#you know what. fuck you. *turns it into one big Yugioh reference*

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

True Connection Get

Zeke sat against the wall of the convention center, endlessly shuffling his deck and trying to take up as little space as possible.  People bustled over every inch of the floor, but he was only vaguely aware of them, eyes trained on the floor until a jingle called his attention to a large screen mounted nearby.  The updated tournament bracket he saw didn’t exactly lift his spirits.

So he won C block after all.  Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

The feed rapidly flicked between the players who had won the tournament’s eight blocks, giving the conqueror of C just long enough to give the camera a contemptuous grin.  Zeke grumbled as he looked back down.  He drew the card on top of his deck out of muscle memory; staring back at him was a humanoid robot with a large gear visible in its chest.  “Clockwork Banneret” was printed in glossy letters at the top.  After a few seconds, Zeke averted his gaze.

The memories were fresh and easily summoned.  He had battled his way to the semi-finals of C block, prepared to give the match his all.  When he had offered a pre-match handshake, however, his opponent had scoffed and started his opening turn.  Irksome for sure, but Zeke wouldn’t let that shake his focus; after carefully watching the way his opponent played his cards, he had gone into his turn as determined as ever.  The moment Clockwork Banneret had hit the field, the opponent had laughed.

“You actually brought that to a tournament?  What a joke.  You’re just here because you grew up on the TV show, aren’t you?”

Zeke had ignored the comment and carried on.  He had been successful in staying focused, but even then, a mere three turns later he had been soundly defeated.

“Come back with real cards next time, amateur!”

Shaking his head, Zeke returned Banneret to the deck.  He had hoped to at least clear his block—the lowest placing that would give him a trophy to take back to his local card shop—and while he wanted to be a good sport about things, he just couldn’t bring himself to let it go.

What a jerk.  Are there more jerks than usual here?  Feels that way, with how many are using those new Null Reactor cards…what’s the point of playing if you nullify every single card your opponent tries to play?

He scratched his head.

…Bah, I sound like an old man.  Maybe I’ll check the artist tables, see if that helps me clear my head.

Zeke placed his deck in the plastic box attached to his belt, and then pulled himself up onto his feet, stamping his heel a few times to wake up his leg.  He was just getting proper feeling back when someone stepped out of the crowd and jogged over to him.

“Hey, hi there!” the stranger greeted, offering his hand.  “You’re Zeke Thompson, right?  From C block?”

Tentatively, Zeke shook hands.  “Uh, yeah.  Hi.”

The stranger’s eyes lit up.  “I’m so glad I found you!  Uh, my name’s Christoph—I caught your match in the block semi-finals!”

Zeke winced.  “Ah…you saw that?  Not really my best performance, hah…”

“No, you did great!  Most players get OTK’d by Null Myrmidon decks.  You showed a lot of skill holding out like that!”

“Oh?  Um, thanks.”

“Full transparency, though: I tracked you down in the hopes of talking business.”  Christoph set down his backpack with a loud thud.  “See, I’m a Clockwork Banneret fan myself, and I was blown away when you upgraded it to Alloyed Overclock mode!  I did manage to pull a copy, but I can’t actually use it without a Soul Valence card.  So…is there any possible way I could interest you in a trade?”

Zeke blinked.  Then he chuckled.  “Huh.  I can’t remember the last time I actually traded, now that I think about it.”

“It’s a dying art.”  Christoph pulled a binder from his pack and began to flip through the pages.  “I get the appeal of just buying the cards you want, but I can’t help but find it less fun that way.  The thrill of opening packs and seeing what you get is what gives each card meaning!  Comrades drawn together by fate!”

“You’re a fan of the show too, I take it?”

“That’s why I want to play Alloyed Overclock so bad!  Asimov Junction is the peak of the whole series.”

“Yes!  You are a man of culture!  Here, let me…”  Zeke quickly sifted through his deck until he found the card in question and offered it to Christoph.  “I actually have a spare, you can just take this.”

Christoph shook his head gravely.  “Oh no, sir!  I appreciate your generosity, but this is a matter of honor: I must give you something in exchange!  And I believe I have just the thing…aha!”

He slipped one card out of his binder, and Zeke’s eyes went wide.  “A Starsteel Ingot…?!  Are you really sure?”

“Absolutely!”  Christoph grinned.  “I, uh, actually have like four of them.  But I know you as a Banneret fan can appreciate its true worth!”

“Yeah, that card was essential in the Motherboard Elimination arc…alright, you’ve got yourself a deal!”

The two of them exchanged cards, and then took a moment to marvel at their respective prizes.  Christoph said, “Thanks, man: you really made my day.  I’ve got to get going, but I’ll catch up with you later—I got your socials from your tournament profile.”

“I look forward to it!  Take care!”

Christoph vanished back into the crowd.  Zeke looked down at the Starsteel Ingot card, and after a few seconds, he smiled.

Not everyone here is a jerk.

[wisyhana]

YOUR YUGIOH ART IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!! Your lines are so perfect yet expressive and the way you show dimension is just stunning!! how did you get so good at anatomy!?

THANK YOU SO MUCH AAAAAA 😭😭😭

Honestly I think I'm not that good at anatomy, but I can give a little description of how I got here with it.

Heads up for long reply

There are 3 things that had helped me along the way to draw bodies and art in general:

1) STUDY: I'm not talking about going to art school (even if I did, it didn't help and only got me several traumas) I'm talking about sitting at your desk and study the body. I did it in so many ways. One of my favorite was to take a bunch of fashion magazines and draw the movement line on the models (I know it by that name, I don't know if on english has another term, but is basically the line that goes through the spine), the movement line helps quite a lot to have a basic idea of how the pose will go, how the energy is distributed along the torso and limbs, etc (if you want I can give a little 'how-to-do' in another post so it can be easier to understand). Adding to it, studying actual anatomy helps a lot, to know where the muscles are, how the bones work and how the skin also does its thing. You don't have to know everything, you just need to have the idea.

2) REFERENCES: fuck pinterest, albums with 174.747.426 pics references from a random person, all you need to know is your own body. I know that people always argue to me about this topic 'but hey I don't have a jojo body, I'm not even a man, I'm a big size, I don't like taking pictures of myself, etc, etc,etc' I get it, but guys ME NEITHER! I don't have the body of the characters I draw, but if you want to understand anatomy you have to start with yourself.

It's embarrassing to admit it but most of the hands I draw are all made in base of my own selfies, and I used em for so long that I don't need to take pictures so often anymore, cos I ended up understanding how it works. Even on poses I kept using my own body as the biggest reference and I'll keep doing it.

These are some of the hundreds of pics I've taken of myself for references. Embarrassing myself only to prove my point :'D

3) and the most important PRETEND THAT YOU KNOW: Sounds weird but back me up on this. Art is the work of the liar, the artist is the person that found a way to turn something 3 dimensional to 2 dimensional, it's the lineart that fakes reality to pretend that there's space in a piece of paper. So for that to work you have to draw pretending that you know what you're doing.

This is not a 'believe in yourself' this is a 'keep lying to yourself until others believe it'. Art is not about being loyal to reality, is about knowing the shortcuts. The majority of my drawings aren't anatomical correct, but I faked it so much that you think that it is (PSYCHE!)

I know it sounds like you only need this one point to be capable of drawing but nope nope nope! You first need to understand the reality to be capable of fake it.

There isn't a single way to draw a body, I'm pretty much against those 'DON'T DO THIS. DO THIS INSTEAD' bc it basically tells you that you don't have other option but learn that one way, basically telling you the shortcut without explaining you why or how. There are millions of ways and for you to find yours, all you need is understand the way you see the world.

This was my way of learning, it could help as much as it cannot help at all! But I hope one of the three points managed to ring a bell on someone ^^

[kibanafuji]

one of your favorite tropes, and a trope you've always wanted to subvert! :0

everyone’s burnt out bitch let’s get you some fruit

so… this one was also asked by… @invictarre and an anon…

is it coincidence or do i simply reek of Trope Enthusiast

either way i am very glad to answer this because you know griffy loves him some tropes

found family is a MAJOR one, like… obviously. it all started back in early 2017 when n was adopted as guzma’s kid, which sounds absurd, and yet it was such a genuinely sweet and Excellent dynamic… been HOOKEDT ever since, and i think we all know raihan’s found himself some family in @rivalbede

fridge brilliance/fridge horror/etc! and brick jokes. i fucking love implementing those, and i love discovering them in others’ writing. what else is fun is combining brick jokes with fridge horror: i say something casually, wait anywhere from WEEKS TO MONTHS, and then quietly drop an absolute bombshell, then go to the ooc chat like “hey remember when i said _ wait or keep myself from giving hints too early since i’m so excited about all the little details i’ve strewn about

gentle giants. my god do i love gentle giants. you can see this pattern in me from literally FIFTH GRADE, which is when almost the entire rest of my taste in characters was Completely different from now— my favourite yugioh card was my ancient gear golem! after that it was alphonse elric, as well as an oc of mine. other examples include bastion of ovw (i don’t play ovw i specifically just enjoy the big robot friend), seven from 999 (he counts don’t @ me), k from vlr (BIG fave), the titular iron giant (that movie made me cry a LOT), and of course… the very obvious one… our boy raihan

as for a trope i’d like to subvert…

red herrings/chekhov’s gun. see, i like employing both of those as-is, and you might be thinking a red herring is kinda already the subversion of chekhov’s gun, and vice versa, but that’s not how i’d like to go about it, if i can pull it off. see, i’d like to try something like “a hint makes you believe it applies to something, that something turns out to not go along with the hint, which would make it a red herring, but the hint in actuality was referring to something else entirely”, or “this person is suspicious, but not for the reasons i’ll make you believe”, or “this person is so suspicious they become UN-suspicious, which in turn ends up making them suspicious again, but once again the reason they’re actually suspicious is something entirely unrelated to what i make you believe the reason is” if that makes sense. i like being sneaky and convoluted, basically

[lilyhoshikawa]

Henlo I saw you mention something about uuhhhhh passionate Aoi Zaizen rant, could I get one of those please

I’m so upset. I’m so angry. I have so many emotions. SO many times they did this girl dirty, so many times!!

This was widely talked abt right after it happened but I just got done rewatching the blue angel vs specter duel and I am filled with a renewed anger the likes of which has never been known. The absolute atrocity of that duel’s ending

Just to clarify, everything in that duel supported Aoi winning. It was the natural progression of her character arc, from her initial weakness allowing specter to brainwash her into Hanoi’s weapon, she eventually grew out of her days of simply being an idol to seek the attention her brother didn’t give her, something the Vrains writers consistently frame as inherently selfish and not a completely natural reaction for a teenager in her situation to have. But regardless, she’s a “selfish” idol seeking attention, she ends up being used by bad people, she gets saved by Playmaker, she learns more about him, fights by his side and decides she wants to start fighting for a cause. She defeats Vaira in the ultimate moment symbolizing her character growth. She’s no longer just an idol being fawned over by her fans, she is a hero who protects Link Vrains

Cue specter duel. The start is fine. This shitty, arrogant dickwad who already hurt Aoi goads her into a duel. He’s a jackass to her all the way through. But as the duel progresses, she learns about him- like her, he was lonely, struggling with no friends and no one to give him warmth and attention. Like her, he simply needs to be set on the right path. Suddenly her anger toward him shifts to empathy as she declares she is fighting to save him, which he mocks of course. She ends up in the typical Yugioh hero predicament of “how do I get out of this”, and pulls out a new ace monster that FINALLY causes specter to act SURPRISED for once in the duel, for once not somehow just predicting all her strategies. She turns the duel around and strikes the killing blow.

Only… that doesn’t happen. Specter pulls some bullshit, turns it around, and wins, making sure to burn up the book that symbolized Aoi’s decision to fight in the first place. And to rub it in even MORE, he calls her “the pathetic girl who couldn’t become a blue angel”, declaring he will “take everything from her”.

And then, suddenly… the context of all of that changes. The mockery specter has been giving her the whole duel goes from becoming the typical villainous arrogance to a much more cruel situation, the person already determined by the writers to win the duel taking all the time he has to rub in how superior he is to the girl who actually bothered to grow as a person. It’s as if specter is some self-insert of a misogynistic male anime fan who knows no girl can stand against him no matter how much better written she is, because he has the power of writers’ bias on his side.

Aoi is slammed into a building and lands face-first on the ground completely decimated. The next couple shots feature specter standing over her grinning and smirking as he makes comments about how pathetic and weak she is. She is clearly unconscious and can’t hear them. This is for the audience.

So alright, I hear you saying, maybe that’s just meant as a “kick the dog” moment; show us how evil specter really is and why it’s the wrong idea to try to sympathize with him. Aoi tried that and she couldn’t do it, so it means some people are beyond saving. Now I’d still have a problem with throwing Aoi under the bus to make that point, but whatever, narratively it’s sound reasoning. Only what’s the next thing that happens? He duels Playmaker, and we learn he’s a Lost Incident victim. We hear his backstory and are shown him as a sad child, motivating us to sympathize with him.

It doesn’t stop there. Specter doesn’t mock Playmaker like he did Blue Angel, naturally, because Playmaker is cool and respectable. So what does he do instead? Mocks Aoi some more! He draws constant reference to how Aoi fell for his various strategies. Now he does later start mocking Playmaker, and I get that, but that leads into another point: it’s not because Playmaker is “weak” but because he’s “too heroic”. Yusaku is able to quickly disarm Specter’s deck and is ready to finish him off before he pulls out his hostage, Akira, who ALSO gets to die a reasonable death. Everyone who dies in the Tower of Hanoi arc, with the exception of Aoi and perhaps Ema (another girl, funny that) are treated with respect as they die. Yusaku easily beats the person who gave Aoi so much trouble.

Revolver, right before his duel with Go, notes Aoi’s fate, saying “my subordinate, Specter, defeated her”. His subordinate. Not even the main bad guy. She doesn’t get the level of respect of Go, the guy who would go on to become an antagonist while she remained (on paper anyway) one of the main trio.

Nobody watched Aoi’s duel with Specter, no one commented on her courage or bravery or how hard she fought or cried when she was defeated, not like with Go. She didn’t get to reveal some big strategy of a major villain and disappear giving Playmaker one last cool remark. No, she got completely outsmarted and knocked unconscious on her face so that a man could stand over her body and insult her.

In season 2 it is obvious no one knows what to do with Aoi. She’s thrown in 800 directions to serve whatever role she’s needed for, most often losing for some reason or another. She keeps having these moments of determination and character growth where she makes a “big decision” and resolves to fight, but it never really works out for her, no matter the cause. Whenever they need someone to lose, she’s there. The Blue Angel avatar, based on her childhood hero, which represents her desire to bring people together? Gone, tossed away, replaced by Ghost Girl’s Apprentice. Now that that’s done though, now we need her for something else, you see, we’ve got a Girl Ignis and we don’t wanna write another girl, we already overdid ourselves writing the two we do have. Let’s just use Aoi instead and shoehorn in a relationship with a barely existent character who just happens to be part of her backstory as her oldest and most important friend, a thing that may contradict her entire character’s driving motivation from season one, but hey, fuck season one.

In season 3 she is glued to her brother’s side. She does less than nothing. She is fodder to be defeated by Ai and nothing more. They don’t want to bother giving her a duel of her own (if they did I’m sure she’d lose to Roboppi and not even Ai himself) so she duels with Akira. Akira sucks shit and his deck is trash so Aoi, with her Marincess deck, carries him. Akira is praised for being strong and cool. Aoi loses to Ai due to an incredibly situational counter. I’m so tired.

Every character Ai kills is treated with some respect by him. He mourns the loss of Go, who murdered one of the Ignis he’s fighting to avenge. Meanwhile? He repeatedly mocks Aoi during the duel. She starts out fighting Ai with all her might, but eventually comes to realize his sadness and loneliness after losing his Ignis friends. She tries to empathize with him, telling him she can relate, because she too lost Aqua. Ai gets angry that she thinks her loneliness is the same as his. When she announces her desire to protect her brother, Ai begins repeatedly mocking her using this. He ignores Akira entirely, zeroing in completely on Aoi and continuously mocking her about her chances of winning, acting superior, knowing he’ll be able to take her bother from her, take everything from her, and leave her all alone.

Say… does this sound familiar to anyone?

Ai erases Akira but “spares” Aoi, standing over her as she lays collapsed and soaked on the floor, mocking her by telling her how she now has to live with herself after failing to save her brother.

No, seriously… is this familiar to anyone?

It’s almost as though… aggressive, patronizing misogyny is built intrinsically into Aoi’s character, and she’s used as a vessel for toxic and abusive ideas about men who are “hurting” and how “soft, immature” women who profess to understand them or have empathy for them are naive idiots deserving to be beaten and mocked

Misogyny isn’t just a part of Aoi’s arc, it is built into the very philosophy that drives her treatment in the show. And it makes me really sick trying to engage with Vrains after having this realization

[sage-nebula]

pick any or all? undertale, yugioh, mystic messenger and if you feel like It's Time.txt, voltron?

I’ll do all of them because I love you.

Let’s do it. (Under a cut, though, since it’s a lot.)

Undertale:

This is a minor thing, but I’d change the story so that it doesn’t take place over the course of one day. It just . . . doesn’t make very much sense to me that Frisk can traverse the entirety of the underground in one day, particularly on genocide runs where they’re taking the time to meticulously slaughter everyone in a given area before moving on. So I’d probably take out references to the fact that it takes place over the course of one day, simply because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, even if you consider the idea that there are far fewer monsters than you’d expect.

I’d really, really like to know more about W.D. Gaster. It’s clear that Toby has a clear idea of who Gaster was, but there is not nearly enough in the game itself to tell us what that idea actually is. There’s enough to give us a taste, what with the Gaster followers, True Lab Entry #17, and the Mystery Man, but there’s not enough to actually put the pieces together. So I’d really like to know what was going on with Gaster. I’d like that to be accessible information even if it’s not directly relevant to the main plot.

On that note, I’d like to know more about the history of Sans and Papyrus. Where did they originally come from? What’s that strange machine in Sans’ lab? What are the blueprints for? And so on and so forth. There’s enough to get us interested, but not enough for us to figure it out, and I’m frustrated.

LET! US! SAVE! ASRIEL!!! It’s really frustrating, because one of the primary motivators for going after the True Pacifist ending is that, supposedly, the player is chasing the happiest ending, the best ending. This is a specific motivation as given to us by Flowey when he suggests, on certain Neutral runs, that the player can still get a better ending if they fulfill certain criteria. But the thing is, as happy as the True Pacifist ending is, it’s not the happiest ending since Asriel is still going to be damned to life as Flowey sometime after the game ends. And that’s so sad, it’s so unfair, because he was only ever turned into Flowey in the first place because Chara emotionally abused him to push him into the buttercup suicide plot, and then Alphys unwittingly carried out those experiments. It’s not right, man. I know he has been long dead, but it still kills me that there’s not a way to really save him. I want to save him. Let us save Asriel.

And I . . . actually can’t think of a final thing, haha, so I’ll leave Undertale there for now.

Yu-Gi-Oh!:

First of all, and before anything else, let’s just take out all the sexual harassment / assault “jokes” that are especially prevalent in the early manga. They’re not funny. They’re not even a little funny. They’re wholly unnecessary and gross, and while it’s not a bad thing for our heroes to have flaws, when those flaws are sexually harassing others, yeah, that’s not acceptable, it’s not good, and it has no business being there. So rip that out, please. Gut it altogether. Chuck that nonsense in the trash where it belongs. (This especially applies to Jouji, because he was the one bad part of Death-T. First of all, why can Jouji talk? Second, why is he such a gross little pervert? He’s LITERALLY A BABY, it’s so unnecessary and just . . . gross and nasty. Make him an ordinary baby, cut out the perversion, it’s not funny, thanks, Takahashi.)

My god the entire Kisara subplot was just atrocious. I’m sorry, but I find it really insulting that the woman who carries the spirit of the Blue-Eyes motherfuckin’ White Dragon was nothing more than just a timid, passive vessel waiting to be fridged so Priest Seto could lose his shit and Modern Seto could have an obsession. That’s ridiculous. It would be hard to fix this in a way that would be satisfactory given that Kisara was created just to be a plot device for Seto, but I think that a good start would be just giving her more agency, and more control over her own life. Instead of having her there to be rescued, experimented upon, obsessed over, have her actively be trying to cause insurrection. Hell, that’s exactly it: The Blue-Eyes White Dragon is known in the modern day as one of the most destructive of all Duel Monsters. It’s true that we already had Thief King Bakura (and Zorc) as antagonists / villains in the Ancient Egypt arc, but there’s no reason why Kisara couldn’t have been another antagonist. Instead of having people wanting to kill her because of her strange appearance, have them drawn to her instead. She’s alluring; she can get people to listen to her rather easily, and what she wants them to listen to is her calls for destruction against the elite (but also against any other who would seek to use them, such as the Thief King Zorc, and hell, maybe anyone else as well). She appears calm and beautiful on the surface, but that destructive dragon is still within her---that is her soul---and so she acts on it. Priest Seto’s storyline converges with hers both because he, like others, is drawn to her, but also because he’s specifically ordered to stop her from rousing up insurrection and wreaking havoc and destruction. Unfortunately, burst streams of destruction are her specialty, so . . .Basically, just let Kisara have agency and be something other than a fridged love interest. Of all the mistreated ladies in this series, Kisara is perhaps the most mistreated of them all.

Speaking of dragons, I would want Jounouchi’s connection to the Red-Eyes Black Dragon to actually have follow through. I’m not saying that he needs an Ancient Egypt equivalent, because I actually quite like that he doesn’t, but I am saying that it was made pretty clear that Red-Eyes was Jounouchi’s soul card just as much as Blue-Eyes was Seto’s and Dark Magician was Atem’s . . . and yet this is never followed up on, it’s never explained. Never mind that Red-Eyes was shown to obey Jounouchi’s command during the pier duel even though the duel was over and Red-Eyes was not his monster; never mind that it was Red-Eyes being summoned that was seemingly the final link to Jounouchi willing himself back to life after he literally died in the Battle City finals. These things seem to indicate that there is something more going with Jounouchi than meets the eye, particularly since he resists dark magic despite not having a Millennium Item of his own, and yet we’re never given any explanation for it. Explain, Takahashi, explain!!

This is really petty af, but I’m sorry, I hate that yo-yos were used in Hirutani’s last appearance. I mean, it’s funny . . . but Hirutani and his gang were set up as serious threats in their first appearance (200,000 volt stun guns used as instruments of torture and execution), and while the yo-yos were treated seriously, they . . . we all know that yo-yos can’t actually cause harm. I’m sure it was some form of executive meddling that forced Takahashi to censor his own story like that, but good lord, it . . . bums me out a lot that Hirutani’s last appearance has fucking yo-yos as the weapon of choice. (Also, just, in general, we’ve seen what I’ve done with Hirutani. I’d do more of that.)

And lastly . . . I’d bring the romance subplot to its logical conclusion. So much was already done to set up the fact that Anzu is in love with Atem, and that she’s not in love with Yuugi, even and especially at the end of the series, where it’s clear that Atem is the one she is rooting for, and the one that she wants to stick around during the Ceremonial Duel. (Not that Yuugi would go anywhere either way, but it’s clear that she’s choosing Atem. It was never even really a choice for her; he was always the one she wanted.) Moreover, it honestly seems as though Yuugi is moving on from his crush on her as the series progresses; he doesn’t feel any jealousy or any dilemma over sending Atem on a date with her, nor does he pursue her at any point throughout Battle City or even the small bit leading up to the Ceremonial Duel. We did get that little bit in Duelist Kingdom where he showed that he was hurt by the fact that she prefers Atem over him, as well as where he said that he wanted to get stronger so that he could help her as well, but Anzu’s assurance that he and Atem are the same to her---while it was intended to comfort him---might have been the little push he needed to realize that, yeah, this isn’t going anywhere, and wanting to help her the same way she helps him doesn’t have to be romantic. Thus, I’d want to make all of this very clear. The pieces are already there if you’re paying attention, but since it’s not explicit, it can still get lost in translation. (And I mean, as a side note, being more clear about the fact that Atem is starting to return her feelings by the end of the series---which he may or may not have been, but he does confide in her even before he confides in Yuugi, which is a really big deal imo---would be helpful as well.)Additionally, well . . . as I’ve talked about at length before, there is plenty of set-up for Yuugi to not only be moving on from Anzu, but to develop feelings for Jounouchi as well, and that “I love you” at the pier can easily be read as romantic (especially since he wanted that to be his last words, before he sacrificed himself to save Jounouchi’s life, ffs). In carrying the romance arc to its logical conclusion, having Yuugi and Jounouchi starting to realize their feelings for each other by the end fo the series (or at least Yuugi realizing and admitting his own at the pier, even if Jounouchi remains oblivious, god bless his fucking heart) would be something I would do as well. Again, the pieces are right there. It would take very, very little to connect them.

Mystic Messenger:

Get rid of the homophobia that some of the characters (namely Zen and Yoosung) spout at various times. It’s wholly unnecessary. We don’t need Zen grossed out at the mere suggestion that he or the others could be involved in a relationship with a man, especially since Saeyoung is canonically bisexual, which just makes the entire thing weird. It’s really unnecessary and has no reason to be there. (Additionally, there’s a part in Deep Story where you have to comment on a poster of Zen’s. Your choices are to either gush like an embarrassing nitwit (it’s like, “OMG OMG ZEN OMG!!1!11″), or to use the word “gay” as an insult when describing it. This happens twice, and those are your only options, and it’s really gross, uncomfortable, and unnecessary. So yeah, that would need a change, big time.)

Get rid of Another Story altogether. Seriously, just the whole thing. At first I was going to be like, “Get rid of the DID aspect of Saeran’s Another Story characterization,” but then I realized that his route would be a good thing to lose as well, and then I remembered all the awful things in V’s Route as well, and you know what? The whole thing is just trash. Get rid of it. Throw it in the dumpster where it belongs, and then set it on fire. Good riddance, Another Story. Goodbye and good riddance.

Have MC be a less clingy, needy, selfish bint during Saeyoung’s Route. Have her good answer choices be ones that respect his boundaries, but also want to offer him support. Instead of having her whine about him not spending time with her, have her instead asking him to please eat or get enough rest. Instead of having her go through his stuff, have her instead bringing him food so that she can encourage him to eat with even more vehemence. Have it be made clear that MC actually cares about Saeyoung rather than only caring about having a romance with Saeyoung. And more to the point, give her an active role in the Secret Endings. Have her floor it when she’s the driver and they need to escape. Let her worry about and take care of his injury. Let her fight Rika when the time comes. This isn’t asking for a lot, these shouldn’t be hard changes to make.

It’s ridiculous that it took all the way until Saeran’s Route in Another Story for the Choi twins’ father to be a prominent threat when that was set up in Saeyoung’s Route. Put the prime minister in Original Story---in the Secret Endings, even. Saeran being taken to the hospital for treatment could have been leaked despite Jumin’s best efforts. The prime minister comes to the hospital to try to retrieve his sons so he can kill them. That, more than Saeran being threatened with more permanent hospitalization, is what prompts Saeyoung to cut and run, kidnapping Saeran from the hospital to take him back to the bunker. Things spiral out from there. Again, it’s not hard, this could have easily been done, and the fact that it wasn’t is frustrating.

MAKE. THE TIMELINE. GODDAMN. COHERENT. It is ridiculous how awful Cheritz is at keeping a coherent timeline. Flashbacks vary wildly; you have ones that say they took place two years in the past, but then a flashback later on that takes place in the same season will say that it was eight years ago. Just ??? Cheritz should have drawn up a timeline from the get-go in order to avoid this mess, because honestly, it’s ridiculous. I would definitely fix this nonsense if given half the chance.

Voltron:

Oh boy . . . the biggest one of them all. For anyone who reads this: if discussion about how alteans are people who shouldn’t be deified beings who could never do wrong and never did do wrong, and if similar discussion about how galra are people who shouldn’t be treated as soulless monsters even though THE EMPIRE, as an institution, is evil, is something that makes you very, very angry, then you might not want to read what I have to say here. I talk a lot about how treating the alteans (as a race) as the Big Good and galra (as a race) as the Big Bad is an issue for a lot of reasons (e.g. declaring an entire race of people as all-this or all-that is never a good thing, it removes complexity from the war narrative, et cetera), and if you can’t handle that, if you can’t handle discussion of nuance between the alteans and the galra (as I know many in this fandom cannot), then you should turn back now, because fighting with me over it won’t help anyone at all.

All of that said, let’s see if I can stick to just five things. In no particular order besides the order which they come to me:

The pacing on this show is a huge issue. Sometimes it feels like the writers are honestly unable to tell what is or isn’t important / relevant to their story, or when they should introduce certain concepts, or how to handle certain concepts when they are introduced. A good example of this is the first two episodes of season two. Due to the events at the end of season one, Team Voltron was split up and thrown across the universe to different planets (or, in the case of Allura and Coran, trapped in a time stream). This resulted in several different little stories:- Keith rescuing Shiro and being accepted by the Black Lion for the first time;- Pidge making trash statues of her friends and befriending little aliens;- Allura and Coran being trapped in the time stream while Coran de-aged a bunch;- Lance and Hunk meeting and befriending mermaidsNow, even acknowledging my own personal bias for Keith, from an objective standpoint, the importance of each of these story segments to the overall narrative (and to the characters involved) is, in order from most important to least important:- Keith rescuing Shiro and being accepted by the Black Lion for the first time;- Allura and Coran being trapped in the time stream while Coran de-aged a bunch;- Pidge + trash / Lance and Hunk + mermaidsKeep in mind that while I listed Allura and Coran as being the second most important, they’re still quite a bit less important than the Keith and Shiro story segment in this particular instance, because the only real thing of value that we gained from that segment was Allura admitting that she sees Coran as a secondary father-figure. That’s it, and it’s something that we honestly could have pieced together ourselves given other interactions they’ve had / will have later on. Overall, the repeated trips back to Allura and Coran didn’t advance the narrative or their characters in a meaningful way. It didn’t tell us anything new. The same thing goes for Pidge, Lance, and Hunk.On the other hand, not only did we see the Black Lion accept Keith as a worthy Paladin / pilot, but we also got tendrils of backstory from Keith and Shiro. We learned that Shiro changed Keith’s life, and we also know that Shiro trusts Keith to pilot the Black Lion in his absence. But because that episode kept moving away from Shiro and Keith to instead focus on Pidge’s adventures in trash land and the same de-aging jokes with Coran and Allura time and again, we didn’t get any more than that. To make matters worse, Lance and Hunk’s mermaid adventures got an entire bloody episode to themselves, when neither of their characters gained anything meaningful from that experience (Hunk was brainwashed or whatever for most of it!), and the mermaids have had absolutely no relevance since then.So with all of that said, it would have made far more sense to have episode one to be split into the following three parts:- Allura and Coran- Pidge and the trash- Lance, Hunk, and the mermaidsEpisode two then could have been solely about Shiro and Keith, and since they would have had the entire episode to themselves, their backstory could have been given right then and there. We could have had actual flashbacks, rather than just hints, pokes, and prods. For those who don’t understand why Shiro believes in Keith, we could have seen how he mentored Keith at the Garrison, could have seen exactly what kind of background he’s coming from. Likewise, we could have seen exactly why Shiro is so important to Keith---we could have seen, rather than being told later, how Shiro was the only one who never gave up on him. Having that context given in 2x01 would have done a lot to shut down the people who cry favoritism, and it also, I feel, would have done a lot to eliminate the perpetual Discourse™ surrounding this subject, too.But no, instead the VLD showrunners felt it more appropriate to dedicate an entire episode to goddamn fucking mermaid adventures that have no relevance to literally anything. Again, I’m not saying the mermaid thing had to be cut altogether, but put it in the same episode with the other two silly subplots, rather than sacrificing something that would have given characters meaningful development, context, and helped further the narrative later on down the line. It should be a no-brainer for anyone who has even a shred of writing background, and yet . . .And this isn’t the only time that the VLD showrunners have done this. This is merely one example. Keith has been insinuated since 1x01 to have a quintessence sensitivity, yet literally nothing has been done with this, it hasn’t had any follow-through whatsoever. The Sincline ships and trans-reality comet were made to be a big deal in S3 and S4, yet they were dropped entirely in S5 for whatever godforsaken reason. The Blade of Marmora were introduced as allies who have been leading a resistance movement for thousands of years, and yet we still know hardly anything about them, despite the fact that Keith has been with them since season four. Subplots and instances of worldbuilding are introduced and then quickly dropped, and part of the reason seems to be that the writers don’t seem to have any grasp on what is or isn’t important for their audience to see or know. It’s extremely frustrating.So yes, I would definitely fix the pacing, which includes not having new elements, characters, or subplots introduced before dropping them entirely for whatever goddamn reason the writers have. That would be the first thing.(Oh, and it also includes not showing the Voltron transformation sequence so many goddamn times ffs. It’s stock footage! We know what it looks like! You’re wasting valuable screentime!! The only time we need to see it is in instances like the first two episodes where the team is struggling to form it for the first couple of times, and in 3x03 when Keith’s team forms it for the first time. That’s it. Otherwise? It’s not necessary, and it’s not cool. Knock that shit off istfg.)

The second thing would be actually allowing emotionally deep moments to happen, since the writers seem to be allergic to this. I talked about this in another recent post, but there are so many instances in which an audience would logically expect to see something play out, only for it to not be delivered at all. As a few examples:- Keith learns that he is part-galra, something he has been hardcore stressing about for several episodes. The rest of the team finds this out off-screen. We don’t see their immediate reactions, and in fact, we never get to see how Lance, Pidge, or Coran feel about it. - Related, but Keith spent two straight days having the living hell beat out of him, to the point where he nearly died. Yet after the Trials, we see him standing there, somehow perfectly fine. No healing pod for Keith? No panic from the rest of the team because Shiro brings him back half dead? No demands from them as to what the hell was going on that caused the Red Lion to freak out like that? Okay.- Shiro was missing and presumed dead for months. They find him (well, “him,” but since they think this is the real Shiro that’s the name I’ll use) nearly dead in space. We don’t actually get to see the team’s reactions to this, though, because apparently, despite caring about Shiro, their emotional reactions to discovering that he’s not dead and is instead alive isn’t important in the eyes of the VLD writers. (They also never express any conflict over who they should follow---over whether they should stick with Keith, who has been leading them just fine, or instead just listen to Shiro. They immediately take Shiro’s side instead, but that’s another issue.)- Lotor approaches the coalition seeking an alliance. He has been seen as an enemy prior to this point, yet he just saved all of their lives (and most immediately Keith’s life), and now he wants a truce, or at least a conversation. Do we get to see this conversation? Nope. Instead we jump straight to him being a prisoner of war in confinement. Lovely.- Likewise, Keith spent seasons three and four adamant about tracking down Lotor to see what he was planning. Yet despite this, the two aren’t allowed to exchange words even when they’re right next to each other. There was literally no emotional follow-through. (And this isn’t even getting into how Lotor was stated to have empathy and special interest in part-Galra like himself. We were made to expect that these two would have an important relationship and then we were denied.) And so on and so forth, it happens all the damn time. The Holts are yet another example: Sam Holt was a prisoner for at least over one year, if not two, and yet he showed hardly any emotions at all whatsoever once he was rescued. He embraced his children so calmly that it almost looked as though he was just getting home from a day of work. (And hell, he didn’t even look at Matt when he hugged him; it was like Matt was an afterthought.) This was supposed to be emotional, but it wasn’t, even if you separate it from all the nonsense with how badly Team Voltron treated Lotor in that episode. The VLD staff creates these scenarios in which you would expect some meaningful emotional follow-through, and then they completely fail to capitalize on it and . . . well, follow through. And it’s honestly detrimental to them, because it makes moments that should be emotional feel really ineffectual as a result. (The fact that they allow people to routinely spoil things doesn’t help, either. There was no reason for us to feel even a shred of sadness over Pidge at Matt’s grave because we all knew, thanks to that screencap of Shiro and Matt fighting side-by-side that was leaked, that Matt was alive.) So yeah, if I was in charge, I would change so much of this. Let the characters actually have these emotional moments. Let them have deep conversations. Let them have introspection. Because so far, that’s not a thing that really happens on this show, and it really lessens the impact of scenes to the point where you can tell that the writers want you to be sad, but you can’t really muster up the sadness because they haven’t given you enough reason to care.

There needs to be more depth and complexity given to this war as well. The fact that the galra are painted as the Big Bad while the alteans are painted as the Big Good is a huge issue, because both the galra and the alteans are races of people and, as such, neither should be vilified or deified. Before anyone gets it twisted, obviously the EMPIRE is evil and needs to be defeated, but there is a big difference between the Empire, as an institution, being evil and needing to be taken down, and an entire race of people being treated as evil, violent killing machines. We know that the galra aren’t evil as a race. The Blade of Marmora are good, and even setting aside active resistance like them, characters like Varkon are neutral parties just trying to live their lives. Vilifying an entire race of people and treating them as demons is wrong. It’s the exact sort of mentality that gives rise to fascist empires in the first place. When an entire race of people is dehumanized and branded as “the enemy,” it makes it easier for others to slaughter and kill them, because they don’t see it as murder, they don’t see it as something bad, they see it as something good and just. Yes, the Empire is evil. The Empire needs to be defeated. But galra, as a race, are not evil and do not need to be killed, and it’s important that that distinction be made.And you may argue, but they have made that distinction! The Blade of Marmora, Keith, and Varkon are that distinction! But the problem is that they haven’t made it clear enough, because the characters in the show still routinely say that the galra are their enemies. Allura, in season five, says that she doesn’t feel happy about a possible alliance with the galra, despite the fact that she has been working with the Blade of Marmora since season two. And we know, too, that she’s not just talking about the Empire here, because Lotor himself points it out by indicating that her problem stems from “preconceptions of [his] race,” and Lance and Pidge see absolutely nothing wrong with sending him off to be executed by Zarkon despite all of the help he’s given them. (And this is another issue in the “complexities of war” segment, but more on that in a second.) You could argue that Lance and Pidge had no qualms about doing this given that he was once their enemy, but given that they’re constantly labeling the galra as their enemy, how can we really say that his race doesn’t play a part in it? How can we say that when we know that Hunk, at the very least, does carry active prejudice against galra, as we saw in his treatment of Keith (which he never apologized for and was treated as a joke) in 2x09? (He complained about being sent on a solo mission with “the only galra team member,” and leveled racist microaggressions such as “what, do you all know each other or something?” for the duration of the episode. He also wanted to leave Acxa for dead purely because she is galra, which Keith had to remind him was not okay. So yeah, Hunk carries active prejudice against galra, despite standing up for Keith for all of one line in 2x11, so it’s safe to say that Lance and Pidge, his closest friends, probably do as well.)So no, the distinction is not being made clear enough. The protagonists of the show still very clearly view “the galra” as “the enemy” despite the fact that vilifying an entire race and civilization of people is problematic af, which means that this is the narrative that the show is pushing as well. In addition, as mentioned, the alteans are pretty much deified; the main perspective we get on the alteans comes from Allura and Coran, the former of whom conveniently has hazy memories of the war, and the latter of whom has shown prejudice toward other races before (e.g. calling human brains “primitive” in 1x01). Even if they aren’t intentionally painting the alteans as a race of perfect beings who can do no wrong, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing just that. History differs depending on who tells it, after all. Moreover, the only time alteans are painted in a light that is anything less than holy is in 3x04, and that’s in an alternate reality. While logic should follow that the lesson here is that empires are bad no matter who runs them, the fact remains that it can be dismissed with, “Oh, well, but those aren’t REAL alteans,” as Allura herself does once she learns of Hira’s true plans. Season five only made this worse; Lotor has taken to deifying the alteans in his mind as a way to cope with the trauma and abuse his father has put him through, Allura is only going to encourage this because she sees her people in a similarly idealized light, and Oriande was made up to be some kind of heavenly, mystical place, where only pure and worthy alteans can tread. Compare and contrast the location of the Kral Zera to Oriande, and you have one painted as clearly Dark and Evil while the other is Light and Good, and when you’re talking about races of people, this is really just . . . bad. (To say nothing of the fact that Lotor uses his idealizing of the alteans as a way to cope with the trauma the galra half of his heritage has inflicted on him, which is really going to fuck him up when he is finally forced to admit that, yes, Haggar is Honerva. It’d be nice for him to get a more nuanced picture of the alteans before it’s too late, but alas.)And setting aside all those bad stereotypes and how it hardly lets these two races of people be treated as races of people with respect in the narrative, it also really waters down and removes a lot of complexity from the history of the war---complexity that is right there, but once again, isn’t capitalized upon. Namely, while the Empire is clearly a terrifying force of evil that must be stopped now, the picture (heavily biased though it is) that we’re given of the past suggests (however briefly, and however tiny those suggestions are) this wasn’t always the case, that Alfor also made some really bad choices and did some shady things, and that the galra might have actually been at a disadvantage prior to the uprising which allowed them to rise into the formidable Empire we see today. Namely:- Lotor tells us that it was thanks to Honerva’s research that allowed galra civilization to prosper. He flat out tells us that the alteans were far more technologically advanced than the galra. This tells us that, had the galra and alteans gone to war before Honerva’s experiments on the rift, the galra would have probably gotten their asses kicked, because the alteans were not only also a race of warriors (Allura says that altean children passed the training simulations in 1x02, meaning that they trained their children to fight), but they woul dhave had more advanced weaponry and technology to work with. It was thanks to an altean that the galra reached a level where they could stand evenly. While it’s not spelled out, I feel that this is confirmation that the alteans were a more prosperous civilization than the galra were.- Honerva was experimenting on the rift because she wanted to learn more about harvesting and using quintessence. Alfor went to Oriande and gained the secrets of the White Lion. So then why, oh why did he not share this with his royal alchemist / the galra empress, hm? Particularly when he was oh so scared of further experiments on the rift? Alfor knew what Honerva was doing, and he knew why she was doing it. Had he shared what he learned at Oriande, perhaps she would have stopped. Hell, maybe she would have even been worthy enough to go there herself! But he kept this to himself because . . . because. Because he was selfish? Because maybe some part of him wanted Daibazaal to fall? I mean, that latter part seems inconsistent with his character, but remember that the only perspective on Alfor that we’ve been given comes from Allura and Coran, both of whom would be heavily biased in his favor, so who the fuck knows.- Alfor destroyed Daibazaal after Zarkon and Honerva died. Now, think about this. Imagine that you are a galra civilian. You’re living your life, having a nice time, when all of a sudden the news reaches you that your emperor and his wife (along with their unborn child, if the pregnancy had been announced) have died. Moreover, the altean king is telling you that you must evacuate, because Daibazaal is going to be destroyed because of the rift, something you might not even be that familiar with, given that you are a civilian. You don’t want to be blown up with your planet, so you take your family and you move off-planet. Your home, and your ancestors’ home, is then destroyed. You, and the rest of your people, are now refugees. You have no home, you have nowhere to go except for where the alteans tell you to go, and you have to take King Alfor’s word for it that this was for the best, that this needed to happen, because your leader is now dead, and so is his wife, and you might not even fully understand why. Keep in mind that this was also after tensions had begun to rise between the galra and alteans again; for all the galra know, considering the fact that Zarkon and Honerva’s deaths were announced after Voltron got together again, maybe Alfor planned this. Maybe this wasn’t an accidental death, maybe this was on purpose. You, as a galra civilian, have no reason to know otherwise except for Alfor’s word, and of course he’s not going to admit to doing anything nefarious. And then Zarkon comes back to life. It feels like a miracle, he literally rose from the dead. And he tells you, and the rest of the galran refugees, that he was murdered. And he tells you that Alfor was at fault. And he points out that Alfor destroyed your home, that Alfor left you as refugees with nothing, and that it is the right of all galra to get vengeance. And maybe you, as a civilian, don’t want to go off and fight, but there are plenty who do, because they have lost everything and their emperor, who miraculously came back from the dead (and who will also execute any who disagree with him) is saying to.Now, doesn’t that put the history from 10,000 years ago in a different light? And doesn’t that show the galra as being, you know . . . people rather than cold, soulless villains that are expendable and easy to kill? Keep in mind that I’m not saying that the alteans should be vilified, because that would also be bad. Like I said before, no race should ever be vilified OR deified. I’m saying that wars are complex. I’m saying that even when it’s clear that there is one side that is definitely wrong (the Empire, in this case), wars are not something that should be celebrated. There is no such thing as a good war, and while of course all of the innocent altean civilians who were swept up in this were victims, there were plenty of innocent galra victims as well. It’s pretty goddamn obvious that even today, in the modern era, galra aren’t sitting pretty. If they were, the Blade of Marmora would have no reason to exist. Part-galra, such as Lotor, Ezor, Acxa, Zethrid, Narti, and Keith, wouldn’t face the discrimination that they do. Showing that this war is an ugly, complex mess, and that things aren’t nearly as black-and-white or simple as they appeared at first, would do a lot to adding depth and complexity to this story, as well as showing the truth of war (that it is ugly and awful, always). It could be that deep, and yet it refuses.AND SPEAKING OF . . .

The protagonists are allowed to make morally grey (or even morally dark) choices with impunity. They’re never made to face consequences, nor are they made to even acknowledge that what they’re doing is wrong, which again, waters down the entire narrative and strips it of complexity, as well as prevents the characters from truly growing or being affected by this war in a way that soldiers fighting a war should grow and be affected.Take, for example, 5x02. In 5x02, Zarkon approaches Team Voltron with a deal: He will give them Sam Holt if they hand over Lotor so that Zarkon can kill him. They know, without a doubt, that Zarkon will execute Lotor. And we know that they know this, because:- In 4x03, they saw Lotor’s ships being attacked by Empire’s ships, and they overheard a broadcast given by Zarkon declaring Lotor as an enemy of the state who was to be killed on sight.- Lotor approached them at the end of 4x06, seeking both an alliance and asylum.- Pidge points out, before anyone else, that Lotor didn’t want to be handed over to Zarkon because he would be put to death. (“He’s just trying to save his own skin,” she says, as if that’s a bad, shameful thing?)- Lotor agrees with her that, yes, Zarkon will kill him.At this point, the issue at hand for Team Voltron is that they’re being asked to hand over a peacefully surrendered prisoner of war who has been actively providing them with assistance in the war effort. Lotor may have been their enemy at one time (but he never did lasting damage to them, even in situations where he could have, and stopped initiating interactions with them at all after 3x04), but he isn’t now. He poses literally no threat to them. Even if he wanted to hurt them, he has been stripped of his weapons and is in a confinement cell. He literally cannot harm them in any way, shape, or form, and is completely at their mercy. Moreover, again, he came to them seeking asylum, which they gave him (even if it’s the bare minimum). He came to them for aid, and when he wouldn’t be given that aid freely, surrendered himself as their prisoner. He’s done nothing to warrant being put to death; actually, he has done the opposite. So Team Voltron holds a man’s life in their hands. He is at their mercy. And do they discuss this? Do they discuss whether it would be acceptable, morally, for them to send him to his death---for them to play judge and jury to Zarkon’s executioner---in order to get what they want?No. They don’t.Pidge immediately calls for Lotor to be handed over, and uses every justification she can think of to argue her case. She argues that they have Voltron, so they can just beat down Zarkon if he’s lying (because that worked so well before). She argues that they have Voltron, so they don’t need an alliance with the Empire. She argues that Lotor is lying. She argues that Allura should think of Sam Holt’s life before she thinks of the lives of millions in the universe, and so on and so forth. But for all her tantrum throwing, Pidge is never once forced to acknowledge the fact that she is arguing in favor of someone at her mercy to be put to death for her own personal gain. No one points out that trading a man’s life for personal gain is something that an Empire soldier would do. Many in the fandom have pointed out that what Pidge was arguing for was dark, yes, but no one in the show itself pointed out to her that she was arguing for someone to die for her own benefit, or for the benefit of her father. That Pidge did this morally questionable (or morally wrong, depending on your view) thing has no bearing on her as a character, and does nothing for her growth, because she was never forced to confront it. (Nor was she forced to admit whether she was arguing for this because it was Lotor, or if she would have similarly been gung-ho about the trade had Zarkon demanded someone else, such as Kolivan, Rolo, or even Keith. We don’t know how far Pidge would have gone, because Pidge was never confronted with that.)Likewise, Lance, too, argues for Lotor’s death, and he does so out of jealousy. But does anyone call him on this? Does anyone point out to him that he is apparently okay with sending a man to his death because he sees said man as a romantic rival? No. Lance is not forced to confront this part of himself. He’s not forced to realize that he very suddenly wants a man to die, and wants to be the reason why that man is being sent to die, because of jealousy. Jealousy is a really ugly thing. It’s a flaw. And when it gets so bad that you’re willing to send someone to their death, that you’re willing to have their blood on your hands, that’s something you should have to confront and think about. That’s a part of yourself you need to examine. But Lance isn’t made to examine it, because none of the rest of the team confronts him over it. No one points out how fucked up it is that he’s willing to send Lotor to die over petty jealousy.And it’s not as if the rest of the team is much better. Again, no one questions whether they’ll be able to live with themselves knowing that they sent a man who was at their mercy off to die at the hands of his abusive, genocidal tyrant of a father for personal gain. Instead, what they actually discuss is:- Whether Zarkon is lying;- Whether Lotor will be more useful aliveIn that scene, they’re viewing Lotor as an object, pretty much. He’s either something they can trade to get what they want, or he’s something they can use later for their own benefit. Whether he, as a person, has a right to life (even if it’s life as a prisoner) never once crosses their minds. They’re fine with him dying. The only conflict they have is whether they’ll actually get what they want, or whether he’d be more useful to them alive. And that makes them look horrible, it makes them look like terrible people. It’d be one thing if they had this discussion and said, okay, we’re not really comfortable with this, we don’t like this, but we have no other choice, this is the best option available to us. They’re still doing something morally questionable / wrong then, but they’ve acknowledged it, they can learn and grow from it, they’re accepting that what they’re doing isn’t pretty, but it’s a reality of war. But to not discuss it at all means that they’re barely even considering Lotor as a person. His life doesn’t factor into it. All they’re concerned with is their own personal gain. They’re supposed to be the heroes, but a person’s life means nothing to them, apparently. That’s extremely messed up, and again, it strips complexity from the narrative and prevents the characters from growing and changing. They don’t have to deal with the fact that they did a really horrible thing because they never acknowledged that it was horrible to begin with. And we don’t know how far any of them, Pidge especially, would have gone, because they’re never asked.War does horrible things to people. As I said above, there’s no such thing as a good war. War is a horrible, terrible, awful thing, even when it’s necessary (and this war is a necessary one). But VLD is not acknowledging this by not letting its characters own up to when they do awful things. The fact that this is a kid’s show is no excuse. Animorphs was a kid’s book series, and yet it routinely made its characters have conversations about the moral dilemmas they found themselves in, and the moral sacrifices and morally dark choices they increasingly made as the series continued. If Animorphs showed its protagonists, who were thirteen when the series started, severely affected by war---and if it made them, when they were no older than sixteen when the series ended, acknowledge when they were doing things that were wrong (and acknowledge when they were toeing the line between being good and becoming their enemy)---then there is no reason why VLD can’t or shouldn’t do the same. Once again, it could be that deep. It just refuses. And the fact that it refuses is incredibly, unbelievably disappointing. Having your protagonists make morally grey decisions is all well and good, but it means nothing if they’re not forced to confront the fact that they have, learn, and grow from it. 

And lastly . . . goddamn, justice for Keith. Justice for Keith for being sidelined for the entirety of the first season, with various subplots he could have had (e.g. his quintessence sensitivity) being dropped altogether. Justice for Keith for no one, not even Shiro, doing anything to stand up for him when he was being mistreated by the rest of the team for being part-galra. Yes, Shiro hugged him, but Shiro didn’t speak a word when anyone (and particularly Allura) was treating him coldly because of his race. Justice for Keith for having a plot leading up to him becoming the Black Paladin, only to have that ripped away from him three episodes later. Justice for Keith for being treated as selfish when he leaves on approved missions for the Blade of Marmora that actively help the war effort, yet Pidge is allowed to go off to find her brother with no repercussions whatsoever. Justice for Keith for being out of focus while he’s with the Blade of Marmora---And actually, on that note, let’s start getting some justice for the Blade of Marmora, too. Justice for the Blade of Marmora for most of them being unable to ever show their faces, because the animators apparently can’t be fussed to come up with unique designs for them. Justice for the Blade of Marmora for being killed off at a rapid pace, because they’re viewed as expendable (probably because they’re galra) by the showrunners, and because Allura railed off against Kolivan and Antok and accused them of being the reason why Zarkon was still in power, because they were cautious with their agents’ lives. Justice for the Blade of Marmora for the fandom treating them as if they’re reckless automatons who don’t care about survival (Kolivan in particular being demonized and painted as heartless) when, again, it was Princess Allura of Altea who demanded that they proceed with compromised suicide missions because she’s impatient to deal blows against the Empire. Justice for the Blade of Marmora for being introduced in season two as important allies, yet still not having their history fleshed out, yet still not being given meaningful development as individuals or a team.Justice for Keith, and justice for the Blade. I definitely wish I could change that. And because I talked about important things all this time, one small, self-indulgent change I would make?

HAVE LOTOR JOIN THE BLADE OF MARMORA IN SEASON FIVE INSTEAD OF BEING A PRISONER OF WAR FOR TEAM VOLTRON WHEN ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS SEND HIM TO HIS DEATH ANYWAY, FFS, WE COULD HAVE HAD MEANINGFUL BONDING BETWEEN LOTOR AND KEITH, AS WELL AS LOTOR AND KOLIVAN, BUT NO, WE WERE DENIED THAT SO TEAM VOLTRON COULD BE AWFUL PEOPLE WITH IMPUNITY INSTEAD, GODDAMN IT.

Okay. Now I’m done.

[arkus-rhapsode]

Fairy Tail Chapter 527 Review

This Chapter my god.

Our cover page is… eh. I mean it’s not bad but it’s just kinda standard Natsu, Lucy, and Happy. Not much to say.

So we open on a crying Larcade. Oh man ever sense you showed up again it’s been really pathetic. Please someone put an end to this.

ouch. Brutal Zeref, very brutal. Also Natsu I think friends stop mattering after a hole has been blown in.

That. Was pretty badass.

We cut away to the fight with Gildarts and August.

August’s speech is really odd here. When he says born with a mighty power, is he talking about what he’s going to do now, because he says he’s neglected it. Also this barrier all living things meet, I guess he means death because he took Crash head on with no like defense or anything like that. Also, were going to see this magic that has the power to kill everyone right now, why didn’t you lead of with it? You called this ragnorak, the norse term for the end of the world, what took you so long?

Oh shit he’s going Vegeta, you know he means business.

Even when your trying to help, you are a pain to read Mavis. Seriously, defense mode, I didn’t know magic ran on a yugioh mechanics. Also yes this was kinda referenced that someone could shut them off, but it doesn’t really give who in the chapter did it. I guess it tries to imply it’s August but it’s not clear.

Okay Gildarts I don’t think you can stop the oxygen from leaving her body and now we get to the toughest thing about this chapter. (Okay first there seems to be a translation issue as August is talking down to Jellal and it seems like he’s saying that Jellal has a ruler who will have a child of light, but it’s just an error) and this is the reference of how the only one who can beat August is his mom.

He just gives up. Like what? Okay, first things first this does make more sense then Irene’s bullshit “I always loved you” but this doesn’t make sense as “only his mother could beat him”. Mavis did nothing. I want to assume that he meant he never felt love from his father so his mother finally showing it would cause him to stop but Mavis does nothing.

Well Gray and Lucy reunite with Mavis. Even though it makes no sense to leave him because you seem to be back there at the end of the chapter, oh forget it, here’s the big thing with this chapter.

Okay first Mavis has the book of END, you think zeref who loves his brother would want to keep an eye on his life force. Then, HOW THE FUCK DOES MAVIS KNOW ABOUT END? I don’t ever recall her knwing, let alone natsu is END. And then We have Mavis saying Natsu will beat Zeref which okay fine we know END is suppose to beat Zeref but then she goes on to say she’ll erase him, I want to assume that she got the idea of erasing from Jacob’s magic because later she will say something really stupid that almost makes it seem like there was no point to Jacob. Finally, Why the hell would you call away Gray and Lucy to save Natsu’s life if you are basically saying he’ll need them at his side, you inconsistent bitch.

We cut away to the Natsu vs Zeref fight.

Y’know Natsu is on point this chapter of putting Zeref in his place. However, this does fel lessened as this and the last 4 chapters have been really laying on the family message.

Again, thank you Natsu.

So after the both go super saiyan we get the part of the chapter that probably made me the angriest. And it’s Mavis saying she’s found a way to beat Zeref. Okay, Mavis you said the reason that you wanted out of the lumen histoire is because after the Jacob fight you said you found a way to beat Zeref, but you then go on to say that Natsu will definitely win but by the way this is written is implying that you only now have put all the pieces together to form a plan and for the rest of the time you’ve been bull shiting your way through this plan. That’s not a strategist that’s a not thought out gambler. But I’m not surprised as Mavis’s strategies are like this, no actual plan just have faith and see how it turns out, fuck you Mavis, fuck you.

And then we get our next chapter titled “Dragon Demon” Oh god i’ll mention this in the post chapter follow up.

Post chapter follow up: I genuinely wanted to like this chapter but god there is some problems. I’ve said everything about Mavis that I needed to and if your curious why I hate her so much this chapter is because it’s the typical Mavis shit. Mavis is an idiot, all of her plans don’t have actual strategy just hedging her bet that FT will somehow figure it out. Why this makes me so mad is look at Natsu, he is an idiot. But imagine he has a moment when he’s fighting villain with a tricky power and says he’s found a way around all of his attacks and I planned this whole thing out and just results in him punching hard. That sounds horrible and makes no sense as a strategy. That is Mavis. Someone built as this grand genius but always comes through because of not actual planning or tricking the opponent into a false sense of Security no she bull shits her way through and claims it’s smart. Another thing is this “she’s a mother”. She’s done nothing motherly, you Mavis haven’t raised or taught or stood beside these kids. In fact Makarov, who actually acts like a parent, mentions how she only saw them as soldiers not children. And in this moment with August where she needs to be a mom, she does nothing.

Another thing, I don’t know how to feel for this ending of the August fight. We know Mavis would be why he goes down but it doesn’t seem to add up as they don’t even exchange any dialogue whatsoever. But I guess saying Gildarts beat him with Absolute Heaven was okay, I wish it went longer but I’ll take it.

Dragon Demon. SO much for building “I’m human” because now it seems like it’s just going to be “yeah I need those powers to win” oh, I so hope he doesn’t turn into a demon dragon because that would make that big moment he had in his heart pointless.

On to the good stuff, Natsu is amazing this chapter. I’m serious he is handling this better than I thought it be, I expected standard “were fairy tail” or “I have friends” but bringing in the family thing is just great.

Zeref again is crazy but again it’s really entertaining  to see him lose it.

Also, THANK GOD, END is back. I’m so happy because if that thing did not make an appearance again I was going to groan in pain.

I also acknowledge a lot of my dislike is stemmed from Mavis and that some do like her  but I just can’t. I really wanted to like this chapter because ever since the “I choose human” thing, Hiro hasn’t put out a below average chapter or at worst average, it’s honestly great because he’s the end of the ending should be good.

Final Verdict: 5/10

It has some problems

It has quite questionable moments

Natsu is the best thing this chapter and carries the good quality

[yugihell]

Rowan Reads YGO Volume 1

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

Next -->

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

----

Duel 1 - You Could’ve Just Played Basketball:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*DBZTAS Nappa voice* Hey Fujita…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bonus - Future King Of Games:

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

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

Joey friendshipping aggressively:

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

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

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

Yugi brought bells. Huh.

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

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

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

This expression:

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

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

---- Duel 4Kids Averted:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

----

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHERE DID YOU GET A TEST TUBE OF EXPLOSIVES ATEM?

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

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

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

----

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

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

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

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

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

Is Ms Chono related to Mai?

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

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

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

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

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

----

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

Next -->

[pendulumprince]

And on the new protag: let’s give speculation a try!

I’m super late to the party, but I’ve just been thinking about him. If any this turns out to be true, chalk it up to dumb luck.

From what we know:

Yusaku already looks like he’s going to be a joy forever. Aesthetically, I like him quite a lot—the smart bluish-black blazer, his bright green eyes, his quasi-aggressive stance, his furrowed brow. His hair is insane by most standards, but for a YGO protag it feels almost lowkey.

We only have one picture of him, but in it he gives off a very no-nonsense vibe, like he’ll fight you in the desert using nothing but a spoon and still win five times out of five. Okay, okay—he’s probably not that tough. I see the general consensus is that he’s either stoic and dismissive, or super timid. If he does turn out to be standoffish, then it’s definitely a mask. If you don’t want to be noticed, being perceived as mean is a good way to get people to steer clear of you. And if he’s just timid? That would be great, too. Given the confidence of the first three, and the (at times, false) bravado of the most recent two, to have a protag start off lacking in self assurance would be such a refreshing take.

But you know what really throws me about this kid? First episode, he “decides to give dueling a try”. Good lord, he isn’t a duelist! In a world that revolves around dueling… how?!

Well, there have obviously been non-duelists in previous installments. But never a protag. This is a first—even Yuma, despite his lack of skill, was a duelist in that first episode. And yet, our cotton candy dream boy may not be. I’m very interested to see where that goes, and what pushes Yusaku to finally start dueling.

Story takes place in a high school setting, and along with what he looks like, he has to be in the 15-17 age range—so for sure older than our previous two. Given all the setting hopping we did in Arc V, I think the setting in this new story will remain relatively consistent: school, the VR world (whatever that may be), the city he’s in, home. But if the VR world is anything like action fields are, then it really won’t feel like we have a consistent setting—which I would count as a good thing. ‘High school setting’ reminds me of GX, and if there’s one thing that fatigued me about that spinoff, it was it’s static setting (at least during seasons one and two).

Now, moving on to light speculation: 

I don’t think Yusaku is going to start out with any friends. Just like with dueling, I feel that the writers are going to have him start from zero and work his way up. In this scenario, his first friend will likely be the person who challenges him to a duel in episode 1. This duel will be 100% inconsequential and fun. Fair chance that this person will also become his ‘friendly’ rival, someone who will encourage him to keep at dueling because they recognize his talent for it, and he inspires them to do their best in turn.

Under no circumstance will this person be his ‘antagonistic’ rival. Given the nature of YGO I don’t think they’d give a friendless protag an adversary right off the bat. It also wouldn’t make much sense to expect a shy person to try something new because someone is antagonizing them for no other reason than to stoke their own ego. Bullies only inspire people to retreat further into their shells.

Now, if he does have friends? Only one. This’ll be a childhood friend, possibly with their families having ties to one another (think Yuya and Yuzu). This person will be his foil: outgoing to his shy, aggressive to his passive, ambitious to his laid-back (at least as far as dueling goes). If he already has such a friend, it’ll take something besides encouragement to finally get him to try dueling. No one changes unless they have to. In this case, he’ll likely be faced with some sort of conflict on episode 1—and whoever presents him with that conflict has a good chance of becoming his ‘antagonistic’ rival.

And speaking of that duel? Yusaku likely isn’t a duelist, but I fully believe he will have a deck on episode 1—and I think he will have had it for a while, to the point that he’ll have all of his trap/spell/monster effects memorized (so no Yuri versus Asuka hijinks). He just will have never played against anyone. Him having a deck and knowing it well will put him in a better position to win his first duel, which I think for someone as reserved as him is an absolute must.

Moving on to broader topics, this post does a better job at explaining the meanings behind Yusaku’s name than I could in a thousand years. But in short: his given name is made up of the kanji for “game” and “work”, while his last name is made of the kanji for “wisteria tree”

“Game” obviously refers to dueling, as it has for all the previous protags. “Work” is a big vague—but hell, so was “arrow” for Yuya, and in hindsight that can definitely be tied to him. The only thing I can think of with the present information available is that it’s meant to symbolize the effort he’ll put in to overcome his more conservative nature. Maybe putting himself out there—or rather, being dragged out of his comfort zone—will be a major stressor for him. Maybe social tasks that were a breeze for the previous five will be so strenuous that it will be equal to work in his eyes.

As for his last name? Wisteria trees have multiple symbolic meanings, many of which are rather positive. Some, not so much. But even given it’s most negative meanings—uncontrollable greed (voraciousness) and an inability to let go—it still isn’t quite as ominous as ‘sakaki’ was. We can talk about the negative meanings attached to wisteria if and when Yusaku begins to display them; but for now, I’d rather focus on the positive (a new one for me, right?)

Wisteria trees are associated with the celebration of youth, devotion, new beginnings, remembrance, and—this is the one I find the most interesting—longevity (wisteria trees can have unusually long lifespans; the oldest known wisteria tree is apparently around 1,200 years old). So make of that what you will. 

Now, moving on to full-blown, balls-to-the-walls speculation:

Given all that’s gone down with Yuya, it is very, very unlikely that Yusaku’s power (and you just know he’s going to have some power) is going to be tied to anything malicious. Power born of destruction and chaos can be revisited with protags seven and beyond (if we’re so fortunate) but not with number six. Not with Yusaku. It would just come off as repetitive and unoriginal.

Whatever power he has may be neutral, which would be an interesting concept to explore because it’s manifestation would rely solely on his moral alignment. But I’m going to go a step further and say that I think it’ll be benevolent in nature. And Yusaku’s power is tied to benevolence—as opposed to Yuya’s, whose power is malicious and destructive—then the writers could go one of two ways with it: either his mission to aide a larger benevolent force, or he is that benevolent force. 

Personally I favor the latter option, just because it hasn’t been done by the series yet. Of the previous five, we had three who worked with a ‘good’ entity (Yugi, Yusei, and Yuma), and two who possessed dark, god-like powers (Judai and Yuya). Just as we’ve never had a protag that’s worked to aide a malicious force (which would be so cray), we’ve also never had a protag who’s been the physical incarnation of a totally good entity. Yusaku is as good a character as any to have this sort of story told through.

“But PP!” you may say. “That’s boring! A protag with saintly powers would have arrested character development from the start!”

Yeah… not if he’s an asshole.

Well, maybe ‘asshole’ is too strong of a word. We don’t know much of anything about Yusaku outside of his reserved nature (and yet, look at the length of this post…!) But the point is, he may end up being a deeply flawed character, and part of his journey may be reconciling that with the nature of his existence.

How would he do that? This is YGO: he’d do it through his friends, and through communicating with people via dueling. (And other plot-specific ways, but I’ll need at least another sentence of series info before I can stretch that into an essay.)

And now that sure-to-be-incorrect theory is out there, on to my hopes and dreams for the sixth series:

May our young Yusaku be queer as hell. May he have a romantic two-boy friendship. Hell, let’s shoot for the moon—may he even have a canonical boyfriend.

Shit, give us queer characters in general. As much as I love Arc V, it had too much hetero ship teasing for my taste—and idk about y’all, but I’m ready to Make YuGiOh Gay Again. 

Also! Well written female characters! Who maintain their agency from beginning to end and aren’t revealed to be pawns of the Big Bad’s designs! 8)

And speaking of women: A FEMALE BIG BAD. A FEMALE SUPERVILLAIN. PLEASE. MY BODY IS READY.

A big bad directly tied to Yusaku would be hella rad (*looks pointedly at Yusho*)

Oh, and parents? Boy, do I love the Arc V parents! Let’s have some more parents this sixth installment! Good ones! Bad ones! Strict ones! Odd ones! Abusive ones! Adopted ones! ALL CANON YGO PARENTS COUNT AS LEGAL TENDER ON THIS BLOG, SO LONG AS THEY ARE NOT ABSENT OR DEAD.

Mmm, I always thought it would be interesting to have another protag with a brother or sister. Yuma had a big sister; maybe Yusaku could have a younger sibling? Or older—it doesn’t really matter to me, so long as they’re plot relevant.

A return to the previous summoning methods? Like, the plot doesn’t have to revolve around them like they did in Arc V, but to have them occasionally show up alongside the potential new summoning method would be A+.

Solid and consistent pacing. if Arc V has one major flaw, it is pacing. Hoping to see the new series succeed where Arc V fucked up.

And that’s it! Now, back to that other show. 

[tumblunni]

Also I liked the realistic touch in the yugioh beginning that jounouchi stopped being a bully after that incident BUT honda/tristan didnt.

It was really nicely established how jounouchi was poor and had an abusive dad and had reasons why he was acting out, and specifically how he hated yugi out of jealousy. Like.. he thought at first it was ‘because yugi is weak’, but really it was because he was strong enough to be himself no matter how much he was bullied, whereas jounouchi had to resort to becoming a stereotypical macho asshole in order to get friends. And also that he felt like yugi was being uppity and boasting how he doesnt need friends, cos of how he refused to change no matter how much jounouchi kept teaching him this ‘lesson’ that you need to become an asshole like him or you’ll be all alone. And then I feel like it hit really hard when yugi defended him and got beaten half to death even though he’d done nothing to deserve this happiness. And ESPECIALLY how yugi said that he saw him as a firends, and actually desperately wanted friends just as much as jounouchi does. And ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY how yugi tried to excuse jounouchi’s actions by saying he was ‘just teaching me how to be a real man’. Its like ‘holy shit when i see him repeating my philosophy i can see how fucked up it is. Why am I sad that he actually started hating himself, when thats what I was trying to do??’ He realized first of all how his self-hate had made him misinterpret Yugi’s personality entirely, and then how much he’d been destroying this poor guy who never deserved it, AND THEN how much the guy friggin THANKS HIM for doing it and tries to save his life?! No wonder this moment was big enough to shatter Jounouchi’s entire bully persona and make him reevaluate his life. And man it was just SO GOOD how the apology happened! The scene just ends after Jounouchi’s reaction goes from “ugh, yugi, you sent this asshole to beat us up?!” to “HOLY SHIT YUGI YOU SAVED US”, so you don’t know if it really sunk in or not. And the story just moves on to other things, but then suddenly at the most desperate moment you hear that jounouchi had gone to yugi’s grandpa and told him about how this thug was threatening him, and tried to help. And even more than that, it always kills me with the bit where “even though it wasn’t raining, he was soaking wet”. Cos he’d thrown away that piece of the millenium puzzle earlier, and he friggin BROKE INTO THE SCHOOL AT NIGHT to search everywhere outside that window to find it, ultimately diving into the goddamn swimming pool to get it back. And youve gotta remember that at this point he didnt even know the thing was magic, nobody did! He just knew that he’d ruined yugi’s favourite game and he wanted to fix it, if he was gonna make a real apology. And the EVEN SADDER part is that he DIDNT EVEN MAKE AN APOLOGY. He didn’t do any of this because he wanted forgiveness or credit or a pat on the head, at the last moment he decided he’d just give it back to yugi’s grandpa, tell him about the bully, and then leave before yugi came to the door. Its like.. half of him is too ashamed/embarassed to see yugi again, half of him feels like he has no right to be forgiven. And then of course blablabla, puzzle is completed, we meet Yami for the first time and he kicks the bully’s ass, woo! And then its so heartwarming that after all that Yugi friggin INSISTS on accepting Jou’s apology! Jounouchi shows up at school covered in bandaids and with a cold, feeling like he’s just destroyed his own life and lost the only bully friends he had, but its worth it because he didnt wanna keep hurting yugi. And then Yugi runs up and is like ‘AINT TAKIN NO FOR AN ANSWER’, and jounouchi finally opens up a bit and says a corny friendship line, and then he gets embarassed and has a comedic pratfall to end the chapter, completing his transformation from scary character into best friend! ITS SO PERFECT

But then in comparison we have Honda who’s really just introduced as bully-Jou’s bully-sidekick. Even when he becomes a good and trusted friend we never get any sign that his bullying had a big reason behind it, in comparison to Jou he was just an immature bastard doing stupid shit who finally matured. I wish he’d got more screentime and maybe gone into that a little, he pretty much only had a big focus as a bully and then became the most forgettable generic cheerleader of the friend group :P But yeah it was realistic and interesting how even though Jounouchi had turned good, his friend Honda hadn’t. And he was only here at first cos he was Jou’s friend, even if he was like “WTF. Its yugi! YUGI, Jou! Why do we suddenly like Yugi?? U gone nuts??” And then there was the interesting conflict of it looking like Jou was gonna end up losing his old friend cos of gaining this new one, and it was also really heartwarming how Honda ended up becoming friends with Yugi too after a few chapters. And it was nice how it was less of a turnaround and more of like.. friendship first, loss of bullying later. He just realized that Yugi was actually a good guy, and then slowly ended up learning from Yugi’s example and knocking off the dumb antics. It was nice how he had so much development into a responsible older brother figure even though he’d started as a thug, and how even his art style changed to match! Just SUCH a shame that as soon as he became this good guy the plot sidelined him, it was like he was geting punished for being good :p i don’t think nice Honda was boring :P

And then it was REALLY good how Yugi’s initial enemyness with Jounouchi was brought up five volumes later as a punch to the reader’s gut, during an emotional moment. Man, its so messed up that Shadi was also introduced as an enemy in the manga, and a REALLY sadistic one who used illusions of Yugi’s sad past against him. I feel like all these relationships are way better and more defined when we have the reference of how they started? Its like.. a redemption story hits you hard, but just starting the story with ‘they are all friends’ is like show, don’t tell. If you just TELL us theyre friends and dont show us any proof of it then its boring! Maybe thats why the episodes were so much more over-the-top about friendship speeches? BUT THATS JUST TELLING US AGAIN, NOT SHOWING I was soooo mad as soon as I read the damn manga and saw how much enuine friendship we missed T_T And don’t even get me started on how much more screentime and friendship establishment that Anzu and Bakura got, too! WHY THE SECOND ANIME HATE THE FRIENDS SO MUCH. WHY WE NEVER GET THE FIRST ANIME. WHYYY