#but also i am a hardcore trans Hawks supporter

[tiredpaladins]

It's funny to me that mpreg has been an absolute ick to me my entire life until Hawks, I'm like yeah sure I guess. Do I like it? Not particularly it's still on thin ice but I'm willing to get over it if the plot is compelling

[yugihell]

Rowan Reads YGO Volume 1

In which I (fairly pointlessly I know) liveblog my reading of Volume One of the manga and talk about the things I found interesting. As you can guess by the fact I’ve put it under a cut, there were... quite a few bits. But you get pictures too, so it’s not all bad.

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Note: Using English names (except for Ryou when he turns up), and Atem for ‘Yami Yugi’ cus if I’m going to reconcile this as the same character I’ll have to start as I mean to go on.

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Duel 1 - You Could’ve Just Played Basketball:

Who the fuck plays Pop-Up Pirate on their own?

AU fic where Yugi goes and plays basketball, makes friends that way, and never meets Atem.

But seriously, it’s not like he’s shunned by his classmates. He chooses to stay inside on his own rather than play ball with them, which I think is important.

Is it just me who wants to work the “we’ll let the girls play too” and “only a girl would care about a box” kind of lines for trans Yugi headcanons. No, just me? Fine.

So Yugi’s actually saying the thought boxes out loud. Does he do this a lot?

Téa being a badass and pervy-definitely-not-Fluffy-Bunny-Yugi™. 👌

Ok, so A) Yugi’s watched Dragon Ball, of course he has. B) He just assumes you get a wish? The wish isn’t canon?? I have been lied too???

Joey’s really caught up on this whole Yugi = Girl thing huh. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with niche-in-which-to-place-repressed-sexuality-Joey-with-a-crush. I can tick Wishshipping off my ‘How To Ship Every Character With Every Other Character’ list.

Why is Yugi so cavalier over his Grandpa’s future death? I can only assume that Yugi’s too immature to fully grasp this stuff (including what Atem’s doing and that’s why he doesn’t freak out more).

Gramps, I like you. So I’m gonna ignore this bit of your characterisation that has you perving on teenage girls.

Yeah, gaining powers and knowledge of darkness is in no way a wish, what is wrong with this boy.

But Gramps wanting to hawk the puzzle for cash is killing me. (So he didn’t discover the puzzle? Or is this retconned later?)

Yugi has some sort of bullying-based Stockholm Syndrome and I am uncomfort with alla this.

Joey: “Why are you doing this? If you stayed quiet like always…If you didn’t resist…You wouldn’t get hurt.” - there are worlds in that line. So Yugi doesn’t do this - he’s no defender of the meek, just meek. This implies something about Joey’s ‘code’ of bullying Yugi, and in addition actually runs counter to the whole ‘don’t be a girl’ (implying ‘fight back’) thing. Then put in a healthy dose of abusive homelife projection and I’ll just be in the corner sobbing.

Drowned-Rat Joey is not helping my condition. And he talked about this shit to Grandpa to try and keep Yugi safe. My heart.

Gramps. I love you for giving Yugi the money, I do. But GO TO THE POLICE. No wonder they settle everything with card games. AU where all the fucked up stuff inspires Téa to be lawyer by day and star dancer by night.

Grandpa if you know all this about the puzzle, why are you not more concerned?

I actually said “Uh oh” when I saw Atem.

Can Atem magically counterfeit money? Because that’s a useful skill.

You know how we’re never sure how fucked up Ryou is? That’s the feeling everyone has towards Yugi in-universe.

Atem holding out the knife to Ushio by the handle, cus safety first.

Springing like a gazelle there. No one would’ve guessed you’d been trapped in a puzzle for millennia.

Is there an argument to be made that Atem becomes more and more separate from Yugi as the series progresses because he’s feeding off Yugi. Not necessarily in a bad way. Like at the moment we’re in “less than the meanest ghost” and mostly magic phase - that perhaps this is closer to Marik’s experience, shadow magic emphasising certain traits and separating it from the host (though Atem is still an entity in his own right, mixed up in that). idk food for thought.

Presumably Ushio doesn’t get better. Hey angst fic: Atem going ‘round and finding everyone he fucked up and trying to fix it or make amends. Finding flowers on gravestones.

Yugi you just completed the puzzle and you’re chucking it in the air. My guy.

Joey’s riddle isn’t the same as the puzzle box’s even though I’ve seen those two conflated a lot. The puzzle has the hint of “something you see but have never seen before” - which I’m guessing refers to the eye. But am I supposed to buy that the ancient Egyptians never saw their own reflection, cus I’m calling bull. And the eye isn’t even part of the puzzle, it’s all on one piece - so how is it a hint? Eh.

Bless my little emotionally repressed chicken nugget running away and leaving his shoe behind.

---- Duel 2 Big (Pixel) Art-Attack:

Aw, look at the little bun-bun so happy about getting the chance to watch hardcore pornography.

“Maybe someone famous goes to our school.” … Good point. Kaiba, where are you?

Joey assuming ‘the star’ is male. This boy has a lot of ingrained sexism and unless manga-verse is way different, I don’t see that turning around much here.

Seriously, Yugi only counted one new friend. Where is StaTristically-average-tan?

*DBZTAS Nappa voice* Hey Fujita…

Yugi of course buys that it’s a girl straight off the bat. Mostly because he’s coping with full raging teenage hormones in a body that’s not even 5ft tall. Atem must’ve spent a lot of nights (/mornings/weekends/evenings) locked in his Soul Room with his fingers in his ears while trying to come up with new Duel Monsters strategies. It’s probably why he’s so good at it.

Joey’s willingness to kick people’s ass is great. And I know we all like the idea of completely non-violent little Yugi, but he didn’t say a word to stop Joey going for the guy.

Yugi’s little clenched fists when he’s kneeling beside Joey - cus it is still him at that point. You see what I mean when I say the ‘Atem’ we see here feels like both extension of Yugi as much as separate entity.

Also the fact that the idea of this Penalty Game clearly comes from porn that Atem hasn’t been exposed to yet. Unless Yugi got right on that after solving the puzzle, which I suppose is possible. I usually just have a bottle of good quality ginger beer or something to celebrate my accomplishments, but to each their own.

I really want to see a good live action yugioh thing where Yugi and Atem are played by the same actor. Maybe using twins to freak out the audience by suddenly having a scene with both of them in.

Now the Astragali thing is cool, but can someone chart out for me what things Atem remembers about Ancient Egypt and what things he doesn’t.

I can see why Kaiba and Atem work so well together. They’re both cheating bastards at heart.

Bonus - Future King Of Games:

---- Duel 3 - Attention Duelists My Son Is Assaulting Your Ears (And This Random Kid):

Is Karaoke guy Attention Duelist’s son? Cus he really looks like it.

Joey friendshipping aggressively:

Someone blow up that tiny frame of Téa punching a perving Joey in the face for me so I can hang it on my wall.

Yugi, it’s getting people to go and see a guy sing badly, not to get dismembered. No-one liked selling school raffle tickets to dupes either, just buck up and deal. Maybe he’s got better - he’s practicing at least.

…Eh, but I’dve probably taken Hanasaki’s tickets too. I’m with Yugi’s reasoning here.

Yugi brought bells. Huh.

Ok so what’s the ship name for Yugi x Hanasaki. Come on now, I know it’s out there. Misplacedguiltshipping perhaps.

“I- Is this really Yugi…?! It’s like he’s possessed…” DING DING DING AND THE WINNER IS SOZOJI! Come on down and claim your prize (which I’m guessing is some kind of Penalty Game to the face).

Aw, my mother used to make me play The Silence Game all the time.

This expression:

“By a strange coincidence” read: Atem planned this Shadow Game out ahead of time. By putting in these weird dancing clowns. So if anyone was going to imply that it only got this extreme because Hanasaki got beaten up - your argument is invalid.

Um, nice of you to help carry Hanasaki away, very cute, but uh can we go back to the whole Shadow-Magic-Tinnitus, cus there was a line of rationality we crossed.

---- Duel 4Kids Averted:

Joey: “What? Are you scared? You have no guts!” Yugi: “But he has a gun! A gun!” Due to the lack of Tristan, Yugi here is forced to take over the role of ‘Only Reasonable Man’.

Joey canonically watches shitty journalist/detective movies and I love it.

Téa backing away with her frozen ‘welcome’ smile still on her face!

Obviously Joey can’t keep a secret, no surprises there, but little things like the translation still giving him a bit of an accent with the “awright” is interesting. Not just dub then.

The anime would’ve been better if we’d got to see Téa writing “TELL AND YOU DIE!!” on some burgers.

Joey being immediately supportive of Téa though and promising to keep his trap shut - even as Yugi expects him to say something rude. That’s cute as hell. And Téa paying for the ruined burgers.

The gunman’s threats and Joey not being able to keep his head down. This section’s full of neat bits for him.

Now this is interesting. This is the first time we see Yugi switch out of panic rather than anger. This is the first time Atem hasn’t been able to premeditate his reaction as well - he had time to plan all the previous encounters. Perhaps this is why it ends in the guy’s death.

I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think Yugi’s aware of what’s going on at all. New hypothesis: The reason he’s not more fucked up over setting a man on fire is because he doesn’t know ‘he’ did it - Joey seems to think it was the guy being an idiot, so why wouldn’t Yugi also think it was an accident. He clearly doesn’t see Ushio after, we never see him give the Director another thought, and don’t get to see any reaction after Sozoji either.

And Téa falling victim to the ‘Who was that masked man’ trope. *sigh*

---- Duel 5 - Troubles With Trelawney Kokurano:

Joey and his fighting expertise rears its head with no rebuke from Yugi.

Anzu: “You’ve seen the girls disappearing off at recess, right? They go to get their fortunes told. Anyway… I’m not into that stuff, but…” Joey: *glittering eyes* “I gotta get my fortune told! Right on!” Then being desperate to maintain his image cus it’s not cool for a guy to get his fortune told and passing the buck onto Téa. There’s some solid Joey and ‘girl’ meta in this stuff, huh?

(I see you meeting a tall handsome stranger. There’s a… blimp? A dog costume?? A blimp again??? *shakes crystal ball* hang on it does this sometimes)

Yugi getting pissed off at this unworthy sweaty goblin pawing Téa.

Téa swooning about the idea of Atem. Am I the only one who remembers him SETTING A MAN ON FIRE.

Joey getting grumbly over his tiny “You’re having bad luck” fortune. Aw, bad luck Joey. *ducks Joey’s punch*

Yugi getting straight to the point and calling the fortune teller a fraud to their face, albeit in a cute and evasive way.

Not entirely sure how Atem managed to avoid the bookshelves, but hey, this is the gazelle we’re talking about.

How did Kokurano get a bottle of chloroform? Which is actually labelled chloroform? Are there top chloroform brands?

“As long as I have my powers, any woman is mine!” - I mean you did just drug her, which isn’t very mystical powers/sunglasses emoji of you. Is he actually a bit unbalanced? Eh, regardless, he just chloroformed a girl so there’s no sympathy from me.

So this whole ‘paper pulling’ game is where Atem got his very extra card drawing style from.

Atem nearly losing and his cute “well this is a bit of a pickle” expression.

Can I be annoyed that there is no actually comeuppance for this one. Besides haha people find out he’s a fraud maybe. Cus while this is still morally grey and ultimately a reasonable end, Atem is not about the reasonable endings - see Sozoji the karaoke guy. He drugged Anzu for what we will euphemistically call ‘nefarious’ means. Why can’t he be programmed to have a 5 second delay to the rest of the world? Or everything is a bit laggy - permanently. This isn’t the one where I wanted you to develop a sense of reasonable punishment damn it.

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Duel 6 - welp. i’m going to grillby’s:

Joey. I love you man. But shut up. -high fives the girl who told him to ‘drop dead’-

The fuck? You’re making a life sized Pop-Up Pirate for a carnival? Yugi. Boy. Go outside.

And we learn that Joey can build stuff. If he’s been making garage kits and plastic models for ages, is his room a secret nerd zone? Model planes and painted Duel Monsters figures everywhere.

Inogashira turning up and yelling at them to get out of their spot. Yugi doing his little shrinking down thing, while Téa storms right up in his face like ‘hell no’.

“Heh heh heh! There’s always some moron who starts a fight at these things! *And I wouldn’t miss it for the world!*” If I’ve read a more Joey line in this thing…

*Joey gets foot stuck and ends up being punched in the face* Yeah, that’s very him too.

Yugi earns 10 points to Gryffindor for courage, but loses 5 for stupidity. ~I fought the grill and the grill won~

Yugi now shown to switch when: angry, panicked, and when friend is crying.

(And did Atem just jump from the window? If they’re on the ground, couldn’t Tea just look out the window for him? If my injured friend suddenly vanished and there was an open window, I wouldn’t just be standing there).

WHERE DID YOU GET A TEST TUBE OF EXPLOSIVES ATEM?

HOW HAVE YOU HAD TIME TO FREEZE IT IN PUCK-SHAPED ICE?

Atem yet again gets in over his head in a game of his own making. And resorts to cheating - because yes Atem, that very much was cheating.

Atem exploded the guy - Yugi poured his energy into rebuilding the fair. Really confirming to me the idea that Yugi doesn’t know what Atem’s up too.

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Duel 7 - Maybe He’s Born With It Maybe It’s An Ancient Spirit:

Now that’s interesting, Yugi not really liking Tristan, and Tristan thinking that Yugi’s got a grudge against him.

Joey: “Y’know, your store sells all kind of weird stuff, right?” Yugi: “Um… our store sells games…” Right, what weird stuff are they selling? Are the games like Snakes And Ladders sort of games, or Jumanji sort of games. I don’t trust Grandpa.

Grandpa: “I haven’t told Yugi the story, but this was how I got his grandmother.” Gramps you’re making that sound less ‘I romantically confessed my feelings on a blank puzzle’ and more ‘I traced around my dong and gave her a time and date’.

Tristan deciding he’s not a romantic after all and will force the tiny hormonal soda can to write his love letter. Great. “My beloved Ribbon, you look perfect in your yellow ribbon. I love you more than anything in the universe. From Hiroto Honda” You stayed up all night writing that? Kaiba could’ve written better and his emotional understanding is somewhere between a kumquat and a block of concrete.

Is Ms Chono related to Mai?

She needs more self-esteem. Also a chill pill. Maybe another hobby. Don’t need to go all Snape-y on your students.

“Underage dating is strictly prohibited” What the hell? You ok, Japan?

Again Tristan, you don't need to do a dramatic internal ‘goodbye cruel world’ you’re not about to be murdered.

Atem’s back to not murdering, ok. That was actually extremely tame of you. She wasn’t even covered in tentacles or anything.

FINALLY confirmation that Yugi isn’t ‘present’ for any of this stuff.

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So. Volume 1 done. I’ve got to admit I found that way more readable than I expected (given my usual difficulties reading manga). Knowing the characters and their voices really helped a lot. Little things like finding out ‘the wish’ wasn’t real, and that Yugi isn’t present for these early switches is fascinating.

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