#i would love to play kaiba

[teatitty]

Listen Yugi and Atem's private convos already feel like I, the reader, am intruding on something intimate can you imagine how their fucking friends would feel if they got to hear half the shit these two say to one another? Imagine them doing a pair duel and the opponents are on the other side shifting nervously in place all awkward like "should we... should we just leave? Are we supposed to be hearing this? Do you think they're *limp wrist*"

[universestreasures]

One thing I love about Manga Mokuba that I am so sad wasn't shown in the original anime (It was shown in Season 0 though) and was sorta downplayed following Death-T was the fact that Mokuba IS A GAMER IN HIS OWN RIGHT. He may not be as 'obsessed' with them as Seto is, but it's clear that he really enjoys gaming and is passionate.

I do think its a shame we never saw him participate in any more games after Death-T in the manga (I don't really count him dueling Atem in Duelist Kingdom), but considering the focus on Duel Monsters (a game Mokuba is not as proficient in compared to Seto), it makes sense. Though, I still woulda loved the idea of him continuing on his gaming jouruney, which is something I am exploring with my own portrayal (like Mokuba hitting up the arcade scene like he did in Season 0, meeting his Buddyfighter friends, one day developing his own Capsule Monsters Chess virtual system, and becoming the world champion of that game).

Anyways, Mokuba is a true gaming gremlin and we love him for that.

[unfriendlyamazon]

Kaiba would be a straight-A student if he showed up to class more than three times a month. Or put in any effort. Great at subjects where he can just scribble an objectively correct answer, but he's not here to write analytical essays. He's got better things to do with his time.

Which makes the classic "they have to do a group project" trope story hilarious to me but I think he would simply opt-out.

Teacher: you can't "opt-out" Kaiba: watch me

this put into words exactly how i feel about kaiba as a student lol. i'll put him in wacky high school shenanigans to further the plot (and i think as a Normal High School Student grades would definitely be a competition for him), but in the canon of baby billionaire? he's not getting stuck in class for any reason.

[letyugisayfuck]

Yo I genuinely think that Season 0 Kaiba would try to kill DM Kaiba. Definitely have the 'There can only be one' mentality. s0 Kaiba constantly plotting to kill DM Kaiba sounds hilarious. Somethings always happens last minute and the whole thing gets foiled.

[nocturne-of-illusions]

hieee i got the first of the higu novelizations written with kanji (+ furi) a grade schooler could understand JKJAKLSD!!!! i'm gonna study with it!! just set up anki and everything. might mess around with anki while (re)reading some alice, try to learn some more basic kanji through that so i can avoid having to ocr / manually enter them for flashcards while reading the higu novel... but... super excited! i can already read the first bern poem w/o help which was a nice little ego boost <3

(cw talking about today in the tags, and while this year was Better, i do describe past xmases broadly. so Family Shit + mentions of heavy drinking.)

[thewittyphantom]

I love the comments on this video about how card game-focused Yu-Gi-Oh’s worldbuilding became over time.

“Ironically, despite Kaiba's attempt to redefine Kaiba Corp as a game company instead of arms manufacturing, he turned Duel Monsters into the world's weapon.”

“Can we take a moment to appreciate how customer friendly Kaiba's products are though? In the finale of GX Jaden dueled Yugi, who was wielding a duel disk that was roughly 10 years behind his own model and they were still compatible”

“This video doesn't even mention the time in GX where Kaiba fired trading cards into space that were designed by children so they could be bombarded by space rays and gain superpowers. The more you follow this series the more you realize that it's also the story where a supervillain successfully reshapes the world in his image, died beloved, successful, unrepentant, and accomplished all his goals,  except for the only one that really mattered: beating someone in a card game.”

“Kaiba didn't just change an entire city's way of doing things, or even the entire world for that matter. He literally changed how villains try to conquer the world. He's so influential that villains are still playing his game.”

“Something else that is both hilarious and terrifying in 5Ds: the cops play Duel Monsters to catch lawbreakers. In fact, the rules of Duel Monsters are so immutable to the law and order of Neo Domino City that the bikes called Duel Runners are able to remotely hacked by the police to force a duel, and losing that duel shuts down your bike. The rules of Duel Monsters sit above the police in terms of hierarchy, since if they could hack Duel Runners to force a duel, they could probably just shut down your bike remotely. I like to imagine Kaiba is sitting on his capitalist throne saying "If a criminal can beat you in a duel, then what authority do you have to catch them", and just forces the police to adapt to his survival-of-the-duelist world that he made.“

“Without card games, people like dartz would be invincible“

[kujakumai]

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

YUGIOH CHARACTERS AS BABYSITTERS, RANKED

TOP PICKS:

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

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

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

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

"MAYBE"S

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

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

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

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

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

DEFINITELY NOT

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

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

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

Please do not summon Zork Necrophades to babysit your child.

[wisyhana]

SO HERE SHE IS!

I present you my new ygo OC Itou Saya.

She's a programmer and tester at Kaiba Corporation, she enjoys playing duel monsters, she's extremely good but doesn't allow herself to win, which annoys Kaiba to no end. Despite liking the card game her love goes for music; she is the singer of her own band of groove metal. (Her style is 100% based on the band Jinjer. Here a small playlist based on Saya's style)

She's an honest, sweet but very anxious person, her biggest fear is to lose her job and would do anything to keep it, even if that means to deal with Kaiba as her boss.

Saya is mega fan of Yugi's duel monsters strategy and wish for the day she can duel him. Here's her deck. Her favorite monster is Blazing Cartesia, the Virtuous.

I'm still working on her story, but so far is about her journey to overcome her fears and recognize the strength she always had in her. And who's more suitable to help her on this than Kaiba himself? Honestly they're two idiots learning how to be people.

I'm waiting to have more time to draw her and some scenes I have in mind. I put all my heart into this girl 🥺💖

Adding a drawing with @tanaisokay OC Julia and @vivis-heckin-art OC Yomi. I owe them a ton for inspiring me to create Saya and for supporting me so much in this💗💗💗

[twottie-m8]

@joukaiweek 2024 Day 4 || Flight

New au because I'm sick and twisted and can't stop making them fall in love again and again

Will I dabble in this au after ship week? Highly unlikely, HOWEVER, it will lurk in my brain to play with like Barbie dolls. Sorry, you guys don't have tickets to my mental movie theater :(

Hence, I welcome yall to play around with it yourselves if you so wish! Feel free to brain dump on this post or in my ask box (whichever you feel more comfortable with) as I'd be happy to hear your takes on it ^u^)/

Here's what I've got for any crumbs of lore:

Uhhh I guess if I had to put a label on it I'd call it some kinda science vs mythos au ????

Basically, Dr. Kaiba (cause he's a scientist with a doctorate, smart boy) works at a highly classified facility (think like SCP) and finds himself assigned to a relatively new and infamous subject (it's Wheeler). The subject is tied to all kinds of rumors, which gained it quite a scary reputation, much to Kaiba's dismay. Unexpectedly, when Kaiba turns up to the job, he finds that the subject is nothing like the rumors. It even calls itself by a name: Joey.

The general idea would be a sort of freedom vs captivity struggle. Kaiba and Joey would have very conflicting perspectives, Joey feeling as though he's just here temporarily to help out and learn about the world (loosely calling himself a diplomat, albeit his trip is not official) meanwhile Kaiba fully acknowledges him as a lab subject to study that has no means of escape.

I also like the idea of Joey falling first, but Kaiba falling harder :3c

[rainstormcolors]

Canon can be read into various ways, and people can and should play with the characters in the ways that appeal to them and make sense to them. So this is just me babbling some.

Part of the appeal of Seto Kaiba's character to me is that he does in his own way desire connection with someone else, and he does love, but he's also not in a mental and emotional place where he's capable of actually being able to connect yet, not in a stable sense. And I've been there -- many people have been there. (I was years-deep in harshly avoiding social connections at age 18 and it would be more years until I was out of that mental space, so I get it. I know others have been there too.) I think Seto does need time to work on himself. But my point here is, I admit it's difficult for me to imagine him having committed close relationships in the immediate aftermath of canon. I think he may be much more distant initially.

In canon, he could be rather demanding about getting attention, and it was good when other characters could put their foot down and tell him to hold his horses like Atem at Battle City. But Seto also didn't demand constant attention by any means -- he was pretty much entirely socially closed-off outside of business and dueling from what we saw, so it could be more about having reassurances at times and being able to approach others when he needs to, until he becomes more comfortable.

I enjoy doujinshi and fanfiction that seem to capture Seto's discomfort and fear of socializing even if he's desiring it, even if he tries to cover up that discomfort and fear with sharp words and avoidance. I guess that's my personal taste.

[imbadatwrighting]

can you do yugioh boys reacting to the reader beating them in a duel and refuse to have a rematch

We ain’t gonna talk about how this took me over a month, mk? I was going through some stuff ☠️☠️

Imma be making a master list soon and plan to getting to my other requests as well I’m so sorry about being inactive yall

Yu-gi-oh Boys with an S/o who beats them in a duel but won’t do a rematch

Yugi Muto

You guys played against each other as fun for a little date idea and it ended up with you winning

While Yugi wasn’t going as hard as he usually tries, he did try a little so you winning would be seen as an accomplishment between the two of you

Honestly he didn’t really care that much

He loves you too much and is just happy that you’re happy

He’s the type of boyfriend that brags about his S/o’s accomplishments

Even if you don’t think it was that big of a deal

He started to move on from it until Joey brought up that you should have a rematch

To be fair Yugi just thought of it as a little fun game but now with his friends watching but unbeknownst to him, you didn’t feel the same

Which was the perfect opportunity for Joey to pick at your skin

Despite both of you loving the same person (just in a different way) you two absolutely hated eachother

Which is honestly surprising

It’s because you’re both jealous of each other

He noticed how unwilling you were to do it but he didn’t really bat an eye, if you don’t want to do something then he’s not going to make you

He talked to you about it later though and no matter you’re reason, he tried to understand

As long as you tell he what’s going on and are honest, he’ll never be mad at you

Yami Yugi

Let’s be honest here he let you win

You know it, I know it, he definitely knows it

It doesn’t really matter how good of a player you are, he just wants you to be happy

As long as you’re happy, he’s happy

However the only problem was how obvious it was that he was letting you win

He might have thought of it as a sweet gesture, but to you he was just humiliating you

I mean in front of all your friends, your boyfriend is purposely losing because he know you can’t win???

You talked to him about it and he offered to have a rematch which you found sweet but said no to

Your hopes where crushed after he tried to let you win and you were still having difficulty

You’re not afraid to cheer him on from the stands though

He’s so fine like dios mío

Joey Wheeler

It’s was just embarrassing how easy you could win against him

It took no longer than ten minutes and it left him him feeling humiliated

He just wanted to show off his skills

No only to you but also to his friend but it didn’t really turn out that way

You and him definitely had to cuddle at your house to make him less sad

Sure it was fun to win your little game between you two but you also felt bad at how sad and disappointed you got

You also didn’t want to purposely let him win because you were never a good liar so when he found out it would only make him feel worse

Instead you just never played with him again

It didn’t matter how many times he asked or why, you weren’t playing against him

He tried everything from bribery to begging and above

He just wanted to show off his skills but you never played against him

You watched him play against others and commented on how better he was getting though which made him happy enough

There might have been one or two times where you did give in and played against him but you let him win both times which pissed him off but you found it kind of funny

Seto Kaiba

Let’s be real here you cheated

Or at least that’s what Seto likes to think

It doesn’t matter how tired he was when playing a simple game against you for mokuba he hands down believes you cheated

Like if he had to say you didn’t cheat or jump off a cliff, he choose the cliff

He also refuses to talk about it

No way in hell would be ever talk about it with you

He rather be friends with Yugi

He straight up did not talk to you for a week until you told him you cheated which didn’t but you just wanted him to talk to you again

The only thing you cheated on were your exams at school

It made him feel a little better and he asked you to go again but this time no tricks and twists

He wanted to show off to Mokuba who kept talking about the match

But when you said no, he got mad all over again

Honestly nothing you do is ever right with this man istg ☠️

[disgruntled-screaming]

Honestly the biggest issue with me writing YuGiOh fanfiction is the fact that I'm a character writer, and I don't see the Duel Monsters Card Game as a character.

Please, let me explain this.

If you are familiar with the YuGiOh franchise and have delved into it as far as I have, you would know that it initially started off with a love with games. The card game featured in one of the chapters got so popular that Kazuki Takahashi decided to try and make the game himself after some fans were interested in playing it.

Despite me not liking the game, or rather how it was implemented into the story, it's still an important factor to the show.

I see the game as a tool more than a character. I don't see any personality with the game, just a bunch of pieces of cardboard that are activated by a machine that then projects holograms. (I have a theory that Kaiba Corp made a special set of paint for Industrial Illusions to use in order for the machines to work with the cards. I don't know how else the machines would work, since they are cardboard.)

I see the game more as a tool to be used. And like with most tools in real life, you don't always need to use them. It could be because of all the rules to the game, since I can use the monsters associated with it as nightmares or spirits; hell, YuGiOh GX did that and it was honestly very interesting.

Is there anyone that's going through the same issues as I am? It honestly sucks, since I have this huge YuGiOh project in the early production stages.

[gx-gameon]

Yugi raises Jaden part 9

Start - previous - next

Yugi and Seto took their places in the royal hall. Atem stood to the side close to where Yugi was. He wasn’t going to miss a moment of this duel.

People had started to gather, thinking Atem was dueling once more. They were excited to see their king and their gods fight once more. Yet when the crowd saw that it was Yugi dueling they started to murmur to each other.

Atem smirked. Soon his people will see the wonder that is his aibou.

They had determined that Yugi would start the duel. “Yugi!” Kaiba called. “Once I defeat you, I’ll beat the Pharaoh. You’ll both get to watch as I finally defeat your precious partner.” If Kaiba was anything it was dramatic.

“I’m not going to lose Kaiba. Not when I have a promise to keep.” Yugi had promise Mokuba and Jaden they would be home soon. And he intended to keep that promise.

“Duel!” They cried together in unison.

“I’ll start.” Yugi looked at the five cards in his hand. His eyes landed on one card in particular and knew exactly what he was going to do. “I set one monster face down, and I set one card face down. That will end my turn.”

“That’s your turn? You must have a pathetic hand.” Kaiba called. “Let me show you how it’s done! I’ll summon my Battle Ox in attack mode, and set two cards face down.” Yugi knew this combo. One of those cards was probably shrink and the other was Kaiba’s Crush Card trap card. He was trying to destroy Yugi’s deck. “Now go Battle Ox attack his face down monster.”

Battle Ox launched itself forward to attack and Yugi smirked as his face down revealed itself. Elemental Hero Clayman appeared, his 2000 defense easily blocking Axe Raiders 1700 attack.

Kaiba growled as he took the first damage of the duel, a mere 300 points. “That’s not one of your cards.” He observed narrowing his eyes at Yugi wondering what trickery this was. Did Yugi overhaul his deck in the time Kaiba was away?

Atem was also curious. He knew his aibou’s deck better than anyone. And while it wouldn’t surprise him if Yugi change up his deck in his absence, he was surprised by how different the card was.

Yugi smiled at Kaiba, “you’re right it’s not mine. This was a gift from Jaden. He wanted me to have a piece of his deck with me to protect me. And I intend to use it well.” He could see understanding flash across Kaiba’s face. He knew what it meant to receive such a card from a loved one.

Kaiba made a quick note of the monsters attack points. It was a mere 800 meaning the card would be spared from his Crush Cards effects. Good. Wait why was that good? Destroying that card would upset Yugi possibly leading him to make mistakes. He should be trying to destroy it at all cost. And yet…. No he needs to focus. He needs to beat Yugi and then he can defeat the Pharaoh.

“I end my turn.” Kaiba called already starting to plan his next move.

‘Alright’ Yugi thought. ‘If I attack and those face downs are his Crush Card combo then it will destroy my deck. So I need to bait him into attacking me.’ Yugi looked at his hand and knew what to do.

“I play Berry Magician Girl in attack mode.” Yugi played the baby magician as she fluttered on to the field. “Her special effect activates allowing me to add one Magician Girl from my deck to my hand.” Yugi added Kiwi Magician Girl to his hand. “I lay one card face down and end my turn.” Yugi says as he played mirror force face down.

“You’re not going to win this duel by playing cautiously.” Kaiba said as he drew his card. “I summon La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp, and I place one card face down. Now attack his Berry Magician Girl.” Kaiba waisted no time going to destroy Yugi’s weak monster.

“Now her special effect activates. When a monster attacks Berry Magician Girl she switches to defense mode and I can special summon a Magician Girl from my deck.” Yugi called as his Berry magician girl flew down to the field with her arms crossed over her chest. “Now come forth my Dark Magician Girl!” Yugi called as the blond spell caster appeared on his side of the field.

The crowd exploded in whispers and the Dark Magician Girl appeared shooting a wink to the crowed. They had never seen anyone besides Atem and Mana summon the spellcaster.

“Ya! That’s my ka Atem!” Mana cheered pumping her fist in the air before grabbing Atem’s arm and pointing at the Dark Magician Girl. “He still uses my Ka!” She was so excited her duel spirit was still helping Atem’s aibou. Atem smiled warmly at his childhood friend before turning his attention back to the duel.

“That’s not going to stop my attack!” Kaiba called as La Jinn attacked Berry Magician Girl. The small magician cried out as she was destroyed. “Now start your turn so I can end you.”

Yugi drew his card and thought of what to do next. Looking at his hand he had Apple Magician Girl and Lemon Magician Girl, he could get them both out on the field in the next move. But Kaiba was right. He wasn’t going to win if he kept playing cautiously. It was time to go on the attack.

“I summon Apple Magician Girl.” The dark haired magician appeared on the field. “Now go dark Magician Girl attack his La Jinn.” And with that the Dark Magician Girl launched her attack.

“Not so fast! I activate my Shrink Magic Card. This card cuts my monsters attack points by half. Now I activate my Crush Card Magic card.” Yugi had been right, Kaiba’s strategy was to destroy his deck. “Now when you destroy my monster any monsters you have with more than 1500 attack points are destroyed. Say goodbye to all the powerful monsters in your deck.” Kaiba laughed. He might have taken 1,100 points of damage but he had this duel in the bag.

Dark Magician Girl shrieked as she was destroyed. Yugi gritted his teeth as he discarded all of his powerful monsters from his deck. ‘Saw that coming.’ “I end my turn.”

“Now it’s my turn!” Kaiba called as he drew his card. “I play cost down. Now I sacrifices my Battle Ox to summon my Blue Eyes White Dragon!” Blue light exploded around Kaiba as his signature dragon swooped down from the sky, her roar echoed around them. “Say good bye to your Apple Magician Girl.”

“I don’t think so!” Yugi calls, “Her special effect activates. When you attack Apple Magician Girl I can summon another Magician Girl from my hand. So come forth Lemon Magician Girl!” The blond magician appeared with a flourish. “And your attack is cut in half.”

“That’s still not enough to keep you magician alive.” Kaiba called as blue eyes attacked.

“Maybe not but this will!” Yugi replied. “Activate trap Mirror Force!”

“No!” Kaiba called as his blue eyes white dragon was destroyed. “If you think you’ve gotten ride of my Blue Eyes you’re wrong. Now go monster reborn.” Kaiba activated his one remaining face down. His Blue Eyes came roaring back to the field. “Now destroy his Lemon Magician Girl!”

Lemons Magician Girl cried out as she was blown away by Blue Eyes. Yugi shouted as the attack landed close to him. These monsters were real and the blast was close. His life points dropped by 2,200 hundred points.

“Yugi! Are you alright!” Atem shouted. He trusted Yugi to win, but these attacks were real and his aibou could get hurt.

Yugi gritted his teeth as he straightened up. “I’m alright.”

“My turn is done. Now take your last move so I can finish you!” Kaiba called. All Yugi had on the field was one 1,200 attack point monster and a 2,000 defend point monster. He had destroyed all of Yugi’s powerful monsters. Yugi couldn’t win.

“My move.” Yugi called as he drew his card. He didn’t have a lot of moves he could make at this moment. But if he knew Kaiba he knew what he’d do next. Try to get his other two Blue Eyes on to the field. “I’ll switch Apple Magician Girl into defense mode and place one monster face down. That ends my turn.”

“That’s about all you can do with the pitiful monsters you have left.” Kaiba called as he drew his next card. “I play Card of Sanctity, now we both draw until we have six cards in our hands, not that it will help you much.” Kaiba drew his cards as did Yugi. Yugi kept a straight face as the card he needed ended up in his hand. Kaiba smirked, “I play polymerization, fusing the Blue Eyes on my field with the two Blue Eyes in my hand. Come forth my ultimate creature Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon!”

Two more dragons appeared on Kaiba’s side, but they didn’t stay for long as the three dragons fused together. The resulting three headed dragon roared menacingly at Yugi. “Now attack his face down monster!” Kaiba ordered.

“Not this time!” Yugi called, “I activate my face down, Block attack!” Yugi played the first card he placed face down, stopping Kaiba’s attack in its tracks.

“You can’t stall forever Yugi!” Kaiba called as his dragon landed next to him. “I end my turn.”

“I’m not stalling Kaiba!” Yugi said as he drew his last card. “You’ve actually given me my winning hand. I set four cards face down. And then I activate the spell defuse! Say goodbye to your ultimate dragon!” Yugi called as the fused dragon became three separate beasts once more.

“So what. There is nothing in your deck that can take down one of my dragons let alone all three.” Kaiba shouted as he looked at his three dragons. ‘What was Yugi planning?’

“That’s where you’re wrong! Now I sacrifice my Elemental Hero Clayman,” he had promised himself he would use his son’s card well and he couldn’t wait to tell him that his card helped him defeat Seto Kaiba, “and my Apple Magician Girl to summon my ultimate dragon. Come forth Gandora the Dragon of Destruction!”

The two monsters disappeared in a swirl of smoke. Darkness covered the field but then thousands of red glowing orbs lit the field revealing the body of Gandora. He roared as he entered the field, Kaiba’s blue eyes roaring in response.

“Oh no!” Kaiba realized this was the end.

“And now I pay half of my life points to activate his special ability! Gandora destroys all cards on the field and gets 300 attack points for each card he destroys.” Kaiba’s dragons screeched as they were destroyed. “Between your three dragons, my monster, my 4 spell and trap cards, and your Crush Card that’s 9 cards making Gandora’s attack points 2,700 and since you only have 2,600 life points this duel is over. Now go Gandora! Attack his life points directly!”

Gandora roared as he glowed a bright red, firing its attack at Kaiba. “No!” Kaiba called as his life points dropped to zero. It was over Yugi had won.

“Yugi!” Atem called as he ran forward to pull his aibou into a hug, picking him up and spinning around. He was so proud of his aibou. The crowd started cheering, for Yugi’s victory.

Kaiba kneeled in his spot. He lost. It was over. He couldn’t duel the Pharaoh again. Yet his eyes trailed to Yugi’s smiling face as he laughed while Atem spun him around. Seto hated losing, he couldn’t stand any perceived weakness. And yet looking at Yugi’s joy, this loss didn’t sting as bad.

He was about to stand up and congratulate Yugi on his victory, like the honorable duelist he was, when Mahad returned. “My Pharaoh this is far worse than we thought!”

The joy was instantly sucked from the room. Jaden was in danger.

I tried my best to make this duel like one from the show. I have played duel links for years so I have an idea of how the game should be played. There are some misplays in here but that’s for plot. I did my best to make all the moves legal with the exception of using the anime effect for Card of Sanctity. Hopefully I did a good job!

[danthepest]

I absolutely love the conversation between Kaiba and Atem in their final duel in Battle City.

This is the closest Kaiba has come to opening up to anyone. And Atem is disappointed in him. He has been fighting people whose sole motivation was greed, anger and hatred. After Death-T and Duelist Kingdom, Atem expected Kaiba to be better. To move on, to fight for something more than that.

Yet here he was. After everything they've been through, still motivated by anger and hatred. And Atem is well aware of the cycle by this point and he's trying to get Kaiba to understand that it's a self destructive path. There is neither peace or satisfaction waiting at the end.

And as Kaiba says, Yugi/Atem is part of his past. The past that was still controlled by his upbringing before Atem shattered his mind. For Kaiba to move on, he needs to defeat Yugi. To prove that he's better so that he can conquer the last remnant of a past he wants to forget.

A part of him wants to let go of the hate and anger that fueled most of his life, but he contradicts himself later when he says those same things give him power. Not realizing just how trapped his is by them.

Atem respects and admires Kaiba's talent, skills and determination and wants to break the cycle. He wants Kaiba to let go of the pain that drives him so that his life isn't so empty. So that he can be happy. He wants him to learn that having friends and people who care about him is not a weakness.

He may have even been getting through to Kaiba until he dropped the "power of friendship" line. Kaiba knows how much of a corny line that is and Atem saying that's what he lost to was insulting to him.

Atem realizes he's lost Kaiba with that line. He questions what their relationship even is at this point. Why can't they bury the hatchet?

Its a great example of how both have done horrible things to others and had horrible things done to them, but deal with it differently.

Kaiba would rather rage and destroy everything that hurts him. Never letting go of the wrongs done to him. Yugi and Atem? They are able to move on because they forgive. Yugi forgave Jonouchi and Honda for how they treated him. Yugi & Atem forgave the Kaiba brothers for the attempted murders and hospitalizing his grandfather, while Jonouchi still holds a grudge over it. Yugi was even willing to forgive and accept Dark Bakura when he came to help during his battle with Ryuji Otogi. He even forgave Ryuji and his dad for nearly getting him killed and separated from Atem forever.

Forgiveness is a part of healing and moving on. For Yugi, it comes naturally. Atem learned it through him. But Kaiba?

For Kaiba, forgiveness is admitting defeat. To him it's like saying that what was done to him doesn't deserve punishment. That it was acceptable. Perhaps even deserved. And worst of all, that it can be ignored.

And he lashes out at Atem, ending the conversation.

It takes his encounter with Ishizu later and Mokuba's outburst to truly make him understand the dangerous path he's going down. Ishizu's willingness to die on the island if Malik can't be saved reminded him of his own back in Duelist Kingdom and it shakes him. Its what convinces him to give this whole "trust" and "friendship" garbage a chance. (In the anime he just kinda...changes his mind about leaving. They cut out the bit with him realizing he and Ishizu weren't that different entirely and I will always be salty about that).

He still plays it off as him wanting to prove its all bunk, but by the end when the island is destroyed, he's beginning to learn the lesson Atem has been trying to teach him. And unlike the anime, he's gone for the rest of the manga. There's no Dartz or Kaiba Gran Prix. They go straight to the Millenium World arc and Kaiba is absent in it except for one of the final pages, being too late and missing the duel between Yugi and Atem.

Say what you want about Yu-Gi-Oh, but the manga has some stellar character writing.

[ctrl-alt-cel]

when i was 13 i wrote an essay explaining the rationale of puppyshipping to some guy in a skype chatroom. found the essay again. wanted to rewrite it. without further ado:

HERE’S HOW PUPPYSHIPPING CAN STILL WIN: THE SEQUEL: 2 PUPPY 2 SHIPPING (4.3k words)

⠀

kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship stands at an awkwardly undefinable place in canon: they're not on good terms, but they're not enemies either. they know each other too well to be called passing acquaintances, but kaiba hardly acknowledges jounouchi as a duelist, let alone a potential rival. at best? they're mutual nuisances.

or, that's how jounouchi and kaiba choose to define it. both of them would love if their dynamic were that simple, nothing more than a back-and-forth of petty insults—but that’s not the truth. and they'll dance around the truth for five whole seasons, purposefully downplaying why they’re so obsessed with provoking each other whenever they’re in the same place.

they're foils.

—but the term "foils" is so dulled within fandom lexicon now that it can mean literally anything from two guys who just disagree with each other sometimes, so i'll sharpen this further. jounouchi and kaiba see their counterpart less as an individual person but more a representation of who they could have become if they had respectively, in their eyes, never learned the lessons they needed to. they project their own ideals onto the other and come away thinking they already know how the other operates, and the fun thing is, even when working from conjecture, their assumptions of one another happen to hit far closer to home than they have any right to.

so really, they can't leave each other alone because they can't stop seeing their failures reflected back at them. the other is a defective version of themselves that they need to correct because they can't stand constantly acknowledging who they used to be, so they try to bend the other to be more like their own image—an "i can fix him (by dragging him down to my level)".

⠀

jounouchi and kaiba’s parallels run down to their origins, both set up against abysmal family situations they have no choice but to make the best of. seto and mokuba are orphaned at a young age until seto gets them adopted, while katsuya is separated from his sister and stuck with a deadbeat father who can't carry his own weight. trapped in an environment where nobody expects anything worthwhile from him, katsuya joins a gang and lives out a self-admittedly miserable existence before befriending yugi, while seto is in a battlefield of his own, faced with protecting mokuba while enduring against the nightmare that is gozaburo kaiba’s parenting.

what they do to survive those conditions determines the outlooks they carry for the rest of their lives: jounouchi learns that losing is inescapable and the best you can do is learn how to cope with it, whereas kaiba learns that losing is something you must protect yourself from because there's only so much you can afford to lose.

jounouchi is positioned as the underdog, fighting tooth-and-nail for every victory he can manage, while kaiba has power in excess and holds to the belief that it’s all he really needs. one would argue that they have the perspective the other lacks—they argue that they have the perspective the other lacks. but in my opinion? it doesn't actually matter. what interests me is how they treat each other as a result.

⠀

side: seto kaiba

kaiba degrades jounouchi a lot. like, to an uncomfortable extent. you know that one post that’s like “why does bullying exist? why are you mad that i’m ugly?” why is kaiba so mad over the fact that jounouchi loses so much?

it’s projection. he’s just holding jounouchi to the same standard he holds himself to. you need to be powerful if you want to play the same games as kaiba, and seeing jounouchi so openly lean on his friends, ask for help, and have the audacity to lose sets kaiba off because he’s not playing the way he’s supposed to. kaiba rubs jounouchi's losses in his face because he believes that's what loss is supposed to look like, and that it’s jounouchi’s fault for not understanding that yet. kaiba is trying to teach him. to kaiba, this degradation might as well be an act of generosity.

while kaiba stayed true to his own ambitions, seizing kaibacorp from gozaburo and turning it into a children's entertainment company, he beat gozaburo at his own game not by inventing new rules but by playing it better than his adoptive father ever could. and as impressive as that is, it’s not sustainable. gozaburo kills himself when faced with his own defeat, and kaiba internalizes this lesson: that all losses are final, and it’s better to die than adapt to the consequences of a defeat. gozaburo’s death was a suicide, but in the context of their game, kaiba might as well have killed him regardless.

he mirrors this when he threatens to kill himself in duelist kingdom, his heightened emotions catastrophizing losing the duel to immediately equal failing mokuba and coming to the conclusion that if he loses mokuba he’d rather be dead. being someone so fervently self-reliant, any alternate solution, a possibility that he can lose here and still find a different way to rescue mokuba never crosses his mind. and, look, this isn’t his fault. this is the only way of living he’s ever been taught. he’s never learned how to cope in the event of failure because he’s never had the luxury to fail to begin with.

he's burned and rebuilt himself over and over again to survive in the world he operates in, and that’s why jounouchi pisses kaiba off so personally. jounouchi loses so much and so messily, and kaiba tries to show him that if he doesn’t start reinventing himself from the broken pieces of his defeats until all that’s left of him are jagged edges the same way he has, he’s never going to win. but jounouchi…does win. and keeps winning. and even when he does lose, it’s as if he creates new victories for himself, like there’s still value to playing a game with someone when you don’t win it—power of friendship bullshit and whatever. jounouchi is still here, a competitor that kaiba can no longer write off as much as he desperately wants to. (and, yeah, it is pretty ironic how jounouchi will jump through a million hoops to get kaiba to look at him, but he doesn't realize that he doesn't need to do anything to keep kaiba’s attention, only continue being himself.)

jounouchi refuses to compromise who he is and still manages to get far when in kaiba’s mind, that shouldn’t be possible; he’s supposed to be punished the way kaiba was. jounouchi is proof that you can take a devastating blow and move on from it, that even when you do fuck up spectacularly, there’s still something worthwhile in starting again tomorrow.

so kaiba constantly needs to prove that he’s better than jounouchi, that jounouchi isn’t even worth his time in order to justify his worldview. because if kaiba isn’t right, then he'll have no choice but to confront the fact that the war is over. that his circumstances aren’t instant life or death anymore and that even though he’s freed himself from gozaburo’s influence, there’s still further growth as a person he could stand to undergo, now divorced from the harsh conditions of his upbringing. jounouchi is a testament to how it’s possible to make peace and move on from the past without constantly bleeding for closure, that maybe, kaiba’s headlong quest to get the last word on his rivalry with yami yugi may not actually be as fulfilling as he thinks.

but admitting that you might need to change the way you live feels like a defeat in and of itself—it’s infuriating to hear that after everything you’ve had to learn, the way you live now isn’t good enough. that surviving insurmountable trauma doesn’t inherently make you better or more worthy than other people—it just traumatizes you, and is something you must heal from. so, instead of reflecting on these revelations, it’s so much easier for kaiba to tell himself that jounouchi is only ever graceful when he’s dead.

⠀

side: katsuya jounouchi

jounouchi is very stuck on this idea that he needs to be useful. his dad is an alcoholic with a gambling addiction and he believes it's not only his duty to pay his father's debts, but to be the household's sole source of income. his sister needs eye surgery and he believes it's his responsibility as an older brother not only to pay for it, but to act as her primary emotional support to get the surgery and throughout her recovery process. haga throws yugi's exodia into the ocean and jounouchi blames himself for not stopping it. jounouchi gets mind-controlled by malik and blames himself for causing his friends anguish from it. mai literally gets jounounchi’s soul stolen and he apologizes to her for messing up and making her sad. it's habitual, jounouchi doesn't know how to stop taking on the burdens of other people.

if you live with the mentality that you’re inevitably going to fail for long enough, you’ll come away with the belief that caring about your own wellbeing isn’t worth the effort. it depends on how pessimistic you want to read it, if it’s just his love language or jounouchi compensating for the damning act of being himself, but jounouchi quantifies his worth by how much he provides for other people. he’s always jumping in the line of fire for the sake of others because if you constantly undervalue your own wellbeing, you always have less to lose. as the underdog, he may not be as overtly powerful as kaiba or yugi, but he can still give himself away, and he’s convinced himself that it’s what he’s supposed to do. jounouchi is still new to this whole friendship thing. after a lifetime of supporting himself by himself, he doesn't know when he's allowed to ask for help yet—he’s supposed to be the help, dammit.

a key distinction between jounouchi and kaiba’s upbringings is that while kaiba’s biological parents died in an accident, jounouchi’s parents are still alive and they choose not to be responsible for him. jounouchi is conditioned to fend for himself by himself because having a parental figure actually present in his life isn’t a luxury he gets to have. to jounouchi, there has to be a reason why his mother only takes shizuka and never goes back for him in the six years he’s left with his father, and he rationalizes this with his notions of masculinity: he’s a strong man who can handle it. jounouchi is not delicate, he can endure it. men are responsible for their own circumstances. kaiba is hyperindependent out of a mixture of spite, paranoia, and self-defense. jounouchi is hyperindependent because he believes he deserves it. it’s the reason why he believes he’ll finally have a good relationship with his father if he just wins enough money to pay off his gambling debts—jounouchi can fix everything if only he were man enough to, and he can get people to stay if he demonstrates himself useful enough.

so death doesn’t carry nearly as much weight to jounouchi as it does to kaiba. in kaiba’s eyes, death is the punishment for failure, but to jounouchi, death is just the natural consequence for the kind of life he leads. he can't stop himself from fighting for the people he loves until he’s spent everything and forced to stop (read: dies), so during the several times jounouchi is confronted with his own death, he meets it with a solemn acceptance. like, yeah, it sucks, but he doesn’t regret the actions he took to end up here—he’d do it all over again, frankly. it’s better to die than not give everything he can, and at least he was able to give his life in service to someone else. it’s not necessarily good to die, but it doesn’t matter as much if he does.

so where kaiba is afraid of losing, jounouchi is afraid of outliving his usefulness (and being abandoned as a result), and kaiba disrupts jounouchi’s worldview specifically because he puts his ideology on the defensive. to jounouchi, kaiba’s presence never demands a question of “what can you do for me?” (nothing, kaiba doesn’t want jounouchi to do anything for him, and frankly, he’d be insulted if jounouchi even tried) but “what makes you worthy of standing on the same level as me?”, and jounouchi can’t sacrificial lamb get set on fire die a billion times into getting kaiba into seeing it his way (rather, that would only prove him right: kaiba would love nothing more than for jounouchi to lose the ability to fight and finally align with his preconceived notions of how the world works), and he can’t argue that his value is in how much he provides for others because that’s a non-answer. kaiba doesn’t care.

kaiba’s presence forces jounouchi into a position of self-reflection: jounouchi works so hard to preserve the friendships he’s created, but who is he—what does he value about himself in the absence of it? jounouchi needs to acknowledge something inherently valuable about himself if he wants to counter kaiba in any meaningful way, and it’s not like he doesn’t have valuable qualities either: he’s tenacious, he’s resourceful, he’s a quick learner—it takes intelligence to rank as high as he does in tournaments, but he undervalues all of it. these traits are all to be expected, they don’t actually count as extraordinary when it’s him. they’re only remarkable when they’re being applied to something greater. jounouchi believes he has the potential to become strong (and valuable by extension), only with the stipulation that he’s never actually there yet. he focuses too much on his inadequacies, constantly pontificating on how he needs to become a “true duelist”, but by the way he speaks about the title, the only way to be a true duelist is be named yugi muto, i guess.

so it’s very jounouchi-esque for him to miss this point with near deliberate precision and try to make himself useful to kaiba anyway. while kaiba is bent on seeing jounouchi fail to prove that his cynicism is superior to jounouchi’s altruism, the inverse is that jounouchi sees his old self in kaiba and he’s dying to teach kaiba a lesson. during battle for bronze, jounouchi states that they used to be the same, people who only relied on themselves and thought they’d be fine living like that. the argument jounouchi makes is that living that way is fucking miserable. he calls kaiba out: you’re supposed to be having fun. why are you playing duel monsters if you’re not having fun? he’s trying to show kaiba that he can be useful and teach kaiba things if kaiba would just let him, but for reasons mentioned in both of their sections, kaiba isn’t interested in being taught anything.

while less malicious in display, it's important to note that jounouchi’s method of trying to teach kaiba doesn't make him the better person here. jounouchi isn’t coming from a place of understanding when he lectures kaiba, he’s coming from a place of misdirected self-flagellation. and from kaiba's perspective, jounouchi is just dispensing unwarranted advice for the sake of his own ego. the most egregious example is when jounouchi picks a fight with kaiba in duelist kingdom, demanding they duel when kaiba is clearly not in the mood, busy with more pressing matters like, i don’t know, trying to rescue his abducted brother? so, okay, maybe a little bit inconsiderate on jounouchi’s part.

they're two ideological extremes: kaiba lashes out at the world while jounouchi gives himself to it, and jounouchi will keep barging in on kaiba with his life lessons because it’s the only way he wants to engage with kaiba’s arguments otherwise. jounouchi interprets kaiba’s rejection of his ideals as the equivalent of the stubbornness jounouchi had before befriending yugi, and he uses it as a reason to keep pushing, not understanding that while he may have found the most honorable path for himself, you can imagine how constantly burning yourself for others isn’t very…appealing. or sustainable. and that maybe it’s something you need to work on, actually.

⠀

conclusion: how i WIN

what’s fun about jounouchi and kaiba is how wrong they are. they genuinely can't live the way the other demands them to, their respective environments won’t allow it. if jounouchi chased victory with the same cutthroat relentlessness as kaiba, he probably never would have left his gang. or, at least, he’d lose the selfless devotion and consideration he has for others, traits that helped him build his support system, and he never would have found the friendships he values in his life—his willingness to change and start again was how he was able to befriend yugi to begin with. (and if you wanted to get really extreme with hypotheticals, his self-destructive tendencies could have grown so severe in the absence of a support system that he probably would wind up getting himself killed somewhere. lol.) inversely, if kaiba granted himself the freedom to worry less about the outcome as long as he enjoyed himself, he’d put mokuba’s safety at constant risk. kaiba’s guarded nature isn’t without reason, there are powerful corporate executives who would love to see him fail, and there are very real consequences if kaiba slips up for even a second and gives his opposition any leeway. the way they live works for them because it’s theirs. it’s not so much that either of their lifestyles are in dire need of correction, but that the other represents the possibility that they could be living better.

and this is fantastic because it means that, despite what they think, neither of them are in the “wrong” and must learn to change their idiot ways or that the solution is to strong-arm each other into some kind of compromise. it’s a battle of perceived weakness. they need to, naturally and individually, accept that the traits they’ve always deemed immature and beneath them can be just as vital for survival, even when it’s not necessarily their own.

jounouchi and kaiba are essentially the most extreme example of two people who want what’s best for each other (gone wrong!) and puppyshipping is appealing because them getting together requires that they stop punishing themselves for who they used to be. they expect too much out of themselves and then inflict those demands onto each other, but if they’re not wrong for the ways they’ve overcome the circumstances they were left in, then it’s equally true that the ideals they abandoned to survive weren’t inherently naïve just because they weren’t given the space to utilize them. sometimes life will push you to your limits in the hope that you fail, and there’s no deeper meaning to it. it’s not life’s way of teaching you a necessary lesson to make you stronger or a test to see if you deserve to live, or that it’s your fault when it breaks you. sometimes there’s no great meaning to suffering. things happen, and you will adjust to it in order to live. when kaiba and jounouchi believe they know each other as much as they know themselves, pairing them is the hope that they’ll respect themselves enough to respect each other, that they’ll one day be able to embrace the parts of themselves they’re the most ashamed of.

(or, you know, for the alternative crowd, they most definitely can make each other worse.)

for two men who claim to be so self-assured in their own lifestyles, jounouchi and kaiba are fascinating because there’s so many layers of denial at play: the denial that they see anything in each other, denial that there may be aspects of the other that they’ve come to envy, denial that they even care, and it's so tempting to imagine if all of it was forced open. jounouchi and kaiba choose to maintain this delicate equilibrium where they never actually confront anything because the idea of admitting vulnerability viscerally disgusts them, and it begs what would happen if the balance irrevocably tipped for once. watching them is like watching a pencil teetering on the edge of a desk, always this close to some kind of breakthrough. i won’t even lie to you puppyshipping pisses me off half the time because i just want to shake them around until something metaphorically breaks.

kaiba and jounouchi never let each other become complacent in their pasts: whenever their personal tragedies and childhoods are brought up in the context of one another, it’s never because they are being vindicated for continuing to dwell in them, but because they are being contested on how much the mindsets they’ve carried over from their pasts should be allowed to determine their futures.

returning to canon, kaijou operates through the language of competition. jounouchi tries to prove himself as a competitor so remarkable that kaiba can no longer deny him, while kaiba already knows he’s remarkable, and that is precisely why acknowledging it pisses him off so much. so they’ll play their game: jounouchi will provoke kaiba into fighting him because he enjoys going up against challenging opponents in the hopes of becoming stronger, whereas kaiba keeps trying to set up situations where jounouchi will lose to the point of letting him die because he wants so badly to believe that losing does equal death and jounouchi’s existence is the most inconvenient counterargument of all. and obviously, jounouchi keeps not dying. and it's endlessly infuriating—almost slapstick at this point, that much to kaiba's frustration, no matter what he does, he can never make jounouchi submit for very long.

jounouchi and kaiba spur each other on to a ridiculous extent: kaiba enjoys pushing jounouchi past the breaking point, whereas jounouchi enjoys getting pushed to his limits to test his own capabilities. whether that’s necessarily a good thing though is…well…hmm. anyways. 

their dynamic is the type of messiness only two prideful high schoolers can get up to. maybe it’s just kaiba's repression and jounouchi's recklessness, but there is a fascination with each other that they’re incapable of leaving alone. there’s intimacy in knowing someone so well and fearing that fact, but kaiba and jounouchi never respond to this fear by avoiding it—they’re engaging with it time and time again. they infuriate each other with a passion that never sits still. kaiba and jounouchi seek a validation from their counterpart while simultaneously denying each other from it, and it’s mean, but invigoratingly so.

at some point, it’s not even about wanting validation anymore, but point-blank wanting its keeper by any capacity: wanting a visible reaction to their effort as proof of reciprocation, proof that says “i’ve finally affected you just as much as you affect me.” because kaiba and jounouchi want to leave a mark on each other, they want their counterpart to fully understand how much they’ve affected them, and they want to witness that reaction themselves. it’s no longer this big, nebulous ideological debate with a reflection: the pull between them is made both physical and personal. so, like, not to go the trite route of arguing that two men who can’t stand each other were ~secretly attracted to each other this whole time~, but how else are you supposed to word this?

in some hypothetical universe where they do come together, even the ways they love manage to compliment each other in its own clumsy way. seto kaiba never does anything in moderation: if he hates something he will destroy it, if he loves something he will possess it, and if he is obsessed with something, he will single-mindedly pursue it at the expense of everything else. his repression manifests itself in a passion so pressurized it’s all-consuming against everything it comes to contact with. inversely, katsuya jounouchi loves freely and transparently: showing affection comes as naturally as breathing to him. he embodies the belief that love is not only about the grand gestures, but the day-to-day acts of warmth and casual acknowledgments that it's there. a man who wants to be wanted by someone so badly it aches paired with someone who makes no reservations as to what he's committed to, capable of a love so overwhelmingly insatiable that it is neither fickle nor delicate, and a man who finds the act of trusting others with his affection so unthinkably humiliating that he’s convinced himself it’s something beneath him paired with someone who makes it look infuriatingly easy. they are going to invent a new language to love each other with. i believe in them. i would not write two separate essays titled “here’s how puppyshipping can still win” if i did not believe in them. 

ultimately, it feels cheap to build kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship off what life lessons they could "teach" each other reformation-style when they already have a legitimate dynamic in play. they can be good for each other, or they can tear into each other in ways they’d never expect to be capable of. there’s something exhilarating in knowing there’s someone who has that kind of power and wanting to keep them within your reach, a buzzing excitement in knowing someone who can not only withstand you at your worst, but fight back at you with twice as much vigor. sure, there’s potential for growth here, but that’s because there’s potential for literally anything.

kaiba and jounouchi inspire reinvention and self-determination from each other at the best of times and enable each other’s most self-destructive tendencies at their worst. so i think. puppyshipping is the most fun. when you ship them the same way you leave a fork in the microwave to watch it explode. the end.

TL;DR: me x the guy who keeps breaking my worldview and forces me to reevaluate myself every time i see him which i hate so much that i just want him to DIE

[superspecial-awesome]

s0 queerosexual hcs. for pride month

basically my interpretation of the cast in this regard is that theyre a bunch of annoying queer teenagers who will never discover this about themselves because they live in 1990s japan and all think there's only gay and straight and that being the former is grounds to be beaten in the streets

Yugi: the only one who has his shit figured out. transmasc and bi and he plans on taking that to his grave. he has a strong preference for women though so that part never really comes up. "attracted to every woman ever and one guy i met at a gas station six years ago" disease. also bonus points anzu knows he's transmasc and helped him figure out binding and shit

Miho: huge lesbian but "oh no it's just that girls are objectively more attractive than guys everyone knows that, i just haven't met the right man yet, besides every girl wishes they could date women instead that's why bakura is so popular it's because he looks like a woman." I also like to imagine that in an ideal world, she'd fuck with genderfluidity

Bakura: aroace and agender transfem. he gives me he/it/any vibes. I think partly due to The Mega Autism he never really understood the deal with traditional masculinity so he feels disconnected from manhood as a whole and would be a lot more comfortable being able to exist as something entirely detached from gender. I also think the swarms of girls at all times made him view women as some sort of other species entirely and he's got a lot of deep-rooted misogyny going on about it, but tbh anzu and miho could fix him. and make him into the vague girlthing he always was

Anzu: Idk what label to slap onto her but I don't think physical appearance or gender plays any role in her being attracted to people at all. maybe like demiromantic asexual. but i dont think demi is the term im looking for. definitely ace though.

Honda: "WOW I LOVE BEING A MAN I LOVE WOMEN AND RULES AND ORDER I DON'T AT ALL FEEL LIKE I'M CURSED TO FIT MYSELF INTO A BOX THAT'S TOO SMALL FOR ME" and he believes that wholeheartedly and then wonders why he needs to constantly prove himself over things that don't matter to avoid his mental health crumbling to dust. I don't think he's trans though I just think he needs to chill out. also he's bi and poly and the single most useless hopeless romantic ever.

Jonouchi: bi but i think his refusal to accept that as a possibility has made him very aware of a lot of other things he has going on psychologically. like his homophobia has somehow made him a more self-aware and chill person. "honda put his hand on my shoulder for more than 0.5 seconds and my entire nervous system took a screenshot does this mean im g--wait no im just touched starved huh i wonder if that has ever impacted my poor decision making in the past." also him being used for the cartoon standard "guy wears girl clothes and likes it" joke is grounds for me to hc him as genderqueer. I could absolutely see him getting really into fem presentation.

Yami Yugi: gay gay homosexual gay

Kaiba: transfem in the super dysphoric way but will absolutely never find this out because any time she becomes remotely aware of something bothering her about herself she just looks in the mirror and says "no." i also wanna say arospec and aspec but idk she's fully either. i think if i wanted to give you an accurate idea of how attraction works for her i'd have to pull up the homestuck quadrants and i'm not joking.

Yami Bakura: agender is a way that's like "dude I'm a ghost in a ring who cares." If you called him a she he'd be like "what" and then after you got two words into explaining he'd go "nvm I underestimated the amount of shit I don't give about this." His sexuality is no time for dat goku