#because kaibas dramatic enough for 2 people

[romanceddawn]

ignoring puzzleshipping, theres something funny about my favorite atem ships being dragonshipping and revolutionshipping while my current favorite yugi ships are now rivalshipping and kleptoshipping

yugi saw atem wooing his best friends and was like "super happy for you! I'm going to go date your enemies now brb :3" atem does not approve of this.

[yusei-clownington]

SO I FINALLY FINISHED 5D’S! And what better way to celebrate than to go through my favorite characters as���briefly as I can

Slight spoilers I suppose?

Let’s work it up from 10 to 1

10- Jack

Was gonna go with lucchiano but who am I kidding Jack’s great. He’s a drama queen with an even more dramatic wardrobe. Never afraid to express himself and just bluntly blurt out what he thought.

His obsession with Cup ramen is on another level but what can I say? Love is love, Jack x cup ramen for life *wipes tears*

But seriously speaking he’s great. His very first line was enough proof of that. He just… apologized for being late then declared “I AM KING” like the…king he is.

My favorite Rival character still remains Manjoume… and… Yeah I still prefer Kaiba over Jack but damn was he a good rival.

Like he has to be the only Rival so far with an actual past with the Main character, no? That was pretty interesting because usually, the protagonist meets the rival somewhere during the first season and we go off from there. But here we had to go through their backstory to know what their relationship was fully like. Nice touch.

9- Aki

Hands down my favorite female protagonist so far. I adore Anzu and feel neutral enough about Asuka but Aki? NAH MAN AKI’S AMAZING. I think 5D’s just does the best job with its female characters. Like it actually gives them big enough roles. I loved how Aki got her own episodes…be it the D-wheel ones or just… fillers.

Her crush on Yusei was justified, at least it seems so to me, and honestly never got obnoxious. Sure she had a moment here and there but it was honestly never a bad thing. Hell faith shipping in general isn’t exactly a bad Idea.

Speaking of shipping, is anyone going to talk about her little frienshipmaybemore moments with Crow? No? Ok…

But anyway, overall, SHE’S AMAZING AND I LOVE HER. There was more to her than some boring pining love interest and it shows with each episode. So when people say she has a great personality, they’re actually talking about her personality. AKI RULES

8- Mikage

Would’ve been way WAY higher on the list if the thing with Jack was thrown out the widow.

That being said I think she’s the more mature of the Jack-crazy trio. Like sure she was just as into him as the other two, but in some scenes she was a lot more tolerable.

But that honestly might just be my bias towards this amazing woman speaking.

She’s devoted to her work, gentle, caring, gorgeous and just all around a wonderful character to see.

I loved most of her scenes in the series, and the fact that there was more to her than just the jack part. She actually had an important part to play in many episodes and honestly proved herself to be a very fun character. I just wish they gave a her little more screentime than what she got.

A lot of lost potential there- I mean come on.

7- Rua /Lua

He reminds me of Judai WAY too much. LIKE WAAAAY too much not to be on this list. The guy’s adorable. And I love how they made him the emotional one. Like they could’ve gone with the “the boy is always rowdy and tOUGH” stereotype, but they didn’t. Sure, ruka (who I don’t like as much) was much more gentle, but it was much easier to see Rua cry than it was to see her do so. It’s just fun is all.

I also adore his deck and that little theme that played whenever he dueled… Plus his relationship with Jack and Yusei…GOLD GOLD.

6- Ushio

I made a whole post about Him, You think he wouldn’t be in my Top 10? Well think again. Great development would see through again.

5- Sherry Leblanc

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SHERRY.

What you just witnessed in the line above is my internal reaction to literally any scene this beautiful badass woman happens to be in.

She’s just amazing. She has this really… tough energy IDK HOW TO DESCRIBE IT BUT SHE’S A REALLY INTIMIDATING WOMAN. But not in a bad way, oh nonononono in a REALLY REALLY GOOD WAY OKAY.

Her character arcs and episodes somehow felt…really separate from the whole team 5D’s shenanigans even though they were basically connected…

Like she had her own motivation that didn’t particularly rely on bonds, but was still willing to accept and even form a bond with the whole team.

Revenge is kinda hot ngl.

Okay no it’s not. But seeing a vengeful character that WASN’T played off as evil or particularly wrong amidst a bunch of friendship is magic ones was pretty refreshing.

The moment she took her helmet off when dueling yusei I was HOOKED and so was Aki but shhhhhh.

But damn I love what they did with her at the end, Rushed as it may have been. It took her joining with Z-one briefly and dueling Aki and Crow ( a very underrated duo btw) to realize that maybe thinking of the past and only the past was not a very good idea.

Anyway love her. And her duels are always a delight to watch.

4- Placido

Before he showed up, sherry was supposed to be 4th but here we are. Placido Placido Placido. I want to make it clear that…I really couldn’t care less about Aporia as a whole. But Placido and Lucchiano were pretty fun characters.

Now I finally get to talk about my beloved.

This dude was…the biggest mood. EVER.

He would hang up in that third one’s face like it was nothing and constantly ignore his boring ass. Oh. You have a plan? Ok. I don’t care. It’s boring. I’m placido and I’ll do what I want. Kiss my D-wheel ass.

He has a lot of hilariously sassy lines, which include and I quote:

“I don’t know what god wants you to do.”

“But I won’t accept it!”

The guy just does not care and I’m living for it.

Not to mention his bee analogies which- Why have I not seen anyone point out????? BEE ANALOGIES COME ONNNNNNNN

aNYWAY PLACIDO’S GREAT

3- Kiryuu

Edgy dude with pretty hair. Also gay. Also the crash town arc. Need I say more?

I will anyway.

Honestly dark signer Kiryuu was pretty fun to me with all the crazy laughter and stuff…

Then past/ flashbacks Kiryuu was just as interesting but in a completely different way. Sure he didn’t get as many episodes or screentime as the rest, but what I saw of him was more than enough for me to care about the Character. Like unlike the old satellite gang (Rally and the other two whose names I can’t even remember) I actually gave a shit about this guy when bad stuff happened to him.

Not to mention his growth. Like…He went through reverse/ negative development, then uphill by the end of the signers’ ark with all the…dying in your hands gayly stuff, then downhill again by the beginning of the crosstown arc….aaaaand back up and higher than ever by the end of it. Basically the fact that his development wasn’t always constant just added some spice.

Plus his dynamic with his ex-teammates…team….satisfaction (Try saying that with a straight face) was always pretty entertaining, especially his with Yusei.

Speaking of which...

2- Yusei

With all my talk about him…and…my profile picture…and URL, it may come as a surprise that he’s not number 1 here, but honestly it’s so close you could call it a tie.

As for why I love him….Have you- Have you seen my blog????? Do I even..need to say anything????

1- Crow

Now there’s a lot I have to say about Crow honestly hE’S JUST THAT COOL, but I’m saving it to talk about later still. All I’ll say for now is this:

Flashy guy with an amazing sense of style, an earring and an incredible amount of cockiness and charisma. What’s not to like?

[tortie-tales]

Friendship Ch. 6

I scrolled through my notifications, shocked. They were almost exclusively from Mokuba, who had called and messaged me over a hundred times.

I opened the group chat I was in and began to catch up. They were all related to my whereabouts, except for the last few;

Red Eyes: If anyone asks, (y/n) stayed home because she had diarrhea.

Dancer Girl: Couldn't you have thought of a better excuse, Joey?!

King of Games: I'm with Téa, couldn't we have just said that she wasn't feeling too good?

I groaned before typing up a quick response.

Psychopath: Gee, thanks, Joey. I'm fine guys, I was just sleeping all day.

I'm so happy we don't have school tomorrow, I thought to myself, dreading the homework I would have to catch up on tomorrow.

My stomach growled, reminding me of my original goal: food.

I sighed and stood up, stretching. I walked back into my bathroom and decided to try to fix my hair. I combed it back, only for it to look worse. I sighed and grabbed a hoodie off of my bed, pulling it on quickly.

I grabbed my wallet, only to see that I had five dollars left. No food for me, I guess.

I put my wallet back down and grabbed my laptop, deciding to instead spend this time looking for another job. I walked back out to the living room, hearing the brothers chatter quiet down once again.

"Thanks for checking on me-” I looked at Kaiba “-and breaking my window. You guys can stay if you want, but I'm not making any food or doing anything fun.” I sat down next to Kaiba and directed my attention to Mokuba. “Why did you call me so many times?”

“We were worried!” Mokuba exclaimed.

“Didn't you just say that you were hungry?” Kaiba asked, eyeing me. I shrugged.

“I guess I'm just not hungry anymore.” My stomach growled almost immediately as if it were protesting to my lie. My cheeks flushed slightly.

“..right,” Mokuba said, disbelief evident in his tone. “Seto, I'm hungry too. We should order a pizza!” His eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Absolutely not. You know how much I hate greasy foods,” Kaiba scoffed.

"But Seto, you shattered (y/n)’s window! The least you could do is order pizza for us!” Mokuba begged.

I laughed. “He has a point, you just cost me my deposit, which was two hundred dollars, not counting the repairs I'll have to pay for. Pizza is the least you could do,” I said, smiling. I shut my computer and turned my attention towards him. Mokuba perked up.

Your move, Kaiba.

“I already said no, if you’re that worried about the window I’ll just pay to have it replaced and refund your deposit,” he said cockily. Mokuba groaned.

“Sorry, I only take payment via pizza.”

Mokuba perked up once again, a wide grin spread across his face. He giggled.

Kaiba sighed. “Fine. Gather your things, we’re heading back.”

“Okay big brother. Bye (y/n),” Mokuba mumbled sadly.

“No, (y/n) is coming with us.”

“She is?” Mokuba jumped up off the chair.

“I am?”

“Yes. You wanted payment in pizza, correct?” I nodded, still not understanding why I would have to go to his house. “I refuse to look at that greasy peasant food, let alone let Mokuba consume it. My personal chef will be making us dinner tonight.”

“I appreciate it Kaiba, but it’s kind of late, and I don’t want to get back when it’s dark.”

“You could stay the night!” Mokuba exclaimed throwing his arms out and smacking Kaiba in the process. He gave a quick apology before redirecting his attention to me.

“Ah, that’s sweet of you, but I’m not sure about that,” I said, not knowing how to feel.

“You obviously don’t feel safe here,” Seto began, pinching the bridge of his nose, “you had a chair propped up against your front door and you tripped me with a bat. We have 24/7 security at the mansion, and I can guarantee that no one there will hurt you.”

“Plus your window is broken, so that makes it even less safe,” Mokuba added quietly. Kaiba shot him a glare.

They have a point…

“Alright, let me get some stuff packed.” I stood up and walked to my room, smiling at Mokuba’s cheers.

I stopped in the hallway, realization hitting me.

“Actually, I don’t want anyone stealing my stuff. You guys wouldn’t happen to have boards in your car, would you?” I asked sheepishly.

“I’ll get someone to take care of it,” Kaiba said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Hurry up and gather your things.”

“Alright, no need to rush me.” I went to my room and packed some clothes along with my chargers and laptop. I brushed my hair out and threw it up into a bun before returning to the brothers.

“I’m ready.”

Mokuba grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the door. “This is so exciting, Seto never lets me have friends over!”

The cold air made my skin tingle. I walked out onto the pavement and was surprised to see a sports car parked outside. “Did you drive that over here?” I asked Kaiba.

Kaiba scoffed. "How else do you think we got here?” he asked cockily, continuing to walk towards the bright blue car.

“Gee, I don't know, don't you guys have limos?” I asked sarcastically, a little annoyed with his behavior. I glanced at Mokuba, who seemed to share my frustrations.

Mokuba had a look of disbelief and irritation on his face, one that quickly turned into a mischievous grin. “Seto was so worried about you, (y/n), he couldn't trust our driver to get us here fast enough!” He gave us an innocent look before opening the passenger door for me. “Here you go, (y/n).”

“Thank you, Mokuba.” I got into the car, buckling my seatbelt and holding my bag on my lap.

I glanced at Kaiba, quickly looking away before he could accuse me of staring. I directed my attention at the window, watching the scenery fly by.

The ride to the mansion was short and silent, the only noise being the purr of the engine.

We finally arrived at the mansion, pulling in front of the building. Mokuba practically lept out of the car, running to the doors.

I got out of the car and swung my bag over my shoulder, smiling at Mokuba’s energetic outburst.

I waited for Kaiba to get out and walked with him towards the enormous building, opening the door for him.

“Where should I put my stuff?” I asked.

“Seto will show you to your room! What do you want on the pizza, (y/n)?” Mokuba asked, ecstatic.

“What about (favorite topping)?” I said, glancing at Kaiba. He looked tired and slightly annoyed.

“Sounds good to me! I’ll go ask Raymond to start on it!” Mokuba ran off, likely in the direction of the kitchen.

“Follow me,” Kaiba said quietly.

We walked for what seemed like forever before reaching a hallway with 2 doors on each side, and one at the end.

Kaiba opened the second door on the right, walking in and turning on the light. A bed was on the left side, with a dresser across from it.

“This will be your room for the night. Try not to mess it up too badly.” He rubbed the back of his neck, averting his gaze. “And, if you need to sleep here for more than one night, you’re welcome to do so. Mokuba appears to enjoy your company.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Kaiba. I really appreciate it. And thanks for checking up on me today, sorry if I made you worry.”

Kaiba locked eyes with me, his gaze softening. He opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by Mokuba entering the room.

“Hey, uhh, big brother? Raymond quit.” Mokuba handed Kaiba a note.

“Unbelievable,” Kaiba muttered.

I tossed my bag on the bed and walked over to Mokuba. “Should we just order one?”

“No. I’ll make it myself.” Kaiba crumpled up the note and threw it into a waste bin before dramatically exiting the room. I quickly followed, afraid I would get lost in the endless halls.

We reached the front of the mansion, the glass coffee table in front of the couch looking at me threateningly.

“Do you want help, Kaiba?” I asked, still following him. We went through an archway which revealed a large kitchen.

“No, I do not need help, thank you. I think I am capable of making a pizza by myself.” Kaiba walked up to the fridge and got out several ingredients, mumbling to himself. The only words I could catch were ‘unreliable’ and ‘idiot’.

Mokuba walked up beside me, glancing up at me. “So, (y/n), do you want to play video games while we wait for Seto?”

“Sure, what do you want to play?” I grinned at Mokuba’s excited smile and followed him into the living room, watching him open a cabinet and look through the games.

I sat down on the couch, carefully walking around the glass coffee table.

“Do you want to play Mario Kart?!” Mokuba asked, his eyes shining.

“Sure,” I said, entertained by the idea of destroying this young child.

I let him win the first few rounds before I got serious. I easily beat him, flaunting my victory after the third win.

“I am the Mario Kart Queen!” I yelled, standing up and throwing my hands in the air. Mokuba giggled.

“The Queen, huh?” Kaiba walked into the living room, smiling slightly. I grinned at him.

“Yep. Care to challenge me for the title?” I asked, holding up a controller.

“Not today,” he said, walking over and sitting across from me. I smiled at him, happy he was talking to me a bit more than last time.

“Mokuba, can you set a timer for the pizza?” Kaiba asked. Mokuba nodded and grabbed his phone.

Mokuba and I played a few more rounds of Mario Kart. He gave up after I won for the fifth time in a row.

“So Seto, tell me more about that girl you fired today.” Mokuba was barely able to sit still, constantly moving around in anticipation of the pizza.

“She was incompetent, and I have no room for incompetent people at KaibaCorp,” he stated simply before sipping from his glass of water.

“What did she do wrong?” I asked curiously.

“Well, for starters she didn’t appreciate the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. She had the audacity to tell me that it was just a card,” Kaiba looked up at me. “She also overlapped my appointments several times, and I had to do her job for her today.”

“I see. Was she your secretary?” I asked. Kaiba affirmed by nodding. “Does that mean you are looking for someone to replace her?”

“Are you interested?” Kaiba asked, raising an eyebrow. Mokuba was watching us intently.

I thought for a moment.

Do I really want to work for Kaiba?

Joey had always told me horror stories, but he didn’t seem that bad. Joey also exaggerated a lot, so something simple like Kaiba's taste in food probably offended him.

"Yes. Should I set up an appointment for an interview now? Or would you rather do that later on?” To say I was desperate for this job was an understatement. If I got it, it would take a lot off of my shoulders.

Mokuba and Kaiba looked at each other. Kaiba took a breath to respond before Mokuba quickly interrupted him.

"You're hired.”

“Mokuba, she's still in school. How is she possibly going to have time to work full-time as my secretary?”

Oh. I guess he has a point.

“But it would be perfect! You would get to see each other all the time!” Mokuba protested.

I sighed. “He has a point, Mokuba, I didn’t realize the job was full time. You're not offering any part-time jobs, are you?” I asked, still desperate. Kaiba thought for a moment.

“Do you want to scrub toilets?” he asked. Mokuba facepalmed.

"....how much does it pay?” I asked.

“Sixteen dollars an hour,” Kaiba stated simply.

“Done. I'm hired.” I stood up and stretched. “I feel like the pizza should have been done by now. Mokuba, how much time is left on the timer?”

Mokuba looked at his phone and paled. “I never pressed start.”

“Do you guys smell something burning?” I asked, looking at the kitchen. Black smoke became visible.

“Fire!!!!!!!!!!!!” Mokuba screamed.

“The pizza!!!!” I yelled, running into the kitchen. I threw the oven open only to be smacked in the face with the sun's heat and glory, along with a ton of smoke. I started coughing and grabbed the pizza, desperate to save it.

The pan burned my hand, and I yelled, dropping the pizza. The pain was intense, but it hurt more to know that my food was willing to hurt me in that way.

“What are you doing?!” Kaiba yelled, startling me. He put on an oven mitt and put the pizza on the stove.

“Saving the pizza,” I said, coughing a little. Kaiba sighed and opened a window. He walked over to the sink and turned the water on.

“Put your hand under the water,” he said, walking back to the burnt pizza. I followed his directions quietly, looking back at him. He shook his head and shoved the pizza aside.

I stood there for a few minutes. He walked over to me and turned the tap off, gently grabbing my wrist. He looked at my hand and shook his head once again.

“Come on.” Kaiba walked out of the kitchen. “Mokuba, order a pizza.”

Mokuba cheered and ran for his phone.

I followed Kaiba through the mansion, keeping my burnt hand close to myself. We reached a familiar hallway, entering the second door on the left.

We entered the master bedroom. There was a bed with a dark blue comforter on the right side of the wall, a window at the back of the room, and a door on the left of the room.

“Sit down,” he said, opening the door. He walked into a bathroom and opened a cupboard.

“Where?” I asked, glancing around.

“On the bed.” Kaiba walked back to me with a first aid kit.

He sat on the bed next to me and tenderly took my hand in his. I looked away, my cheeks warm, trying to ignore how his rough hands fit perfectly around my own.

“It’s fine, you know. The burn isn’t even that bad, it’s not like I’m going to die,” I mumbled. I glanced over at him and watched him completely ignore me, continuing to treat my burn. He lightly wrapped it in gauze. When done, he sat there holding my hand, saying nothing.

"...Kaiba?"

"Enlighten me: why did you grab the pizza pan with your bare hand?" he asked in disbelief.

"It was burning??" I said, confused.

"There were oven mitts right there." His eyes pierced into my soul, analyzing my very being.

"Well, Kaiba, I wasn't looking for oven mitts, I was saving the pizza." He looked irritated at my response, removing his right hand from mine and pinching the bridge of his nose, his left hand remaining on mine.

Kaiba let out a deep sigh and stood up, pulling me with him. "Let's go see what Mokuba ordered."

[dungeondicedivaarchieve]

A few months ago I typed up some comments about the anime-only scene between Otogi and Honda on the blimp. Found here.

Well... now I'm here to talk about what happened before that scene. Because I read so much more into it.

Let's take a walk.

Please keep in mind that a great deal of this speculation comes from the belief that, despite Mr. Clown not being seen in the anime, he still exists and his relationship to his son is very similar. Also please keep in mind that this is all speculation from someone who has spent waaaayyyy too much time looking into everything Ryuji Otogi says/ does.

~~~

We join our heroes shortly after Yugi's Duel with Bakura. Ryou has fallen unconscious and the stab wound he sustained earlier has re-opened (unless you're watching the dub where blood doesn't exist.)

Otogi's first line comes after Shizuka has asked Kaiba to land the plane, and the camera cuts to her making a pose that demonstrates both uncertainty and discomfort. Kaiba stares at her and Honda and Otogi both get between them... to Honda's annoyance.

More on this in a second.

Kaiba ignores this and turns his attention back to Jonouchi and Yugi, telling them that it was Bakura's choice to Duel and that he will not be held responsible for the repercussions of another's mistake.

This causes Shizuka to shout (probably for the first time in her life.)

Otogi makes this face. Personally, I think it looks like a combination of surprise and concern. But why would he be concerned?

Because Shizuka is a lot younger, a lot smaller, and a lot less powerful (both physically and financially) than Seto Kaiba.

He is fearful of what Kaiba will do in retaliation, ans so.

He gets between Shizuka and Kaiba in hopes of transferring whatever Kaiba's about to do to him instead of her.

Because Ryuji Otogi is an abuse victim that knows what happens when you challenge someone bigger and more powerful than you. They put you back in your place.

Also Honda continues to not like this. Otogi is cutting him off each time he tries to speak, and while this could be seen as Otogi trying to one up Honda (and the dub absolutely took it that way) I can see it taken a number of ways. There's a chance he's trying to team up with Honda and hope that Kaiba won't start anything if it's two against one. It could also be that Otogi's not paying a lot of attention to Honda. He does see Shizuka and start moving in front of her before Honda moves into the frame the second time.

Going on a small tangent here but...

Keep in mind, Otogi stepped into a fight against four other guys and got himself involved in the fight against a cult to protect Honda and Shizuka. Sure, you can say that he did that to have a chance with her, but that's a lot of risk to have a chance with a girl he knows nothing about... especially for a guy who could have any number of girls with minimal effort. He will also shortly after this put up his own body as a gamble to protect Shizuka from a creepy old man that wants to wear her body like a suit. Personally, I don't think Otogi has any romantic feelings towards Shizuka at all, since each time they interact, he isn't so much flirting as he is trying to protect her. He treats Rebecca in a very similar way when he joins the duel between her and Varon under the assumption that Mai is also dueling, and that Rebecca will be outnumbered (and the correct assumption that a 12-year-old is about to pick a fight with a cult member who has the power to steal her soul. I've heard critiques that Otogi is very sexist because he won't let Rebecca nor Shizuka fight their own battles, which, yes, that's one way to take it... or you can take it as him stepping in when people significantly younger than even he is (Shizuka is 13) are put into incredible danger.)

That was lengthier than I meant for it to be, I'm sorry, back to the actual post.

So, despite everyone's best attempts, Kaiba's not landing this plane. Now get out.

Shizuka makes this face as they leave.

She's not having a good time.

Again Honda tries to talk to Shizuka and again Otogi cuts him off. He also grabs her hands and makes a very dramatic show of himself.

He makes this ridiculous face (that the dub skips because right after it, Shizuka blushes, and the dub really wants to portray Duke as the bad option in this love triangle. So we can't let it be known that she's happy he's doing this.)

This. This is not a face you use when you're trying to be suave and impress a girl. Heck, this is not a face we'll ever see him use again. We've seen him be suave and flirtatious, we know what it looks like, and folks, this ain't it.

To me, he knows he's being ridiculous and over-the-top. That's the point. He's trying to make Shizuka smile or at least stop making that face.

Now... this is where things take a turn.

Disclaimer: This might come across like I don't like Honda. I don't dislike Honda at all! It's just the nature of this scene.

Honda volunteers to go look for the Millennium Ring. Yugi agrees that they should all look. Honda says no, Jonouchi and Yugi should focus on their duels.

We cut to Otogi (still holding Shizuka's hands, I think she's okay now buddy you can stop) and he asks if Shizuka wants to help him search (he does not speak for her like he does in the dub.)

Honda insists Otogi come with him and very forcefully shoves/pushes Otogi away from Shizuka (who does, admittedly, look relieved.) When Otogi tries to protest that this isn't what he wants, Honda grabs his face to silence him.

This is not the first time someone has silenced Otogi by forcefully touching his face.

And this is not the expression of someone who is at all comfortable with the person touching him.

Honda then proceeds to drag a flailing Otogi away from the group while covering his mouth.

Otogi is doing everything in his power to communicate that he does not want this without being able to speak or break the guy's hold around his neck and no one is recognizing this as a sign of distress... or they are and they're just not stopping it. Heck, Jonouchi thinks Honda is being nice.

We can also see in this still that Honda's got a few inches on Otogi. Not a lot, Honda is 5'11 and Otogi is 5'8, but that's a considerable difference when you're intimidated.

Honda drags him to the top of the blimp and, while Otogi is looking about the blimp for the ring (what Honda claimed they were going up here to do) Honda stays still. Directly in front of the door. Blocking Otogi from being able to get away. (I can't post any more images in this post I'll have to rely on hyperlinks now.)

Otogi can't get away and he's been pulled away from the group. He is very aware this guy has a problem with him and can very easily overpower him.

So Otogi does what I've dubbed activates smug mode.

I'm going to make another post elaborating on activate smug mode (this one's long enough as it is) but, basically, Otogi only acts this way when he's trying to get the better of someone or when he's feeling threatened. He is also incredibly smug when he approaches his father to tell him that he lost to Yugi, knowing full well how his father will react to that news. It's a defense mechanism. Honda's taller and stronger than Otogi, all Otogi can really do is badmouth him and make him feel smaller in hopes that that will make Honda back off.

He then makes this pose.

I'm no body language specialist, but I worked as a counselor at a battered women's shelter for a while, so I was taught a few things.

1. He turns to his side. When you're intimidated by someone, you don't face them directly. You tilt your body away to give the illusion of distance, and to keep your vitals out of their direct reach.

2. He folds his arms in front of his stomach. Remember, Shizuka crossed her arms in front of her stomach when she was facing down Kaiba. Otogi is masking it a little by pointing and propping his elbow on his hand, but folding the arms over the chest or stomach remains a typical sign of insecurity/fear.

3. He is clutching his arm. This is something people do during severe bouts of anxiety in an attempt to ground themselves.

In conclusion, yes, Otogi sounds very confident and like he's egging Honda on. He sounds confident. Because that's the only thing he really has over Honda. Honda seems insecure about his appearance when compared to Otogi, thus why he gets deeply irritated whenever Otogi gets close to Shizuka. Otogi taps into that and uses it because it's his only defense in this situation. Maybe Honda will get fed up and leave to go lick his wounded pride.

It doesn't work. They throw hands. Well, Honda throws hands. Otogi stays in a very defensive stance the entire time. Fun fact: Keeping your arms raised close to your face and blocking your chest is one of the main stances in the more defensive based martial art of Tae-Kwon-Do.

In conclusion, my name is Axel and I think about this way, way, waaaay too much. I am of the belief that Otogi is very intimidated by Honda. I was going to attach images here of all the times Honda grabs Otogi's shirt/ threatens to punch him in the face but since I can't attach any more images and hyperlinks are a pain, I'll save it for another post. There are at least five instances.

No, I don't hate/dislike Honda, in fact, I'm pretty sure if Honda knew about Otogi's background, he'd feel terrible. The fact is they're both insecure teenage boys, Otogi because of his home life and Honda because of his family's social status and perhaps his lack of success as a duelist.

And... while I've thought about this scene a lot ever since posting that other post, I never realized how sad it makes me. Otogi's not hiding that he's not okay with being manhandled and dragged off, and his friends just sorta. Let it happen. Again, I don't blame any of them. Both Yugi and Jou have a lot on their minds and they don't seem to notice that this is a problem. Probably because 1. Honda and Jou are very physical/ playfully threatening people, that's just how they are. 2. No one knows about Otogi's homelife. They have no way of knowing he would have issue with any of this. They do it to one another all the time.

I have a lot of feelings.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 23: Roland Freaks Out for 25 Straight Minutes

Oh man, took a break from the blog for a bit there because I gave myself a project to do that is 160ish color panels to draw by June 30th and um...it takes a while to do that, it turns out. Every time I’m like “wow I actually have enough time to make a buffer for the blog” I get so distracted.

But anyways, I started having some issues with my wacom tablet, my mouse is a nightmare, and so...I’m just gonna look the other way and write a recap and unplug all of the wacom stuff and just stay the hell away from whatever happened to that...tablet.

maybe It’ll be fine tomorrow?

*sweats nervously*

Thank God I didn’t buy a cintique, that’s all I’ll say. 

Anyway, lets go back to Yugioh. Where were we?

That’s right. Mokuba is checking in with my favorite Kaiba, Roland, who is currently just trying to keep the company running while the official Kaibas are flying to California.

And I’ll be honest, as I was typing this I thought “and why are they going to California again?” and it took me like...10 minutes to remember that Seto dropped absolutely everything and jumped on this massive plane in order to beat Rafael at cards to win the title “King of Games” which...Yugi had already lost to Rebecca about 2 years ago prior, but don’t tell that to Seto. Or Rebecca.

Also don’t tell Seto that the “King of Games” title originally comes from being possessed by a very emo ghost that has a tendency to set people on fire with Russian whiskey and has nothing to do with whatever shenanigans went down with Pegasus.

Honestly, I like to think that in the modern version of this show, Pegasus threw the “King of Games” line out there as like a corny joke, and when the teenagers started latching onto it like it was real, he was like “Oh what?” and left it alone because he just got his left eye ripped out of his face and was very distracted by the large amount of cultists in his basement that he suddenly needed to let go.

But youknow it’s the end of the world, Kaiba’s company is being bought out by a competitor, one of Dartz’ assassins are trying to kill both him and his brother, but he has to go to California immediately to play Rafael while he has the chance. Not sure how Alister got the tip-off that Kaiba would be flying back to California so quickly, but knowing the Kaibas, they probably jump on a plane several times a week.

I’m just still baffled that Mokuba’s doing this over a cell phone. That he was like “I better call someone.” and instead of calling the Airline or the Coastguard he’s like “I’ll call Roland💗”

I’m pretty sure Roland saw that phone ringing with Mokuba in the callerID and was like “NO NO NO NO NO”

(read more under the cut)

Luckily for Roland, everyone at Kaiba corp has to learn how to fly planes in order to pass the entry exam.

For reals though, that plane just casually bumped off a mountain like it’s in Diddy Kong Racing.

There’s a lot of levels of brother’s saving brothers in this episode. You have Seto who thinks he’s saving Mokuba, but in fact it is Mokuba saving Seto by keeping this plane afloat. And then in reality, you can take another brother step backward and say it was Roland who was saving Mokuba who was saving Seto by giving the phone to that rando, and take even another step backward and say it was this Random Guy who was saving Roland who was saving Mokuba who was saving Seto.

So in reality, no brothers were really able to save eachother, it was actually that one secretary at the desk who screamed “JUST PULL THE LEVER HARDER, I DUNNO” until it worked.

But just remember that the theme of this episode is brothers saving brothers, although Mokuba is too small to really fly this plane, and Seto is too crazy to stop this duel and Roland is not really the secret inept heir of the Kaiba bloodline, and only in my little headcanon.

And also, I just have no idea who that random secretary is.

Anyways, Alister made this thing happen on the field.

Hey guys?

How many guns do you need on a tank?

Like I...

That is a hilarious amount of guns on this tank.

Like every character designer part of me is dying right now. It’s when you’re learning Maya, and you finally figure out the duplicate tool, and you just--you just strap a billion guns on a spaceship. We’ve all done this.

But like...this gunship has a face, and that face has it’s own tiny Oricalchos.

All I’m saying is that Alister is having a hell of a time in his Maya 101 class he takes at the local community college when he’s not busy working for Kaiba Corp Airlines or busy killing people for Dartz. I want to know what grade he got on this project, because in my Maya classes the only people who were this dedicated were building weird ass warships for their games or building intense 3D My Little Pony fanfic.

Here’s a list I can think of from the top of my head of challenges Seto Kaiba either quit or completely failed outright (basically the times Seto has NOPEd out or been forcibly kicked out):

-Joey Wheeler’s many challenges and also Spanish Class (as mentioned above)

-Beating Yugi in a card game

-Not joining Pegasus’ tourney initially so he could go on a vacation.

-We’ll just assume he’s only taken like a bunch of random college classes but only got an honorary degree

-Chess (like he was a Grand Master at one point but wtv, cards exist now)

-Didn’t arrest the Big Five or remove them from his mmo so they freakin died in there.

-Being the actual owner of the Millennium Rod

-Every time Yami tells him that they should be friends

-That whole story line where he was dating a dragon in a past life

-fulfilling that prophecy of killing Yami in the present timeline to end the world

-attempting to blow up his own battle city tournament before it was over because he didn’t win

-Getting all 3 Godcards

-When a possessed Tristan appeared over a mountain top to duel everyone and Seto just went “I’m out” and simply walked away

-Flying a blimp from point A to point B without it setting on fire

-Getting his Dad to build an amusement park

-Just anything to do with Noah

-the existence of magic in general

-every attempt he’s had to rebrand Kaiba Corp as “funtime games inc I swear we don't make tanks anymore, stop looking at all the tanks”

-Seto Kaiba’s entire Destiny storyline this season that he has gone way out of his way to get away from.

And like I’m sure there’s more, but I feel like half of Kaiba’s MO is that he is either Too Good To Bother With This or he has Lost Everything Very Dramatically. Mokuba at least has the right idea, by being one of the few people who has beaten Yugi Muto by peacing out halfway through the duel and stealing all Yugi’s stuff off of Yugi’s side of the table.

Anyway, despite it being like...5 seconds since we saw Roland in a weird cyber room in what I assume was Japan, we now see him with his head pressed against the glass of this helicopter being like “BOYS NO NOT AGAIN WHY”

And youknow, Roland was just trying to do the right thing, but he accidentally made things a million times worse by just showing up.

And so Alister was like “well I better crash the plane now with this gust of green energy that destroys all mechanical equipment.”

Really not sure how Alister was planning to leave this plane after this duel was over. I don’t know if he thinks that far ahead.

this isn’t even a joke I made up, Roland really did run up to the pilot and was like “Just throw down some ladders! That should work!” and it’s like...Do you not see the giant ship covered in a thousand guns right now, Roland?

And then Alister and Seto decide to have a fight about ethics where they’re both pretty wrong.

I mean it’s not the exact line but yes this is basically what Seto said, point blank, and I was like “well...at least he owns it.”

So cards happen, dragons get played (so MANY dragons) and because we had to end this arc, Alister loses the duel as we kind of knew he would.

And then Mokuba, because he knows no other life, sees an asshole older brother in pain and just wants to adopt him.

Enjoy that trauma tossed onto your already megalith sized trauma pile, Mokuba.

Elsewhere, the legendary dragons have started syncing again, which is a weird thing that they can do that none of these guys have any control of.

Mostly it just irritates whoever is holding these cards at the time.

But behold! the glory!

The glory of three tubby dragons wielding a plane!

It’s what Kaiba always wanted but he had absolutely no idea he was doing it. Will anyone tell him that he managed to summon three dragons to fly him around the sky like a mamma bird? No. No one bothers to tell him that his wildest dreams just came true.

FYI There were other stills of more of the dragons and the plane, but I kept pausing on instances where it kinda looked like they were humping the plane so I gave up.

But, at least we all get to meet up, around the smoke coming out the back of this giant plane that now...will just sit here...until someone sues KaibaCorp over it, I guess.

Like a soccermom, now Roland gets to give the whole frenemy crew a ride with...copters or whatever.

I dont’ know how Roland got here, y’all.

This happens a lot with animated shows, youknow, there’s a lot of plot threads, a lot of scenes and episodes that get freelanced out and outsourced, and people who make these shows aren’t working on the whole thing at once, they’re just going off of director notes--so there’s a good chance they had no idea that Roland...just shouldn’t be here.

But it’s OK, I enjoy whenever Roland is panicking in the background. He’s good set dressing.

Seto does not give any more explanation of this corpse.

And then, sprinting as fast as he could out of his copter comes Roland, who does what Roland does best. It’s this moment where you would usually see a parental figure reveal how much they care and adore their little children. But because it’s Roland, and these are the Kaibas, he instead takes this moment to reveal exactly how inept he is at the very last second.

Never change, Roland. I love this massive green haired disappointment.

Anyway, I’m not sure when I’ll get the next update out, since I’ll be knee deep in drawing art I don’t need to draw, but just know I’m not dead. Usually I post fanart or whatever, but all I have is this Dartz I started drawing but he just has so much hair that I don’t think that one will ever get even remotely finished.

But anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read these from the start.

[nenya85]

sorry if this question is strange; I was wondering- what are your thoughts about how KaibaCorp functions in DSOD? You see in the movie that KaibaCorp even controls who can be a citizen of Domino- and I had felt a bit confused about why Kaiba was so invested in controlling the city to that extent

I’m dividing your ask into two parts 1) Kaiba controlling who gets to be a citizen of Domino and 2) Kaiba’s over-the-top surveillance of everyone living there.  

I have absolutely no idea how requiring a duel disk for citizenship would work, but I have to admit that I didn’t take Diva’s comments literally.  In the subtitled translation, when Diva says that Kaiba has made a rule that you need a Duel Disk to live in Domino, Mokuba’s mouth drops open and he says,”What’s with this guy?”

(Okay, if I’m being totally honest, the only reason I threw that screencap in is because Mokuba is just too adorable for words.)

Anyway, since Mokuba is on board with Kaiba keeping tabs on the entire city, stopping traffic lights so he can have a dramatic chat with Yugi in the rain, and helps out with the occasional spot of breaking and entering, I interpreted Mokuba’s reaction as an indication that Diva’s accusations were pretty off-base, even by Kaiba standards.  

Also, when Diva talks about Kaiba being the dictator of Domino, he goes on to explain it in terms of Kaiba’s creation of a neural network where people link thoughts in a way that’s similar to the Plana.  To Diva, Kaiba is a dictator because he created and owns this network, not because he controls the laws or operations of an actual physical place.  This matches how I see Yu-Gi-Oh! in general.

To me, Yu-Gi-Oh! as a fairy tale that has some real world trappings, rather than a realistic story with some minor magical flourishes.  It’s a story told through the emotional journeys of its characters.  

Which brings me to Kaiba’s canon, stalker mode of operation.  

Kaiba is on an ongoing quest for a sense of safety – and for him that means control.  In Duelist Kingdom, he talks about how important it is to have the power to protect the things crucial to you.   In Battle City, Kaiba reflects on how power means security, how it means that things can’t be taken from you.  

For most of his life, the most important things in that life, have been wildly out of Kaiba’s control, often with disastrous results.  His way of protecting himself is to try to control everything he possibly can and I see his obsessive surveillance as part of that.  If he has enough data, then he can plan well enough to make sure he’ll never be hurt again.  

In DSoD, Kaiba has once again been reminded, in the most devastating way possible, that despite everything he’s accomplished, he’s still powerless in so many of the ways that matter.  Atem is his only friend.  He’s one of the very few people that Kaiba trusts or listens to.  Through their repeated duels, Kaiba ends up re-evaluating his life and some of his most self-destructive beliefs, including that losing should equal death.  And then, while still working through all of this, he’s faced with another loss.  

He couldn’t stop Atem from leaving; he couldn’t even control (or erase) his own grief.  It’s possible that Kaiba didn’t know that the Ceremonial Duel was happening or what the stakes were, until it was too late, making him even more eager to make sure that life never blind-sides him again.  

Although in DSoD, Kaiba has in many ways moved forward – he’s no longer locked in an emotional struggle with his dead adoptive father for one thing – this is one issue he’s still grappling with and his surveillance of the city and control over its computer-run systems is one way to show that.  

In DSoD, the things crucial to Kaiba now include friendship and connection.  I find it interesting that at the end of the movie, in pursuit of those things, Kaiba has found a way to wrest some measure of control over the uncontrollable.  He couldn’t stop Atem from leaving, but he does find a way to go to see him, to erase even the barriers dividing dimensions.  I like that while the ending does affirm that life and death remains beyond our control, it also suggests that it’s never a smart move to bet against Seto Kaiba’s sheer bullheadedness. 

Thanks for asking!

[pharaohsparklefists]

Episode 108, part 3: Can Kaiba’s motorbike also leap with the grace and power of majestic kangaroo?

WHEEEEEE!

His, however, fucking EXPLODES on impact which suggests that Kaiba is not quite so good at motorcycle as Ota/Honda. Honda owns a motorcycle so possibly Ota is able to use his, I guess, muscle memory?

Anyway, across the burning motorcycle of Inconsistent Fire Animation, Kaiba’s eyes lock with a man in a purple trenchcoat, which I have to presume is some kind of ill-advised attempted power move cause NO ONE out-trenchcoats Seto fucking Kaiba

“um, nothing? nice to see you too, asshole”

And that didn’t strike you as odd?? That’s hardly a “now that you mention it” kind of moment. Whatever. Kaiba counters with,

Daimon: “I just fucking said-- YOU’RE NOT EVEN LISTENING, ARE YOU? WE CAME UP WITH THIS ELABORATE VIRTUAL WORLD PLAN TO GET OUR REVENGE ON YOU, SPECIFICALLY, BECAUSE YOU WERE SUCH A FUCKING AWFUL, SELF-ABSORBED BOSS AND NOW YOU’RE HERE, TRAPPED IN OUR SIMULATION, AND YOU’RE STILL NOT EVEN FUCKING LISTENING TO ME”

So then he’s like LET’S DUEL and Kaiba’s like

Which has GOT to be some kind of automatic response because we all know Kaiba doesn’t think dueling is ever absurd, certainly not against a long-time foe, with a dramatic background, halfway through rescuing Mokuba. That’s the shit Kaiba LIVES for.

Kaiba chooses Lord of Dragon Hands On His Shoulders as his Deck Master, while Daimon chooses-- 

oh good. I love when things are ... funner.

I think failure to disclose your Deck Master should be a shut-the-fuck-up-forever offence, but is Kaiba perturbed by it?

no he’s having the tiME OF HIS LIFE

I like that Kaiba’s identified himself as blue fire: cold-looking, but actually burning, consuming, active. People sometimes contrast Yami’s red fire (dangerous, but warm and passionate) with Kaiba’s blue ice, but Kaiba doesn’t have nearly enough ... chill. ( •_•) 

( •_•)>⌐■-■ 

(⌐■_■)

So then they go into a trap back and forth of the Yu-Gi-Ohest manner possible. 

d’oh

oh-ho!

ho! you keep your clothes on!

Here’s the promised funner reveal of Daimon’s Deck Master: below the sexy trenchcoat is .... JINZO, trap-destroyer extraordinaire

EVER.

then Daimon brings this up:

And I think this is legit a trigger for Seto, because he immediately goes into a flashback that I think is a real flashback, not a Noah-controlled simulation.

Seto: “I’m like 14 or some shit, this isn’t how children work.” (It is legal in Japan to leave school after junior high, so usually at age 15. I suppose it’s possible that Seto completed junior high early and legally dropped out of school on Gozaburo’s wishes. Meaning he RE-ENROLLED HIMSELF on purpose after he took over.)

Seto: “That’s more like it.”

Gozaburo: “You and your brother each get 2% of KaibaCorp’s stock, and you also get a tray of money. BUT THERE’S A TWIST. I’m only LOANING you the money. You have to pay it back. ONE HUNDRED TIMES OVER!”

Seto: “.... This isn’t how birthdays work!!”

Gozaburo assigns Daimon to assist Seto with the parts of financial stock trading that require Being A Legal Adult. Mokuba is worried about this challenge, but Seto isn’t.

“And I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I’m absolutely fucking amazing at games. No one alive for the past, say, 2,999 years could ever beat me at a game! I confidently foresee a future of nothing but winning goddamn games for myself.”

In an ADORABLE move, he’s figuring out his 51% plan by literally laying out 100 cards on the ground.

Daimon chooses a funeral home (grim) where the workers are very devoted to their jobs. Then Seto shows up and full-on extorts the CEO and (former) owner of the funeral home: pay me back 100 times what I bought the company for or I shut it down.

I mean I don’t want to come across too callous here but children can be AWFUL. And this plan is ... not that complicated.

And how the fuck does this madman have one HUNDRED times the value of 51% of the stock of his own company just, fuckin, lying around to be extorted out of him? Like, you of all people should know you can’t take it with you, bro. Spend that shit.

“Also you dropped that sick gangsta rap album that year. That was weird.”

Anyway then Daimon is all, blah blah blah never defeat me, and Kaiba’s all blah blah blah...

Somewhere, dub!Kaiba winces.

Oh and, this has nothing to do with the plot and I know this is already hella long but I just had to point out that Seto invented a highly complex virtual reality system with remote piloting, age like, 13. Gozaburo invents

WRIST GUN PEW PEW

Also, this shit:

This shit ain’t right. #shakesfistatPegasus

Kaiba grits his teeth and determines to persevere in the face of no traps, PTSD flashbacks, a kinky nurse with a giant phallic metaphor, and a highly embarrassing wrist-mounted weapon designed by his adoptive father who was ostensibly a clever and sensible military contractor...

“But at least none of them were being targeted for death by a missile system launched from an orbital satellite.”

“wait.”

“fuck.”

[starryeyed0590]

Yu-Gi-Oh House Sorting

Lately, I’ve been super-obsessed with the House System as espoused by @sortinghatchats​, and I’ve been trying to apply it to other fictional characters. Since I know these characters so well, figured I’d start with Yu-Gi-Oh. Don’t kill me for using the dub names, please.

Yugi Muto*

Note: It can be very difficult to separate Yugi and Yami’s personalities from each other, so I focused on instances when it is very clear which one is acting.

Primary: Hufflepuff

A Hufflepuff primary is defined by caring for people, all people (or at least however the Hufflepuff defines “people”), and Yugi Muto is the kindest, most self-sacrificing person you will ever meet. He made his best friend Joey by claiming him as a friend back when he was relentlessly being bullied by him, and by sticking to him in his time of need. Unlike a Slytherin, he does not prioritize. He is willing to sacrifice his best chance to help his grandfather because he is unwilling to risk harm his rival. He tries his best to defend and protect a downed Pegasus after the man spent months threatening his friends and family. Yugi Muto never meant a person he couldn’t offer friendship to, and even if that person rejects his offer and attempts to harm him or his friends, there’s  STILL a good chance Yugi will do whatever he can to save him if he needs it.

Secondary: Gryffindor

Yugi would befriend the whole world if it’d let him. But when someone needs him, he’ll charge into any kind of danger without a second thought. When the boys who bullied him on a daily basis were being thrashed by a bigger bully, Yugi threw himself between them, even though there was not a chance he’d avoid being pulverized. When Tea Gardner was assaulted, Yugi charged the guy. While not *as* impulsive as fellow Gryffindor secondary Joey, Yugi’s impulse to charge can still get the better of him, as in the shadow game with Bakura, where as the Dark Magician, he is easily goaded into a premature attack.

Yami Yugi

Primary: Slytherin

As a Slytherin primary, Yami prioritizes himself and “his people” over everyone and everything else. At first, “his people” was solely Yugi, but over the course of the series, he began to expand his definition to all of Yugi’s people. (And since Yugi is a Hufflepuff primary, there are a LOT of people).

Without his memories, Yami had no real idea of who he was, but he began to construct an identity (and morality) for himself as a hero. To this end, he models Gryffindor, “doing the right thing,” acting as a champion for the weak or wronged, seeking to save the world. But when push comes to shove, if asked to choose between saving the world and saving Yugi, he will pick Yugi every time. He is willing to send Kaiba to his possible death if it means he can rescue Yugi’s grandfather (and protect his spotless win record). He uses the tainted Seal of Orichalcos despite knowing of its evil because he believes it is the only way to win. All of his darkest moments come when he has failed to protect those closest to him, particularly when his use of the Orichalcos results in Yugi’s soul being captured, but also when Marik nearly kills Joey.

Secondary: Gryffindor

Yami Yugi will step up fearlessly to any challenge. He’s never backed away from a fight, and he’s not able to start. Experience and strategy may cause him to take caution in a given scenario, but for Yami Yugi, inaction is never an option. The Gryffindor secondary he shares with Yugi is one of the core parts of their bond, and what allows them to work so effectively as a single entity.

Tea Gardner

Primary: Hufflepuff

Like many Hufflepuff primaries, Tea bonds to groups. She honestly and sincerely believes in the power of friendship, that being kind and compassionate can change things, and everyone in need is deserving of help. (And her tendency to speechify about this made her infamous in the fandom) It’s this unqualified compassion that bonds her to Yugi, and on several dramatic occasions to clash with Yami Yugi. She steps in to urge Yugi to spare Kaiba in the duel atop Pegasus Castle, and again to stay Yami’s hand against Weevil when victory had turned into brutal retribution. 

Secondary: Hufflepuff

Hufflepuff secondaries toil, and there is no character who believes more in the power of steady hard work than Tea Gardner. While her personal arc often takes a backseat to her friends’ louder shenanigans, Tea has a great ambition to be a professional dancer someday. How does she plan to accomplish this? Work. Working hard to earn money so she can go to school in New York, so she can work hard to acquire the skills that she needs. Kidnap the girl and put her in a room with boxes, and she will try one (not great) plan after another, over and over, without flagging, in an attempt to escape. Tea is steady, and it’s that steadiness that makes her the glue that holds Yugi’s group of friends together.

Joey Wheeler

Primary: Gryffindor

Gryffindor primaries trust their instincts. They “go with their gut,” what they instinctually feel is right or wrong. To do otherwise feels immoral to them. Joey Wheeler is probably the most instinct-driven character on the show, and his Gryffindor primary drives him to do all kinds of actions he’d rather not (including helping out people he really doesn’t like), because to do otherwise would be just wrong. Although his large group of friends is important to him, he doesn’t need-base decisions like a Hufflepuff, and no matter how fiercely loyal he is to his sister or his best friend, he never puts them ahead of doing the right thing, something that sharply separates him from fellow devoted big brother Seto Kaiba.

Secondary: Gryffindor

Gryffindor secondaries charge. That’s Joey, charging off without a second thought, considering the consequences later, whether it’s diving headlong into freezing cold water to recover playing cards, stepping in front of the blast of an incredibly powerful being. His default response to every situation is to meet it headlong.

Seto Kaiba

Primary: Slytherin

A Slytherin primary is defined by the drive to put “me and mine” first, and that’s Seto Kaiba to a T. For Kaiba, there are exactly two people in the world he truly cares about: himself and his little brother Mokuba. He would do absolutely anything it takes to keep Mokuba safe and cared for, and he’s certainly no stranger to self-preservation, either. Mokuba Is priority #1, himself is #2, his company (still a part of his “mine”) is a somewhat distant #3, and the rest of the world can burn if it has to.

Secondary: Ravenclaw

Ravenclaw secondaries are the planners. They *can* improvise, charge, or toil, but above all, they prefer to collect information, devise strategies, and go into any situation completely prepared. Kaiba is one of the most methodical strategists in Yu-gi-oh. When he was a child, he collected information on Gozaburo Kaiba’s chess playing strategies, just so he could beat him at a game—and win a better life for himself and his brother. When attempting to take down Pegasus (and recover his brother and his company), Kaiba doesn’t charge in hoping the rightness of his cause will defend him like Yami Yugi does. Instead, he carefully considers what will give him a needed advantage, and builds an invention that will give him that advantage. Yes, when that plan fails (because of his incredibly strong Slytherin primary being used against him), he is forced to improvise, but he does it as a last resort. Kaiba’s first instinct is always to make a plan.

Mai Valentine

Primary: Slytherin

When we first meet Mai, she is a Petrified Slytherin—as a result of her painful childhood in a broken home, she believes she is better off without anyone and she refuses to form attachments. She rejects Jean Vanne-Claude’s offer of marriage for no discernable reason, and views every person as a merely someone to be manipulated or defeated. However, over the course of the first season, Yugi’s group, particularly Joey, get to her, and despite herself she finds she’s let them into her inner circle. By the end of the second season, she’s thawed enough to offer help to strangers Duke and Serenity merely based on their bonds to “her” people. In his shadow game, Marik uses her newly formed bonds against her, first by making her forget about her friends, and then by torturing her with a reality where she is imprisoned in torment while they blithely ignore her.

While she initially recovers from Marik’s psychological torment, it, along with a series of events between seasons, causes her to Petrify again, shedding all of her emotional bonds and joining Dartz’s organization. Although she pledges her loyalty to the Orichalcos, it is clear from her interactions with Dartz and his agents that she has no real loyalty to them. Valon desperately tries to bond with her, but she utterly refuses to allow him any place in her affections. Although she has renounced all of her previous bonds with her friends, Joey refuses to give her up, and finally, finally, at the very last moment, is able to reignite his bond with her, which overcomes the Orichalcos’ influence over her.

Secondary: Ravenclaw

While Mai is an excellent manipulator, which would seem to make her a fit for Slytherin, and she has a brash temper to rival any Gryffindor’s, one of Mai’s defining qualities as a duelist is her strategizing. Mai always has a pre-determined game plan ahead of every situation. She knows her win-condition and she knows how she is going to get to it. While her strategies are often clever and successful, frequently, Mai is so committed to her particular plan, that once it is thwarted, she is unable to devise any other way of getting through a situation, and she will stop trying. This happens in her first duel against Joey when he smelled through her “aroma strategy,” and stopped her only monster card, and in her duel against Yugi when he defeats her Harpie’s Pet Dragon. 

Thoughts? Arguments? Other characters I should do (Will probably take on a few more YGO characters soon)?

[dxmichelle]

Nerdship Shenanigans: Engagement Interview (Part 1 of 2)

Polished up that Nerdship snippet I posted about the other day, and broke it into two parts. The first bit is done under the cut (and is cross-posted in its prompt collection on AO3). 

Summary: The media's rumors and speculation about their relationship is finally laid to rest. 

Finally, the random image searching of birthstones, rings, and dresses will come in handy! :P

The quiet of the morning was broken by the slight buzz and soft keys of a piano coming from the phone on the bedside table. After about twenty seconds it quieted down only to start up again a few minutes later.

A hand shot out from beneath the bedcovers and groped around at the offending device until it turned off. An eye opened to see just who had decided to call and then text him a message and ruin his peaceful morning before the phone was flung across the room like a frisbee until it hit the wall.

Seto huffed and propped himself up against his pillows, rubbing the last bit of sleep from his eyes as the person next to him sighed sleepily and said, “I think you broke it this time.”

Seto blinked through the dark to where he assumed his phone landed. “That thing is built like a tank. It’s probably fine.”

Hermione clutched the blankets closer as she rolled over to face him. “I heard it shatter. That makes what – third time this month?”

“Second.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Seto – it’s only the fifth. The month just started.”

Seto merely shrugged his shoulders. “At least it wasn’t the office this time. Mokuba was wondering when we’re getting up.”

Hermione frowned and shifted to sit up beside him. “It’s a bit early, though. It’s still dark in here.”

A ghost of a smirk formed on his face before looking towards the windows. “The curtains are deceiving. It’s past eight.”

Hermione blinked. “And that’s considered late?”

Seto adjusted the sleeve of his shirt as he slid out of bed. “I’m usually up at six.”

“Ugh,” Hermione flopped back down. “I don’t know how you get through the day getting up so early and then not going to sleep until past midnight.”

“Determination and sheer stubbornness.”

Hermione giggled quietly. “Not coffee?”

“…That helps too.”

“Mm, and lots of it,” she added, and watched him open the door to his closet and disappear inside.

“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Seto scowled as he reemerged with a smoky-grey suit and tie draped over his arm. “You know I hate interviews. My life – our privacy – is none of their concern.”

Hermione nodded as she also got out of bed and moved towards the window, parting one side of the curtain to look out amongst the back yard of the mansion. The morning sunlight reflected across the sparkling ring on her left hand.

“I know,” she said, “But I’m tired of being chased by those vultures everywhere I go.”

Seto grumbled as he buttoned up his shirt. “You can thank the American press for that. Their level of obsession with everything except actual news is astounding.”

Hermione let go of the curtain and turned to face him. “We haven’t been to the United States in over a month.”

“Yeah,” Seto muttered, and he moved to stand in front of the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the closet door. “And when was the last time you traveled anywhere in the Muggle public’s eye without getting accosted? Ever since that magazine snapped that photo of us out in New York, you have not been left alone.”

Hermione grabbed the tie off the bed and handed it to him. “That was the whole point of doing this, wasn’t it? Give them what they want so they don’t bother us anymore?”

Seto sighed. “Allowing one interview isn’t going to stop them. It’s merely going to give them fuel to ignite more rumors. You will still be followed and stories will continue to circulate the Internet about you until the end of time.”

“Then how come these mindless articles don’t post too much about you, or Mokuba?”

Seto finished adjusting his tie. “They used to. When we were in America opening the first Kaiba Land, press followed us everywhere. I personally could care less of the garbage they post about me, but I wasn’t going to stand for them attacking Mokuba. So when the paparazzi were discovered following him to the school he was attending, they went from noisy pests to a security threat. Sufficed to say, that magazine is no longer in business, and a lot of the rabid reporting stopped. Until now.”

“If it’s not going to stop them,” said Hermione, wandering into the closet and looking through her clothes, “Then why would Roland suggest this in the first place?”

“Because confirming what everyone already seems to know protects you as well. They know I won’t respond to their baited articles about me, but I will if they end up endangering my family….”

He took her left hand in his and raised it up to look at her ring. “…Which you are now a part of.”

“I can take care of myself, you know,” she said, her lips twisting upwards in a humored smirk. “I know you remember getting quite a few trounces in the Room of Requirement.”

Seto raised an eyebrow. “In a world of magic, yes. This is not. And so long as the media here in Domino continue to regale me as some sort of royal figure because I decided to have a life outside of my office, you won’t be left alone. It’s ludicrous.”

“So the general reasoning behind this is to satisfy the masses, and silently remind everyone that if they wander too close to me you’re going to rain your rage down on them all?”

Seto shrugged nonchalantly. “Roland would have worded it differently, but that was his general idea.”

Hermione playfully swatted his arm. "Then you answered your own question."

They both turned as rapid knocking sounded on the door. “Are you two up yet?!”

Seto rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

Mokuba poked his head inside. “What is taking so long?”

Seto performed a dramatic sweeping bow. “Our Queen isn’t ready yet.”

“Oh!” Mokuba covered his eyes and whirled around to face the door. “Sorry!”

Hermione looked down at her nightclothes. “I am dressed, you know!”

Mokuba let out a loud, goofy exhale. “Oh, that’s a relief.”

The younger Kaiba was just as energetic at fifteen as he was at ten. His voice had deepened somewhat, and he finally earned his growth spurt, though not to the extent that he wanted. His dreams of sprouting up like a tree were dashed when he settled around Téa’s height.

At least he could say he was taller than Yugi.

“When did you get back?” he asked, “I think I was in bed when you got in.”

“It was late,” said Hermione, “The flight was delayed. Aside from the driver, I’m certain Seto was the only one in the house still awake.”

“Oh,” Mokuba said, noticing the broken phone on the floor. “I guess I really shouldn’t have woken you up, huh?”

Hermione smiled. “It’s alright. At least it wasn’t…what, six am, when some people get up.” She reached out and grabbed Mokuba’s arm. “Come. I’ve never done this before, so help me pick out something appropriate.”

Mokuba grinned. “Okay!” He turned to his big brother and waved a hand, shooing him out the door. “No peeking!”

Seto shook his head slightly. “It’s an interview Mokuba. It’s not like we’re going to a party.”

Mokuba paused. “Well, yeah. But they’re live streaming it.”

Hermione’s face paled. Seto’s eye twitched.

Mokuba blinked. “You…didn’t know?”

Seto scowled. “Did Roland arrange this?”

Mokuba shook his head. “No, someone in PR did. But they had to send him the list of questions ahead of time for approval first.”

“Hn.” Seto huffed. “Reporting a transcript wasn’t enough? They have to record it too?”

“It’ll be alright,” Hermione said gently. She reached up on her tiptoes and pecked his cheek. “It’s just one, and it’ll be fine, really. Go stew in your morning coffee while I get ready.”

~~*~~

“You don’t think they’ll really dig into my life, will you? I mean, after this is all done,” said Hermione. “It’s not like I can proclaim to the world that I work for the British Ministry of Magic.”

“Then don’t tell them what you do.”

Hermione sighed and rested her head on his shoulder as the limo drove into the heart of Domino City. “I don’t want to seem like a freeloader. I do have a job.”

“Say it’s classified.”

“Heh, that sounds like she’s a spy,” said Mokuba. He had his phone in hand and was busy playing mindless games on the ride to Kaiba Corp.

Seto took her hand and rubbed the back of it with his thumb. “Just remember they can ask whatever they want. You don’t have to answer them. If there’s something you don’t want to get into, scratch it off the list before we start. They’re going to be invasive. I’ve resigned to having half of my life scrutinized. But you don’t have to.”

Seto’s phone buzzed, and he scowled after reading the message that popped up onto the screen. “They’re early.”

Mokuba’s eyes widened. “I thought it wasn’t for another hour!”

“It’s not. They apparently want to set up their equipment.”

“So much for relaxing before they got there,” Hermione said, yawning slightly. “Do you think they’ll start early and finish ahead of time?”

“Not if it’s being aired live,” Seto said, “They’ll just be in our hair longer.”

“Goody,” said Mokuba, and he flashed his brother a bitter smile. “Have fun!”

“You’re not going to be in the room with us?” asked Hermione.

Mokuba shook his head. “Nah. I’m gonna fiddle down in the VR lab.”

Seto pretended to look offended as the car pulled into the parking garage. “Now I feel hurt. My own brother isn't going to watch.”

Mokuba snorted. “It’s not like you’re gonna say anything I don’t already know.”

Seto chuckled. “Touché.”

Hermione shifted to stare up at Seto quizzically. “Your phone is still broken.”

“I was going to replace it when we got in,” said Seto, “I’m surprised it lost the battle against the wall.”

With the Millennium Items long gone, his ability to perform magic had diminished. Not entirely though, he still had his wand and was able to cast spells, but it took a much greater effort than when he still wielded the Rod. But it was fine. While magic made some things easier, he generally preferred to go without it.

“And what of the enchantments you cast on it back at Hogwarts?” she asked. “Are you going to set them up all over again?”

“We’re not at Hogwarts,” Seto countered. “Most of them aren’t needed anymore.”

“That’s true,” said Hermione, amused, “But it did make it stronger. And you tend to throw this around a lot.” She took it from him and pulled her wand from her jacket pocket. With a few quick taps against the cracked glass, it was good as new.

Seto glanced out the window. Roland was standing, waiting by the door to the elevators. The sooner they got in, the sooner the reporting crew would be out of their hair. “Let’s get this over with….”

[kaibutsushidousha]

Free Time Event Review

I should have done this on Sunday, but clearly foodposting is a huge priority.

Arguably spoiler-free:

Rantarou Amami: 4.5/10. The events did an excellent job making me learn a lot about Amami. What it didn’t do was make me like Amami though. In fact it made me like him less and the last event felt like a scam. Highlights were the second event (amazing demonstration of Amami’s emotional state regarding the killing game) and him taking a jab at my country’s politics in the 4th event.

Miu Iruma: 1.5/10. Believe it or not, I was really looking forward for this one. Iruma was a character with a lot of questions I was curious about. Why does she swings so easily from ridiculous arrogant to ridiculous unassertive? Where do her abondonment issues stem from? And the most interesting for me is her obsession with time. Almost every time someone starts conversation with her she complains about wasting her time, her main series of inventions are things that allow people to act while their sleep so they can have more time in a day and even her dislike in the report card is idle time. That’s what I really wanted to know about. Iruma’s humor is unreadably unfunny, but I was very willing to tolerate that to get the answers I was curious about. What I got instead were 3 purely comedical events, 2 pseudo-romantic waifubaiting events, 1 event that half-answers the least interesting question and 1 stupid and pointless backstory that doesn’t tie to any of her main personality traits. I dug through all this garbage and the interesting parts of Iruma’s personality were barely acknowledged. I would give it 1 but I’m giving it an extra half point because Kaede can punch Iruma in one optional dialogue. It would be 2 if said scene wasn’t optional.

Kokichi Ouma: 8/10. Ouma’s events also don’t answer any questions about him, but in this case it’s not a problem because the main story clarifies a lot about him. The events do have great hints for it though, specially 2 and 5. The rest of his are mostly comedy (except the last one, which is more shipbait), which is great because Ouma comedy is top tier. The event where he challenges you to a card game and starts roleplaying Kaiba is the single most funny event in the entire franchise.

Ki-bo: 8/10. An unexpected favorite. Half of his events are wasted in 2 events of him showing off his functions and of 2 comedy events as boring as Ki-bo comedy is, but the remaining 3 are pretty great. Event 2 is surprisingly actually funny Ki-bo comedy, event 4 is a backstory adds quite a bit of emotional weight to Ki-bo’s main story role and the last one gives great focus to the thing I like the most about Ki-bo.

Gonta Gokuhara: 6/10. Gonta’s events were good and nice to read. That’s it, I guess. I have absolutely nothing to complain about, but nothing spectacular to praise either. It’s just Gonta being Gonta and that’s very nice. It has some good comedy and I like how the events tie in with each other.  I absolutely loved the direction his wolf backstory took and it contains some bits of foreshadowing hidden in it. 

Shuuichi Saihara: 4/10. I already talked in more detail about this one in a spoiler tagged ask, but so you can look that up in my Saihara tag. I was really conflicted on how to grade this one. In one hand, it has two of my favorite events in the game (2 and 5). On the other hand, it has the sixth event spitting on the reasons I like Saihara at least three times. To make things worse, it has a good ammount of romance events that barely adds anything to either character. I know SaiAka is the main pairing of the game and I even ship it, but I don’t want 3 entire events wasted on that. Well, as you can tell from the 2 events I love, at least it’s not as terrible as Nanami, who wastes all her 5 events with minimal information about her. 

Tsumugi Shirogane: 7.5/10. Biased opinion time. Nothing special happens in her events, but they are actually better this way. The main charm in Shirogane is how her dialogue feels like a normal conversation with a real friend, more so than any of the other characters. Quoting myself “Talking to Shirogane feels exactly like reading my Twitter timeline”. The event where she brags about her blandness is also pretty funny. The foreshadowing here is also pretty clever and subtle.

Korekiyo Shinguuji: 9/10. Don’t ge me wrong, I still hate Shinguuji as much as the next guy, but also don’t forget he used to be one of my favorites before I got to know him better. Unlike the main story, the Free Time focus almost completely in the good parts of him. I love his talent and hearing him talking about culture is always enjoyable. That aside, we also have the event about his mask, which is absolutely hilarious and would probably be my favorite comedy event if wasn’t biased by my love for Yugioh. Speaking of comedy, as his bonus mode dates prove a lot, Shinguuji is kind of a goldmine for dramatic irony-based fucked up comedy, so if you’re into that, I STRONGLY recommend doing his second event before chapter 2.

Tenko Chabashira: 5/10. I love Chabashira and it was a very fun ride from event 2 to the end (event 1 is just Chabashira trashtalking men for an entire event), but it has a few issues. Mainly her backstory and the discussion about it relying on her being unbelievably dumb. But overall, it had some great highlights that made me like her even more, like the talk about idols and superheroes on events 2 and 5 respectively.

Kirumi Toujou: 2/10. Same idea as my comments about Iruma, but with only one question: why is she so dedicated to her maid job if it’s described only as part-time job her? She clearly denies her own individuality for the sake of serving and we get no explanation for it. All we get is 7 events of Toujou just being her completely unnapealling self. No traces of humanity detected. There’s one time it feels like Kodaka thinks he is giving her a character flaw but he really isn’t. She’s somehow even worse than Kamukura. This events were a great reminder why I despise maid characters and made me appreciate a lot more the characters I used to compared Toujou to (Hisui from Tsukihime and Medaka from Medaka Box) because those two managed to be good characters despite belonging to this terrible archetype.

Maki Harukawa: 7/10. They are kinda bleak and completely lacking in comedy, but they expand on Harukawa’s already great backstory in interesting ways and really shows her worldview much more comprehensively. I just find it bad that the final 3 events talk about her backstory but you can access them before Harukawa reveals her backstory in the main story, so the characters allude to a conversation they haven’t had yet (happened to Jess).

Ryouma Hoshi: 8.5/10. Overall pretty nice set of events. The first event is cute cat event very similar to Peko’s first, second is not great one of just him being edgy, third and fourth is tennis backstory and fifth and sixth is the part of the backstory we all wanted to know about. Overall nice and very solid events with a great balance between good characterization, comedy and foreshadowing. I would give a 6/10 if they ended there. Yup, you read that right, I’m entire 2.5 extra points just because of Hoshi’s last event. So good. Easily the most heartwarming event in the entire game. Hoshi being happy is something extremely satisfying to watch.

Kaito Momota: 7/10. Pretty solid and expansive on Momota’s good qualities. I like how they tie-in a lot of his traits to his astronaut talent. His backstory is also a fun read, but the highlights there go to the inner reactions to the story, like not believing the story is real and constantly going “This story is way too long, when are we getting to the part about space?”.

Himiko Yumeno: 7.5/10. Like with Sakura, the events are a single story told in multiple parts (except for the first two). It’s good characterization, fun and resonates well with game’s central themes just like Chabashira’s, but with much more respect to Yumeno’s intelligence. Also, the second event is all about my favorite thing about Yumeno and the first has optional dialogue saying Yumeno eats books and that never stops being funny.

Angie Yonaga: 0.5/10. Free Times that do the thing that needs to be done: makes understand a lot about Angie. The problem is that the more you know about Angie, the worst she gets. Her 5th event in particular was infuriating and repulsive enough to drop this grade from 5 to 0.5.

[the-cryptographer]

Bakura for the Character writing meme

Thank you for the ask :D

Ah, I haven’t written all that much of any of the Bakurae asof yet (I actually took a break to go write a TKB scene just so that I’d havesome frame of reference) but I think these tend to be my interpretations ofthem. (Also does not include interpretations for alternate headcanons in whichYami Bakura is not a separate entity but a distortion of Ryou’s personality andmemories brought forth by the Ring. Yes I have those.)

RYOU

1) He’s callous. Really, this is the first thing that came tomind and it’s already controversial™ The reason I think of this one first isnot because it cancels out nice, soft-spoken, thoughtful Ryou, but because it’sa characteristic that seems to get lost in nice, soft-spoken, thoughtful Ryouand is thus especially important to keep sight of. I think particularly of theway he carries around the Ring in the full understanding that it can possesshim and make him do terrible things. And I think of how he went along withMai’s prank on Jou after Battle City. And I think of the way he has MonsterWorld figurines of people that have been cruel to him lying on his shelf, andhow he must pass by them tormented by both his inability to free them, but alsohis inability to care about every single individual person trapped inside.

I consider it more or less canon that Ryou’s not exactly astuteor basking in high levels of emotional intelligence as per the above. But therest of this I’m more aware is speculative: I think Ryou is tired and defeatedand betrayed to the extent he can’t really manage to give much of a shit aboutanybody else. I don’t think he’s malicious by any means. I just think the Ringhas taken over his life so completely, and it’s terrifying and he’s hurting –he’s been hurting since his mother’s and sister’s death – and nobody’s steppingin to help him. And when he first met Yuugi and friends and they played theMonster World RPG together, Ryou thought he was saved. But once Yuugi andfriends left, the Ring Spirit was here and there and everywhere in Ryou’s mind.And Ryou felt resentful, because he expected this nightmare to be over but itwasn’t.

If you asked Ryou straight-out, if you addressed him in acapacity to appeal to his sound mind, of course Ryou doesn’t want to hurt anyone.Not at all. Not even himself. Butnobody asks him, and I think there’s an element of spite in the way he is,carrying the ring around in his bag. Or flitting in and out of consciousness andduring Y!Bakura’s and Malik’s plan, but refusing to raise any red flags for therest of the group because *throws up arms* fuck it! Since he has no controlover the outcome of his life, he might as well throw gasoline on the fire.

2) He’s nice and soft-spoken and thoughtful. The aforementioned contrastto the above :pI think he’s very indulgent with people too, when he can be. He’s not going tohold your mistakes against you.

3) I imagine he’s very stubborn about really odd things,lol~  Like, most of the time he’s superquiet and only speaks up to compliment you or to unsettle you slightly withweirdness. But if you say something ‘wrong’ about tabletop RPGs or fortunetelling or anything pertaining to his hobbies or field of study, suddenly you’rearguing with Satan’s debate team and you are wrong and he won’t stop until youcan fully understand how gd wrong you are. And finally you give up and justpretend to be swayed over to his side of the argument because you want thistorment to end. But he KNOWS. He knows you’re just pretending, and he’s side-eyingyou an hour later from the other side of the room.

4) That being said, he’s very calm and smart and level-headedwhen something doesn’t involve him. He is a good and fair mediator.

 THIEF KING BAKURA

1) He’s angry. Something that should theoreticallybe a temporary emotional state, but it’s kind of permanent where the Thief Kingis concerned. He is always angry. I’m pretty sure he’s motivated purely by angerjust about 99% of the time.

2) He’s rude. Yeah. Maybe that’s a strangething to pick out, but he is. And in a different way than the other characters.Consider Jounouchi, who is loud, prone to violating personal space (both in afriendly and intimidating way) and also he’s never said a proper sentence inkeigo in his life and probably never will. But by the time canon has startedJounouchi approaches most of the other characters with good intentions, but heretains his crude mannerisms and speech as a callback to his social background.I suspect, like most people who use non-preferred dialects, he’s clever enoughto be capable of speaking otherwise, but retains it as an expression ofpersonal identity. Consider it as a rather subtle and subconscious take-that atauthoritarian cultural norms.And consider Kaiba, who is also rude,but different. It strikes me how sub!Kaiba almost seems soft-spoken at times,between the manic intensity of his grandiose speeches. Kaiba’s well-spoken, andI’d say he makes a large attempt to appear collected. But he’s also derisiveand irreverent. Incapable of handing out a compliment or giving anybody abreak. He is mean. And he’s trying to be mean – very pointedly mean. He’s rudefor the purpose of hurting you, and he’s hurting you for the purpose of makingyou STAY THE FUCK AWAY!!

So I guess TKB is like the worst of both worlds?? lol, he’s rude for the sakeof seeming crass and unpolished and- no-he’s not one of you. You killed all the others he was like.But he’s still one of them, and hewon’t let you forget it! But he’s also rude for the sake of being the meanestpiece of shit he can possibly be. He is rude to be cruel. To show as much disrespect andvenom and disgust with you as he possibly can. He wants you to hurt.

3) He’s dramatic. Like, the most hammy. I’mgoing to go out on a limb and say he’s even more of a drama queen than Kaiba. I think I’ll put on fifty pieces of bling, drag a mummified corpse behind me, andstorm through the front gates of the palace on top of a giant snake person monsterscreaming ‘It’s time to partaaay!’ Pls take a chill pill, Bakura.

4) He’s impulsive. I’m pretty sure he cameup with that palace-storming plan in five minutes directly after robbing  Akhenamkhanen’s tomb. But probably you seethis more starkly in Y!Bakura bending his plans around Malik. So much thoughtwas put into this. Confronting Y!Malik was definitely a good idea and the workof a mastermind.

5) I think what Thief King Bakura is like outside of hisrevenge plot is kind of more ??? But I mostly imagine him being… lazy.His hobby is lying in the sun and napping and eating well. Every once in awhile he probably has this sudden !!! impulse to make something. To create. Butthe rest of the time he’s mostly just lazing about being sulky. He’s so sullenwhenever he manages not to be angry.Also for some reason I think he might like animals kind of secretly. He’s notsentimental enough not to butcher them, but he was very nice to Wooly the sheepwhile she was alive, and probably he feels a bit sad and misses her once she’sgone.

 Send me a character and I’ll pick out essential characteristics for them that I try to keep in mind while writing them~

[terraaurea]

DSOD Differences between ENG and JP

These are just my observations from watching the DSOD movie in English twice, then once in Japanese (Here’s where I watched the sub, so credit the fan subber! Also remember to support the official release of the JP with subs when it is fully available! -- https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3pKUWJ9VACyR2RueEN0ZS15R0k/view ). Feel free to add stuff/your own thoughts. I don’t know Japanese, so I’m going off the fan-sub. 

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT, DUH.

·         Yugi's not like "I wish I could have told him what he meant to me" he's just like "we're in our own worlds now..."

·         Omfg the short bully guy has a REALLY DEEP VOICE I love it

·         and he's like to Aigami "Well, you are CUTE..."

·         He's like "I'm gonna make you famous...the theme this time around...IS PAIN HAHA"

·         I forgot that Kaiba calls Atem ‘Yugi’ in the JP

·         "Leaving Yugi behind like a COWARD and vanishing without a trace made it difficult to track you down..." (In the Cathedral)

·         ORE NO TAURN

·         I forgot that the music from the jp is pretty cool--very orchestral--rather than GUITAR RIFFS

·         Already makes more sense with the duels—they mention sacrificing monsters more often thank god

·         The mirror absorbs neo 3 blue eyes whatshisfuck and sends it back at Kaiba. It doesn't deflect it and then send a new attack like the dub implies

·         Kaiba doesn't mention any coiffed hair but says "I even replicated his provoking personality"

·         Jounouchi, you're fired! Instead of NO CLOWNING AROUND

·         More explanation about the Plana/Planners--ok so 7 items found, Pharoah goes back home, and it opens up that new dimension where they've gotta keep the order or something like that

·         They want to get rid of the old world to make room for a new order? And they gotta eradicate evil?

·         "We've been waiting for you" instead of "You've graced us with yer presence sIR"

·         Still has the "Ok but it took Yugi 8 years..." "Yeah, but Yugi has the brain of a child" KAIBA SAVAGE

·         Kaiba's jp voice is so much more intimidating just a reminder

·         "Even though I didn't register my deck or duel disk anywhere, you still knew where I was. You're quite the control freak, aren't you?" - Diva

·         "I hate dangerous murderers like you, you see...so I think I'll need to erase you from this dimension." -Diva, with gun at back

·         They're actually talking about the connection between consciousnesses. Which relates to that 2 chapter prequel manga (Transcend Game).

·         Diva's like "Kaiba, you know all about the human consciousness, don't you? Everything done in this world is done by the unconscious mind...all of which are linked together...even you, the dictator of this city, are powerless to control the consciousnessesses of all of Domino…let alone the world."

·         I’m not going to bother spelling consciousness right anymore

·         Because Kaiba had to use the consciousnessess of all the children combined playing his VR prototype to catapult himself up into the afterlife the first time in the manga

·         So to keep everything in order you need those links to be balanced, too.

·         It’s in the ENG too but if you watch the children that Diva summons are all connected with these golden darting lines and now that makes more sense THX

·         He's borrowing the power of other people's consciousnesses (all those children) in order to have enough energy to wield his powers by using the cube

·         So in the other dimension that he sends the gunman, the gunman is no longer connected to the consciousnesses of everyone else in the world anymore

·         In the JP then too Diva explains that he is using the power of the Plana, but also the Plana's Mind, which makes the control of his consciousness (and by extension the links to everyone else) 7x stronger than everyone else's

·         Instead of saying "NOT SO FAST/etc." when he's not disappearing into the other dimension, Kaiba goes "DON'T WORRY, MOKUBA” BIG BRO IS HERE FOR U AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT

·         So the reason why the power didn't send Kaiba to the other dimension is because his ego is SO INFLATED and thus his consciousness and intellect are so great that he's on par with Diva's Plana Mind

·         With his duel disk connected to his brain--which if you remember is connected to that Cloud Network--he's got enough connections with other consciousnesses in the cloud to combat Diva's powers??? I think

·         "Kisama no TURN..." sounds so cool like damn

·         JP also explains why he can summon shittons of blue eyes

·         JP explains the spell cards better

·         I think they left out the monster noises/screams in the ENG? Someone should confirm that for me

·         "I was the one who had to bury Yugi, no, Atem inside of me. His ghost continues to wander in my unfulfilled consciousness. Yugi!" – Kaiba

·         The eng music slightly is based off the jp music but with 10x more guitar riffs and zero chill

·         As for why the fuck he could summon Obelisk—in the JPDiva says there's residual energy left in that place due to it being where the Pharaoh left the world, and that Kaiba must have picked up on it. And Diva says that Obelisk is only a servant to the pharaoh. I think Diva missed that whole Battle City thing tho and doesn't realize that other people were wielding the god cards too

·         Still got "IT'S NOT A MONSTER. IT'S A GOD."

·         No "I NEED TISSUEEEEES" thx

·         Still got "Pharaoh can't come back if we get rid of his vessel" gotta kill Yugi

·         The big duel tournie takes place at Kaibaland

·         To put the puzzle back together quickly he needed his machine to be in space to utilize zero gravity—still extra

·         "Enough of the boring Flattery. // My Apologies, Mr. Kaiba" No "I'm programed to remind you of your genius" darn

·         Yugi says he's keeping the Dark Magician in his deck and is like "I wonder what Aigami's gonna use in his deck" instead of "You got me out of a lot of jams!" Suggesting Yugi actually knows how to fucking build a deck wow shocker

·         Shadi was supposed to collect all 7 items so he could send Pharaoh back to deadland and Yugi was a necessary vessel that had to have been chosen to help the Pharaoh get there out of the puzzle and shit

·         Yugi shares a consciousness wavelength with the Plana people because welp he let the pharaoh live in his bod

·         Instead of Joey just losing his memories in the dimension it's more him struggling to find out what's real and what's fake because he also can’t trust his own memories. And the idea is that he's not connected to the consciousness of the rest of the world so he's only seeing what he has ever seen. But if he does forget things then he does lose everything because he's relying solely on his own consciousness

·         Shadi's eng voice is VERY similar to his jp voice nice

·         Diva asks about rulers and how they aren't afraid because they have everything and never have anything taken from them. And so Shadi is like "Yeah but then they take everyone from others"--makes sense given that Diva tries to control everything so that he loses nothing. No talk about how easily manipulated children are like in the ENG. Just talk about power/loss/fear and loss/loss and fear

·         Shadi says an evil thing lives in the ring and has already chosen a master, and that you have to surpass a trial to be able to wear it. Obviously that doesn't end well for him.

·         3 items are for justice, 3 have evil presences inside them, millennium puzzle has both

·         Shadi says that there will be a young boy that will become the vessel for the pharaoh, and then says that he's the same as them (the Plana children--meaning he's probably just got strong connection powers or whatever/spiritual powers)

·         "Oh, did he finally croak? You guys are an eyesore" -Yami!Bakura

·         "I'm going to paint this world in darkness" – Yami!Bakura

·         Diva doesn't know that Bakura doesn't have evil dickmix in his blood anymore

·         "But...I killed someone very special to you, didn't I?" -Bakura. No "I also lost someone very important to me that day..." though obvs his dad is dead AF

·         Joey was able to come out of the dimension because his bonds with his buds surpass dimensions--which is fucking intense given that going to a different dimension is supposed to prevent that in the first place friendship is sTRONG

·         No "My cardio stinks", just "Bakura-kun..."

·         Kaiba's under the impression that the afterlife is still connected to the puzzle--sorry Kaiba

·         He really wants to resurrect pharaoh to face him again welp

·         Also Mokuba isn't like "HEY YUGI, LOOKIN GOOD!" He's like "Hey Yugi! We've already got the game shop covered for you!" So that's nice. No worries about G-PA getting snatched in the meantime

·         Diva says even with Kaiba's tech it's impossible for them to go into another dimension (inside of the cube to get the puzzle piece)--obvs Kaiba's not gonna be havin that later...

·         Your body is a flesh prison for your soul and when you die it's free but until then you're stuck in flesh prison and even when you win murderous wars and fight needlessly you are still in yer flesh prison.

·         So through Kaiba's duel disk he wants to allow people to go beyond the flesh prison to eliminate language/barriers/need for fighting/etc.

·         So it's a lot more than just "PLAY MY CHILDREN'S CARD GAME"

·         he legit says flesh prison

·         Shadi's always been able to go through dimensions as a priest of the Pharaoh?

·         Shit. "Yugi, I'll remind you, that you're just a vessel! -Kaiba

·         "It looks like you won't summon the pharaoh...until I duel you into submission!" Ok kaiba

·         No lemons being sour jokes

·         No "You really hate dragons...don't you?"

·         Kaiba does have a very dramatic line about Deep Eyes coming to live from the blue abyss

·         "No you gotta let him go" but "This is the reality...he's no longer in there..." Yugi's like "I've accepted it and you gotta accept it" but nah

·         But yeah the idea was to open a new dimension and drag the world into it with the 8th millennium item (cube).

·         But, if you bring it into a dark world like Diva was going to, it would only bring the chosen ones into the new dimension, eliminating everyone else

·         Still says "Kaiba, why? // Because of him. Yugi (the pharaoh)"

·         Still has "Call him." But also has "Call him to you."

·         Yugi just says "Draw...I'm sorry...everyone..." because there's no heart of the cards bullshit in the jp. So Yugi is convinced that he's failed instead of hoping in cards

·         No epic music when Atem comes back so it's definitely more unsettling. Kind of underwhelming but makes it weightless. Which I can appreciate because it's basically like "Diva literally has so little power that there doesn't even need to be epic music because Yami just wipes the fucking floor with him"

·         Instead of saying "DID HE ASK ABOUT ME?" Joey says "I saw him too!" And Yugi goes "I knew it!" So Atem did pay him a visit to get him to come out of the weird dimension. That’s cool

·         "So he did really come here then, Yugi." - Kaiba

·         "I had all but given up, Kaiba. But you still believed."

·         "I don't know about that. Farewell, Yugi. You were indeed a proud duelist." - Kaiba

·         So instead of being like "I got my thing with the pharaoh, bitch. And you got yours." it's more like hey we saved the world together, and I recognize you as a good, strong dude. We can be 'friends' now…in Kaiba's own way

·         "Kaiba, I really have to thank you." -Yugi

·         Mokuba’s like "Are you sure you want to do this?"And Kaiba says, "Once this is completed. It will create a new type of duel as we know it."Then Mokuba does say that this new prototype using the dimension emulator (different than the VR used earlier) is too dangerous.

·         Kaiba isn't like "I leave everything to you...Mokuba..." He's like "Watch over everything while I'm away." Implying he plans on coming back.

·         Thus this version of the movie is definitely less "KAIBA HAS NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!! BATTLE PHARAOH ANYWAY" It's a lot more that he develops even further in his technological goals. So he still wants to battle the pharaoh but he's using him more as a guinea pig for testing his transdimensional duel system rather than saying "fuck everything I'm gonna go duel dead people ANYWAY BECAUSE I'M AN EGOTISTICAL ASS” tho maybe he still wants some pharaoh dick who knows

[graveyardshift-writer]

Endearment and Enmity Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh.

Title: Endearment and Enmity

Rating: T-M depending on chapter, M overall

Summary: When you’re literally married to the person you despise.

Warnings: Homosexual relationships,vulgar words and adult situations.

Author’s Note: I don’t know why I wrote this.

Chapter 1: Context

Seto Kaiba was not the relationship kind of guy, he didn’t have the time or even desire to date. Now, the opportunity to get married actually presented itself very often; especially after he turned the legal marrying age of eighteen. Business men constantly tried convincing him to marry their daughters.

Now, Kaiba understood that it was a common practice - but that didn’t stop his distaste for it. He didn’t understood why fellow tycoons wouldn’t bother to groom their daughters to be heirs right from the beginning, rather than wait for a potential son-in-law to marry them off to. It was as much of a waste of time and potential gamble as it was disrespectful to the ‘fairer sex’. He always declined these offers because if he would be married to someone, it would be with someone who did not let someone else make decisions on their behalf, and because he just didn’t have any interest in women.

Seto Kaiba was far too self-assured to be ashamed of his sexuality because of something as trivial and meaningless as social stigma, but he considered such a thing a private and personal matter and didn’t feel the need to make it public. But the constant pressure to find a partner was getting tiring after seven years - now twenty-five, the hounding from other CEO’s only got worse, his constant turning down of arranged marriages had caused a lot of strained and sometimes ended relations with other companies, many of these businesses were stockholders and sometimes sold their stock, resulting in Kaiba Corp losing some value.

The longer he stayed a bachelor the more trouble he seemed to meet. So the most effective solution was to get legally married to someone so the other business men would have no reason to try to have him marry their daughters. Not the most sane solution, but logic didn’t care about feelings and neither did Kaiba.

While he wouldn’t be looking for the most perfect possible partner because they would ultimately serve as a figurehead, not as actual romantic partner, he still had reasonable standards. He’d need someone who had some kind of public presence, they didn’t have to be a household name or anything just well known enough to be recognized by bystanders. Male obviously because he wouldn’t change his preferences. Didn’t have to be a model, but at least be decently attractive - however, the trait he’d seek out the most was someone who was self-assured and proud, because the Kaiba name had no room for someone who was riddled with insecurity or easily pressured.

Now that he was in his mid twenties he’d finally met CEO’s close to his age range, but it was unlikely that any of them were also homosexual. And even if they were, Kaiba knew that they would never out themselves to the public in fear of scandal. Cowards. In the end, he ended up looking to familiar faces from the past.

Von Schroeder wouldn’t have been too bad of an option since they were close to the same age and both business men, but Kaiba hated both his attitude and the color pink. Not to mention the European had recently gotten married himself, so that option was out of the window. Otogi, although attractive and confident, Kaiba always felt as if the other man came across as vain and knew that the dark haired man’s pride rivaled his own, and even though he invented Dungeon Dice Monsters he was still not very popular in the gaming industry. Mutou was tempting, as the number one duelist in the world he was very popular, and the last Kaiba had seen he had grown confident even without the Pharaoh, but he knew Yugi had no interest in men and was in a relationship with Mazaki (whether or not they were married or dating he wasn’t sure, he hadn’t kept track of them).

That left one person.

He hadn’t seen Katsuya Jonouchi since they graduated from high school seven years ago and he had no idea what he’d been up to besides still being the number three ranked duelist and although he wasn’t near as active as he used to be he was still a professional duelist. That fact warranted at least a quick google search.

He was the national champion of the United States, which was his current place of residence. More specifically, San Antonio Texas where he worked at St. Lukes Baptist Hospital as a CRNA - Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. He had studied to become one at Dallas Nursing School. The career explained his relative absence from dueling. What caught Kaiba’s attention was one of the reasons Jonouchi was popular, especially among younger duelists; he was openly bisexual.

—

Sometimes Jonouchi wondered if all of the anesthesia exposure caused the drugs to become permanently infused with his bloodstream, because he was pretty sure he was hallucinating. He had trudged his way out of the hospital as soon as his lunch hour came up, not caring if his scrubs and long sleeved cotton shirt were stained in blood, CSF and god knows what else. All he wanted was to go the 7/11 and grab a coffee, a crappy but cheap greasy sandwich and find some god-damn peace - when all of a sudden out of nowhere Seto Kaiba, his rival from high school, materialized out of nowhere and ‘asked’ him to join him to talk over lunch.

Although confused, he was too groggy from his long shift to protest or question the brunet right away, not to mention the prospect of free food after having not had breakfast was far too enticing.

“So…” Jonouchi started calmly, if a little awkwardly. “How are you, Kaiba?”

They were sitting in a way far back table of a some random steakhouse and barbecue style restaurant (it was Texas after all). Jonouchi noted that Kaiba didn’t look much different from when they were in high school, besides now being slightly more filled out and having premature lines under his eyes undeniably from long work hours and stress, something the blonde was all too familiar with now himself. The the CRNA’s relief, Kaiba wasn’t decked out in his usual ridiculous and over dramatic trench coat attire but instead a white collared button up shirt, and dark slacks with typical business type black shoes. His hair style had changed only slightly, being in the same basic shape but more trimmed. “I’m doing well, Jonouchi.” The CEO replied calmly, more professional than polite.

Jonouchi on the other hand must have looked quite a bit different to his rich counterpart - his hair style hadn’t changed, but it was currently more messed up than usual because of how much he’d been running around the hospital that day. He’d grown slightly taller and was close to Kaiba’s height save for and inch or two, and retained a muscular physique, not that it was noticeable under his long sleeved white cotton shirt, and dark green scrubs. “What is this about Kaiba? If you’re having some kind of big tournament soon I can’t go, the charge nurse is on maternity leave and I’m covering down for her for the next three months.” Although truthfully he would still love to go to one; he hadn’t gone to a very large tournament since the Grand Prix, so far he’d stuck to state and regional tournaments, and a few title challenges here and there.

“There’s no tournament.” Kaiba explained, drinking water as they waited for their food to come. Luckily Kaiba could speak English just as well as he could, which wasn’t very surprising in hindsight but a relief nonetheless, although he held an obvious Japanese accent, similar to how Jonouchi held an American accent when speaking Japanese. “This is about personal matters.”

Jonouchi cracked a brow up “I haven’t seen you in like seven years dude, you couldn’t have at least called or texted me or something. before taking a long flight all the way to the states.”

“I prefer face-to-face interaction.”

“So you came all to way to Texas?” The blonde couldn’t help but roll his eyes “Rich people…”

“I’ve heard one of the reasons you’re popular is because younger duelists look up to you.” That one came out of nowhere, Kaiba’s intentions remained unclear.

“Well… I’m not number one in duel monsters, but I’m still the United States champion.”

“And LGBT.”

“…So what? What do you care?” Jonouchi continued giving Kaiba a blank stare. This guy comes out of nowhere and all of sudden he wants to discuss something personal like they hadn’t been rivals in high school. They had a grudging respect for each other at best.

Kaiba’s face remained unchanged as he said “I am as well.” Jonouchi will admit he probably looked confounded as the waiter finally brought them their food.

“So… You like to go out to the club with heels?” Jonouchi joked, he supposed he shouldn’t be joking about something like that, but the absurd mental imagine forced the question, and he’d been in Texas for so long he’d just adapted to insensitivity.

“I’m homosexual, Jonouchi.” Kaiba explained as he nonchalantly started on his food, which was simply just a grilled chicken breast and a side of salad “Not a secret, but a little known fact.”

“Okay…?” Okay, Jonouchi will admit that was surprising, mostly because he’d always just kind of assumed that Kaiba was an asexual sea sponge. Still, why was Kaiba discussing sexuality with him? It was inappropriate considering that, again, they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in years. “What does that have to do with me? Cut to the chase man.” This wasn’t going to be some kind of love confession was it. While he had found Kaiba handsome in high school, he barely liked him as a person let alone a potential love interest.

His hunger overpowered his curiosity and he tuned Kaiba out a little bit as he tore into his food - brisket slices with fries and a hot roll (Americans loved their carbohydrates). He didn’t really listen to Kaiba’s justification for bringing up such a personal topic until-

“-I need to get married, and you’re the most logical option.” The brunet explained as if it were something as simple and trivial as needing someone to duel with to pass the time during a long wait.

Jonouchi choked on and nearly spit out the roll he just chomped into. The billionaire had the decency to allow him to recover before continuing “I’m sure you’re wondering how I came to the conclusion that you-”

“You’re joking right?” The blonde duelist cut him off, “Is this some kind of joke? Are you filming this for a youtube prank video or something? For the love of god, you can’t be serious.”

“I am very serious, Jonouchi. My peers in the business world are constantly trying to get me to marry their daughters, and my turning them down is ruining my professional relationships. If I’m married, they have no reason to get offended if I refuse.” He justified.

Jonouchi almost felt insulted “You want me to marry you for business? That doesn’t make you any better than those other businessmen.”

“Wrong, I’m not offering up my brother like some kind of cheap whore like they are with their daughters.”

“Kaiba! I know you have the social skills of a head of cabbage, but don’t you see why I have a problem with this? I don’t even like you.”

“You don’t have to, you just have to be my legal spouse.”

Jonouchi facepalmed at the nonchalance of the Blue Eyes White Dragon master “Gay marriage isn’t even legal in Japan!”

“Not a large scale, no. But they’ve recently started issuing a few same-sex marriage licenses. A 'generous donation’ to Domino City public fund should convince them to issue one to me.” Seto Kaiba continued to rationalize his insane plan, Jonouchi stared bug-eyed at him for a long time before staring down to his now empty plate. Time to leave was now.

“Yeahhhh, well um, thanks for lunch and all Kaiba. I’m gonna go head back to work now before my LVN left in charge freaks out.” He slowly got up and walked away.

“It’s to my understanding you’re under thousands of dollars of student loan debt.” The CEO stated with a slightly raised voice, making Jonouchi freeze in his tracks “The terms of your scholarship was that it was full ride as long as you retained a minimum of a C average of all of your classes, but failed and had to re-take your last semester of Microbiology, violating the terms of your scholarship. Now you have to pay back the full-ride cost with interest.” He explained calmly, but Jonouchi could detect a slight smug tone.

His face paled a bit - it was true, already working full time as a RN when he was finishing his last year of courses to become a CRNA, his grades fell from a B average to a C average, and he’d failed his last semester of Microbiology. Already too far into the career course plan to drop it, and to close to becoming a CRNA, he ultimately decided to re-take it to finish. Now he was tens of thousands of dollars into student loan debt.

“Sit back down.” Kaiba 'asked’ politely, and Jonouchi complied.

In a harsh whisper, with a glare Jonouchi demanded answers “How the hell do you know that?”

“I do my homework, unlike you.” Okay, ouch.

“Fuck you I did my-”

“Keep your voice down and don’t swear, we’re in public. I’m not asking that you become a sex slave; all I ask for is that you assist me, and I assist you in return. You know I’m capable of making that student loan debt disappear instantly when it would take you decades. All you have to do is sign a paper, wear a gold band for show.” Kaiba insisted - and Jonouchi nervously clicked his pen from his pocket. The brunet had him there, the debt would take decades to pay back even working full time, and big cash prizes just didn’t occur with duel monsters tournaments anymore.

He didn’t like Kaiba, in fact he used to despise him in the past because of his own juvenile pride and abrasiveness. He especially hated now the fact that the CEO would corner him like this out of nowhere. But even with such a good job, he was still struggling; his credit score was already bad just from that debt, and it seemed like even if he paid off most of his paycheck, the interest caused whatever contribution he made to the giant fat leech of student loan debt not matter in the slightest.

“…How long.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Author’s note: And so it continues, this is how Kaiba convinces Jonouchi to become his spouse. Nothing should go wrong, right? All smooth sailing from here, right?

[quarkie-blog1]

Reading YGO Zexal Critics

So I’ve been reading reviews and critics about Yugioh! Zexal after finishing watching it. And it seems like there’s a clear division of the YGO fandom, for the majority it’s either you love or hate it. There are a few recurring/interesting negative criticsms that I do want to comment on as someone who enjoyed most of Zexal. These are just my opinions and you’re welcome to point out any disagreements.

1. Yuma is annoying and is one of the major problems of the series. He fails at many things in duels and refuses to listen to other people’s advice. He can’t do anything without Astral.

(First off, not to offend anyone, but 13-year-olds can be like that. The writers were designing the youngest Yugioh MC after all… and they had to find something to balance him out…)

Some may have told you that he starts off as a noob but gets a rather steady progression in having one of the deadliest decks in the series. Given how consistent it was, the development of Yuma and Astral’s relationship was well-thought out. However, Yuma’s unlikable qualities are undeniable, I guess that’s just preference of what you can or can’t tolerate in a show. For you it might be “goofy, immature and stubborn” kids. But does that make Yuma a bad character? 

If we’re going by that, then I should confess: I’m not a fan of Seto Kaiba. His actions are heavily driven by his power-hungry goals. After what he did to Yugi’s grandfather, I just couldn’t like him even after notable changes. For me, disrespecting and taking something important from others (especially the elderly) is very unethical. But does that make him a bad character? Not at all. The series wouldn’t be the same without him and they gave depth to his character. He is one of the best duelists in the series but I can’t root for him nor do I have the love for him as a good villain. (This doesn’t mean I refuse to be friends with any Kaiba fans though, and blue eyes white dragon decks are very meta). 

In regards to Yuma losing more times than other Yugioh main characters, I actually find that makes me more focused on the anime. Everytime he’s dueling I feel like asking, “Is he gonna win? Is he gonna win?” and get more happy when he does. (And side note, Yuma actually has a good attitude when he loses. It’s a good lesson for everyone, “don’t be afraid of losing and keep persisting”). 

2. Yuma’s friends are annoying. They’re just cheerleaders but don’t really add anything to the plot. 

This is mostly referring to the general friends from Yuma’s school, including Kotori, Kathy, Tetsuo, etc. If you notice, Zexal spends a lot of time building up scenes towards their villains. I think this is why Yuma’s supporting friends, Akari, etc had the short end of the stick. I personally would have liked to see more of how Akari and Yuma got along, since the series does portray quite a lot of different family relationships..

I can understand why they did this. Relationships with siblings and friends are something even kids can understand. Making Yuma a relatable character, one can easily identify “Yuma cares about Akari but they often bicker.” from just a few scenes. But for the stories revolving the villains are more complex, and they decided to spend more focuses on that.

3.  It’s such a disappointment, after 5D’s female lead Akiza… that Kotori does practically nothing but stand and say “Yuma” all the time. 

Touche. Please see part 2. You’re right, though poor female lead character isn’t new in Yugioh series. Anzu and Asuka never won against main characters. Maybe if Konami sees how there’s a fair portion of female fans they might consider having a proper female main character. (Yeah, keep dreaming Quarkie >_>). 

This is why I like Hiragi Yuzu a lot. (I had high hopes for her development when she became the first female lead to beat the main character in episode 2).  

Though at the end of the day, this wasn’t something I was too bothered by, not when Zexal was placing so much complicated story plots in front of me. 

4. The sound and animation is weird. 

For sound, I meant voice acting. If you didn’t like the music that’s just your preference. (Haruto’s theme and Kaito’s theme were my favourite.) If you didn’t like Yuma’s voice in the dub then watch the sub. If you still don’t like it, then I guess it’s just a question of what you can and can’t tolerate, no one’s going to be angry at you for not liking a series. 

The animation is actually done better compared to other series. Even arc v, which I suspect was made while they were also doing the Yugioh movie. The summoning sequences are repetitive, but that’s the same for every digimon, shugo chara, magical girl series. 

Everything looks brighter and also clearer, which fits more for the audience (younger boys). I mean, after three series of rather dramatic Yugioh, isn’t it great that the younger kids can have one made for them?

5. Unlike the first three, it’s not connected chronologically. And the whole Zexal change thing… it’s like copying super saiyan mode from Dragonball Z. 

Sorry to hear that you don’t like it as much since it’s a little different. (No sarcasm intended). 

I actually didn’t realise about the similarities until someone mentioned on a critic. Fair enough, it is really different and it’s not as original. Keep in mind that it is not a major plot-driving device. It is focused at times, but I think relationships and revelation of memories were the most important driving force in the series. 

Also I liked DBZ, so if Zexal change is like a fan confession then I love it even more. 

6. The series has way too many fillers. The story doesn’t pick up until like Zexal II starts. 

Or when Tron family appears. Or whenever the series gets interesting for you. Kids are more easily entertained, and a duel with a less important character can probably be just as entertaining. Gauche, Esper Robin, Droite, Anna, etc. They don’t appear often, but anyone who has watched would probably be able to tell you one distinctive thing about that character and what Yuma experienced from there. 

While yes, worlds are in danger because of villains, but there is also the story of Yuma’s growth as a duelist. One thing that I am amazed by is how the story starts off with a “collect the numbers quest” and it continues to spiral downwards to something complicated, conflicting and dark. I feel like it starts already when we meet Kaito (not specifying due to spoilers), but a lot of the disturbing parts sprinkled throughout from the first half are hidden by the generally lighthearted tone of the series. And really, it’s hard to identify it until there is a turning point for Yuma and Astral. (I want to elaborate… but more spoilers. )

As for lots of fillers, I direct you to Yugioh GX. (Shout out to Yuki Judai fans xD). People have said the first half wasn’t that interesting with so many forgettable duels, but you don’t hear a lot of complaints about that. It’s just a matter of what keeps you entertained. 

Overall thoughts: 

Zexal does have flaws, and the different style might not be everyone’s cup to tea. It is made for the younger audience, and the most reliable way of measuring success is how they receive it. Just because it’s not our preference doesn’t mean it’s bad. I can understand that if you don’t want to spend the time watching it, there are plenty of “anime in the sea”. But it’s not really doing justice to other yugioh fans nor the producers if you are going to tell everyone it’s not worth watching. It's not really something we can decide for all fans out there.

If you actually read all that, thanks, and errr… sorry about some parts being so redundant.

[funface2]

Yu-Gi-Oh!: 10 Hilarious Exodia Memes That Will Make You Cry | CBR – CBR – Comic Book Resources

Yu-Gi-Oh! is everyone’s favorite card game and anime series from their childhood. Unlike the Pokemon card game, many people actually knew how to play Yu-Gi-Oh! and didn’t just collect the cards. While the card game was fun, the anime was iconic and very entertaining for its time. Who can forget our spiky-haired protagonist trusting in the heart of the cards and dramatically pulling out the winning card at the last moment? Or even the unforgettable characters of Maximilian Pegasus, Seto Kaiba, and Yugi himself.

RELATED: Yu-Gi-Oh! Most Powerful Cards Ranked

Originally armed with the ancient Exodia, Yugi takes on many challenges throughout the series. Yu-Gi-Oh!‘s legendary cast and plot inspired a myriad of memes throughout the years. Thankfully, Yu-Gi-Oh! memes are making a comeback, so here are 10 hilarious Exodia memes that will make you cry!

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10 Exodia Defends Area 51

With September 20th’s legendary Area 51 raid closely approaching, the raiders are in for a surprise. While the military was a bit scared about Naruto runners in attack mode swiftly dodging their bullets, they shouldn’t have any fear when they release their first line of defense at the front of the raid, a swarm spiky-haired kids with duel disks and Egyptian jewelry.

If these kids are lucky enough to draw all 5 pieces of Exodia, the raiders’ life points will go down faster than Seto Kaiba can yell “impossible!”

9 Exodia’s Military Weapons

Speaking of the military, there is a lot of talk these days about citizens being able to purchase military-grade weapons. In this meme, this person was able to purchase these high-grade assault weapons without even having an ID! This is absolutely unacceptable in today’s political environment.

We can’t have kids getting sent to the shadow realm during their lunch breaks anymore! Enough is enough, protect your children and make sure to phone your local senators to tell them how outraged you are that these dangerous weapons are publicly available!

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8 That Is Some Strong Coffee

Latte art is the cornerstone of small coffee shops everywhere. Usually, customers receive their coffee’s with a nice flower or other cute imagery such as cats in their coffee. Most people get the energy to get through the day through their coffees, but what if you need the strength the propel yourself into attack mode for the rest of the day?

Look no further, for drinking this Exodia latte will give you the strength of one of the most powerful monsters in the game to send any issues you have during the day straight to the shadow realm!

7 Salt Bae Steals Exodia

If you had the most powerful card in the game what would you do with it? Most people would probably carefully protect it from harm, out of fear that some jealous opponent would try to steal it. But not the beloved protagonist Yugi. This genius thought it would be a great idea to lend his only copy of the most powerful cards in the game to some stranger on a boat who looks and talks like a bug. Who could forget the look of horror on Yugi’s face when the insect known as Weevil threw his most precious possession off the boat? Here we have Weevil (Salt Bae) sprinkling Yugi’s precious Exodia cards into the sea.

RELATED: 10 Coolest Yu-Gi-Oh! Monsters

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6 When Your Whole Outfit Is On Point

A lot of people tend to feel bad about their self-image, but sometimes you just have those days when you feel fresh. You perfectly matched your shoes, pants, and shirt together, you just got a new haircut, and you feel good. Every part of your outfit comes together well and nothing can stop you today.

That is probably how Exodia feels when you finally draw the 5th part of him and summon him. Before he obliterates your opponent, he takes one look at the mirror and smiles, because he knows his outfit is perfection.

5 Shaggy The God’s Heart Of The Cards

The overpowered Shaggy memes ran the internet for a few months about a year ago. They were fresh tales of Shaggy’s godlike status and his ability to instill fear and anxiety into any entity he chooses. These stories were frequently told by his coworkers during interviews who had to spend a terrifying amount of time with him. These legends combined with his regular and harmless appearance made for a hilarious meme that lasted many months.

In addition to his supernatural powers, he also is a first-rate duelist who truly understands the heart of the cards. Here a coworker explains that you can’t beat Shaggy in a duel, his inhuman powers allow him to always draw Exodia, even without the pieces in his deck!

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4 No Limitations

Have you ever played poker and felt like your opponent was cheating? You started out with more money and now you are down to your last few chips. Even though you are just playing Texas Hold’em with your usual group of friends, one of them keeps pulling out different cards and screaming “obliterate!” at the top of their lungs.

They keep insisting they won, even though you have a royal flush. To make matters worse, whenever you tell them “you can’t use Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in poker, your friend throws down some cards with pictures of limbs and just keeps screaming “the forbidden one has no limitations!”

RELATED: Yu-Gi-Oh!: 5 Greatest Duels In The Series (& The 5 Worst)

3 Shy Exodia

Apparently even the mighty forbidden one can get shy on a date. Often, when people go on their first dates things can get a bit awkward. Sometimes you and your date don’t get along and things just feel weird, but other times things could go really well and even lead into the bedroom.

But this presents its own problems as well. Your date might be into you but you are a bit shy about what she might find down there. Well, you are not alone in this endeavor, Exodia himself has some small problems of his own.

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2 Speaking To The Manager

Anyone who works in retail or the food industry knows that no matter if you are a sales associate, cook, or manager, some customers can always be a pain. This meme shows that beautiful moment of triumph when a particularly angry customer is giving you problems and asks to speak to the manager.

You slowly turn around and pretend to walk into the back and find someone higher up the chain than you, but then you turn around, unleash your inner Atem and calmly say with a smirk of satisfaction on your face “I AM the manager.” There are very few sensations one can experience at work that can amount to this one.

1 Rick The Forbidden Pickle

Ah, Pickle Rick, the internet sensation that flooded websites and meme groups alike. After Rick initially turned himself into a pickle in season 3 of the cult classic show Rick and Morty, fans everywhere repeated the phrase frantically and put it on T-shirts, hats, poster, and honestly EVERYTHING.

While Rick was trapped in his pickle form, he had to get limbs to help him move around, luckily Rick was able to trust in the heart of the cards and draw the limbs of the forbidden one before it was too late.

NEXT: Yu-Gi-Oh!: 10 Best Duelists In The Series

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Bài viết Yu-Gi-Oh!: 10 Hilarious Exodia Memes That Will Make You Cry | CBR – CBR – Comic Book Resources đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.

from Funface https://funface.net/funny-memes/yu-gi-oh-10-hilarious-exodia-memes-that-will-make-you-cry-cbr-cbr-comic-book-resources/

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Yugioh S3 Ep 36-37: Local Mom-Friend’s Weird Trick, Doctors Hate Him

Hey y’all it’s a surprise midweek post because I’m in Canada this weekend woo. Surprised I even got this post done, TBH, I finally get some time where I’m not commuting around to and from San Francisco or corralling small children and I can just sit at my computer and focus and have some peace and quiet and I got--a mysterious sickness from all those kids! *yay* So, since I can’t really focus on anything, I’ll type in here and see if any of my words make any sense at all and hopefully I won’t go on some weird ass tangent like I tend to do like every other post.

So Yugi is still dueling Kaiba, much like he has for the past like...it feels like 4 years. I know I’ve only seen 3 seasons but this is...this is a really long duel. Maybe because there was a month-long break for me in the middle, (during which I watched the entirety of Evangelion, 2 Seasons of Gotham, Stranger Things S3, and the disappointing season of One Punch Man so like...I’ve had some time away from Yugioh) or maybe...maybe it’s because they’re actually playing card mechanics that go more in depth...

But yeah, despite everything, they’re still dueling.

And honestly, I’m looking at that episode number above me and it’s like...so there’s this Kaiba and Yugi Duel and then...only one more duel, right? Is it going to be a ten episode duel? Like unless Rebecca comes back for a weird cameo like...how...?

Whatever, we’ll get there when we get there.

Anyways, everyone who’s been avoiding this duel like the plague is down with the plague victims in the hospital. That’s where Tristan gets a bright idea and it’s one of his dumber ones, believe it or not.

Man, I forgot that comatose Joey Wheeler is still wearing that duel disk Pharaoh slapped on him during all this too, haha.

Also, why does he have to have all these pectoral suction cups while they just kinda...gave up on Mai? I mean I know they can’t show boobies on a Y7 show but like...it really feels like the doctor just kinda shrugged at Mai and was like “I only have one set of boob suction cups, I really didn’t think I’d need more than that, if at all.”

(read more under the cut)

And so Tristan decides that if Joey is at the window which is like...600 ft below Yugi Muto’s duel, a duel you can’t...really see from the ground...then Joey Wheeler will arise.

I mean, it’s gonna work, it’s just also kind of laughable that Joey wasn’t able to hear any of this nonsense from the bed that is two feet away from the window.

But wtv, it’s very dramatic and Tristan gets to cry some more and feel useful I guess.

The haunted underwear mannequin plot-thread was dumped between that episode and this one, and I’m kinda bummed out that more things haven’t turned into haunted underwear mannequins.

Instead of horrific underwear mannequins, Joey’s dream has gone back to the standard fare of Joey picking on middle schoolers and wearing a much better outfit than he has for most of this show.

I will super miss Joey in a fitted suit. Like, soak it allll in horny preteens, because pretty soon, Joey Wheeler will be back in that scruffy oversized T-shirt just like...well, just like how a teenager would be. I mean there’s some REASONS Mai can’t date Joey, but the fact he has a fitted suit he refuses to ever wear is one of the top reasons right under, youknow, the fact he’d need a fake ID to ever go out with her.

It’s kind of amazing actually, how my whole life I kinda just figured this was a show of insane character designs, only to find out when I actually watch the show that there is like a ... REALLY horny line just going all the way through it.

Honestly, me trying to figure out how and when this kid’s show got so damn horny has been a very big mystery I’ve been trying to solve in the background this entire time. Like, I was told “yeah the Yugioh boys get very attractive.” and I was like “ehhhhhhhh I don’t even know what you’re talking about” but, little by little over the past 3 seasons, these animators are starting to draw these boys just waaaaaaay older than these kids actually are. I’m starting to see what people are saying. It’s still not my thing, personally, but uh yeah I can see how this spawned all that fanart now.

Anyways, speaking of, the other day a friend of mine’s sister was talking about how she, as a millennial, has been wired to love very tall skinny boys in skinny pants and very long coats with popped collars and I immediately was like “Lol are you admitting to Seto Kaiba?”

And she meant Cumberbatch Sherlock, LOLOLOLOL.

And so, back on the duel field we got Seto Kaiba, who’s a lot like Sherlock except a Sherlock who is suffering from both short term and long term memory loss. And, who does cards instead of heroin.

They probably both play violin.

Kaiba, despite having arc after arc where his little brother is his main motivation, has decided to just ditch Mokuba and it’s like...either he’s psyching Yugi out or Seto Kaiba forgot he had a brother for a little bit. He might...he might have forgotten. Mokuba is standing behind him, after all.

And so, because Joey is facing Yugi at just the right moment and at just the right time, somehow he can do his little force ability again and just do this:

Thanks, hallucination!Joey.

And out he goes, drawn like a romance anime character lol.

Anyways, he’s back to being a slob so...welcome back, wrinkle shirt, it’s been a while.

And then Joey looks around and actually said this:

“Did someone get hurt?” He asks, after being burned, electrocuted AND drowned just yesterday.

I was kinda very much hoping Tristan would deck him out.

Glad that, as predicted, the moment Mai doesn’t need to be Joey’s main motivation anymore, the moment he puts the cards away, she may as well not even exist. This show and the way they write straight romances.

Please admire the matching lace up boots on the Kaiba Corp’s Emergency Squad. This would be the most obscure Cosplay on earth but maybe the most wearable Yugioh cosplay outside of Bandit Keith because you wouldn’t need a 400 dollar wig.

And then for some reason Tea just loses her mind and has a complete breakdown. She’s been kind of a mess since Yugi walked out like 2 episodes ago, which seems kind of...I dunno, both out of character but very much in character at the same time. I mean we’re assuming they “have” a relationship it’s just never actually say that they do, so her acting like her man is dead is kinda like...it still feels like it comes out of freakin nowhere.

Anyways, Tea who is strong enough to lift this entire plane and who is, in fact, possessed by at least 2 powerful ghosts (remember Shadi did spends some time there and he did NOT like it), is now a seeping crying mess that refuses to lose any more of her hospital-prone boys.

I mean they were going to go anyway, but they let Tea pretend she had any control over that and kind of glazed over this.

Back in this game that no one else is really watching anymore, Seto Kaiba is still monologuing about his entire life story that he’s never gotten any therapy for, except for that time his evil step brother accidentally gave him therapy.

Quite upset we never see the color of Mokuba’s little tuxedo.

Course...didn’t...Noah wear a little tuxedo in that same exact shape? I mean it’s a silly headcanon but youknow...it could be a yellow tuxedo they just happened to find in the back of the closet.

And it’s at this point that Mokuba just lost his lid. I’m so used to Mokuba unconditionally supporting his crazy brother that this would have been the biggest anime betrayal of the whole series, if Mokuba had said any of this outloud (which he wisely did not).

It was like...damn Mokuba. He actually said something along the lines of “I liked you better when you were poor” and it was like. Holy cow, Mokuba. Damn.

Anyway, a bunch of card stuff happens, and Pharaoh has decided that Seto has too much anger in his heart, and that’s why he will lose. Then, Pharaoh played the card proof for how angry Seto is, and if I actually payed any attention to cards, it would have been very meaningful.

But anyways, kudos to Pharaoh on not mind-wiping Seto Kaiba this time or launching him directly off this very tall tower like he attempted to do last time. They actually played a game start to finish with eachother and nothing exploded except for every television in Domino. Progress.

and then Mokuba started crying and initially I thought...wouldn’t he have WANTED his brother to lose but then I kind of remembered oh yeah now Mokuba has to deal with this oncoming aftermath.

RIP Mokuba, I guess.

Anyway, I’m out of town for the rest of the weekend, escaping to the far North to get away from the weather. I should be back next weekend, but if I’m not, I was probably eaten by a bear. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to my Yugioh recaps in Chrono order from the beginning.