#conflict or not tho he DOES have bush nothing can take bush away from me

[windupaidoneus]

i love body hair but i dont fuck with how it conflicts with scales on au ra so i guess hilde will have to be mostly hairless. much to my dismay.

[capri-ramblings]

Midnight Beasts, CNCO Imagines +Special Insert

This is a mess,but okay ♥️.

•Richard

He's been your best friend since childhood,and the two of you were inseparable. Wherever little red hood went,her wolf was close to follow.

He was no Big Bad Wolf though. Far from it,really.

He was always afraid of revealing his true self, especially with the person he vowed his loyalty to. In his eyes you were too good for him,too human. Whereas he saw himself as a monster, something to be put down.

"You'll hurt her" This keeps him on edge. Keeps him believing that maybe one day,he will hurt you. And then what? The thought had him baring his teeth and clenching his fists.

You've always wondered why he kept to himself sometimes,how in one minute he's hugging and laughing with you and in another he's built this wall between the two of you. He didn't seem as free as he was when you were both younger. There was a restraint you saw in him but could never manage to figure out. It was like trying to find him in a sea of people but constantly losing him instead. Each passing day,you felt him drift further away from you. You're conflicted; A part of you wants to confront him about it. "What's wrong with you?", "What's happening with us?", "Are you okay?",and then there's the other part, the softer, much less angrier part that's too afraid to force him out of a shell he isn't ready to leave yet.

"I don't want to hurt him" This thought has you staying up late at night,wrapped in a blanket that you wished were his arms instead.

•Erick

You've been in this old town too long to not have known what really ruled over it,or who rules over it. The local Werewolves here didn't even bother to hide it, but you hid the fact that you knew. Mostly because you weren't really interested in getting tangled up in all that drama, and because to be honest,you weren't really interested in them whatsoever. They were all too... Wolfy? If you had to describe it. They seemed to have no control over their Impulses or instincts, always needing to mark what they own and go around howling at night to warn people of their prowess.

They looked like humans but acted more like beasts than ever.

You weren't into the whole vibe of it, of course until the young pack of wolves showed up and butchered literally any prejudices you had for their species in one single clap. Unlike the ones you grew up with, these males knew what being in control was and they did it without being animals about it. There were five of them,all well-built and dominating in their own way, yet they worked perfectly well together. Almost like actual blood brothers. You remember meeting one of them at the grocers once, and how different it was to talk to him. How human and casual it felt.

The other packs hated them with some exceptions of smaller packs joining alliances with them.

If that wasn't enough, you couldn't keep your eyes off the youngest one.

"He's a lil too young for me" You tell your friend at the bar, and yet had your gaze fixated on him like a magnet. He sat at the table right across the room, surrounded by the other wolves. They were laughing and although he was too, he seemed as if he was in an entirely different zone than theirs. Gaze still and hooded, the dark themed club illuminated his forest green eyes like a temple, and when he glanced your way, lingering, you lost your breath and then your heart.

•Christopher

You could train a monkey and it would be more successful than trying to train your overly enthusiastic, optimistic and jokester nextdoor neighbor.

It wasn't that you disliked him, Chris was someone very easy and pleasant to be around. Almost everyone wanted to be his friend and have him cracking jokes at their parties,but you never had parties (never wanted to), you weren't always in the mood for jokes and sometimes having someone who always seemed ready to jump just at the mention of your name was a bit stressful. Still, you didn't hate him.

Unlike all those TV dramas and teen books that portrayed his kind as unstable and constantly on edge, Chris rarely ever lashed out on you or turned to his Werewolf nature. There were days you even doubted that he was one until you almost got mugged once and he lunged in to help you; The happy-go-lucky demeanor he carried gone as he stood in front of you and bared his teeth,eyes bright and gleaming with the intent to kill. You could never get that Image out of your head, but you trusted him, so the fear vanished quickly.

If only the annoyance did as well. *sigh*

He doesn't leave you to your space at all, you don't even think he understands the meaning of personal space. The books and series got one thing right at least; He was protective.

"Jesus Christ,I can walk home perfectly well alone."

"But mi amor, what if someone jumps out from a bush and hurts you?"

"I think someone else is going to get hurt if they don't leave me alone"

•Zabdiel

When you first see him, he has his lips on another woman's. Hands gripping a waist that would break so easily in his grasp as she leans in against him.

His eyes peaking through dark lashes as heavy as the focus dwelling in those deep set of brooding brown gaze.

You watch him and notice how he looks at you as if the woman he held didn't exist.

A voice. A name. Your friend is calling out to you, you turns around,head slightly dizzy as if you've already started drinking.

That night, nothing was as loud as the sound of your pulse beating in your ears each time your mind went back to him.

He's aloof, or seems to be at first, when you meet again it's because your friend was a friend of his and decided to drag you along to hangout. A part of you flinched at the sight of him,this odd sense of intimidation holding your head down, while the other part had you feeling giddy, too excited to say you weren't at least attracted to him. You kept your distance however,never letting your friend leave you alone whether or not he was near. The thought of being around him for too long and without any kind of support seemed all too dangerous.

But,you couldn't keep yourself from stealing glances his way, couldn't help but wonder if he remembers you.

His friends were so friendly, attentively listening and making you feel at ease, all the while he sat on the sofa with his legs parted, and arms stretched across the sofa's headrest. He smiled once in a while, let out a little laugh out of courtesy, but you didn't feel like he was really letting you in. It was more like he placed a mirror in front of it all and leaned against it for the illusion of being friendly.

Now you saw him as an overly powering male with no actual interest in anything other than his ego and image, and you were pissed.

"I think I'm gonna head home first" You tell your friend as you stood up and grabbed your things.

"It's still early tho—"

"I've got somewhere else to go"

You didn't let her say anything else as you bristled pass her, head held high and temper fuming. You weren't entirely sure why but you know he could've at least acted like he was interested just a little bit more, and not as if he was doing it because his friends told him to. As if you didn't exist in his radar at all.

Caught up in your frustration, you barely noticed the male tailing behind you and only realized it a bit too late when you went to open the door but it closed right in front of you instead.

"What?" You swirl around ready to lash out, yet unprepared for the intense gaze that immediately froze you in place.

Zabdiel loomed over you like the sky, expression unreadable.

Your breath hitched, words lost.

He looks you over,eyes deliberately drinking in your form before it shifts to your lips and then straight to your eyes.

He leans in,your eyes shut close.

Then a voice; "There's pizza in the fridge, we're gonna heat it up later. You should stay."

•Joel

"You don't get it" Joel throws his hands in the air, frustration glistening in the brown of his eyes,and you watch as he paces from the sofa to the kitchen counter like an upset child.

"Joelito, you're a werewolf not a three headed donkey,stop stressing"

"How does that make me stop stressing?" He glares at you, eyes narrowed "You're bad at this,I should've went to Ricky instead."

You thought Christopher was a handful but being in charge with a werewolf like Joel was like Hell's kitchen. Anything could be set on fire, and all because he makes it sound like everything was flammable.

Out of all the five, Joel was the one most worried about being what he was. Or at least he acted like the world was constantly ending because of it.

He needed to keep up his image,had to make sure it wasn't obvious he wasn't entirely human. He fussed over every tiny detail. It was overbearing, but you knew he meant well by it. He cared,not only about himself but about the other guys too. He knew how risky it was if people found out,knew what each guy was putting on the line. He couldn't afford to let it slip.

He was grateful you're constantly by his side,he's not going to admit it (even when everyone else already knows) but he's had a crush on you for a long time,and despite it all, he found confiding in you the most comforting thing ever. He could tell you all his secrets and doubts,and not worry about being put down. You understood him, and even when you didn't you always try to understand. You kept him grounded, and he'd risk his life to keep you safe.

•Yashua

He's the one in the gang that doesn't seem to fit like a puzzle piece but brings a whole new charm to it regardless. The loner and at the same time the one who has his Pack's back anytime.

People gather around him, laughing, enjoying themselves, and he always finds a way to loosen up anyone who isn't having fun.

And yet, as you learn to take time and really observe him, you've come to realize how there's this impenetrable wall around him. You notice the little things he does,how he stays quiet and watches any newcomers before really going out there and interact. As if every move he makes has already been calculated.

It took you a whole day to have him actually say something to you, and that was after everything had died down and people were getting ready to head home, he was friendly though. When he told you to take care and stay safe on your way back, you heard the genuineness in his voice and warmth in the way his lips curved into a small smile.

It was funny,but after seeing that you couldn't help but to smile yourself all the way home.

He was charming, and it showed in the way people's eyes lit up when he made jokes and fooled around. He dresses and sometimes acts like he's one of the young pups but you got the feeling it was a cover up. He wasn't as reckless as the younger wolves you knew, and he wasn't dumb either. It showed in the way his gaze would sharpen and dim just a bit whenever a situation happens,as if he's studying it all with a keen eye and an ever keener mind.

The way his body asserts his dominance is loud but the way he keeps to the back of the group during outings and chills around with the older members makes him seem quiet, intense even.

But then again,there's days when he's the loudest of them all, not bothering to hide the fact that he could out alpha anyone present.

He was something hard to decipher, someone not so one layered. Maybe that's why you find yourself falling.

@whymyeyeslikethat @cnco-hq

[chromsai]

DM Review

So now that I’ve reached the end of my rewatch, I feel it’s appropriate to give it a quick review before I move onto GX. I don’t really plan on dragging this on too badly since I feel I expressed my thoughts over the show well enough throughout the liveblog anyway, but I do, however, want to break it down a bit, so in order to give it a proper rating, I feel it’s best (and easiest) to give each “season” of the show its on individual rating, and then go from there. So let’s do that...

Duelist Kingdom (episodes 1-40 + 41-49)

Well ignoring the fact that the rules are incredibly broken throughout (which can be forgiven since the rules for the actual game still hadn’t been fully established yet), the ridiculous premise is very much enticing enough to make me want to keep watching Yugi climb his way through the tournament to save his grandpa from Pegasus (who is, imo, still the most enjoyable villain of the whole show) and become the King of Games. Even though from episode one, we’re just thrown into the world and have to follow along with these characters that we know nothing about, the season makes up for it as it does take its time throughout to tell us each character’s background and story and why they’re involved. The world building this arc is, funnily enough, not that important, which is something that shows can very rarely get away with. We get just enough to understand why this tournament is important to the world of these characters, and that’s fine. Though the outcome of each duel is terribly predictable, it’s not in a bad way since what matters is the journey, not the destination. When I started, I thought this was going to be a hard arc for me to get through due to the nonexistence of the rules of Duel Monsters, but oddly enough it was exactly the opposite for me. It’s not such a grandiose plot, this season, but it kept up the intrigue throughout. On an overall note, DM’s main cast are (mostly) lovable so that of course always helps keep its charm.

The episodes in between Duelist Kingdom and the next arc are basically filler... meant for the purpose of introducing some recurring side characters. They’re fairly... um... ignorable, imo. Wouldn’t necessarily say they’re terrible but... most of them don’t really keep your attention for too long.

Overall rating for this arc: 3.5/5

Battle City (episodes 50-97, 122-144)

This arc does tournament arc tension and development for its characters pretty well, namely, actually, for Jounouchi. He got a good start in Duelist Kingdom, however he definitely starts shining this arc. Anyway, like 85% of this arc is legitimately enjoyable. There is a lot of dumb logic happening throughout, courtesy mostly of this arc’s villain Marik and his rare hunters, but I’d say it’s for a good cause (as in creating at memorable conflict and personal dire stakes to the game). This arc also does a great, no, a superb, job at demonstrating exactly why Seto Kaiba is such a memorable rival and character. World building is much improved in this arc, but also isn’t overwhelming where the cast is too large that we can’t even keep track or we just don’t care about certain characters (though... *coughbakuracough*). We also get to see some more good inner turmoil well up within Yami Yugi regarding dragging his friends into such a dangerous tournament, which in turn works very well along with his friends’ (again, mainly Jounouchi) support of him. The final duels in this arc are, despite their slow as hell pace, exactly the kind of shit you ended up watching Yugioh for anyway so it almost makes you forget any small little flaws you had to deal with on the way. Though, one of those flaws... was exactly the pacing. Why. Why do duels have to be that long? No... I don’t think I needed to hear that same monologue one more time. Lastly, is this arc also predictable? Definitely yes. But again, it’s in the journey. Not the destination.

Overall rating for this arc: 4/5

Noah’s Virtual World (episodes 98-121)

This is, more than any of the other arcs, the one that I was *not* looking forward to when I first began rewatching since I remember that I didn’t enjoy this as a child. Well it’s a good thing I seem to have grown up. This arc... is not exactly written well, and thus thoroughly flawed (mostly in its logic and general premise and whatnot), but what matters, once again, is the content we get in between all the idiocy. The most enjoyable parts of this arc comes, no doubt, in the form of Kaiba family backstory. We knew a fair bit about Kaiba beforehand, but this arc definitely adds a good well of information regarding his motivations growing up, why he is the way he is now (side note: lmao holy shit), and what kind of business man he really is. The backstory found in this arc for Kaiba is well worth slugging through it. Actually, even if you get frustrated with the dumbness of it all (especially the incompetence of its villains, The Big Five), it’s still overall a pretty fun watch.

Overall rating for this arc: 3.5/5

Doma (episodes 145-184)

Sighs. This is the worst arc. Just. Straight up. I don’t wanna beat around the bush.

I wish I could just keep it at just that but I want to emphasize that this isn’t just a “weak” story arc in the overall grand scheme of things, it’s bad. It is terribly noticeable that the writing direction was handled by someone else than whoever was writing-directing it up until before this point because the show stops being fun to watch. The entirety of Duel Monsters is riddled with bullshit logic, but this arc really takes up to an unforgivable eleven. The villains of this arc are literally fools whose tragic backstories are very obviously shoehorned in at the last second in order to draw out sympathy. The stakes of the game are so high, you don’t really feel compelled to root for our protagonists because you know that everything they’ve “lost” will be restored anyway. Not even the big bad of this arc faces any consequences. To top it all off, Mai, DM’s strongest female duelist, is reduced to demeaning levels of melodramatic character arc writing.

Noah’s Virtual World arc was indeed filler, but it was passable to good filler. This arc is just bad filler.

Overall rating for this arc: 1/5 this shit was a drag to get thru. I enjoyed it as a kid but I’ve grown tf up.

KC Grand Prix & Memory World (episodes 185-224)

I’ll probably get through this a bit quicker...

The KC Grand Prix arc was short... but not exactly sweet, though I will say it gave us a few classic lines here and there. Overall, it’s mostly forgettable and not exactly important for the story. It’s, once again, more filler, this time meant to convince Kaiba to let Yugi & co. hitch a ride back to Japan after the nonsense that occurred in America the last arc.

As for with the all important Memory World arc which leads us to the grand finale ceremonial duel between Yugi & Atem: It’s a nice story but the pacing is scrambled. That being said, however, I’ll forgive it mostly because it was a very interesting watch (not exactly fun, per se) and gives us answers to many questions we’ve been holding onto since the beginning of the show. Not to say it doesn’t raise some questions (that it doesn’t answer as well), but the other reason I’ll forgive it mostly is because Takahashi-san rushed to finish the manga on time for the anime whilst being severely ill. For as obviously rushed as it is, it still gives a good bit of depth that is just satisfying enough for us to run with that it feels mostly complete. 

The ceremonial finale duel, tho? The set up was rushed as well, but the duel itself was beyond iconic. Pretty good ending, I’d say.

Overall rating for this arc: 3/5

Final Overall Rating: 3.1/5 (yes, I did the math, check it if you must).

Final Thoughts: This show mostly shines on through nostalgia and its characters’ undeniable charm. However, its overall quality gets dragged down from its unnecessary filler, pacing, and flawed logic. For a shounen about card games, it certainly set a standard and a foundation, and I think that’s a good thing that future series can build off of and nod back to. It’s certainly one for the books, but with a big asterisk attached to some of its story arcs.