#the duel project

[krazieka2]

I did a Citrinne paralogue comic over the past couple of months on my twitter! It's finally finished, so I'm cross posting it over here as well.

[sixofclovers]

early start for the captain

[statleragainstposers]

Physically I'm at school.

Mentally, I'm Astral Projecting to the Denny's parking lot in Louisville, Kentucky, to set traps for the Croaker.

[notbecauseofvictories]

a wild moment at work today, when my boss (at the end of quite a long speech about why I should track my work better) essentially said, "but you're not getting any credit for your accomplishments!" and I realized I genuinely didn't care.

[cardbored-box]

Two of my favorite guys

[roselyn-artist]

"Do you really think you can stand against my God Cards, Seto?"

Commission for @rosalind-hawkins 🤩 This is a picture for her fanfic, the villain Noah with the Millenium Eye! 😱 I enjoyed drawing this too much and I hope you like it too! 😊

[charmtale]

ep 36 / ep 38

[kaiowut99]

Also, always a bit amused when 4K misses a spot while blanking things like this lol

[prettyboykatsuki]

TELL US THE LORE????

dkjfhsdgj ITS KIND DERANGED LMAOO. sorry for yapping about her backstory but its relevant to their insane dynamic lmao

my self insert / oc is basically like. disillusioned software engineer. shes based off edward snowden. she's from the planet of talia (which is desert wasteland) and she's an orphan and was raised with other bandit gangs lol. she learned how to write software and engineer thru trial and error. she's an orphan and doesn't really have any family with the exceptions of like two people she considers. but no blood. no idea who her parents are lol

she gets picked up by the ipc when she's in her teen years because she gets caught trying to steal from them using some phishing software she made. they offer recruitment instead of jail-time bc her skillsets are valuable and she sees it as a good opportunity.

she quickly finds out the ipc is crazy corrupt and she gets really like. she wants to get out but the contract is insane. so she basically. like. steals a bunch of money from the ipc and then goes permanently on the run LMAO.

she finds refuge in different planets but the ipc is everywhere. she keeps stealing from them though and interrupting their business models. very robinhood i guess. she has more of a moral conscience than other inserts i make she's really upright.

her personality is really like super antisocial and paranoid. complete loser forreal. after all that jumping around, she ends up hiding in penacony bc its huge and even with ipc presence, it's really easy for the blend in

this is where her relationship with sunday starts. he's really into her because he doesn't like the IPC for one, but also because he finds her to be benevolent (and she is to her credit she's really morally upright). he offers her like . complete refuge and protection in exchange for being part of the family.

she. adamantly refuses this proposition (he will keep asking though) but offers to work for the family as a contractor in exchange for protection. sunday agrees, she's an important and valuable asset with tons of insider information but also he feels weirdly comfortable around her.

they have such a weird relationship LMAOOOAOAOA. sunday develops this very possessive feeling about her and is really coercive and manipulative to her in general. he comes and goes as he pleases but she's not allowed to stray too far. quick to tug her leash basically. he has a really complete control over her and he's paranoid about her trying to leave him. always pulling her into corners and being kind of humiliating and controlling about how she dresses and acts etc

THE INSANE THING IS THAT SHE'S KIND OF. FINE WITH IT. she's really aware that sunday is crazy and manipulative and batshit. but she has HELLA abandonment issues because she has no "home." sunday constantly breathing down her back to stay with him and be his possesion gives her a comfortable sense of belonging and she doesn't think of him as evil - so she's weirdly content with him and just wants to be with him

SOMETIMES. WHEN SUNDAY IS IN A GOOD MOOD. he'll ask her what he wants and he's always expecting her to like beg for her own freedom but she never does. always asks for like intimacy like bathing together and cuddling. and it always shocks sunday LMAOAOA because he's convinced she secretly depsises him but its like dude. Lol.

they're genuinely so in love. this is deranged im aware but they really genuinely love each other and feel understood by one another. but its insane by all accounts

[darlingod]

I can’t believe Taryn betrayed Jude even after the whole Undersea shit went down. Your sister was tortured everyday for a over month, you saw all of what it did to her, and you still decide to hurt her even further? As if she hasn’t already gone through enough??

And to do it only to potentially be the most favored by their father?

Taryn: When Jude goes low, I bring her lower

[purplepirate123]

Do you like Brooklyn Nine-Nine? Are you still madly in love with one or all of the characters from Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters?

Well, guess what: there's now a Brooklyn Nine-Nine-style YuGiOh AU, thanks to Yours Truely and the lovely Vita Varino! It's light and fun and goofy; if you need those things, then please give it a read: I promise you won't be disappointed. More episodes coming!

[moldysourlemons]

Doki x Yu-Gi-Oh Friday Night Funkin Sprite Mania!

Yuri and Natsuki get two songs each because I love them

[annon-guy2]

Indie Superstar Brawlers: Guest Character Poll

[statleragainstposers]

I have realised the Croaker's duel at Dennys is on the same day as my grandfather's birthday. This is certainly a dilemma...

Oh well, I'm sure he'll understand my need to astral project during his party. After all, the downfall of the Croaker is imperative.

[cyberdragoninfinity]

what duel links taunts are your favorites, actually? (i don't even know what primo's taunts are, come to think of it, I hope he has something about a bee in there)

GOD IT'S SO HARD TO PICK it really is bonkers that each character has a solid 10-12 whole taunts, and the voice acting on all of them is just fantastic....AND THERES SO MANY I HAVENT EVEN HEARD YET!!! gonna be a lot of links in this ask i fear lol i know ive recorded a bunch of my favs and tucked them into my ygo clips tag

Primo actually has two bee-related taunts, but imho theyre just ok

fuck you lookin crazy for eat your food!!!

no actually my favorite Primo taunts are the short ones I talk about here, where he mentions Lester and Jakob...theyre simple but I love em, hehehe

Other taunts I like:

godddd Z-one's taunts make me CRAZYYYYY. FUCKED UP OLD MAN I LOVE YOUUUUU. WHY DID THEY HAVE HIM GIGGLING AND PURRING IN A BUNCH OF HIS TAUNTS!!! and of course i love his taunt referencing his duel with Aporia. divorce taunt. making me grieve all over again that 5ds never got a finished dub.

All of Dennis's taunts are so so fucking funny but these are my top favs. "I'll pretend i did SEE THAAAAATTTT ✨😊💞" makes me lose it EVERY TIME.

In general, absolutely LOVE that Alito and Girag got a complete second set of taunts for their Barian forms?!?!? (idk why Mizar didnt though???!?!?) Anyway HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND still makes me crack up

This grandpa muto taunt really truly one of the funniest I think. Serving Youtube Poop.

and also heres just a bunch of Syrus's taunts because theyre all funny and I love him so much. sassy little fucker

[tortoisesshells]

if you were in control of a dark shadows adaption (or, hypothetically, could alter the original; whichever you find more interesting to think about!) what does your ideal version of 1795 look like? are there things you would change? things you’d want to keep?

Let me preface this by saying I do genuinely like or appreciate a lot of the 1795 arc! When it's at its best, it's a tragedy born out of hubris and the terrible things we'll do for the people we love (or the terrible things we'll do to hold on to love. or the problem of love without respect). I'm up to episode 741, and the confrontation between Joshua and Barnabas over the latter's coffin is still one of the best scenes in the show, for my money. That said; Broadly speaking, most of my problems with 1795 either have to do with characterization, or with historical context: that DS's unwillingness to delve into historical realities undercuts its ability to talk about monsters, and that it completely mishandles Vicki to the point of functionally ruining the nominal main character (who, to be fair, was already being pushed out).

Historical Context: DS loves the past, conceptually, but it really doesn't deal in historical conditions, and that's on full display in 1795 - witchcraft trials? zippers? claiming a house built in the early 20th century, with the attendant architectural style, was actually built in the years leading up to 1795? okay. I forgive that, because we do live, narratively, in a world with witches and vampires and curses and passenger rail service north of Portland, ME after 1965 - and in a make-believe world where the costumes are as good as a budget of a crisp single and a pb&j can make 'em. I say this mostly lovingly: DS simply is not the kind of show that cares about historical plausibility, let alone accuracy. Plus, Reverend Trask was great, and on the basis of giving Jerry Lacy scenery to chew on, the witchcraft trial plotline is excused.

More seriously and damningly, I do think it's a glaring omission on a show being made and aired in the late 1960s to have three characters said to be from the (fictional) wealthiest family of planters and enslavers on Martinique and have that go unexamined and unpacked, especially when commentary on class in Collinsport has been a constant undercurrent (sometimes more of an under-trickle, or under-vague-breeze) since episode one - and because Joshua Collins is very explicit about how beneficial the connection between the two families will be for the Collinses, who always need cargo for their ships. [Since David Ford's here, you'll forgive the reference to 1776: "Molasses to Rum" playing vaguely in the background] But that's the problem with Post-Barnabas DS. Since there's a Collins running around befanged and literally drinking the blood of others, the show's lost interest in discussing how, exactly, the Collinses became wealthy and powerful, beyond the odd occasional reference to the fishing fleet and cannery or, in 1795, the shipyards. We've got a real vampire, what do we need all that metaphorical monstrosity and class/race/gender analysis for?

As a choice the show's made, I think it fundamentally undercuts one of the show's most reliable and interesting points of commentary: how charming and human some monsters are, or that humanity and monstrosity are not entirely mutually exclusive conditions.

also speaking of monstrosity. the show excuses Barnabas for so much outright evil because he preys on sex workers, primarily, and other assorted poor men and women of Collinsport, who the show ... doesn't really see as people. but that's a separate but not unrelated rant.

Characterization: really, this is about Vicki. So much of what I dislike about 1795 has to do with Vicki's characterization changing for the worse (granted, I think this problem starts much earlier, but see digression a below) once she hits the ground in 1795, AND that the 1795 arc continuously insulates her from the important parts of DS's narrative. If the whole point of Vicki landing in the past was to explain how it all began (whether that's Barnabas's vampirism, or the opening of the great house at Collinwood - Sarah's ghostly goals are unclear here), she's party to neither: Vicki spends very little time in Collinwood, and is kept completely apart from even a hint of knowledge that Barnabas is a vampire. In effect: Vicki, as nominal main character, gets sent into the past, but not as a character - she's just a windowpane, or a magic mirror as far as her importance to the narrative goes. Which is unfortunate for her, because as a character taking up space, she's given screen-time without agency, intelligence, or inner life. The only change that being dragged by her puppet strings through 1795 effects in Vicki Winters is a rope-burn from a failed hanging, an infected gunshot wound, and a I-wish-he-were-more-permanently-dead rebound boyfriend whose response to Vicki panicking about being hanged was to slap her for being hysterical.

Forgive me for being unimpressed.

As far as fixing it goes - there's where I've been striking out. She's fatally passive in 1795 as written. Why doesn't Vicki try to figure out how to get back to her present? (and if she doesn't, perhaps ... gesture at why Vicki might feel like there's not a lot to return to in the present? She nearly jumped from Widows' Hill about 10 episodes before 1795 started.) Why does Vicki persist in making herself suspicious, when she was introduced as a character hampered more by inexperience than true ignorance? In the idea 1795 that lives in my head, why wouldn't Vicki try to figure out who the real witch was, because - given her experiences with the supernatural! - surely a witch might be any help in getting her out of the 18th century and back into the present? End of day, she needs a real plot which doesn't end with her in prison unconnected to the Collinses. Whether that's searching for an escape hatch back to the Swinging Sixties, or Sarah's ghost giving her clear instructions - some kind of a goal! - Vicki either shouldn't exist in 1795 (recycle Moltke as another Collins sibling? that would add a wrinkle to the question of Vicki's antecedents) or she has to be given something to do.

&, finally ...

Digression A: In fairness to the 1795 arc, I think the arc was only following a pattern of characterization and plot involvement that started with Barnabas's arrival: first, that Vicki initially wasn't really involved in the Barnabas plot because she was more involved with the Liz & Jason plot, and, unfortunately for Vicki, everyone still talks about Barnabas, where no one (alas for Patrick and Bennett!) talks up the blackmail thing; second, I think, that the one-two punch of the definitive end of the era of metaphorical monsters & the Burke recast meant that a lot of the dramatic tension that Vicki was carrying either got dismissed or dissipated. We're not playing Jane Eyre any more, we're doing Dracula: Vicki's relationship with Roger and David no longer bears any dramatic weight. We've completely sidelined the question of Vicki's origins, so whether or not Liz is her mother doesn't matter (and the revelation and dismissal of Liz's not-actually-monstrous conduct sort of defangs that relationship, too? oh, Liz isn't actually a murderer? so mother or not, there's no strain on her relationship with the conspicuously virtuous Vicki.). Burke's no longer threatening to burn down Collinsport for revenge, and all of his various relationships with the Collinses or Collinsport denizens have gotten abruptly normalized, so there's no tension to his relationship with Vicki any more: he's rich (don't ask where the money came from), he's in love with her, and now he's chummy with all her friends/stand-in family members. He doesn't even have conversations that are totally just about pens or guns with Roger, for god's sake. The show kicked out all the pillars Victoria Winters as a character had been built on, and it only gets worse after 1795. No wonder Moltke left.