Little Voices: Page 15-19

So I said I needed to write the commentary more often, an' that's what I'm doing.

I was mildly concerned about picking up on page 15 with yet another scene featuring Yugi, but hell, the last time he was only on the phone with Pegasus. XD As I mentioned in the original comments, I love Yugi's mom. Yes, she appeared in both the manga and series, yes, if you blink you miss it. But her first appearance was great, because it really encapsulated her relationship with her son: "Mom! Don't talk to me right now!! I'm training my brain for gaming!" "Why don't you train your brain for SCHOOL first?" KLONG. (That was the sound of a ladel hitting Yugi upside the head.) The fact that his own mother really doesn't know what to make of Yugi sometimes, and actually does get frustrated with the whole "I'm gonna play games my whole life" thing... (laughs) it's just very, very real. I deliberately wrote their conversation as calmer here, adding the dynamic that Yugi's done a lot of growing up lately and his mother isn't quite used to it yet.

Yugi's mom is having a girl's day out with several friends. Who these friends ARE and what they're like is something best left to another fanfictionist: This story isn't about Yugi's mom. XD

The girls in the crowd here are all, as I noted before, based on characters from GX, most gender-bended, and several actually from the manga (which I like marginally better than the anime.) From left to right they are: Chazz/Manjoumi, Sho/Syrus, Miss Hibiki (in the back), Jaden/Judai (rather obviously, and sporting her positively adorable Winged Kuriboh top), Reggie (yes, that Reggie), and a little girl who started out as a short Alexis/Asuka and didn't quite end up there. The only one with a given-by-me nickname is the Girl!Jaden, christened off-handedly as "Judi." Feel free to name the rest. :)

On page 16, I got to draw the outside of the Turtle Game Shop again. XD Every time I have to draw an established locale it turns into a treasure hunt, chasing through manga, DVDs and the internet to get there. Fortunately the shop is easy to find in manga (the I2 building absolutely killed me.) But I don't mind THAT much, because Takahashi draws some of the most interesting and crazy buildings I've ever seen. I really feel it forces me to stretch outward.

The "step" panel was actually mildly inspired by another fancomic artist, Duel-Monsters (Sweet Osiris, how'd he get that username?). He does a lot of these short, mostly excuse-plot type comics in MS Paint (it's way better than it sounds-- some of it looks like screenshots.) He's especially fond of Téa, and dressing her in clothes she wouldn't be caught dead in (and that Yugi would absolutely love to see her in, IMO, since it's mostly punk goth rocker stuff, especially of a British bent.) (No offense if you're reading this, man, but she IS a preppy girl, and it would take all of Yugi's puppy eyes and pleading to get her to wear some of what you put her in, no matter how much either you or I like it. XD) One of the things he's given to doing in his early works is step-by-step panels: Téa lights the cigarette, Téa puts it in her mouth, Téa inhales, Téa blows the smoke out through her pursed lips. All from the same angle.

The step panel of page 16 is modeled after one of these pages where the step-by-step method becomes really effective. Except, of course, that my Téa dresses more like she does in the show. I mentioned that I looked through my catalogues to find something for her to wear, failed, and made something up; that's because all of it looked more like something Serenity would wear or was ugly. I like the boat-neck sweater pretty well though, as it shows off her shoulders, so I'm not fussing. (Although you can't see it in any of the pages the outfit's appeared in yet, she's also wearing shorts, dark socks that reach halfway up her calf, and of course those little booties. XD)

Here's a spoiler for the next full length story, by the way: Yugi will look older. This is only six months after the series (and several of the characters have already gotten taller, like Bakura), but the next will be two years after the end of the series (a year and a half after this.) Because drawing Yugi's huge eyes still gives me trouble, even though it turns out looking nice more than it used to.

Something you can only hear in the next to last panel of this page: Téa is totally bulldozing through that crowd. XD

On page 17, Yugi shows himself to be a normal teenage boy in the way that his smooth confidence with his mother flies out the window as soon as Téa walks up. XD The crowd saying stuff like "You can do it Téa!" and "Shut up, Yugi's MINE!" in panel three was added at the last second, because of some of the comments people made on page 16. I like to have background characters who act as the "voices" of the readers. X3

Also, I'm probably going to have to let the GX girls follow Yugi around more in the future.

The way I created the background for the past few pages is this: I use the lineart to create a white backing behind the characters, so that I can add grey tones behind them without lots of erasing. With the past few pages, I cut and pasted that white backing without the lineart in several different panels, so that the girls' faces wouldn't distract from the main subject of each panel. I think I did a better job on some pages than on others, but in the end it worked pretty well.

I think Judi is mildly fascinated by Téa.

On page 18, I had Yugi take off his hoodie mainly because I forgot to draw his ankh, decided "what the heck, maybe he's got it under his hoodie," and then had him remove the hoodie just to prove it. XD You can see it on that stool behind Téa in the first panel, even though it looks more like a purse.

I was pretty pleased with the expressions on this page, and from the sound of things, I was right to be. :3 So thank you guys for saying so. Also, usually I'd have tried to find a reference for the kitchen, but Invid and I couldn't think of any time a room with a sink inside Yugi's house ever appeared, so I decided to risk winging it, and made it look vaguely like the typical kitchens I've seen in anime. (Clean and compact.) They probably eat at that table sometimes, but when they do, it has a tablecloth on it. XD

As I noted on the DA comments, I had to kind of poke at the whole "I will never duel AGAIN" drama that you'll see in both the dub, GX-onward, and fandom. Even 5Ds is guilty of this nonsense. It's like in Pokémon- "This Pokémon wishes not to fight!! The DRAMA!" Right now, Yugi would much rather hear "I need a break from this game" over "I was in love with Atem." There's nothing wrong with grieving and being tired and wanting to lay down your sword for a while, as long as you don't shut yourself away from life completely.

Giving your sword to another, on the other hand, does mean something. I chose Magician of Faith for page 19 mainly because I knew everyone would be likely to recognize it, even if my handwriting turned out to be illegible. (The art is instant-recog for anyone who sees it.) Technically I think Téa's idea of herself could have changed by the end of the series (Yugi's did) but the Magician of Faith is still very strongly associated with her, so I knew it would work. (It also never fails to be a decent to good card, regardless of the metagame, so long as it's not banned. XD )

I could include the next page in this commentary, but I want to talk about that next scene as a unit. Suffice it to say that I like the scene.

Comic Pairing Bla bla bla

This is an addendum to the FAQs, added by link so that people who don't want spoilers have a lowered risk of getting them.

It was suggested that I put together a quick list of the pairings for Game of Dreams. I don't really like doing that, because dammit it spoils the story, but people keep asking, so yeah, here you go... a not-very-quick-at-all list of pairings involving canon characters in YnY. I may edit this as time goes by.

Be warned, I like convoluted pairing bunches. (And be reminded, GDG, the person who wrote most of this part of the plot, is bisexual, so if you're bothered by some of these pairings I'm sorry but I'm not changing it. Also I get kinda touchy about gay bashing, so watch your step.)

Red highlights indicate that offspring resulted from the pairing, more specifically, offspring characters who will definitely play a role in the post Game of Dreams comic. (Some of them I haven't actually decided yet.)

Yugi/Téa- Yukai, the titular character of Yukai no Yugi, is a result of this. So is his 'orrible ikkle sister, Anna.

Yugi/Rebecca- Rather one-sided.

Bakura/Téa- Short lived.

Marik/Téa- Also rather short lived, and mildly convoluted.

Atem/Téa- Totally one-sided, because he's dead.

Bakura/Somebody Else- Well, he DOES end up with a daughter, and it kinda takes two to do that.

Bakura/Atem- Heavy undertones.

Marik/Somebody Téa Introduced Him To- Marik has two kids from this, although one is adopted.

Pegasus/Ishizu- In turns handled with maturity and childish enthusiasm.

Pegasus/Cecelia- Well duh. Not heavily touched on for obvious reasons.

Seto/Serenity- Kira, whom Yukai is madly in love with, is a result of this.

Joey/Seto- Heavy undertones that Kaiba would never, ever admit to anyone, ever. Also perhaps a touch one-sided. (That does not mean he isn't in love with Serenity, mind you.) (Also you could ignore the undertones if you wanted, but why would you want to?)

Joey/Mai- They have five kids in YnY proper, one of whom, Ken, is in Yukai's grade.

Alister/Seto- Lightly touched on, although whether it's one-sided or not is... vague.

Mokuba/Rebecca- Mostly in the form of leering.

Leon/Rebecca- Not so much in the form of leering.

Mokuba/A Chick From His Class- "Bad Mokuba! Stop staring at the skirts!!"

Zigfried/Somebody- I'm not spoiling how they meet, sorry.

Tristan/Serenity- One sided and short-lived within the story itself.

Duke/Serenity- Smashed to pieces.

Tristan/You'll Never Guess Who- And they have a kid together, too.

Duke/Someone I Borrowed- Amber, with whom he has a daughter, Jade. (I know the Japanese anime hints that he might be gay. I don't care; remember what I said before the list.)

Mako Tsunami/That Lady From The Aquarium Show- They have triplets. =3 Pretty much background fluff.

Yami Bakura/Mildly To Very Abusive Persons- I was looking through the backstory and the future plot notes and was amazed at how many different people physically or psychically abuse him in this. Including a tall but very skinny woman and her twin brother. O_O

Yami Marik/You Won't Drag It Out Of Me Until It Happens- Yami Marik appears in YnY?! Wtf? (But not in Game of Dreams, so you can relax.)

Okay, so some of you might have gotten through this and are now going "Oh, Ra, she's screwing with us again." No. This is the most candid I am ever going to be about the pairings. Like I've said many times, I don't like telling pairings because I find it spoils stuff for a lot of people. But I also appreciate that some people prefer the spoilers, much as I hate doing it.

Keep in mind that Game of Dreams is intended to set things up for a next generational fancomic, so certain of these pairings were chosen as much for the offspring they potentially produce as for the pairing itself. Kira and the Wheeler kids are a prime example of this: if I had paired differently there, Kaiba and Joey's kids wouldn't be cousins, which is hilarious enough that I'd have done it even if I didn't already adore silentshipping. The mother of Bakura's child was designed specifically so that his daughter could logically look like a female version of his Series 0 color scheme. Yukai, in his own perverse way, takes very heavily in personality after Téa, and not as much after Yugi.

Some of the pairings will not last very long within the story. I've always thought it rather odd how many people want all the pairings in a story to be sustained the whole way through; I find it boring myself. Relationships change. Sometimes a crush stays a crush, and sometimes you break your heart instead of going after someone because you know they simply can't want the same thing you do. Sometimes people fall in love with more than one person at once. And sometimes a combination of those things happens. I've never really been much for traditional fictional romances, certainly I'm no good at writing that kind of romance. Convoluted polygons are what make me happy. (Which is kind of stupid, because they're sure as hell not much fun to actually participate in, but there you go.)

Most of all, once we get out of Game of Dreams and into YnY proper, there'll be a whole new kettle of fish to deal with. This really isn't intended to be the kind of story you read for the pairings. I've said it before; if there's a pairing you'd like to see me play with, hit me up about it and I might post something to my FF.Net or my main DeviantArt account. (Might. I don't take requests anymore, only friendly suggestions and niggling thoughts that won't go away. Requests just seem to get me in trouble.)

You can find a very long but not totally complete list of shipnames at the WikiFic Wikia.

Yes, I totally consider a one-sided crush in a fic to count as a "pairing," even though nothing physical happens.

Kul Elna and Mythology of the Soul

At first blush, Yu-Gi-Oh!'s take on Egyptian mythology (and history) seems about as accurate as ducks giving out candy eggs on Halloween. And it would be stupid to deny that some extreme artistic liberties were taken. But with a closer look (and some research), one starts to realize that, maybe, just maybe, Takahashi did the research, and maybe, just maybe, he actually cared about the mythology when he wrote the series (even if there never were any Lovecraftian kaiju being worshiped as gods-- Zorc was supposed to be a secret, anyhow, so you have to forgive that.)

I'll start with Kul Elna, because after that I'll be trotting right out of historical accuracies and headlong into the messy world of Egyptian mythology, which is a pretty scary place.

Understanding Egyptian culture makes everything about Kul Elna suddenly fall into place much more clearly: the reason Aknadin was so certain everyone there was scum, the reason he knew where it was, and the reason the main person who felt guilt over Kul Elna was Atem's father, a much more compassionate man than Aknadin could ever claim to be.

In ancient Egypt, there was a such thing as villages of exile. While my sources generally agree that the people sent there usually had their noses cut off first, we can forgive the presence of noses on Kul Elna's citizens for the simple fact that noselessness is really nasty to try to draw. Criminals were sent to these villages, usually on the outskirts of civilized society, for crimes ranging from thievery to assault (murderers were usually executed quickly.) They were unallowed to have marriage contracts and other kinds of contracts, but that wouldn't have stopped them from having children or eking out their lives. Shunned from society, these people could easily decide that perhaps, they weren't really a part of their country anymore, which is why Thief King Bakura would have held the country and the royalty in such high contempt.

So why did Aknadin know that everyone in Kul Elna was a criminal? Because he'd probably sent a lot of them there himself. Kul Elna was a village of the exiled.

Moving on to kas, bas and souls. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, of course, a ka is a monster connected to one person, who maybe can summon that monster or who may lose said creature when it gets sealed into a tablet. Kisara's ka was stated as also being her ba, which was why losing her ka would kill her.

Now, the cliff notes version of the actual mythology is essentially this: The ba is the soul that leaves the body at death, the ka hangs around and lives in the body after death. That doesn't sound anything at all like the Yu-Gi-Oh kas, of course, although in Yu-Gi-Oh the ba WAS treated as a life force, so that's okay.

But the kas, despite having obvious liberties taken, are actually much closer to the original mythology than you might think. According to the Book of the Dead (Coming Forth By Day), the ka and ba were both fashioned before birth, and while the ba lived in the physical world, the ka lived in a mirror spirit world, changing and growing alongside the person it belonged to.

So actually, it makes perfect sense that a person's ka would reflect their soul's state of being before death. The manga implies strongly that everyone has a ka, it's just that only some people are magically powerful or talented enough to bring their ka into the physical world. The most probable answer as to why people aren't always summoning ka in Yu-Gi-Oh's modern setting is simply that "the brave pharaoh locked the magic away--" running around in the real world isn't the natural state of a ka, so it can only happen a lot when there's a lot of free-floating magic.

The ka and ba were regarded as two parts to one spiritual body, another part of which, the akh,(described elsewhere as "a combination of the ba and ka," although not in the books I was reading, only online) is considered to be closer to the modern concept of a soul-- not a life force, not a mirror world twin, but rather the "thing" that makes us who we are. Most likely, the part of the soul that both Pegasus and Yami Bakura were given to sealing into cards and game pieces was the akh, and it was probably Atem's and Bakura's akhs that were sealed into the Puzzle and Ring. The ba was fragile, the ka removable and removed from the body during life, but the akh was nigh indestructable.

This is part of why I regard modern Seto Kaiba as being the soul-offspring of Priest Seto and Kisara, by the way-- his ka is most probably a Blue Eyes, and his ka is part of his spiritual body, not a separate thing that follows him around. Whether it was the akh, some fragment of ba, or some other spiritual organ besides that he inherited from Priest Seto, only Takahashi can answer (and to be frank, I'd rather he not, so don't any of you dare ask him.)

Within Yu-Gi-Oh, of course, one assumes that the ka is rather like a spiritual kidney-- you can live without the whole thing, but that doesn't mean you'd want to. It's shown that separation from the ka is mind-numbingly painful. Further, Thief King Bakura's ka, Diabound, changes through his part in the story, from pure in his quest for justice, to tainted and dark as Zorc begins to twist him. Something else that isn't ever stated explicitly in the dub but seems pretty clear in the manga is that people can use the powers that belong to their own ka. Bakura was doing it all the time, showing up where he shouldn't, blasting people when Diabound was nowhere to be seen, getting into places that were supposedly death traps. If that isn't a good argument that the ka is a part of a person, not something that follows a person around, I don't know what would be.

All things considered, a little research into what kas and bas actually were in the original mythology helps Yu-Gi-Oh to make a lot more sense, like, for example, why a soulless body becomes insensate and zombielike instead of simply dying (the ba or life force is still there, it's just the akh or will and personality that's been taken away.) Which is another reason why doing the research is good for fanfiction. (Glares in the fandom's general directon.)

This does beg the question of what exactly was going on with regards to the Oriechalcos. (If you discount the idea that the writers of that arc didn't know about the multiple soul concept.) Obviously, the ba remained in the body, since the bodies became comatose instead of dying. But then how were the souls being used to power the Leviathan, if they were akhs and not bas? They couldn't have been using the akhs to draw on the bas, because a lot of the people Dartz victimized had died a long time ago, their bas leaving with their deaths.

We pondered this question together for a few moments, but it didn't take Invid very long to suggest an answer: The akhs are tied to the kas-- and the Leviathan was feeding off the kas and akhs together. This was why there were a multitude of Duel Monsters, and why the Duel Monster world was in such turmoil and dire danger: it is the world that kas live in, and Duel Monsters are kas. At the time of Atlantis, there would have been a lot of free-floating, positive magic surrounding Atlantis itself, which would have been why you'd see fairies and the like wandering around. When the Oriechalcos arrived, it began twisting that magic, and what happened to people like Dartz's wife could be interpreted as her darkening ka twisting and taking over her body.

I'm going to take a moment to put forth a theory I've had about GX for some time, and since I almost never discuss GX (and don't count it or 5Ds in YnY's canon) you might as well listen up: I strongly suspect that Judai was originally a ka. That is, the weird kingdom that he and Yubel originally hailed from, wherein he was a prince, was actually within the ka-world seen during the Oriechalcos arc, which is why it doesn't resemble anything within real history at all. Whether this has anything to do with his strong sensitivity to spirit creatures (Hey, Rafael could talk to them too, so I'm not complaining about his or Luna's ability to do so) or with Yubel's.... Yubelness, who knows?

Please note; I do not claim to be a professional egyptologist. This essay merely desires to use what I know about the actual mythology, and backtrack what Kazuki Takahashi did with it to see how it might apply to Yu-Gi-Oh! Certain descriptions, including that of the akh, are rather confused in the original mythology, but mainly because they had several millenia to think about the subject. I might have considered labeling that aspect of "soul" the "ib," which Wikipedia does agree was the seat of emotion, but the ib was also the physical heart, and it's rather obvious that Pegasus wasn't ripping people's hearts out. :x There were two other parts of the soul, the "sheut," or shadow, and the "ren," or name. (And since it was considered part of his soul, you can understand why it was so key for Atem to get his name back.)

(Which implies that it's possible that a soulless shell in YGO, despite divested of willpower, might still have faint emotional response to things going on around it. So it's just as well that Kaiba said "no" to dueling Mokuba.)

Character Study: Atem

Character Study: Atem

Approximate age: (by the Japanese anime) Ancient.
Character Archetype: Ancient Evil/gambler/Wise King (Yes, I know that's a lot.)
Probable Element and Alignment: Dark, Lawful Good
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: The rather bad habit of phrasing requests as orders.

Before we get too deeply into this, know that I consider the names "Yami Yugi," "Mou hitori no Yugi (the other Yugi)," "Atemu," and "Atem" to all refer to the same person. The Pharaoh formerly nameless and the "spirit of the Puzzle" are NOT two different people. For some reason, there are people who think they are. I'm not sure why, although I suspect it's got something to do with the confusing way the Memory storyline was presented in the manga (darnit, Takahashi).

Atem IS a fairly fractured character, however, and this has made him somewhat difficult for many fans to get him in any kind of character (although it's much easier to get close to the mark than with Kaiba. I'm also not sure why THAT is, although maybe I just have an easier time finding good writers that like Atem.)

This is partly because he changes almost as drastically as Kaiba does throughout the series. When he first pops out of the Puzzle, he's utterly insane, probably due to the fact that the thing was shattered into a gazillion pieces, and in turn so was he. He calms down relatively quickly, all things considered, but that might say more about Yugi's good influence on him than anything.

At the beginning of the manga, Atem isn't just a crazy amnesiac-- he's not even human anymore. Why should he be? He doesn't remember having a human body, only that he was part of the Puzzle before possessing Yugi. He's essentially a demon, a malicious soul bent on the defense of his host.

That sounds a bit familiar? Of course it does, Yami Bakura is played that way for a good chunk of the series. One could argue several reasons Atem eventually calms down and rejoins humanity, while Yami Bakura doesn't seem to. My main theory is that Atem is a more fundamentally human soul, while Yami Bakura was too filled with Zorc taint. Zorc is essentially an animal when it comes to its levels of complexity, so it's harder to turn from a particular path.

And here we come to why I like that the Oriechalchos plotline was written into the anime, and why I suspect it was written by someone who felt the manga was sorely missing something: Atem has been going along, slowly regaining his humanity. In the manga, he stops using punishment games after Duelist Kingdom because he doesn't like how similar it makes him to Pegasus (this is never stated directly in the dub, but there's no reason to believe it doesn't happen there, since Atem DOES stop mind crushing and obliviating after Duelist Kingdom, and doesn't deliberately inflict harm on an opponent again until Waking the Dragons.) But the manga never asks the question this so-called "filler arc" asks: "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?"

Now, yeah, we're supposed to assume he's a good guy after we see him not punishment gaming anymore. But he only stops, in the manga, because he's seen how it hurts to have it done back. That doesn't make you a good guy, it makes you afeared of Karma. And though I do see him as a good guy, in basic principles, I also recognize that he has one very deadly character flaw, one the Oriechalchos arc exploits to its fullest potential: He's arrogant. He greets the news of "You're supposed to save the world" with "DUH." He's a bit surprised about the idea that he used to be a pharaoh, but probably because he never realized before that he really was human once. He's aware, I think, or thinks of himself as, the main character, and he struts it. Cross his path, and his response is "How DARE you! KNEEL, PEASANT!" (If he's never said the second part aloud, it's because Yugi would die of mortification.) The guy was raised to be a god, and in some deep shadowed part of himself, he's aware of this. His arrogance is the very ugly side of his confidence.

Atem WANTS to be good, make no mistake. I think part of this is wanting to live up to Yugi, and while he was alive, it would have been from wanting to live up to his father. And who doesn't like to think of themselves as being at least partly "good?" The Oriechalchos arc is good because of how it humbles him. Claiming this "filler arc" has no bearing on later story is silly, because the entire Memory arc was rewritten. Atem would not have asked Mana if he was "a good king" if the Oriechalchos arc hadn't made him worry about it.

Many fanfic authors seem to forget about his arrogance, and the ones that don't will often embrace it to the point of it becoming his only trait, aside from his very Egyptian brutality.

Something else that a lot of people tend to overlook about any of the Egyptian characters, from Atem down to Ishizu, is that they come from a different time period's frame of thinking. The people of that time had a certain vicious nobility to them, and the people of Egypt had a deep love of ironic justice-- making the punishment fit the crime. This is why many of the manga's punishment games fit whatever "wrong" the punished had commited; Ushio was blinded with his own greed, a television director blinded with mosaic, and the Kaiba brothers trapped (for a while) in nightmare versions of the games they played. On the other side of this, being from such a brutal time period means that Atem values his honor sometimes more than his life, and this is why he never backs down from a challenge.

Atem considered Yugi and his friends to be his "jurisdiction," so therefore he was justified, if only in his own mind, of the ironic justices that he meted out. There's a certain possessiveness to Atem that probably comes, once again, from his upbringing as pharaoh: He was intended to be god and protector of an entire people, so once he becomes a nameless king in a strange land, he just goes on doing what he'd always been trained to do, adopting a "kingdom" out of the people around him. (In fact, he's so protective that Joey has to talk him into letting Joey do his own vengeance taking-- although to Atem's credit, once he's promised Joey that it's in Joey's hands, it STAYS in Joey's hands.)

I love the relationships he develops with these people, most especially Yugi and Joey themselves; they become his brothers, and even with his statement to Mahaado that "we are of the same blood," I don't think he ever had people quite that close to him. After all, it was his new friends that made the difference in the Memory Game, not the old ones.

As the series progresses, Yugi and Atem begin to blur toward each other in personality. Yugi, of course, develops the confidence that before only Atem could give him, and proves that he can soldier on alone. Atem learns Yugi's endless compassion. Toward the beginning of the manga, he's cursing and burning and electrocuting his enemies left and right. Yugi stops him when he nearly kills Kaiba, which Atem perhaps has trouble with because "Come ON, Yugi, two chances to change are enough, aren't they?"

For Yugi, forgiveness twice isn't enough; Kaiba needs his compassion, and Yugi has compassion in him to give. This is a foreign concept to Atem; in dynastic Egypt it wasn't about whether you needed forgiveness but about whether you deserved it, and as far as he's concerned, Kaiba's out after three strikes. But he comes to reconsider his position when he sees how it affects Yugi, and is willing to even forgive Pegasus when he hears his story, despite everything that the man's done to him.

And when Marik comes along, compassion isn't even a question. This boy tries multiple times to kill him and nearly succeeds in killing Joey, his "brother." But when Marik needs their help, their compassion, Atem and Yugi give it, as one. This is probably one of the best across the board (that is, it happened in both manga and anime) pieces of character development that Atem gets, and it's in Battle City that he proves his own humanity.

Most of all, Atem truly loves Yugi. This isn't about sexual love or brotherly love; Atem loves Yugi as his son and ALSO as his brother. He is truly happy when Yugi surpasses him, even though it means he has to move on to the afterlife. He accepts his final fate calmly not because "the dead should stay dead" but because he knows Yugi's going to be okay.

The way Atem should be written depends strongly on the time in his life a story takes place in. In Egypt, he was probably very similar to his saner self toward the end of the series, but likely less forgiving and perhaps a bit less sure of himself. Directly after the Puzzle's solving, he's an amnesiac demon, the only parts of himself recognizable being possessive protectiveness and ruthlessness. But toward the end and after the end, Atem becomes the god-king he ideally should be-- brave, wise, confident, and compassionate.

Final Distillation:
Atem changes- from human to demon to human to god.
He is both ruthless and compassionate, in varying measures.
He loves Yugi selflessly.
He is confident to the point of arrogance, but he's working on it.
He is protective to the point of possessive, but he's working on that, too.
He values his honor deeply, not only honoring his word but never backing down.
He's both ancient and young- very wise, but vulnerable to the arrogance and uncertainty of youth.

I'm not as certain I've covered everything on this one as with the previous character studies. (Atem is just a character I have worked with less over the years.) Comments and criticisms are welcome through either here, the DeviantArt, or Gmail.

Not the Chicken Dance!

We watched "Steppin' Out" just last night, actually. It is just as weird an episode as it was the first time I saw it.

A theory on Johnny Steps: Johnny equates being good at games with manliness. He also equates being TALL with manliness. So the reason he freaks out and runs away when he finds out who Yugi really is? All the foundations of his worldview have been utterly shattered.

XD That is the closest to a character study on Johnny ya'll are ever getting out of me. :3