#prequels appreciation week: day 1 — protagonists | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starlightshadowsworld · 4 years ago

Text

YGO Protagonists

Atem:

*Oldest brother... Literal dad

*Is very protective over the rest of them

*Seriously don't touch a hair on their heads because you will lose your soul.

*He totally has Kaiba on Speed dial and calls him over the dumbest things to get a rise out of him (but they are friendly?( Seto would also murder you dead if you hurt these munchkins he just won't admit it... (I will not apologise for this)

*Does not understand memes (mee mee's?) but tells dad puns for days.

*Always gives compliments and gives great life/dueling advice to the rest (puts a hand on their shoulders with that knowing and proud look).

*Will spend hours bragging about how far Judai's come, how smart and talented Yusei and Yusaku, how Yuya and Yuga created original dualing rules, how Yugi is awesome. He will tell anyone and everyone (they all secretly love it)

Yugi Mouto:

*Younger older brother? (identical twins but younger of the two)

*Super optimistic, always there to lend a hand and is very pacifistic... but will throw hands if the situation requires and without hesitation.

*Has Kaibaman in his deck to spite Kaiba (it works every time)

*HE SHARPENS HIS HAIR!

*Yes it can pierce a wall... It was for science.

*Usually the one to help escalate the chaos, and than pretends to have no idea why the house is upside down... And on fire... And the fire is green.

*Is the only one other than Atem to get Yusei to go to sleep.

*He loves puzzles, telling riddles and leaving little clues around the house for the others to solve (and they always get a present even if they get it wrong because they tried.)

*Doesn't see anything wrong with his fashion sense.

Judai Yuki:

*Problem child 1, needs a hug

*Memelord, will constantly troll Atem with movie references, and anything he can think of. (Yes he does quote the star wars prequels during duals.)

*Yubel makes sure he's looking after himself and has woven their way into the family. They and Astral have fun conversations. (Pharaoh the cat gets on very well with Atem... Werid.)

*Either he's happy, outgoing and herding the younger kids into various pranks. Rounding up Yuya, Yuma, Yuga and Yugi into his antics, (we don't speak of the Eggwitch incident). Sometimes he manages to drag Yusaku in to join them, giving them all a part to play and praising their efforts (they haven't been caught)

*OR he's depressed, haunted and full of guilt. He finds comfort by spending time with the others, hating being on his own. Everyone even those fairly reserved pick up on his mood and direct him to different tasks. Especially with Yuya, both of them can talk for hours about what ifs, shoulds and shouldn'ts.

*Favourite non dualing activity is helping Yusei to bake, he has burned many a cookie but he loves icing cakes.

*Very protective, will tap into the power of the Supreme King and Yubels abilities sometimes as unconsciously when one of the others are upset, or he's pushed into a corner.

Yusei Fudo:

*Oldest after the twins, literal mum

*Can't take care of himself to save his life but cares deeply for the others. Packing them lunches, helping them with school work etc.

*Takes Yusaku under his wing as soon as he sees his tech skills, both of them stay up for hours working on projects until Yugi scolds them at 4 am.

*Always half asleep, covered in oil and holding a cup of coffee (no he doesn't have a problem.) He mumbles codes and always seems to fall asleep holding a wrench.

*Usually he's accompanied by Yuga or Yusaku, either sitting and asking questions about their projects or working on a shared on/Yusaku's own stuff. He doesn't like working alone so it works out.

*Can do the "Mum look" and it has stopped the Supreme King, Dark Zexal and Zarc in their tracks.

*Card games on Motorcycles...having his bike borrowed by the little ones who want to play a card game on a bike but aren't old enough or know how to drive.

*Likes to bake, learned from Martha to give the others birthday treats and finds it fun.

*Claims he can never get sick... Liar.

Yusaku Fujiki

*Problem child 2 (all problem children need hugs and therapy, Kaiba get your wallet)

*Tried to stay closed off from the others but finds he enjoys their company and their antics.

*He has a Metapod hoodie that Yuya won at a carnival and gifted him. He wears it all the time, its cosy.

*Pretty Awkward, very cold sometimes without meaning it but somehow there all able to understand what he means without getting upset or offended.

*He spends hours working on projects with Yusei, neither talk much and it's a comfortable silence. Yuga often accompanies them, full of questions and joy and he enjoys sharing his work.

*Prefers to watch the others dual than to dual himself, absorbing the strategies and while he doesn't quite understand their motives... He finds himself smiling at Yuya's shows, wondering what he means with his smiling routine.

*Offhandedly told Kaiba that he fixed some holes in his security system. Kaiba went on a firing spree (yes with his firing people coat) and his was promptly hired. He actually enjoys it, and is now Kaiba's favourite brat.

*Also... The missing persons list is growing after Yusaku finally opened up about his past.... Werid.

Yuya Sakaki

*Problem child 3 (see above)

*Smiles go for miles

*Finds a lot of comfort from the others. The first time he let slip about Zarc, Judai was right there with his glowing green/orange eyes and they bonded instantly.

*He tries to only dual for entertainment and fun but that can't always be the case, though it really rattles him up afterwards. Do not make him mad in a dual if you value your life.

*Plays a lot with Yuma and Yuga, as the oldest of the trio he tries to set an example... He never said it was a good one....hes part of Zarc.

*He always has a game, an idea and the others will always be his faithful audience. He's made real solid dualing into an art, Atem and Judai have made his monsters real at times without the need for the tech (it was beautiful)

*Starts the appreciate Dragons Fanclub with Yusei and Kaiba.

*Yes to capes (Sorry Edna)

*Fusion dimension isn't available at the moment... Or the forceable future.

Yuma Tsukumo

*Second youngest, space boy

*Atem gives him advice and praises every one of his duals even he loses, teaching him that every one can be used as a step towards success.

*Astral befriends Yubel, and often makes remarks at the Zarc fragments, he and Yuuri get on the others nerve.

*He spends most of his time with Yuya and Yuga, either dualing, watching Yuya dualtain or pranking. He started their lengendary prank war against Judai and Yugi...(Yusei was out of the house for a week and Atem gave up). It was a battle for the ages.

*He does worry at times that he's so behind the others skill's levels but as he gets closer to them it matters less. He cheers on every one of them, bragging about how cool they are.

*He takes up other hobbies, baking, cooking, and dragging everyone into family game nights. Which all end fine and do not result in a pissed of Zarc threathing Wario before kicking his switch out of a window... Nope absolutely not.

*Has a constellation book.

*Likes using big words he doesn't know the meaning off. And than trying and failing to convince everyone he knows exactly what he just said without googling it... While Astral facepalms, definitely picked it up from Yusei.

Yuga Ohda

*Tiny baby

*Yugi picked him up once and everyone starting to sing "it's the circle of life."

*He loves watching Yusei and Yasuke work, because they answer his questions properly and look at his inventions with respect and a critical but kind eye. They slowly teach him his to improve and it shows in his work.

*All of them were interested in his Rush duals and listen to him explain, finding it interesting and another new way to play.

*Yuya teaches him how to dualtain, both of them putting on hippo-tastic shows for their friends and loved ones. Fulfilling their goals to have fun.

*He steals everyone's hoodies and jackets, doesn't care how big they are he will steal them and wear them. And look adorable despite his argument that he isn't.

*Everyone is the most protective of him as he's the youngest and while he's touched, he's super protective over them and offers himself as a cuddle buddy whenever anyone has nightmares.

And there all one big crazy family

178 notes · View notes

jasonfry · 8 years ago

Text

Author’s Notes: Imperial Justice, Pt. 1

WARNING: These notes will completely spoil Servants of the Empire: Imperial Justice. Haven’t read it? Stop and go here.

(Start here for notes for Edge of the Galaxy and here for Rebel in the Ranks.)

Being a writer means you can never separate a book from the experience of writing it.

Imperial Justice is the third book in the Servants of the Empire series and a lot of people’s favorite of the four. But I can’t see it that way. For me, it’s the one that was torture to write and that I wasn’t sure worked – a feeling I almost never have once a book is finished. My memories are mostly about hating this book and wanting it out of my life.

What happened? The chapters in the middle of a larger story are always tough – you’re past establishing the characters and the stakes but haven’t reached the resolution and closure. But beyond that, Imperial Justice posed narrative problems that I hadn’t fully anticipated while writing Edge of the Galaxy and Rebel in the Ranks.

The first problem was where to put the break between it and The Secret Academy. Zare Leonis’s story in Imperial Justice had to incorporate his cameo in the Rebels episode “Vision of Hope,” in which he tells Ezra he’s being transferred to Arkanis. My original idea was to continue the story beyond that, ending with Beck Ollet recognizing Zare in the mysterious tower on Arkanis.

That would have been a cliffhanger to appreciate even by my nasty standards, and one I filched from the ending of Tolkien’s The Two Towers. It also would have meant Zare’s chunk of the story included both a real accomplishment – getting to Arkanis – and a gigantic, potentially fatal reversal.

Good plan, except that moment didn’t work as a break between the books -- I had too much story before it and not enough after it. So I had to back up, and the break point wound up being one that left Zare essentially stuck at the Lothal Academy for the duration of the book. Given that Zare enrolled in the academy to find his lost sister Dhara, I worried that readers would get impatient with Zare or turn against him for not pushing hard enough.

The saving grace was I had more room to maneuver with Merei Spanjaf, who’d evolved from a supporting character into a full-fledged protagonist. Rebel in the Ranks ended with a cliffhanger. as Merei discovered that a) the software she’d installed in an Imperial ministry hadn’t deleted itself as planned and b) her mother had been assigned to track down the intruder. Having that room was a relief, but not a solution – I couldn’t have Zare twiddling his thumbs for a whole book while Merei’s story unfolded.

When you’ve got a storytelling problem you can’t solve, sometimes the answer is to lean into the sharp points – put the problem at the center of the story. That’s what I wound up doing: I started with the fear and frustration of being stuck, then ratcheted up the pressure on Zare and Merei until something had to give.

That made Imperial Justice work, but it was no fun as a writer. Worse, it came at a time when I was struggling with The Rise of Earth, the third book of my Jupiter Pirates series. (About which more here.) Normally I like switching back and forth between projects – I can recharge my batteries for the idle project while getting things done on the active one. But The Rise of Earth was another middle chapter that came with similar storytelling challenges to Imperial Justice. So I’d switch gears only to immediately feel stuck all over again.

Here’s one good thing: this was the first book in the Servants of the Empire series that I got to name. And it’s even a pretty good title, which is rarity for me. A small thing, but at the time I’d take anything I could get.

Part 1: Loyalty

We start with Zare and the cadets out for one of their dawn runs, bantering and even singing a martial song. If that seems oddly cheery considering this is the Imperial military, that was what I was after.

I wanted the narrative to stick close to what I thought of as a shadow story. In the shadow story, Dhara was never kidnapped and Zare didn’t witness the killing of innocents. Instead, he followed his sister to the academy, ready to serve the Empire he and his family believed in, and was molded into a model Imperial officer by Sergeant Currahee and Lieutenant Chiron – to whom he gave his gratitude and loyalty.

A lot of scenes in the first part of Imperial Justice would fit that story if given a slight twist. Chiron is a familiar character type, the Noble Villain, but he really is a good person -- his fatal flaw is his inability to see that the Empire he serves only exists in his head. Currahee’s the tough drill sergeant who’s mean for her soldiers’ own good, and by the end of Imperial Justice we get a hint that there’s a heart somewhere inside her scarred self. Oleg’s a jerk, true, but cadets such as Kabak and Rykoff (the replacements for Dev Morgan and Jai Kell) seem decent enough. And in the first half of Imperial Justice we see that Zare is becoming both a capable soldier and a leader, coolly navigating the battlefield and the barracks.

So at least at first, the real story and the shadow story aren’t so different. Even Zare’s confrontations with Oleg would play differently if we didn’t know the Empire is fundamentally evil and Zare’s in danger every day he’s a cadet. The idea was to make the reader uneasy and establish a growing sense of claustrophobia as the cadets are ordered to do things that are harder and harder to justify.

Merei has a shadow story too. She gets drawn into Yahenna Laxo’s web, running messages and thumb drives to the crime boss’s clients. Which is kind of fun ... at least at first. Merei gives as good as she gets from Laxo’s hirelings and customers, is paid better than any teenaged schoolgirl could expect, and even enjoys arguing with Laxo, who’s smart and has a certain slouchy charm. Once again, you can imagine a story where Merei overlooked a few unsavory things and rose up the ranks, winning Laxo’s trust and becoming a loyal operative. As with Zare, in the beginning that story’s not so different from the one that actually unfolds.

Some quick notes about part 1:

Note that the dust storms are getting worse, and Zare is snapped out of his good mood by the sight of a construction site for a weapons lab, one that’s torn open the green fields of Lothal. To the Empire Lothal is a world occupied to be used up and thrown away, and we see its exploitation worsen as the series goes along.

The marching song was fun to write – it’s basically the Marines’ Hymn with locations from Legends subbing for the likes of Montezuma and Tripoli. Oddly, while writing Imperial Justice I also made up a song for the Star Wars Insider short story “Last Call at the Zero Angle” and I had a pirates’ ditty in mind for The Rise of Earth. (The last one got scrapped.) I have no idea why I thought every project should be a musical during those couple of weeks.

The demise of the nanny droid is a horrifying scene – one where I saw a way to turn writing for a younger audience to my advantage. You probably wouldn’t have Oleg execute a living prisoner in a kids’ book, but you can dispose of a droid -- and fairly graphically at that. The scene shows you the kind of officer Oleg will become, and that his cruelty will be rewarded, not punished. There’s also a subtle commentary on the difference between living beings and droids, and whether there should be any.

Kabak and Rykoff are named for baseball writers of my acquaintance, though our own maneuvers were limited to drinking beer and arguing about the Hall of Fame. Since they’re Yankee fans, I made them bad guys.

The scene featuring Merei, her mother Jessa and her father Gandr is an info-dump and a recounting of what’s come before – I decided to take care of both things in one shot so I could move on with the story. Scenes like that work better if the info-dump is delivered through dialogue – it’s easier on the reader, and you can also use the conversation to bump characters into each other. So in addition to learning what Merei’s up against, we also get some insight into Jessa and Gandr’s relationship, a bit of conflict between Merei and her mother, and a sense that Jessa is a formidable opponent.

Young banthas were cubs in Legends, which was cute but zoologically questionable. Now they’ve calves. That was Story Group’s sensible suggestion.

I liked the scene where Merei fences with Laxo about what led him to a life of crime. Laxo sees the Empire for what it is and opposes it, but he’s an opportunist rather than a revolutionary – perceptive, but lacking the moral clarity that would turn perception into action. As with the shadow stories, it’s a small difference that means everything.

The unnamed Gotal criminal was also a fun character to write, particularly his ongoing war of words with Laxo. Kriffing Laxo!

Zare’s interrogation about his loyalty was an interesting bit to write – it starts out as a comic scene, with Zare thinking about all the extraordinarily disloyal things he’s done and then blandly answering “no sir” each time. But then it takes an ominous turn, as Roddance pushes Chiron aside. And it ends with a callback to the prequels that means nothing to Zare but the reader immediately knows is a dangerous development.

Next up: A poet and a breakup. And whatever happened to Oleg? Right here!

#author's notes #servants of the empire #writing #storytelling #star wars

23 notes · View notes

femslashrevolution · 8 years ago

Text

It ain't that deep, bro. It's just important.

This post is part of Femslash Revolution’s I Am Femslash series, sharing voices of F/F creators from all walks of life. The views represented within are those of the author only.

So, this may catch some folk by surprise considering how ridiculously queer I am, but, fun fact: your humble author didn’t actually learn that queer people existed until she was in high school.

(This is relevant. I promise. Hang in there.)

I’m not kidding. I was sitting behind this girl in a creative writing class, my first week freshman year of high school. She was telling a story to another student, and in the course of it made a joke in which she pointed out how incredibly bisexual she was.

It was like I got struck by lightning.

I’d gone to a catholic school from kindergarten through eighth grade. And Holy Family was actually one of the more progressive, kind-hearted schools in the area. I know now that most of the teachers didn’t actually believe the official Church doctrine on the subject of The Gays. So instead of telling us that homosexuality was a sin, they just…never brought it up. If they never mentioned gay people, they wouldn’t have to toe the line and say we were going to hell!

Aaaaand the end result was that I literally was never informed that liking girls was like…a thing? You can do that? That’s an option?!

Mind you it still took me like another six months to figure out why I’d had such a powerful reaction to that realization. Because, you know, obviously I wasn’t gay or anything. You can feel free to insert a mental laugh track there, I’ll wait.

I bring this up because to this day, I remember that lightning-strike sensation. The birth of a whole new universe, fresher and wider and better than the old one, right behind my eyes. I swear to god the colors were brighter that day.

In the months and months between that moment and the moment when I was willing to admit even to myself that maybe, possibly, like girls just a little, I started reading femslash. I read a lot of highly questionable het fics too, obviously, because I was fourteen and look shut up we’ve all made mistakes.

I’d be lying if I said femslash was what helped me realize I was gay as all hell, because it wasn’t. I handled that just fine on my own, thanks. The fics themselves weren’t actually the catalyst, it was just that I realized I was seeking out f/f pairings and, hmm, you know, maybe there was a reason for that. Really, femslash didn’t start to mean much to me, or connect me to a community, until I started writing it. And…oh, man. That was the watershed. That really was where I came into my own.

I was seriously unprepared for the level of gratitude femslash authors can receive.

Thing was, I wasn’t even really…doing much, from my perspective. I was just…writing fic, like always. I’d watched the Star Wars prequels and fell in love with what was to me the obvious femslash pairing–seriously, watch Phantom Menace and tell me with a straight face that Padme’s handmaiden isn’t in love with her. And I’d gone looking for fic only to discover a massive pile of nothing. That’s thankfully changed a little since; I like to think I kicked off the Padme/Sabe renaissance. But for a decent chunk of time there, I was the only person writing that pairing on the entire Internet.

Let me tell you–that was a trip and an half.

And the response was…pretty average, as AO3 goes. It wasn’t like I became an instant celebrity or anything. But people got so freaking excited, to a degree I had never expected. I think I’m a decent writer, I’m pretty used to people liking my stuff–but people, when they read the Padme/Sabe fics, were freaking out. They overflowed with enthusiasm, they tripped over themselves talking about how invested they were in this pairing now. Overwhelmingly, responses fell into two categories: “I’ve shipped them for years, I thought I was the only one!” or “I’ve never even considered this, but now I can’t stop.”

That’s the moment. That, right there, is the thunderbolt.

It’s why I work so much with what are, on the surface, kind of done-to-death tropes. 5+1 fics. Sith AUs. Humorously snowballing miscommunications that result in Hijinks And Shenanigans™. Dark AUs. Single-point canon divergence “what-if” fix-it fics. Coffeeshop AUs. My flagship Padme/Sabe piece is, loosely, an Arthurian mythos AU. Hell–my current project, because apparently I hate myself, has turned out to be a series of ~20k oneshots for a different Star Wars femslash pairing based on the plots and settings of Disney movies, just for fun.

Now to my credit, I do pull twists on the tropes! I adapt them, I explore variations, sometimes I subvert them entirely because some tropes are pretty unhealthy relationship models; but the fact is, my playground is tropes and AU settings. The latter is because I, as a writer, really enjoy stripping both plotlines and characters down to their core. (What are the really essential elements of this story that I can use to transplant the plot into a Galaxy Far Far Away? What are the core personality traits and features that these Star Wars characters would keep, their turn of phrase–things that will make them instantly recognizable even if they’ve been relocated to 17th-century France?) But the tropes, that’s something that for me is an integral part of why I and a lot of other people read and write femslash.

I do it for that lightning-strike sensation. That moment where someone stumbles across a Beauty and the Beast AU, or a faerie tale, or a story about defying fate to escape an arranged marriage, or something else they’ve seen a million times–except this time the protagonists are queer women, and nobody questions it, and they connect to the basic premise in a whole new way.

Sure, the characters’ love may be forbidden–but it’s forbidden for the same reasons straight people get to have forbidden love. Because one of them is a commoner, because they’re Sith and their masters are rivals. Because the Jedi Code forbids it. Not because they’re queer. Never because they’re queer.

(Mind you I’ve also written some Meg/Christine stuff, wherein the problem is ABSOLUTELY that they’re queer. There’s a place for that. But you’ll notice, if you read my Phantom of the Opera fic, that Mme. Giry figured it out ages ago and, while she might worry, she never disapproves. We face enough examples in the real world of parents rejecting their queer kids. I don’t feel a need to include it in my fic.)

And for a lot of people, these are just fun fics about their favorite pairing. That’s great in and of itself; we’re all starving and scrabbling for crumbs, and my readers are honestly the sweetest and most appreciative people I could ask for. If I just make them happy, hey, my job’s done. But every so often, I get a review or a private message and I can see that thunderbolt realization. I can see their universe opening up.

We can be fairy tales too?

We can have soulmates, these archetypal stories I grew up loving can be about me? We can change each other for the better, we can be heroes, we can be murderous self-indulgent evil-is-sexy Sith, we can be the ones charging the dragon?

We can be genre fiction–stories about assassination attempts and royal duty, intergalactic politics and Greek mythology and dramatic rescues that have nothing to do with the sexuality of the protagonists? We can just…be there because we are?

We’re allowed to do that?

That’s an option?

About the Jo:

Blog | AO3 | RP/etc

22-year-old Psychology major; cis, very white, extremely queer, terrible Cherry Coke habit. In a continuing blood feud with the continent of North America, will bore you by talking about dogs and/or various other animals if you give me half a chance, and I reject the false Star Wars/Star Trek dichotomy. Star Trek is for hope, Star Wars is for stabbing Nazis in the face, and both are Good.

#mylordshesacactus #I Am Femslash #Femslash February 2017 #Femslash February #Type: Meta #submission

81 notes · View notes