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ygo5dsmonth2021 · 3 years

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Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds Month 2021 Prompts!

Your prompts for 2021! Please note, they are only a suggestion, you can make something else, AND you can always submit something late!

Day 1 (7/7): Yusei Go!

Time to kick off the next Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's month with our shooting star protagonist, Yusei Fudo! Make sure to also wish your favorite star boy happy birthday!

Day 2 (7/8): Well-Oiled Machine

This year's theme is D-Wheels/Duel Runners! Which bike is your favorite? Or what would your own custom bike look like?

Day 3 (7/9): Yin & Yang

The clash of good vs evil, equal and opposite, light and dark, is such a classic! What two sides of the same coin in this dynamic stands out to you?

Day 4 (7/10): Training Wheels

With a blast of pure, raw energy comes Rua/Leo! He might not be the best at what he does, but his determination and love for his sister is the stuff that makes us root for him!

Day 5 (7/11): Synchro Power!

Riding duels wouldn't be complete without the gorgeous, star power of synchro monsters! Which synchro makes you want to accelerate most?!

Day 6 (7/12): Driving Slow on Sunday Mornings

Everybody knows the first rule of driving is to crank up the tunes! Would that be any of the OPs or EDs or did you have another song in mind to drive by?

Day 7 (7/13): Slow & Steady

Say hello to fairy tales with Ruka/Luna's day! She's a bit on the shy side, retreating into fairy tales, but don't let that fool you! Ruka has the skills and the sarcasm to come back swinging!

Day 8 (7/14): Time for an Upgrade

5D's is a unique Yugioh series in that so many characters come chock full of awesome powers! Psychics duelists, Signer powers, and advanced synchro summoning? Which personal power upgrade is your favorite?

Day 9 (7/15): New Suits

All the characters have unique styles and outfits, but maybe you'd love to see Ruka cosplay as a fairy? Maybe Kiryu dressed as a zombie? What outfits or cosplay speak to you?

Day 10 (7/16): Pit Stop 1

Congrats! You made it to Free Day 1! Use this day to introduce yourself, throw up a quick doodle, or take a break and relax. The pit crew will take care of the rest.

Day 11 (7/17): Blackbird

Fly off into the sky with Crow, the Bullet, Hogan! He might seem rough and scrappy, but Crow also has a heart of gold that cares for kids, friends, and family. Show this bird of a feather some love!

Day 12 (7/18): Don't Game and Drive!

Of course, we wouldn't have card games on motorcycles if this were true! What's your favorite Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's video game to play when you're not driving? Legacy? Duel Links? Over the Nexus?

Day 13 (7/19): Across Land and Sea

There are so many different storylines and arcs in 5D's! Was the Fortune Cup your favorite? Maybe Crash Town? What arc speaks to you?

Day 14 (7/20): Wheel of Fortune

All hail the King, Jack Atlas! This man burst onto stage and into our hearts. Jack might be a little selfish and over the top, but he cares deeply for his friends, and, apparently, coffee.

Day 15 (7/21): Decals

Do you have some 5D's merch on hand? Maybe a commission you treasure? A keychain you've had your eye on if only you had the funds? What's some of the best merch you're happy to have out in the world?

Day 16 (7/22): Quantum Realms

In another universe... Would Aki make a great pirate? Perhaps Yusei would be a dashing swordsman? What if Crow switched place with Qrow from the RWBY universe? Whatever you come up with, enjoy AU day!

Day 17 (7/23): Bloody Kiss

Pitch dark flowers unfurl in the name of Aki Izayoi! Never underestimate this dark beauty and her thorns! Have a day to honor this Black Rose.

Day 18 (7/24): Broken Down

Our emotions can flow one way to the other. Some days we're on top of the world, and others we're at the bottom of the ocean. Our favorite characters are no exception. Will you lean into the angst or give your fave a break today?

Day 19: (7/25): You Give Bikers a Bad Name

Here's to the villains! No heroic journey would be complete without the antagonists in the way to challenge our heroes! Which villain is your favorite?

Day 20 (7/26): Pit Stop 2

Phew! Congratulations, you made it to the next Free Day! Take this day to relax, keep things lowkey, and let the pit crew take the steering wheel for a bit.

Day 21 (7/27): Delta Eagle

Obtain Clear Mind today with Bruno! He's a little bit complicated, okay, a lot complicated, but Bruno's role is certainly interesting. What do you love about this dual-life mystery man?

Day 22 (7/28): Workshopping at the Garage

What's your favorite writer, artist, editor, or cosplayer? Take this day to give each of your faves that continues to keep the fandom a live a shout out!

Day 23 (7/29): Team Spirit!

5D's is all about the teams and teamwork to get the job done! What team speaks to you most and why? Is it the snazzy uniforms?

Day 24 (7/30): Giganto L

Depression, thy middle name is Kiryu Kyosuke. This man has seen some sh*t and then some. But Kiryu has also grown through his journey, and it's time to give him the credit he deserves.

Day 25 (7/31): Bonding with Your Biker Gang

It's OC appreciation day! Does your friend have a cool OC? Did you make a self insert to join the characters in their story? Show us where your OCs fit in!

Day 26 (8/1): Life is a Highway

It's travel day! Did you just love some of the locations the characters went to? Did you wish you could have seen Misty in Paris? Or maybe Ruka traveling to Australia could be fun? Take today to make a post card or show us screenshots of the best locations in the show!

Day 27 (8/2): Intersections

Ah, intersections, like crossroads of destiny. Except today is Crossover day! Maybe you wish Team 5D's met Avatar Korra? Or what would the Sk8 anime crew do in the 5D's universe?

Day 28 (8/3): Crewmates

We can't forget the other characters out of the spotlight that make the whole show complete! Show Martha some love, or Rally! It's their turn to shine!

Day 29 (8/4): Planetary Gears

What star-crossed ships just seem to fit perfectly together? Or do you want to show off a crack ship for fun? Maybe you have an OC you ship with a Canon character? Never underestimate the love of friendship either! Today is all about love!

Day 30 (8/5): Pit Stop 3

Be proud of yourself and take a breather! You made it to the last Free Day! Use today to take a breather to make it to the final stretch and finish strong! You can do it!

Day 31 (8/6): Over the Horizon

Our last day is here, such a bittersweet ending but at least there will be next year to look forward to! Take today to look over the horizon, towards the future, hoping for better days and times together.

#ygo5ds-month-2021 #yugioh 5ds #ygo5ds #5ds #yusei fudo #crow hogan #jack atlas #bruno #antinomy #kiryu kyosuke #kalin kessler #aki izayoi #akiza izinski #rua and ruka #leo and luna

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steve0discusses · 3 years

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S5 Ep5: Female Friends

So I was up hella late because of Daylight Savings screwing my sleep schedule, and I was on Twitch and one of the people I follow was speedrunning a Yugioh game (I think it was called Forbidden Memories like it was some Romance YA novel) and I was like “that’s a thing?” And I watched about 15 minutes of just complete nonsense. Like this game makes no sense when your scrubbing through 30 minutes of gameplay, but when a whole game takes 45 seconds and they have mechanics using like planets and astrology symbols? What?

What?

Y’all, I’m a little concerned your card game ain’t real. Like this is some ploy by knowing adults and this is some sort of Santa Claus situation where everyone else knows that this game ain’t real, but I’m the last person alive who’s like... “it is real though, right?” Hoping that I haven’t been played all of these years, despite having literally no empirical evidence that it is.

Just saying, I’m on to you, Yugioh.

Thanks dub.

I am pretty convinced (could be wrong) but pretty convinced that Grandpa was probably just normal horny in this scene. Like it just kinda matches what I know about horny grandpa tropes (that and Vivian is really talked up to be this hot stuff although she’s just youknow...some girl who exists.)

He immediately falls over. Like immediately, and I don’t know what’s up with Grandpa’s weird slipped disc, but luckily this is the one thing that Mokuba is prepared to deal with as a park manager.

Or what was his job again, Master of Ceremonies? That was the name of Mokuba’s actual chosen job that a 12-13 yo would choose?

Only Mokuba would have the choice to choose “a literal astronaut” and not choose an astronaut. This kid probably hates space though, with his family’s countless war machines now currently flying through the void.

The amount of times that the Kaibas have had to call a doctor for these guys.

(read more under the cut)

Bro was like “So Hawkins paid Grandpa to pretend to fall down so they could ditch Rebecca’s duel, right?” and youknow...probably. It was a pretty boring duel. They got off scott free.

Rex and Weevil do cartoon antics that actually feel like cartoon antics--which feels so weird for this show. Of course, it also has this Vivian plotline that is a little sus for a children’s show?

OK, show. You keep throwing women at Yugi Muto, and I get it’s a joke because he’s the world’s most undateable boy but there is a line of plausibility that even for a kid’s cartoon show it’s like “eh, probably not.”

Anyway, Vivian has Cho Chang energy of “I’m here for a problematic romantic conflict that never needed to happen and hamfisted diversity and uhhhhhh that’s it! I won’t exist after book 5!”

What a step down from dueling on top of the train, right? Like this whole time you could have just dueled next to it? What? In this show?

The rest of the party show up to the train station, where there’s really no other audience watching. Like where are Rebecca’s adoring fans who were asking for her autograph like 3 episodes back?

Card culture is brutal, y’all.

Vivian is not drawn like a 16 yo, being real. I was pretty surprised that she was under 25 according to a cursory Google search. Course, Joey Wheeler is drawn like a built adult, too, so I think the only convincing teenage child on this show is Pharaoh because at least he’s short. Just ignore how sometimes he’s got muscles on his arms that have no right to be there at the age of 16. (17?)

Then we had like a little Season Zero vibes where everyone just picks on Yugi for a hot minute.

And so Tea’s character development comes full circle as she realizes that this whole time, the Female Friend she needed was already here in the form of that small child who has a crush on her kinda boyfriend.

This was such an episode written by a bunch of dudes.

But at least Rebecca and Tea found something in common, although I really wish it wasn’t Yugi, considering how little on screen development he has with either of them. Where’s the reward for me as the viewer? If I cared about either of this love pentagon at all (well, hexagon...Bakura’s still in there.) there will never be a payout. You very well may be waiting forever for a relationship the writers clearly had never any intention to ever write except to act as a foil for our protagonists instead of like...a relationship.

And the show seems a little inconsistent with the relationship between Rebecca and Tea, too. They hang out a lot as the girls on the sideline, and appear to get along a lot of the time--but then they hate eachother a lot of the time as well because of jealousy? It’s just so weird.

I feel like TV shows in general have a really hard time approaching girl friendships, and speaking as a girl, I wish TV and books recognized more that our female friendships don’t have to be so freakin serious. We just act friendly and that’s freakin it.

That and these girls are going to go right back to hating eachother half the time after this is over because the main problem--Yugi not piping up and telling one of them to back the hell off--has never been addressed and never will be because Yugi is a broken, broken wet blanket.

Back at the base, Seto is also making up his own problems to be upset about in the absence of any apocalypses happening on screen.

Unless that hacker is Noah Kaiba, you’re probably fine. I really haven’t had too much of a reason to feel any fear over Zigfried von Schroeder. And maybe it’s because his character design was pretty complicated so no one wanted to draw it.

This was a ‘who’s on first’ joke but still.

...why do cards have to be like this?

Also, I didn’t see anything about this nonsense in the speedrun I watched the other night so, guys, this game ain’t real.

Anyway, Rebecca won.

We find out a little more of what happens to other duelists. Our Cowboy lost to a Sherlock Holmes boy, and I was very happy that I don’t have to come up with jokes about country music because I have none other than like...Taylor Swift jokes? Does she still count as country? I have no idea what’s going on in the country music scene.

On other side of the park, Yugioh decide to pay another tribute to the creative crotch shot with one of these:

Rex and Weevil are off to fight the big bad, and when you think “OK, we’re gonna get a wacky duel battle with these two balancing on top of eachother,” they kinda whiffed it before they made it to the stage.

And then I kind of whiffed it when I realized that Mokuba and Weevil have never spoken in the same place before and they have the same exact font color so fml.

The fact that Mokuba didn’t realize anything was wrong until they fell and revealed they were two small adults in a trench coat says a lot about most of the competitors in this duel.

It is incredible how both the Battle City Tournament and the Kaiba Corp Tourney (s that it’s name?) are both poorly managed, but in a different way. The Battle City Tourney unfortunately had a bunch of murderers in it. This tournament, no one is killing eachother, but they are still kind of sneaking in through the back door and being chronically late to everything.

(and I just want to point out that after the last match Mokuba oversaw that had Joey nearly miss the appointment, Mokuba decided to set this one in front of a Giant Clock just to get his point across)

So Zigfried has some sort of flying horse card that wiped them out right away, which makes you wonder........

.............why use any other cards?

Kaiba makes these cards, right????

Like he should be the last person who’s surprised????

Anyway, Zigfried top-decked a horse, and the guy who spends about 15 minutes getting ready his big ol blue eyes dragons every match he’s ever played was like “Yo I have GOT to get into speedrunning!”

And yes, the speedrun I was watching did not use Blue Eyes White Dragons. They were using a bunch of other stuff that I tried to look up just now and the art is completely different from what I recall so...unfortunately that means that your game is fake. Pretty sure it’s fake and you have no way to prove to me this is real.

Anyway, that’s it for now, not much to say since we’re still at the beginning of the arc. Next week I guess we’ll find out if Seto ever removes his ass from this chair.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

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howaboutalittlehelpneos · 3 years

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vrains is the pain train that keeps on hurting :'D I fully believe Ai went through thousands if not millions of simulations, like a failed time loop, trying every variable, until Ai was convinced that the only way for Yusaku to survive is to take Ai himself out of the equation. In a prev ep he said he felt time stopped moving for him, and now we know why, because in the past is survivor's guilt from his ignis friends dying, and the future is where the person he loves always dies protecting him.

Vrains really didn't pull any punches to make sure it was the saddest Yugioh series ever :( "You like all these cool new Ignis? Too bad they're dead now. Roboppi finally gets a body and free will, isn't that neat? Now we're going to put him down. What was that? You like Ai? Well we can't let him stick around, now can we?" They just kept taking and taking and no one gets to come back until the very end, after all that shit about how Ai couldn't exist, he slips back into existence for a couple seconds before the show ends completely.

I want my soul back >:(

They really didn't have to hit us with that Madoka Magica time loop shit but they went ahead and did it anyways and I'm not going to be the same anymore for a while.

#ai watching yusaku get shot was so fucked up #real bullets? in ny yugioh vrains? its more likely than you think #fucking hell #asks #anon #ygo vrains #ygo vrains spoilers #vrains spoilers #spoilers #ai ignis #soltis ai #yusaku fujiki #im sad

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beybladefanfictions · 3 years

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Ryuga x King Chapter 10 - Distractions

(Cover art is by Zadi-Jyne)

(Author’s Note: Since not much happens in this chapter, I’m publishing another one right after it on the same day.)

Ryuga’s POV

For the next couple of weeks, Ryuga spent most of his time training. When he wasn’t out training, he was usually either trying to learn Greek for King or watching the Yugioh sequel with Kenta and Yu. It wasn’t as good as the original, but surprisingly decent so far. However, watching it didn’t take Ryuga’s mind off King like he hoped it would. In fact, it did the opposite. Maybe it was just the fact that he missed him but the main character reminded him of King. A lot. He was so sickly optimistic and fun-loving. Ryuga wanted to hate him so much, him and King, but apparently, it was impossible.

King was cute, dang it. Ryuga couldn’t get his bright smile and glowing eyes out of his mind. Not to mention the way his normally soft hair spiked up and turned white during battle and the fact that King could actually keep up with him in battle. Ryuga never thought he would want someone to fight alongside him. However, after that tag battle with King, Ryuga felt as if the two of them could take on the entire world if they wanted to.

*Just us against the world…* Ryuga sighed longingly at the thought. He shook his head. *What am I thinking?! He lives in America and we’re both boys! It’s… impossible.* His eyes narrowed. The idea of something being impossible for him made his heart blaze with indignation. His first instinct was to prove that thought wrong, nothing was impossible for him; he was the Dragon Emperor! That indignation quickly turned to fear. The very idea of Ryuga being in a relationship… it had once seemed repulsive to him but now, it almost terrified him. Everything about it. The commitment, the way people would view him, the stress of keeping all this a secret like it was something to be ashamed of… It was too much.

Ryuga struggled to focus on his Greek lesson as all these thoughts raced through his head.

“Ryuga?” Kenta’s voice shook Ryuga out of his thoughts.

He looked up at him. “Hm?”

“Yu is coming over later,” Kenta informed, sitting next to him on the couch. Ryuga nodded, looking back at his phone. “Have you noticed that he’s been here a lot lately?”

Ryuga didn’t take his eyes off his phone. “Yeah, he's avoiding his house.”

“What?!”

“He lives with Tsubasa,” Ryuga explained, placing his phone aside and gazing at him. “Tsubasa took in Reiji.”

“Oh…” Kenta looked away. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He shook his head, looking back at Ryuga. “Wait, how long have you known this?!”

“A couple weeks.”

Kenta looked outraged. “And you didn't say something sooner?!” Ryuga didn’t answer. Kenta looked away, letting out a sigh. “What is Yu going to do? He can't avoid his home forever.”

“That's none of our business, Kenta.”

“Yes, it is! Aren't you worried about him?”

Ryuga admittedly was. He didn’t think Yu would ever want to forgive him let alone be his friend. Now they were better friends than they ever were before, having found common ground they didn’t have with anyone else.

“It isn't something we can solve,” Ryuga replied, dipping his head. “Yu and Tsubasa need to work out their issues on their own.” *I have my own problems to deal with anyways,* he added to himself.

“How are they going to work anything out if they’re never around each other?” Kenta asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, what do you want to do? Tell Yu he can’t come here anymore?”

“No!” Kenta exclaimed. He lowered his voice as he continued, “But… we should at least encourage him to talk to Tsubasa.”

“You do that,” Ryuga replied, looking back at his phone.

“What are you even doing?” Kenta leaned over to see Ryuga’s screen. Ryuga instinctively moved his phone away, glaring at his friend. “Why are you trying to learn-” Kenta suddenly let out a gasp. “You’re learning Greek for King?!”

“Shut up,” Ryuga growled, shoving his phone in his pocket.

Kenta giggled into his hand. “Gosh, you two are so cute. Can’t you just confess already?”

Ryuga glared at him. “You know why I can’t do that.”

“Right…” Kenta put his arms around Ryuga in a small hug. “Sorry.”

Ryuga let Kenta hold onto him for a few moments before ruffling his hair. Kenta let go and tried to fix his hair. Scooting away, Ryuga looked back at his phone, trying to continue his Greek lesson. Emphasis on ‘trying.’ Ryuga could barely tell some symbols apart, let alone remember which was which or how to pronounce them.

However, he was determined to learn it. King admitted that he barely spoke his own native language anymore and Ryuga just couldn’t let that stand. He couldn’t imagine never speaking Japanese again. It was a part of who he was, just as Greek was part of who King was. Ryuga wanted to learn that piece of him…

There was a knock at the door.

“That’s probably him,” Kenta sighed, pushing himself off the couch to open the door.

Sure enough, Yu was standing there. “Hey, Kenchi! Ryu!” He greeted with a wave.

“Hey,” Kenta greeted, stepping aside to let him in. “Um, Yu?”

“Yeah?”

Kenta closed the door behind him. “Are um… Are you… I heard that Reiji is uh…” Kenta paused when he noticed Yu stiffen. “…living at your house.”

Yu took a step back. “Yeah, what about it?” he asked, looking away. He was trembling ever so slightly, almost too slight to notice.

“Um…” Kenta stared at Yu, guilt in his eyes. Then he dipped his head. “Yu, are you avoiding your house?”

“Pft. Yeah…” Despite Yu’s nonchalant tone, he continued trembling and wrapped his arms around himself. “Wouldn't you if you lived with that guy?”

“Er- well…” Kenta took a step back. His eyes were wide and almost unfocused as if his mind were elsewhere.

Ryuga’s jaw clenched. He knew what Kenta was remembering and now Ryuga couldn’t shake away the image of his friend being reduced to tears by Reiji’s torturous battle tactics.

Kenta shook his head. “Does Tsubasa know?” he asked, regaining his composure.

“Know what? That I don’t want that guy living with us? I’ve only told him, like, twenty times.” Yu glanced up at Kenta, his eyes suddenly narrowed. “Can we not talk about this?”

“But you have to!” Kenta insisted, “You can’t avoid your house forever.”

“Watch me!”

“Do you want Reiji to be kicked out?” Ryuga cut in, raising an eyebrow.

Yu froze. He turned to him. “What?”

“I know you heard me, Yu.”

“I…” Yu looked away, biting his lip.

“I don’t care either way,” Ryuga added with a shrug.

Yu let out a sigh. “No… apparently, his only other option is going back to the abandoned Dark Nebula. I wouldn’t wish that fate on my worst enemy. That doesn’t mean I have to make myself deal with him.”

“I guess…” Kenta sighed, dipping his head. “But, you know, Tsubasa probably misses you.”

Yu let out a contemptuous snort. “What’s he need me for? He’s got Reiji.” There was a hint of bitterness in his tone.

“Just because Tsubasa cares about Reiji doesn’t mean he cares less about you,” Kenta insisted, resting his hand on Yu’s shoulder.

“I guess.” Yu pushed Kenta’s hand away, sitting back down on the couch. “Let’s just watch GX already. I wanna see what you guys think of the next episode.”

Kenta let out a sigh. “Fine. If you really don’t want to talk about it…”

He sat between Ryuga and Yu, and the three of them watched the show together for a while.

In the middle of an episode, Ryuga’s phone went off. He glanced at it, his heart lighting up when he saw that it was a text from King. Then he froze. *Isn’t it past midnight for him? What’s he doing awake?* He picked up the phone and read the text.

-King: I can’t sleep. You there?-

-Ryuga: What’s going on?-

-King: Jet lag, and thinking about stuff.-

-King: Whatcha up to?-

-Ryuga: Watching Yugioh.-

-Ryuga: It has a sequel apparently.-

“Ryuga, what are you doing?” Kenta asked, trying to look at Ryuga’s phone.

He swiftly moved it away. “Nothing,” Ryuga growled, keeping the phone face down under his hand.

He tried to focus on watching the episode. However, now that he knew King was awake, and messaging him, it made him impatient to receive more messages. Sure enough, he got one.

-King: Woah, really?! I’m super behind then. I’ve only watched the first sixteen episodes.-

-Ryuga: Oh, still boring then.-

-King: Boring?! I like it!-

-King: When does it “get good” for you?-

-Ryuga: Kaiba and Yugi’s duel on the tower.-

-King: So something is going to go horribly wrong. Got it.-

-Ryuga: It was actually pretty messed up.-

-King: Messed up by your standards? Or mine?-

“Okay, you’re definitely texting someone,” Yu remarked, from across the couch. Ryuga looked up at him. Yu was smirking in a mischievous, almost evil way.

“None of your business,” Ryuga grunted, trying to type out a reply.

-Ryuga: Both I hope.-

“Yeah, it’s King,” Kenta replied, nodding to Yu. “I saw.”

Ryuga’s heart skipped a beat. “Kenta!” he exclaimed, glaring at him.

Kenta chuckled into his hand. “It’s fine, we both know you like him.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Yu asked, leaning over Kenta to try and see the phone.

Ryuga stood up. “None of your business,” he grunted, going to stand against the back wall of the living room. He checked his phone.

-King: Oh shoot…-

-King: Dang it you’re making me want to watch it now but I don’t want to be up all night!-

-Ryuga: Yugioh or sleep? Clearly a difficult decision.-

-King: Okay, fine I’ll watch it! Jeez!-

Ryuga’s heart skipped a beat.

-Ryuga: I was being sarcastic…-

-Ryuga: King no you need sleep.-

-King: Too late. I’m watching it.-

-King: I’ll call you when I’ve seen that duel.-

Ryuga put his phone away, sitting back on the couch.

Yu smirked. “Done messaging your boyfriend?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Ryuga growled, putting his phone away.

“Not yet,” Kenta added, nudging Ryuga’s shoulder.

Ryuga rolled his eyes. *At least mom and-* He shook his head. *At least ‘they’ aren’t home so there’s no way they overheard this.*

Kenta’s parents didn’t get home for another couple of hours. When they did, it was with food: sushi. The entire family, plus Yu, sat at the table and began taking pieces of the sushi for themselves. Everyone but Ryuga and Kenta used chopsticks.

“Why aren’t you two using chopsticks?” Yu asked, taking a piece of sushi with his chopsticks.

*Why do you?*

“I don't feel like it,” Kenta replied with a shrug. He smirked as he added, “And Ryuga can’t use them.”

Yu raised an eyebrow. “He can’t use chopsticks?” There was a slight chuckle in his voice.

“I don’t use chopsticks,” Ryuga growled, his eyes narrowed.

“He can’t,” Kenta repeated, completely unfazed.

“You should learn,” Yu replied with a shrug, “You live in Japan.”

“Yeah, I’m inclined to agree honestly,” Kenta’s mom cut in. “You might want to know someday.”

“Why? I’ve gotten by without them this long.”

“I dunno.” Kenta’s dad suddenly chuckled. “Might make it harder to get a girlfriend.”

Ryuga stiffened, dropping his sushi. At the same time, Kenta and Yu dropped their things. They didn’t have to look at each other to know that they all had the same panicked look on their faces. The sudden silence suffocated Ryuga like a thick cloud of smoke.

Kenta was the first to break the silence with a clearly forced chuckle. “Er… good one, dad.”

Yu cleared his throat. “Anyways, chopsticks.” Ryuga bit back a grunt. He was annoyed to be talking about this again but it was clear Yu was just trying to change the topic. For that, Ryuga was grateful. “You should learn to use them. You can’t eat everything with your hands.”

Ryuga shrugged. “Forks.”

“Well yeah but-”

“Chopsticks are not essential,” Ryuga cut him off, sounding deadly. “I don’t care about them.”

“Okay, okay, sheesh.” Yu chuckled a little. “What did chopsticks do to make you hate them so much?”

“Embarrass him,” Kenta’s dad answered, snickering a little.

Ryuga glanced at him, trying not to glare. “Don’t. It’s been seven months, just stop.”

“Seven months…?” Kenta sounded stunned.

“Oh yeah, you have been living here for over half a year now,” Kenta’s mom informed, gazing off into the distance. “Crazy how the time flies…”

“Half a year, huh?” Yu giggled, gazing at Ryuga with a smirk. “Okay, how many times have they asked to adopt you?”

“None…?”

“Wow, that’s some serious restraint.”

“Why? Did they try to adopt you or something?” Ryuga smiled at his own joke.

Then he noticed Kenta’s parents were suddenly avoiding his gaze. Kenta’s mom bit her lip, looking a little ashamed. Even Yu and Kenta were staring down at their plates of sushi, unable to meet Ryuga’s gaze.

“Wait… no, you actually did?!” Ryuga fought to keep himself from raising his voice.

His jaw clenched. The idea that Kenta’s parents had once wanted to adopt someone else… It sent all sorts of emotions through him that he didn’t want to begin to process, the strongest of which was some strange form of jealousy. *Why would I be jealous? I don’t want them to adopt me!*

“Ryuga…” Kenta’s parents stared at Ryuga with wide concerned eyes.

Ryuga let out an empty chuckle. “And here I thought Madoka was exaggerating when she said you’d adopt all of Kenta’s friends if you could. Guess wanting to adopt me is just status quo, huh?” Ryuga tried his hardest to sound light-hearted. However, his voice trembled, with anger or sadness he wasn’t sure.

“We presented the idea because he didn’t have a family,” Kenta’s mother admitted, dipping her head. “It wasn’t anything serious.”

Kenta nodded, gripping Ryuga’s arm.

“Ryuga…” Kenta’s dad cut in. “I hate to ask this but… are you jealous?”

Ryuga stiffened. “Jealous?!” He cleared his throat before he continued more calmly. “N-no, that’s stupid.”

“How you feel isn’t stupid. Can you just be honest?” Kenta’s mother’s tone was surprisingly blunt as if Ryuga had hit a nerve. He froze, having no idea how to respond.

Biting his lip, he replied, “It… does seem like I’m just one of many.”

He inwardly scolded himself for saying so much but he didn’t see what other option he had. He hated lying to Kenta’s parents, initially out of fear of them finding out and being more upset, but more recently, out of a much tamer fear of letting them down.

“You’re not one of many, Ryuga,” Kenta’s mom insisted, “We’re sorry we ever made you feel that way.”

“You’re like a son to us, kiddo, more than he ever was.” Kenta’s dad turned to Yu. “Um… no offence, Yu.”

“None taken,” Yu replied with a shrug. “You guys are great but if anyone’s my family, Tsubasa is.”

Ryuga let himself smile a little. Knowing Kenta’s parents cared about him comforted him, though he wasn’t about to admit that out loud. *Surely they wouldn’t stop caring if I told them…?* Ryuga immediately pushed the idea away before it could even fully surface. He couldn’t take that risk… It felt like he had only so recently started to tolerate Kenta’s parents, let alone care about them that he couldn’t bring himself to admit something that could make that love disappear.

A ringing sound filled the air. Ryuga glanced at his phone, his heart lighting up when he saw that King was calling him. He ate the last bit of sushi on his plate.

“I should take this…” Ryuga stood up, answering the call on his way to the basement.

“Ryuga, what the heck?!” King exclaimed almost immediately.

Ryuga smirked. “What’s up?” he asked, pushing the basement door open and descending down the stairs.

King sputtered in outrage. “Oh, like you don’t know!”

Ryuga let out a chuckle. “I’m all ears,” he replied, leaning against the wall.

He listened to King ramble about Yugioh for what felt like several minutes. It didn’t matter to Ryuga. It had been two weeks since he’d heard King’s voice and he liked listening to him ramble, especially about stuff he liked.

“I know you said it was messed up but I didn’t think it would be that bad!” King exclaimed.

Ryuga shrugged. “I warned you.”

King giggled nervously, “Well at least it can’t possibly get any darker than that.” Ryuga couldn’t bite back a chuckle. “Oh come on! Nothing is worse than what Kaiba tried to do!”

“Just wait ‘til you get to Battle City.”

“I’m not watching anymore tonight! Gosh, you’ve got me hooked like a fish. I’m really gonna destroy my sleep schedule at this point.”

“It’s a perfectly fine sleep schedule in Japan.”

“Well, I’m not in Japan anymore! Wish I was…” King let out a sigh. His tone was suddenly serious as he continued, “This is going to sound so awful. It’s… it’s kinda boring in America.”

“Boring how?” Ryuga asked, tilting his head to the side.

“There just aren’t as many great bladers here. In Japan, there’s you, Gingka, Kenta, Kyoya, and so many others I’ve never even battled. In America, it’s… basically just my friends.”

Ryuga nodded. “I get that. It’s hard finding opponents that are any match for you.”

“Any match for me at my full strength. My friends are the only ones that can get me fired up over here and battling them over and over again is really repetitive, no offence to them,” King sighed, letting out a yawn.

“You sound tired,” Ryuga commented.

“I don’t want to sleep. This is the first time we’ve talked since I left Japan.”

Ryuga hesitated in his response. “I’ve had a lot going on.”

“Like what?” King’s tone was suddenly playful. “Watching the Yugioh sequel?”

“Training mostly… and trying to learn Greek.”

“Ooh!” Ryuga could picture King’s eyes lighting up along with his voice. “Can you speak a sentence? I wanna hear!”

“Um…” Ryuga hesitantly switched to Greek, saying the one word he knew he could pronounce. “Hi.”

“Any more?” King prompted.

“That’s a full sentence.”

King chuckled. “Good job. Here, I’ll make it even…” He cleared his throat before switching to Japanese. “My turn! Draw!” Ryuga let out an exasperated sigh. “What? That counts as a sentence!”

“When would you ever use that?”

“If I ever play the game!” He sighed. “I don’t know. Watching the show is actually helping with my pronunciation though. I should find something for you to watch in Greek.” King yawned again. “Tomorrow probably.”

“King go to bed,” Ryuga ordered, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t want to stop talking to him but King needed to go to sleep.

“You’re not the boss of me.”

*I’d like to be.*

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Ryuga insisted, his concern slipping into his voice. “You need to sleep.”

“Tomorrow? You promise?”

Ryuga dipped his head. “Yeah, I promise.”

“Okay, tomorrow morning for you… you wake up pretty early. Around seven?”

“Sure.”

“I’m setting a reminder right now, don’t you dare forget.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight emperor!~”

King hung up before Ryuga could. Putting his phone away, Ryuga made his way back upstairs.

“Heh, there you are,” Yu greeted him with a wave. “I almost thought you weren’t coming back.”

“Who were you talking to?” Kenta’s dad asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Was it a girl?” Kenta’s mom added, smirking a little.

“No.”

“You sure?” Kenta’s dad raised an eyebrow, chuckling. “You seemed pretty eager to talk to them.”

“Why would that-”

Then Ryuga realized what they were implying. He froze. Part of him just wanted to scream ‘I don’t like girls!’ but he held his tongue.

“You disgust me,” Ryuga growled, sitting next to Kenta on the couch.

“Well, that’s a bit harsh.” Kenta’s dad’s tone was light-hearted.

“Uh… er…” Kenta’s voice was hardly more than a mutter. His gaze shifted between his parents and Ryuga as if he wasn’t sure who to side with.

“Um…” Yu cut the silence, holding up his phone. “Tsubasa wants me home.”

“Right now?” Kenta tilted his head to the side. “It’s kinda early…”

“Yeah…” Yu stood up off the couch. “Walk me home, guys?”

Kenta smiled. “Sure.”

Ryuga dipped his head. The trio made their way toward the door.

“Bye Yu!” Kenta’s parents called after them.

“Bye!” Yu replied, waving back.

They walked in silence for a while before Kenta suddenly let out a sigh.

“That was a little harsh earlier, Ryuga.”

Ryuga tilted his head to the side. “What was?”

“What you said to my dad,” Kenta stared at the ground as he spoke, “I know what he said was kinda… weird but he wasn’t trying to be mean.”

“I panicked,” Ryuga admitted, staring off into the distance.

“That was panicking?” Yu raised an eyebrow. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Ryuga rolled his eyes. Kenta and Yu chatted idly, occasionally trying to include Ryuga as well, as they made their way through the city. Eventually, they reached a neighbourhood of apartment complexes. A familiar figure with long white hair was waiting in front of one of them.

“Yu…” Tsubasa let out a sigh. “With them again I see.”

“Yeah, we were watching GX,” Yu replied, rolling his eyes. “We were gonna watch more but you called me home.”

“Yu, I know you’ve been avoiding home.” Tsubasa’s tone was suddenly stern.

“What?” Yu staggered back, his eyes wide. “No. I haven’t!”

“This is because of Reiji, isn’t it?” Tsubasa sighed again. “Yu, I told you he can’t and won’t hurt you.”

“I know, I know.” Yu folded his arms. “Doesn’t mean I have to like being around him.”

“You guys need a way to cut the ice between you,” Kenta suggested, taking a step forward. “Like… I dunno, watching a show together or something. That brings people together.”

Tsubasa shook his head. “Can’t do that. Long story short, Reiji can’t stand screens.”

That made sense to Ryuga. The few times he saw Reiji in his room back at the Dark Nebula, he was surrounded by screens from every angle.

“And Beyblade is off the table,” Yu added. “Even if he had his bey, I wouldn’t want to battle him again. He’s no fun!”

“Understatement.” Kenta stepped back, gripping Ryuga’s hand. He was trembling slightly though his eyes were narrowed as if he were trying to put on a brave face.

“Don’t worry,” Ryuga rested his hand on Kenta’s head. “If he ever tried anything again, I’d beat him up.”

Tsubasa cleared his throat. Ryuga glanced at him to see that his eyes were narrowed at him in a warning glare.

“I said ‘if’,” Ryuga replied, glaring back at Tsubasa. “It won’t come to that, will it?”

Tsubasa dipped his head. “Of course not.” He turned to Yu. “Let’s go inside, Yu.”

Yu let out a sigh. “Fine, whatever.” He waved as he walked away. “Bye Kenchi, Bye Ryu.”

Ryuga turned and walked away.

“Bye…” Kenta called, sounding a little unsure as he followed Ryuga. He looked up at him. “You sure it’s okay to leave them like that?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Ryuga asked, raising an eyebrow. “I told you, those two need to solve their own issues.”

Kenta let out a sigh. “I guess so…”

#beyblade #beyblade metal fight #beyblade metal saga #ryuga #ryuga kishatu #king #king beybade #kenta yumiya #yu tendo #tsubasa otori #he's mentioned a lot #and appears at the end #again this chapter is kinda light #too light to satisfy me for today #next chapter will be up momentarily #fanfiction

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thebladeblaster · 3 years

Text

Heart of the Vanguard Concept Chapter part 1

(Concept chapters are basically just to test to see if people will like a fic idea I have. This fic crosses over Yugioh Duel Monsters and Cardfight Vanguard.)

(Note: Besides the god cards this fic will stick to tcg/ocg effects for simplicity. People can also still stupidly set cards in face up defense position.)

Yugi double checked that he had everything with him before making his trip. He tiptoed out of the door he sweat dropped as he felt a fiery glare aimed directly at him. It was his grandfather Solomon Mutou holding a broom as he had been previously sweeping with tightly.

“You're not going to another card shop, are you Yugi?”, his grandfather questioned, remembering the invitation his grandson had received earlier.

“W-what…of course not grandpa. I’m just uh...going to hangout with my friends. You know Jonouchi and the others.”, Yugi replied nervously.

“Um hm...well have fun!”, Solomon replied with a wave before going back to sweeping.

After closing the door the young Mutou took a sigh of relief. He met up with his friends Jonouchi, Anzu, and Honda in the subway.

“Took you long enough Yug!”, Jonouchi said.

“Sorry, you know how my grandpa gets at the idea of us going to other card shops.”, Yugi replied.

“Yeah...reminds me of when we went to Duke’s.”, Honda replied, sweat dropping.

“Hopefully Jonouchi doesn’t end up in a dog suit this time.”, Anzu teased.

“Shut up!!! No one’s making a dog out of me this time!”, Jonouchi yelled.

“Better hope we don’t run into Kaiba on the way.”, Honda replied much to Jonouchi’s chagrin.

“If I see Kaiba I’ll wipe the floor with him!!!”, Jonouchi yelled.

“Guys the bus.”, Yugi pointed out as he saw everyone boarding.

They all hastily ran onto the train so they didn’t miss it. They took a sigh of relief as Yugi looked out the window. The buildings passed by like a blur. It always felt weird for him to leave Domino City. He always seemed to be off on some strange supernatural adventure every time but this time it was different. He was going to see friends. A definite nice change of pace.

After they finally got out of the subway they were greeted with a big expansive city.

“How are we supposed to find that tiny card shop in this mess?”, Jonouchi questioned.

“Well, we got there once. We just have to find where we are so we can find it.”, Anzu replied, looking over at the map.

“Maybe we're better off calling Misaki for directions. She has a perfect memory after all.”, Honda suggested.

“Oh, that’s right!”, Anzu gasped, as she brought out her phone and started calling her number.

The phone rang a few times before it was answered.

“Oh, Anzu. Are you guys almost here?”, Misaki asked, though there was an extreme amount of background noise.

“We're having a bit of trouble. We have just arrived outside the station and this place is a bit...big. I was wondering if you could give some directions to the shop?”, Anzu asked.

“Hmm...I guess the city is pretty big. Alright.”, Misaki replied as she started giving them directions.

They were astounded at how accurate it all was. She wasn’t even there but she was leading them perfectly throughout the city. On the way they stopped as they saw a familiar face.

“Gah, Kai?!”, Yugi gasped.

It was indeed the aloof fighter Toshiki Kai. Along with him was a blond haired teen with grey eyes. He wore the same school uniform as Kai. Jonouchi growled as he saw the older teen.

“You guys are here?”, Kai questioned, completely ignoring Jonouchi’s growling.

“Yeah, Aichi invited us to come over remember?”, Anzu replied and Kai simply nodded.

“Man, this is so cool to think we’d meet the King of Games in the flesh!”, the blond said.

“Hehe. I’m not that great, I'm just an average teen like you guys.”, Yugi replied with no hint of irony.

“Cool. Name’s Taishi Miwa. Looks like you guys already know Kai. Though let’s be real who doesn’t?”, Miwa introduced.

“Yeah. My name’s Mutou Yugi. Oh wait...you already know that.”, Yugi replied.

“Yeah...average.”, Kai replied blandly with a hint of sarcasm, rolling his eyes as he remembered Battle City.

“Well...average kid with an ancient magic necklace.”, Yugi replied awkwardly.

“Uh huh...you're just as ‘normal’ as Aichi and Ren.”, Kai replied, which made Yugi sweat drop.

“I’m gonna clean your clock in a duel!”, Jonouchi said to Kai.

“I don’t need another hyper kid like Kamui constantly challenging me to duels.”, Kai replied.

“Grr! I’m no kid!”, Jonouchi replied.

“Really? You sure act like one.”, Kai replied.

“Down boy. You can duel him at the shop.”, Honda said as he put his arm on Jonouchi’s shoulder.

“Hey I’m no dog!!!”, Jonouchi yelled as Honda pushed him along.

Eventually they stopped before a small card shop named ‘Card Capital’. It had a poster on the front and a sliding door. The small shop was completely crowded by people clamoring to get inside.

“Hehe, maybe Misaki can give grandpa some pointers on how to get his shop this busy.”, Yugi commented.

He jumped as some turned around to see him.

“Oh my god, is that the King of Games!”

“He’s here!”

“I thought he was taller?”

“Would he really be in a place like this?”

The door slid open and they saw Misaki on the other side. She had on a white dress shirt and a orange apron with two Cs.

“Are you guys gonna come in or will I have to give your spots to one of these guys?”, Misaki questioned.

“No need. Come on guys!”, Anzu said.

They all walked into the shop. It was just as tiny as they remembered. It was full of posters advertising various card games. It had lots of chairs and tables including two standing tables. The front desk had various card packs and there was a display on the other side with various assortments of rare cards. The shop was packed with various people dueling. It was rather lively for such a small shop.

“Is it always like this?”, Anzu asked.

“Nosy? Yes. Packed? Only when we host shop tournaments here.”, Misaki replied.

“You scoundrel!!!”, they turned their attention to a familiar voice.

They walked over to see Aichi and Kamui. The latter of which shook the former by the collar. Aichi laughed it off raising up his hands in surrender. A redheaded girl with blue eyes was trying to diffuse the situation. She wore a pink top with an orange tie and a blue skirt.

“Kamui calm down.”, the redheaded girl said.

Aichi sweat dropped as the younger boy continued to shake him.

“It’s fine Kamui. I think you’re overreacting.”, Aichi replied.

“Yeah, he just beat Emi in a duel.”, a teen with brown hair and eyes wearing a grey uniform replied.

“He just?”, Kamui questioned.

“Yeah…”, Aichi replied.

None of them seemed to notice them yet.

“You were supposed to let Miss Emi win!”, Kamui shouted.

“I was?!”, Aichi questioned, completely confused.

“I don’t get what the big deal is.”, Honda commented.

“It’s best if you don’t try to understand Kamui’s stupidity. You might catch it.”, Misaki replied casually.

“You say that as if you wanted Aichi to hold back against me.”, Emi replied.

“Well... I!”, Kamui was saying before he was cut off.

“I wanted to duel him at his best. Why would I want him to hold back?”, Emi replied, crossing her arms as Kamui shrinked back.

“It’s fine Emi. Kamui just got a bit overexcited.”, Aichi replied, brushing it off.

“Overexcited is an understatement.”, Miwa chuckled, making Aichi turn his attention to the new arrivals.

Aichi’s eyes brightened up as he saw them.

“Kai! Yugi! Miwa! Jonouchi!”, Aichi said.

“Are we gonna talk about how he called out Kai first…”, Honda commented as he sweat dropped.

The short teen was practically beaming which made Yugi blush. Though, he was at least taller than Yugi though not by much.

“No need to be so excited it’s just us.”, Yugi replied as he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

“Oh, that’s that Yugi guy right? Didn’t you duel him in Battle City?”, Emi questioned.

“Yeah, your looking at the King of Games here!”, Jonouchi said as he gestured to Yugi.

“Woah cool!”, Emi replied.

“Oh uh...this is my little sister Emi.”, Aichi introduced gesturing Emi.

“Sister?!”, the Yugi gang gasped.

Jonouchi bent down to Aichi’s level.

“Don’t tell me she has crazy psychic powers too?”, Jonouchi whispered, causing Aichi to sweat drop.

“Uh...no. At least I don’t think so.”, Aichi replied.

“You don’t think so?”, Jonouchi replied as he pulled back sweat dropping.

“Hopefully it doesn’t run in the family.”, Honda whispered nervously.

“Yeah…”, Anzu replied as she sweat dropped.

“Since your here do you want to duel, Yugi?”, Aichi asked with a light blush.

“Gosh, why are you always so nervous, kid?”, Jonouchi questioned.

“I’d love to Aichi! It’s time to duel!”, Yugi replied.

“He said the thing!”, a black haired teen with v shaped hair and brown eyes with a grey uniform said.

“Oh my god this is awesome!”, the brown haired guy from before gushed.

Yugi chuckled, blushing nervously at all the attention he was getting.

“Their like two anxious peas in a pot.”, Anzu commented.

“Are we going to duel in here. I don’t think the holograms would fit.”, Yugi replied as Aichi blinked.

“Oh...yeah that’s true. We were dueling retro style with the Battle City rules in here since there’s still a lot of people who don’t have duel disks.”, Aichi replied.

“Oh? Retro’s fine.”, Yugi assured.

“Okay.”, Aichi replied as he nodded.

“You guys should use the standing fight table.”, Shin suggested.

“Who wants to stand and fight without the duel disks anymore?”, Misaki questioned, making Shin sulk.

“Well, how was I supposed to know that Kaiba would build portable hologram systems to duel with?!”, Shin questioned.

“I guess we’ll sit?”, Aichi asked.

“Yeah.”, Yugi replied.

“Oh man this will be awesome! It’s like Godzilla vs Kong or Devilman vs Mazinger Z!”, the brown haired teen gushed, embarrassing the two.

“Heh, I could take them.”, the v haired teen proclaimed as he crossed his arms.

“Oh really why don’t we duel tough guy?”, Jonouchi suggested.

“Alright I’ll take you on 3rd place Duelist Kingdom guy!”, the v haired teen replied, causing a tick mark to appear on Jonouchi’s head.

“Hey it’s Katsuya Jonouchi!!! And it was second place! I lost to Yugi!”, Jonouchi corrected.

“Yeah, whatever 3rd place guy my name is Katsumi Morikawa! You will forever remember my name after the beat down your about to endure!”, Morikawa proclaimed, causing many in the shop to sweat drop.

“You're going to wipe the floor with him, Jonouchi. He’s the worst duelist I’ve ever seen.”, Kamui commented.

“As if! I’ll show you Kamui!”, Morikawa growled.

Aichi and Yugi sweat dropped at the conversation around them.

“Are they always like this?”, Yugi questioned.

“Would you believe it’s usually worse?”, Aichi replied, making Yugi chuckle nervously.

“I know that feeling.”, Yugi replied.

Kai and Miwa had seated themselves down at one of the tables. Some duelists had actually lined up to challenge the aloof fighter.

Yugi noticed Yami’s spirit hovering over his shoulder.

“Oh, it’s just a normal duel for fun Yami.”, Yugi said.

“Fun?”, Yami questioned.

“Yeah, it’s not always shadow realm and convoluted plots.”, Yugi replied.

“Oh, hello Yami.”, Aichi greeted waving at the spirit.

“Who’s he waving at?”, Miwa questioned, confused.

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phecdasolar · 4 years

Text

I have created a side blog where I’m going to post all my art from here on out and related stuff :3 please send requests <3

@for-donnies-honor-i-guess

Here you go :3 enjoy

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This is a no discourse space, no drama, problems or conflicts of any kind I’m not dealing with it. I don’t care what it’s about, politics, content creator drama, etc. I don’t want to know. I came here to vibe and enjoy the things that make me happy, not get caught up in another game of “look how crappy our world is today.” I’m here for the happy and peaceful vibes only <3

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[hushdiebibaby11 -> phecdasolar]

★ Name(s): Phecda(Phec/Phe), Wonders, Seru, Mem, Noah, Doc

★ Pronouns: She/her, Ve/vir ( https://en.pronouns.page/@Phecdasolar )

★ Interests(they shuffle): Dreamworks Trolls, Ninjago, BNHA, Homestuck, EPIC: The Musical, Lego Monkie Kid, Epithet Erased, Transformers IDW, TMNT, The Owl House, Sky COTL, Infinity Train, MCYT, Deltarune, Steven Universe, 5Worlds, Ducktales, Marvel, YuGiOh (GX, Arc-V)

★ Involving MCYT, I Do Not not ship real people! Only the characters the CC’s portray!

★ Mutuals can have my discord if they want it <3

- Btw the only reason I have my sign in my description is because of Homestuck lol

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★ Taglist(will update over time):

#i speak - as the tag implies it’s whenever I speak or just posts I have that aren’t reblogs mostly

#immortal Cole AU - one of my many au’s that has several other related tags so- (#time traveler Cole au #ghost today grief tomorrow)

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Edit: adding a link to this post because holy cow this is one of the most important things I’ve ever read and more people need to see this:

Let’s cancel “cancel culture” folks, and not each other, okay?

Edit 2: Found another thing that I relate to so badly and I feel better now knowing it

If we’re friends and I don’t talk to you for weeks, and then come back like nothing happened this is why ^^^^ my friendship levels don’t degrade like, ever

#art #new blog #side blog #i speak #/gen #/srs

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littlemisssquiggles · 4 years

Text

Pinehead Headcanons: Oscar’s Humanity

You know, I've been thinking about the whole "friendship bracelets for Team RWBY" idea that the CRWBY Writers revealed was scrapped for RWBY V7.

For context, you guys remember the scene at the start of V6 where Ruby had a little gift shop bag that she was grinning and skinning about all happy Ruby-like, promising an impatient Yang that she’d have to wait till they got to Atlas to see exactly what her little sister had bought.

Remember that bit that wasn’t followed up in V7? Well according to one of the CRWBY Writers over on Twitter (can’t remember which one of them it was), apparently what Ruby had bought was supposed to be friendship bracelets for herself and the members of Team RWBY. Y’know something to symbolize their bond as a team that was originally meant to play a part in their final fight against the Ace Ops finale. I say “originally” since as I said, it got scrapped.

In more ways than one, this squiggle meister is actually kind of glad that the CRWBY decided to not go with that idea for the time being. If I'm being completely honest here, when I first heard that that was what the CRWBY Writers were planning to do with that bit, I didn't really like the thought that Ruby only purchased friendship bracelets for her team to commemorate their bond.

Listen. I get that Weiss, Yang and Blake are Ruby’s teammates and her supposed sisters in arms and while I understand that this would’ve been a cute idea to highlight the strength of the bond between RWBY…I’m sorry but in a way; I can’t help but feel like doing that could’ve unintentionally underplayed the importance of Ruby's friendship with JN(P)R especially coming off the events of V4-V5.

While Weiss, Blake and Yang are Ruby’s team---Jaune, Nora and Ren have also been there for Ruby too and have always had her back just as much as her teammates did with V4 andV5 highlighting that case for me prior to Ruby being reunited with her girls by the end of V5.

It’s why when I first saw the Gift Bag scene in V6, I was more open to the theory of the bag containing something that Ruby bought for everyone; not just her teammates. To me, it would've been sweeter if Ruby bought friendship bracelets for all of her friends---not just as token of appreciation for all the times they’ve ALL supported and been there for her when she needed it most in their own respective ways but also as a symbol of linking both teams together as our core hero group whose shared journey we’re following.

With this in mind, I like the concept of Ruby fashioning her whole group matching friendship bracelets with beats comprised of colours to represent everyone within their circle of friends---y’know red for Ruby, white for Weiss, black for Blake, yellow for Yang, perhaps a darker more golden yellow for Jaune while Ren and Nora both share the colour pink. I also like the idea of the beads being marked with letter of everyone’s first name with Ruby being thoughtful enough to even include two extra marked beads to represent the friends they had lost---meaning Pyrhha and originally Penny before they revived her for V7. Y’know something like this, for example:

In a way, this idea makes me think back to that moment from the original Yugioh series where Tea took a marker and drew symbols on her and her friends’ hands as a sign of their strong friendship and support of Yugi before he went off to dual Kaiba for the first time (at least, I think it was Kaiba. Correct me if I’m wrong).

And something like that could’ve also been used to highlight Oscar’s inclusion in the group as well with a bead in his signature colour---pine green branded with the letter ‘O’ for ‘Oscar’ being included in the bracelet design.

Think about it. Imagine…a tender moment where Ruby is giving out the friendship bracelets to everyone only for her to surprise Oscar with one too. I understand that the bracelet idea was scrapped for now but imagine if the CRWBY Writers decided to bring it back for V8 under the new notion that it’s something used to represent and strengthen the bond within the whole hero team rather than just RWBY alone.

With that thought in mind, as a way to work that idea into the established canon of the show, let’s say…instead of Ruby’s gift bag containing bracelets, what if…the bag only contained only the materials that Ruby was planning to use to make the bracelets.

This helps tie into her line to Yang about her having to wait to see what it was since Ruby hadn’t crafted the bracelets herself. I’m kind of digging this small little red headcanon I have here of Ruby using what little spare time she had between missions and training while in Atlas to craft the groups’ friendship bracelets in secret. I dig this concept just as much as the dig the thought of Ruby originally planning to surprise all of friends with the finished bracelets (inclusive of the newly reformed Penny) at some point during their stay in Atlas however she never got the chance given everything that happened while in the kingdom (preparing for Amity, the elections, the attack at the rally, etc).

I know the idea of having the bracelets now might sound weird however the reason I brought it up was because of this one thought. If the bracelet concept was meant to be something to bond the hero team together, then imagine…how depressing it would be if Ruby never got the chance to gift Oscar’s his own as her way of saying he was now officially a part of their team because she late discovered that Oscar was "dead"?

Imagine…how depressing it would be for Ruby to look back and realize that the very thing she had planned to be something to bind her and her friends together became a reminder that Oscar was now “gone” and that Ruby would never see him again.

Imagine…how depressing it would be for Ruby for her to realize that, much like her mother, Oscar had “gone away” and she never got a chance to say goodbye to him.

And…imagine how especially depressing it would be if Ruby had to hear that news from Qrow upon the team basically busting him and Robyn out of prison when they were hoping to rescue Oscar too. Crows are harbingers of death after all. So for me it would be fitting if Qrow is the one to begrudgingly deliver the news of Oscar’s “murder” to the team after Ironwood confessed to him while imprisonment under the guise of a threat on his life (or something like that).

I like this idea since it could lead into a potential parallel between Oscar and Summer Rose since I’d still like to stand by the assumption that Qrow was the one who broke the news about Summer’s death to her family. For that instance, I’m imagining a scene where a young Ruby and Yang are hiding in the stairway of their house on Patch, secretly eavesdropping on a private conversation between their father and Qrow who had suddenly shown up at their doorstep to tell Tai what happened.

I’m picturing a miserable-looking Qrow needing to prop up a now emotionally distraught Tai Yang who had just fallen apart at the news. Meanwhile in the background, young Yang is doing her best to hold back her own tears at the news; tightly hugging and doing her best to comfort a toddler Ruby who was just frozen at the whole thing.

In V2, Yang mentioned that due to her age, Ruby didn’t take the news of Summer’s death the best since for the most part she believed she was more confused at the whole thing; unsure of how to really process it.

This is why I’m imagining something like that happening similarly for Ruby with the news of Oscar’s “death”. With Qrow revealing to truth and Ruby just becoming completely frozen by everything---moving in a somewhat detached manner from the whole ordeal which was forcing all her repressed feelings regarding her mother to resurface in the process.

I’m even thinking of a scene where as Ruby is absorbing the news of Oscar’s death, she suffers a moment where while processing the news, she’s bombarded with the same flashes of her mother standing alone on the hill with her graveside, only this time Summer is joined by Oscar standing on the hill with his back turned to Ruby and the apparition of her forming her friend refusing to look her in the eye or something cryptically dark like that.

I just would like for the Writers to use Oscar’s “death” as a means to reveal more details about Summer and her death since in a sense, the way how Oscar “died” is kind of similar to Summer.

As a matter of fact, the way Oscar “died” is similar to how Pyrhha was killed. For me, I’m picturing Jaune being the most affected by Oscar’s “unfortunate passing”. In fact, I’m thinking Jaune would be livid over Oscar's "death".

For me, I’m envisioning a scene where a distraught Jaune is just angrily punching the wall so hard that it was slowly starting to bruise his fingers with small flecks of blood starting to trickle from underneath the armour giving the force of his punches.

I’m picturing Jaune bawling his eyes out and practically screaming how much nothing has changed for him. In spite of his training, in spite of how hard he had worked to grow stronger as a huntsman, in spite of the promises he had made and the things he had said, here was another example of him failing yet another friend he let walk off to “handle things on their own”.

Oscar was a part of Jaune’s team. He was placed in his care and had his trust and protection and I can picture Jaune believing that he had failed Oscar just as he had failed Pyrhha.

It would actually be kind of sad how just as Jaune and essentially Ren and Nora were starting to slowly come to peace with Pyrhha and move on with Oscar looking to join them, he too suffered the same fate as Pyrhha and it’s a fate that I can see all of them taking responsibility in some way.

Heck I can even picture Jaune and Ren probably having an argument over this with poor Nora being forced to come between them. I’m thinking Jaune might get angry at Ren holding him responsible for making Oscar think he had to do something to help given his statement following the loss of the relic. That could be something but then again, these are only ideas.

Nevertheless, the similarities between the circumstances in which Pyrhha and Oscar were both “murdered” are too present that I can’t see it not being brought up for V8 as part of JNR’s side of things. Moreover, this is another opportunity for Oscar’s whole humanity and the way in which the whole group perceived his presence within their team to come into focus here. Think about it.

Imagine a moment where…upon learning the dark news, someone---maybe Nora--- brings up the fact about reincarnation clinging to the hope that perhaps Oscar could “return” somehow in some shape or form…only for Qrow to more or less burst their bubble.

According to my understanding of the whole Ozma Cycle, I’d like to believe that the way in which the reincarnation works is that Oscar would’ve only been able to return as a secondary soul inside the body of another is if he and Oz had already merged into one soul with Oscar becoming the dominating personality.

However if Oscar was killed before him and Oz could become one, I’d imagine that Oz---as the last version of Ozma’s soul---would’ve just moved onto another chosen vessel and have to redo the same induction process he had done with Oscar all over again. However Oscar would not be so fortunate. Basically what I’m saying is that Oz would be fine but Oscar on the other hand would be gone for good.

I just want the thought of Oscar---the soul that was Oscar----The part of him that was still the cute 14-year-old former farmhand that had shown up to RNJR in Mistral was now gone. I want that very thought to hit the whole hero team like a ton of bricks and to just see the reactions from everyone on the team at that profound realization. Especially the members of Oscar’s Inner Circle meaning RNJR.

For me, RWBY as a show has a weird habit of kind of doing a not-so-good job of proving how much the hero team actually value Oscar as their teammate. So I’m hoping that the news of his alleged “death” can spark this level of angst. It’s why I loved that V7 ended with Oscar being separated from the others with only Oz as his companion. It’s why I’m hoping that the CRWBY Writers allow for Oscar and Oz to finally have their own “journey” story away from the others.

As I’ve mentioned previously; not only is it a chance to develop and strengthen the relationship between Oscar and Oz that’s been strained so much since their first union but it’s also a way to highlight the importance of both souls’ existence to the people who knew them.

For Oscar, it’s a chance to see how he impacted the group in spite of his “short time” with them. Especially for RNJR since they technically knew him the longest having met him first and being comprised of the people who Oscar are closest to: Ruby as Oscar’s true rose (and potential love interest) and JNR as his team and surrogate family.

And for Ozpin, it’s a chance for the show to finally touch base on his ties to Qrow, Ironwood and maybe the whole STRQ group particularly Summer Rose. There is so much potential in this for Oscar’s character and his respective relationships with his closest confidants that as a Pinehead, I honestly hope it will be taken. Finger crossed to that for V8.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

#rwby #oscar pine #professor ozpin #oscar and oz #ruby rose #jaune arc #lie ren #nora valkyrie #rwby theories #rwby volume 8 theories #pinehead headcanons #squiggles pinehead headcanons

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scattered-irises · 4 years

Note

What made you want to start your yugioh zexal series

Step right up! Come one and all! It’s the questioning hour once again!

If we’re talking about Scattered Roses in the Palm of Your Hand, it started oh, I dunno, six years back? (Based on your second question that’s coming right up, I’m assuming this is what you’re asking about.) Right after zexal ended. It started out as a joke between my friends, when we saw the final shot of Christopher and Kaito.

As the stained glass windows shone upon them, I thought that they were having their wedding. Of course, that wasn’t what happened, but the little gerbils in my head began running on their wheels.

What if Kaito and Christopher did get married...but! But! My background of watching copious amounts of Vietnamese and Chinese dramas rose up from their graves and told me to make it even more complicated! What if they were married...against their will and it was an arranged marriage with dastardly intent on behalf of Tron?

Jokingly, I typed up a script that is as follows: (Mind you, this was from 2014 and also a big joke. The quality of my writing has significantly changed.)

-episode one-

Byron: Christopher, may I have a word with you?

Christopher:Yes? Dearest father?

Byron:...Do you know what your purpose here on earth is?

Christopher:....I'm not very sure..

Byron:the only reason You're here is to serve me. You are to be married off, all of you, including your two brothers, to rich families. I can then further my wealth...because I can never have enough.

Christopher:does that mean...

Byron: I want you to marry that Tenjo boy, because I hear he has a lot of money and I want money. We can then further our relationships with that family, due to you.

Christopher:B-but father! Isn't this wrong...

Byron:You shall pack your bags immediately. I have negotiated with the family and they have agreed to the proposal. The clothes are ready and you shall be wed within a month.

Christopher:F-father....

Byron:ENOUGH!! Now begone and prepare!

-------episode one end-------

But then I sat back and thought that this could actually lead somewhere.

And lead somewhere it did! A journey of six long years, almost four years spent typing up the entire series and revising it! There’s 100 episodes and only 47/100 have been fully revised and released!

On the eve of the first season’s release date, I sat back and looked at the script. I was filled with trepidation. I had spent a total of two years writing and then revising season one. And then once I began releasing (and revising for a second time), that took another year. Episodes were far shorter in those days, as you will come to see.

Would people enjoy a narm-y drama? Would people enjoy a soap opera featuring the Tenjos and Arclights? Would people bother to even read the summary?

Ah, ah, but then I realized, in the world of fanfiction, the person that is meant to be pleased the most is me, the writer. And so I released season 1.

We are currently reaching the end of season 2, however, I do not know when we shall reach the shores, for life has gotten in the way of the train...

For my other fic series?

Most of them also started out as jokes, haha.

Or, I totally answered the question wrong (and if so, shame on me for boring you with this story! Apologies!) and you were asking why I watched Zexal.

It began with the world premiere on the CW and cascaded into a path to pure addiction over the years.

#Writing from iris #fanfic writing #Scattered Roses in the Palm of Your Hand #ask

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gwoongi · 5 years

Text

𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗅𝖺𝗌𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗎𝗌 ✰ taehyung (9)

𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗅𝖺𝗌𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗎𝗌 kim taehyung / reader genre: zombie apocalypse au words: 4761

On one hand, it could just be the neighbours cat who did, sometimes, come into the house when your grandparents left the back door open. On the other hand, this could be the exact same as The Walking Dead and you could open the door and find a legless zombie chasing after you- 5 dumb seconds of adrenaline.

a/n: this fic is still on hiatus, due to the rest of it being rewritten and revised!!! please be patient and thank u for all the love :D

warnings: flashbacks, drug use, alcohol, gore, death, twd references, brief suicide mention, struggling mental health

01. denver ↝ 02. holiday with me ↝ 03. sad forever ↝ 04. surely ↝ 05. scorpion ↝ 06. shakespeare ↝ 07. thrones ↝ 08. moon motel ↝ 09. zombies

When Kyungmin heard the distinct sound of boots along the metal fire-escape she looked up from the gun in her hands, spotting Namjoon emerging up the small spiralled staircase to sit on the roof of the motel. She looked back, watching the stars appear sporadically in the dark sky with her feet dangling off the side of the roof, comfortable when her brother sat down next to her.

Namjoon reached into his coat pocket, opening a packet of Marlboro. He toyed with his between his lips, passing the packet to her openly with the raise of his brows, “want a light?”

She shook her head, cringing. “Can’t get over the taste. I’ll pass, thanks, Joonie.”

Namjoon shrugged, pocketing the cigarettes. With one hand, he lit the butt, and the other wrapped around Kyungmin’s hand, tightly, as if afraid to let go. He inhaled the smoke, letting it fill his lungs and choked it out, watching the smoke rush out towards the forest.

“Think they’re getting comfy back there,” he started, and Kyungmin looked over with raised brows, a smile twitching at her lips for a brief moment until it fell. “What? Jealous?”

Kyungmin shrugged.

“Maybe if you ask her, she’ll share him with you,” Namjoon teased, but then he paused, noticing how the skin on Kyungmin’s nose wrinkled, as if disgusted by the idea of being with Taehyung. Funnily enough, that’s exactly how it was. “What? You jealous of him?”

She shrugged again, huffing hair from her face. “It’s whatever, Joon. It’s one of those crushes where you’ve got nobody else to crush on.” Kyungmin waved her hand, “it’ll pass, don’t worry.”

“I guess. She’s pretty, though.”

“Yeah, she is.”

He thought for a long moment. “Is that why you came up here?”

More shrugging. “I had a hunch they’d get to it soon. In any case, it’s not like I wanna be with her. It’s just...a weird attraction. I don’t know. We get along. It’s nice to get along with someone other than you.”

Namjoon scoffed. If this had been any other normal day, without dead people roaming the streets, Namjoon knew everything would be different.

Back home, back in Korea, he and Kyungmin were never close. With a couple years age difference, Namjoon never wanted to be with his little sister. He had his own friends and his own hobbies, he didn’t need the annoying sister he had to come by to his room and cry when she wasn’t allowed in to play Yugioh with his friends. She got him back for it; when Kyungmin got her first girlfriend aged fourteen, she didn’t want her big brother driving her around, knocking on the door to ask if they wanted something to eat when she knew the only reason he came in was to see if everything was okay. Kyungmin and Namjoon were never close, at least not until he went into translating for a big idol company in Seoul and Kyungmin transferred to LA for University.

He often thought it was funny, how they only got close when they were dragged further apart.

“I’m not that bad,” he muttered, offended.

Kyungmin dipped her head, fiddling with the gun. Bored, she began to reload it, spinning the chamber, the bullets rolling on the concrete next to her, ready to be slotted in. Namjoon barely paid any attention to it, glancing over at the spinning sound and dropping some ash off the edge of the roof.

“You shouldn’t play around with that.”

“Not playing, I’m loading it.”

“No difference,” Namjoon muttered, taking a drag. “If you accidentally shoot yourself, it’s gonna be on me or one of them to get it out of you. And I’m not trained in medicine.”

No, Namjoon had studied literature at a community college back in Korea since he couldn’t afford to go a proper University. That’s the difference between him and Kyungmin- one got all the good stuff afterwards because his parents got better jobs. Not that Namjoon minded much. He was happy studying something he liked at his own pace, whilst working for some company he couldn’t remember the name of for a couple months, building up his muscles and stamina, nicknaming himself Backbreaker with a couple of colleagues who worked in the statistics department.

Namjoon had never considered the slight chance that a zombie apocalypse could happen. Nah, it wasn’t possible to think about back when he was eight, thinking about what he wanted to do for a living. If he had known, he would have gone into medicine, or at least the army. Things would be different if the apocalypse was planned.

Namjoon gave up trying to lecture Kyungmin, knowing her well enough to understand that by now she was old enough to do her own thing and make her own choices. If she wanted to fuck around with a gun and twirl her butterfly knife like some Mob movie gangster, he couldn’t stop her. Taking a long drag from the cigarette, Namjoon glanced at her and held it out between his fingers one last time. “Final offer.”

Kyungmin glared at the cigarette, and Namjoon was shocked to see that the cigarette didn’t set up in flames at the intensity of it. She bit her lip roughly, and snatched it from his fingers. Namjoon smoked a lot lately; she knew that no matter how hard he tried to hide it, she could tell from the yellow staining on his fingers, the black nicotine pushed underneath his nails. Bringing the cigarette to her lips, she took an equally long drag, inhaling the smoke, coughing it out and stubbing the butt. The cigarette then fell, like suicide, from the roof onto the grass down below. Namjoon watched it fall, no longer an advocate for keeping the environment clean like he would have been before the Nukes. The world was ending anyway.

“God, it tastes like shit,” she spluttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Namjoon chuckled from next to her, nudging his shoulder against hers. They didn’t say anything after that, not much besides idle chat about the weather and how food supply was running low. Namjoon was a practical person, he liked things being neat and ordered and under control. As a silence fell over the siblings, Namjoon suddenly realised how easy it was to be around Kyungmin. Realistically, it had nothing to do with the fact that that they were blood related. Even if they hadn’t been related, Namjoon reckons it would have been easy being with her, being around her. Kyungmin had that vibe that mother’s have with babies, that somewhat maternal instinct that makes them nice to be around for a while. Kyungmin liked pretending she was Namjoon’s Mom. Maybe he liked that, maybe he liked having a sister and a mother at the same time, even when she was a couple years younger.

“Joon, I wanna stay with Y/N and Taehyung.”

He said nothing at first, swallowing the nicotine flavoured saliva and looking at her with a blank expression, devoid of emotion. Kyungmin frowned deeper, shuffling to face him, “hear me out.”

“I hear you, Kyungmin, I hear you.”

“It’s not right,” she breathed out, at last, shaking her head. “After everything they’ve done for us, and us them...it would be wrong to just leave them behind. We can’t leave them, Namjoon. I don’t want to.”

Namjoon pondered on that. “You’re my baby sister. The only thing I have left- I know, it’s hard, but I have to think beyond a couple of days. I need to think of the future- our future, Kyungmin, and-”

“We’re alive because of them,” Kyungmin continued, her voice raising slightly. But Namjoon didn’t flinch or cringe or even bat an eyelid. “This world is dark, and cruel, and evil. Like hell, are we leaving them behind in that. Look, Joonie, I know it’s not what you want to hear, but we need to consider the possibility of us not making it back home.”

Namjoon groaned, moving, “Kyungmin, no-”

“Please, Joon,” she rasped, holding onto his sweater paws. “Y/N has a group in Georgia with a boat-”

“-We don’t know that-”

“-and our best bet is on that boat,” Kyungmin explained, heating up her cheeks as she spoke. “And even if there is no boat, then fuck, at least we’re not alone on this ugly planet in this ugly country. Namjoon, I wanna go home more than anything else, but, it’s just not realistic right now. I want to stay safe and I think our best bet is to stay with Taehyung and Y/N. Or, fuck, I don’t know, invite them to come with us. Please, Namjoon. I don’t want to leave them behind.”

To be honest, Namjoon didn’t want to either. But it felt like he was the only person thinking realistically about the situation; there was absolutely zero guarantee that there would be anything in Georgia. Namjoon’s watched about a thousand apocalyptic movies, and the ending is never that simple. Without really realising he reaches for a second cigarette, the small box almost half empty.

Namjoon let out a puff of dark smoke, hissing between his teeth. God, no matter how many fags he smoked, he could never get used to that fucking taste. “I’ll bring it up with Taehyung tomorrow. Kyungmin, I just don’t know what to say anymore. We have to think of us. What do we wanna do?”

They left that question hanging for a bit, quietly watching the sky, trying to pretend that the world around them wasn’t falling apart by the second.

After the second night of staying over at the Moon Motel, Taehyung began to feel as though they had overstayed their welcome.

He proposed it over a tinned dinner, the little fire of salvaged wood from outside and pine cones, a leftover newspaper dating back to 2001 reporting the news of the Twin Towers. Just a quick run, to the small village he knew was nearby, nicknamed Shell-Shock, as he recalled from what he had seen on a left behind map back in the suite.

“It will take less than a day,” Taehyung had said. Namjoon didn’t look convinced. “We’re running low on gas, we’ve got about a day’s worth of food left…”

“It would be really helpful if you went, actually,” Kyungmin said around a mouthful of sweetcorn. “The world still spins, and menstrual cycles still exist.”

The plan was simple, the simplest of plans they’ve ever had all together. Taehyung and Namjoon would take the van for a short ten minute drive to the nearby town, scavenge the area and salvage some parts, and then come back. In that time, Kyungmin and yourself would completely pull apart the motel, looking for anything and everything to help the journey to wherever the fuck they needed to be.

“You know how to shoot this, yeah?”

“Of course I do, Taehyung,” you said, approaching him as he hesitated by the door to the van. Namjoon blinked, not caring about the slight delay, using the time to lecture Kyungmin on things she already knew off by heart. “You’ll be gone for a couple hours tops. We’ll be okay- I’ll be okay.”

He nodded his head frivolously, pulling you by your cheeks to plant a small, dry kiss to your temple. “Just making sure,” and then he was off and inside the van, pulling the doors closed.

Taehyung had never really paid much attention to the interior of the van until given the chance to look around. As Namjoon fiddled with the keys and anxiously checked the meter at least four times before driving off, Taehyung fingered the worn, holey leather and scrunched up his nose at the old and stale smell. It reminded him, now he thinks about it, of his first car after high-school. It was old, a 1983 Dodge Colt in red that had been sitting in a junkyard for around three months until he decided to save up at a job in his local cinema and buy the baby. Like the van, his Dodger had worn leather seats that he was too poor to replace, a deep maroon colour, the insides sticking out like tufts of fur.

For a first car, it wasn’t bad. Actually, it was kind of amazing, the kind of car you saw in those 80’s movies about vampires at your high-school. After he bought his first car, Taehyung bought a leather jacket, regretfully real instead of faux, and smoked his first cigarette. In his defense, it had been down to the peer pressure of his best friend, Seunghee, who picked up smoking from her friend Arin, who picked it up from her Dad during a weekend helping out at the garage he worked in. But, it’s a good memory.

He thought about the memory as the van rolled off beyond the small woods, onto the clear road and down towards Shell-Shock.

“C’mon, Y/N,” Kyungmin said after a while, tugging at the end of Taehyung’s leather jacket- the leather jacket- dressing your arms. “We should start near the kitchen, make our way up.”

3 YEARS PRIOR.

One, two, three.

Seunghyun’s feet kicked annoyingly into the wooden frame of your bed, pushed up by the off-white wall, his head lulled back onto the dry paint as Jiyong stood hunched over your desk, one finger on his nose, the other tapping the table.

“Fuck, you got any more of this shit?”

Spinning in your chair, you pulled it across the matted carpet towards the bookcase covering a wall with a couple drill holes in. Honestly, when you moved in with your grandparents the Autumn after your mother passed away, you felt as if there had been little need to decorate the attic that was already looking reasonably liveable. With its slanted ceiling and cream walls, a running cream skirting board and old carpet that had been cut and lazily slapped down on the floor, it was enough to call a home.

The bookshelf ran a metre wide, a dripping deep brown shade with all sorts scattered on the shelves. Books from years ago that your grandmother had just put up for storage, a cactus from IKEA, a few photographs in worn out frames presenting Jiyong and Jennie and Seunghyun and whoever else had scurried into your life after the accident, and a sea-shell ornament placed at an angle, reflecting the light in a coral shade. A conch shell, from a trip to Portugal that your Dad went on after he divorced your Mum and spent the next three months pretending as if he gave a damn. The shell, pretty in its design, came in handy in several ways, as you fingered the hole to retrieve a little packet of glittery white powder, an obnoxious J written on it in red ink.

“There’s the beauty,” Seunghyun narrated, his attention alerted. He sat up straight, holding his hand out expectantly. “Gimme.”

Jiyong let out a sigh of relief, his gums aching as he collapsed onto the floor, shuddering like the shivers after a sunburn. “On second thought, that’s enough for me.”

“If you say so,” you said quietly, kicking the chair back towards the door where it hit the wood with a silent pad, enough to remind your grandparents that you were still up here, although occupied, and very much alive. They rarely saw you, actually. Not that they minded that much.

Even before the accident, they were never very talkative, opting to living life as if their granddaughter wasn’t in the roof snorting lines and popping pills, doing everything and anything to forget and numb the pain, haze the memory of the cancer.

Seunghyun took the bag from you, promptly switching positions as he put the bag on the desk next to a sugary pile of cocaine Jiyong had yet to snort, bringing his attention back to the bed where you lay, staring up at him. You lay still, like a slice of ham.

He grunted with satisfaction, always ready to dominate, and bunched up your shirt to roll it up over your head. Seunghyun sucked in a breath at the sight of a silk bralette, and a surprised gasp elicited your lips as Seunghyun brought back the packet.

“Please don’t fuck while I’m still in the room.”

“Whatever, we’ve done it before,” Seunghyun said, taking the vial from the desk and using it to draw a line of white on your stomach, a beginners position. Without a word, Seunghyun held his thumb to his nostril and sniffed hard, and with experience cleared up the line of white with a groan following. He tilted his head back afterwards, his eyes folding back, strands of bleached white hair falling back into his eyes when he looked back down at you.

His fingers were still white as he hooked his hands around your bralette, “can this come off?”

“Sure,” you breathed. Jiyong let out a groan, or something, you couldn’t quite remember, rolling back over to the desk to finish off the other line. The loud sound of Jiyong sniffing up the powder overpowered the inhale of breath from Seunghyun as he, with one hand, pulled away your bra, tossing it to the side to palm your tits with both hands, his fingers cold and powdery, the taste on his gums.

“Fuck,” he murmured, using the vial once more to draw a more shaky line down your sternum, gently holding back your breasts to clear the space. With what he had leftover, Seunghyun rubbed his fingers over his gums, groaning, and whilst numbing slowly, brought his face back down to snort his second line. That’s all your bedroom was now, a cave filled with white powder and the quiet sound of “Breaking News” that had disturbed the playlist session showcasing the newest album from Yeseo.

Yeah, you fucking druggies, North Korea might be sending cryptic messages about how those infected by their bomb are gonna rip everyone’s faces off, but it’s okay, yeah? As long as you’ve got your white lines, you’re cool.

“You want some?” Seunghyun asked after a long pause of silence. Pushing yourself up on your elbows, you shook your head, sitting up to push his chest back. He stumbled.

“Nah. I’d rather not become a coke addict,” you replied. “Besides, we had a fair trade. Coke for the weed. As per usual…”

Seunghyun smiled razorblades. “Ah, you never let me down. You’re a good girl.”

“D’you think the Denver Quarantine is gonna burst?”

Seunghyun pocketed the remains of the coke in the packet, glancing at Jiyong hunched on the floor. In a whiff, Seunghyun noticed the smell in the room, something like weed and off-cheese, the twang of alcohol and the same old lavender candle on the dresser by the mirror on the wall. He grimaced, reaching towards the window to push it open, airing out the room.

“What’s that got to do with...anything?”

“Just asking,” Jiyong shrugged. “Cause the radio just said that. Said the one in Washington got blown up this afternoon.”

Neither you or Seunghyun said anything. The elder shifted uncomfortably on two feet, already starting his cigarette for the way out. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, at least it’s them and not us,” Seunghyun replied as if it was the easiest answer in the world. “Denver ain’t coming down. You seen the size of those walls?”

“That’s what they thought about the Washington ones, too,” Jiyong shrugged, tightening his belt. “Ah well, fuck it. If the tossers come out, they come out, eh?”

Seunghyun shook his head, sniffing once. “You’re too deep on crack, man.”

Jiyong snorted but said nothing more. Jiyong was practically family at this point, having been a friend since before the start of high-school, during the divorce, after the cancer; he shrugged on his brown Oak and Fort coat, kicking around a packet of pills off the floor and using his foot to shoot it up into his hands, already opening the door leading downstairs. No doubt your grandparents would smell Jiyong before he bounded down the stairs, since he never came round smelling like anything other than booze, fags or faint sweat. Naturally the smell didn’t even matter to you anymore.

Listening to the sound of Jiyong’s socked feet disappearing down the stairs, Seunghyun adjusted the waist of his jeans and shrugged into his own jacket, then moving to pull your face in for a brief, nonetheless deep, kiss, all in one movement. “Thanks, Y/N.”

The boys vanished together, as they came, back outside the small home and into Jiyong’s jeep. It didn’t take watching from the window to hear it groan to a start, the engine revving obnoxiously as if Jiyong was trying to make a statement. Too high to drive, he reversed into one of the ditches across the road, struggling to get up, and then he cruised down the road at a desirable speed, the sound of Babymetal on the speakers.

Downstairs, you could hear your grandparents shuffling around, switching off lights and moving into the back bedroom where they’d probably stay all afternoon. To avoid the smell, maybe. Moving on the chair to kick the door closed, you relaxed when it clicked shut and you rolled back to your desk, switching on the lamp, sliding into a shirt and opening Google Docs on your laptop. You rubbed your finger across the leftover powder on your desk, considering sprinkling it to the ground but at the last second spreading it across your own gums. Because nothing beat writing Seunghyun’s essay on Henry VIII’s foreign policy than being off your face whilst doing it.

The scheduled hour of essay writing slowly turned into six hours of sleeping at the desk, your face shoved into the crook of your elbows with the sound of Childish Gambino in your ears on full blast. By the time you stirred awake uncomfortably, the sky was a blood orange, and you barely registered the faint line of charcoal in the sky until the Childish Gambino record looped for probably the 100th time, the beat making your head bop as you moved to the open window to stare at it.

With the earphones still in your ears, you remembered feeling incredibly uncomfortable listening to Donald Glover sing in a high tone, watching the smoke rise from the Denver cityscape beyond the dense woods, and the sight of oil and blood and about three starfish bodies on the road outside your window. At first, it didn’t seem real, as if you were dreaming vividly. It reminded you of the movies, the first episode of The Walking Dead where Rick has no fucking idea what’s happening. Oh, what a day to feel like Rick Grimes.

Slowly you pulled your earphones out, Donald shutting up, straining to hear absolutely nothing outside besides the obnoxious car alarm, something like gunshots in the city and the very faint sound of scratching behind your door.

At first you almost missed it, the sound so quiet that you could have ignored it all together. You probably would have done, if it hadn’t been for the fact that there were three starfishes out on the main road, and nothing but the very unusual sound of literal warfare in the city.

Setting your phone and earphones to the side, your feet moved towards the door, slowly enough that the noises didn’t cease as they would if something approached the door. Instead, the scratching continued, almost sounding like a kitty pining for attention.

You didn’t own a cat.

Refraining from the stereotype of horror movies, you didn’t bother calling out to whoever- or whatever- was outside the door. As if out of instinct, you paused before turning the handle, suddenly as still as stone. On one hand, it could just be the neighbours cat who did, sometimes, come into the house when your grandparents left the back door open. On the other hand, this could be the exact same as The Walking Dead and you could open the door and find a legless zombie chasing after you-

5 dumb seconds of adrenaline; you yanked open the door and hurried back a few steps, a strangled noise clawing at your throat as the door hit off the wall and revealed an empty staircase. Well, partly empty, if you ignored the fact that your grandmother was literally on all fours on the floor with half of her face missing.

Fuck you, Rick Grimes.

Unlike most pop-culture-induced teenagers, you had never given a zombie apocalypse much thought. Understandably, you had no idea what to do except stumble backwards in panic when she- or it- crawled forwards on all fours, scurrying like a feral animal. With half her jaw hanging by a slick piece of flesh, she picked one bone thin knee up off the second to last step, and in a frenzy, you moved to kick it, sending her tumbling down the stairs in a small nursery rhyme sounding set of thuds.

A groan from down the stairs began to get louder, and you pushed yourself back towards the bookshelf, in a position where you wouldn’t make it to the door before she got up to you. With one million different thoughts racing through your head, and the sight of a white nightgown out the corner of your eye, you turned to the bookshelf and scanned for something- anything to use as a weapon.

You threw a stuffed animal.

You don’t know why, knowing it would do zilch as it bounced off the top of her head, bobbing up the stairs like a buoy on water. And then you saw it, the same coral colour of the conch shell, the spikes protruding like tiny swords. It was this or nothing. Sorry, Dad.

Grabbing the conch with one hand, you turned on your sock to face the groaning and grunting body of what should have been your grandmother, her legs hanging down on the floor like they were useless, and they probably were. The nightgown she always wore to bed was shredded at the hem, one breast hanging out with blood smeared over her neck and jaw, her face torn open like a lion to a gazelle.

It groaned upwards, a hand pointing out, asking for something to grab, and you kicked it away. You cringed at the feeling of bone underneath your foot, your heel digging into her voice box as you moved to stand over her and her biting mouth, and all at once, you brought the conch shell to her face and smashed.

The demon that had always been inside of you somewhere snapped, the smell of blood driving her insane as she wrapped her body around yours, lacing her fingers between your own, moving your hand down, down, down, down, down, to smash, smash, smash, smash, until the face between your knees was bloody and red, with piles of flesh and blood clots and a glass eyeball that rolled on the floor underneath the bed. Even with half her face missing, the grandmother-imitator writhed, her hands clawing at your jeans, although her blunt fingernails made no damage to the material.

“You gotta aim for tha head,” Rick Grimes said in your head, pointing to your temple, and you swore you could feel the coolness of a gun against your skull. “Come on, Y/N, it’s dead. Ain’t gonna get ya. Aim for tha head, darlin’-”

Smash. One dent in her forehead. Smash. The skin caved in, like a sinkhole, muddy red rising up as the white smashed against the blade of the conch. And she wouldn’t stop controlling your hand, guiding it down like a virgin in sex, whispering the ways of murder in your ears, “that’s it, sweetheart,”, cutting off Rick Grimes as he pulled the trigger of his gun against your head, the air escaping through your lips and as you jolted in surprise, you noticed that the conch shell was coated in glistening red, her skull smashed in to the point where the brain had been punctured, blood pooling out like a water feature, the body of the grandmother-imitator still and comatose on the floor.

Oh, what an inappropriate time for Zombies to play in your earphones on the bed.

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nimbus-cloud · 5 years

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Taka-Talk 2019 Review

I was lucky enough to get tickets for two out of his three sessions in Tokyo (sessions 1 and 3), and died of cute. Full synopsis under the Read More for those who are interested!

Session 1 Even though we had tickets for the first session in Tokyo, I already felt like I was behind? Takato did his Taka-Talk in five cities total this year, placing them conveniently as Engeki Haikyuu hopped between cities. And since I couldn’t go to Osaka or Nagoya or Sendai or Hakata, I walked in going, what did I even misssssss??? There was a postcard with a crossword where you could fill in the keywords by attending EVERY session where the keywords were given, and then you could mail it in later for special bromide prizes. I had no shot at winning that obviously lol.

Anyway, session one started with him walking down the aisle toward the stage, walking past us as we did. We had aisle seats for the first session, and he did pause for a little while to mess with my friend’s pull-out desk (the venue was a lecture hall so each chair had a pull-out desk) before going to the stage. One girl walked in a little bit late, rushing to her seat as he got up onto the stage. When he asked if anyone had attended other sessions in other cities, people raised their hand. When he asked who lived the closest to this venue, several people raised their hands. The first girl said it took her 20min by train, another said 15, and then the girl that was late said that she lived one station away. And Takato, being the little shit that he is, just CALLED HER OUT, and was like,

“So you live the closest and got here the latest?”

But she explained that she got here, then realized she’d forgotten her ticket, and rushed back home to get it and came back. That exchange probably feels a bit innocuous, but it’s kind of rare for actors at fan events to be THAT casual? Takato often forgets to use polite forms in his Japanese, defaulting to casual forms not just with his guests but even with us, and sometimes he’ll correct himself, sometimes he doesn’t.

He also asked who came from furthest away, and I did raise my hand but there wasn’t time to call on everyone, but there was a girl in the back who answered that she’d come from Taiwan! And oddly, Takato heard it correctly, that she said Taiwan, but a group of fans in the front tried to correct him, because they heard her say “Hawaii.” So he was like, “Eh? Eh?? Wait, no, say it again.” And she answered louder, ‘Taiwan’ and he just draaaagged that section lololol. He was like, “See!! I was right! You were trying to correct me, but I was right, aren’t YOU embarrassed?!!”

Then he called out the first guest of the day, who was Ishigami Ryuuya, who is the new actor for Fukunaga from The Tokyo Battle. My god he was so cute and shy. He was sort of obviously very nervous, especially at first, but the more Takato talked to him and the more they got into telling stories about the tour, the more he loosened up.

Apparently, Ryuuya calls Takato ‘oyabun’ which roughly translates to like... boss... but in like a criminal setting. So more like ‘don.’ When Takato asked Ryuuya, “Why do you call me that again?” And he just stammered, “W-well, y-you told me to.”

Takato did NOT remember this lololol, but it was apparently as they were starting Engeki rehearsals. Ryuuya, being new and inexperienced, was trying to figure out what to call him. Nagata-san? Takato-san? And Takato was like nahhh just call me Takato-kun. But Ryuuya felt really uncomfortable with that, but then he realized how even Takato-san might be too formal now. So Takato joked that he should just call him ‘boss’ and Ryuuya latched onto it and that’s what stuck.

The Takato film that he prepared for our session was a personal challenge to himself. He would wait in Shibuya in Hachiko square, hoping that someone walking by would recognize him as an actor and start talking to him. But twenty minutes apparently went by with nobody approaching him so then he decided to start approaching random groups of people to ask if they might know him. Since his recent TV Drama is the one with the most reach, he’d start out by asking people if there were any dramas they’d been watching recently, had they watched HajiKoi maybe... then he clarified which character he played. Unfortunately 3 out of 5 groups did not know him at all so he failed his personal challenge and had to eat bugs again. There was one group where they did, in fact, watch the drama, but they didn’t remember who he was even so. And another group where they said they watched the drama, and when he pointed out who he played, they were like, “Oh no way, really?!?”

As is traditional of Taka-Talk films, there’s always a credits page where it’s just like:

Starring: Nagata Takato Director: Nagata Takato Producer: Nagata Takato Script: Nagata Takato Editing: Nagata Takato Cinematography: Nagata Takato

More stories from Ryuuya and Takato, although a good chunk was about how much Yugioh they played in their downtime and how much time the two of them spent together. In trying to remember all the times they played, Ryuuya said that Takato won maybe 80 times and lost 10. He’s very good at YGO apparently. Before Ryuuya left the stage, he did an acrobatic sequence for us and we cheered so loud, Takato got jealous and went, “That’s the loudest you guys have been!!”

Then there’s the Takastagram portion where he walks through the crowd and we’re allowed to take photos of him (hence the photos above).

Then he sang three songs for us (which is the reason for the penlights). He sang a guitar ballad cover of a song he’s been liking recently, he sang “Try” again from last year’s Taka-Talk, the one that he and Kazuma wrote together, and then a more upbeat pop song that SURPRISE had 4 back-up dancers! They were all 4 other guys from his agency, Cube, including Kanda Masakazu (who played Kunimi in The Strongest Team).

At one point he asked them to list one thing they liked about him, and they all picked fairly shallow reasons like hair color, the color of his clothes today... Kanda was a little less shallow since he said he liked Takato’s accent/dialect. The last of them said that he liked Takato’s black shoelaces lololol.

To close it out, we got to give him high fives as we left, with staff pushing us along so that we didn’t linger lol. I just told him, ‘thank you’ in English and he opened his eyes wide and said, “Thank you!” back. It’s a bit fun for me that he’s shorter than I am.

Session 3 So the evening session was like, almost 2 hours long, essentially double the length of the first session, but it is the last Taka-Talk of his five-city tour, so I guess the goal was to make it extra special. This session was supposed to have a ‘secret guest’ and truthfully he had about three, although he did announce Yuushin beforehand.

The fun part was that the secret guest was originally supposed to be someone else, but his managed messed something up and they became unavailable or couldn’t make it, so the secret guest ended up a secret to even Takato! He was like, “We had to get someone else, and even I don’t know who it is, so... I’m gonna hide over here, and you guys let me know when I can look!” His first secret guest was a co-star from the drama HajiKoi, which I haven’t seen, so I did not shriek with the rest of the crowd when he walked in the door lololol. It was Wakabayashi Takuya, who plays Kisa in the drama.

Takato was just crouching on the left corner of the stage, hiding his face behind the curtains, and once Takuya ended up more or less center stage, we called out to Takato that it was fine, he could look, and he was super surprised to see him there. Of course, because his own guest was a surprise, his emcee cards were also covered in sticky notes so that he couldn’t see what his own agenda for the session was going to be, and he kept peeling those off as the session went on to figure out what he was supposed to do lololol. He kept whining at the staff the entire time, but he was also just having the time of his life, and he was just like, “I love surprises! This is so fun!”

The guest event involved playing back scenes from HajiKoi, and then beeping out certain lines and then Takato and Takuya had to guess (with their little boards and markers) what the bleeped line was. To make it extra difficult, literally none of the bleeped lines were anything that either of their characters said. It was always someone else’s line, so they kept getting stuck and would just start writing down nonsense answers instead. So honestly, nobody won, but Takato was just like, “I won, right? It was me?” And Takuya, being a gracious guest, just conceded lol. Takuya also kept apologizing that he wasn’t Ryusei, who’s the actor who plays the pink-haired lead in HajiKoi, since he was sure more of the girls would’ve preferred to see him, but honestly the crowd seemed pretty happy either way. They also decided to give away the little boards they wrote their answers on, so they’d call out random seat numbers or go for whoever rose their hand first. Just like last year, a girl sitting right behind me won one of the prizes, and she was pretty thrilled.

And then the second secret guest was another actor from Cube, Isaka Ikumi, nicknamed Ikumin. I actually know Ikumin from another show (Yuugeki) so I could follow the conversation a little bit better this time. Takato was hiding again, but Ikumin decided he would go up on the stage and then just go straight to Takato and hug him from behind, so we didn’t have to give any cues before Takato looked to see who it was lol.

Ikumin confessed that he’d always always always wanted to be a guest at Taka-Talk, so when the staff approached him about it, he was super excited and said yes immediately, but then they told him that he’d be the second secret guest of the last session and then he got super nervous about it. But Ikumin was basically the type of guest Takato loves to have, aka, the type that extols his immense love for Takato and sings his praises to his face.

The game that they played was truths and lies. So they picked cards that gave them themes, and then between them, one of them would would tell us something true, and the other one would lie. We had to decide who the liar was, and they got us good because we got it wrong both times and nobody had to play the penalty game of eating bugs lol.

One of Ikumin’s lies though, he said that he went to go see the press preview of Engeki Haikyuu, and sat in the 8th row and got super excited when Takato looked at him at the end of the play during the last dance sequence. That was a lie; the truth was that he sat in the 3rd row, and wanted Takato to looks his way the entire time but Takato never did. lololololol We thought Takato was lying when he said that he’d never once lost to Shouri in playing Yugioh, but it turns out that was the truth! And Takato is very very proud of this fact.

Ikumin was like, “Really?” And Takato was like, “Well Shouri’s so good at everything, ya know? Like his athletics, his height, but you know, he could never beat me at Yugioh. We’d start playing, and he’d put a card face down, and then I’d play a card face down, and then he’d put down a monster--” and he started rambling, and Ikumin just interrupted, “Just send that story to Takahashi Kazuki!” Takahashi Kazuki is the YGO manga-ka.

Then there was another video to show us the secret word for that session and it showed Takato visiting Tokyo Tower, because that’s where there is a special One Piece space, which has the One Piece Live Attraction show. Takato made his acting debut with that show playing Luffy, so it was framed as a sort of, going-back-to-his-roots, walk-down-memory-lane type of video. He was getting teary-eyed at certain points in the video, so it was really sweet, and the end of it had him thanking all of us for supporting him and being his fans.

Then he came out to wrap up with the music session, and he tried to lighten the mood again by saying things like, “The staff told me to look super nostalgic while going through the One Piece areas, but I don’t actually remember half of what I touched.”

He sang a different ballad from the first session with Yuushin, this one being an original they wrote together. It was a song about love, but they both had the intention of writing it from a woman’s point-of-view, so that was interesting. They’re always a wonderful duet to listen to~ After that, Takato asked Yuushin if he had any upcoming events/shows he wanted to promote or announcements to make, and Yuushin had this long pause before he was like, “Well it’ll be announced tomorrow.”

And I was just thinking in my head, YES HELLO NEW ENNOSHITA. I’VE SEEN THE LEAKS. I KNOW IT’S YOU.

A final round of high-fives, and then I went back to the goods table for ONE MORE set of bromides to try my luck, and it turned out that Takato was handing out those purchases, so he handed me my final set of purchased bromides and ughhhhhhh he really does have the most adorable smile~!!!

Couldn’t quite get every bromide (and it was impossible because he had city-specific bromides too); they were random. But I also have that penlight and his little tote bag.

He did also announce that he’s doing his first birthday event this year, on Aug. 25th, and he hinted that we could bring these penlights again for that, and then there’s the C.I.A. Mission in Summer event (with nearly all the actors from Cube), and since he’s going to be in that event too, he hinted that we should bring his penlights to that too. I’m honestly not strictly sure that it would be allowed for the CIA event, given that it’s going to have several different people, but who knows lololol. I can only imagine how annoyed the other actors might get at him seeing Takato’s bright red penlights in the crowd. XDDDDD

So another wonderful Taka-Talk, and four total times high-fiving Takato adding in my experiences from last year~ ^_^

#nagata takato #taka-talk #fan event

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lazella · 5 years

Text

Yugioh Infinity Stones: You Wanna Steal a Quin-Jet?

“Suit up team…we’ve got incoming hostiles…”

The rest of the Avengers dropped what they were doing when they heard Tony call out as he passed through the room. The quickly gather their gear and headed to the Quinjet.

“What’s going on out there?” Yusei asked for his group.

“Just some aliens not playing nice.” Tony explained, “Should be no more than a day trip.”

“Can we help?” Judai asked a little too eagerly.

“Not today…Fury would have our heads if we took you into the field before he approves of the idea…” Steven said, “We won’t be too long.”

The boys watched as the Avengers loaded up and took off. There was only a brief pause before Yugi asked the rest of the group, “We’re going to follow them anyway…right?”

“Yusaku already hacked all of their passwords…” Judai pointed a thumb to the hacker in question who held up a thumb drive.

“We can have our pick of transport,” Yusaku said, “We just need a pilot.

“That I can do!” Yuma jumped up, “I’ve flown alien ships before.”

“I feel better if Yusei drove…he is the eldest here.” Yuya pointed out.

“Shouldn’t be too hard…” Yusei shrugged, “Mr. Stark did have me try out some simulations.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Judai led the charge to the hanger, everyone else following.

……………………………

Steve was having a bad day. Turns out what they thought was one ship of hostile aliens turn out to be an armada. Clint and Tony were working on sniping down the larger ships while everyone else delt with the foot soldiers. This should have been a quick day but…

They…

Just…

Kept…

Coming…

“SMASH!!!!!!!”

And now Hulk was running rampant.

“I hope we don’t need VERONICA after this…” Tony quipped over the com.

“Hopefully Bruce will get it out of his system…” Natasha responded followed by what sounded like someone’s neck snapping.

“You think this will top Budapest Natasha?” Clint asked.

“Nothing will top Budapest.”

“One day you need to tell us what happened in Budapest…” Steve said throwing his shield at another alien.

“Perhaps I should visit this Budapest…” Thor muttered to himself.

“We can take a trip later but right now I am really getting tired of these aliens!” Tony shouted in frustration.

“Did we call for back up?” Clint asked.

“Everyone else is ‘busy’…” Everyone could hear the invisible airquotes in what Tony said.

“Did somebody say….back up?!”

Everyone froze for a bit, was that Judai on the commlink?

“Hi guys!!!!!” Judai’s voice was ringing loud and clear over the com, “Can we join the party?”

Steven froze at the ‘we’ part, “Judai….who did you bring?”

“Oh you know…..” Another quin jet dropped in from the sky, “The crew…”

“Who’s flying that thing?!” Tony asked panickly.

“Don’t worry Mr. Stark…your training simulations came in handy.” Yusei’s calm voice echoed over the commlink.

“Your commlink system does needs some upgrades though…” Yusaku was next to speak up, “It was quite easy to find and link into your channel.”

“And I can take a safe bet that the kids are with you?” Tony asked.

“Yugi-san is preventing Yuma-kun and Yuya-kun from jumping out of the jet.” Yusei explain.

“Why are they trying to jump out of the jet?!” Tony asked even more worry in his voice.

“Because Yuma wants to kick an alien in the face and also I think Yuri’s in control and he can’t resist a good fight.” Was the answer.

“Boys…please…..stay in the jet…” Tony had to resist face palming considering said palm was firing a laser beam at an alien.

“Not to worry Tony I’ve got this!” Judai called out, “Hey hand you cards over for a sec…preferable ace monsters…” There was sounds of shuffling and muttering before Judai came back on over the com link. “Just a word of warning…please don’t shoot what I’m about to summon.”

Before anyone could ask why, the back of the boy’s jet opened up and six beams a light shot out forming six very different things. First was a magician dressed in purple armor, the second was a white humanoid figure, then a silver and blue dragon, a large warrior dressed in white and gold with the number 39 on its shoulder guard, another dragon this time red in color, and finally yet another dragon that was white with blue circuitry details.

Tony wanted an explanation; he really wanted an explanation. Would he get on though? Probably not but he really can’t complain about having back up now.

“And it get’s even better!” Judai wasn’t done, “With a little juice from the Power Stone…” The three maybe humans and three dragons now gained a purple aura, “They’ll be able to take care of those pesky aliens with no problem!”

He wasn’t lying about that, the six…summons? Tony was going to go with summons…swooped down and started making quick work of the alien forces. It sounded awesome but it really just was the three dragons breathing fire…explosions…stuff on the aliens and the other three were picking off stragglers. The whole battle was over in five minutes.

The Avengers took a moment to recollect themselves while Yusei parked their ‘borrowed’ ship. The six boys filed out trying to look innocent (Yusaku was the only on succeeding in this department) while Tony and Steve got their angry parent faces on.

“Did we not tell you to stay put?” Steve asked.

“Not exactly…” Judai smirked clearly not caring that he was in trouble.

“We said we didn’t need help.” Tony scolded.

“You sure looked like you needed it.” Yuma pointed out.

“We would of handled it…eventually…” Tony muttered the last part, “But you didn’t need to come out here.”

“Would you rather have us stay in the tower with not supervision? Especially with Yuma and Yuya?” Yugi asked.

The Avengers shuddered, the two younger boys on sugar was not a fate they would wish on most enemies.

“Guys…” Natasha called for their attention holding up her phone, “Fury’s on the line.”

“You talk to him Tony.” Steve said.

“Why do I have to talk to him?!”

“Because you trained Yusei on how to fly the Quinjets!”

“They were locked behind passcodes!”

“And you let Yusaku…a known hacker…have a personal laptop that has full access to our networks.”

“I’m Yusaku didn’t figure out the codes…”

“I did.”

“Not helping Yusaku!” Tony called back.

Natasha sighed and turned to the non-arguing members of the team. “Clint…help Thor with the clean up…as for you…” She turned the boys, “You get to track down Hulk.”

Natasha took a bit of pleasure in the freak out that result from the order.

“Now now…I thought we were not supposed to get anywhere close to Hulk when he’s…” Judai tried to make an excuse for his group.

“If you want to help you will help in all aspect until the end of the mission. Which include clean up and Hulk retrieval. If you can do it maybe Fury will be less mad at you.”

There were some grumbles but they did start following the Hulk footprints to figure out where he went. Natasha turned back to her phone call, “You sure about this?”

“If they can handle the Hulk then they can handle any mission.”

“And the fact that most of them are underage doesn’t bother you?”

“At this point I don’t care. They have the Infinity Stones attached to them so might as well train them up for combat.” Fury said.

“If you insist sir….” Natasha said as she watched a portal open up in the sky dropping down Hulk who for some reason was dressed in a nightgown and a teddy bear under his arm looking rather confused. Of in the distance she could have sworn she heard Yuma and Yuya laughing in the distance. This was going to be the new norm for her…not that she mind anyway.

#infinity stones au #yugioh #avengers #gx #5ds #zexal #arc v #vrains #tony stark #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #hulk #thor #yugi mouto #judai yuki #yusei fudo #yuma tsukumo #yuya sakaki #yusaku fujiki

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des-shinta · 5 years

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I been wondering, since I don't honestly know much about what happened to Hibiki. I know of the writer changes, but not much else. How deep does this rabbit hole go? Since the only thing I know was that a lot of character assassin happened and the plot changing massively. And I was looking forward to your review, but I understand the issues of Toei and other problems.

thanks for understanding on that. Hell, I’m still failing to get the *Old* episodes back up without Toei’s abuse of Copyright claims rearing its head. It’s…well…yeah… The rewrites aren’t just obvious in the infamously-scrapped-and-rewritten final episode. I covered a lot of it in the originally intended review, but…it’s basically everything and every scene. It’s so heavily NOT Hibiki, that the Hibiki AR world in Decade has more in common with first-half hibiki than post-staff-change Hibiki does. To many fans, Post-staff change Hibki IS the AR-world, and the series ends at the ‘seven senki’ movie as it Actually DOES tie into hibiki’s canon and the continuity problems in that movie are explained by it being Asumu’s acted-out imaginary fantasy depiction of recorded historical events he spends the film reading about.

Basically every two-part arc had that feeling of the second half being forcibly changed and thus screwing over the potential of the first half…and usually by it being Kiriya’s inclusion in things fucking it all over. Asumu suddenly has a complex about his absentee father, is a completely spineless loser and is all his own fault for being so (as opposed to being comparable to My Hero Academia’s Izuku Midoriya in intended storyarc (I am not kidding)), and any progress on improving himself is lost–thus further delaying him actually BEGINNING his oni training until it’s the final 8 episodes because the show failed to start that When they Should have (I.E: episode 16-24). Akira abandons everything she’s done and trained for over the course of years and ignored Ibuki in the name of quick powerups and a desire for power now because of Kiriya and a woman Oni that comes out of nowhere only to be killed in a moment of complete idiocy as she loved Zanki’s dead mentor. Hibiki outs himself as a Coward and that being why he trains so hard, instead of a desire for self-improvement and a clear-minded sense of self to selflessly help people which an Oni was shown to need…all so it can make how Kiriya was portrayed more reflect the ‘truth’ of Hibiki. A Truth which, incidentally, is that of A Hypocrite, as why he drops Asumu as a disciple in the first place BEFORE the finale’s timeskip was because Asumu decided to help a friend out–KEEPING with Hibiki’s previous teachings about there being a need for ‘balance in all things’ and to not abandon your normal life to be an Oni as those connections are what support you in tough times– and Hibiki condemns him and considers him worthless for it while they’re in the midst of a situation where the barely-trained apprentices being involved would result in them straight-out being killed. So Asumu staying out of it would’ve been a GOOD THING as then he wouldn’t be pointlessly throwing his life away in a battle he could do nothing to affect.(I Honestly think it’s this scene in specific that led to Shigeki Hosokawa exposing how badly the show and it’s cast had been treated.)And Todoroki and Ibuki…become complete oblivious Idiots. With no explanation.Hell, the ‘training’ the Oni do becomes far more half-assed. instead of the thorough, intense workouts and regiments the Oni previously needed to stay in shape and grow in power…their workouts consist of basic fitness training you’d do in Gym Class, while their improvements take the form of sudden powerups.And to make that last one Worse? KIRIYA COULDN’T EVEN DO THOSE BASIC EXERCISES! By the time He and Asumu were finally accepted to train for the job he’d shown himself as completely incapable at any physical activity, and we were supposed to then feel bad when he had to cheat at them to keep up with Asumu who was giving his all, and got caught doing so. Then, again to show how badly Asumu was screwed over, after the timeskip in the final episode? Kiriya’s still slacking at his training but can now transform without a problem a year after training (IIRC the normal time range is in the span of about 5 years. Akira before she suddenly out of nowhere decided to just Fucking give up at it did it in about 3 or 4), while suddenly Asumu can’t even climb a slightly inclined hill that *I* could walk up the side of with no problem, even while helping out a injured kid as Asumu was showcased in said scene…and he had to call kiriya to help him do that. All the more galling, as in a previous episode, in the EARLIEST days of their Oni training before they did any of the strenuous stuff, Asumu had climbed a steep graveled incline in a quarry without fail, which had far less of a foothold or ability to climb than a moderately wet grassy hill. That one was ALSO made worse, as an even earlier episode had Asumu assisting Hibki in a task, only to slip down a sleek, slippery muddy hill and need to be rescued from injury, so him climbing up the rocky incline also worked as contrast to how Asumu had supposedly grown on his own as a person from his own experiences without explicit need for supervision…and then by the series end he’s worse off than when he started. And we’re supposed to believe it’s a good thing.No-one that was actually paying attention bought it.Hell, that’s in turn why people then got so mad when the details got out about the show’s last episode being rewritten, and simultaneously why The recent news of the Hibiki tribute arc of Zi-O got people pissed off again. Turns out, first draft? Asumu became an Oni and Hibiki’s successor, Kiriya was to drop out due to him not having the character to succeed at this. Later rewrites? Asumu’s still the successor, but Kiriya now becomes an Oni as well. It was ONLY the version that Producer Shirakura rewrote himself that excluded Asumu from what the entire series had been building towards, all so they could cannibalize the suit made for Asumu to make *Kiriya*’s better. yes, the one they made special order because it wasn’t originally mean to exist had to be improved, by destroying the one which was always meant to be there at the end. Kiriya, literally and figuratively, stole Asumu’s story, relationship with Hibiki and earned reward.It’s just…It really is that nearly every damn episode after the staff change that nor only makes the show more repulsive and unappealing,but retroactively makes all the GOOD things about the first half turn bad by proximity or how they’re ‘recontextualized’ in the newer content. Nothing and no-One escapes. Hell, not even the villains. Turns out, we weren’t even actually following the major antagonists at any point in the series, but clones. What was their big deal? No Idea, they literally didn’t care at that point. Which personally was a big tip off that the post-staff-change writers weren’t to blame on this, as both HAVE Written a litany of good antagonists even in their less well-received works.Cumulatively, It’s why, while I have criticised them a lot in the past for their bad content, I don’t really blame Toshiki Inoue or Shoji Yonemura for how bad it is (and in the latter’s case try to remind yugioh fans that ‘hey, a few really bad writers are on Vrains, that’s a big part of why it sucks so don’t go attacking Shin Yoshida for it ‘cause he’s repeatedly been shown to not be the cause when he was accused of such in the past’), for they clearly were not in control nor had the leeway that’s usually afforded to Writers on series like this to develop their stories how they like within reason. I forget where, but I remember reading something about them apologizing for their part in this and stating they had no control, Decade’s Tribute episodes being reflective of that apology, and that arc being more in line with what they would have done had they had…well, any other producer.I really, really cannot understate how bad it is. I feel this brief is once more only scratching the surface on how bad it goes.

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steve0discusses · 3 years

Text

The Fullmetal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 9: Ctrl-Z

Well guys, we did it, this is the last installment of the FMA movie. Probably forever because this movie hella bombed and I am 99% positive they will not bring it back (and if they do, it will be a complete reboot because this is a mess) We are left with one burning question--how the hell can you resolve any of this?

Especially this alley of human corpses that you have to keep secret from the public:

PS, I did not skip really anything other than some closeups of them shooting stuff. We just have to trust that Hawkeye can just shoot 60,000 dudes with that tiny gun that probably only holds 6 bullets. (12 bullets? I know nothing about guns.)

But we’ll just have to assume that the corpses are dealt with in their own special way, because the movie will never address these again. So, meanwhile, back at the stone, Ed is dealing with how his MacGuffin is a mix of dead people.

Like this is an aside but dude--the drama that’s still boiling off of whatever is left of the hot turd that became Bon Appetit, like HOT DAMN. People always say everything you like will be problematic in 10 years but MAN. Fully expected for Scott Adams to get problematic. But Bon Appetit? The seemingly innocent cooking show?

Yo, I’m not over it.

Yo, I’m not over how much Bon Appetit lied directly to my face: that freakin smokescreen illusion of a perfect working environment. Cannot wait for the Netflix documentary that will inevitably come out.

So glad I was too lazy to make any fanart of that show. Or that I was not good enough at art to make fanart of Dilbert.

(I say knowing full well that the original English voice actor of Ed Elric had a huge ass harassment coverup that spans 15+ years and the legal followup and trial has been a huge mess.)

Anyway, Ed doesn’t even know how problematic that rock is. He doesn’t even know that the dead people in that stone are his distant relatives and that he’s one of the only living Xerxes’ians (Xerxicans? What do you call people from Xerxes anyway?) that are left on the planet, but it still carries weight. Not as much, but it still carries weight.

What follows is what the movie decided was the most important character development of Fullmetal Alchemist, mostly because it’s the only thing in FMA left after they did this massive edit.

(read more under the cut)

(If the rock were still active then Lust would not be dead, she’d just reform, we’ve been over this. And youknow it’s been a minute for me, maybe this was also a thing in the anime where you can still use stones that are from leftover dead homunculi...it just doesn’t make sense to me. They would reform. But I will let this go.)

And if you were like “Hey back in the anime, it felt like it was a lot harder to get into Truth Hut--didn’t you have to kill a guy most of the time?” and you would be correct! I guess the idea is that Ed doesn’t want to kill the souls already in that rock in order to do the exchange--but this idea is never said out loud in the movie, although it was clearly indicated in the anime. Kind of...something they should have mentioned.

But anyway, now we’re back in truth hut but this time Ed can wear pants.

Over in the corner we have Al’s body, confirmation that he is still a real boy.

I guess they had to put this in, since Al’s only character angst in this movie is whether or not he’s real. They can now at least give us some closure about that.

And as the spectral deity decides to make a bargain, Ed realizes that profiting off of war crimes is a bad look.

PS I really don’t know if I should cover the ass on Al’s body over there. It’s kind of got feet in front of it.

We know that’s a dude in a speedo, right? I don’t have to cover that up? Cuz I’m not.

And while we have closure for Al as being a real boy, we really don’t have a lot of closure for Ed. I’m proud of him for not doing a war crime, but it’s not like he freed any of the souls in that stone and it’s not like he got to the bottom of the conspiracy, and it’s not like we got any payback for Hughes.

Ed is still in emotional limbo at the end of this movie, which is pretty disappointing. But again, I think they were REALLY gunning for a second movie, because most of the stuff at the end of this is them hinting that they’re going to continue the story another time...

but like...they knew they weren’t gonna get a second one. There’s just no way they couldn’t have known after how poorly it did in box offices.

Gotta love anime and their refusal to let the not even real people kiss.

They’re not real. They’re characters in a movie. Let them kiss. It’s fine. No one will get arrested.

But whatever.

This hurts my eyes.

But don’t worry, even though that looks like the end, with that sort of crazy ass flare that allows us to hide any of the background we didn’t feel like drawing, it’s not the very, very end.

It just can’t be, not without out one of these:

That’s right it’s trains!

And also, look at this movie segueing right back into Yugioh. Look at that. We got a cursed demon child and Some Basic Girl playing cards on a moving vehicle? Just the way it should be.

So, that’s over--and honestly--this was a hard movie to make. I think they made a lot of good choices, being honest--but I also think they made a lot of bad ones that overshadow the good stuff by a whole lot.

And since this isn’t really a critique but just a deep dive, lets talk about what we would have done differently. Because honestly? There’s no right answer. You have 130 minutes to tell the whole story. What would you do? See I asked bro what he would have done and his answer was “I would make the only villain Shou and that first villain” who’s name I didn’t remember either, so I decided to look it up on the FMA wiki and I saw a big surprise!

That Adolf Hitler is listed as one of the villains of Fullmetal Alchemist??? Guys did I...am I reading that right on this Wikipedia page?

Is this is not the only Fullmetal Alchemist movie???????

OMG, guys there’s another Fullmetal Alchemist movie and I kid you not, it has Hitler in it.

I mean I’m not going to cap it because I got a list of other things to cap (as I know several of you are patiently waiting for) but like..........why have I never heard of this?

Anyway, bro would just condense everything to just the first 4 episodes and include scar and all the rest. Me? I would do the opposite and start at the very end right when Ed and Al meet up with their Dad, and only talk about Xerxes and the Homunculi and their family relationship and no one else.

I dunno if either of our ideas would work because obvi writing a movie is a lot more than just having an idea. You gotta get that through marketing, through people in suits who don’t know how stories work, through actors who’s hair will not hold a braid, etc etc. I mean one person just decided to put Hitler in it, and that movie got way better reviews so...hell do I know about writing anything?

But overall, the movie served it’s purpose by distracting me from the real world for a little while. So, thanks all for sitting on on this nice little excursion from our typical programming, been a weird year, so I was grateful for this buffer. We will go back to our Yugioh routine in the next update which will go up-----at some point. No idea when, I don’t have a schedule anymore for obvious reasons. But we made it to the start of the last season! Bakura’s in it? We see Pharaoh in actual Egyptian wear? I’m looking forward to a lot of really botched and questionable history, so I’ll see you there.

If you just got here and want to read the beginning of this Fullmetal Alchemist Movie journey with me you can here:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

#FMA #Fullmetal Alchemist #Fullmetal Alchemist the Live action movie #recap #photo recap #ed elric #al elric #Roy Mustang #Hawkeye #TRAIN #Winry #cards also make an appearance because I can't go anywhere without cards these days

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synthient · 6 years

Note

Could you elaborate on what you mean about Death T re stanning and fairness? It sounds interesting and I'd love to hear about it if you don't mind sharing.

ajhfakj hoo boy. Okay.

So some time around the summer before last (judging by the point where the first baffled and frustrated readmores start showing up on this blog), I read Death-T. It made me feel…some kind of way. An…unpleasant kind of way.

Here’s the thing about me: I can’t just let myself have an emotional reaction to a piece of fiction. I have to, first, pick apart my own emotions to figure out why I had that reaction, and second, pick apart the story to figure out how it works and how it made me feel that way.

On the Feelings Front, I’ve isolated two main causes:

1. I have a brain that Needs Things To Be Fair. That doesn’t mean I can’t handle unfairness in a piece of fiction. Unfairness creates conflict, and conflict is what makes for good storytelling. But it does mean that I need the story to be aware of its own unfairness. I need the unfairness to be the point. Otherwise I start vibrating at high speeds and shaking my fist at clouds.

2. I’m a Kaiba stan. I accidentally got emotionally attached to the Funny Card Game Boy from the Funny Card Game Show.

There’s the feelings part. That leaves the “picking apart the story” side of the equation. And I’ve been trying to do that in nice punchy little one-or-two-paragraph text posts for the past year or so, but I don’t think I’ve ever really done the argument justice that way. So I guess that leaves only one option: writing a giant wordvomit essay on Yugioh (1996-2004).

Why This Is A Death-T Hateblog: The Masterpost

An important note: I like being able to back up my thoughts with Evidence From The Text, but I’m specifically working off the (Viz translated) manga. You can read Cards with Teeth here, Capumon here, and Death-T starting here if you want to check any of my facts or draw your own conclusions. Keep in mind that the Toei anime made pretty huge changes to the s0 Kaiba storyline, and the DM anime skipped most of it entirely–if you’re more familiar with those continuities, there’re some major differences in the manga.

(Also this thing probably reads better on desktop. I think the formatting got screwed up on mobile)

How We Got Here

Before we can actually dig into Death-T, we need to start at the very beginning (♫a very good place to start♫). So that means taking a look at “The Cards with Teeth (Part 1)” and “The Cards with Teeth (Part 2).”

For its first 8 chapters, the Yugioh manga chugs blissfully (if repetitively) along with an episodic, conflict-of-the-week formula. No overarching plot. Next to no sense of continuity. No trading cards in sight.

Then this asshole shows up.

His name is Seto Kaiba (or “Kaiba,” at least–not sure if this is just a Viz thing, but my copy of CwT never mentions his given name). Not that he bears a whole lot of resemblance to the Seto Kaiba we later come to know and love (and/or love to hate).

Almost none of his most defining traits are there yet. There’s no mention of Mokuba, no mention of Kaibacorp, no indicationthat he’s especially rich (besides the fact that he’s carrying around a wholebriefcase of trading cards), no reason to believe he has a specific obsession with Blue Eyes (he just thinks it’s a strong card and it’d help him win tournaments), and no sign of any special hacking/strategy/hand-to-hand-combat/etc. skills (the kid is hilariously incompetent).

This dude was never supposed to be a recurring character, and it shows.

But anyway, let’s run through the basic series of events:

- Kaiba wanders into the game shop looking forbooster packs. Yugi recognizes him as an acquaintance from school (not as a famous kid CEO, and not as a recent transfer student)

- Kaiba happens to notice the Blue Eyes card lying out onGrandpa’s counter (in this version of events, he hasn’t been stealing rare cards for months before this, he didn’t creep on Yugi’s conversation and followhim home, he had no idea going in that the Blue Eyes was there, and he didn’t already have the other three)

- He offers to trade all the cards in his briefcasefor the Blue Eyes (although he doesn’t tell Grandpa to name his price—again,the millionaire CEO element isn’t a thing yet)

- Grandpa refuses, so the next day Kaiba comes up with alaughably badly thought-out plan to steal the card

- Shockingly, Yugi notices that the “color copy from the catalog” isn’t the real deal. He gently tries to confront Kaiba about it in private

- Kaiba (without showing an ounce of the cool head you’d think you’d need to take over and run a company) panics, starts stammering and unconvincingly denying it, and then smacks Yugi with his briefcase

Annnd then Part 2 plays out like a standard s0 chapter.

“Yami Yugi” takes over. They play a shadow game. Kaiba cheats by slipping the stolen Blue Eyes out of his sleeve (Atem’s like “That’s my Grandpa’s card!” and Kaiba straight up goes “Whaaat, nooo, that’s my card that I, uh, found on the street just now.” A teen genius criminal mastermind, everybody). The shadow magic gives him a spritz from its metaphorical Karmic Cat-Training Spray Bottle and makes his Blue Eyes dissolve (I’d like to think that was Kisara going “I’m not mad, just disappointed,” and Memory World tries to retroactively make that connection, but it’s pretty abundantly clear that nothing about this series was planned that far ahead). He loses. Yadda yadda yadda.

And then Atem goes in for the penalty game.

To recap:

Some random 10th grader from Yugi’s school stole a trading card, hit someone, and was generally kind of a jerk. As punishment, he was trapped in a hyper-realistic illusion of being ripped apart and slaughtered by half a dozen monsters at once.

Y…ay…?

Let’s Stop and Reflect for a Sec

In theory, I shouldn’t be that much more upset about Cards with Teeth than I am about any other part of s0, right? It’s not like the manga framed it as horrific and wrong when Atem set off an explosion in some teenage bully’s face a couple chapters ago. Giving us the vicarious pleasure of punishing our bullies in over-the-top, Carrie-style ways without actually exploring any of the consequences is, like, the early manga’s whole thing.

But even taking into account the fact that I already had an attachment to this Nasty Bowl Cut Boy thanks to the anime, I do actually think that there are at least two factors that set CwT apart.

The first is that Atem’s karmic punishments are usually…well, karmic. If he inflicts physical harm on someone, it’s because they already inflicted or tried to inflict roughly the same amount of harm on Yugi & co. If the crime was relatively minor, then he only gives out a minor punishment–like, say, when the homeroom teacher was Just Kinda Mean, all he did was allow the class to see her without her makeup on (…setting aside the Let’s Get Into Gender Politics-ness of that chapter).

There’s even a few cases where you could argue that the punishment is too light to fit the crime. Ushio beat Jonouchi and Honda half to death and tried to murder Yugi with a knife, and all he got was this lousy t-shirt an illusion that made the trash on the ground look like money.

In another chapter, the villain of the week tried to rape Anzu, and the only punishment he faced was having his side business exposed as a scam (Let’s Get Into Gender Politics).

Yet in CwT, we see one of the most harmless villains in all of s0 (no prolonged beatings or attempted murder? unheard of!) receive what’s arguably the most horrifying penalty game in the whole manga. At least when that guy got set on fire, it was over fast.

And that brings us to factor number two: Kaiba is the first penalty game victim in s0 who comes back.

Capumon: Gotta Catch ‘em All!

Well, technically he doesn’t come back in person, at first. Someone else shows up to fight in his name.

Oh hey Mokie. How’s it going?

Rather understandably (imo), Mokuba wants the guy who tortured his brother last week to face some actual consequences for it.

Now here’s an interesting opportunity that the manga has set up for itself. Is it going to dig deep into the balance between defending yourself vs lashing out and causing undue harm? Is it going to remind us that most of the penalty game victims so far, whatever their crimes,have been children? Is it going to demonstrate that when you take out your anger on someone, you don’t just hurt your immediate target, but their loved ones as well?

Nah, who am I kidding.

Hurting or inconveniencing the Good Guys in any way is Bad. Anything the Good Guys do is Good and Justified. Using magic to stick an already-hurting eleven-year-old in his own personalized hell? Good and Justified.

Before he’s shoved screaming into the Giant Vending Machine Capsule Where Bad And Naughty Elementary Schoolers Go To Atone For Their Crimes, Mokuba mentions that the other penalty game he heard about “made my brother go crazy!”

He also drops a hint of things to come with all the subtlety of an anvil. So I guess by this point, the numbers had come in and the card game chapter had proved unexpectedly popular enough that a sequel was in the works.

Death-Twink? Death-Tastic?Death-Two: Electric Boogaloo?

I’ve been pretty hard on Cards with Teeth and Capsule Monsters Chess so far. But you want to know the truth?

On their own, they aren’t necessarily that bad.

What really matters in a story isn’t the literal events: it’s how those events are framed. At the moment, we’re only midway through an incomplete storyline. Maybe we’re supposed to be horrified. Maybe we’re supposed to be questioning whether or not the hero is really in the right. It all hangs on what these chapters are building to.

As it turns out–as Mokuba just helpfully clued us in on–they were building to Death-T.

And that’s where the shit hits the fan.

Over a dozen chapters after we first met Kaiba, a whole bunch of completely-unforeshadowed facts about him are suddenly dumped on us all at once. He’s rich! The kind of rich that allows for limo rides, a giant mansion, and flouncing around in a fur-lined cape like feudal European nobility! And he’s the president of a company, even though “Whaa?!! But he’s still in high school!” Speaking of which, apparently Kaiba “hasn’t been at school recently.”

The Death-T arc opens with Yugi and Jonouchi attending the world’s most awkward sleepover–the host never shows up, and they don’t even get to paint each others’ nails or watch movies. Also Mokuba tries to murder them in the night, but you know what? If someone tortured my brother, “made him go crazy,” and left him huddled in the house feverishly working on a bizarre project and refusing to go to school for the next few weeks, I’d probably poison them too.

The morning after the sleepover, we learn another new Kaiba Fact…

Ever since the Experience of Death happened, he’s been having horrible recurring PTSD nightmares about it. As you do. When you get tortured.

(This is why, even though I know intellectually that it’s Not That Deep and people arejust having fun, I still get a little skeeved out when I see jokes about howDeath-T happened “just” because Kaiba was that mad about losing a card game or “just”because he had a crush on Yugi and he didn’t know how to deal with it. I’malways internally like “Nnno, I’m pretty sure it was the torture?”)

So far we’ve been shown in pretty brutal detail that our “hero” psychologically broke a fifteen-year-old for no good reason. The manga’s going to have its work cut out for it if it really wants to do a convincing redemption arc for its protagonist. And there’s no way it could possibly try to spin that random act of torture as an acceptable thing, right?

…right?

Crime and Punishment

That’s one of my first big problems with Death-T: to me, it reads as a way of trying to retroactively justify the Experience of Death.

That seems to be the purpose of suddenly giving Kaiba all this wealth and power that was never hinted at in Cards with Teeth. See, he wasn’t just some random high school kid who had the bad luck of crossing someone with magic powers; he was (however improbable that is, as the story lampshades) a high school-aged CEO. He’s so ludicrously powerful that he can torture an old man in front of a live audience and get away with it. Punching up looks a lot better than punching down, doesn’t it?

And you can’t really fault the hero for torturing someone evil, can you? Kaiba used Grandpa’s sanity as a blackmail chip! He ran experiments on human test subjects! He wants to kill Yugi and everyone he loves! Surely a little torture is no worse than he deserved.

There’s only one one problem with that: the Experience of Death happened before Death-T. There’s no way Atem could have known any of this was coming. The audience couldn’t have known it was coming. Takahashi didn’t know. Chronologically speaking, the Experience of Death wasn’t revenge for Death-T. It’s the other way around.

Best Served Cold

So Death-T is a form of eye-for-an-eye vengeance: “Yugi” beat Kaiba at Duel Monsters and tortured him, so now Kaiba’s gonna beat Yugi and torture him, using his own perfect virtual recreation of “Yugi’s” penalty game (oh yeah, that whole “the average person goes insane in about 10 minutes” thing? Kaiba was able to program that detail from personal experience).

But wait! This isn’t really eye-for-an-eye! Kaiba’s going after Yugi’s loved ones, not just Yugi, and that’s worse than what Yugi did to him! And even if it was proportionate, revenge is bad and wrong. That’s how you get endless back-and-forth chains of vengeance and generational blood feuds and stuff. Two wrongs don’t make a right!

And those could all be reasonable points, except…

This entire story is about how great and badass eye-for-an-eye justice is.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if you could take everyone who ever hurt you and make them suffer even worse” is practically the thesis of Season 0. You can’t make something look awesome when the protagonist does it and then turn around and make it seem evil and inexcusable coming from anyone else.

And while Kaiba does wind up targeting Yugi’s friends, that wasn’t part of his original plan. He’s surprised when random people start jumping out of the bleachers/the Kaibacorp employee roster and insisting that they won’t let Yugi do this alone. The writing uses his surprise as proof that he just doesn’t understand The Power of Friendship, but it’s also evidence that his original target was just Yugi.

“If you’re gonna side with my torturer, then you can have the same fate as him, I guess.” It’s not even that far outside the logic Atem’s been using all this time. Just because there’s only one main gang member who personally hurt his friend, that doesn’t mean that Atem won’t rope every random mook who gets in his way into the death game too. (Granted, this doesn’t really apply to Kaiba’s treatment of Grandpa. Or the offscreen experimentation/blackmailing. Or Mokuba, but…we’ll get to that).

…But like I said before, the big issue isn’t the events. It’s the framing. Maybe the point will ultimately be that if penalty games are wrong when the bad guy does them, then they’re wrong when the hero does them too. Maybe this is all leading up to a big reexamination of Atem’s moral code and some much-needed character development.

Maybe. Let’s keep going and see.

*Great Gatsby comic voice* Baby? What Baby

Death-T runs for 14 chapters, but Kaiba isn’t actually there for, like…half of them.

I mean, he’s technically there? Occasionally? He’ll show up long enough to dramatically play chess for a panel or so, or to stick his head on a TV monitor and provide some Helpful Death Game Hints. But for all practical purposes, he’s pretty much absent for the entire middle section of the story arc.

And, uh…let’s just say I 100% understand and respect the DM anime’s decisionto go straight from Grandpa’s heart attack to the final duel and skipeverything in between.

If Kaiba’s real goal is to beat Yugi at Duel Monsters, then all the death games leading up to that one are basically filler. And they manage to be just as contrived and nonsensical as any anime filler arc, without a fraction of the fun.

It’s largely a tonal issue. The writing swings wildly between grimdark dramatics, sentimental conversations about friendship where everyone hugs and cries (tbh that’s one of the few redeeming qualities of the arc), and “comic relief” where the “““comedy””” is all either bodily function jokes or sexual assault jokes (L̠̤̯͍̦e̮̪͎̞t's̞̮̳̱̰̦̲ ̲G͖͉̹̻̯͉͖e̜̝̗͓̟͚t̖͚ ͚̰̞̮̝̫͎I͓̜̦̳̭͚͎n̪̪͈t͍̥̰̼o͚͎͇̣̘̝ ̪̼̜̣̳G͈̠̫e̳̝̗̪ṋ͚̞͎ͅd͔̙͓̯̹e̯̺̯̩r͔̣̲͔̳̗ ̘͙P̖̦o̩̺͖͎̞̬l͎̺͕̹i͇̣̼̦t̰i̬̰̝͙̗̝c̜̼̺̪̲̞s).

Honestly, in terms of the “stanning and fairness” argument, there’s not much to talk about here. It just adds insult to injury that not only does Death-T throw my fave under the bus, but it’s really badly written.

The Mokuba Thing

Okay, let’s fast-forward through the filler zone and stoppp…here.

In the context of the anime, where we know (and see multiple flashbacks demonstrating) that their whole life has been an “us against the world” story, this scene is tragic. Seto’s trust in people has been eroded so much that he even thinks Mokuba is conspiring against him? Their love and support for each other, which has survived through so much hardship, has finally cracked under the weight of this latest trauma? There’s a lot of dramatic and tearjerking potential there.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that most of us bring our baggage from the anime with us when we read the manga. The vast majority of the western Yugioh fandom did start with DM.

But if we look at this purely in the context of the manga–if we can pretend, for a second, that none of us have ever heard of the anime–this is the first time we see the two of them interacting onscreen. And none of those touching flashbacks of Seto comforting Mokuba and defending him from bullies and promising to be his father exist here. All we ever really learn about their relationship before this point is “They used to be a little closer when they were younger. Source: one (1) photo of them playing chess.”

So instead of serving as the tragic lowpoint of their relationship, this scene sets the baseline for it: Mokuba desperately wants to make his brother happy and earn his approval, while Seto responds with dismissal and cruelty.

In the anime (and to a certain extent in the later manga), Mokuba’s purpose in the narrative is to humanize Seto. But in Death-T, he serves the opposite function. Every interaction they have is an opportunity for Seto to kick the dog and prove what a monster he is.

And it’s all downhill from here.

………………

…So.

I have…mixed feelings about this.

On one level–a meta level–I think this scene serves the same purpose as taking that random high schooler from CwT and suddenly giving him ridiculous amounts of money and power and mustache-twirling levels of villainy. It’s a way of making the Experience of Death seem retroactively justified (and also a way of making the upcoming penalty game look fair).

On the other hand. It’s.

Horrific.

This scene is supposed to make us hate Kaiba, and it does it’s job really really well.

Personally speaking? I’m of the opinion that trying to hurt the child under your care as badly as you conceivably can is a “don’t pass go, don’t collect $100″ kind of deal. There’s no coming back from that. There’s no fixing or salvaging this relationship.

(God, this whole thing is wrapped in so many layers of fantasy that I’m not even sure what the real-world equivalent would be. Trying to beat your child not quite to death?)

Mokuba should not have had to continue living with his brother after this, any more than the Ishtars should have had to stay with their dad or Seto should have had to stay with Gozaburo. Mokuba forgiving Seto for this isn’t touching to me, it’s gut-wrenching. Every “heartwarming” brotherly moment in the later manga (all, like…2 and a half of them) feels hollow and sad.

As far as I’m concerned, this scene doesn’t “complicate” their relationship in any interesting or meaningful way. Their anime relationship already has plenty of complications–their sometimes unhealthy co-dependence, the fact that Seto is still a kid himself and he’s not really equipped to be a parent,Mokuba’s difficulty understanding that Seto can’t just “go back to who he was” before his trauma, the times when Seto is too caught up in his own pain to really be there for Mokuba, the manipulation involved in Seto’s takeover plan, etc. This just makes their relationship outright child abuse.

But hey, they hugged that one time in Duelist Kingdom, so it’s fine, right?

ExODiA iiiIIIIT’s not pAHsible

The final duel happens. The big Blue Eyes vs Exodia showdown.

*Bill Wurtz voice* So that’s pretty nifty, I would say.

It’s..? A genuinely cool and dramatic duel. There’s a reason it’s one of the, like, three Death-T elements the DM anime actually bothered to keep. Not much to say about it.

Sure was a whole lot of buildup just to end things with one (1) deus ex machina instawin card, tho.

The Tragic Backstory

So if all this happened because of a penalty game, what do you think the solution could be?

Did you say “another, even harsher penalty game”?

Ding ding ding!

This time, instead of torturing the fifteen-year-old, our hero puts the fifteen-year-old in a vegetative state as he begs for mercy.

Yaaaayy!

Some fun facts about the Mind Crush that we don’t actually learn until Duelist Kingdom:

1. It lasted for 6 months

2. Mokuba spent that entire time alone, in the big empty mansion, with no parental guidance or adult supervision except the butlers and maids, caring for his brother’s comatose body 24/7

3. When Atem put Kaiba in that coma, he had absolutely no idea if he’d ever be able to wake up or not. He thought he could, maybe–Kaiba’s pretty strong, right? But he also finds the idea that Kaiba died in his coma and came back to haunt him perfectly believable. “Fixed,” dead…eh, it was kind of a coin toss.

But wait, the story’s not over yet! First we have to find out Why Kaiba Is The Way He Is (“Because your buddy tortured him last month” isn’t enough of an answer, apparently).

This is communicated in the most natural way possible: Mokuba just starts monologuing about all his brother’s deepest darkest traumas to a bunch of strangers his brother hates.

The claim that Kaiba’s backstory is “more complex” in the manga than it is in the anime has always confused me, because this is…it. These three pages are the whole backstory. I mean, in Battle City we do get one more passing line of dialog about how Kaibacorp used to be a weapons manufacturer and Gozaburo “sold Seto’s soul to the military industrial complex,” but other than that… The anime took these bare bones and fleshed them out significantly, but from a pure manga canon standpoint, it’s not a whole lot to work with.

But there’s still enough here to rub me the wrong way.

For one thing, this sequence is almost an exact parallel to two later moments in the manga: Pegasus’s backstory dump at the end of Duelist Kingdom, and Malik’s backstory dump mid-Battle City. In both of those cases, the purpose of the scene is to take a villain whose motives seemed cruel and inexplicable and finally reveal the reasons behind his actions. We’re supposed to be seeing these characters in a sympathetic light for the very first time.

But Kaiba’s motives in Death-T, uh, weren’t exactly a mystery. He already made it pretty explicitly clear that this was about the torture. So as a narrative tool, Mokuba’s monologue:

1. seems a little superfluous

2. seems like a way of taking any responsibility out of the protagonist’s hands. Kaiba didn’t snap because of anything Atem did, he just had a bunch of fucked up baggage that Atem couldn’t possibly have known about or accounted for. Who knew some people take it badly when you torture them??

3. seems to suggest that we weren’t supposed to be sympathizing with Kaiba before this point. If this is the big “oh, now that I know why he did it, I guess I feel a little bad for him :(” moment, then that means the part where he got tortured…wasn’t?

And, as always, there’s the issue of the framing.

The grace note of the monologue–the thought it leaves us with, the intended takeaway–isn’t “If only he hadn’t gone through years of abuse, in circumstances he had no real control over because he was a child.” It’s “If only he hadn’t brought all this upon himself by cheating.”

Even if we ignore the fact that it’s physically impossible to cheat at chess (which seems like kind of a big oversight for a gaming manga, but oh well, That’s Yugioh Babe)…

How can you possibly present a ten-year-old cheating at a board game in a desperate gambit to get himself and his brother out of an orphanage as his start of darkness?

Yet that’s exactly what the writing does. This is a story about how games “reveal the true hearts” of their players and bring karmic retribution down on anyone who doesn’t respect the game and follow the rules. The implication is that the child abuse Seto suffered was karma. He rightfully earned it by cheating at chess, just like he brought the Experience of Death upon himself by cheating at Duel Monsters.

Oh yeah, speaking of which…

Wheel of Morality, Turn Turn Turn, Tell Us The Lesson We Should Learn

What was the outcome of Death-T? What impact did it actually have?

Did it bring about any big moral reckoning? Any questioning of the heroes’ values? Did Atem learn the difficult but important lesson “torture bad”?

Nnnnope!

Death-T is immediately followed by a series of episodic chapters that take us right back to the status quo like nothing happened. Atem keeps merrily handing out penalty games all the way up to the very end of Duelist Kingdom. When he does finally stop doing them, his decision has nothing to do with Death-T. It takes a comment from Pegasus about the Millennium Items having an “evil intelligence” to make him wonder “wait…I’m from a Millennium Item…I’m an intelligence…could evil…maybe include…torture????”

And even after the manga lukewarmly reverses its position to “torture sort of bad I guess,” it never really does anything with that revelation. None of the past penalty games are ever reexamined. No apologies are made. The Experience of Death is quietly swept under the rug, and the Mind Crush, when it’s brought up at all, is framed as noble act that “fixed” Kaiba (because “if you make someone suffer badly enough, you can hurt them into being a better person” is a great message).

Basically, we learned nothing from Death-T, nothing changed, and our takeaway is supposed to be “Atem was 100% in the right and Kaiba was 100% in the wrong, and also he’s an evil monster who deserved everything he got.”

Guess I Need A Satisfying Conclusion of Some Kind Even Through Death-T Didn’t Really Have One, Huh

Wow.

That was…a whole lot of words of Death-T rage that I apparently had in me zjkghzkkf.

I tend to feel less justified about constantly harping on Death-T then I do when it comes to, like, the racism in Memory World, or the series’ general Miss O’Gyny. It’s not like “magical vigilantism” is exactly a real-word social issue that’s being reflected in this piece of fiction. I realize a lot of my anger pretty much boils down to “hey,, ! thats…my fave. stopp...being mean to him >:(”

But I also feel like the issues in Death-T aren’t limited to Death-T.

The manga has this…this thing where it wants to be able to pinpoint a few clear, unchanging moral rules (“cheating is bad!” “graverobbing is bad!” “patricide is bad!”) and just apply them neatly to every situation, without having to take into account any of that inconvenient stuff like “what were the circumstances of this specific situation,” or “how many choices were actually open to this person,” or “how much harm was done by this choice compared to its benefits in terms of basic human well-being.” Yet at the same time, that moral absolutism is somehow coupled with a reluctance to apply any moral judgement to its protagonists at all.

The two points where that becomes clearest are Death-T and Memory World. And I feel like even when people acknowledge the issues with those arcs, they still want to be able to write it off as “oh, that was just a problem with the early chapters, it was fixed as the writing matured,” or “oh, that was just a problem at the end because of the mad rush to finish the story before it got canceled, it was never a thing before then.” But it’s not an isolated problem. It’s there at the beginning of the story, it’s there at the end, and it’s baked into everything in the middle.

…but anyhow.

hey,, ! thats…my fave. stopp...being mean to him >:(

#'i like atem too and i ignore most of s0 bc of what it did to both their characters' disclaimer #long post #r...real long...#i am so sorry if the readmore doesn't work on mobile

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