#atem has very little regard for his own life
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Hello. Thank you for RBing my little dumb ask game. I'll ask you Mai Kujaku for 6, 8, and 14. Thank you.
Of course, it's a good one! Thank you for the questions as well; pardon my rambly answers. I also really need to rewatch/reread and finish YGO, but I tried, haha. I do love thinking about Mai.
6. What part of themself might they resent?
I would need to revisit canon to have a better/more thorough answer, but I think Mai may dislike her loneliness and need/desire for others' support and affection, given the amount of time she's spent alone "just fine" miserable and unfulfilled in the past, and what ultimately happens when she lets her guard down. Like, she finally lets herself be vulnerable with Jounouchi (re: his dream), and she's immediately rebuffed. Malik is then able to weaponize this against her. I think there's probably more relating to this in the rest of the anime too (as iffy as the writing gets), but I need to finish it.
Anyway, it's not great to feel like there's this vulnerability within you that you can't overcome, repeatedly opening you up to pain and betrayal.
Projection ahoy.
8. What character foils / parallels do you find most intriguing from canon regarding this character?
In light of the previous question, thinking about various other characters in YGO who have been isolated- Bakura and Kaiba especially.
Perhaps most obviously, all of them have lost parents, and we really don't know a lot about their actual relationships with those parents or what they truly felt/feel about them. Familial grief is most central to Bakura, but we get so little of Bakura overall that there are still more questions than answers here. To a degree, these are just Anime Narrative Shortcuts, but I think it is interesting to compare three characters whose life circumstances are radically shifted by a parent-shaped void, and the things each of them focus on in the aftermath. Very different directions, but they all begin with loss and end in social isolation.
Kaiba's focus becomes brute forcing safety and stability for himself and Mokuba after they're abandoned by the system and their extended family. He cares about nothing and no one else, and eventually he even loses sight of his love for Mokuba, too.
We can infer that Mai has stability after her parents' death. The house she grows up in is vast and richly appointed, from what we see of it- but she grows up in it completely alone. As an adult, she seeks out the glamour and thrill of her casino and dueling careers, trying to fill the void with (in her own words) the "wrong crowd." She tries, but she's never satisfied with the shallow relationships she's offered in this space, particularly by men who don't really care about her (or vice versa).
We can infer that Bakura has stability as well, as he still has a living parent with a secure job and home, but he doesn't focus on that at all. Instead, he romanticizes the parent (and sibling) he no longer has and is unable to make and hold onto friends due to the Ring.
Also, similar to Kaiba and BEWD, Mai forms a bond with Harpie Ladies, admiring their strength (and in Mai's case, specifically their armor and their weapons- a barrier between herself and the world). She uses a combination of those cards, her own skills, and underhanded tactics to get ahead while feeling completely detached from the people around her. She initially does this for money- but it doesn't satisfy her. Kaiba obviously doesn't need the money, but at the beginning, his (surface level) goals are much more materialistic. He's a talented duelist, but his scruples are also nonexistent. He thinks he knows what he needs: power, its manifest symbol, and a monopoly on it that no one can take away from him.
Mai becoming friends with Jounouchi and the others and slowly learning to trust again, Kaiba recalling his love for Mokuba and becoming obsessed with forming a bond with Atem- these are the things that really end up driving them forward.
14. "Can I copy your homework?" "I'll help you with it!" "Yeah sure" "bold of you to assume i did the homework" "lol nope" "wait we had homework????" or Read 5:55 PM
Ahh, I'm between "bold of you to assume i did the homework," "lol nope," or "Read 5:55 PM" They all have the right kind of unapologetic and unconcerned vibe, lol. I also kinda feel like Mai might be the one asking or demanding to copy your homework instead?
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“Do you know how terrifying it is, that power you have over me?” (your choice)
“The Thorn Birds” sentence starters
:｡･:*:･ﾟ’★,｡･:*:･ﾟ’☆ || @shacchou
Seto Kaiba was eerily silent the entire ride back to the penthouse, but Atem knew better than to assume he had let things go. Just because Kaiba didn't comment on the incident right away did not mean the evening would end without him bringing it up. There was just no way he would let this slide when the incident in question involved the former pharaoh nearly losing a limb ( or his life. )
Atem had expected some scathing, snide remark to open the conversation. After all, it was Kaiba's choice way of broaching most topics, especially when he intended to verbally rip someone to shreds. Atem had been on the receiving end of said remarks plenty of times --- many of which happened during their time together in the past. Things had changed quite a bit since Atem’s return from the afterlife, but not so much that Kaiba wouldn’t tear him a new one if he saw fit. ( And right now, he was gearing up for it. )
Atem’s back was to Kaiba as he stood in the kitchen, watching the Keurig machine as it whirred to life. He was making tea, because after what just happened ( and with what was to come ), he knew he’d need the calm in order to get so much as an ounce of rest tonight. That aside, he could feel Kaiba’s eyes boring into him from behind. Seto was keeping his distance, allowing the monarch some space, but he had yet to let Atem out of his sight ( yet another telling sign ).
And he knew. Atem knew Kaiba’s whole sinister aura right now had everything to do with a past conversation involving Atem’s --- to quote the CEO --- blatant disregard for his own life. At the time, Atem was furious at hearing such a thing. Just because he wandered around at all hours of the night did not mean he had little regard for his life. He had mystical, magical items capable of snuffing out anyone dangerous who happened along, but all that argument did was lead to another. Any excuse or topic involving magic only seemed to enrage Kaiba even more. That row of theirs kept Atem from visiting during his lunch breaks for over a week and it wasn’t until Kaiba showed up to do his weekly check in would Atem even entertain a conversation with him.
Tonight though... Tonight was different. Atem wasn’t wandering around alone. He was at the CEO’s side after enjoying a walk through the city. What should have been a relatively uneventful evening turned into a car narrowly missing them both ( mostly Atem ) as they crossed at a crosswalk. Atem’s foot was barely on the sidewalk when the car sped through. If not for Kaiba grabbing him by the arm and jerking him into his arms, he might have lost a leg. Or his life. Atem was fully prepared to let it go. The evening had gone without a hitch. Why make a fuss and ruin it? Except it was already ruined. Kaiba’s phone had the guy’s license plate in a matter of seconds. As for what would become of driver later, Atem thought it best not to ask. When Kaiba was angry, that quiet tone of voice and the strong, flexing muscles within his jawline reminded him of another. In the case of his former priest, he KNEW the driver wouldn’t live to see a royal court.
❝Do you know how terrifying it is, that power you have over me?❞
And here we go... except... except this was not the opening statement he had embraced himself for. This... This completely blew his mind giving him the worst bout of whiplash the world over. The Keurig bubbled loudly, but it was noise that barely registered over the sound of approaching footsteps. With each step taken, Atem felt himself unravel a little bit more. Because he was expecting some condescending remark; a line that would ensure their usual heated row after an incident but this? This wasn’t the kind of line he was prepared for and because of this, he almost couldn’t find words to respond.
His majesty moved his cup from beneath the machine and stepped sideways --- just enough to reach for the honey on the counter. Words spun about in his head, but nothing felt right. It all sounded empty in his head, and he didn’t know how to fix that.
❝Don’t be a coward, Pharaoh. Look at me when I’m talking to you. The least you could do is show me the respect that I always give to you.❞
That touched a nerve, and god how he LOATHED being told what to do. However, the tea was set aside while the once-king turned, facing his rival. Kaiba still looked pissed, but it was hard to know if it was the incident from earlier weighing him down or what he deemed the disrespect from the ‘king’ just now. Kaiba looked him over, making Atem feel like he was back home in Egypt. The way his court would study him, looking for flaws or telling signs of shenanigans always made him feel discomfort. This moment was no different though he knew it was likely Kaiba double checking for injuries. It was strange... but perhaps, not so strange either. Yet if he allowed himself to dwell on it too much, he would find himself transported back in time. That wasn’t fair to Kaiba at all.
❝Kaiba---❞ he began, but was quickly cut off.
❝You KNOW how I feel about your little stunt two years ago---❞
❝It wasn’t a stunt,❞ Atem shot back irritably. ❝I had to leave---❞
❝Right, of course. And is that why you keep flirting with death? So you can go back and leave everything behind again?”
❝What? N---no! That’s not---❞ But Kaiba wasn’t entirely wrong either. There was still some part of Atem that wasn’t comfortable in this world. There was apart of him that was still holding his breath, waiting for the inevitable moment when the gods would see fit to snatch him away again. He wasn’t purposely being careless, but he wasn’t as aware as he could have been either. His mouth opened to argue the point further but just as quickly, he closed it. Turning away, he reached for his cup again, shaking due to his nerves.
❝I am... tired. Might I drink my tea in peace and go to bed? Nothing bad happened tonight so let’s forget it shall we?❞
#shacchou#ic ┆ you have no control who lives who dies who tells your story ( atem )#verse ┆ transcend ( atem )#verse ┆ death has no dominion ( atem )#long reads tw#// hahaha so this happened#idk if your kaiba would say half this stuff#to get answers out of atem#but i mean he isn't wrong#atem has very little regard for his own life#there were so many ways i could have gone with this ask#but i went the safe route LMAO#or safe ish#idk if there's ever 'safe' with them#friends romans countrymen lend me your ears ( answered )#queued post
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General 8. Who gets jealous easier? for puzzleshipping :)
8. Who gets jealous easier?
This could go either way really. I could see Yugi, who has been bullied his whole life and wanted nothing more than friends, holding Atem to his heart almost jealously. Atem who was tied to the puzzle, and became his first friend (even if he wasn’t aware at the time), Atem who trusts and believes and supports him, who lifted Yugi up. And whom Yugi had a very intimate relationship with (not physical or romantic if we are going off canon) but still a very intimate relationship in that they knew each other inside and out and were closer than lovers.
That’s not something that Yugi might want to share with anyone. I have no doubt at all that Yugi trusts Atem, but I feel like he wouldn’t want to share Atem exactly. Especially not if Atem is still in the puzzle, but even once he gets his own body.
On the same hand, Atem was never known to be the most moral or generous spirit. He is canonically unhinged and kinda selfish. His priorities have never been so grounded in morals as Yugi’s have. He’s also a king and wants what he wants.
Yugi saved him, Yugi played host for him, Yugi showed him friendship and unconditional love and support. I could definitively see Atem holding this all dear to his chest jealously.
And if Atem were to get his own body, Yugi would be his most concrete link his foundation. Atem lost everything dear to him, his home, his life, his family his friends, his time period. Atem lost everything. And Yugi became that one person who restored him, lifted him up, and gave him a new life and home and love.
You could argue that he made friends with Seto, and Jou, and Honda, and Anzu. But if you watch DSOD, Atem let all of them die. He did not intervene to save anyone at all until Yugi was about to die. Then he rained down from the heavens in a maelstrom of fire and light and kicked ass, just to make sure Yugi lived. Bringing everyone else back to life afterwards was just par for the course, and bonus, because Yugi would be devastated if all his friends were dead.
Atem’s number one priority has always been Yugi. And it’s very very easy to imagine that he regards Yugi as precious. And would be swayed to jealousy.
As such both boys have valid reason to get jealous, and be a little possessive of each other. So I spose who gets jealous easier depends entirely on the context of any given story. But based on canon I would say probably Yugi. We’ve seen Yugi be jealous over things before, even if he doesn’t act on it. Where as canonically Atem is a lot more preoccupied with the fate of the world to be jealous, and for most the of the series he knew he had security in Yugi. Whereas Yugi was more insecure, and had to work to overcome it.
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SPBB 2020 Masterlist
Title: All Cats are Grey in the Dark
Author: mayatheyellowbee
Artist: Cheermione
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence
Word Count: 28,511
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Author: meinposhbastard (AO3, tumblr)
Artist: thatbanananana (tumblr)
Rating: Teen
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Artist: Zet
Rating: Explicit
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Word Count: 12,382
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“Cold white walls, keep you from your pad and pen
You just wanna stab again
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Co-Authors: AnGoose — AO3 and Tumblr; Y_ellow — AO3 and Tumblr
Artist: PastaPapi — AO3 and Twitter and Tumblr
Betas: Atem — AO3 and Tumblr; Water — AO3 and Tumblr
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Word Count: 13,653
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Artist: @ah-geee
Rating: Explicit
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Artist: VictoryThorn [Instagram | Tumblr]
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Author: cheekysstyles (tumblr)
Artist: aquamerryne (insta)
Rating: M
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
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Title: A Mate Most Begrudging
Author: Vixen13 (Twitter)
Artist: Gensyz
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Word Count: 46,189
Summary: It’s the height of the Gilded Age in America where everyone is searching for a new life and a new fortune from booming industry to the colonization of the wild frontier. Wade Wilson is a disgraced alpha trapped in the in-between of east and west, high society and labor, recluse and shunned. Though he’s convinced himself that he’s just fine on his own, others are more than happy to meddle in his perfectly quiet life before he loses his grip on reality more than he already has.
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Title: Three Steps to Inferno
Author: @waterme-stories (Ao3)
Artist: @atemy (Ao3)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence
Word Count: 31,399k
Summary: On August 26th, 1934, Gwen Stacy brushed past the doorman at the Ritz-Carlton, walked into the dining room, and set herself on fire.
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(A Spideypool Noir Mystery)
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Title: Mutable Materials
Author: @ciceqi (AO3)
Artist: @nhrive (AO3)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply; warnings for Temporary Character Death, Suicide, Insectophobia
Word Count: 12,853
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Title: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes
Author: @mscaptainwinchester
Artist: cottonclover
Rating: Teen
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Canonical Character Death, Physical Abuse (Alluded To), Emotional/Psychological Abuse
Word Count: 21,551
Summary: This is the Disney Cinderella AU no one asked for. In a faraway kingdom, in a comfortable cottage in a comfortable village, Peter Parker grew up with two wonderful parents who loved him very much. And then those parents died, and he was left to life with his stepmother Liv, and her two terrible children, Jessica and Eugene. His happy home turned into an unhappy life of servitude with no end in sight.
An invitation to a Royal Ball reminds Peter of a long-dead wish to see the palace his mother told him stories of, and he becomes determined to attend despite the protests of his miserable family. With the help of his new fairy godmother, a little bit of magic, and a whole lot of hard work, his dreams of visiting the palace and finding his very own Prince Charming will come true. Or will they?*
*They totally will. What kind of Cinderella story do you think this is?
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Title: Thanks for the Memories
Author: Actionpackedlips
Artist: Moemai
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content, Canon Divergence
Word Count: 50,461
Summary: What if Mysterio never outed Peter?
Deadpool comes back from a mission to find his favorite Spider-Man, his only Spider-Man, the boxes so helpfully remind him, missing. Specifically, kidnapped. Mysterio’s remaining crew were brimming with the need for revenge after their leader’s death, and so they vowed to use updated B.A.R.F tech to learn Spider-Man’s specific superpowers in order to harness it for themselves; another failed attempt to continue Mysterio’s grandiose plans of becoming the best superhero ever. With the help of the Avengers Peter is found, connected to a device not even Tony has full comprehension of.
Deadpool valiantly volunteers to be hooked up; death was a regularly scheduled program for him, after all. He’d guide Spider-Man to a subconscious level that was safe to be extracted from, and (total bonus!) hopefully win his favor as Spidey’s knight in shiny leather! But once Deadpool enters, his deepest, darkest, repressed memories are on display for him and his friendly neighborhood spider to see. Deadpool fears not only what Spider-Man will think of him after it all, after everything he sees, but just what he’ll have to relive in order to rescue the man who not-so-secretly holds his heart.
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Title: Paradise Awaits
Author: bisexualbarry
Artist: doctoring
Rating: Mature
Warnings: canon typical violence, minor character death
Word Count: 32k
Summary: “For those who prove worthy, paradise awaits…”
Fifteen years after assuming his childhood best friend died, jaded treasure hunter Peter Parker comes out of an early retirement when Wade Wilson comes back into his life. Now fully scarred and clearly hiding secrets, Wade drags Peter back into the thrill of searching for legendary pirate Captain Henry Avery’s lost treasure.
Fighting for their life from the Shoreline mercenaries chasing after them, Peter and Wade continue the dangerous search of a pirate treasure worth 400 million, at least. It’s too bad their ex-partner, Harry Osborn, wants them dead to take the treasure all for himself.
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Title: Ducks!
Author(s): Devral
Artist: LordAvon
Rating: Teen
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Word Count: 7,994
Summary: After a fight with Peter, Wade goes stomping through Central Park. He stumbles upon something extremely unexpected. He’s not ready to be a mama!
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Title: Puppy ex Machina
Author: riseofthefallenone ( Tumblr | Ao3 )
Artist: Jennicide ( Tumblr | Ao3 )
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Word Count: 83,044
Summary: A year after his divorce, Peter is trapped in a depressive cycle and still not quite over Mary Jane. When she shows up at his door, begging him to watch her dog for a week while she leaves town, he can’t really bring himself to say “no”. No one was expecting that little Pomeranian to turn his life around and help him realize that his friendship with Wade has been teetering on the edge of something more for a while.
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Title: The Fourth Wall
Author: RansomNotes (Ao3)
Artist: thelazyartist (Ao3)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Word Count: 13k
Summary: Between college and his side jobs and his alter-ego, Peter barely has the time to sleep at his apartment, let alone spend any time hanging out there, which works out since it’s a cheap and empty and depressing apartment, now that he and Ned aren’t roommates on-campus anymore. So hearing his rude loudmouth neighbor through the wall all the time shouldn’t matter much, except it’s classic Parker to somehow make friends with the crazy guy next door, to the point he’s actually sad to leave his crummy apartment. But Peter seems to have a real penchant for bad company, since he’s spending all his free time with someone he’s never seen, only heard through the wall, and spending most of his patrolling time with someone else crazy, since Deadpool showed up recently and somehow monopolized his time as Spider-Man. It’s probably just a phase. Everybody goes through a fall-catastrophically-hard-for-separate-but-unavailable-people phase, right?
Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost
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Title: In Which Peter Finds Hope
Author: ladyamante (AO3)
Artist: Areon (tumblr)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, sexual content, Past child abuse
Word Count: 62,245
Summary: Peter just wants to relax after last year. He hit a rough patch, and Deadpool helped him get through the worst of it. After identity reveals, therapy, and a few explosions, things have finally started to settle down for them both.
But just as Peter’s getting into the swing of things, a strange man with a metal arm shows up claiming to be a time-traveller. He says Peter is the only one who can help him save mutant kind.
Peter finds himself pulled from his home and dragged through different dimensions as he and Cable search for the key to their survival. Meanwhile, they keep running into different versions of Peter’s boyfriend. It seems that everything connects back to Wade. Cable thinks it’s just a coincidence, but Peter is sure there’s a deeper reason behind it all.
Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost
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Title: Whether By Accident or By Design
Author: crookedswingset
Artist: thelonebamf
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Violence, Temporary Major Character Death (Wade), Sexual Content, Cannibalistic Symbiotes, Blood and Injury, Secret Identity, Body Horror
Word Count: 188K
Summary: Peter is about to graduate college and become an officially licensed Pro Hero. Too bad he’s already burnt out. Years of operating as an illegal vigilante with a supposedly subpar Quirk will do that to you. But just as he’s about to quit altogether, he meets actual Pro Hero Deadpool, a reformed villain who works hard to make sure others don’t follow in his footsteps. Despite this achievement, Wade’s just as jaded as he is and has completely given up on making things better.
As their relationship deepens, Peter realizes he is not quite ready to give up on being a Pro Hero, a resolve that is tested when a new Pro Hero agency comes to town and takes over. The so-called “Guard” is a group of four eight-foot men with eerily similar Quirks—and they have no intention of making nice with New York City’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost
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@eebon has sent:
🤔
send me a 🤔 for an introduction to a NPC from my muse’s life. [Accepting]
//I keep forgetting she survived the battle against Zorc LMFAO.
I personally haven’t had the chance to put much thoughts on some kind of BG information, the same way I did with Mahad. With that said, what is important to take away from this portion pre-MW’s events, is the fact that she has witnessed on numerous occaions the way Set treated her mentor. She has seen almost everything the guy has spewed to him. Understandable, Mana never got a good image of Set and grew to despise him. Which was a sentiment that Mahad, definetely had no issues in feeding to her.
So, needless to say she didn’t take well at all the fact he, survived the battle against Zorc. With it, a wide span of feelings accompanied her initial reaction it, the most prominent one being how she felt robbed of her loved ones. And Set never tried to change her mind, or prove her wrong about himself. In fact, as he was in the process of creating his new court, Mana could have taken that as her opportunity to leave for good.
Unfortunately, much like Atem, the royal palace is all she really knows and it is this sentiment of being anchored to it that drives her to stay. Eventually, she becomes a priestess and takes on a similar duty as her late mentor. Her disdain and hatred for Set never left her, but she wasn’t a fool who would throw away her life. While Set claims he took over the throne, as a promise to Atem, Mana claimed a similar thing as the main reason to keep her around.
Mana also becomes an observer of Set’s fall from grace. She witnessed his entire reign as the pharaoh, his ever growing family, the time he stepped down from the throne, until his death. She was there when he began rewriting history, erase Atem’s existence, as well as hide the existence of magic. She also caught glimpses of Set being tormented by things, only he could see. And she took note of everything. In fact, her writing is essential many centuries later for historians and archaelogists. in order to shine some light in regards to Set as an individual.
In her texts, she makes it very clear she never felt any resemblance of pity towards Set. And even goes as far as to claim, the way his life ended to be quite fitting to him. But at least seems to commend his decision, of hiding the millennium items.
Mana outlives Set for a good few years, so she gets the opportunity to witness a little more of his successors’ endeavors. She passed away of natural causes, and she was given a tomb of her own.
#ooc /#| セト • priest set • headcanon |#thank you for the ask!#sorry this is late!#one day I'll properly write about these NPCs#Mana vc: u dont deserve this | Set: I agree tho#eebon
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For the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom ask: 2, 4, 8-10, 13-15, 17, 21, 26-34!
2. Anime or manga? This is hard for me to say! They’re both great in their own right! I liked the more streamlined nature of the manga, but I also found the anime filler arcs, save for Season 4, quite entertaining!
4. Favorite season would probably be Battle City. I find it exciting, more so than Duelist Kingdom, and it’s easier to follow the duels because the rules are more consistent with the TCG.
8. Favorite antagonist would be either Pegasus or Malik. Pegasus is quite entertaining to watch, what with his over-the-top ways and eccentricities, while Malik has a very interesting backstory!
9. Favorite minor character would be Ryota Kajiki. I like how he’s set up to look antagonistic at first, but then he takes loss very well! Really cool to see characters who are mellow about losing!
10. Favorite Duel Monster would be Black Rose Dragon. The concept of a dragon with scales that look like rose petals is really cool, and it’s associated with Aki Izayoi, who has a very interesting backstory!
13. Favorite deck archetype would probably be Dark World. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX may have portrayed the monsters in this archetype as evil, but in the actual TCG, they aren’t really as bad as GX makes them out to be! They may be dark demons, but they have a sense of morality, never oppressing commoners for no legitimate reason, and their gameplay concept, activating card effects by discarding cards, is really cool! I use this one in real life!
14. I’ve been in this fandom for a little over a year now.
15. I got into this fandom by reading about Yu-Gi-Oh! on TV Tropes. I found it really interesting, and I was able to get into it soon after by checking out the volumes from the library.
17. I cried when I read about what happens to Ai late in Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but I found it really tragic. I also cried reading about what happens to Ryou Marufuji.
21. Millennium Items-wise? I’d say the Millennium Eye, if I could use it without stuffing it in my eye socket. If I couldn’t, then the Millennium Necklace, because seeing the future has the least potential for accidental misuse, and doesn’t carry the risk of either a dysphoric Atem or an evil spirit taking over my body and causing chaos.
26. Favorite music aside from openings/closings would be Passionate Duelists. It carries a sense of determination and hope, and is always accompanied by awesome moments.
27. Favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! video game would be Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist. It’s interesting to see an adaptation of the various Yu-Gi-Oh! anime plots all in one game, and it plays like the TCG. It’s great.
28. Something I love about this fandom is how chill everyone is! In my experience at least, there’s very little discourse, and everyone has a very “live and let live” attitude regarding opinions on everything! It also probably helps that most of my experience is with Tumblr and Archive of Our Own, where the tagging system lets you search for what you like and exclude what you don’t, which is why I prefer to go there for fanart and fanfics!
29. The only thing I would change about this fandom is how character-bash-happy I’ve heard the fandom could be in the early 2000s.
30. My favorite episode would be Episode 53, the one where Anzu plays the dancing game. It was a nice, light-hearted break from the drama of all the previous episodes, and it’s also the episode that made me an Encourageshipper.
31. My favorite duel was probably the Atem and Kaiba vs Lumis and Umbra tag duel. I find the concept of characters fighting in pairs when the series is normally 1 vs 1 interesting, and this showed some nuance in Atem and Kaiba’s relationship, and Kaiba goading Lumis and Umbra into fighting each other was rather clever, along with communicating his strategies to Atem in such a way that it looked like they were still fighting (if I remember correctly).
32. Favorite voice actor? I’d say Shunsuke Kazama as Yugi and Atem in the Japanese version, since he was able to make them sound like distinct characters while not going overboard on either. In the English dub, Eric Stuart as Kaiba. His performance was very memorable, to the point that I sometimes read Kaiba dialogue in his voice, and it was overall absolutely fantastic!
33. Favorite quote from a Yu-Gi-Oh! character was, “No one learns to like themselves on their own. It’s a big game you play throughout your life,” from Anzu in the manga. It resonates very well with me, especially since I first read the manga at a point in my life where I was very harsh on myself for mistakes.
34. If I met Kazuki Takahashi, I would ask him about plot lines he originally planned for the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, because I find the concept of ideas originally conceived for fiction that were later scrapped to be fascinating.
#yugioh#yugioh dm#yugioh gx#yugioh vrains#yugi mutou#yami yugi#atem#anzu mazaki#seto kaiba#mask of light#mask of darkness#ryou marufuji#aki izayoi#ai vrains#kazuki takahashi#encourageshipping#asks#long post#very long post
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DSoD Analysis: Yugi’s repressed grief and resistance
Probably one of the most surprising things during DSoD is Yugi’s silent and calm behavior as soon as the topic “Atem” is brought up. Contrary to Kaiba who, more or less, openly grieves for Atem’s absence and acts furiously (especially against Yugi), Yugi acts the exact opposite. (An analysis about Kaiba’s POV can be found here) -> [ shitatemdoes.tumblr.com/post/183195820559 ]
The question some people may ask is: “Is Yugi grieving at all?”
We don’t know exactly how Yugi handled the situation after Atem left, it’s not shown to us, and DSoD already takes place six months after the first ending. A little bit time has passed since then, life moves on and Yugi has to move on, too, no matter how hard it is.
But recalling the last scenes/panels from the first ending, where he broke down in tears right after he won against Atem, we can assume that the first days, weeks and maybe even months were a hard time for him. A flashback of the Ceremonial Duel’s ending, specifically with a focus on Yugi, is shown to us again in DSoD:
We see that Yugi tries to repress his emotions about Atem, not wanting to bother his friends with it, even though they tell him that he doesn’t have to do this:
The same probably also applies to the rest of Yugi’s friends to some degree.
We see Yugi treasuring all the things that he connects with Atem (”Yugi, is your treasure still inside your treasure chest?” - Kaiba confronting Yugi):
When Kaiba suddenly reveals to Yugi that he dug up and completed the puzzle, it’s a big shock for him, of course. For Yugi it must seem like Kaiba presents him Atem’s old prison, the very thing Yugi believes Atem to be freed from. However he is not angry with Kaiba, because in contrast to Kaiba, Yugi knows that Atem is not inside the puzzle anymore. He tries to understand Kaiba’s motives and asks him: “Kaiba, what are you after?” to which Kaiba responds: “I only have one target. The Pharaoh’s soul inside this puzzle”. Kaiba even tries to emotional guilt-trip Yugi: “Deep inside your heart I know you want this to happen too.”
Due to the fact that Yugi has a different context on the situation than Kaiba he knows that Atem doesn’t reside inside the puzzle anymore, and that he is now in a place where no one is able to reach him.
Therefore before and during his duel with Kaiba he tries to explain and show him just that. It seems like Yugi is in a state of hopelessness regarding Atem, because he knows that there is no way he can see him again. This has its peak in the scene where Yugi puts the last two pieces inside the puzzle. He’s not able to feel any kind of connection with Atem anymore: “I knew it the moment I held the final piece”. It’s not that Yugi doesn’t want to see Atem again, that he “overcame” or ditched him. He just lost any hope and tries to make Kaiba understand that there is no way, no possibility to bring Atem back. He knows that this hope will only turn into despair, so he’s compassionate with Kaiba.
But Yugi’s resistance against Kaiba’s motives (the motives he believes Kaiba to have until this point) also stem from another fact. When Yugi reveals that Atem is not inside the puzzle anymore, he says to Kaiba: “I know that you brought me here so that you could battle Atem”. He claims to know Kaiba’s intentions at this point. But when Kaiba still refuses to accept Atem’s absence, Yugi is suddenly surprised and looks royally pissed:
Something that maybe gets easily overlooked is that Sera stated about Yugi:
She says “Millennium Puzzle”, but the puzzle is just another “vessel” or “flesh” for Atem’s soul. In other words she means that Yugi protected Atem all this time (”We fight to protect those that need defending.” - Kaiba during his speech). And during the duel Yugi himself says: “I refuse to lose, I made him [Atem] a promise”.
Yugi tries to protect Atem from Kaiba’s motives (again the one he believes him to have) by trying to stop him from possibly succeeding in imprisoning Atem inside the puzzle again. He thinks that Kaiba does this all because of egoistical and self-seeking reasons, just so that he has a rival and someone to battle again. It’s not until the scene where Kaiba sacrifices himself and “dies” that Yugi asks once again:
And this is the point where he truly understands Kaiba’s motives. Kaiba is not doing all of this because of self-seeking reasons. He does this for Atem as a person, as a friend. Only then does Yugi understand that Kaiba, in fact, does not want Atem any harm or evil. He is simply grieving after a common friend, just like him.
In conclusion: Yugi and Kaiba are both grieving, but both in their very own way, because not only do both have a different context on the situation about Atem’s absence, but also because of their different personalities and different childhood experiences. The thing that gets them into a dispute is that they both don’t know about the other’s pain, and that they both think about the other as someone who used or wants to use Atem for self-seeking reasons.
#Yugi Mutou#Yugioh#Yugioh Duel Monsters#Dark Side of Dimensions#Yami Yugi#Atem#DSOD#Puzzleshipping#my meta
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it's totally cool if you'd prefer not to answer this (i've noticed it's a bit of a sensitive subject in fandom)- I was a bit curious, What did you personally think of the Ceremonial Duel?
This is a very good ask, though my answer may not be able tomeet that expectation.
The Ceremonial Duel is something of a multifaceted topic,isn’t it? My own take, the reception itreceived overall by fans, and the behind the scenes aspect, as well as my ideafor how it both fits and clashes with various aspects of the series if I feellike including that break down too. It’s also something I’m not emotionallycharged on. My feelings on it are neutral and I’m able to see the merits ofboth sides of the argument of whether it’s a fine or garbage ending.
If I had to sum it up in one sentence: I think the endingwas very heavily foreshadowed from early on within the series, but it has majorproblems, and that Atem’s feelings were left so intentionally ambiguous isintriguing to me.
Prior to DSoD, as a lurker coasting around odd fandom spacesfrom time to time, I did have the impression YGO’s conclusion was somethingpeople were iffy on. As far as I’ve been able to gather, Japan’s fandom hadsome iffiness too. I think the announcement of The Darkside of Dimensionsreally illuminated the fandom divide on the ending in a way. There were manyfans who were flatly rejecting DSoD altogether on principle, but the film ofcourse set out to examine some of the wounds left in the wake of Atem’s departure,and that’s something many fans had also felt haunted by. (There are of coursefans who despise both the original ending and DSoD, and there are of coursefans who are alright with both the original ending and DSoD; my point is more noticingthe split of fans’ receptiveness to a continuation.)
People dissect apart that final duel to try justifying theirtake on Atem’s feelings. An expression that could be taken as somber, anexpression that could be taken as one of relief; dialog drops grabbed fromcharacters who are not Atem but instead projecting onto Atem; etc. The truth isthere isn’t an answer in canon on whether Atem definitely wanted to leave ordefinitely wanted to stay. His feelings were left ambiguous; and I find thatchoice intriguing. It would’ve been so simple to give lines to Atem announcinghis relief at finally being able to rest, or announcing his crushing pain athaving to depart from the world. Instead the event is treated like a mechanismof nature.
My personal interpretation on this ambiguity is this: “ifthe items wanted to reunite inside the Millennium Stone, if the items couldmanipulate their bearers for the sake of reuniting there, if the items had noconcern for human life… I don’t think it’s out of the question the MillenniumPuzzle planted an inescapable urge inside Atem to depart to the netherworld. Ithink it really is like a salmon swimming upstream to die.”That’s not to say I’m correct; it’s just my reading.
And I also wrote this bit some time back, back before the “discourse”regarding the finale bubbled over and became bright: “I think, like so manyshonen series, Yu-Gi-Oh! was ultimately a metaphor for the journey fromadolescence into adulthood. Yugi saw Atem as a kind of idealized self. “Youwere my goal,” as he says. Their relationship became much more complex thanthat, but I think Atem leaving was meant to symbolize Yugi letting go of thisidea of an idealized self, this person he thought he should become when he wasyounger, and accepting himself for who he is. The metaphor becomes messy thoughbecause Atem is a character in his own right, with his own identity and desiresand fears, and his departure does contradict several other messages of theseries (staking your worth on a game??).”
The characters left behind would be wounded. It would hurtand they’d be haunted. Atem was not Yugi’s idealized self. He was a person. Hewas their friend.
But I don’t actually hate the original ending, in partbecause it seemed so obvious to me. I feel the immense foreshadowing shouldn’tjust be brushed aside in this discussion. And the behind the scenes aspectlooms large here: there was no time to course correct for KT. Either he had toshatter all the foreshadowing he spent seven years crafting, or he had to sendoff Atem with exceedingly poor justification in text. By that time, he’d beenabandoned by his audience and may have felt little need to break away from theoriginal plan. But that doesn’t mean fans can’t be upset about it.
The precise reason fans are upset is because they care aboutthese characters so much; I have to respect that. It’s honest pain. There’ssomething sour with this ending to leave that kind of scar on fans. But I findthe occasional mocking and moralizing comments that have come up aimed atpeople who liked the ending to be uncalled for. Humans read into fiction invery individual ways, and I think that should also be respected. (Though I’ve beentold this situation of one side sometimes mocking the other used to be inreverse.)
If I have to play defense for the original conclusion, it’dbe in how I feel there’s shades of sad nostalgia enveloping those moments. Despitethe metaphor of growing up itself collapsing, the feeling of ghosts and lostthings from adolescence you can never get back is there.
Even for fans who see the ending as something uplifting andhopeful; it’s a personal feeling and reading. Yugi accomplished his goal of helpingsomeone who had helped him. Likely, they interpreted Atem’s expressions in the endas ones of relief.
(I actually realized not too long ago that the anime had itsown foreshadowing, unintentionally perhaps, in Noa Kaiba as he understands he’salready dead and must accept his fate.)
If I have any last thoughts to include, they are unneededbut it’d be that the longest fanfic I ever successfully completed kind of examinedthe holes in the finale. I have no intentions of ever posting this fic and havealready cannibalized pieces of it for other fics but it was like this: Atem,feeling the strange tug on his heart to go to Egypt but hesitant, decides he’llwait to make his decision. This enrages the Millennium Puzzle and it seals Ateminside, not allowing him to manifest or communicate with the world at all untilthe Millennium Items are gathered at the tomb in Egypt. Yugi units the Items insidethe Millennium Stone, at which time Horakhty emerges before Atem inside thePuzzle. The Items combined allow a wish, one far more powerful than anyindividual Item’s wish. Horakhty tells Atem this wish even has the power toreturn life to a ghost. But now see, this fic was an edgy angstfest whereanother character had been killed off near the beginning of the story. Atem hasno hesitation in spending his wish for this person, and time loops back. Atemis able to stop the accident from happening. No one else remembers anything.And as time moves forward again, that’s why Atem’s feelings are so nebulous andyet set on his departure from the world. …… I don’t know if this was relevantto include, but it seems kind of related.
Thank you for the ask. I hope I gave an adequate answer. I’mopen to the thoughts of others on this.
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@ygotplusweek Day One! What made you fall in love with this ship? What made them fall in love with each other?
Gonna start off this fan week light, and just do some headcanons/ranting regarding my ultimate OT3 and why they love each other! Hope you fellow encourageshippers enjoy them <3
((edit: *coughs nervously* so apparently what I meant by “light” was actually “a giant essay on why these three adore each other” so umm yeah I’m gonna put it under the cut because it turned out a lot longer than I expected heh))
I think the main thing that really “made me ship them” was a lot due to the fact that I loved seeing the characters grow together. One on one, each of them had very unique friendships with each other.
Yugi and Anzu had the sweet, simple understanding childhood friends type bond, Anzu and Atem had to put a bit of work and time into their friendship and let it grow which imo made for a very strong connection, then of course Yugi and Atem shared this impossibly deep, intricate partnership that’s almost indescribable. I just see these bonds meshing well and easily growing into a very healthy, well rounded relationship. Whether or not the persons involved would make for a healthy future is always a BIG factor in me shipping something, so these three having the such sweet, selfless and strong bond with one another makes me very drawn to them.
Now, as for what made them fall for each other? *cracks neck* well lets take a look, shall we?
Yugi is most definitely drawn to strong personalities, which both Anzu and Atem posses, as well as kind, fair hearts. But lets look at their individual qualities.
Anzu was likely one of his only friends growing up, so not only does he have that nostalgic fondness, but something much deeper that grew from it. Kids are cruel and we know poor Yugi was bullied, probably pretty consistently, but Anzu stayed by him. She played hand-held games with him, stood up for him when classmates took their teasing too far (say she didn’t do that i’LL FIGHT YOU) but most importantly, she simply stayed with him. It didn’t matter how quirky he was, she smiled and laughed along with him. It didn’t matter that every other boy was getting their growth spurts while his body acted like someone put a stopper in his biological clock, she would just shrug and assure him his would come someday. It didn’t matter when his timid, shy side showed through and overwhelmed him, she stood up even taller in the hopes of sparking his own confidence and sass. She accepted him as he was first and foremost, likely at a time where he had never experienced that (aside from maybe family members). She understood and accepted him, who’s to blame him for falling for his best friend?
Now enter Atem. Yes Yugi was fine the way he was, but he had this confidence and bravery inside him that was stunted, blocked somehow. While Anzu loved Yugi for who he was, Atem always encouraged and brought out what Yugi could be, the best version of himself he was always meant to be. Not only that, lets also not forget how Atem made Yugi feel like he really mattered, like he was needed by someone. Yugi always wanted to be the person someone else relied on and confided in and Atem was that person. Yeah on the surface Atem seems like the cool collected one who had everything figured out and under control, but deep down that’s simply not the truth. He even admits himself (pretty readily) that Yugi helps him in ways no one would even realize and I think Yugi know’s that. Atem grabbed Yugi and depended on him in a way that fulfilled a side of him no one else had. Yeah, I’d fall for that too tbh.
Now let’s talk about Anzu and her love. We’re talking about two men who, together, are arguably THE PERFECT man. But what makes the perfect man?
Again, Yugi is the comfortable, familiar, cozy sweater of a person due to their childhood friendship. In fact so comfortable, it took a long time to actually realize she was more than a little in love with him. So what if she walks with him to school every single day? They’ve done it since they were in fifth grade! So what if she always chooses to sit next to him no matter where they are? It’s the best position to talk with him, duh! So what if she’d rather sit inside during lunch and listen to Yugi go on and on about duel monsters instead of watching the popular boys play basket ball? You’re the crazy one not her- I mean do you see the sparkle in his eyes she can’t pass up a chance to see that! If you actually asked her what she loved most about Yugi, she’d think of nothing and everything at the same time. His lovable qualities: his kind heart, his loyalty, the way he makes her feel like the most important person in the world by just looking at her, those things are all so familiar and apparent to her by now, she can barely define them.
But that familiarity came at a price, because the first one she actually knew she fell for, was Atem. The knight every girl, in some way or another, dreams about. Yes she is a strong woman who can stand her own, but who doesn’t love a confident, smirking, mysterious hero-type? Atem awoke a sense of adventure and discovery no one else could provide her with. But there was also the complexity of their situation, for a long time there was this distance that seemed impossible to shorten, which likely only made her all the more interested. And then when they finally closed that distance? Oh boy, dose that make a girl feel special. Her patients and persistence paid off and now she gets to truly discover him, even if it was only as a friend at first. The best part? His mystique and confidence wasn’t all there was too him like so many ‘bad boys’ who may have caught her interest, he was kind and genuine at his core. Yeah he has his moments of overt arrogance, but in his heart of hearts he’s a good person, and that’s the winning factor that really sealed the deal for her heart. Girl you’ve got good good taste.
And finally, we have Atem. Woo boy, does he have a future full of love with these two. The first two who accepted him in this new chance at life.
Yugi saved him. Simple as that. Okay okay so, not that simple, let me elaborate. Not only did Yugi free him from his prison inside the puzzle, but this sweet sweet boy selflessly lets him share his body so that he might have at least something that resembles a life? How did he get so lucky to find this embodiment of all things light. Yes, light, that’s what Yugi is, his light. Atem has always been scared of his darker tendencies, ashamed even, worried that the darkness is who he is deep down. But again, there’s Yugi, his light and reminder that he can be better than his lesser qualities. People always praise him for bringing out Yugi’s confidence and strength, but in Atem’s eyes, that pales in comparison to what Yugi brought out in him. Yugi is the reason he can be kind and gentle, the reason he didn’t fall into darkness forever. They make each other the best versions of each other, and Atem is forever grateful for that.
But let’s not forget Anzu. Admiration is likely the first word that pops into his mind when thinking about when he first fell for her. Her determination to make her dreams a reality no matter how hard it was. Loyalty that ensured she always stood up and by her friends no matter the situation. Valor and heart mixing together to make the perfect balance of fearless defender and caring supporter no matter how life tried to break her. Even if he didn’t show it outwardly, he was entranced by this pillar of love and strength. She was the first to really accept him as his own person, instead of an extension of Yugi (save for Yugi himself) and that truly awoke him. Yugi helped bring the light to his life, but Anzu lit the passion in his soul. Her own enthusiasm for life and the things that filled it, in turn, made him love life again, albeit in his own more even-toned way. Her passions spilled over and fueled his own, even if she didn’t notice it. She is drive and zest and spunk and joy all in one! Simply put, she makes him feel alive, and who doesn’t love that feeling?
Whew, wow, if you read all the way through that I appreciate you, friend! Please please feel free too add your own thoughts and comments or just talk to me about these precious babies! Thanks for reading <3
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I got a couple of questions for ya: have you ever thought of Atem/Ishizu/Yugi as a couple and if so what would you call it? Also what do you think their dynamic would be? I thought I'd ask since I know you like Encourageship, and I'd love to hear your thoughts~
Hey! how come I’ve never thought of that polyship before?! It looks super cool!
They would all be very supportive of each other, similarly to encourageshipping, although if we were to look deeperinto it, the relationship would develop a lot slower in this case, due to Isis having a lot emotional baggage to resolve in regards with the Pharaoh, her family’s legacy and her needing to reconcile the god-like figure she was introduced to during her childhood, with the young (human) man in front of her.
The same man who happens to share a body with another young man she barely knows of, except he’s the nameless pharaoh’s chosen vessel. On his side, Atem would have to get over his guilt over the Tombkeepers’ fate and I can’t see anything serious happening between him and any Ishtar without first a serious talk about what happened — namely, Battle city and the Ishtar’s past…
Because of all this, I don’t see a real thing happening anytime soon between the three of them.
But if they got over their respective hurdles, though?
If Isis spent enough time around Atem and Yuugi and got to know the sweet, amazing people they are, independantly of any given title? There would be an incredibly steadfast friendship between the three which could grow into a sweet romance, if given properly time.
Though… this wouldn’t happen without a great deal of awkardness at first, since it’s about a polyamorous relationship and no one would be sure how to interact with the other in a romantic setting. Of all threes, I think Yuugi would be the first to act by offering here and there little gifts to his partners — a brand new card with a meaningful flip effect for Atem; a book for Isis; a trip to some store Atem fancied visiting and a treat to a restaurant with Isis. Fortunately, those small gestures help in breaking the ice and make Atem and Isis feeling more comfortable around him and around each other. They soon return the gesture by inviting Yuugi to a big escape game.
It goes without saying they totally killed the game within seconds. :)
But let’s delve a little more into the polyship with the help of a shipping meme, shall we?
Who is a night owl: Isis. Those books aren’t going to read by themselves after all.
Who is a morning person: Isis again.
Are they cuddlers: At first, neither of them, before Yuugi starts tentatively holding Isis and Atem’s hands, prompting the two to be more affectionate toward him. One day at Domino Museum’s ancient Egyptian exhibit has Atem and Isis quietly holding hands, as they look at the tablet of lost memories one last time, before moving on to write a new page of history. One that is entirely about them.
Who is the big spoon: Yuugi, when he sleeps with Atem or Isis. However; no one in particular when it’s the three of them together, or when it’s only Atem and Isis as neither of them are the type to enjoy spooning.
Who steals all the blankets: lol, no one.
Who likes seeing the other wearing their t-shirt: Atem, with Yuugi. :P
Who wakes up in the middle of the night with nightmares: Mostly Atem, since there’re a lot of painful memories he has yet to process and undertand. Sometimes, though, Isis will dream of her past life in the Tombs, especially of the moment her brother undergoes the ritual, though she never brings this up. She prefers instead to spend quality time with her brother to remind herself that those days are gone — that this is the past.
Who accidentally punched the other in their sleep: no one.
Who can’t keep their hands to themself: Atem sure likes tickling Yuugi on occasions. :^)
Who said “I love you” first: Atem was the first to confess to Yuugi. Yuugi was the one who said it to Isis. Due to their respective pasts and guarded personalities, neither Isis nor Atem flat out say it to each other, although they make sure to show their love through daily, little gestures.
Who would have the other’s picture as their phone background: Yuugi, who alters between pictures of Isis or Atem, sometimes both.
Who leaves notes written in fog on the bathroom mirror: Surprisingly, Isis. For all her controlled and regal persona, she loves to show affection towards her boyfriends through little and meaningful things like that.
Who buys the other cheesy gifts: Yuugi.
Who initiated the first kiss: Isis did this to Yuugi. Atem did that to both Yuugi and Isis.
Who kisses the other awake in the morning: Atem to Yuugi, and Isis to Yuugi. One day when she was particularly affectionate, she also did this to Atem, before realizing who she just kissed and getting all blushy. Atem just laughed and kissed her in return. Now, he does this to her all the time. Not that she complains, though. ;)
Who starts most fights? Atem, due his more fiery personality.
Who gets jealous more easily? For some reason, I’m thinking Atem, although insecure would be a better word. I can see him getting upset if he sees Yuugi or Isis showing interest in someone else — especially if the relationship happens while he’s still sharing Yuugi’s body. He’d be too proud and embarrassed to talk about that, though.
Who is more likely to cry during a fight? I’d say… Yuugi? Isis and Atem don’t strike me as the type to easily burst in tears.
Who is more likely to storm out during a fight? Either.
Who is louder in fights? Atem. Mind you, though, Yuugi and Isis perfectly know how to make themselves heard if you manage to piss them off enough.
Who surrenders at the end of most fights? Yuugi. Though Isis does that too at the beginning of the relationship — especially with the Pharaoh whom she’s mostly submissive around — but fortunately, this doesn’t last, as she shows to be perfectly able to stand her ground during arguments. She’s the most reasonable of the three, so Atem relents a lot to her too. In the end, it’s a toss-up.
Who surprises the other in the middle of the day at work with lunch: Yuugi does this to Isis and Atem and they make sure to return the favor with meals of their own.
Who was nervous and shy on the first date: Basically… everyone.
Who kills/takes out the spiders: Spiders? Pfffft Isis has practically lived with scorpions while in the Tombs. But, really, nobody is particularly afraid of spiders in that relationship.
Who loudly proclaims their love when they’re drunk: Atem, on hilarious occasions when he drinks too much wine. Of course, Yuugi never lets him hear the end of it.
In my opinion, this polyship is essentially based on patience and compassion, how about either of them for a shipping name? :^)
#puzzleshipping#avishipping#foreshipping#yugi#isis#ishtar#atem#i hope you enjoy it nevertheless!#headcanon#wow this was certainly a long reply#msbeastlyeevee
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CHARACTER SHEET
Basics
Full name: Atem
Nickname(s): The nameless pharaoh, Yugi
Title(s): Pharaoh, the king of games (loses it when he is defeated by Yugi), 1st placements awards in DM tournaments (Duelists kingdom, Battle city, Grand prix. It all is given to Yugi once he leaves)
Gender: Cis male
Height: 5′0 ft / 1,50 meters
Age: 16 (technically +3000 years old, but he never aged since his death)
Zodiac: Gemini
Spoken languages: Native at an an ancient dialect used in Egypt during his life. He fluently speaks Japanese, and speaks english with a certain degree of accent.
Physical characteristics
Hair color: It used to be entirely black, as time went on the red ends and golden hairlocks appeared on him. It was a slow, and downright terrifying process.
Eye color: Bright vividly purple eyes
Body type: Bulky, his arms are his most toned up- muscular parts of his body.
Voice: Marcelo Campos (brazilian portugue dub’s VA)
Dominant hand: Right
Posture: A neutral expression on his face, while both arms are crossed over his chest as he stands straight up.
Scars: N/A, if he had any at some point they have long since been lost.
Tattoos: N/A
Birthmarks: N/A
Most noticeable feature(s): His hair, both due to his outlandish style and bright colors.
Childhood
Place of birth: Egypt
Hometown: The city has long since been reduced to ruins, amongst so many others found throughout the desert
Birth weight/height: Below average, he had a rather fragile health at his birth- first few months of life
First words: Papo
Siblings: None, this was an oddity for the time period. But given how difficult it had been to have him as it was, his parents stopped trying after his birth.
Parents: Aknamkanon passed away when Atem was 13 years old, his soul currently resides in the afterlife. His mother on the other hand, outlived both her spouse and son. Her soul has moved on to other lives.
Parental involvement: Early in Atem’s life he was very dependent of his mother, for his survival. But once he hit a certain age, his mother did a complete 180- and left him completely under Aknamkanon and other servants’ care. She never loved or connected with her child, despite him being the next heir to the throne.
Children: N/A, Atem is unable to have children on his own.
Adult life
Occupation: Pharaoh (during his life and in the afterlife), student (while residing Yugi’s body).
Current residence: The royal palace (life and afterlife realm), the Kama game shop (Yugi family’s residence).
Close friends: Mana, Mahad, Set and Yugi.
Good Friends: Modern world folks (Anzu, Jounouchi, Honda, Kaiba, Mokuba, Otogi, etc.)
Relationship status: Taken by priest Set
Financial status: Wealthy (as a pharaoh), middle-working class (while inhabiting Yugi’s body)
Criminal record: N/A
Sex & romance
Sexual orientation: Bisexual, there is no clear preference for either gender
Preferred emotional role: Submissive | Dominant | Switch
Preferred sexual role: Submissive | Dominant | Switch
Libido: It comes and goes. Due to a number of reasons (the way Atem felt in regards to his body’s changes, the changes, amongst others) Atem rarely felt comfortable enough to enjoy/indulge in sex, in the way that others would have expected from him. There was an immense pressure for him to have children as early as possible. Sex has always been something that was force-fed to him, aphrodisiacs were often used to try and coerce him into sleeping with others. Because of this, Set was the only person Atem felt like he could enjoy it with.
Turn ons: Biting/spanking & scratching, pulling hair, receiving praise, taller partners.
Turn offs: Breeding/talk about having kids, that is his biggest turn off.
Love language: Whispering sweet-nothings, tracing a finger over his partner’s body, etc
Relationship tendencies: Very monogamous, he doesn’t like the idea at all of sharing- having anyone eyeing his loved one. It doesn’t take much at all, for Atem to develop jealousy in an unhealthy way.
Miscellaneous
Character’s theme song(s):
Hobbies to pass time: Playing games, trying/learning new things, spending time with his pets, hanging out with his friends.
Mental illnesses: N/A
Physical illnesses: N/A
Left or right brained: Left
Fears: The well-being of his friends and loved oness. Coming to the conclusion that all his bonds with those around him only exist due to his powers’ influence.
Self-confidence level: He is most certainly a lot more confident, when compared to Yugi. But that doesn’t mean, he is free from any form of insecurity. Atem simply deals with them in a different way, and doesn’t let them show.
Vulnerabilities: He can be a little too overconfident, lack sympathy for a handful of people, his pride.
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Puzzleshipping: In the Dark of the Night
(This story contains depictions of an anxiety attack brought on by memories regarding fear of the dark and slight claustrophobia. If any of these is a trigger for you, PLEASE be careful while reading this.)
Summary: Sometimes, Atem’s fears and insecurities get the best of him, no matter how much he tries not to dwell on them. Luckily for him, Yugi will always be there to put his mind at ease.
[Also read on AO3!]
The light is slowly fading away. The darkness surrounds him, closing in on him, suffocating him. He wants to fight it, he tries to catch a glimpse of the dwindling light far ahead but it’s gone before he can latch on to it, a flickering candle snuffed out in a storm, and the darkness is stronger than him, it has always been. It wraps its cold hands around him and he tries to run, to escape from it, but he can’t, he can’t, and he falls to his knees and shivers at the cold crawling under his skin and the darkness steals the very breath from his lungs and it laughs at him, it laughs at him and whispers in his ear, You silly little boy, thinking you have a right to be in this world when you shouldn’t even be breathing, you shouldn’t even be alive—
Atem jerks awake with a choked-off gasp, the sheet he covered himself with before going to sleep now twisted around his legs. He’s still gasping, he feels like he can’t take enough air, like the darkness is still trying to squeeze the life out of him, and he desperately turns his head and looks around, hoping that he’s not in the nightmare anymore, hoping with all his might to see—
Light.
Moonlight.
It streams into Yugi’s room through the skylight, bathing Atem’s surroundings in different hues of blue. He can see the room he’s in and perfectly recognize every single thing within his line of vision, every single thing within the four walls around him—the things that make this place real. He can see the clock on the bed’s headboard, the desk (along with his phone and a small box on top of it) and its chair next to the bed, the books and movies and board games resting on the shelves beside the desk, the closet in front of him, the mirror next to it…
Atem kicks the sheet off him and shakily gets to his feet, only to climb on the chair of Yugi’s desk and sit with his knees pulled in towards himself. He reaches for the box on the desk and opens it with trembling fingers, gently taking out a small plastic battery-powered night light in the shape of a Kuriboh. He presses the On button and watches as the plastic Kuriboh casts a soft, yellowish glow around his fingers.
Without entirely realizing he’s doing it, Atem brings a hand up to his chest, expecting to find a chain around his neck and the weight of a broken golden pendant that was once comforting to him. There is no chain, though, and there is no Millennium Puzzle, either—no Millennium Puzzle to keep his soul trapped inside its infinite maze any longer.
For a few precious seconds, Atem feels his heartbeat steady, and he thinks to himself, It’s okay, you’re okay, you’re safe, I’m safe.
But his mind has played tricks on him before, making him see what he wants to see only to take it all away when he least expects it. He doesn’t want to blink and suddenly find himself back in the never-ending darkness, feel it like a noose around his throat, feel its claws wrapping around his legs and arms and tugging him back towards the shadows—
Atem places the night light back on the desk and reaches almost blindly for his phone, which rests next to the box of the Kuriboh night light. As soon as his fingers close around it, he searches for Yugi’s name in his list of recent calls, finding it at the very top; they talked earlier today and then again before bed. Even though he knows Yugi will answer despite how late it is, his thumb hovers above his name.
Yugi’s been away for the past week and a half promoting his very first game, soon-to-be-released thanks to the game’s joint development with KaibaCorp. While their time spent apart hasn’t been easy on either of them, Atem knows that this is Yugi’s dream, that Yugi is proud of what he’s accomplished and happy that he gets to share his work with the world, and Atem feels that same pride and happiness for Yugi multiplied tenfold.
He also knows that the press conferences Yugi has to give leave him absolutely exhausted at the end of the day, goodness, Atem could hear it in his voice when they talked earlier, and he needs all the rest he can get for tomorrow. Yugi deserves a good night’s sleep. Atem shouldn’t bother him with this, with his silly doubts and his ridiculous thoughts and his stupid, stupid, stupid childish fears, he shouldn’t be so selfish.
But.
Atem presses Yugi’s name and then holds the phone to his ear.
It rings once. Twice. It rings a third time.
He’s about to hang up—and pretend that the late call was an accident, if Yugi were to ever question him about it—when Yugi answers shortly after the fourth ring, and Atem tries to ignore the way his breath catches in his throat, he’s so relieved.
“Hey,” Yugi greets him, his voice thick with sleepiness yet bright and beautiful as always. “What’s up?” he asks, and Atem is determined not to make a big deal out of this, to simply say that he had a bad dream and he knew talking to Yugi would make him feel better. And, really, that’s just a sugar-coated version of what actually happened, so he wouldn’t technically be lying.
Except…
He’s quiet for such a long time that Yugi speaks again. “Atem?” He does it so softly, so worriedly, so lovingly that Atem’s resolve breaks right then and there.
“Aibou,” he practically sobs, exhaling the old nickname in a shaky breath, like it’s the last word he’ll ever say. He closes his eyes and bites his lip, trying to hold back the tears that threaten to choke him. He fails miserably, and a few tears spill over his eyes and down his cheeks.
He already regrets this.
For a moment, Yugi’s silent on the other end of the line, and the only sound in the room is Atem’s heavy breathing as he struggles to keep himself together.
“Sit up straight and take a deep breath,” Yugi says, gently, “and hold it in.” It’s only now that Yugi mentions it that Atem realizes he’s curled into himself on the chair, as if the ceiling were about to fall on top of him. He forces himself to sit up against the chair’s backrest and inhale through his nose. Then he holds the air in.
“One,” Yugi begins counting. “Two. Three. Four.”
Atem exhales through his mouth. He takes another deep breath, holds the air in, and when he lets this one out, he notices just how tense his entire body is, how tight his muscles are. He relaxes his shoulders, pushes his legs to the ground and scoots to the edge of the chair so that he can press the soles of his feet to the floor beneath him. The next breath he takes comes a little easier than the last, like his lungs have more space to expand inside his chest.
The tears have stopped, but he still feels them lingering behind his eyes, feels the sobs burning deep in his throat. He wipes at his nose, sniffling.
“Can you tell me some of the things you see?” Yugi asks. Atem wipes his eyes with his sleeve and glances around the room.
“I see the books on your desk,” he starts, clearing his throat. “The clock above the bed. Your GameBoy on the shelves. Mine next to it. The board games, your movie collection…” He looks up at the skylight. “The sky.”
“Can you describe it?”
Atem focuses on the sight in front of him. “The moon is smaller than it was last night, but it’s mostly clear. Just a few clouds here and there.” The clouds he sees aren’t enough to cover the stars, and he tries to find the constellations Yugi taught him when they went stargazing a few months ago, including the silly ones they made up.
“How about some things you can touch?” Yugi prompts next.
“The chair,” Atem responds immediately. He reaches out to touch every object he lists to Yugi. “The desk. The Kuriboh night light you gave me. Its box. My phone. The floor.” He gets up from the chair and climbs back into the bed, sitting cross-legged on top of it. He presses the palm of his hand flat against the sheets beneath him, focusing on how the fabric feels against his skin. “The bed,” he says, “and the sheets.”
Atem takes one last deep breath, exhaling it as slowly as he possibly can, and it’s like he exhales the tension in his body along with it, like he’s pushing it out of him until there’s nothing left of it. It makes him light-headed, and he collapses back onto the bed, stretching his legs out in front of him.
“Better?” Yugi asks him, and Atem nods, even though he knows Yugi can’t see him. His head is pounding and his throat is still burning and his eyes just hurt, but at least he can breathe again. The light from the plastic Kuriboh seems brighter now, almost bright enough to envelope the entire room in its yellowish glow.
“Better,” he answers, and he actually means it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Yugi says, his voice light and soft and soothing wonderful. Atem is about to apologize for waking him up, for bothering him because of a stupid nightmare, but Yugi seems to read his mind somehow, because the next thing he says is, “Just because I’m not there doesn’t mean you have to deal with this on your own.”
Atem knows that. He knows it, he does, it’s just…
He just forgets, sometimes, that his thoughts and feelings are valid, that his fears are valid—that if something scares him or makes him uneasy or simply bothers him one way or another, it’s not stupid, no matter how much it might seem like it.
He knows this. He just has trouble believing it sometimes.
But he’s getting there, at least.
“Sorry for waking you, though.”
Yugi sighs heavily, but Atem recognizes that the way he does it is in mock annoyance, and it’s not directed at him. “No, don’t worry. I don’t know if things are set up or not in here, but I’ve been hearing people shouting to move things this way or the other and to do this and that for the past two hours…” Then he groans in actual annoyance. “I swear I dreamed that they were still running around the entire place during tomorrow’s press conference.”
Atem laughs, his entire body shaking with it. “I bet Kaiba would have a stroke.”
“I’m almost sure he actually did in the dream,” Yugi says, and the seriousness in his voice just makes Atem laugh harder. “Then again, there was also a giant hot dog stand in the corner of the room, so don’t take my word for it.”
“Oh, wow,” Atem chuckles, his arm resting across his stomach as he stares up at the ceiling. “Wouldn’t that be something.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Yugi mumbles pensively, like he’s picturing it in his head. “I might ask for one next time. ‘Sorry, Kaiba, but no hot dog stand, no press conference.’”
Atem laughs again, trying to imagine how that scenario would end up. There are stranger things Kaiba has done, so perhaps it wouldn’t be so impossible to achieve. “Let me know how that goes.”
“You bet I will,” Yugi agrees with a soft laugh of his own. “For now, I better let you get back to sleep.”
As soon as the word sleep comes out of Yugi’s mouth, Atem feels his eyelids drooping closed, and he’s overcome by a yawn so big that it makes his ears pop.
Oh. Wow. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was.
“I should do the same,” Atem says. “Let you get back to sleep, I mean. You’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
“Ugh,” Yugi groans, though it becomes a chuckle in the end. “Don’t remind me. I love this, and I love what it stands for and what it means, and there’s a part of me that still can’t believe this is happening, you know? But I also can’t wait to get back home.”
Atem smiles to himself. “I know,” he says, holding himself back from adding, I can’t wait for you to get back home, either.
He knows that Yugi knows it.
“Well, then,” Yugi begins, and Atem can practically hear the smile on his voice. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget to tell Kaiba about the hot dog stand,” he reminds him, grinning at the laugh Yugi lets out. “And good luck on the press conference. You’ll do amazing.”
“Ah, thank you,” says Yugi. “And I won’t forget, don’t worry. Goodnight, Atem.”
“Goodnight, Yugi,” he replies. “I love you.”
Through the phone, Yugi exhales a hum of contentment. “I love you, too.”
They both hang up at the same time, and Atem sits up only long enough to place his phone back on the desk before he lies back down, staring intently at the ceiling.
With one of his arms still across his stomach, he brings his other hand up to his chest and rests it atop his heart and… and he lets himself feel his heartbeat. He focuses on the pulse beneath his palm, the pulse beneath his skin, beating against his chest and showing him that he’s alive, alive, so alive.
Ba-thump. Ba-thump. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
Atem knows this won’t be the last time he has the same nightmare. This won’t be the last time something will make him believe he’s back in the Millennium Puzzle, trapped and locked inside the never-ending darkness for eternity.
But right now, he reminds himself that he’s here.
He’s not trapped inside the Millennium Puzzle anymore.
He’s free.
He’s here.
He’s alive.
And right now, that’s all that matters.
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Jounouchi for the meme
The moment I loved him most:
I mean, it’s really hard to pick a singular moment. He has so many moments where he is absolutely incredible and shines (in the manga at least). Here are a handful of my favorite moments wherein I loved him to pieces, in no order save for that which they come to me:
When he was bound by his wrists in Hirutani’s warehouse (“execution grounds”), beaten and bleeding, about to be tortured via 200,000 volt stun guns, and yet still found it within himself to mouth off and talk back (and to try to fight back, too; he knocked one of the gang members out cold with a single kick, despite being restrained).
When he gave his speech during Death-T about how he used to hate himself until the moment when he returned the piece of the Millennium Puzzle he stole, and then reassured Yuugi that he would never give up on him.
When he fought with the blade of a knife in his mouth and won.
When he went to rescue Jouji during Death-T despite not liking the kid, because it was the right thing to do. (See also: How he managed to avoid being sliced to pieces and won that match despite holding said baby in his arms the entire time.)
When he, despite having shards of glass in his eyes, punched Hirutani right the fuck off the warehouse roof.
When he felled Bandit Keith with one punch to the solar plexus after he woke up to find Bandit Keith kicking Yuugi around.
When he declared that he would “crawl through mud to protect what’s important [to him]” while thinking of Shizuka after Yuugi, because of Atem, was ready to refuse Mai’s star chips in Duelist Kingdom.
Related, but when he promised that he would knock the fuck out of Atem if Atem ever made Yuugi feel inferior again. (Which is a misguided promise since Yuugi and Atem share the same body, but it’s the thought that counts.)
When he stayed behind in the Black Crown fire and thought about how he would stand on the edge of the River Styx with Yuugi, but wouldn’t let him cross over, and then proceeded to carry him OUT of that fire.
How he bucked the Millennium Rod’s / Malik’s control over him through sheer force of will, and was already resisting it before Yuugi and the others even showed up.
How he tried to sacrifice himself to save Yuugi at the pier, and was straight up willing to die to do it.
How he stood up after being struck by lightning summoned by an Egyptian God, apparently fine, even before he realized what he was doing.
How he came back to life after being killed by an Egyptian God during a Shadow Game through sheer force of will.
How he believed in Yuugi 100% during the Ceremonial Duel, even when all the others---including Yuugi’s own grandpa---were sure that Atem would have the upperhand or win.
Like . . . there are a lot of moments. It’s really hard to choose just one.
The moment I hated him most:
There are times in the early manga when he is not only a perv (as Yuugi is as well), but when he crosses into straight up sexual harassment territory, and that is really not cool and I hate it a whole helluva lot. The two most notable times are when he and Honda lift Anzu’s skirt in the third chapter (she rightfully decks him for that), and a time in a later chapter where some girls shriek about him chasing them underwater in the pool. It’s a really gross character trait that thankfully only happened in those two little background scenes and was dropped after that, so I like to just ignore they ever happened, but I really hate them and wish Takahashi hadn’t included them at all (especially since he seemed to have done so as a joke, like---sexual harassment isn’t fucking funny, Takahashi, knock it the hell off).
The moment I understood him most:
Again, there is a lot to go on here, and it’s hard to pick one or two moments, because it’s more traits of Jounouchi’s character that I understand and relate to more than anything else. But to try and narrow it down:
Jounouchi has extremely low self-esteem (again, in Death-T he straight up says that he hated himself and never liked himself until he befriended Yuugi), and this tends to manifest whenever he perceives that he failed at something, or didn’t understand something right away. Examples include when Shizuka sent him her videotape, and he didn’t immediately have the money on-hand to pay for her surgery; when Atem gave him the “something in plain sight, but you can’t see it” riddle during his duel with Mai and he didn’t understand what Atem meant right away; and the aftermath of the pier duel, because of the pain and near death it put Yuugi through. In each of these cases, Jounouchi immediately falls back on ripping himself apart with self-degredation and verbal abuse, calling himself all sorts of names (rotten, worthless, stupid, et cetera). Even though it’s perfectly understandable that he wouldn’t have the millions of yen needed to pay for Shizuka’s surgery because he is a sixteen-year-old boy (and the sole breadwinner of his household due to the fact that his father is an unemployed alcoholic with a gambling addiction), he still feels like a completely worthless person. Even though he was only just given the riddle and hadn’t yet given himself time to figure out what Atem was trying to tell him, he called himself a rotten brother who was too stupid to figure it out, and was going to fail Shizuka therefore. Even though it was Malik’s fault for using dark magic to control him (that he shouldn’t have even been able to shake off!!), and handcuffing him and Yuugi to the pier, Jounouchi still blamed himself for being weak and worthless. Again, these are immediate reactions; his first impulse in situations where he feels that he has failed (especially if he feels he has failed the ones he loves) are to tear himself apart. He defaults to calling himself worthless and stupid. And I get that, I understand it, because I’m very much the same way. I do the exact same thing, even if I don’t verbalize it like he does, and instead just keep it internal. I don’t mean to do it, it just happens. They’re intrusive thoughts that, after so many years, have been hardwired into me . . . and I feel that it’s the same thing for Jounouchi, it’s just that he’s expressing those intrusive thoughts out loud. Moreover, I feel that his come from the same place mine do, which is years and years of abuse (especially since we know that his father is both physically and verbally abusive, given the scene in chapter eleven, and Hirutani was the same way; there’s no doubt that Jounouchi’s intrusive thoughts are just repeating things he grew up hearing). So I really understand him in those moments.
To that end, though Jounouchi does often verbalize those thoughts (I should specify that it’s often, because his self-drag after not being able to figure out Atem’s riddle right away was all internal), he also very, very, very often keeps his personal struggles to himself. He doesn’t share information about his home life with the others unless he’s forced to. He had only ever brought Honda to his apartment once, “a long time ago,” and never again after that due to how his dad is. Yuugi and Anzu only visited the apartment because Honda brought them there. They only found out about Shizuka’s eyes because he played the video tape with all of them there, unaware that it was even from Shizuka (he thought it was from Pegasus---it makes sense in context), and so on and so forth. Jounouchi keeps the darker parts of his life separate from his friends and loved ones. He doesn’t feel comfortable sharing those parts of himself, and he also doesn’t want to burden those he cares about. And again, I get that, because I’m very much the same way (and likely, again, for the same reasons). Even when it’s detrimental to him, Jounouchi has a difficult time reaching out to others when it comes to that part of his life. He gets better as the series goes on (how he opens up to Anzu and Sugoroku about wanting to win strength for Shizuka in Battle City is a point to this), but it’s still a struggle for him. And I get it.
Lastly, he has a tendency to take responsibility for everything on his own shoulders. He’s a teenage boy, and he was a child when his mother abandoned him with his abusive, alcoholic father, yet he took up responsibility for getting jobs to pay the bills straightaway, getting a special exemption due to his situation to do it and everything. He definitely doesn’t have a good relationship with his father, but he not only takes on the financial burden, but also the emotional burden by thinking to himself that if he can earn the money to pay off his father’s debts, they can “start over” and have a relationship “like a real father and son” --- i.e. if he can just do this one right thing, his father won’t abuse him anymore. That’s not how it should be---it’s his dad’s fault---but that’s not how Jounouchi sees it. Jounouchi also sees himself as responsible for Shizuka’s eyes, both in getting the money to pay for her surgery, and for “giving her courage” to take off her bandages. This is another instance of self-degredation, because when Shizuka expresses that she’s too scared to remove her bandages, Jounouchi immediately assumes it’s because he’s weak and can’t give her the courage to do so. This aspect of his, to immediately assume responsibility and feel guilt and shame, is another part of him that I can understand and relate to . . . for, again, likely the same reasons. He’s a very relatable character in this regard.
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on fathers and sons - an index of YGO abuse narratives
When discussing Noa’s arc, it seems like people place a lot of emphasis on this moment and declaration from Seto:
It’s a very stark and strong moment - Seto’s rejection of Gouzaburou, and I think it’s right to take this into account. But I think maybe we should be putting just as much, if not more weight, in the sequences in Noa’s arc following this. Particularly in the structure of Seto and Noa’s duel:
Make no mistake. This is a duel set up to run on Gouzaburou’s terms. Seto and Noa are fighting in the understanding that there’s only one living body between them, and the winner will have proven themselves superior and the rightful heir to Kaiba Corp. They are fighting for the right to Gouzaburou’s legacy, and the loser will be left behind in VR. To Lose is to Die.
Continued under the cut:
Noa believes he has the upper hand, both because he was born and bred for this job. And because he outstripped the boundaries of humanity when his mental capacities were enhanced living in VR.
Seto is not impressed with this line of reasoning.
Not only did Seto put in the hard work and struggle to inherit Kaiba Corp. Noa’s already dead. He’s already lost once by Gouzaburou’s terms. Seto accepts the challenge to duel in the understanding that Noa was the loser once, and a loser once is a loser always.
...Both ultimately betray Gouzaburou’s teachings during this duel - Noa by cheating, and Seto by both admitting there are things more important than his own life on the line here in deciding to save Mokuba, and in Atem helping him finish the duel after he’s petrified. (Notably the BC final duel also subverts Seto’s expectations for loss, in Atem’s ability to find a method to save Malik’s life in their shadow game.)
But before that moment of truth, you’ve certainly got a lot of trash talk, some of which seems to betray certain line of reasoning from Seto.
[Insert long speech about the value of humans having to struggle against the chaos of the real world versus this VR of Noa’s creation.]
“Of course Gouzaburou loved me more! Gouzaburou must have been confused if he even considered that you might bet the better or superior compared to me! How pathetic of either of you to even doubt! He acknowledged me as superior - and the result of duel is going to prove him right!”
Okay, I’m being hyperbolic but, contrary to what you’d believe from the first set of caps, I think what Seto says here, combined with the circumstances surrounding this duel, betray a certain amount of Seto deeply desiring recognition and acknowledgement from Gouzaburou. Or at least recognition and acknowledgement for having the qualities that Gouzaburou would have valued.
I’ve seen people pan the direction of this arc, and Noa as a villain, specifically on this basis. Seto should, in theory, not care about what Gouzaburou thought, and thus not care about stomping out Noa’s desire to prove himself the worthy son. Gouzaburou was his abuser, no real parent to Seto, and therefore Seto should not care. And, make no mistake, I think Seto’s hatred for his stepfather is clearly documented.
But I’m going to defend how Noa’s arc frames this conflict and Noa as a villain, and the idea that Seto may have feelings regarding Gouzaburou that are rooted in a desire for acknowledgement and affection. There is very little of Gouzaburou in manga canon, nothing that would generally suggest Seto having any conflicting fond feelings for him - although I think the fact that Seto continues to make decisions to build and destroy duel towers in the memory of Gouzaburou might be indicative of the fact that he cares a little too much.
But the reason I think this is a particularly good extrapolation from manga canon, is that it matches the themes we see in REPEATEDLY in the narratives of abuse that ygo offers to us.
I’m sure you’re aware that the surplus of absentee and abusive dads in DM, it’s… a bit of a joke. Even for characters for which you can assume a somewhat normal family life, such as Anzu and Honda, there’s a kind of sense in the story of a lack of presence from their parents. Which I would expect in a manga filled to the brim with ~adventure~ How are the characters gonna pile onto ships and blimps and go traipsing off to Egypt if their parents are always bugging them about school?
Well, I guess Yuugi has somehow managed to make it onto ships and blimps even with his mom bugging him about school…
There are multiple layers to this – The fact that absentee dads have become a norm in Japan given the increasing demands of corporate life. The fact that in a measure of personal experience a dead parent is much the same as an absent one – but dead parents make for better narrative drama. The fact that we never see Atem and his father together and are instead relayed an inherently biased posthumous recollection of their relationship. And the fact that there’s a kind of woefully imbalanced attribution of certain roles onto certain demographics of character. On that last point – I think it’s telling that, as a whole, it’s elder male children that are victimised in Takahashi’s narratives of family. It’s telling that mothers have an even smaller presence in Yu-Gi-Oh than fathers (and that when Yuugi’s mom hits him with a ladle up there, it’s framed as a joke). And it’s telling that father-daughter relationships are also very poorly defined. I’m going to give Shizuka a pass given the discrepancy in hers and Katsuya’s living situations, but I think it’s a pretty huge oversight that Isis’s relationship with her father is as unexplored as it is. (If I’m being brutally honest, I don’t think Takahashi empathises enough with his female characters to understand how they might, also, be deeply unhinged or affected by trauma.)
But, although I can critique the way Takahashi repeatedly approaches this same narrative – the narrative of a young man at odds with a cruel, violent, and single-minded father – I can’t help but love it, as I am perpetually surprised and enamoured with the amount of understanding, empathy, and realism Takahashi allows to his victims. This cuts in a lot of different ways, but there is one aspect that I particularly appreciate:
He not only understands that it’s normal for abused children to be angry and vengeful, but that it’s also normal for them to care about their parents regardless and to desire reconciliation with them, no matter how unlikely or misguided. And they are not shamed for it.
--
Jounouchi ended up being the prototype for this character in ygo canon, although these threads were dropped by the time the card game started. We see the gang caught of guard by an attack meant for Jounouchi.
And Honda confirms this behaviour is typical of Jounouchi’s dad.
But when we see Jounouchi’s attitude towards his dad, it’s warm and full of forgiveness. He enters a game show with the intention of winning money to pay off his father’s debts-
-specifically on the hopes that, by winning, he’ll be able to repair their relationship, and live together happily.
--
Gouzaburou was introduced next into the narrative, but Otogi and his father followed not far after.
Otogi’s father, Mr Clown, hits and berates him.
But, even so, Otogi continues to seek revenge on his father’s behalf.
And, beyond that, he’s very mild and apologetic.
Even when he’s pushing back against his dad, he’s apologising. This is framed as a harsh moment of rebellion - one that shocks Mr Clown - but all Otogi does is disobey his father’s request, and snatch the puzzle’s chain from his hand. And he’s still apologising while doing so. I think it goes to show how uncharacteristic it is for Otogi to express any harshness towards his father.
And, even when Mr Clown renounces Otogi as his son-
We see Otogi afterwards (on Jounouchi’s urging) hurry to cradle his father in his arms and and lead him to safety, and away from the fire that’s started in the Black Clown game shop.
But maybe the most persuasive show of Otogi’s desire to reconcile with his dad, is that he succeeds. They seem to be on good terms in Darkside of Dimensions, have opened a new business at the shopping plaza together.
--
I think Malik embodies this pattern most completely though. His abuse is portrayed with imagery more gruesome than the other characters on this list. His father’s whip, and the scars that were carved onto his back.
I’ve seen people operate under the impression his beef with the Pharaoh has to do with being confined to life underground, or having his back mutilated as part of the tombkeeper ritual, or for twisting his father’s personality into something terrible. I’m not going to say that those could not also be factors in Malik’s motivations. But the primary motivation for his behaviour in BC, is textually that he believes the Pharaoh’s spirit is responsible for killing the father that he loved. And being unable to accept the fact that the father he loved was also the father he hated enough to kill himself.
(Also, wow, panels that make much more sense after DSoD. If Bakura was surprised because Shada reappeared despite having been killed 3000 years ago, why was he not surprised to see modern incarnations of Isis and Set. Except in addition to killing Shada, he also killed Shadi ~5 years ago. Now his surprise makes sense.)
But, yeah, this vein is carried through to the end of Malik’s story arc. He’s not able to forgive himself for killing his father, no matter how abusive or terrible, he’s only able to decide, with encouragement from Rishid, that it’s preferable to keep on living.
Anyhow, insofar as Seto goes, as I’ve said, there’s scant evidence to draw from regarding his feelings about Gouzaburou. But I think it’s prudent to consider, as with the rest of these characters, his feelings are probably not limited to disdain. According to Takahashi’s commentary, Seto does consider Gouzaburou a father and is has been deeply haunted by his involvement in Gouzaburou’s downfall and death. Taking it a step further, it’s entirely likely that, he feels some form of fondness for his lost parent. No matter how misguided and futile such feelings would be.
#Kaiba Seto#Kaiba Noa#Jounouchi Katsuya#Otogi Ryuuji#Malik Ishtar#Kaiba Gouzaburou#Hank Ishtar#why is my tag for malik's dad 'hank ishtar' it's undermining how overly gd serious this post is#meta#DeLurk words the meta#save me from this card game hell#cw: abuse#i pulled these caps from here and there and everywhere#the Otogi ones I took pictures of myself which is why they're so bad#but thanks again @nenya for getting me the ones for the YBakura & YMalik duel and of Seto in front of the duel tower#i'm so sick of this post. i refuse to look at it any longer.#*sends out for other ppl to look at instead*
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Two thoughts:
1) How far we’ve come from pushing people off cliffs!
2) Jokes aside, either this is character development for Other Yugi, or it’s actually not, because there’s a big difference between Kaiba and Ryou - Kaiba made the choice himself to put his life on the line, whereas Other Yugi knows Ryou did not. It was Bakura/Malik the leather-pant stealing terrible twosome.
Everyone and their grandpa has tried dissecting Other Yugi’s worst decisions (vs Kaiba in duelist kingdom and Orichalcos, respectively), and I hadn’t meant to when I started making this post, so it’s not a clean read, but looks like I took a stab at it anyway.
Other Yugi has never been careless with innocent lives, even in the beginning. I think that if the same situation arose in Duelist Kingdom as in Battle City, he still would not have been able to attack Ryou, despite the pressure of rescuing Grandpa.
He could do it to Kaiba, because Kaiba had made the decision himself. He didn’t want to, but essentially he let Kaiba make the rules, in his haste to win and move on to Pegasus. He didn’t feel responsibility for Kaiba the way Yugi did when he stopped the duel. Even if it was Kaiba’s own will, Yugi couldn’t accept that will, and was willing to lose and bet that there would be other chances to reach his goal in the future. Other Yugi will always accept another duelist’s will, seeing it as a form of respect and pride. But on top of that “pride” there was impatience to fight Pegasus, there was pressure to constantly win, there was guilt for losing to Pegasus the first time, and there was fear of failing everyone.
We see it in his very next duel: Other Yugi doesn’t seem rattled at all by what happened with Kaiba, but Mai pinpoints and drags out his weakness effortlessly, because, as she says, she’d just had to do that herself after losing to Jounouchi. If you are paying attention, you’ll see that Other Yugi, for all his bravado, is very afraid a lot of the time. Mai points out that fear, and that’s when Other Yugi realizes it was Omote Yugi who had true courage to face even failure.
It seems to me that some fans, or at the very least the ones who like to write fanfiction, equate Other Yugi’s fear of failure with him not wanting a blow to his pride. Nearly ever ygo fic I’ve ever read has gone out of its way to describe Other Yugi as “arrogant.” I can find very little basis for that (including in the anime! Where he himself describes himself as arrogant - but first of all, it was in regards to an incident, not an overall character descriptor - and second, the fact that he is able to worry about things like whether he’s evil or arrogant etc shows that, guess what, he’s not! But he is afraid and he let fear cloud his judgment. That was his arrogance in both the battle with Kaiba and with Raphael: thinking he could surpass his fear without facing it.
If he had faced it, accepted the idea of failure, maybe he would have realized, as Yugi did, that there may still be other chances. Or, at the very least, that the people he was trying to save wouldn’t want to be saved at such a cost. If he had accepted his fear, he wouldn’t have played Orichalcos, he wouldn’t have fallen for Raphael’s mind games. Raphael was able to worm into his mind because he knew exactly what would hurt Other Yugi the most - discovering that he was evil.
Other Yugi very brave but also very afraid of breaking things. He doesn’t understand the power of the Puzzle, or anything about his past, and everything around him must appear so fragile. In the chapter before this one, Other Yuugi wonders if he is the same as Bakura. Yugi tries to show him he’s not by essentially saying Other Yugi has earned his partner’s trust and good will. Omote Yugi has self esteem issues in that he never notices his own inner strength and courage and is often afraid to put himself out there. But he doesn’t question the things he believes in, which is why, in spite of his anxieties, he always does what he feels is right. Other Yugi has no trouble being the first or the only one to step forth, to risk his life, but he is absolutely afraid of himself.
I got off topic, so to back track, fear leads to arrogance leads to terrible decision making. But it’s not the core of who Atem is. (Which is probably who so many ygo fanfics bugs me - this is an aspect of him, his weakness, *not* the core of his character.)
As for whether this scene with Ryou is character development or not, I don’t know. I guess what I’m getting at is, real character development for him would be if he could do what Yugi could and see the world outside the duel. Probably hard since he’s essentially been left on earth for the sole purpose of constantly fighting. But we do find out much later how much Other Yugi regrets what he would have done to Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom. He can’t ever take it back, but he is so ashamed of himself. I so wish Takahashi had hashed all this out in the comic itself, instead of just dropping hints - especially since the characters in general brush off incredible violence and death like it’s nothing all the time! So you never know how seriously to take it when it happens, because Takahashi’s rewritten the rubric for what constitutes crossing the line!
(Bc I’d like to mention that in the manga, no one is even pissed off at Other Yugi over what almost happened with Kaiba. Yugi is glad he stopped him, but also upset with himself for interfering! The others are more mad that Other Yugi wouldn’t accept star chips from Mai than that he almost killed Kaiba!! Seriously!! How am I supposed to make a character forecast with weather conditions like these!! Lol but it really is because Takahashi rewrote the rubric.)
Plus, this manga has become so formulaic that it seems to be nigh impossible for any characters to have a decent conversation ever -.-; the one thing I really dislike about it.
I’ll have to come back to this and review it later and see if I feel differently.
#yugioh#i guess this is meta#ive read so many break downs of these events but ive never fully agreed with their take on atem#but ill keep reading and maybe ill change my tune well see how it goes#other yuugi
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Screw it, I'm asking Malik Ishtar for the meme thing! (Only if you want to, of course...)
THANK YOU :D
How I feel about this character:
My secret favourite!!! I think I tend to likecharacters that are all about BIG UGLY EMOTIONS, and Malik is a lot of those,lol. For me, he’s an effective villain – both really terrible and really understandably so. I think the way he gets so energetic about pursuing the God Cards and the Pharaoh, and then gets in over his head and has to abandon ship on his own revenge, and then continues to see through his role as tombkeeper because he’s just so worn out from trying to fight it – aaaaagh! It’s so upsettingly believable.
In terms of characterisation, he’s floating around brilliant but lazy territory for me. He’s intelligent, but also an idiot, andalso all he really wants to do is ride around on his bike and sleep alone inhis room and live comfortably. He’s capable, but not very ambitious. Not much of a visionary, lol.
All the people I ship romantically with this character:
Ryou. Yuugi. Shizuka.
…well that was a very short list for me. I can also enjoy theifshipping to a certain degree, although I’m not really very interestedin it as a postcanon or endgame ship. And the potential for Malik’s torture ofMai to be sexualised is something I think is both interesting and not that farfrom its canon presentation – so I guess that may count as shipping them insome kind of messed up way. And I guess I also I find myself conceptuallyinterested in Ishtar sibling incest, but I haven’t run into any that treats thesubject matter with the kind of tone I’d like.
More on the ships though: Malik doesn’t directly interact with Yuugi or Ryou much in canon, but both ships seem to have the ability to be about softness and healing to me. Since Ryou and Malik have both experiences a violent and upsetting possession of sorts, them coming to move past that together has the potential to be pretty sweet. And since Malik has a kind of troubled relationship with ‘the Pharaoh’, and how he feels his life has been shaped by these ancient politics, I think Yuugi’s kind of in a unique place to be able to understand both the past and Atem’s journey and his ownplace in the present to be able to help Malik contextualise that in a waythat’s meaningful to him.
And Malik & Shizuka is a nice ship if what you’re going for is exploring Shizuka’s massivedisillusionment. Leaving aside the way that a nice trip to visit yourestranged brother suddenly turned upsettingly full of ugly complicated feelings and murder, I think Malik tends towards a frankness that doesn’t sit well with Shizuka's ideals. This is a fun ship~
My non-romantic OTP for this character:
Ishtar Siblings!!! Malik’s relationship with Rishid is at once so lovely and so heartbreakingly upsetting. I think they struggle to find the balance between how they see each other as siblings and how they see each other in this hierarchy of master and subordinate – the way they come through for each other at the end of the story is just so touching. And Malik and Isis aren’t as close, but I like that their conflicting values, and understanding of their responsibilities, don’t compromise their love and the desire to protect one another. Ishtar Siblings!!!
I also like Malik & Yuugi & Ryou as a BrOTP. And I have a strange interest in Malik & Jou broing out or coming to realise they can’t bro out because he murdered you and tortured your best lady friend postcanon.
My unpopular opinion about this character:
I’m not really sure what constitutes an unpopular opinion regarding Malik, but I have several that might count.
(1) The Millennium Rod only exacerbated problems hewas already having due to the effects of trauma and a shaky headspace. YamiMalik is the product of Dissociative Identity Disorder in relationship to Borderline Personality Disorder, and exists in a reactionary way to Malik rather than being a distinct person.
(2) He’s about as culturally Egyptian as your standard Amish person can be considered culturally American. (Or, idk, I think the Hutterites are a more apt comparison in a number of ways, if I’m sticking to offshoots of Christianity. More research on different religions is needed but, in terms of daily living, you can take all sorts of cues about the tombkeepers from different isolationist religious “cults”.)
(3) He’s a deadly serious character really –cerebral and ponderous. His sense of humour is along the lines of dry andsarcastic, rather than laugh-out-loud.
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:
I ALSO WISH THE ISHTARS HAD BEEN IN DSOD THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!
I think it would have made sense to mention them in relationship to what Seto was doing in Egypt at the very least. Seto was rooting around in Ancient Egyptian ruins that the tombkeepers had the right too, yeah? I feel like it might’ve been an interesting political/business deal he struck with the Ishtars. Maybe Isis needed money to help in the process of reintegrating the tombkeepers into above-ground society? I don’t know, but I feel like there’s a story there~
Also, it might be obvious from some of these other headcanons, but I wish the conclusion to Malik’s story had been more on the side of ‘the hate you’re feeling is valid if completely toxic’, which is why I like the idea of Yami Malik running amok in his head postcanon, even though I think the manga leaned heavily towards a canon interpretation where he was freed of Him.
my OTP:
Malik/Ryou edges out Malik/Yuugi by a little, but not by much.
my happy ending for them:
Not part of this meme, but you made me realise I wanted to write it all down~
Given my incredibly depressing diagnosis for Malik, I think managing his life will always be somewhat of a struggle. Yami Malik is probably here to stay. Malik will likely always have outbursts, and always have a cruel and violent streak. At his worst, the most I can say is that he and the people around him will be aware of the warning signs and be able to restrain him ahead of time instead of having to do so in the middle of an episode. At his best, I think Yami Malik might appear once every month or two, and just kind of storm around the house/apartment being sullen. I don’t think Yami Malik has the same kind of emotional range or needs as one would expect a completehuman to have – so he doesn’t need much more than to be acknowledged by the others and then left to his own devices. I don’t think he likes being touched, but he may someday accept a hug from Ryou or Yuugi or Isis and take a small comfort in the fact that he isn’t hated. Rishid is a lost cause, and will have to stay away during those times, because Yami Malik will without question react violently to him. I think, in a way, a direct reflection of Malik’s own desires– for his hatred and pain to be acknowledge and accepted by those around him, by all except Rishid, who Malik would most keenly like to be less hateful person for. Malik does not want Rishid to see Yami Malik, and so Yami Malik pushes Rishid away with a lot of force… potentially lethal force.
In terms of the more mundane things, I imagine Malik goes through a period where he wants to travel everywhere and see everything to kind of make up for the fact that he was confined to a dark hall his entire childhood. I think he’ll travel Africa and Europe and see more of Japan at thevery least, but who knows where his travels might take him~ But eventually Iimagine him settling down somewhere, since I don’t think his affinity fortravel is about travelling as much as its about taking in the world’s breadth.As long as he can enjoy bike rides and the wind and open sky and the company of those he likes, I think he’s fine being anywhere. He and Rishid are veryride-or-die so they’ll definitely stick together, I think. Him and Isis is moreiffy, but I’d like to see Isis and him also remain close and live close together.
In terms of a job, he’s really not into forty hour work weeks, lol. He wasn’t raised under the expectation he’d be part of a contemporary work force. And he’d additionally have trouble balancing that amount of stress with his mental healths. He’d take odd jobs here and there, or work part time in something pretty low pressure. Depending on how lucrative the limited amount of work he does is, he may or may not need to rely on his siblings or lover for support. In terms of what he does…? Tinker around a souvenir shop maybe? Or he runs errands for or does translations for the museum, through his connection with Isis?
And I don’t think he’d want kids, or make a verygood parent for that matter. He’s satisfied with being the weird uncle to his nieces and nephews.
my cross over ship:
I don’t have one, sorry~
a headcanon fact:
Hasn’t everything I’ve said thus far been me taking my own headcanons way too seriously?
Coptic, Arabic, French, Japanese. Rishid is the same, except he’s not as fluent in the last two, and also not as well studied in Ancient Egyptian scriptures. Isis is the only one of the Ishtar siblings that speaks English.
Oh, jeez, he is pretty much universally hated by his tombkeeper peers. Even when he was little he was a divisive character with how harsh and cruel he can be at times. And then he was shadily involved in the bloody murder of his father. When he left to form the Rare Hunters with Rishid, he bitterly alienated most of his extended tombkeeper family, but some of them followed him to join his crime syndicate. And then those who had followed him took poorly to the way Malik abandoned the Rare Hunters, and followed Isis back home with his tail between his legs. Literally everybody he grew up with except his siblings hates him and Malik spends the time from Battle City to the Ceremonial Duel hiding out in his room having Rishid bring him his meals because the tomb keepers are done with him and he’s done with them. And he’s technically their ‘leader’, but Isis made a bid for being de facto leader when he skipped out years earlier and, disappointed but resigned, she continues to carry the position when Malik’s returned. “She’s a great leader (even though she’s a woman),” everyone says. They all love her, lol.Rishid is more polarising, since he’s generally so mild and polite. Some of the tombkeepers see what he did as betrayal, but a lot of them view him with a sort of condescending pity and kindness - poor boy, led astray by his association with Master Malik. This makes Malik even more angry. ‘We are brothers and equals!!’ he yells. Even though he isn’t completely free of blame when it comes to treating Rishid as lesser.
Also, it’s totally canon that somewhere along the line he makes some big fuss and his criminal record from being involved with the Rare Hunters gets dragged out of the closet, and the Egyptian Government tells him to gtfo of our country… right?
#thank you again for the ask#i feel like i'm rehashing what i've already told you#but i appreciate this opportunity to let my Malik feels escape#headcanon parade#Malik Ishtar#save me from this card game hell#DeLurk words the meta#meta#ask#long post#so long...
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