#and other barians were normal

[ficklerhythmgamer]

i drew this when Shark was in his barian denial phase.

it's supposed to be some other text here but i haven't come up with it sorry

[raemanzu]

Duel Nature

@zexalmonth

D - Duel

This little one-shot takes place basically during the last episode of the series, because I felt kind of cheated by how rushed the ending was.

Yuma wants to connect with Vector after all the Barians are revived, and what better way than a duel between friends? But Vector already has enough battles to fight.

----

            They materialized on the school roof, of all places. All of them at once, coming to on the ground, like they’d all been part of some bullshit revival meeting—ha, revival, literally—and only fainted, not straight-up died.

            For a moment, Vector thought to himself that this had to be some new form of hell. Perhaps the last dying gasp of his consciousness was playing tricks on him, or whatever fragment of him still remained within Don Thousand was being kept as a plaything—it would be fitting. But there was Astral, the smug glowing bastard, descending from the sky like the saint every one of his kind thought they were.  

            Wait. No, he wasn’t there, not fully. Vector couldn’t feel his presence like he normally could.

            “What the hell?” Nasch was standing up, in his stupidly teenage body holding his head of stupidly teenage hair in his hands and grimacing. “We’re alive?”

            We. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.

            Vector reached out to create a portal, to get away from Nasch and the other emperors before they all inevitably turned their attention to him, the guy who’d stabbed every last one of them in the back, and—nothing happened.

            There was nothing there.

            Don’t panic. Vector affixed a manic grin onto his face and shoved his errant hands into the pockets of his pants, noting with relief that at least he hadn’t been revived in the idiotic school uniform. Instead his favorite black and white coat was a reassuring weight on his shoulders. Small mercies. Think.

            The last thing he remembered was the torrential wind, the rock crumbling under his fingers, getting sucked into… well…

            Vector felt as if that same invisible hand was squeezing his core again and sucked in a breath, arm twitching with the urge to cover his chest with one hand. Bright red eyes flashed in his memory, and his empty stomach twisted.

            No, there was something else. A sense of time passing, like he’d merely been asleep. And he’d felt Astral’s presence somewhere close, unmistakably. That unnervingly clear resonance, artificial, perfect.

            “I have used the numeron code to revive all of you,” Astral was saying, “because that is Yuma’s wish. These human bodies are yours to use as you desire, and will age and die the same as other humans’. Earth is your home now.”

            Nasch looked stunned by this, until Yuma leapt down from who-knows-where like a whooping cannonball. “Shark!! Alito! Shark sis! Ahh, Astral, it worked!!”

            The sound of his so-happy-I-could-cry voice shouting out the rest of their names was like razors in Vector’s chest.

            “It’s Rio,” Merag snapped. “Or Merag, pick one!”

            Yuma was too busy jumping Nasch, who honestly might have hit his head and lost all power of speech judging by the incoherent noises coming from his mouth.

            Vector took a step backward, unable to tear his eyes off the sight. Yuma, the last hand that had touched his, promising to—

            He turned abruptly for the door to the stairs, skin prickling with chills.

            His hand touched the knob. “Vector,” Mizael said, and that’s the push he needs to hurry up and yank it open, slipping through before anyone else can say a thing.   

            With the door closed, he couldn’t hear their voices anymore. Still not a whisper of resonance, either.

            Just humans, now? Forever? Until he dies again—what, of old age? The thought was so wrong Vector heard a breathless laugh escape him as he hurried down the stairs.

            The laugh quickly turned to an embarrassing squawk as a glowing yellow hand gripped his arm and threw him against the wall. Ow. Fuck.

            “Where are you sneaking off to?” Mizael’s pompous voice always made Vector fantasize about snipping off that stupid hair-wing (ear??) with a little concentrated chaos, and he wondered if it had that effect on anyone else. It had to, right?

            “Ohoh, Miza-chan, you already miss me that much?” Vector strained to keep a suave voice. That was the problem with human bodies. They had inconvenient things like lungs and throats and flight instincts. And were too easy to pin against walls by someone with a body of condensed energy and crystal.

            And why the hell was Mizael Barian anyway?!

            “Don’t bother to lie. You’re always up to something.”

            “Too bad, our private time is already getting interrupted~!” Vector hated the frayed edge of his own voice and forced his face into a foxlike grin as he saw the unmistakable burst of light and color heralding the arrival of several other Barians.

            One, two, three, four, five.

            And Astral, floating in through the ceiling.

            Vector realized with a bitter taste in his mouth that the only human heart pounding in this damn stairwell was his. And no matter how desperately he reached for that easy familiar power, it was gone.

            “Let him go, Mizael,” Nasch ordered calmly.

            Mizael made a reluctant noise. “And what? Let him slink off to scheme up even more ways to betray the rest of us?”

            Ugh, he could feel Nasch’s eyes on him. That much hadn’t changed. That pompous, benevolent stare, measuring him up, deciding just how much pre-emptive disapproval to dish out. Vector looked carelessly toward the ceiling instead, keeping everyone in his periphery, and sighed as if this was all just a minor annoyance.

            “The war for Barian world is over,” Nasch mutters. “We lost.”

            Vector thought he had no feeling left in him for Barian world. But something about the defeated voice Nasch just used really pissed him off.

            “Oh, Astral, you really wiped it all out?” A tiny hint of Shingetsu’s whiny voice broke through. “Then just took the seven of us back home to be your pets? I didn’t know you had such a taste for the exotic~”

            Right then the sound of Yuma’s feet pounding on the stairs above them made Vector’s stupid human heart literally skip a beat, and not in a cute way—in fact it made him wonder if it was trying to stop entirely. That would have been convenient.

            “Wait up, guys!” Yuma panted desperately.

            Mizael let go of Vector’s arm with a hmph, but Girag had moved his bulk to block the path going down, so all Vector could do was straighten up and think fast. Nasch turned human again first as Yuma approached, then the others, but not so fast that Yuma didn’t catch sight of the transformation as he rounded the corner, panting and rosy-cheeked.

            “W-what’re you all in such a hurry for?” Yuma laughed. “I mean, you can do whatever you want now that you’re alive again, but since the big fight is over, I was hoping we could all just be friends!”

            Awkward silence. Nasch and Alito started to talk at the same time, then stopped and gave each other looks.

            “To answer your question, Vector,” Astral said solemnly, “I did not destroy Barian world. It has been merged with Astral world, and all the souls that existed within each world now exist side by side.”

            “All except for us,” Durbe said thoughtfully, adjusting his glasses.

            Astral nodded once. “Yuma thought you all deserved a second chance, considering the way your human lives were cut short by Don Thousand’s manipulations.”

            Yuma’s presence was bad enough on its own. But Vector was going to be damned—well, he already was—if he gave the other former emperors time to realize just how short his end of the stick was this time. Assuming they didn’t already know, in which case he wasn’t going to give them time to rub it in his face either.

            “Yuma-kun~!” Vector cried out, just the slightest edge of Shingetsu still clinging on. “So you defeated Don Thousand after all?”

            “Yeah!” Yuma looks thrilled, though there is a flicker of something in his eyes that Vector instinctively turns away from. “You don’t have to worry anymore. Uh, any of you! So, how about it? We’re not enemies anymore, right?”

            “To exist in this world as humans means we will need some form of income,” Durbe said.

            Astral pointed to each of them in turn, somewhere near their pockets. “I took the liberty of giving you all a modest starting amount. Yuma reminded me that Shark has quite a lot of money and a rather large mansion as well.”

            Nasch makes an odd face with his shoulders tensed, like he’s suppressing his initial instinct to grimace. “Uh, yeah, you guys can crash there until you get your own places I guess.”

            “I’m sure it’s for the best if I get a start on looking right away,” Vector said, a sharp edge slipping through the sickening sweet of his voice. “So excuse me please, Girag~”

            Girag stepped aside at Nasch’s nod of permission, and with another prickle of feeling all their eyes on his neck, Vector hurried—but not too fast—down the stairs.

            “Hey, wait right here, okay guys? I’ll be right back!” Yuma’s cheerful voice was already faint enough Vector could only just hear it.

            Shit. Shit shit shit. He’d just been reaching into his pocket to see what Astral thought was a modest amount of cash. Vector looked for somewhere to hide. It would be so easy if he could just portal away like usual.

            But there was nowhere except the nearest exit from the stairwell. He rushed for it and was halfway down the hall when the door clacked back open behind him. Ugh. There was no helping it.

            At least the others weren’t watching.

            “Shinge—ah—Vect—ehh, what should I call you??” Yuma laughed awkwardly as he approached.

            “Vector,” Vector said in a low voice, not turning around.

            Those puppy-like footsteps stumbled to a halt a little ways behind him. “O-okay, Vector! Hey, I was just coming to say, if you don’t want to stay with the other guys, you can come stay with me!”

            This guy. Was he serious?

            Heat crept up Vector’s back. Not so strange, really. Yuma was like a human sun, burning into him even when his eyes were closed, and in front of Vector, all that existed was the black scar of his own shadow, distorting the hallway floor like another gateway to hell. Sweat trickled down his back. Ugh. Sweat. The smell of his own fear and human­-ness was already rising from inside his jacket. And his stomach felt hollow and cramped.

            He was going to have to eat soon. Sleep. Piss. Shower. Get a job… what a joke. Hilarious! Astral sure had a sadistic sense of humor. Either that or he was much more oblivious than Vector had thought, setting Vector up with the perfect excuse to tug on Yuma’s heart strings. It would be so easy.

            Pull out the waterworks. Turn around with tears in his eyes. Yuma-kun, I think I’m the only one who can’t access my Barian powers! The others are going to murder me in my sleep if I don’t stay with you. But I don’t want to cause any more trouble….

            And then. And then. He would be the fox invited into the hen-house. Curl up and play with the foolish little chick who thought he could be friends with someone who’d just as soon swallow him whole. Bat the dumb kid around a bit while he giggles, not even realizing he’s getting slowly crushed by this “game.” How could Vector do anything else? It was just his nature, like a cat chasing a mouse. And Yuma was such a good mouse.

            “Vector?” Yuma’s voice was a little breathless, and too close.            

            Vector turned sideways with half a glare out the window, still not looking directly at him. Yeah, like the sun… too dangerous to stare at for long.

            “Yuma… you’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

            Yuma laughed. Of course he did. A sheepish little laugh, scratching his head and waving his hands.

            “Everybody says that! But I’m just glad you’re okay now.”

            “Yeah….” Vector said distantly, a strange buzzing feeling beginning under his skin. Like an inverted sense of resonance, like a phantom limb, like the part of him that had been Barian had simply gone numb and was coming back as pins and needles. For a moment it excited him, but when there was still no response to his reach for power, he realized he was shivering. No, this wasn’t a sudden awakening. Maybe it was more like a premonition of an addict’s withdrawal.

            Yuma, to his credit, hadn’t touched him yet. He wasn’t even quite within arm’s reach. From the little Vector could see out of the corner of his eye, Yuma’s smile wavered for a moment, then burst back brighter.

            “What do you want, Yuma?” Vector asked, with false politeness.

            “I, uhhhh… I want to duel you!” Yuma burst out.

“Duel?” Vector let the incredulous slant to his voice stay. “You want me to duel you? Again? How long has it even been since you were last dueling for your life? Haven’t you had enough by now?” Something was seriously wrong with this kid. Maybe he really did get off on near-death experiences.

Yuma wasn’t intimidated, still laughing nervously. “But it’s the best way for me to know what you’re feeling right now so—!” He groped for his duel disk.

            Vector couldn’t help it. A sick laugh burst from him. “Yuma… What am I supposed to duel you with?” He spread his empty hands, indicating his lack of disk, d-gazer, or even deck. “And what for? To understand one another? I already understand you perfectly!”

            But how could he, when Yuma was so beyond logic. Was his will to save Vector actually unbreakable? All Vector knew was that he never, ever wanted to find out. No, there would be no more dueling with Yuma. If that shred of a conscience Yuma believed in really still existed, Vector would have to refrain from taking such bait.

            “Well, dueling is fun!” Yuma said stubbornly with a childish pout. “Can’t we just duel as friends for once?”

            “Maybe later,” Vector sighed airily, though his lungs felt like they were operating at half-capacity as it was. “I have things to take care of and youhave lots of other friends to catch up with, don’t you? So, I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Yuma-kun.”

            Yuma lit up at this reassurance, just as Vector hoped he would. “Yeah!! See you tomorrow, Shi—v-Vector! Ahaha!”

            He gave Vector a big thumbs-up and, though it cost him about five years of whatever his new human lifespan is, Vector gave him one back—barely restraining the impulse to cringe when Yuma taps knuckles with him—before turning to walk away.

            He didn’t hear Yuma’s footsteps withdraw, and so he didn’t look back over his shoulder until he’s turned the corner toward the building’s exit.

            The act was worth it. Even three more minutes of being in Yuma’s orbit might have destroyed his resolve. As it was, his mind still raced with the perverse impulse to think ahead, to anticipate another meeting, another chance to—what?

            No. He was going to stay far, far away from Yuma and all the other Barians. And do what? All his ambition, all his drive, it was just the restless energy of a rabid animal. He could duel (once he managed to build a deck, he thought bitterly), but it would have to be with enemies. Enemies or nobodies. People who didn’t matter, who didn’t know what he once was, and didn’t know what he was (what was he?) now. Vector chewed his thumbnail as his shoulders crept up toward his ears, the sun setting to his right as he set out on the nearest path to the waterfront. The water itself was blindingly glittering when he came within sight of it, the light breeze a bit warm. He wanted to close his eyes against it but couldn’t help staring at the dazzling brightness.

            It was going to be gone soon. The sun was setting.

            To his left, his shadow was so long it crept up a building on the opposite side of the street. And when he looked at it directly, the neon afterimage of the glittering light on the water swam and danced on the darkness of it like mosquito larvae in a pond, expanding and swelling into the reaching pale sickly hands of ghosts.

            He closed his eyes, but they were still there, even closer, behind his eyelids, the afterimage burning and burning until he was panting and all he could do was turn back toward the light in desperation.

            At a bench on the edge of the water, he sat, watching the sun go down. He let his eyes take in every last ray, knowing exactly what would be waiting for him in the shadows when it was gone.

[twinkleember]

My Homie challenged me with this.

Character: Number 96, Dark Mist, Black Mist, Anger issues ghost.

Character ask game!

A classic character ask game lol, but with a little deeper digging into them

Send a character and a number/several numbers, and i'll answer:

My first impression of them Honestly? I saw him as a facebook icon from my homie and thought he was super weird.

When I think I truly started to like them Until I got to see clips of his personality. Now I smother myself in Mist content.

A song that reminds me of them Solence - Heaven

How many people I ship them with I have two AU's for him. so....two.

My favorite ship of them Dats a secret.

My least favorite ship of them Tentacle/Lock ship - Just personal preference. I don't hate it. I just find it odd.

A quote of them that you remember "Sentimental mumbo-jumbo" "Because I can."

Your favorite outfit of them er.....he's naked? but I do like the human clothing I gave him haha.

Your least favorite outfit of them again. he be naked.

Describe the character in one sentence Impulsive, quick to anger, loveable douchebag.

What’s the first thing you think about when thinking about the character? The character I ship with him. and his dub voice. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Sexuality hc! Normally? very gay. but depending on the AU. Prolly Pan.

Your favorite friendship they have I wouldn't say friendship. If we go by AU. its more acquaintance? but if we go by canon. Joining Astral and yuma as an 'ally' in that one duel. He's a fussy potato :/

Best storyline they had Any time he was visible in the show. gimme more screen time you lovable douche!

Worst storyline they had We dun talk about this stupid Puppet.

A childhood headcanon When he was a wee ink bloob. nah seriously. He didn't have one lol.

What do you think their first word was? "it means, when you dropped your key I was able to escape." aww babies first words of potential malice!

How do you think they were as a kid? (Like, were they shy, noisy, wild, etc) Aggressive chaos bloob noises.

The most random ship you've seen people have with them Vector and Mist? I dunno. I don't see many other ships around with him specifically with canon characters.

A weird headcanon When Mist is all soft and caring...for some reason.

When do you think they were at their happiest? When he took steroids/Chaos/Barian power form.

When do you think they were at their lowest? I guess when he got so salty/mad at Astral in the temple duel. Not gunna lie, it made me chuckle.

Future headcanon No puppet allowed! if he yeeted himself to get to Astral. There would be an alternative to restore him and have him be a further pain in the ass.

What do you think is a secret they have that they never told anyone? Swiggity swooty, Comin for that Astral booty~

When do you think they acted the most ooc I don't recall he ever did? I would beat him with a rolled up newspaper if he did. Get back to being evil!

When do you think they were being "themselves" the most? every time his ass appeared on screen?

If they could meet a character from another show/movie/etc, who would be the most fun for them to meet? I'm going video game. Diablo from Diablo 3. They both want power and destruction and both look fabulous.

The most unnecessary thing they ever did? When he possessed the major. like. I understand you were screwing with humans, but I don't think you can get very far my dude xD

How do you think they would be as a parent? (and if they are a parent, how do you think they would be if they weren't?) I aint touching this with a ten foot pole.

The funniest scene they had?

not so much scene. More like how he can be such a salty sandra and get super mad when things don't go his way.

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/ask-games-from-a-weird-girl/673569359300640768/character-ask-game

[beathewithdrawn]

So Alito came to Duel Links yesterday and looks absolutely adorable pretty good - but it seems he's suffering from the same amnesia as Girag did because we're reliving the anime's storyline again, word for word.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing - it just kind of contradicts what Yuma and Astral said around the initial time of unlocking the ZEXAL world (I can't remember exactly what they said, but it was something about Astral commenting on how they'd 'lost the Numbers again', and just being weirded out by Duel Links in general). It's definitely weird because there were moments when Yuma and Astral said things that implied they had arrived in Duel Links after all the tumultuous events that occurred in ZEXAL - post-canon, basically.

So what does this mean?

Possibly that Alito's event is almost like a memory of what happened prior - like we are actually reliving those moments from the anime, and once we've unlocked Alito he'll interact with the other characters normally like he's known them for a while now.

It's worth noting we can't yet unlock Alito so his unlock event might have some different theme - though I'm guessing it'll follow his Duel with Yuma, and maybe cover that part of the storyline - and possibly show him getting beaten up by Rei/Ray, which might hint at Vector being the next unlock (this kind of goes against the order of their appearance in the anime - but then getting Quinton this late was insane and I'm still convinced he's only here because the fans pushed for it). This is all speculation, but I think there is a fair chance at least that Alito's unlock event will be themed on his Duel with Yuma (maybe not the initial one he has over Tori but the one he has after when he morphs into his Barian form).

Whatever happens I hope the rest of the Barians come out looking this freaking adorable good.

[dungeonsandkobolds]

Revolution Session

Just realized I forgot to post about the revolution session so here’s how went:

- The Totally Normal Fighter (we swear) who’s a noble missed last session so he was doing some prior clean up with the guards and then brought the guards to the strike

- He then promptly set up essentially the red cross and flew to the sorcerer to be like wtf is happening

- The Sorcerer who had very successfully snuck in with some union reps and done some negotiation between them and the Lord and Lady went outside to see everything was on fire and the Warlock was storming the manor house with the people

- Tense conversation ensues about everything being on fire and the Warlock messing up the Good negotiations

- One of the union reps is like ‘oh shit we don’t have a fire brigade and everything is on fire’

- Bard-barian who is on the other side of the walls surrounding the manor house and is from the city has the same thought and starts running to the wizard’s uni to put out the fire

- Druid spends most of the rest of their time trying desperately to convince the rich people in surrounding houses to flee before their house goes on fire

- Totally Normal Fighter grabs the Sorcerer and gets a rundown on what the Hell is happening while the Warlock continues to cause chaos and fight the elite guards who are now attacking the people who are trying to storm the Manor

- The Witch who had previously been chilling in the Thieves’ Tavern decides to fly over on her broom cautiously and see what is happening

- Totally Normal Fighter and Sorcerer start tearing through the house trying to find the Lord and Lady again

- Witch drops a previously used Dust of Dryness pellet now containing 15x15ft cube of water from a great height onto the fire, putting out the fire, taking most of the front of the house with it, and essentially taking a fire hose to the crowd gathered

- Totally Normal Fighter and Sorcerer find the Lord and Lady in a secret panic room with a mostly completed teleport circle, Sorcerer scuffs the circle so it won’t work. Totally Normal Fighter uses his standing as a noble to convince them to talk to the people

- Witch and Druid are helping the red cross with their efforts to recover and heal unconscious people

- Totally Normal Fighter and Sorcerer appear at the top of the stairs just as The People and Warlock storm the house

- Druid and Witch stand in the doorway as a tense stand-off happens

- This entire time Bard-barian has been running to get the wizards, barrelling through guards, children, carts, anything in her way. And a whole host of Evocation Wizards appears in the front yard of the Manor as this stand off is happening

- Union Leader turns to Witch and goes ‘ah you’re that child that tried to rob my warehouse that Sorcerer told me they sent for cause you might have the necromantic necklace that started this, you’ll have to come inside with the item’

- Witch is 13 and does not like this pressure so teleports backwards 30ft and tries to hide

- Negotiations ensue in which, honestly I’m so proud of how in character everyone were, but they manage to negotiate a happy peace where the Lord and Lady are essentially figureheads (so the empire won’t come and try and overthrow whoever actually has the power), and there’s a council who actually do run things

[sanchoyo]

arc v episodes 101-115 thoughts under the cut but first....yuyas dad is FINALLY here and I feel bad for being so suspicious of him. but also still Mildly Distrusting bc i KNOW how ygo dads ARE

-NEW OP!!! its very Cool, sounds like smth in ddr. still think believexbelieve and kirifuda are above it but its a solid third place I think. very hard to pick bc theyre all rly Good and the visuals on this one are rly rly good

-strongly disagree w yuya saying 'umm kaito if u card ur enemies ur just as bad as them >:/' dude cmon lol hes fighting against ppl hunting everyone in his city for sport. not the same thing at ALL

-the second shingo fckin said hed duel kaito i was like. well shit rip lol. gon and yuya reluctantly doing the action duel chant with him was so funny pls

-kaitos deck is weird as hell what happened to it. where is your galaxy eyes photon dragon i MISS Her. photon deck > cipher deck just bc photon had his magical girl transformation. i do appreciate how rainbowy cipher dragon is. wait wasnt photon stuff implied to be from another dimension (like, barian/astral stuff, not..arc vs version of Other Dimensions) so..yeah this kaito never got his Space Illness!! hes Healthy Kaito! wild

-ok. so just from yutos like exposition of saying he knows of kaito and his expression is different now (and us seein a flashback to a smiley happy kaito…) …and the lack of orbital and his photon form and the fact he was going to be a duel champion…haruto never got sick in this au version did he? which means faker wouldnt have had to shove tron/kazuma into the barian/astral portal thingy, and faker wouldnt have made a deal w vector or made kaito a numbers hunter? so he could focus on his own goals and live a more normal life I guess? so..does that mean yuma and astral NEVER MET?? DO THEY EVEN EXIST IN THIS WORLD. SAD. like even in a world that seemed to be kinder to kaito by not making his dad such a dick or his bro sick, he still got fucked over by a WAR in the end which is worse than what happened in zexal akjsfkjhn. well. at least this kaito hasnt taken the Moon Trip.

-ohhh my gosh yuto, shun, and ruri in casual clothes hangin out and watching kaito duel (also, this heartland has duel schools! named after card suites! thats fun) shun and kaito must be the same age, right? …so I assume the flashback is when they were 17ish and kaito is 18 now like in zexal? so the attack on heartland took place over the course of a few months to a year (ongoing it seems like but only to get stragglers now…oof) I thought shun, ruri and yuto were all the sameish age but nope. knowing yuzu and yuya are 14 makes me think all the counterparts are the same, so its probably pretty likely all three went to normal (non dueling) school together AND then duel school together, but yuto and ruri are prob in the same age so they mightve been friends first from going to the same school, and ruri later introduced yuto to her brother? so they have a cute lil trio now…this is my headcanon. (it rly does seem like all the yuboys and bracelet girlies were bffs from young ages EXCEPT serena and yuri jkdshfk)

-also can I assume at least SOME of the original characters from zexal are in this universe if not yuma for whatever reason (and prob not any of the barians?) like. would kotori have been goin to school and been in the grade right under yuto/ruri? …I want ruri and her to be bird friends

-the ED is still a dsod commercial booo let me see the ed animation! I had to go look it up on youtube. and its prob my least fav so far sadjfhkj its nice looking but so Plain compared to the others..the song is nice?

-oh my god kaito said he dueled yuto countless times and yet it took him halfway into the duel to realize yuya looked like him. kaito faceblind like me confirmed? also I like how kaito didnt beat yuya SUper fast like jack did the first time lol, makes me think yuyas getting a lot stronger gradually which is fun!

-yuto during the kaito stuff started speaking to yuya? he literally has not regularly done that at all up until this point. was..he able to do that all along and just Never did?? lmao?? not even to pass along messages to his bestie shun??? nope, kaito is Thee Important Guy to talk to yuya abt I Guess haha. good to see him again. also still good that yuya is not Questioning Why yuto is Tagging along inside of him or why that happened in the first place. lol

-yuto rly told yuya YA DONT TELL THEM IM HERE DONT TELL THEM MY SOUL IS IN YOU bro…theyre just gonna assume ur missing forever….yuya NEEDS to let them know lol

-'then my dad rly wasnt a coward!' yuya why is that your reaction to your dad having gone to xyz?? did he rly not tell ur mom at least?? was he helping in the War??? i still am salty he left yuya at home to do that seemingly w/out word of when he could be back or what was going on to at least his WIFE?? I get not telling ur small child maybe but cmon... the xyz ppl called him a coward tho lmaooo??

-ARE ALL THE GIRLS IN FUSION DIMENSION!!! YES!!! GIRL TIME

-14 yr olds HAVE to be in academia…literal child soldiers!!! oh god yuzu!!! (but also I NEED her to go and hang w the other girls lmao) the fact kids regularly run away and the adults are like WE GOTTA SEND HER BACK…chasing her down for it…GOD

-LOVE THE DRAMATIC REVEAL OF ASUKA. AS IF I COULDNT RECOGNIZE HER. I lichrally dont recall anything abt her but im glad to see her again anyway. looks like shes not with academia despite still wearing the uniform LOL. love cyber angels designs too

-on the other hand im very lukewarm to edo being here. hi I Guess u were not my fav in gx nor did I dislike u...just some guy to me... same hat on us both not liking yuyas dad? (I DONT HAVE A VALID REASON I AM JUST SUS ABT HIM AND DONT LIKE HIS VIBES SO FAR. like i GUESS theyre implying hes a good guy but im like :/ ok.)

-yuyas dad. right there. running a duel school for academia runaways. cool? glad hes kinda helping stuff?? god yuzu's reaction to seeing him broke my HEART she is so compassionate and immediately cries out of relief bc she knows how much everyone was worried abt him. she prob was too bc he was prob like an uncle to her...agh

-oh my god yuto POSSESSED YUYA and his eyes turned grey. gonna be real bodysharing is one of my fav tropes and im enjoying yuto being more Active A Lot :3c (also, yuya seemed to be in PAIN before and after yuto did this. so. interesting)

-this monster is AMAZING LOOK AT THOSE STAINED-GLASS WINGS!!! BRO DARK REQUIEM XYZ DRAGON IS EVEN A COOL NAME. LOVE HER

-shun talking to kaito abt the power of friendship was RLY cute and I appreciate his effort BUT HES GONNA BE A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK. HIS WHOLE FAMILY IS CARDED. poor haruto :( (do not care too much for dr faker at all tho tbh)

-ppl rly just accept when yuya says yuto is inside of him. love the ygo universe bc its such a Normal Whatever thing

-106 kicks off with some BOMBSHELLS. leo and yuyas dad worked together to make real solid vision?? I was under the impression his entertainment dueling was created separately but No. they worked together. classic ygo dads moment. and yuyas dad looked tiny baby reiji in the eyes after being asked to be the leader of the lancers and decided to go do stuff on his own anyway to try and TALK to leo. I get it! he didnt want the kid to be involved! understandable actually but he fucked up by going before the system was ready and landed in xyz oof...dumbass moment but I get it. he wanted to try and solve things himself...does he know what leo's plans entail?? can he tell me if so jkdsjfn is it rly just Rule All Dimensions bc thats sooo lame if so

-glad to see a lot of fusion kids were running away and doubting stuff going on… the random girl begging asuka to run away with her…lesbian moment. and shes a nameless bg character. damn. so sad

-yuzus new outfit is SOO cute!! and hair down moment!! need more hair down gel-less hair moments in ygo lol

-there had better be fanart of yuri or fanfics where he has plants (esp venus flytraps and stuff) bc of his deck

-OJAMA MOMENT. YURI CALLING THEM UNPLEASANT TOO LMAOOO says the guy with plants with eyeballs on them!! his reaction was SO funny. he is like a little cat to me. funney little guy. also when it zooms in on him and in the last (or the one before that?) op he has slit eyes sometimes. is that like. for a reason or just stylistic. its FUN

-jesus christ he took 5 of them out in 1 turn! overkill much! but also once again showing him as a Threat. right before he gets teleported AGAIN LMAO yuzu is Immune to Yuri

-YUGO IS IN FUSION TOO?? HOW LONGVE U BEEN HERE BUD I MISSED U

-the…effect yugo has on women.......... ^ (+how serena was constantly kicking/punching him away) hes like a golden retriever JKSDHFJK he just needs to find someone to match his energy!! poor boy 😂

-leo could not look more like a villain if he tried. my god sitting on his chair with THAT villain pose. ordering ppl around but seemingly doing NOTHING himself. his vibes. I RESPECT the aesthetic even tho hes a piece of shit father (the same goes for reijis MOMs vibes, my god its a wonder reiji doesnt have Villainous Mannerisms from being raised by them LMAO)

-NEW GIRL VILLAINS? NEW GIRL VILLAINS? NEW GIRL VILLAINS? NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WERE EVIL WOMEN IN ARC V HELLOOOO

-GRACE AND GLORIA YOURE BOTH SO. CHEFS KISS. MORE EVIL WOMEN ALWAYS. AND AMAZONESS CARDS!!!! OOOOH. >:3

-poor sayaka with her survivors guilt ;^; Feel Bad for Her

-OH!! sayaka uses fairies!!! FAIRY CHEER GIRL IS BACK YES KOTORI DECK LETS GO. I have now decided sayaka, ruri, and kotori were besties. two birds and two fairy users. it just makes Sense!

-'the professor would never send us for duelists of your caliber' they say then keep taunting the kids. my god grace and gloria arent just evil women. theyre MEAN women pro assassins for academia. I am OBSESSED with them. are either of them single

-iron wolf trains design is so funny to me. ive seen the card before but i didnt kno there was a character who used it in the animes...train deck is such a funny concept. beep beep

-I mean Obviously yuya/shun would win against the ladies, but it was very nicely done? gloria/graces strats were cool, they got their LP to an INSANE number before bein taken down and yuya did it with STYLE and a FLARE and put smiles on everyone (sans edo)'s faces which was. good to see. good.

-hey i was gonna say 'edo love ur shoulder fringe thingies' but then…I saw the rest of his fit…what are u WEARING. SNUGGIE??? thought u had beef with xyz but maybe ur mad the barians stole ur fit like HUH. WHAT IS THAT OUTFIT. LMAO. (going to get roasted alive if it turns out he wore this in gx and I just forgot but tbf I remember like. 4 things abt gx. yubel was there. there was a...caveman? dinosaurus guy. he got the dino bone in him and went to space. vampires? that is all. manjoume was there.)

-sayaka's visceral reaction/panic when the obelisk force's monster came out…I knew she had severe anxiety+ptsd but GOD IT MAKES ME SO SAD. PROTECT HER. (+ the chaos named monster being in xyz world…yes. good)

-i think kaito is the only person not to flinch at all during the 2000 interference policy bs. icon

-'i will KILL SAYAKA YUUSHOU'S SON' …I wonder if the literal translation is KILL?? thats what the subs said but my god edo, do u not mean 'turn into a card' kill seems like. well. a bit SEVERE.

-aww edo fuckin. put yuya in a CAGE MATCH. I was hoping we'd get edo v kaito. I am still holding out hope for kaito and jack to interact somehow

-grace wanting to watch while gloria is like UGH LETS GO ALREADY peak sisterisms. …damn they arent gonna keep these women evil are they (they were prob child soldiers too, which, fair enough)

-kaito rly said nO PROB takes out entire obelisk force alone KING SHIT

-this duel prof guy whos name I am not committing to memory (guy with coconut hair) is mad annoying. I miss the actual professor from gx, he at least had cute clothes and lipstick for that certain gnc flair. this dude is like if spock sucked

-oh. ok edo has pants under his robes and stuff. from the side its more obviously like, a cape situation with hangy bits, but, I like my idea that its a snuggie better. </3

-it makes perfect sense why edo is upset but him being like 'I DIDNT SMILE!! I DIDNT!!' is a LITTLE funny. and ofc he would think duels arent supposed to be fun, yuya. my god hes only known them as tools of war! its like goin to someone and being like 'i KNOW guns are scary but where IM FROM all the bullets are marshmallows and we shoot them in each others mouths and into our friendship cocoa so dont worry, I want to understand u by shooting u gently with marshmallow gun :)' and u gotta be like. ok well where im from they are Death Weapons :( HHHH.

-also now that we're seeing more of yuyas dad can I just say. I DONT UNDERSTAND YGO GENETICS. DOES YUYA DYE HIS HAIR??? HIS DAD HAS BLACK HAIR AND HIS MOM IS A REDHEAD. anime genetics in general are screwy but with multicolored hair…its like. it MUST be hair dye right. if we are being honest. in a realistic au where that IS the case do we think yuya has 1. natural black hair or 2. natural orangy hair like his mom 3. some mix of the two (brown hair??) hmm.

-I feel like yuya's performer persona has come out 10000% more in these two past duels than the entire series and i LOVE IT YUYA FEELS LIKE HES GETTIN IN THE GROOVE OF IT. YES. MAKE THEM SMILE BABY. i am smiling too. cute…

-aw edo swapped sides and threw his fake snuggie away. also grace being SO READY TO JOIN YUYA HAHA. even edo and the tyler sisters hear yuya explain 'o ya yutos a guy whos Me from xyz ^^' and theyre like oh ok :) I LOVE HOW THEY ARE JUST. FINE WITH IT. I LIKE when everyone is friends so this is fine.

-kaito putting the fear of god into loser spock. amen

-…ok academia soldiers immediately switching sides and helping was cute. idc if its a bit unrealistic for all the child soldiers to flip that quick. its NICE in theory.

-edo being like 'o ya we can return the carded ppl to normal' casually and everyone being SHOCKED. i …kept forgetting everyone prob thought it was forever Permanent LMAO??? like. obviously /i/ know they return everyone to normal (just bc on a meta level Killing Everyone including minor charas FOREVER is too Much for ygo probably, and itd make academia a LOT more unforgivable imo) but. still. wild

-yuya/yuto speech abt 'yeah, we NEED to forgive to move on, ofc theres unforgivable stuff and thats even more painful but the best we can do is try to make ppl smile' …sweet sentiment. like I get what he means but I also dont 100% believe ppl in xyz would realistically be That WIlling to let academia ppl Help Them jdsafhkj

-so yeah, the cards are being used for Soul Energy or whatever, and edo thinks all the ppl are gonna be reborn. wonder if thats bs from leo or real? and 'reborn' as in like, immediately the same? so more like respawn that reBORN right. anyway what in the world is leo ACTUALLY aiming for bc i still dont believe its some utopia bullshit. hes using child soldiers and kidnapping girls…

-they put shun in A POD?? MAGIC HEALING POD??? HOW IS HE /THAT/ INJURED CMON. WE NEED FIGHTING BIRD. nooo are we rly leaving him in xyz for now boooo :(

-wait we're really going to fusion NOW? are we coming back to xyz after? it feels too SOON we have like 40 eps left, also, we spent way longer in synchro comparatively…

-christ, im GLAD yuyas dad is finally like 'yes ill go, ill take charge and talk to leo' buddy your old pal is using child soldiers and causing genocide, we are a little past trying to get him to egao!!! also how long have u been in fusion, u didnt IMMEDIATELY GO TO DO THIS??? IF UR SO SURE U CAN TALK TO HIM??? annoying asf im sorry i dont have a valid reason to dislike this man but i DO i do dislike him. one thing abt ygo is all the dads usually suck so im just WAITING to hear some SHIT abt him ToT

-dennis is finally back??? I forgot he existed. sorry dennis. you're FUN but not one of my favorites

-i do love all the students being like. NOOO YUYA'S DAD SENSEI STAND DOWN LET US HANDLE DENNIS. fuckin DENNIS trying to be a threat jdsfkj. as if yuyas dad is like, old and weak?? his leg might be injured but my god I seriously doubt he, as a pro duelist, who INVENTED A NEW TYPE OF DUELING, cannot beat DENNIS. funny

-…I do think dennis wouldve lost, but THEY RAN AWAY FROM THE DUEL. how many times has this happened in ygo ever?? wild!! theyre rly going for academia right NOW?? OH GOD ITS HAPPENING. WILL THE BRACELET GIRLS ALL FINALLY MEET UP

-YUYA YUZU REUNION. AGAIN.

-the INSANE BACKFLIPS KAITO JUST DID. I AM ON EP 113. HE JUST. KAITO WERE U A CHEERLEADER AT SOME POINT?? WHAT WAS /THAT/

-kinda mad abt yuzu being relegated to Damsel a bit, but glad she can also protect herself and duel

-yuto is SO funny popping out while yuya homosexually Duels kachidoki right after he says smth like 'bring out ur evil xyz dragon' and yuto says 'wow he rly hates u…' BRO ITS /YOUR/ DRAGON HES TALKING ABT LMAO??? yuto is so. well. im glad after this long, for this arc hes so much more PRESENT

-ok, yuya says smth REALLY interesting to me. he makes a point to be like 'because of how I was dueling back then (against kachidoki the first time, when the Demon Thing overtook him n yuto) I couldnt save kachidoki, but it's different now!' and. yeah? his character development has been kind of subtle, but in MY opinion he went from trying to force himself to smile as …a kind of Repressing of his Real feelings, and to just kinda emptily echoing his dads words without understanding them deeply, to actually wanting others to smile with him because hes Witnessed the Horrors and Injustices and wants to uplift ppl genuinely while honoring his dad too and…idk, it's NICE. I think the Demon thing is Less of an Immediate problem now bc hes! feeling his feelings More or smth? …is the Demon Form a Metaphor. (I know it wont be lol im still mildly worried abt it, esp since we got all the yuboys in the same dimension now..) anyway its nice and i already KNOW hes gonna befriend kachidoki :)

-kachidokis rainbow magic evil tattoos are so fun. love those

-the way yuya is struggling on roller shoes but was a natural on a bike in sychro is SO funny. granted his mom was a biker, so

-yuto's little 'hey are u doing this on purpose…' to yuya my GOD he is SO funny. emo king has JOKES (I think hes being serious which is even funnier actually)

-my god kachidoki's backstory is so sad but hes been fixating on yuya for EIGHT YEARS? yeah they are so. hmm. rotating them in my mind together. kachidoki was willing to make them both lose if it meant yuya losing…and yuya stopped him from doin that…offered him a friendly hand….going to CRY

-this is prob the first time kachidoki got praised like that in a duel too HHHH IM SAD. also why are u walking away, ur in a random dimension king, howre u gettin home? DENNIS? is DENNIS gonna send u home? jdsfkjhk

-my god dennis v kaito. why am I laughing so hard. kaito is like the biggest straightman ever to dennis' silly Menace and…yeah it's very funny to me. kaitos gonna beat his clown ass. kaito is THEE undefeated ygo rival I am not even a little worried

-ok quick card appreciation moment. bubble gardna is so CUTE

-Ok i expected kaito to win. did not expect. DENNIS TO, INSTEAD OF JOINING THEM, TURN HIMSELF INTO A CARD. jeez. ok. this was immediately overshadowed by the fact SERENA BACK!!!! ITS BEEN TOO LONG. HIIII SERENA :D

-…PIRATES ARE CANON. yet another epic win

-Moment. (followed by immediate betrayal, lmao I was wondering why we didn't get to see what she'd been up to and she just gave a vague summary...up to being brainwashed I Guess? unsurprising)

-I'm actually mad at how easily yuzu gets captured and goes along with this tho. bc it looked like serena just..mildly twisted her arm?? s1 yuzu would've fought Harder and been yelling (her being so spirited was one of my fav things abt her!) and they keep making her More of a Damsel and im >:( u still have legs girl! kick! bite! I want u to go down swinging if u must be caught!! struggle more!! damn!!!

-YUYA CAN SKATE ON TIGHT ROPES!!! i think I wondered earlier in this liveblog if he could do Circus Skills and he CAN MY GOD I AM SO VALIDATED RN. LOVE THIS

-reiji, layra, tsukikage, and crow are finally here. about god damn time. AND SORA IS TOO. YAY. why is jack not with them :<

-sora using a kraken monster against the pirate (pirate..cosplayer? lmao) so why DOES academia employ Fake Pirates exactly. like im not complaining I Just Want To Know

-this little?? approving nod and smile reiji gives to sora?? so cute ;_; genuinely glad to have both of them back, reiji is Best Team Leader and sora is very much needed if we're goin to academia (and look..hes all buddy friends with the other lancers now…cute…his FRIENDS…HE HAS FRIENDS NOW.......PROUD OF U DOT COM)

-also very glad yuya was like 'yeah serena wouldnt fucking DO THIS of her own will' and they did establish its Brainwashing. like, good on them for being smart and trusting their friends. refreshing to see

[kallmaker]

I Stand with The T - Public Thread

I Stand with The T - Public Thread preserved from the implosion of Bird Site. Trans people are part of this cis lesbian's queer family.

Why This Post

The post below captures a thread I released on eXTwitter on May 2, 2022.* It’s been roughly 18 months since and I wouldn’t change a word – except the misuse of “whose” in the second paragraph. My account there is dormant.

There are so many lies and intellectually dishonest “What Ifs” being told directly to us, by some of us, about our trans family. It’s their goal to make us feel as if someone else's rights come at the expense of ours. This is the antithesis of feminism and there is nothing radical about it. It's the same old same old same old.

As I've said for years, rights must be universal or they're not rights.

Sisters of the Pen who Shaped Me

My philosophy around these complicated issues comes from learning the words of Judy Grahn, Joan Nestle, Joanna Russ, Octavia Butler, and Dorothy Allison. And so many more. Their fortitude, brilliance, and ability to sit with complexity without being numbed or overwhelmed into inaction are beacons of unity and love in a fractured world.

I am also grateful to my younger kid, who says, "I had a wonderful girlhood and grew up to be a man." It's inspiring to see him pulling together threads of himself that weren't working well together and now increasingly are. His example speaks loudly to me, especially that when I ask what seems a simple question, his first response is, "Well, yes and no. A lot and only sometimes. I can't speak for everyone about that."

I can't speak for everyone about that. A reality that influencers on social media oft ignore when stirring up the coin of their realm: Anger and Fear.

I Miss the Sapphic Community of eXTwitter

Please follow me at any of these sites:

Facebook Threads Bluesky

  Over the past year, the sapphic community on the former Twitter became an oasis of normal in a vast morass of bigotry and "free speech" with the sole intent of bullying others into silence. The monkey-poo-barians were and are at the proverbial gates, which left me feeling anxious and unsafe though I was nearly always among friends.

Since the site has deleted accounts for mainstream journalists, non-partisan sources, and dissenting influencers who pointed out a business model now profiting off hate speech and violence, it's clear our presence there is merely tolerated, as if they simply haven't gotten to us yet. I'm not going back to living like that - it didn't feel good to be at or use the site anymore though I dearly care about the people there.

I posted my "Goodbye Twitter, it's not me, it's you" farewell in September of last year. I have copies of content posted there, and this is one thread that I simply didn't want to lose behind their paywall.

I Stand With the T Thread (unedited)

A thread about LESBIAN. It's long, sorry/not sorry. I #StandWithTheT, people.

I'm a 60+ cis woman whose been a lesbian for 90% of her life. It took me years to say lesbian without inwardly flinching. I fought to use the word and use it proudly. It's my power word.

It's because I have lived with my hard-won lesbian identity all these decades that I can't fathom NOT standing with trans and bi people now.

I didn't arrive at this understanding easily. It took work, help, and mistakes, all of which was worth it in every way.

In yesteryears, we had to make places to be safe. When you claim space, the world wants it back. So we put up walls for the safety of those on one side of them.

There is no wall that will keep out the future, especially a future you've helped bring about. And here we are.

To anyone trying to use LESBIAN as a brick in another wall: I have seen your kind before. You're descendants of the lesbians that told me how I *ought* to like sex or what I *ought* to read, and who I should shun and hate.

You're the same ilk as lesbians who coined phrases like "gold star" and waged forever tedious arguments about what a "real" lesbian is.

If you police other people's identities, you're saying it's okay for others to police you. I read that in the 80s, FFS.

I see you terrifying yourself with one-off examples of some dude who behaved badly to justify your malignant attacks on millions of people as well as your bad faith, intellectually dishonest hand wringing.

This peril you feel is not because a trans person wants to pee.

I get that it's easier to attack people - especially those who can't punch up - instead of ideas. It's easily monetized for one thing.

Fighting ideas means dealing with icky nuances and complexities, and I am right there with you wanting the world to go back to being SIMPLER.

Well, the world never was simpler.

Part of lesbian struggle and history has always been about ENDING gender limitations. Any way a woman can be is therefore the way women are, remember?

Marriage was withheld from same sex couples because of sex boxes on marriage license applications.

Jobs, education, credit, wages - all withheld from women because we were forced to mark F on forms, and that F was legally sanctioned way to police and enforce how we behaved.

The first person I heard argue that her sex did not belong on a job application was a butch lesbian.

Other feminists made this point too, but the emphasis on defying and breaking gender norms was all lesbian for me. I've been "refusing to state" whenever possible for decades.

The evolution of thinking around individual identity has grown exponentially with each subsequent generation. It confounds and blurs the ever-present rules about how any of us can be in the world. It is, in part, *OUR* doing. It. Was. The. Whole. Point.

I am completely aware of our struggles as lesbians, and I know how much heart, blood, sweat, tears, and loss went into creating a Lesbian Nation.

I honor that and was in the smallest way part of it. I am still L.A.B.I.A.: Lesbian Against Boys Invading Anything.

It takes nothing away from the extraordinary achievements of generations of activist lesbians to say our movement was not perfect.

We walled people out because of who they loved or because their journey to a queer life was different from ours. Also true: We changed the world with only our will and persistence because it wasn't like we had money. We fought for every scrap of space to breathe.

Other queer people need space to breathe.

Ask yourself who is making you feel as if it's YOUR air they are taking.

Spoiler: It's the same people it's always been. It's good for them if they pretend air is scarce and we fight over it.

This is an old lesson. Could all y'all hurry up with learning it?

Your attacks on the trans community in the name of lesbian solidarity and history betray both. Worse, they are attacks on yourself. The energy and anger you give to malice and lies about our trans family is coin in the pocket of the same people who WILL come for you next.

The same people who happily point you at the rest of us to make money and consolidate power are targeting trans people like they targeted "Adam & Steve" in the 00s, "Sluts" (women who refuse men) in the 90s, AIDS victims in the 80s, "Groomer" pedophiles in the 70s...

In the language of feminism, you are complicit in your own oppression. Your harm to yourself is harm to our entire community. It weakens all of us and makes it easier to send us back into closets to breathe the scarce air. Again, could y'all hurry up and learn this lesson?

For my trans and bi friends who are tl;dr, some lesbians use "lesbian" in an ugly way to be ugly to you. I know you can't afford to ignore them. You're not alone in having eyes on them.

It seems more true every day: we only have each other. You know you're a writer when, in spite of a boatload of compliments and reactions, all you can see is the misuse of "whose" in the very first tweet.

* Thread Info

URL: https://twitter.com/Kallmaker/status/1521311057544814592 You must be logged in to see it, otherwise the site will tell you the page doesn't even exist. Comments were generally positive though some not-feminists said some ugly things. If respectful discourse didn't work, I blocked them; you may see their comments if you view the thread.

[moonlit-orchid]

No, I think we can all pretty much agree that Yuma would have some abandonment issues.

I can forgive Astral's way of forcing Yuma to duel because Astral's a rational person. Logically, a duel would help Yuma, and logically Yuma would have to be forced into it, because Yuma said himself that he was never gonna ever duel again but then this happened, and Astral knew enough to know that Yuma wouls refuse every offer unless the extreme was used, and also considering just who raised Astral I am not even surprised he thought that it was a good idea. It was a really harsh way of doing it and pretty rushed too, but it makes sense in a way.

But Yuma's parents? How can they just up and leave their kids again? Also this may be bias but I feel horrible for Akari. She had to put her life on hold for Yuma, and instead of letting her have her own life, her parents just leave Yuma with her again. She's literally 21. She's that age where everyone else is slowly making their own lives, their own paths. But her? She's single parenting her little brother with her grandmother because she has no choice. And when her parents come they just leave her to do it again. It's different if she chose to stay at home, but I highly doubt that she ever did. She just... never had a chance.

And yes Yuma's friends are no Team Yugi. Yugi's friends, even with their banter, were so damn loyal to each other it was amazing. The Numbers Club, who are Yuma's most constant friends, I can't see like that. Or any of the others, really. From the ending it seemed they all just went into their own groups; Shark and the Barians, Kite and his stepbrothers the Arclights, ect. But Yuma? Just Tori.

So yeah, Yuma would absolutely have abandonment issues. The adults around him screwed him and his sister over, and his friends all found their own groups, while his best friend had to leave. Yuma's back to where he started: on his own.

Also Yuma says that everything is 'back to how it used to be. Except for Astral'. He sees Astral as his normal. And that is just too much.

So thank goodness they all went to Astral world because I swear if they pulled a DM on us-

*barges in suddenly*

So according to what we know from canon, Yuma’s parents were gone a lot. Even before they were missing. And then they did go missing. Then they returned, and what’s the first thing they do? Leave again. Putting aside personal opinion of them, that’s just a fact. They left on an adventure after they were missing from their family, and based on what’s implied, did so pretty immediately.

And then - Yuma’s whole crew

Listen (“due to plot/bad writing reasons” we’ll say, for sake of mediation) Yuma’s general collective of friends and rivals and crew were not … Awesome? Consistently? (at least agree they were no team Yugi? I’ve not ever seen DM to the fullest ever and I still know that they were no team Yugi.)

Anyway Astral, the one person who became an actual and genuine constant in Yuma’s life. The person who was his confidante, mentor, duel partner, friend and family to a codependent degree, for upwards of anywhere of 6 months . . . Left. Fully left the planet. After tricking him into a duel that he quoted himself “broke Yuma’s heart” which was defended with a “No that was to get back your kattobingu it’s all good hurray anyway goodbye!” I-

Yuma for sure has some level of abandonment trauma after all that. Right?

[husbandomail-archive]

Yes please to the affectionate s/o headcanons with the Barian Emperors.

Nasch is a bit more bold than Shark; he still doesn’t initiate often, but he rarely pulls away now. Instead, when you press yourself to your side and run your hand over his chest or his back, he leans into your touches without even thinking about it. You can feel him tense up when other people are watching, but he’ll still let you do most anything you want.

Merag is much more reserved about affection than she was as Rio. Beforehand, she was constantly badgering for your attention, always wanting some form of contact and not caring what others thought; now, she strategically places other people between herself and you in public. It’s difficult for her to explain the change, but it does make her sad to realize she’s uncomfortable now; to make up for the lack of PDA, she lets you do basically whatever you want behind closed doors.

Dumon is probably the most normal one on this list. If it doesn’t interfere with whatever he’s working on, then you’re allowed to do what you like. You can spend a lot of time leaning over his shoulder while he reads, or playing with his hands, or tracing your fingers up the curves of his back to make him shiver. Like the others, he probably won’t initiate things in public— but the moment you two get home, especially after a long day, he just wants to fall asleep with his head in your lap and your hands in his hair.

Mizar is very similar to how Shark used to be; he’s prickly and can get aggressive if you surprise him. He’s also very invested in his public image, so if he notices you trying to hug him in front of other people or something, he only returns it half-heartedly— he knows ignoring you entirely will probably make you cry, and he hates that idea more than he hates being touched. Honestly though, if nobody’s around, he’s more willing to entertain you— and he’s absolutely weak to you running your hands through his hair, just saying. He keeps it that long for a reason. 

Alito is ecstatic— you’re almost as touchy-feely as he is. He never wants to make you uncomfortable, so the fact that you’re always initiating, holding hands or going in for a hug, makes him happy. He’s definitely not shy and has zero problems with being affectionate in public; he always wants to at least have his arms around you.

Girag gets surprisingly shy with affection. The first time you stretch up and drag him into a hug, he freezes; when he doesn’t return it, you start to let him go and apologize, but then his brain finally kicks into gear and he clamps his hands onto your waist and pulls you back to his chest. He’s among the most starved for affection, so it takes him awhile to adjust, but it’s always fun watching him slowly turn red when you touch him.

Vector and the concept of affection seem like oil and water— and under most circumstances, they would be. For a long while, whenever you try to touch him, he laughs and says something mean as he drags himself out of your grasp; he’s sure you’re just trying to mess with him, and he refuses to fall for it. The longer you keep it up, though, the more frustrated he gets— he didn’t think humans were willing to go this far for just a joke. Eventually he just kind of gives up on getting you to leave him alone. He’ll insist that he doesn’t like it or anything, you’re just too stubborn—

[ineedcroissants]

zexal thoughts pt. 4

(I don’t actually know what number im on but we gonna roll with it)

Alito came out of his coma evil AND sexy. I’m here for it 👀👀

When they scale the mountain to reach Misael’s ruins, Rio stays behind with Kotori, and you KNOW she probably could’ve climbed that mountain faster than all the rest of them, and I’ll forever be salty that they(the writers) ignored her like that

What if the Barians had owl necks? Like Vector makes a snide remark and Misael turns his head a full 180 degrees to say, ”heard you were talking shit, asshole?”

...I... was not prepared for Gilag...to eat the tanuki... my heart is in pieces. By far the most horrific thing to happen in this show

Why’s Rio always gotta be falling off of stuff? She fell off the airship. Vector pushed her off a cliff. She almost fell off the top of the hospital. When she sacrificed herself as Merag, she fell off another cliff. God dang (Update: y’all she fell off a FLIGHT OF STAIRS god dangit )

96’s deck is full of cutlery-based monsters because he’s a tool

Ya know if Yuma and Astral summon something other than Hope in the first two frickin turns, then maybe their opponents wouldn’t always predicting their moves all the time! 

(Keyshipping:”How is Vector always predicting what we’ll do next!?” Shark, from the sidelines and tired of their bullsht,”You have like 70 number cards, how about you SUMMON SOMETHIG OVER THAN HOPE FOR ONCE?”)

After Astral is killed by 96, instead of the normal outro, it’s a montage of Yuma and Astral moments. And it smashed my heart to pieces

[curedeity]

And the River Continues to Flow

Summary: Quattro and Rio are now tied together by a single incident, one that weighs upon them both. But they’ll have to interact at some point, so it may as well be sooner rather than later.

    The hospital smelled sharply of antiseptic and cleaning alcohol, he could almost taste it on his tongue. Like a tangy citrus. White walls were occasionally broken up with windows that looked down at the sprawling city. Quattro could almost convince himself he was looking out for the view alone.

    It was times like this he wished that his family had vanished after the Heartland Tournament, but that was unrealistic. And selfish. Quinton and Kite had a good partnership going, and Quattro couldn’t begrudge his brother for wanting that support. He had only realized how rare and downtrodden Trey’s smiles were after he began hanging out with Yuma’s crew. It was a good thing that his brothers had decided to remain in Heartland and help with the fight against the Barians.

    But it led to moments that Quattro wished, more than anything, he could avoid.

    The old, burned skin that stretched across his hands itched as he ran through his apology. He hadn’t written it down, he wasn’t a nerd like Trey. I’m sorry for being a fucking idiot and playing that card, felt too blasé, and I never meant to harm you, couldn’t capture the swirl of emotions that had been tormenting him back then.

    But it’s not like he had any more time for practice, he was in the hospital already, and he wasn’t just going to skulk around while all the nurses side-eyed him. Quattro knew he dressed oddly, but it was getting a bit rude.

    He stopped in front of a door, checking the room number against the one on his phone. Then again, and a third time just to be certain. Maybe they had left already? It was nice outside, Quattro could imagine them going for a walk.

    Shut up and knock already you coward.

    And so Quattro did.

    Inside he a rustling, and a muffled murmur of voices. After a second, a high-pitched voice that broke in the middle called out, “Come in!”

    The door knob twisted open easily, and the door swung inwards. Quattro’s eyes locked with Rio’s and there was no going back now, no matter how much he wanted to run out of this hospital, this city.

    Shark sat on a chair beside Rio’s bed, glaring at him as he stumbled into the room. Rio, clad in white hospital robes that covered the burns he knew were there, was seated on her bed, flashing him a tiny smile that twitched every few moments.

    Quattro stuffed his hands into his pockets and stood there at the foot of the bed, and for a minute they just looked at each other. He wondered if she saw some maniacal monster, cackling as he turned a life to cinders, or if she saw just the scars he’d been left with too.

    He cleared his throat, hoping that it would encourage someone to speak. That someone would have to be him, of course, he was the one who’d barged into their space. “Hey,” he greeted, and hoped he hid his immediate cringe.

    “Yo,” Rio responded faintly, and even gave him a little wave. Just a little twitch of the hand back and forth. The hospital robe slid down her arm as she lifted it, and revealed old burned skin. 

    Rio immediately drew her hand back, like she was just as embarrassed as he was. Quattro had to swallow the urge to laugh, to break the tension, because he was pretty sure Shark would punch him if he did so. And Quattro wasn’t one to take a punch without returning the gesture, and the hospital really wouldn’t like a fight.

    “Uh…” Quattro rubbed the back of his neck, glancing around to see if there was a chair he could sit down at. There wasn’t, he didn’t even know why he wanted it, there was no way he was staying along here for longer than it took to say his piece, not like either of them would want him to. “I just, I guess, I came here to-”

    Rio cut off his babbling, her hands curling into fists around her bedsheets, and she blurted out. “Battle me!”

    Quattro had never thought he could slip while standing still, but he almost did at that moment. Words jumbled and fragmented in his head as he tried to make sense of this new information.

    What the fuck?

    “You wanna battle me?” Quattro checked, and was glad he had actually responded with a coherent sentence.

    Rio nodded her head, up and down, bobbing frantically, Her eyes remained fixed on him, darting over his form and cataloguing him. “Yeah, we never finished our last duel, and I can’t let it end like that! I’m a duelist, so I’ve gotta grind you into dust!” To emphasize that, she slapped a fist into her palm. 

    Quattro could remember every move made in their last duel, he could remember how they’d blocked and countered each other, neither able to pull ahead. Until Quattro had drawn the card. Until Quattro had made one of the worst decisions in his life.

    And wasn’t it crazy that nearly burning a girl alive didn’t top his “worst moments” list? No, that’s where torturing Hart was.

    Quattro couldn’t say he had never wondered how the duel would end, but most of that was fantasy of what would’ve happened to him if he hadn’t played that card. Would he have been welcome back home still? Would Fa--Vetrix have been more reasonable?

He had never thought Rio would also want to finish their duel.

So, he pulled out his deck, and on the countertop they played.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Rio had been discharged from the hospital, finally! It had gotten really boring, sitting around in those blank rooms looking at blank things and waiting for blank doctors to do their thing.

    She had bugged Reginald into tutoring her so she could catch up with her schoolwork. Out of the duo, she had always been the most academic, so Reginald’s help wasn’t the best, but at least it meant she had reviewed some content!

    She was already enrolled in Reginald’s school, so she would be starting there next week! She had to complete the necessary science review ahead of time, but she should have enough time to finish the twenty page packet.

    Rio was not going to fall behind, not going to let her coma even pause her ascent. Rio had not worked that hard to become an A student and a tournament duelist to let it all go to waste because she had decided to take a year long nap. 

    There were very few of her possessions in the hospital room, not that she had much to begin with. There was her deck, and a new booster pack Reginald had gifted her. There were clothes that she hadn’t had a chance to wear. There was the journal, one of a pair she and Reginald had brought. 

    It shouldn’t have been that much to take over to their new home, Heartland Tower. Rio didn’t know many of the details, only that after some sort of disaster her brother had been involved with, Heartland Tower had opened itself up as a group home. Reginald had been scoping it out for the both of them, and had decided they should move in there. Given he was the older sibling, Rio had to go along with what he said. Not that she had any better ideas.

    It shouldn’t have been that much luggage is the point, but given Rio still wasn’t allowed to do harsh physical exercise, Reginald would be unable to carry everything in one trip. Normally, this would mean they’d just make multiple, but apparently Reginald had decided to actually be social for the first time in his life, and help had been conscripted for them.

    Now, if only that help wasn’t the person Rio still didn’t know how to feel about. Her hands shook as Quattro walked past her and picked up one of the boxes holding her clothes. Contrary to the way she had stared at him the last time they had met, trying to show confidence, this time she could barely lock eyes with him.

    What was wrong with her?

    Reginald glanced at her, seeming to know her inner turmoil. That was just like her brother, able to pick up on all her tells. Or maybe she was just that obvious, maybe Quattro was laughing at her obvious fear in his mind.

    No, Rio was not afraid. This was just a regular boy, nothing to fear from him. She had even dueled him to prove it to herself! She had won! Rio was strong and she could take care of herself and there was nothing to fear from this guy who certainly wouldn’t set this entire place on fire again-

    Quattro had brought his younger brother with him this time. Trey, as he’d introduced himself, was the polar opposite of Quattro, all kind smiles and questions after her wellbeing.

    Rio wanted the trip to be over already, but it would take at least half an hour for them to walk to the tower, so might as well make the most of it. She would show Quattro that she certainly wasn’t afraid of him, and in fact she should be wary of her, because she was no easy victim! She’d fuck him up!

    “So, do either of you play video games?” Rio asked, twirling around so that she could look at them as they walked. 

    What was she even doing, VIDEO GAMES?

    “Yeah! Hart really likes some so he’s been teaching us to play,” Trey replied cheerfully, Quattro only grunting in agreement.

    “What sort of video games?” Rio asked as she tried to remember who Hart was. Reginald had mentioned a few names while he’d been summarizing his last year to her, but she couldn’t remember anyone named Hart.

    Reginald wasn’t always the best at giving overviews though, especially with how much he had talked about this guy called Yuma.

    “Like, Animal Crossing and stuff,” Quattro responded this time, with a shrug that must’ve been hard with the box he was carrying.

    Rio held back a laugh as she imagined Quattro as an animal crossing character. That spiky hair and cross demeanor, he’d really fit into the happy pastel world of Animal Crossing. She was expecting like, racing games. Fighting tournaments. Not…

    It was just so surreal.

    “Rio used to have an island in Animal Crossing named Butthole,” Reginald broke Rio out of her trance of mystified hilarity. Before his words had even processed in her head she had already punched him in the arm. She knew that tone.

    “And you named yours Centerville, at least I did something interesting,” Rio argued back. “And I was like, 6.” She turned back to the brothers. “I don’t really play that anymore, I’m more into fighting games.”

    Quattro cocked an eyebrow. “Do you beat him at them a lot?” he asked, jerking his shoulder at Reginald.

    Rio gave in a shark-toothed smile, responding “Of course!” as Reginald vehemently denied everything in the background.

    They reached the Tower and put down all the boxes. Rio glanced around the room that would be her new home, and began mapping out where she’d put everything.

    And before Quattro and Trey left, she exchanged numbers with them. She was not going to be afraid of Quattro, she was going to show herself there was nothing to fear. And that meant she was going to show him how to play fighting games then kick his ass.

[scattered-irises]

LONG AWAITED CONCLUSION TO THAT ZEXAL PHILOSOPHICAL CHAT I POSTED A YEAR (or two) AGO

Part i

Basically, the theory is: Tron is a figment of the Arclights’ imagination and it’s actually just Byron going around messing everything up. Tron is a symbol of the corruption of the Arclights. 

****

And so, I pose you this question, Phosphorous. What if Tron never existed and was just a metaphorical representation for Byron's hatred and anger? What if the Barian World hadn't done anything to him and instead, just made him an angrier old man? So instead of this creepy, laughing child, we have this creepy man who goes around ruining people's lives for the sake of his revenge. 

The child is just something the Arclight brothers made up because they couldn't stand the fact that their father had become like that. But that was why they still followed him. Because he was still their father.

I see your point there. It has plausibility, muses Phosphorous. 

The reason why Tron erased their old names was because it was a way for all of them to disassociate their current selves with their past selves. They have changed too much to be considered Byron, Christopher, Thomas and Michael anymore. Christopher has turned extremely cold and calculating compared to his happier, gentle brother attitude when he was younger.

And Thomas...the poor child. He used to be a happy boy that teased his younger sibling but as IV, he masks himself as a happy celebrity loved by all in the world and underneath that mask is a sadistic monster and underneath that mask is a son that just desperately wants his father back and will do anything to get it and underneath that mask is a lonely young man who wishes to be understood.

Arguably, Michael is the one who remains closest to his original self. He's still the beloved younger brother and like when they were younger, still has a close relationship with Thomas. But he's cracked beneath his placid smile and gentle nature. When angered, he lashes out terribly and like Thomas, will do anything, even murder, to achieve his family's goals.

And so, one could argue that Tron is basically just an overall representation that their family has changed for the worse.

“How much autonomy do the brothers have? and how do they relate to others as they attempt to fulfill their families goals?” poses Phosphorous.

  Ah, ah. An insightful query, my friend. They are pretty much never seen doing things of their own free will. Even when it seems like they are enjoying themselves (I.E III sneaking into Yuma's house to eat lunch and meet him. It actually was just a scouting mission on his family's next target), their actions are meant to serve ulterior motives. In the end, all of the things they do is in the name of serving the family. 

A somewhat random note, Christopher looks at Thomas with contempt. They're basically polar opposites (But not really. Once Christopher gets emotional, he's just as broken and destructive as Thomas). 

Thomas has a grudging respect for Christopher because a part of him still recognizes him as his older brother. 

Christopher seems to care a bit more for Michael, but when Michael was being tortured, he watched the scene at the insistence of Tron. At the end of it though, he turns away, hinting at a bit of a conscience. 

It's Thomas and Michael that are more of a sibling relationship. This is most likely because they have spent all of their lives together while Christopher had been absent for 5 years from their lives. He was gone when Thomas was 12 all the way to when he turned 17 and Michael was 10 and is now 15

Thomas genuinely cares for Michael, going as far as to shout at Tron for treating his brother like that. Christopher immediately silences him. 

Michael also returns that gesture, although less because he ended up falling into a coma before we could see more. 

“Yet all three are, at least at times, willing participants in Tron's schemes?”

Yes, my fellow thinker. Christopher is the most loyal one. He never questions Tron’s orders. Michael will go with his father in hopes that he will get his family back. He is Tron's favorite because he is a "gentle and obedient child." I find it quite sad how, although Christopher is the most loyal one to the cause, he isn’t the favorite. I suppose it is also because I am the eldest of three, yet am not as favored as the youngest. 

“The youngest seems to be favored most of the time,” muses Phosphorous as they look out at the tumultuous Barian sea. 

It's Thomas that sometimes goes out of line. He's the strongest of the brothers, but Tron is always saying that he is the weakest. It is most likely the fear of Thomas realizing that he's actually powerful and could turn on Tron. Hence, that is why Tron says he trusts no one.

Phosphorous stands, overlooking the gloomy landscape of crystals. 

“So each and every one is then beholden to this idea of what? A happy family? Or just something different than their current state of affairs? Do all the brothers truly share this idea of a return to a happy family? Or do they don't even know that that looks like and just want something to change?”

In short:

Tron: Kill my murderers and I'll become your happy ol' dad again and we can go back to England and do happy British people stuff

Sons: Uh sure okay

Personally, I think they all know to an extent that they're deluding themselves

They're just ambling down this path of lies because the brothers are desperate to have a place to belong to after being separated for so long

But you might have a point that they might not even know what a truly happy family is anymore.

“So it's like they're chasing something that doesn't exist then?”

Exactly. Much like the couple that was running to the end of the rainbow. They are chasing a boat that has already long passed by. After all of the things Tron did to them, I'm sure they all know that they will never be "normal" and "happy" again.

“So under your theory, Tron doesn't truly exist, or at least is highly metaphorical, which makes all of their struggles self-inflicted and their delusions even more deep.”

Quite perceptive of you. Tron does exist, but he's basically Byron but meaner. They merely use the child with the ruined face to cover up the fact that their father has turned into a monster.

"Hey so dad's gone nuts but let's pretend it's a weird little boy who's nuts so it takes a bit of the pain away."

“Ah, so then they could say "Tron" instead of ‘Father.’”

Yes, exactly. They almost never address Tron as father. They only talk of their father in the past tense.

“But then,” proposes Phosphorous, dramatically turning back to me. “Why would they care so much for the new names they received? Or do they not care for them?”

Those names have become a part of their identities. They use it to cope with the fact that they've all gone south personality-wise. Thomas even uses IV as his celebrity name, perhaps as a sign that he does not recognize his celebrity persona as his true self.

Phosphorous takes in a deep breath, the acidic breeze rustling their toga. Their eyes meet mine own with a sharpness that I had always so admired.

  “So these new names, they're basically masks, but do they disassociate themselves from their new identities the same way they do with Tron and their Father, or do they still think of themselves as fundamentally themselves, just forced to do things they wouldn't normally do? Though I would assume each brother is affected differently by their mask,” says my friend as they begin to pace.

Ah, they still view Tron as their father (A leader) but deep down they probably don't want to put two and two together. So it's a superficial belief of "We fight for Tron (our father but let’s not think about that.)"

Either that or,

They are fighting for their Father,

 who is basically just an idea of a happy family now whilst Tron

represents a bad family.

Onto your second point, the brothers fit into their masks to different extents.

Michael doesn't seem to mind III for they appear to have the same personality, save for III's destructive tendencies.

When Christopher is reunited with his student that he abandoned and is called Christopher, he sadly smiles and says. 

"It's been a long time since someone has called me that"

And Thomas probably has an extremely difficult time taking off his mask after wearing it for so long in front of so many people

“So then do their numbered names also represent a bad family? also why do they start at three, like why not 1,2,3 instead of 3,4,5?”

I still don’t understand why it’s 3 4 5 (Nor does anyone else, for that matter.), however, their numbers are probably how Tron sees them. From his scientific background, he probably just sees his son as pieces of useful data he can use to his advantage.

“Hm, the only thing I could think of for the numbers was that Tron was somehow including him and the boys' mother in his count, like their the first two so that's why it starts at three, which is something you probably already thought about,” theorizes Phosphorous futilely.

Perhaps the numbers are used as place holders. They are not Christopher, Thomas and Michael. They are merely placeholders for when Christopher, Thomas and Michael return. When their family is whole again...

“But if the numbers are place-holders then so is the name ‘Tron,’” concludes Phosphorous.

Indeed.

“But I wonder if the brothers associate the numbers with Tron, like the numbers aren't really them, just a means to an end that will be removed when they get their father back, or if they're deluding themselves,” muses my friend.

Yes, the numbers are most likely temporary to them. Christopher is deluding himself.

He knows that he’s Christopher under V’s cold exterior. Same for Thomas and Michael. They are a family of delusions, united under the promise of a better tomorrow that will never arrive. 

  And so I thank you, for bearing with me. 

  Without ceremony, Phosphorus walks away from the crystal cliff, leaving me. I stare into the depths of the sea of ill intent and allow the sounds of the waves crashing against the crystal to overtake me. Closing my eyes, I begin to meditate. 

  Thus we conclude our bout of philosophy and ardent beard stroking. 

[redpillkieranosborn]

Yu-Gi-Oh!

Red Pill is all about multiple realities or universes and hard decisions. Yugioh even though is just a card game fits into the multiple universes catagory all too well. Yugioh is not just a card game Konami the company making Yugioh made it from a manga of the same name. Eventually this manga would be made into an anime thats specific purpose was to promote the card game. It has had 6 series start and finish, each series spanning over hundreds of episodes the shortest series being 120 episodes long. The series I that follow a multiple universe story is Yugioh Zexal, Yugioh Arc V and Yugioh Vrains.

YU-GI-OH ZEXAL

Yugioh Zexal is the fourth series in Yugioh. It follows the story of Yuma Tsukumo a 14 year old boy with a passion for dueling. He loves dueling and believes that once you duel someone they are your friend. He has a key that he wears around his neck and once he opens a gate in his dreams and visions he releases a being called Astral. Astral is from another dimension and is from the planet Astral World. He has none of his memories but if Yuma collects all the Number cards each one they obtain will unlock another one of his memories since they were scattered once Astral was freed. Eventually Yuma gets caught up in a war between Astral World and the Barian World two worlds from Astrals Dimension. Yuma duels his way to victory and stops the war between the two worlds and Astral returns to his world after Yuma and him have one final duel. 

Yugioh Zexal introduced the game to the XYZ mechanic, a new mechanic that the anime help advertise and get kids understanding how it worked. The mechanic is one of my favourites and is pretty simple. Most XYZ monsters require two monsters of the same level to summon. By putting the two monsters of the same level on top of each other you can perform an XYZ summon that matches the levels of the monster so if you overlayed 2 level 4 monsters you can summon a rank 4 XYZ monster. 

YU-GI-OH ARC V

Yugioh Arc V follows the story of a young 14 year old boy called Yuya Sakaki and is the 5th seires in Yugioh. His father had a very special form of dueling called Entertainment Dueling or Dueltaining. This method of dueling was all about exciting the crowd and summoning monsters that were very flashy and fun to watch. It was dueling built to inspire others and is how Yuya duels. Yuya’s dad goes missing and doesn’t show up to an important duel that people mock Yuya for calling his dad a coward. When Yuya enters a tournement he meets meets another boy who has his face but has different hair and eye colour but other than that they were identical. This dopplegangar was dueling another person was also looked like him their names were Yuto and Yugo. They were yelling at each other one accusing the other of killing his best friend. Yugo defending himself from Yuto’s accusations kills Yuto and Yuya absorbs him into his body on accident. They then run into a 4th lookalike his name is Yuri and he is the one who has been killing others and causing mass pain to Yuto’s dimension. The four boys are from different dimensions that were created when the 4 were originally seperated. They were all once a boy named Zarc and unfortunetely Zarc turned evil and to stop him a girl called Ray serperated him into the 4 summoning mechanics he used, Normal, Fusion, Synchro, and XYZ. This created the Normal dimension, the Fusion dimension, the Synchro dimension and the XYZ dimension.The normal dimension soon becomes the Pendulum dimension when Yuya creates pendulum summonig. This was the new mechanic this anime is pushing to promote. This mechanic was quite complex. There are now monsters that are also half spell cards and had a special number in the middle of the cards sides called the pendulum scales. You could set these monsters in the scales and if you had a scale 1 on the left and a scale 8 on the right you could summon as many monsters from your hand as you like as long as their levels were between the pendulum scale set or in this case levels 2 to 7.

 The fusion dimension wanted war and started attacking the other dimensions. Their goal was to rebirth Zarc and fuse the boys back together so Zarc can kill everyone. This causes an interdimensional war between the four dimensions and Yuya, Yuto, and Yugo doing their best to stop Yuri from fusing them together. Yuri eventually succeeds with his goal by corrupting Yuya’s mind and Zarc is reborn. Ray is also Reborn and she once again stops Zarc and this time Reborns just Yuya but lets the others keep their soul inside his as long as they work together and find peace. This works and the boys in one body start dueling in their own special Entertainment dueling. 

YUGIOH VRAINS 

Yugioh Vrains follows the story of 16 year old Yusaku Fujiki. He is a introverted, quiet depressed boy who was kidnapped as a kid and forced to duel for food in a prison. If he lost he would be electricuted, if he won he was given food. After he was rescued he didn’t trust others and kept to himself. He dedicates his time to hunting a group of people called the Knights of Hanoi who are the people responsible for causing him so much pain. This is all done through duels inside some called the Vrains. This is a Virtual Reality world where you duel in a virtual world so you can do things like surf on waves of data while playing card games. Yes that is correct this series is card games on surfboards (still not as weird as Yugioh 5Ds which was card games on motorcycles) This virtual world is actually a gateway into another dimension called the Cyberse Dimension. There some small creatures called the Ignis live and the Knights of Hanoi want to find and kill them since they are intelligent A.I. Yusaku captures one and calls him Ai and together they stop the Hanoi but sacrifice all of Yusaku’s new allies friends. This causes him to go rouge and he threatens to kill all the humans and replace the world with Ignis. Yusaku has to stop Ai from killing humanity and once he does he falls into a deep depression where no one sees him for years. 

This series introduced the new mechanic Link monsters. This mechanic changed the game entirely. These monsters had a link rating and that rating is how many monsters were needed to summon it (this is also said on the card how many monsters is required to summon it). Link monsters have link arrows and where a Link monsters points to is also where more link monsters can be summoned to. However this was also the case for all the other extra deck monsters in Yugioh slowing the game way down for a bit but Link monsters eventually became way too powerful and recently Konami changed the rules again allowing Fusion, Synchro and XYZ monsters being summoned anywhere instead of being forced to getting summon to a link arrow. Link monsters made a lot of players mad but I personally really like them they added a fun mechanic that I quite enjoyed. 

Yugioh is a very confusing series sometimes however the stories fit Red Pill’s format. The pther series don’t follow any Red Pill aspects which is why I only mentioned these three. yugioh personally has helped me have a hobbie that brought me and my friends close together and I still play it today. The card game definitely seems intimidating but when you learn it it is a lot easier to grasp the game and isn’t as complicated as people think. It mainly just requires reading. 

[baddyzarc]

4a/7 Ruins: Legend of the Dragons

1 2 3 x 4b 5 6 7  

Mizael’s legend is juicy but also confusing. Like, there is a big massive plot hole in his story. like this thing is a pulsating zit,, I’ll get to it later on and how it contradicts the show, but I considered it when making this. 

Also the entire thing is is like 6000 words long with a lot of pictures so im splitting this thing up, the “read under” thing wasnt workin properly

Mizael is one of the more developed Emperors out of the group. He has a strong rivalry with Kaito, and he faces off against him in his quest to be the strongest Dragon Tamer (whatever that means, idk pokemon master). This leads to the development of not only himself and Kaito, but also an expansion on the lore of Zexal itself.

His ruins are located somewhere in the mountainous region of China. However, this location is also an illusion created by Jinlon, since it disappeared at the end of the arc—similar to Nasch and Merag’s underwater ruins —as opposed to the other tangible locations. Similar to Spartan City being based off of real-life Rome, Mizael’s ruins are based on a real place in China. 

When I saw these rocky formations, I got kinda excited because these are some of my favorite geologic sites in the world. 

For those unaware, this area is called the Tianzi Mountains; they are located in Zhangjiajie in the Hunan Province of China. The one in Zexal is much less detailed, but the geography is uncannily similar; I am certain that Mizael’s ruins are located in these mountains.

Tianzi Mountain is a famous tourist attraction known for being tranquil and beautiful, lush greenery and fog rolling about. If you must know, the enviroments in Avatar Blue People was inspired by this space. Its tranquility is a fitting place for Mizael’s Mythyrian Number: “Number 46: Ethereal Dragon Dragluon”. 

Furthmore, to compare more of the geology, the bottom of these peaks are made of limestone. Limestone is a type of rock that tends to form caves in it (due to weathering and erosion, you know), so this information fits in rather nicely when Kaito said he explored the caves around the region. 

And a really cool easter egg about this site from that fact is that one of the caves near Tianzi Mountain is the Huanglong Cave, also known as the Yellow Dragon Cave. It’s not certain that Kaito was in this cave when he found the tablet (he probably went into a random cave for all we know), but you know who is a yellow dragon living around Tianzi Mountain? Jinlon the Golden Dragon, the Guardian of the Mizael’s ruins.

This bit of geography may also explain the origins of Mizael, but I’ll get to this information later on after I explain the story of his ruins, the Legends of the Dragons.

The Legends of the Dragons is told to us by Jinlon and Mizael. The original tale is easy enough to understand with a few things that do not line up. 

Long ago, Mizael was a young child living in a desert village. The village was attacked by marauders, resulting in the slaughter of everyone, including his parents. Mizael witnessed the events, and in terror, he fled into the desert. 

After wandering the vast desert for presumably a day or so, he collapsed in exhaustion. On the verge of death, he was rescued by a large, yellow dragon named Jinlon. 

Their souls resonated with each other, and with their strengths, they kept the peace of the land somewhere in the mountains of China.

 One day, a natural disaster struck that killed masses of innocent people. 

A wandering shaman blamed the disaster on Jinlon, prompting the people to call for the death of the dragon. Mizael tried to protect Jinlon, but the people refused to listen. They demanded that Mizael slay his companion if he wanted to prove his herodom. Instead, Mizael offered his own life in exchange for the life of Jinlon. Unfortunately, since the scuffle weakened the strength of the village, a neighboring army attacked them. Mizael and Jinlon were pierced by a “hundred of thousands of arrows” and died in each other’s grasp. The entire village was wiped out and erased from history. 

In the subsequent set of information, it is revealed that the shaman was Don Thousand in disguise, and he orchestrated the event in order to kill Mizael as the people he swore to protect turned on him. Before Mizael died, Don Thousand embedded an Over-Hundred Number into his heart. This filled him with hate and despair, sealing his fate as a Barian Emperor. 

Jinlon also revealed that when he died, the Mythyrian Number revived his soul so that he could protect the land. 

This implication is fascinating since Jinlon is the only one that directly states how he became the Guardian, and if that’s true, it may explain why individuals who were closest to the Emperors (like Mach, Ponta, and maybe the prince) became the Guardians, and in some cases fusing with the Mythyrian Number itself. 

I wanna state that the Guardian and the Mythyrian Number are two different beings posing as the same entity (in most cases). It’s confusing, but it’s like Ponta’s situation. Ponta represents the Mythyrian Number “Veteran Tanuki Sandayu” as well as being its Guardian in the context of the episode, but he has the option to opt out of representing the Mythyrian Number whenever he wants. The Mythyrian Number still exists with or without Ponta. He is a vehicle for the Mythyrian Number to have a duelist. This is kinda similar to the Zexal Morphs too. As Zexal Morphs, the glowing figure we see is not a single person; it is both Yuma and Astral combined as a single person. Saying Zexal I is Yuma isn’t necessarily wrong, but it isn’t completely right either. Likewise, the Mythyrian Number “picks” a Guardian after the Emperor died to become infused in it, and this pick is likely to have a strong connection to the Emperors’ past and can aid them in their journey to break Don Thousand’s curse (except Vector, but he has a unique situation). 

That said, I wanna pick apart that plot point I was talking about. 

This scene right here kinda screws me up HARD. Mizael is in the desert, dying. A card manifests in Mizael hands, and then Jinlon shows up. 

BUT what we know from the Ruins episodes is that Jinlon was not a Number until the point of his death, so when he appeared to Mizael, he was just a regular dragon, NOT a Number Monster. This card in Mizael’s hand has nothing to do with Jinlon at all, but since it showed up before Jinlon, it implies that Jinlon IS this card. This means the show is wrong in that it said Jinlon became the Mythyrian Number at the time of his death, OR he was a Mythyrian Number all along. Either way, it’s a plot hole.

My only explanation is that the entity that gave Mizael this card is not the same person as Jinlon. They just happened to come across the same dying child and take him in around the same time. My only evidence of this is that Vector’s card floated onto him almost like divine intervention, or the fact that we don’t know where Gilag and Alito obtained their Mythyrian Numbers from; they just had them their entire lives. Incredibly iffy, and a big plot hole.

For simplicity sake, I’m going to go with the story that Jinlon was a normal dragon who became a Mythyrian Number/Guardian when he died. 

But moving past this, let’s talk about one of the most obscure discussions I could talk about. And it has everything to do with this image right here: 

This is a pot of food Jinlon makes at the start of Mizael’s ruins arc. So when I first saw this image, I didn’t think much of it until I saw the delectable mushrooms on the separate sides of the pot. Now, I’m quite a dumbass person, but I am rather fond of mushrooms, and I recognize the mushrooms he uses. 

The one on the right side is called an Enoki mushroom (Flammulina velutipes). It is native to Eastern Asia and used in a lot of Chinese and Japanese cuisine. 

The one on the left side is called the king oyster mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii). It is native to the Mediterranean regions of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. 

What I also noticed here is that this yellow, flabby thing on the left side is dried bean curd, which is a byproduct of tofu production. And what do you know, tofu first originated from China. 

The other objects in the broth are unrecognizable to me, but I thought, “Was Jinlon making food that represents him and Mizael?” Jinlon is from China—I assume, as he uses a lot of imagery of the Chinese Dragon—while Mizael is maybe from China, maybe not, as the show does not explicitly state where he originates from. 

My evidence for the “maybe not” part comes from a long string of flimsy evidence that I found in my efforts to find where Mizael originated from. Take all of this with a grain of salt and if anyone can interpret these better than I can (bc anthropology is my weaker point and I’ve fallen into a three day rabbit hole trying to sort this out before saying it's almost impossible without a proper time-frame) please do share because I am genuinely interested in this.

My only source is to analyze the geography. My first piece of concrete evidence is that Mizael and Jinlon lived in Tianzi Mountain prior to their deaths. Mizael also lived and fled into a desert area prior to meeting Jinlon. Modern China has two prominent deserts in it—the Gobi Desert and the Taklamakan Desert—so it is likely that he lived around one of these regions. These two pieces of evidence gives us an idea of how Mizael and Jinlon traveled. Since Mizael met a divine, mythical creature, I also assume that he had no issue getting out of the desert.

My proposal is that he lived within either the Gobi desert or the Taklamakan desert, and then he traveled out of there before winding up in Tianzi Mountain where he lived with Jinlon and the villagers before his death. 

So based on this, Mizael may have originated either from modern day Mongolia, Central Asia, or China depending on if his village was located within the desert (near an oasis or something similar) or at the very outskirts of the desert. Not only that, I did some research on the prevalence of blond hair and blue eyes in past Asians in order to pinpoint his genetics (and yes, this is yugioh, rainbow hair galore, but Mizael has reasonable colors OKAY). Blue eyes originated along the Black Sea around 6,000-10,000 years from a mutation in a single individual. 

From here, it spread into the rest of the world. On the other hand, blond hair appeared multiple times in multiple places in human evolution, so in the sense of pinpointing where Mizael came from, it isn’t as nearly as informative.

The Black Sea is right there.

So youre like, wow how did blue eyes end up in China, that’s so far. Humans move and they move a lot. I can see how centuries (possibly thousands of years) of migration and interbreeding will result in a Mizael. However, this also shows that it is highly likely that the ancestors with the blue eyes moved into Mongolia or the Central Asia area from the Black Sea, which is more evidence that Mizael could’ve lived in one of those regions before traveling deep into China. And because humans bring their culture as they travel, maybe the king oyster mushrooms from the Black Sea/Middle East area also traveled with them. 

And before I tumble into this rabbit hole, I want to note that the people of Mizael’s village here have green, blue, and pink hair. Okay moving on. 

As I finish this section of the piece, I want to note the last possible theory of Mizael’s origin. My last bit of evidence is partially about the mushrooms. Which is silly evidence, but bear with me. So in Ancient China (200BC to 20AD), there was a small town known as the Liqian City (now known as Zhelaizhai) located on the edge of the Gobi Desert. This town was famous for having high frequencies of individuals with blue/green eyes and blond/light hair. Now one such explanation for this is the “Lost Romans Myth”. Yes, myth. Since this topic has been debunked among anthropologists, historians, archeologists, biologists on how these genes got here, I need to be a little careful here since I don’t want to propagate a legend as fact. 

The myth goes that lost Roman soldiers from a nearby battle settled in the area and integrated into the local population, giving rise to higher frequencies of that blond-blue trait than in the surrounding area. Geneticists have debunked this (as in, the blond and blue eyes did not come via Roman ancestry), but it could be possible that the Zexal writers found out about Liqian City and thought it was a neat story to integrate into the plot. The mushrooms come in because the king oyster mushroom is native to the regions around the Mediterraneum Sea, so if the writers accepted the “Lost Romans Myth” as a fact, they may be saying that Mizael is Chinese with ancestral roots as a Roman person. The phenotypes match, the town was in a desert, and this location is a lot closer to the Tianzi Mountains than the previous two locations. 

Or maybe he just has blond hair and blue eyes just because god is a giant gecko. This is the show who has historical figures with eggplant hair and a green mohawk so,,,,

im gonna talk about the Dragons and the Ruins Duel now. 

The Ruins Duel features prominent callbacks to the Legend of the Dragons as well as expanding on the character of not only Mizael but also his counterpart, Kaito Tenjo.

Starting with the cards: 

So one of my favorite cards of the duel is this one with a Mizael-looking fellow getting murked by a bunch of arrows. I don’t know why, that’s just really funny to me, that Kaito has this in his deck. Like, bro

Another notable card is “Book of Moon”.

“Book of Moon” is one of the older cards (debuting during the DM era) used in Zexal. Old cards are seldom used, so when they’re present, they usually have some subtext to go along with it. Although it has nothing to say within this episode, it may be a sneaky foreshadow to the famous Moon Duel where Kaito Tenjo fucking eats shit loses his life on the Moon. 

Of the duel itself, it follows a similar theme to the Legend of the Dragons. “Number 46: Ethereal Dragon Dragluon” has the anime effect that makes it unable to be targeted for attacks or by card effects if there is another dragon on your field. In order to destroy Dragluon, you must get rid of the dragons that protect it. 

This is quite similar to how Mizael refused to let the people harm Jinlon, even going as far as to kill himself to protect his dragon. Seeing as the theme shows up again, it shows that this idea is a core element in Mizael’s story.

And I think it’s fair to say that Mizael has an interesting bond to dragons—for a good reason. 

He is a character who absolutely hates humans.

And this isn’t appear to be the common consensus throughout the Emperors. Despite acting as though they were superior, Alito and Gilag were fawning over humans and their culture. Durbe did not care about humans; he only wanted to protect Barian World. And Vector 

Mizael is an outlier. He is utterly appalled and disgusted by the fleshbags. But after considering his backstory, his hatred comes from a reasonable place. 

Mizael witnessed the slaughter of his village by humans. He saw firsthand the horrors of humanity, and as a child that young, it left a traumatic imprint on him. Going back to how I think the Emperors retain most of their personalities from their original past life, an event this intense is likely to carry over into his life as a Barian Emperor. Mizael may have forgotten why he couldn’t trust humans, but his spirit remembers. Without the memories of being a human, Mizael’s distrust manifested into hatred.

And had it not been for Jinlon, a dragon, Mizael would’ve died in the desert. He trusts dragons because they were there for him in his time of need, when humans left him scarred and afraid. These events molded him into a person who connects deeply to the dragons rather than his human brethren. His ability to sense their spirit, and his strong passion for the goodness in all dragons stem from this event. I don’t think it's far-fetched that Mizael considers himself a dragon at heart underneath his human or Barian body, and remember, in terms of “Number 46: Ethereal Dragon Dragluon”, it is other Dragons that protect Dragluon.

Mizael loves his dragons. He is a character who exclusively uses Dragon monsters in his deck. He doesn’t see them as tools to use but allies to cherish and grow alongside with. Part of me thinks that’s why Tachyon Dragon was chilling in some cave in Barian World when we first met it. 

This goes into the whole “duel spirits, monsters are alive” thing that is used in nearly all of the shows, so I won't talk about it. The takeaway here is that Mizael does not leave his dragon inside its card. He allows Tachyon Dragon to roam Barian World on its own freewill, and only when he requires its strength, he finds it and challenges it. If he can overcome it, proving that he is still worthy of Tachyon Dragon’s power, it will help him. Judging by his mannerism, this occurs very often. Despite being described as arrogant and prideful, he doesn’t leave his Tachyon Dragon locked away in its card for all of eternity. (Also, there is a scene where he threatens to feed Vector to Tachyon Dragon; this is likely Mizael snapping at Vector for being a Clown, but the idea that Mizael “feeds” and cares for his dragons is nice)

Kaito once asks Mizael, the master of the Galaxy-Eyes, why he himself bears such “bleak eyes”, or eyes that are world-weary and tired and empty. And as the scene transitions into a flashback of his childhood, we find out that this bleakness stems from his distrust in humanity. 

Although he has given up on humans, Mizael is a person who simply cannot turn his back on his dragons. He will die before he lets his dragons fall. (And I think it’s a thing of beauty that Mizael learns to have some faith in humans after this duel, but that’s for later.) 

The effects of “Number 46: Ethereal Dragon Dragluon” shows this entire side of Mizael. It also brings out the same side in Kaito, who is a reflection of Mizael in many similar and opposite ways. 

Mizael and Kaito are both Dragon Tamers, or Galaxy-Eyes Masters. They are tamers with different goals, yet they are not too far off from each other. 

Like in the Legend of the Dragons, when tasked with the destruction of his “Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon” or give it to Jinlon (which translates to victory or loss respectively), Kaito behaves similar to Mizael. He would rather risk losing the duel than destroy his dragon, inadvertently proving Jinlon’s point.

These similarities and how Jinlon connects to both Mizael and Kaito goes much deeper than this duel. 

So let’s head to the Moon. 

[beathewithdrawn]

Just wondering why no one is talking about the insanely weird timeline for ZEXAL in duel links...Konami had us all thinking at the beginning that this was just a continuation from events post-ZEXAL because I'm pretty sure Yuma said in one of the initial events that when they arrived in duel links he and Astral lost the number cards 'again'???

and I'm certain everyone else thought this was the case since all of the characters recognised each other, which obviously they should if this was post-ZEXAL since everyone had met each other by then

so why is it that when Girag's event came recently, they played it out similar to a previous episode of ZEXAL?

the Barians were mentioned in duel links with those same 'for Barian world' mission vibes and it does not make any sense since all of that is over now

Barian world has essentially been ruined and they're normal kids now, what else is there to do?

you know Girag's event completely messed up my understanding of the ZEXAL duel links timeline, nothing was confusing about it before

I know people have blamed this on Konami's crappy writing where they clearly forget how they opened ZEXAL in duel links and they forgot how the Barian onslaught is pretty much over

it's also confused me how Shark and Rio's attitudes have been to the Barians, particularly Shark's - 'it's the Barians!! run!!' - like he doesn't remember he was part of them??

so what I theorise this means is that either (a) Konami used Girag's event to replay that certain episode of ZEXAL and that isn't an actual representation of how Girag is now (but this still doesn't make sense because of the characters' interactions with Girag at the gate) or (b) Konami used Girag's event to create this 'Barians are coming!!' ominous theme again even though the whole thing about the Barians has already been experienced in the anime and everyone's over it now (their reasoning?? 'let's create a completely irrelevant storyline because why not?? the Barians were such a good threat in the anime')

I don't think I'll ever understand what was going through Konami's head when they made the scenario for Girag's event but oh well. I guess we'll get more answers when Alito comes around.

who am I kidding we'll probably get more questions than answers

[cozymochi]

*Insert hot take / salty ask meme emoji here* lay’em on us madam, first one that comes to mind! xD Or most recent one you can remember getting passionate about !

FIRST THING THAT CAME TO MIND IS

Z E X A L RELATED

and normally I keep it off main these days for various reasons I won’t go into but—

Heck so long as I’m here...

I’m still pretty salty about how Astral world or heck Astral related stuff in general is ignored or glossed over entirely. Barians were (and still are) super popular, and even in-series they started taking up more time later on and?? 👁👄👁 Idk man. That’s just something I found kinda lame. Which is odd. Only over the past few years did I find interest in Astral stuff, but ever since the Barians became more prevalant I never got the hype around them.

I feel like I have a mILLION issues with that anime though despite generally liking it that get me all fired up 😭😂

I mainly stay in my own lane with this stuff. Unlike other things I feel like i’m walking on eggshells despite this fandom only having 5 people in it now

ALSO SHARK IS OVERRATED, I LIKE HIM, HE’S MY MEME BOY, but he is [screams]