Theodore Iwalaos: Totani Ialos

Essel Jansen: Shane Jordan

Mr. Morita: Coah Morty

Tetsu Ushio: Tetsu Trudge

Blankey: Lucky

Sunny: Skye

[antaresr]

Ok, but listen (and welcome back to another crazy analysis that I came up with out of nowhere because I had a lot of free time)

The Ishtar as representations of the Egyptian gods.

Bastet's mission was to protect the home and symbolizes the joy of living, as she is considered the deity of harmony and happiness. She is the personification of the warm rays of the Sun, she is the representation of femininity and elegance.

Marik was supposed to be the leader of the clan and protect it, but he wanted to be happy and be out of the tombs, he wanted to live, he wanted to be under the sun's rays, plus his hair is blonde, a color associated with the sun, He is handsome, he is masculine and elegant.

Plus his eyes look like cats' eyes if you ask me, with his outlined like the stripes of tabby cats.

But he was traumatized and filled with anger and wanted revenge, so he created Yami Marik.

She was a symbol of strength and power. She was considered the goddess of war and revenge, but also the goddess of healing, she was the protector of the pharaohs and guided them in war.

In some cases she was considered an ally and protector of Ra, since she killed those who dared to confront or attack the divine or earthly monarchy.

She had an insatiable bloodlust, to such a degree that she did not distinguish between allies or enemies.

Like YamiMa, he is powerful, the representation of Marik's fight and revenge, he protected Marik from everything that could harm him to keep him safe, he caused death/coma to those who stood in the way of Marik's wishes (Jounouichi , Mai, Rishid, his father).

Plus we've all seen the thousands of references to YamiMa's hair to a lion's mane and both YamiMa and Sekhmet have many names.

And YamiMa only calmed down when he saw Rishid.

She represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality and maternal care, and acted as consort to various male deities and mother to their children. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. She served as a wet nurse for the king and his court, and in this way she fed all the people of Egypt since the prosperity of the country was closely linked to the health, well-being and stability of the king.

She was part of the divine entourage that accompanied Ra as he sailed through the sky in his boat.

Rishid was a fundamental part of Marik's upbringing, he was like a father to him, replacing the biological father as a wet nurse, he wanted Marik's happiness, he loved him like a brother and took care of him like a father, he took the punishment when Marik and Ishizu came out of the tombs, and he wanted to take Marik's place in the ritual to avoid the pain and trauma it would cause him.

He was also part of the Ghouls to continue with Marik, after leaving the tombs, we can assume that he was the one who was in charge of maintaining his mental and physical health.

But his role as a father was also slightly overshadowed by Ishizu.

She is typically depicted as the generous and selfless mother, wife, and protector who puts the interests and well-being of others before her own. She was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was identified with the god Horus. She as well as the most powerful sorceress Egypt ever saw. With this power she managed to save her son Horus, but she also became the patron goddess of people who practiced magic.

Ishizu is the selfless mother who fulfills the role assigned to her, fulfilling her duty to the pharaoh was important and almost a priority, however when it came to her brothers, mainly Marik, she did not mind leaving her duty relegated in favor of hera brother's well-being.

Just like Isis, she sought help from humanity (Yugi and company) to unite the pieces of her brother and return him to normal.

She is feminine, selfless, protective, maternal, she took care of Marik when they were children, stopping living her own childhood so that Marik could be happy, she helped him see what it was like outside the tombs because that is what he wanted to do.

Furthermore it is quite clear that she is Isis when we remember that her past life in ancient Egypt was called that.