Yukai no Yugi

In light of Love and Rock and Roll starting...

2012-01-21T23:17:00.003-05:00

Mai's "Jean Claude Proposed!" face. XD

Also, first page of Love and Rock and Roll, for someone stumbling in here unawares and wondering why this is appropriate.

Invid's Bizarre Card Ramblings #2: Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of the Beginning and the End-

2012-01-04T21:30:00.004-05:00

Here we are with another of these talks about cards on a blog about a comic where there hasn't actually been any dueling.

This week's entry is not, and hopefully will never be, a real card.

If you have any familiarity with the real life version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, you are likely aware that there are a couple of Monsters who are often regarded as the strongest ever printed who happen to have "Chaos" in their original Japanese names: "Black Luster Soldier (originally "Chaos Soldier") -Envoy of the Beginning-" and "Chaos Emperor Dragon -Envoy of the End-". There is also a lesser but still powerful Monster called "Chaos Sorcerer" who is a similar if weaker card. (There's also Dark Magician of Chaos, a similarly insanely powerful card, but it doesn't factor into this discussion as it isn't actually related to these cards despite its name.)

These Chaos Monsters were an early experiment in creating strong cards with steep requirements. Konami quickly discovered, however, that these particular cards did not have nearly steep enough of a cost.

In case you don't feel like clicking on the links and investigating the cards yourself (and don't know much about the cards), the Envoys and Chaos Sorcerer require you to banish a Light Monster and a Dark Monster from your Graveyard in order to Summon them. Yes, just one each. Why the Envoys, who have 3000 ATK apiece, have the same requirements as the comparatively wretchedly small Chaos Sorceror (2300 ATK) is a mystery for the ages.

Supposedly, Light and Dark Monsters aren't supposed to work well together. However, there have always been plenty of solid Dark Monsters in the game, and a few good Light ones had come out only a little while before. The game also had Painful Choice, a card that ultimately wasn't painful at all, as it let you take five cards from your Deck and get one in your hand and four in the Graveyard. (The "painful" part was that your opponent chose which cards go where. Not really much of a drawback when you want those cards in the Graveyard, as Konami would soon realize. Painful Choice was restricted to one for most of its history, until Konami introduced banning cards, after which it has been permanently banned.)

The ease of summoning these cards meant that people were willing to try, and it turned out that 3000 ATK Monsters with incredibly strong effects were worth the investment. Chaos Emperor Dragon blows up both player's fields and hands (and incidentally inflicts damage), letting you set up an instant unbreakable lock (earning it one of the top spots on the first list of banned cards, and also an eternal spot), Black Luster Soldier can potentially attack twice or, instead of attacking, banish an opponent's Monster (has been restricted for a long time, although it took longer than Chaos Emperor Dragon, and was banned for a long time, although again it took longer, and has seen an apparently experimental unbanning recently), and Chaos Sorcerer can banish a face up Monster (it's been on and off the banlist at multiple levels of restriction). As all of these cards are also Special Summons, they don't even restrict your Normal Summon for the turn (a key to setting up the Yata-Lock that Chaos Emperor Dragon enabled in the old days).

So why am I talking about some of the most powerful cards in the game, cards which likely shouldn't have been printed or which have been in decks that are unfairly powerful?

Because they've got nothing on this one: Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of the Beginning and the End- (link)!

Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of the Beginning and the End-
Light Attribute/Warrior Type
Level 10
ATK 3500/DEF 2000

Cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. You can Special Summon this card (from your hand) by banishing 1 LIGHT Warrior-Type and 1 DARK Fiend-Type monster from your Graveyard. Cards and effects cannot be activated in response to this card's Special Summon. You can pay 1000 Life Points; banish all cards your opponent controls and all cards in your opponent's hand and Graveyard, then inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each card banished by this effect.

Now, what makes this card so much more vicious and nasty than any of the other cards I've been talking about?

Well, the first part is its requirement: It needs its Light Monster to be a Warrior and its Dark Monster to be a Fiend, but that's not necessarily an additional requirement.

See, the first Chaos decklist I heard of used Light Warriors and Dark Fiends as its staple Monsters already. So this card could be put in that deck with essentially no changes. Not only that, but in a pinch, if one was playing multiples, this card would fit the requirement itself.

So it looks restrictive, but it really isn't.

The next part is that cards can't be used in response to it being Special Summoned. Cards with effects like this exist, but haven't been used much that I can tell because they're usually expensive. As I've established, though, that wouldn't hurt this guy at all, because he'd be playable even if he wasn't essentially uncounterable. Players have always been able to use cards like Solemn Judgment to stop guys like this, but here it wouldn't work. Since the days of the original Chaos Monsters, card rulings have changed, and the original Chaos Monsters are a little weaker than they used to be due to these changes, but those same rulings don't affect this card because of this line of text.

Now, here's the doozy: Pay 1000 Life Points to banish all cards in your opponent's hand, and on your opponent's Field, and in your opponent's Graveyard, and inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each card banished this way.

I'm not even sure how to express the unfairness and brutality of this effect. Basically, the only way to stop it is with the counter trap Divine Wrath (there are very few other cards that could), thanks to Solemn Judgment having no effect on it. (Solemn Judgment is supposed to stop everything. It doesn't, but most of the exceptions are defensive cards.) If it just banished your Graveyard, or your hand, or your Field, there would be a faint semblance of fairness, and there would be ways to counter this card.

But banishing the Field means there are very few cards that can do anything to protect you (Reborn Tengu, Waboku, Threatening Roar, Hallowed Life Barrier, Rainbow Life, and that's about it), banishing your hand means that most of the things players rely on for escaping nasty pinches like this don't work (Effect Veiler could probably shut it down), and the Graveyard is also gone (Necro Gardna and probably Damage Eater would provide a small amount of protection). The only cards listed that could actually keep you from taking huge amounts of damage are Hallowed Life Barrier and Rainbow Life, and they're Trap cards, which means that you need to have them set and they'll be vulnerable there-everything else on the list can only stop Chaos End Ruler's attack or its effect damage. (Reborn Tengu can't even actually do either of these things-it'd only be a help if Chaos End Ruler's controller didn't have enough Life Points to activate its effect more than once.)

The reason this is so bad is because, other than the Life Point cost, there's no drawback to this whatsoever. Most defensive cards care more about being sent to the Graveyard or destroyed, and this dodges both of those. And as long as there isn't one of the few Trap cards that can stop it involved, if this card gets summoned, the player who didn't play it is going to take huge amounts of damage, guaranteed, whether the 3500 ATK of Chaos End Ruler, the multiple of 500 from its effect (which will nearly always be absurdly huge), or both. This card could easily deal 8000+ damage in the turn it comes down, with no assistance or combo setups, virtually for free.

And the best part? It leaves the other player with nothing, and the single card that the other player draws the following turn probably won't be able to do squat to Chaos End Ruler, especially if it's a Trap card or a Monster.

They ought to call it "Chaos End Ruler -Ruler of Unfairness and Epic Ragequits-".

(If you're wondering where the card comes from, it's mentioned as a rare banned card in an episode of ZeXaL. Whoever made it up in-universe was a sick puppy; whoever made it up for the show should be watched carefully, and kept away from the real card game.)

-Signing off.

Invid's Bizarre Card Ramblings #1: Theinen the Great Sphinx

2011-12-20T20:30:00.001-05:00

Hey, people who are mostly from DeviantArt who probably care less about the card game than about how awesome GDG's comic craft is! I'm here to talk about cards!

A long-standing gripe I have with the card game is that they monkey with effects for what often seems like no good reason. Other times, there's clearly a good reason. Meet high-class good reason, Theinen the Great Sphinx (link to a picture)!

Theinen (pronounced "Thin-e-in" for some reason) the Great Sphinx (Japanese name: Sphinx Androgynous)
Light Attribute/Beast Type
Level 10
ATK 3500/DEF 3000

All versions of the card have the above characteristics. Now, let's turn to the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game wiki for the effect of the card in the real life game.

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by paying 500 Life Points when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" (Japanese name: Gynosphinx, hence "Sphinx Androgynous") on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time; then you can Special Summon this monster from your hand or Deck.
When this card is Special Summoned successfully, pay 500 Life Points to increase the ATK of this card by 3000 points until the end of the End Phase.

I recall that this card was touted in promotional materials as "the strongest monster ever made" when the movie came out; I suppose a potential 6500 ATK is pretty impressive.

However, the effect of the card was radically different in The Pyramid of Light. Its ATK rose not to 6500, but to 35,000, which is a rather significant difference. Let's see what the wiki has to say about it:

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. You can Set this card as a Normal Magic/Spell Card. This card cannot be Special Summoned except from your Magic/Spell & Trap Card Zone when both "Andro Sphinx" and "Sphinx Teleia" on your side of the field are destroyed at the same time. When this card is Special Summoned successfully, increase this card's ATK by 30,000 points.

The first part actually makes some sense-Anubis did indeed set the card on the Field, and presumably it was not as a Monster. The part that doesn't: How do you add 30,000 to 3500 to get 35,000? (Another speculative version of the effect mentioned on the wiki involved suggesting that it merely had its ATK multiplied by ten, which would have made sense; more sense than the wrong number, anyway.)

Answer: You don't. They've got it wrong. In fact, it's not even a fixed increase.

How do I know? I checked.

The nice thing about The Pyramid of Light is that the English version is the only English release with readable card text. And while it's a borderline case, I could read it well enough that I can tell you what the effect was (simplified to help the important bits stand out):

When an "Andro Sphinx" and a "Sphinx Teleia" on your Field are destroyed at the same time, pay 1000 Life Points to Special Summon this card. (I don't recall being able to tell if it specified where from.) When this card is Special Summoned, pay 1000 Life Points to increase this card's ATK by the combined ATK of all Monsters in your Graveyard.

Now, it's possible that someone affiliated with the wiki examined the footage and concluded that this couldn't have been the effect. They're wrong, but it's understandable. Why would they have assumed it was incorrect? Because several cards clearly must have had different effects in Pyramid of Light, and they would have assumed they didn't, because that's just how they think over there.

Specifically, in the TCG, Peten the Dark Clown ~~removes itself from the game~~ banishes itself* in order to summon another copy of itself. If it did so in the movie, the total for Theinen's ATK would have been off; however, it matches if Peten's effect was different and simply activated when it was sent to the Graveyard. (There's a similar issue with the other two Sphinxes, as their TCG characteristics would have meant they'd be banished when the Pyramid of Light card is destroyed, but one can easily come to the same conclusion regarding those. Another issue of sorts involves Life Point totals, as Anubis inherited Kaiba's Life Points and the other Sphinxes needed 500 Life Points apiece to be summoned, but one can assume that's another difference. There may be other points of divergence, but I don't recall at the moment.) If Theinen's effect is based on the ATK of Monsters in its Graveyard (which Anubis again inherited from Kaiba), it would also explain the "dead souls set free" remark.

Which makes me wish the animators had cared enough to depict the "dead souls" as the spirits of Kaiba's monsters, so that the audience could more intuitively understand just what Anubis was doing.

So, ~~myth busted~~ mystery solved.

*I'm super happy about this new piece of terminology. It's great that they've simplified an aspect of the game so much with a single piece of changed terminology. I'm sure they more or less ganked the idea from Magic: The Gathering, but that's not really bad...

-Signing off.

Little Voices: Page 38-55

2011-12-12T17:26:00.003-05:00

Good GRIEF it's about darn time I did another commentary. And it only took several months and ribbing from Invid, too. We'll only be going to page 55, because going all the way to the end is just too much in one sitting.

So last time we left off, Ryou had discovered the other Bakura was still living in his head, and that Bakura has amnesia. On page 38, we see that he's taken off and Téa has no idea where.

A lot of stuff changed at the last minute in this set of pages. First of all, I was originally going to have some pages involving Kaiba's storyline right after Ryou discovers Yami B is still alive. I decided that would be too confusing and therefore pushed the pages back, instead moving into this scene right away. I mentioned this in the DeviantArt artist's comments. What I didn't mention is that, originally, I had intended to show Ryou and Téa's parting, a short conversation that I've been wrestling with on and off for two years. I had finally come up with a version that I liked, yet ironically, the page count was getting much too high and the story was getting a bit ponderous and bloated.

Furthermore, I wanted very much to show Tristan getting back from Singapore, but every idea I had for a page that did so was bland and not nearly informative enough (After all, we already knew from Duke that he was on vacation.) I am of the opinion that every page should either be interesting, funny, or at least move the plot along. While I wanted Tristan to show up more in the story (I hate it when people forget he exists) the pages I was coming up with just weren't enough of any of those requirements. So I grafted the two scenes together, discarding Ryou's actual departure in favor of showing a homecoming by Tristan instead. The original discussion between Téa and Ryou was two pages, so I cut three pages down to one.

(This is another place where I might consider posting the discarded first drafts someday.)

Tristan knows that Kaiba is sick and that he collapsed at a tournament because it was all over the tabloids. (The Big Eye: "Seto Kaiba at DEATH'S DOOR!?? Tournament Collapse!" There would be a quote right on the cover from Kaiba, too: "I'm not dying!" says CEO.) Also his friends tell him about these things.

I love page 39 for like a gazillion reasons. CX I probably should have done something with Marik's subplot (the Ishtar clan revealing itself to the world and promptly getting into a legal fight with the Egyptian government) during Magic Light, but quite frankly Magic Light didn't have "room" for that part of the story, and anyway I tend to think the reveal happened either before or after Magic Light's time period. I do, however, think that "Marik VS The Supreme Council of Antiquities" makes an awesome title for a story. XD There will be a lot more of that plot to show up, and I plan on doing a short (non full length story, so it doesn't count as one of the seven) set of pages involving the conflict coming to a head in between Little Voices and the next storyline. Marik will have a lot of fun and so will you.

His conflict with the Egyptian government is slightly inspired by the trouble that Native Americans still have dealing with the United States government, incidentally. Ironically, the United States will eventually become one of Marik's better allies in the matter. I don't see any conflict with what would happen in reality at all here: the US loves to make up for its mistakes by helping the wrong people. (Not that I think the US shouldn't help people. We just shouldn't do it for some of the reasons that we do, we should do it because we're nice people.)

Anyway, there's a bit of confusion between whether Ryou just opened the door through brute force or picked the lock. My original intent was that he picked the lock, so automatically that he didn't quite realize he was doing it, but I also don't really see a need to make that clear in the comic. The scene's funny, that's what's important.

I love drawing Marik. I love drawing Marik, and I love fiddling with his jewelry instead of just keeping it to what we see during the series. :) I also love lotus blossoms. 'Nuff said.

I suspect that Marik watches Duel Monster tournaments and has actually noticed Yugi acting like Atem all on his own, but he probably also keeps a certain amount of contact with Yugi, and with the others.

Marik is adorable when he's being socially awkward. XD

Page 40 was originally going to be over hot tea, but it occured to me that Ryou probably came in from at least ninety-degree weather (That's about thirty-two degrees Celsius). So yeah, nix on the hot tea.

Ryou gets a lot of weird flak over the fact that he writes letters to Amane. Personally I think the people who fetishize it have more wrong with them than Ryou does: it would be much creepier if Ryou kept a little RPG style doll of her and talked to it. There are a lot of ways of grieving, and writing letters to the lost is one of the more common ones, both in Japan and America.

On the other hand, a lot of people also feel alone in their grief, and it wouldn't shock me if Ryou does too-- he doesn't seem to me like he took her death well, and it also doesn't seem like he and his father pulled together over the loss of his sister and mother at all. So there's him worrying about whether it makes him crazy.

Again, Marik is uniquely suited to talk to Ryou about that kind of thing; he's not only lost quite a lot more than the average modern teenager, he's from a culture that really valued the importance of communing with the dead as part of dealing with loss, and there's no way an ancient Egyptian would have told Ryou writing letters to a dead person and then offering them up to her was crazy or even remotely creepy.

Panel 1-3 of page 41 is pretty much a recap, but it seemed sort of necessary for the characters to lay out what's on the table, just to lead into the final panel. Naturally, Ryou's a little shocked. Personally I feel he's a little disturbed at the idea of owning someone. There's also just the fact that he's so damn tired of dealing with Yami B at this point.

I think on page 42 what Marik means by "taking him off" Ryou's hands is, quite simply, that Marik's responsibility as a Tombkeeper includes things like Yami Bakura.

There's a certain section of the fandom who insist that Marik is still totally going to be messed up Yami Marik style, even after the series, and that the only thing that will get rid of Yami Marik is years and years of therapy.

No. I have taken a class in psychology and totally understand their reasoning, but that is not what happened at the end of Battle City. Yami Marik may have started as a mental disorder, but he didn't end as one, whatever he was. Because he could strap Marik's soul up in the corner the way he had separated Yugi and Atem to do the same thing, he and Marik are clearly distinct souls. Because Marik could "visit" Odion when his soul had been mostly eaten up, they are clearly distinct souls.

So my post-series Marik is relatively mentally stable and no longer has dissociative personality disorder, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. Magic has been shown in Yugioh to clearly be able to fix brains anyway (Kaiba). Marik probably still needs a bit of therapy, but not so much that he can't help Ryou with his problem now.

I tend to think the reason he knows how Ryou should go about calling Yami B forth has either something to do with my mildly random rant, with the fact that he's been talking to Yugi, or simply with the fact that Marik seems to me to be rather educated, magic-wise. I wouldn't be surprised if the heads of the Ishtar clan classified as being some level of sorcerer.

Ryou goes along with it on page 43 because he doesn't know what else to do more than anything. I like this page because it shows how fully in control Ryou actually is, whether he realizes it or not-- not only is Yami B being very childlike (the way the shadows hide his face was intended to call back to the way his face was mostly hidden by shadows when he witnessed Kul Elna's destruction) but he's also being totally compliant to Ryou's will, despite the fact that it's difficult for him. Ryou doesn't help him for several reasons, one of which being that he's still a little afraid of actually approaching Yami B, but also because he simply wants to make Yami B do things for himself. He's a compassionate guy, but he's not THAT warm toward Yami B yet.

The series had several interesting ways to show one soul switching out for another, usually between Yugi and Atem. The "hands touching" method isn't the most original, but it's also one of my favorites. Go figure.

Marik doesn't expect Yami B to remember him on page 44 (although Yami B himself is frustrated and more than a little upset that he doesn't). Once again I went for "little kid Bakura" faces, because that's what I wanted to show: Everything that made him crazy has been blasted away. A frightened child is all that's left. Obviously he's still himself, which is what I wanted to be seen with the serious face he makes when he calls himself an avenger, but he's also more himself than he's been in several thousand years. (If that makes sense.)

The line "I wanted Ryou safe" is both a self-reassurance that he's not a bad person, despite the fact that he's sure he's done something wrong, and an admonition toward Marik himself. "I wanted Ryou safe, and you wanted to let a big red dragon spit on him!!" Not that Yami B actually remembers this; it's more like he's looking in on things inside Ryou's memories. That's also why he "fled."

I love Roo's face in the second panel of page 45. Also, Marik's not sure how much sense Ryou's explanation actually makes. B[

One of the commentors made the best statement in regards to page 46: that Yami Bakura being human means that he can change. Yes. This is exactly it. The other point of this page was to point out the fact that yes, I DO know that I draw Bakura taller than he was in the series. XD

Ryou develops a slight case of Yami B's eye shadows on page 47. Uh oh. Also I finally stopped copping out and actually tried to draw Odion's facial tat. Booya.

We have another cameo on page 48; Angela the dragon, who belongs to Lady Blackwings of Deviantart. She's a nice lady and does pretty colors. O_O Poor Yami B is basically the kitten in Ryou's basement right now. I also feel that this page shows one of the ways that Ryou IS a good person, despite everything: He doesn't trust the guy and dislikes that he's basically been forced into nursing him, but the sad puppy face Yami B is making still works on him, and he's still being kind to him.

I've always been mildly fascinated with Thief King Bakura's life before he became part of the Yami Bakura entity. Invid and I agree that what happened in the Millenium World arc couldn't have been exactly what truly happened in the past (more like a "summary" of what had happened, altered by the modern elements added to it and by the fact that it was actually a role-playing game), so there's a lot of questions left unanswered. But he was probably the one character who was up to the most interesting mayhem.

On page 49 I chose to add the "meanwhile" note, something I don't normally do, mainly because the Bakura scene set was so long. I have always had it in my head that Bakura's visit to Marik takes place around the same time or slightly after Yugi, Joey, Serenity and Rebecca visit the Kaiba mansion, but I was concerned that chopping the scenes apart would be too confusing, and I really don't like being confusing. :x (I'm aware of the fact that I still am anyway.)

I love that Mokuba screams Yugi, Joey, and Serenity's names in all capital letters, but Rebecca's name is said with normal capitalization like it's just sort of added on. Also, that last panel was one of many panels that was a lot easier to draw because Invid is nice and lets me borrow his portable DVD player: Instead of trying to dig up my manga volumes, which are notoriously insidious to find (I swear they're alive and do it on purpose) I could just grab one of the Duelist Kingdom DVDs and put the DVD player on my desk. XD (This is one of many reasons why I simply find it easier to write a story following mostly anime continuity- that and the fact that parts of the manga send my suspension of disbelief crashing through the floor, and then it drowns in the sea below while flailing around for a tiny key that probably floated a hundred feet away by the time it should have reached my poor, poor suspension of disbelief. >_<)

And since I got a laptop recently, it's going to be even easier than that- Now I can just save screenshots and use those. Yay, technology! XD

I love Roland to pieces. I sort of ad-libbed a lot of the furniture on page 50, but I figure if Kaiba really does have OCD or something, it probably gets moved around enough that it doesn't matter. Kaiba's bed is a totally different one from the one that is briefly shown in Magic Light. I could say something like "Well, this is a fancomic and I was being less careful about references and junk during Magic Light YOU'RE NOT PAYING ME to read this so don't complain," but that's not how I feel about it: The fact that I'm not making any money off this doesn't mean I don't care about it. So my official explanation is actually that Kaiba was sleeping in a guest room that one time, because burning his clothes in a wastebasket filled his room with a smoky smell that he couldn't sleep with. XD (Well sure, it was on a balcony, but he left his door open, so the smell still got in.) (Yes, this is how much of a nerd I am.)

In the original version of the fanfic that became this comic, it was actually going to be Serenity that went in to talk to Kaiba, and worse, she visited him alone. I wrote the original idea several years ago, and that's my only excuse. Past-me mostly cared about her agendas, while Current-me cares more about the fact that Joey knows Kaiba better than Serenity does and is more likely to understand Kaiba's hangups right away, and that Serenity is much more timid than Joey is. This is one of the reasons I'm not bothered by my own writing process taking a long time: Fics end up less stupid because of it. I love page 51 because that maid is totally talking in lolcatspeak, and Kaiba totally just nearly dropped an F-bomb. XD The sketch version of this page featured Kaiba snuggling down further into the bedding contentedly before realizing someone (who wasn't Mokuba) was sitting next to him, but it wasn't particularly clear what was happening-- it looked more like Joey was snuggling into Kaiba. For obvious reasons (this scene is homoerotic enough!) I chose to have him say "Mnf?" instead.

Also, Kaiba hires no maids under the age of 25 in my universe. I just want to make that clear: Women who don't look like they could be Mokuba's mom need not apply. XD I gave her a French Maid style costume anyway, just because it's so very anime for her to be wearing one.

In panel 3 of page 52, Kaiba's muffled words are "Oh Gawd!" If you look closely, you'll see that Joey has chosen to wrap his legs around Kaiba's right arm. Kaiba finds this incredibly disturbing. XD

Some of the way Joey's talking about healing on page 53 caused a reader or two to wonder just how sick Kaiba actually is, since a lot of people don't think of the flu as being a life-threatening illness and it almost sounded as though that's what Joey was saying, that Kaiba was dying or something.

The common flu is one of those funny illnesses that, when a person gets it, can either run its course if the person is getting proper treatment, or can, if the person is NOT getting proper treatment, get worse and worse and worse. Kaiba is essentially prolonging the amount of time that he's sick by being difficult to take care of. XD That's part of what Joey's telling him off for, anyhow.

Another side to it is the fact that Joey knows that Kaiba's still a little out of wack over the car accident. This whole scene became a scene about how Kaiba couldn't even apologize to Joey when he thought Joey was awake, and now is the first time Joey's outright told him that it's okay and they can move on. They're communicating better than they were back at Duelist Kingdom, but it's not the kind of communication you normally see between two healthy people. Page 54 turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted it, and while it's not as heavy impact as a scene about Kaiba standing in the rain so nobody bothers him at his father's grave, I'm still quite pleased with the moment and consider it quite important.

At this point in the story, Joey's opinion about Kaiba has morphed into sadness that Kaiba's so messed up.

And of course, the delectable page 55, which I simply cannot leave out. Look at that Roland! Look at hiiim!! XD Mokuba would seem to have funny ideas about how to get people to relax. Also, as noted in the page comments, Earl Grey is considered by some to be a breakfast tea. I thought it was a bit funnier than coffee.

In this fancomic, as a totally random aside, I chose to have Roland's full name be "Roland Isono," as Isono is his Japanese name. This seemed like a fairly economical solution: His dub name is the only given name I've known the character to have, and his Japanese name is the only family name I've known the character to have. And they sound comfortable when said aloud next to one another.

Next commentary, I'll probably try to plow all the way to the end! Yay! XD

It Only Took 28 Episodes

2011-11-30T21:30:00.001-05:00

I have a new probable favorite ZEXAL character.

Anna Kozuki, while she's only appeared once, is my vote for best random character to appear so far.

Now, as I've noted, the younger ages of most of ZEXAL's characters is... a bit uncomfortable for me. They're much closer to actual children than most Yu-Gi-Oh! casts. But they don't really draw Anna here as a child (they even have her Gainaxing, for crying out loud!-also note that, if you don't know what that is, you should be cautious about clicking the link) and I guess that means that it's a bit less problematic for me.

Anyway, there are a lot of things about the character that are pretty great, so I'll list a few:

Her first appearance, mere seconds after the episode opens, involves her standing on a roof and sniping at the main characters.

With a cannon.

A cannon that can transform into a small aircraft.

Aside from the fact that she can and does wield a portable cannon with proficiency, even without that we have evidence of her being very strong-at one point, to punctuate a statement, she swings and misses at Yuma, and makes a small crater in a concrete wall.

And now we come to my favorite part of the character. Here we have a minor character (as opposed to an important villain or something, although the intro suggests that she may become a recurring character) who is a female duelist who does not use a single "girly" card.

Folks, that just hasn't been done before in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s various series.

Further, her few monsters are huge. They have a physical presence that's incredibly dominating, giant trains casually circling like sharks around Yuma and his tiny wimps, a presence greater than that of the vast majority of monsters since the Battle City era. And their statistics-one of them, in fact the first one we see, has 5000 ATK-are ridiculously hyperbolic.

So, in short, I think that this alone is perhaps the best thing about ZEXAL so far-equity in deck types. She's manlier than the guys, for crying out loud!

-Signing off.

Y'know...

2011-08-17T21:00:00.000-04:00

...when I said that I wouldn't mind seeing more hot moms in ZEXAL...

...I wasn't expecting the series to take me up on that. (For reference, the lady in the above picture is the mother of Yuma's friend Kotori.)

I also was not expecting more hot older sisters akin to Akari, Yuma's older sister and still my favorite albeit fairly seldom seen character. (The new one is the older sister of Yuma's friend Tetsuo-and look at Tetsuo's portrait picture. Seriously).

But lo, they have provided.

(Screenshots ganked off of a mostly-raw posting of episode 19 from one of the less well-policed video sites, with the labels the posters put on to advertise their subtitled version scratched off. Because seriously, guys, you don't own it any more than I do.)

-Signing off.

After 5D's

2011-06-02T21:00:00.002-04:00

Well, a couple of months later, and I still haven't posted my final thoughts on the end of 5D's. And of course, I also ought to remark on the start of Yu-Gi-Oh! "unnecessary letters" ZEXAL.

First up: On the matter of the 5D's finale, I've made my position on it known before the fact, and it's a good darned thing that they delivered on that relationship, because seriously, that would have been the third time a Yu-Gi-Oh! series ended with no emotional resolutions for multiple relationships, and as I've stated in the linked post, I'm rather attached to the Yusei/Aki couple.

And it was satisfying. In fact, even aside from the beautiful visuals and direction of The Moment (TM), that was just about the most romantic thing ever. According to the Yu-Gi-Oh! wiki, Yusei told her she had "the best smile in the world," and she responded that he had put that smile there. Take that, Team Satisfaction orgy shippers. (Yes, they exist.)

On the last bit of the "action" plot, if you were wondering why Yusei and his bike turned gold at the end of episode 150, there is a reason beyond simply imitating series like Dragonball Z.

A musician who performed a huge amount of 5D's music later in the series was Masaaki Endoh. Aside from being guaranteed a spot on any "top ten musicians of all time" list I would ever put together, he's known for performing the opening songs of a number of anime, one of the earliest of which was "King of Braves Gaogaigar" (which I've talked about elsewhere at least a little bit).

In the series, there's a giant robot called Gaogaigar (which roughly translates, by the way, as "growl harm being," i.e. a growling guy that hurts you) who can pick up a hammer called the Goldion Hammer which causes him to turn bright, shiny gold in pretty much exactly the same fashion as Yusei did. If you think that's a coincidence, Endoh also performed the opening theme for another robot-based series called Daigunder, and in the last episode of that the titular robot turned gold for massive damage as the opening song played.

So my conclusion is that Yusei's "Over Top Clear Mind" turned him gold because Masaaki Endoh sang during the series more than once, and apparently that's a law of anime now.

On ZEXAL: It's no 5D's or original series, but it isn't GX yet either.

The emphasis on the new Xyz (pronounced "ex-sieze" for no reason beyond perhaps confusing English speakers) monsters strikes me as a colossal blunder, mostly because they're much lamer than Synchro Monsters. They're simple and easy to summon for the most part, but they generally have pretty limited effects and unpleasant drawbacks which are unnecessary. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if someone figured out how to break the game with the rules weirdness surrounding their non-levels.

So far, it seems to be the Yu-Gi-Oh! series with the smallest amount of ancient civilization references. I can't say I care for most of the characters, although the mystery of Astral is vaguely piquing my interest. (He's a character who literally knows nothing; he wondered why Yuma and his family were eating in one scene.)

My favorite character so far, though, is probably Yuma's older sister, Akari, as she's rather hot and also entertaining.

Of course, she makes relatively infrequent appearances. If this series was about her instead, I'd probably be hooked. As it is, searching for the episodes (since YouTube finally seems to be having some success at keeping users from posting them) feels more like a chore than entertainment.

For that matter, there's just a general lack of attractive female characters in ZEXAL. (Yuma's schoolmates aren't legal.)

Of course, in episodes seven and eight, we get this lady, the mother of the Numbers-possessed duelist of the week...

...and I can't say I minded seeing her. (Incidentally, the wiki doesn't appear to have an article for her yet.)

Of course, seeing her express concern over her son causes Yuma to flash back to a memory of his own hot mom, and while I can't say that I minded seeing the best shot of her that we've gotten so far, it's still a little weird.

Kudos for these being pretty much the least absent of all Yu-Gi-Oh! series' protagonists' parents, as even Dr. Fudo only showed up as a ghost and in a few flashbacks, and it'll at least be possible for Yuma's parents to show up in the series as not-dead people if the information on the wiki is correct.

Also, I think I would watch a show about hot shonen moms.

-Signing off.

Ho Snap

2011-02-03T20:39:00.002-05:00

Yusei and Aki Forever Into the Future

2011-01-18T21:00:00.010-05:00

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's is ending soon, and I'm of mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, 5D's was far better handled than its predecessor (because seriously, GX, what the heck?!), eventually using its own take on the Yu-Gi-Oh! world to create a story that is fairly unique and its own, and also is completely daft in a lovable way.

On the other hand, perhaps it's better that it's being retired while it's going well, because it looks like the developers are having terrible ideas again. (I'll hold judgment on "Yu-Gi-Oh! ZeXal [pronounced 'zeal' for no good reason]" until I actually see for myself that it's completely terrible, but it isn't promising.)

I'll still be sad to see it go.

Actually, there's an undercurrent that's been going on as the series has progressed where it seems that the opening and ending sequences have developed a slight disconnect, wherein it seems that Yusei's and Aki's relationship is developing at a slightly different pace than in the series itself.

I'll note that, while I am a dude and thus not much for "shipping" (unlike about a bazillion percent of this fandom), I totally ship Yusei and Aki like heck. But I'm not going to pretend that their relationship in the series even begins to parallel what we see, in the endings particularly.

And to show that I'm paying more attention to these things than is really sane or healthy, I'm going to go through each of the 5D's Japanese series openings and end credits, and list the correct sequences that the characters appear in, in the name of seeing the development of their relationship via spacial arrangements.

In the first opening, the order is Yusei, Jack, Aki, the twins, and Rex Goodwin. In the corresponding ending, only Yusei and Jack appear.

In the second opening, the order is Yusei, Jack (with Carly briefly), Aki, the twins, Crow, Misty and Carly, Kiryu/Kalin, and then Yusei again. In the corresponding ending, we can see Yusei on what used to be the Junkpile of Solitude in the first opening, now crowded with a huge number of people, the closest of which are Jack and Aki. The character order is Yusei, Jack, the twins, Aki, Crow, and then Jack, Aki, the twins, and Yusei again. There's a second character cluster after this that has Aki and Jack a nearly equal distance from Yusei (though Jack is closer, the image is slightly misleading because the characters are of such disparate heights and standing on different levels).

The third opening plays with Yusei, Jack, and Crow as the Three Musketeers/Caballeros/whatever. Character order is Yusei, Jack, Crow, Aki, and the twins (plus a gaggle of those schoolmates who haven't been seen in ages), followed by Dark Glass/Vizor/Bruno and Sherry disguised as a dude (though this was one of the openings that changed over time, and I'm looking at the first version).

Here's where things start getting more interesting. Observe the following screenshot.

Now, what's interesting here is that it looks like Crow is between Yusei and Aki, but he actually isn't-if you look closely, he's actually standing slightly behind both of them.

And here's the last bit of this particular opening sequence:

Aki is wearing skimpier clothes than she does at any point in the series and is looking at either Jack, Yusei, Crow, or the TV Tokyo logo. Since she likes Yusei better than the other two and isn't likely to be breaking the fourth wall, I'd judge she's looking at Yusei particularly.

In the third ending, the first character order is Yusei, Jack, Crow, Aki, and the twins. Then comes Jack, the twins, Crow, Aki, and Yusei... and it's in this Brady Bunch style box, with Aki next to Yusei.

There's a third and a fourth sequence mixed in with each other, but the third doesn't have Yusei, while the fourth is Yusei, Jack, Crow, Aki, and the twins again.

Somewhere in there (I think) is this still image-while the focus is on Jack and Crow, look at Yusei and Aki in back there.

There's also an upward-panning shot which shows Yusei at the top, and Aki is the second from the top, and at the end is a rather... peculiar portrait of Yusei, which becomes the frame for a group shot that shows the gang clustered around Yusei... and Aki is once again standing closest to him.

The fourth opening doesn't have any of those slideshows or such weirdness-instead, it has a sequence which pays attention to normal motion and the laws of physics. (Go figure.) It should be noted that Aki's sexy biker suit makes its first appearance in an opening here.

The ending, however, is something of a whirlwind of sequences, featuring Crow, Jack, Yusei, and Aki, then Jack, Crow, Yusei, and Aki, and then Jack, Yusei, Aki, and Crow. (Whew.)

There's also this brief sequence where we see them walking in line, and Aki is standing in front of Yusei.

And there's also the strongest indicator I've yet listed, this still image:

Yes, it would seem that, in ending sequence land at least, the two are dating by the fourth ending sequence.

And here she is, ensuring that Bruno/Dark Glass/Vizor/Antinomymony keeps away from Yusei.

The fifth opening has an order of Crow, Jack, Yusei, Aki, and the twins, and a cluster of Aki, Crow, Yusei, Jack, and the twins.

The fifth ending finally has figured out how to be internally consistent, because it features the same order-Yusei, Jack, Crow, Aki, and the twins-twice... even though this is the "wheeler order" sequence, where it'd have made more sense to have it be Jack, Crow, Yusei, Aki, and the twins.

Then comes this crowning indicator of where their relationship apparently is in ending land:

The "standing in the forest looking in awe at a giant obscured Duel Monster" stage.

It looks like a pretty serious relationship at this point.

Chances are, there won't really be any more new Japanese 5D's openings or endings (unless maybe the final ending is like what they did for the Duel Monsters series), but perhaps it's for the best. Imagine where it would go from here if one takes into account the fact that apparently their relationship moves faster than in the series itself.

Imaginary ending six still, courtesy of GDG (and with a greyscaled screenshot in the background):

Imaginary ending seven still:

(Don't tell me you don't think Yanagi's qualified.)

And the still from an imaginary eighth ending:

By the twelfth, we'd be seeing them in the nursing home.

...

No, now that I think about it, I want to see that after all.

#@%& it, Konami!

-Singning off. (Gack, stupid keyboard. I knew it would happen sooner or later.)

What is she applying for, anyway?

2010-12-10T19:48:00.002-05:00

Because "I don't have any essays finished and the one character study I have in the queue is out of order" is nowhere near a good excuse for the silence on the blog front lately.

Although "I have a roaring headache" is probably a good excuse for this cartoon.

Invid has a guest blog he's working on, but "it's not ready." :P

Some Random Thoughts

2010-09-19T15:50:00.001-04:00

Gee, sorry I keep vanishing like that. :P Work's been a bear.

So: Some random things that have occurred to me whilst trolling-- I mean, trawling ff.net's Yugioh forums for blog ideas, things that are pretty much just little statements that I think you'll like, but that I can't imagine doing full essays over.

-Yugioh is essentially a ghost story. Very little fanfiction remembers this at all.

-If you gave Atem his own body and let him kill people, the original manga would be two steps away from a vampire story. XD

-Yugi is totally a Christ figure. O_o Which would make that vampire story kind of awesome, now that my brain is slippering down that slope.

-Spellcheck agrees with me that "slippering" is a word. Invid is disturbed by this.

-Oops, Spellcheck just changed its mind. XD

-Members of the fandom's nerd levels can be quite accurately described using the characters from the show. That guy over there, muttering about how fancards are always stupid and the duels are never written well? He's a Kaiba-level nerd. That chick you know who's dead serious about characterization and couldn't give a bee's behind about those trap cards? More of a Téa level nerd. (Téa's a nerd, just in a different way.)

-So can the roles we actually play in the forums (not role-playing, the way we comport ourselves.) There aren't enough Yugis.

-Honestly, there just aren't enough Yugis anywhere.

-All fanfiction ideas can be done well, but finding them is like topdecking: You can't rely on it. O_o

-Invid hates ff.net.

-I can totally understand. It needs some kind of "number of favorites" or something, or at LEAST some way that's better than communities for people to find skilled writers. (I mean, come on, the third forum from the top in the YGO section is summarized: "I like to hear more about Yami/Tea and any other couples if I like them. I don't want to hear any Yoai or Yuri. I can't stand that." I mean, wat. This is an entire forum?! Streamline your system, ff.net.)

-And here's one from Invid: If Yugi is sort of a Christ figure, then one of the basic premises of YnY (the story, not the blog) makes it sort of like a metaphor about Christianity: People can get really nasty when spreading the message of love and peace, missing the point entirely.

-I'm not at all sure how I feel about this revelation. No more deep literary analysis for YOU, Mister Invid!

(The really odd part about this is that Invid is the one who insists that Duel Tanks would be awesome in the same conversations with deep literary analysis that makes me uncomfortable.)

Character Study: Yami Bakura

2010-08-10T12:38:00.006-04:00

Character Study: Yami no Bakura

Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Terribly ancient for a sixteen to eighteen year old. (Ha, she thinks she's funny.)
Character Archetype: The Demon in the Dark, the Dark Avenger
Probable Element and Alignment: Dark, changes from Chaotic Good to True Evil
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: Forceful and self-important.

The most difficult thing about getting a handle on Yami B is trying to figure out exactly who he is and how many of him there are. I'm going to tackle him as a combination of Thief King Bakura with some massive Zorc taint and assume that, during some of his stranger moments, Zorc was actually driving the boat. (The Spirit of the RIng is sociopathic, yes, but he's still too quirkily human for him to be Zorc itself- which is essentially hunger and malice personified.) I'm also going to continue calling him Yami Bakura through most of the essay, for the simple fact that there are two characters named Bakura, and "Dark Bakura" is the closest thing he has to his own name.

As with many of the focal characters in Yugioh, Yami B has a drastic character arc and changes quite a lot over its course. One of the things that makes him unique is that we see him first at his ending point, and it takes the entire series before we see that he started as more than a sociopathic Geistermench. At his beginning, he is noble, fierce and very much a man of his own time period. He's a good man, although a bit mistaken about who his real enemies are and much too willing to do anything in his crusade for justice. (Ancient peoples tended to place a lower value on other men's lives, especially where vengeance was involved, but also it's pretty clear to me that Yami B didn't see Atem's subjects as anything beyond Atem's subjects, and a way to hurt him.) He's also in intense emotional pain, for obvious reasons.

I see the "king of thieves" as being a dark knight, although unlike Batman and the criminals of Gotham, the monster Yami Bakura was fighting is the country that exerted authority over his loved ones by murdering them viciously. Diabound's terrifying power developed because Bakura himself was filled with the most hardened resolve, and because he had survived a childhood of horrible trauma and solitude, sharpening him into a steel blade.

Several things might have happened when Bakura aquired the Millenium Ring, some of which are more clear than others. First, he started to honestly go insane. The Items themselves are seething and surrounded with evil; they connect Zorc more tightly to reality and were created by horrific means. More importantly, those horrific means were witnessed by Bakura when he was young and vulnerable, and they involved killing everyone he'd ever been close to. The Ring tapped into this deeper vulnerability, and thenceforth Bakura's motives began to blur with those of Zorc in a way that I'm not sure he even realized was actually happening. Diabound began to twist and darken, a symptom of the infection.

For me, Yami Bakura attacking Aknadin and turning him into what would become Zorc Necrophades is the strongest evidence that he was no longer acting merely as an avenger. Aknadin is the one truly responsible for the massacre of Kul Elna; indications are that Yami Bakura at least sort of is aware of this. Why, then, did Bakura simply pass on the infection, instead of messily dissecting Aknadin while the older man was still breathing? There were other ways "in" to the Pharaoh's court. The most logical answer is that Zorc is happily directing his behavior, whether he realizes it or not. Aknadin was the best suited to Zorc's purposes, and therefore Bakura leaves him alive and doesn't redirect his vengeance from Aknamkanon's son. (Atem, for those of you I've lost.)

In the modern era, Yami Bakura has been driven further insane by the mere fact that he's been aware this entire time, stuffed inside the thing that drove him crazy in the first place. He's also become more demonic in nature, especially since he must act using the bodies of others. The already considerable skills he possessed when he was more truly alive have sharpened over a period of several thousand years, and Yami Bakura now clearly fits the name of "monster."

Yet a ghost of his noble origins as avenger remains, twisted into almost a parody. This is where Ryou comes in. Maybe being stuffed into a Ring has let Bakura's social skills atrophy, maybe he's just forgotten how to identify with other human beings. In any case, he's fiercely protective of Ryou, and determined to keep the boy's friends close at hand while punishing anyone who even looks at the kid funny. As manga readers know, this often means sealing people into game pieces, or killing them, depending on his whim. He's impatient with Ryou's apparent softness, probably because of how he himself has been hardened into steel. He doesn't understand why Ryou gets so upset over little things like "belonging." Being disconnected from a body for so long, and having lived through a terrible solitude before that, Yami B also doesn't grasp that part of what Ryou enjoys about human interaction is the actual physical presence of another person.

In other words, Yami Bakura's method of "protecting" Ryou is actually perfectly logical, in Yami B's own mind. He's not exactly trying to be cruel, he doesn't understand how he IS being cruel, and the fact that Ryou responds poorly to his efforts annoys and frustrates him, and fills him with disdain for his host. Think of the hardened soldier who served in World War 2 trying and failing to identify with a sensitive hippy child. The two Bakuras come from drastically different worlds, and they'd have a hard time identifying with one another even in the best circumstances.

It is definitely real protectiveness on Yami Bakura's part, as opposed to the simple self-serving "kill em for the lawls" it's usually explained away as. There is one incident in the manga that makes this absolutely clear: when Bobasa chases Ryou out for having an "impure soul," and Ryou is sobbing by himself, Yami Bakura is shown to be thinking, irritably, that he'll have to "deal with this fool's feelings later."

He should know that this is the endgame, and he's plotting vengeance on Bobasa for making Ryou cry? What the hell, man. You've got it bad when you're doing stuff like that. (Whatever "it" is, I leave to interpretation.) He's irritated no end with how soft he perceives Ryou to be, yet he clearly cares that said soft little boy has gotten his feelings hurt. And he will kill over said soft liitle boy's tender feelings, even though he wishes the kid weren't so sensitive. (I'm not saying I see Ryou as soft. See Ryou's character study.)

It's probably because Ryou fought him for their sakes that Yami Bakura harrasses Yugi and company only minimally as the series progresses. He wants something from them, yes, but he's going to avoid giving them undue grief until absolutely necessary. After all, this is the first time he can remember Ryou showing a spine, even if it's in a direction he dislikes. If Ryou hadn't actively fought Yami Bakura, and Yugi and the others had escaped the first attempt he made to trap them in game pieces, there's a good chance he would have kept trying to ensnare them, harder now that they had escaped once. Instead, he only actively fights them when they're standing between himself and his goals, and even helps them more than once. Bakura has decided to let Ryou "keep" these people, under conditions.

Even in the modern era, Yami Bakura doesn't trust that Atem carries any honor, nobility, or even compassion at all. He knows that Atem will fight for who he cares about, but obviously that doesn't mean THAT much, because everyone does it, right? Through Ryou's eyes he witnessed Atem's willingness to let Seto Kaiba throw himself from the roof of the Duelist Kingdom castle, if it meant Atem would win the duel. This is why he saves Ryou from Slifer; unlike Kaiba, he can't trust enough to throw this particular life on Yugi's mercy. (Yes, it is totally possible to be less trusting than Kaiba.) If it had been his own life, of course, he might have been more willing, but Ryou, however irritating Yami Bakura finds him, is the only living being he actually cares about.

One of the sadder aspects to the series for me is the idea that Yami Bakura apparently "dies" while still twisted up with Zorc taint. One can hope that the defeat of Zorc in the Memory Arc blasted him clean, but whatever truly happened to him isn't entirely clear. (Takahashi would probably tell us he "went away to heaven," the silly old bear. XD) There is plenty of room, however, for his potential survival-- the main suggestion of this has to do with the way he sealed up a portion of his soul in one of the Millenium Puzzle pieces. All that he was doing there was gaining access to the Puzzle's intricacies, but if he could seal part of himself in a mystical Puzzle piece, he could easily seal a part of himself in something else, keeping that part, and himself, safe. A canny fanfic writer can take this and run with it in any direction. I tend to believe that he at least temporarily left an anchor within Ryou, which is how the Millenium Ring kept finding itself back in Ryou's possession, and how he didn't actually die in his first defeat.

The mere fact that he did things like this also shows that Yami Bakura had a much sharper understanding of how to use his own shadow powers than most of the other characters that possessed them. He would seem to have had a natural talent for magic, even before he aquired the Millenium Ring, and existing aware within it for so long would have given him plenty of time to adapt to being a bodiless soul. This probably is a large part of why he could face being eaten up by shadows (within Ryou's body) when defeated by Yami Marik; the other reason is that, while he didn't trust Atem to have compassion for Ryou, he DID trust Atem to defeat Yami Marik, and knew that his condition would be temporary if the pharaoh succeeded.

Several people have complained about the Oreichalchos arc within the anime, because Ryou isn't seen and Yami Bakura doesn't act. Surely, with all this insanity going on, Yami Bakura would try to take advantage of it, right? And if not, he'd try to fight Dartz and keep Atem out of his clutches, so that he could have his own vengeance, right?

Maybe not. First of all, Dartz talked about knowing of Atem since Atem was actually alive, and indicated that it was because of Yami Bakura that he didn't act (I suspect he also just wasn't really ready to take on such a strong opponent.) It's possible that canny villains know better than to get underfoot of one another. It's also possible that the Leviathan and Zorc, wanting something similar, were either in cahoots with one another or were actually the same thing. If that's the case, Zorc may have held Bakura back. Even if it's not the case, Zorc may have held him back in order to see how the Leviathan's gambit would play out.

Secondly, in the anime Yami Bakura informs Ryou that it's time to stop fooling around. I've talked about how Yami B may have been nursing Ryou back to health in the immediate aftermath of Battle City. I've also talked about how Ryou was probably in much worse shape than he appeared to be during Battle City. I'm inclined to think that Yami Bakura was granting Ryou a convalesence period, and didn't want to risk reinjuring him so soon. (He may have, however, clung close by when the God Cards were stolen, and decided that the situation was too much for him to put Ryou through at the time.)

Another aspect I want to emphasize about Yami Bakura is that he's most assuredly human, even though he no longer knows how to act human, or how to relate to other people on a human level. He displays a sense of humor and a sense of amused bewilderment during his duel with Bonz. (I also like his "there is no way there is something more dangerous than ME in this graveyard" attitude.) Despite his annoyance with Ryou Bakura, he desires to protect him on a level that goes beyond conveniance. And his understanding of Atem's own human nature is something an eldritch god would be too large to grasp-- even with the fact that he takes a dim view of human behavior (I see him as adhering to Hobbes's philosophical assumptions: "Humans are evil by nature.")

Invid has suggested one other thing regarding the more savage side of Yami Bakura's nature that I feel should be mentioned for the sake of completeness, and which I find rather appealing: an explanation for his blood fetish. It could easily be written off that he's just crazy, and it is likely that Takahashi just wanted him to be as creepy as possible to the modern mind.

But this is the important part: To the modern mind. Many cultures surrounding ancient Egypt believed in blood sacrifice, and more importantly in the idea that by consuming blood, one brought the life of something into oneself. (This is why consuming blood is considered not to be kosher.) Bakura was very much a man of his time period; it's not unreasonable to assume he spent some time among people of non-Egyptian culture during his childhood and absorbed part of that attitude.

Which is one of the many reasons I go weird about trying to write people with their cultural background in mind.

Final Distillation:
Yami Bakura transforms from a noble avenger to a demonic monster.
He is very much a man of his time period, which involves a certain amount of natural savagery.
He has been hardened into steel, although he does have his vulnerabilities (which were much more obvious when he was fully human.)
Yami Bakura is extremely skilled at magic, but he also has good natural aptitude.
He is protective, even at his most demonic.
He no longer understands human interaction on a human level.
Yet at the same time, Yami Bakura is human.

Character Study: Ryou Bakura

2010-08-10T12:31:00.006-04:00

Character Study: Ryou Bakura

Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Fifteen to seventeen
Character Archetype: I hate to say it, but he plays the Damsel in Distress quite well. He's also, to a certain extent, the Wise Wizard, or the Paladin.
Probable Element and Alignment: Dark, Neutral Good
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: Polite and soft-spoken.

I've always had a rather strange relationship with Ryou Bakura. He was the first Yu-Gi-Oh! character I ever did fanart of, as well as the first I worked with in comic format. (They were kind of... strange... gag things.) Yet I can't be sure I'd call him my favorite character, or even a character I know very well.

Of course, Ryou is something of an enigma. Through most of the series, he's being possessed by one of the following: An ancient, vengeful thief or an eldritch god-- possibly something that is a combination of the two. Dark Bakura is a very convincing actor, and therefore we really can't tell all the time which Bakura is steering the body. (We do know that in the manga, he can be very sensitive about the things Yami B does, especially if he's accused of being evil himself. It's pretty clear that he's the one who broke down in response to Bobasa chasing him away at the beginning of the Memory Arc.) (That incident, by the way, is part of why I like the anime better. I hate to see Bakura cry. :P)

We know that he's fairly polite and quiet, yet the quiet behavior might really be a reaction to the fact that he can't be sure what's going on all the time. He seems like he's probably socially inept, yet how can he be otherwise, with a demonic being chasing anyone who even sort of hurts his feelings into hell, and trapping anyone he acts like he might like into cards and figurines? Ryou can't help but be socially damaged and emotionally shackled; it's a survival trait. (The way he seems to hold himself quietly aloof when being shown around the school by obviously enamoured girls is interesting-- has he simply decided to reserve judgment until they stop fangirling, or is he used to being treated like a doll by the opposite sex and has just learned to put up with it?)

Bakura is also in a state of mourning, which will also skew how a character behaves. He writes letters to his dead sister, asking her how she "and mother" are and telling her what he's been doing. I've seen people call this creepy, but I disagree. If you're going to write a letter to a person, you're going to act like you're having a dialogue; that's how letters are written. He's not any creepier than people who leave flowers and gifts at memorials or stand talking to gravestones in the rain. Grief makes people do odd things.

One thing I know for sure about Ryou Bakura is that I like him when he's angry. We only see a glimpse of this, too; in the manga, during his first appearance, in the anime, during the Duelist Kingdom Soul Card duel. Yet we do see it, and what we see is a frightening determination and resolve, combined with eerie calm. "I will do anything to screw you over, Spirit of the Ring, even if it means I have to die for it." (And yet he'll say it with calm eyes.) Granted, he's in a state of sheer desperation. But perhaps that is something important to remember about him: Ryou Bakura knows what it means to be pushed to the emotional limit, and he's survived it.

I do believe that Ryou is a good person, whatever else he is. If the first RPG that Atem played with Yami Bakura was intended to be symbolic, which it most certainly was (because Takahashi loves that sort of thing) then the white wizard Yugi's character yanked out of Zorc's arm was intended to show Ryou Bakura's truer nature. That character, who was an extension of his will and yet, wasn't quite Bakura himself, not only displayed the same calm anger, but casually gave his own life to restore Ryou's. The total lack of fear he shows in the face of a meaningful death is either something that shows Ryou to be somewhat unhealthy, or far braver than he's given credit for.

During Duelist Kingdom, too, he's the one that puts his hands on Yugi's shoulders after Yugi throws the rooftop duel, in a way that can only be described as protective. It's probable that he understands better than any of the others what's really bothering Yugi (Atem being willing to kill without Yugi's consent), and silently, he reaches out to let Yugi know he's there. This is more likely Ryou acting than Yami Bakura, because Yami B wouldn't think to do it. It's just a sweet, sensitive gesture. In a way, Ryou simply has insight into Yugi's head that the others can't fathom, and that even Yami Bakura probably doesn't understand, because otherwise he would have exploited it.

(I've always suspected that Takahashi intended to give Ryou more character development, btw, he just never got around to it.)

There's no way of telling who's talking through most of Battle City, although I'm quite certain Ryou was totally unconscious from some point while he was in the hospital up to the end of the duel with Yugi, and that Yami Bakura was just pretending to be his host. It seems strange that he would react so poorly to what appears to be a mere gash in the arm, and many people just attribute it to his general tenderness. I'm inclined to think that he must have lost a lot of blood, that the wound was much worse than it looked (we never do see the gash itself, only a bandage and bloodstains) and that the hospital pumped him full of painkillers. Yami Bakura seems to thrive on pain, not to mention he went around eating heavy, rare-cooked foods and doing a lot of other things that the hospital probably wouldn't have approved of. XD

So during Battle City, that body underwent a lot more punishment than just a gash on the arm, and what it really means is that Yami Bakura has a freakish pain tolerance. Meanwhile, all Ryou knows is that he woke up with a gashed apart arm, a roiling stomach, with the strong sense that he's been running around with something very heavy on his injured arm doing only Yami B knows what. He's confused, he's in pain, and there's a damn big red dragon getting ready to snort lightning on his head.

Yeah, I'd freak out (and fall over) too.

The next time we see him, we once again can't be sure it's really him. After all, he just woke up in a strange place. We don't know that his arm is healed or that the drugs have worn off, we don't know that his blood's replenished itself. He's hungry, so he cleans out the kitchen. This could be a sign that Ryou's very practical, or it could be a sign that Yami Bakura is in charge, quietly nursing him back to health.

(One assumes, however, that Ryou probably IS a fairly practical person-- he can't get rid of the stupid Ring, so he just deals. He can't control his situation, so he doesn't get overly upset about it. He lives practically on his own, so he'd have to have a sensible head on his shoulders when it comes to this kind of thing.)

Another side to Ryou that is very firmly his is that he's probably the best duelist we never see play. I don't believe that he had any say in the deck he carries; that belongs to the Spirit that enslaves him, and he doesn't throw it away because he can't. But when Yugi isn't there to explain things (usually because he's the one dueling), Bakura fills the role of ringside commentator, especially during Duelist Kingdom. Other characters sometimes fill the role (Duke is his official pinch-hitter when it comes to this), but Ryou is better at it than most of them. During the duel with Panik, he very clearly has a better grasp on what's happening than Mai, and is the first person to pick up on Yugi's strategy. (Which is a pretty insane strategy, so yeah.) He is similarly canny during the Ceremonial Duel, keeping up at least as well as, if not better than, Kaiba.

The only other character I have seen display such a keen understanding when discussing duels from the sidelines is probably Yugi's grandfather. (Not counting Pegasus.) Ryou does claim to enjoy playing the dungeon master, and this might be a sign of why: he enjoys deep-trenched and insane strategem. I'd hate to play chess with him, but I'd love to play one of his RPGs. (WHY would I hate to play chess with him? Because half the time you'd be clueless as to what the hell he just did to snare you in that checkmate, that's why.) (He'd probably be a good sport about it, but that doesn't mean I'd enjoy it.) So Ryou Bakura is definitely very smart, and is at least capable of seeing through other people's deviousness, through their strategy and machinations when even their opponents can't.

Lots of people like to write Bakura as extremely clumsy. I feel that the clumsiness is a combination of a lowered confidence (due to the nature of his possession) and Yami B amping it up deliberately so that Ryou himself seems even less of a threat. So I, at least, am less inclined to writing him as clumsy post-possession.

I mentioned earlier that I dislike the scene in the manga in which Bobasa declares that Ryou can't help with the Pharaoh's Memories because he carries darkness within him. It's not because I don't like what it does with his character, I just found it kind of mean. :P I think that Ryou had really come to consider himself a part of this group of people, that it was the first time in a long time that he felt like he belonged anywhere, and that Bobasa really shook that feeling. (He probably felt a lot better later when he realized that, yet again, it was all Yami B's fault. Yami Bakura, you jerk. XD)

So even though I don't like the scene, I think the way Bakura reacts there is understandable and within his previously established character, and not wussy at all. XD (Gives Ryou a hug)

Final Distillation:
Much of Ryou's behavior is a result of his being possessed. :P
He is emotionally shackled, due to his possession.
He is very calm about his own anger.
He is fearless at the idea of dying in a meaningful way-- he's very brave.
He actually can take care of himself, when he's keeping out of trouble.
He is intelligent, and has a keen understanding of strategy.
He is a good person, and sensitive to other people.
He values the sense of belonging highly.

The Children's Card Game

2010-07-23T19:00:00.009-04:00

There's something that my dear sister (GDG-this is Invid) refers to as the "children's card game fallacy."

Simply put, it's the fact that fans of the series view the characters as treating a simple "children's card game" as a huge piece of srs bsnss. (Thanks a lot for that observation, LittleKuriboh. You have officially warped the fandom.)

Well, it's certainly true that they put an awful lot of stock into a game, but it goes beyond being a children's card game.

You see, when Takahashi was writing the early chapters, there was only one card game that was well-known enough for him to be talking about.

He called the game in his manga Magic & Wizards, but he was really talking about Magic: The Gathering.

(Note Grandpa's emphasis that it was the card game that "is such a hit in America." If you ever get pestered by people talking about the purity of the card game in Japanese due to its origins, there's a stick to hit them with. Yeah, the game is different-but Takahashi thought of it as an American game.)

You might dismiss this as an unfounded theory, but aside from the obvious fact that Magic was and is the first, biggest, and most-played card game in the entire world, the cards that Takahashi designed are essentially a simplified version of the M:TG cards.

Not necessarily the individual cards (though I'll get to that). If you look at the card back of a manga or anime Yu-Gi-Oh! card, you'll see that it has a dark brown oval in the center, with a brown "background" and a tan border.

Check out this article on the M:TG site, which showcases the game's card back (with a hypothetical variant back that never was). The proportions are rather different, but it's essentially what Takahashi was building from.

The fronts have some similarities, too; when Takahashi designed his cards, he put stars on them, possibly because he didn't know quite enough about M:TG to know just what the mana cost on a Magic card meant. (By the way, if you ever wondered about the "spell card" change in Yu-Gi-Oh! because you weren't following the game, it's all Hasbro's [M:TG's proprietary company] fault. They thought the use of "magic" was a misleading use of their trademark, as Magic players refer to their cards in a similar fashion. Never mind that Hasbro can't actually trademark the word "magic...")

It does, in fact, go further.

Check out this old picture of the Blue Eyes White Dragon, and then compare it with this picture of Shivan Dragon, one of M:TG's old famous cards.

Note the general similarity of the poses.

There's another one that has similarities to an old school Magic card, Summoned Skull. Compare this manga image to Lord of the Pit:

This is further highlighted by Takahashi's anniversary art version of Summoned Skull, which in homage to its origins has the same color scheme as Lord of the Pit, though its appearance has diverged along different directions from the "traditional" Summoned Skull design most of us know from the anime.

(Note that, in the two games, their positions of power relative to each other are essentially reversed. Lord of the Pit is [mostly] stronger than Shivan Dragon but less practical, while the same is true of Blue Eyes White Dragon compared to Summoned Skull. Not that any of the cards are competitive in the modern games...)

Of course, any discussion of the early manga version of Duel Monsters/Magic & Wizards would be highly incomplete without looking at Seto Kaiba, everyone's favorite psycho player.

Takahashi has apparently stated that Kaiba was based on somebody who was a huge jerk to one of his friends originally, but the character has obviously moved away from his humble, cruel-guy origins.

I have a theory as to why the character evolved the way he did, and I'm going to share it here. It's pretty crazy, and it hinges on a completely insane coincidence, but I'm sticking with it.

Flash back to 1999. This was during the early days of the anime, more or less. Guess who was rocking the Magic: The Gathering world at that time?

His name was Kai Budde.

Now, Kai Budde is not Japanese (although Japanese players have traditionally had a pretty big impact on the game). He's German. But if you parse his name, well... It's not much of a stretch at all to notice the similarities between Kai-ba and Kai-Budde.

They even look a bit similar, as far as such things go.

(Pictures ganked from the Yu-Gi-Oh! wiki's Kaiba page and Kai Budde's previously linked Hall of Fame bio page. Sorry if it bothers anybody, but I'm doing a historical essay here, and I think it's fair use.)

It's impossible that Takahashi derived Kaiba's name from Kai Budde's-Budde's first victories that propelled him to worldwide Magic fame occurred in 1998, and even presuming an extremely leisurely publishing schedule, "The Cards with Teeth" would have come out well before that, sometime in late 1996 or early 1997. (The Yu-Gi-Oh! wiki, being heavily focused on the card game, doesn't have a date for the chapter itself, and I'm hesitant to guess too closely.)

Anyway, why is it important that Yu-Gi-Oh!'s card game is based on Magic?

Well, according to market research, the biggest demographic of Magic players is in the 15-16 year old age bracket. In effect? The same age as the characters from the series.

Further, it might seem silly, but Magic really is serious business. Aside from the fact that certain old cards from the game are extremely pricy (some go for somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars apiece, which makes participating in a format where those cards are legal very difficult for newcomers), you can actually make big money playing Magic. People do.

There are hundred upon hundreds of players worldwide who compete in sanctioned tournaments, and many of these sanctioned tournaments have large monetary prizes. Kai Budde actually made something of a living off of the game at the height of his career, as I understand it.

Basically, the game we see in the various Yu-Gi-Oh! series is what Magic would be like if it reached the scale of a big-name pro sport.

Which isn't entirely impossible, you know. Just not likely.

Yet.

Why Background Characters In Yugioh Are Awesome

2010-07-16T22:02:00.002-04:00

If you look, the other characters in this are also doing entertaining things. X3 (Two of them are staring at Kaiba with either trepidation or awe, while the couple to his right are having an argument and ignoring him completely. XD)

Building a Soul Room

2010-07-10T21:07:00.003-04:00

(Note: I may eventually add pictures to this. Scans are a wonderful thing, but not if you can't find the large versions of the pages you actually want to scan. I reallly need to organize my Shonen Jump issues.)

I talked about Bakura's soul room in the most recent comic commentary. Obviously, I didn't know how Takahashi would have built it; but thanks to the soul rooms seen in the manga and anime, I did have an idea of how he might have started.

The three soul rooms we see in any detail are those of Atem (obviously) Téa, and Professor Yoshimori, a one-story character who suffered quite a bit of abuse (but didn't die, which is what would have happened to him otherwise.) We see a very little bit of Yugi's: it was bright, and there were toys scattered across the floor. Shadi judges him to have a pure soul with a mere glance, indicating, perhaps, that brightness can mean this.

Each soul room's starting point was something that was important to the character, usually involving interests. Téa's was a dance studio. Yoshimori's was full of books, like a library. Atem was wrapped up in his own mystery and in his death, and therefore his room resembled a cross between a royal tomb and an Escher maze. As noted, we can't see exactly what kind of room Yugi's room begins as-- but the walls have a very modern material look to them, and I'm inclined to believe that it's based off the game shop, a video arcade, or something similar.

If I were to build a soul room for myself, I would start off with an art studio, with off-color furniture and books piled haphazardly around the room in little towers. I have an image in my head of something like Merlin's Tower in Disney's "Arthur."

The decorations and furnishings in the room indicate several things: stuff like trees, shelving, books, chairs, anything that doesn't represent something specific but rather something general, represents aspects to a personality. In Téa's room, the walls were covered with mirrors, which Shadi declared showed her to be either confident or prideful, and that in any case, she has strong beliefs. I interpreted the open ceiling to mean an open personality, and likely the fruit trees indicate generosity of spirit or an outgoing will. Different kinds of trees probably mean different things; in Ryou's soul room, I chose to use willow trees in part of the room to indicate his occasionally meloncholy nature. The books in Yoshimori's room showed that he is a man of learning. He also had a lot of ancient artifacts sitting around in his room, showing his love of the past.

Photographs, portraits, statues of people and other specific things should be taken to represent specific things that are important to a person. Téa had a faceless portrait of a man with a superhero shield on his chest, to represent Atem (who she didn't know at the time was Yugi), and it was sitting on a loveseat. She also had a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding a ballet slipper, which pretty obviously represented her New York dreams. Professor Yoshimori had a little portrait of his family sitting in the corner, covered with cobwebs to show how he had neglected them and now regrets it.

For whatever reason, I like the idea of dead people having curtains and shrouds around their portraits in other people's soul rooms, the way Cecilia's portrait was hidden by a curtain in Pegasus's private sanctuary. This wouldn't always be the case, and sometimes a shroud could instead indicate estrangement or a long separation. In Yukai's soul room (which you WILL eventually see!) there will be a double portrait of his father and Atem, overlapping one another to show how they've sort of blurred in his mind-- but Atem will be turned mostly away, a figure important in Yukai's life, yet a person that Yukai has never met.

How different things are represented can be shown in different ways, especially depending on the person a soul room belongs to. I tend to think that things like trees, water, mirrors and clouds would tend to be very general and usually mean the same sorts of thing from person to person. A dance studio, the style a loveseat is done in, the types and titles of books, would be more specific to a certain person. Whether the portraits are framed images or statues probably won't make much difference, but a gold statue versus a clay one might mean something, and so would the fanciness of the frame. (A statue versus a framed portrait might show how "real" some dream or person is to the soul room's occupant, but your mileage will vary.) The kinds of flowers that appear in a room might mean something specific depending on their prominence and location, but if they're scattered randomly about, they might just be there to add a sense of lushness to the room, or to indicate a full, romantic, or whimsical spirit. The toys on Yugi's floor were probably intended to indicate his playful nature, or his general innocence and sweetness.

Téa's soul room also featured a big smiley sun that reminded me very strongly of the Sun and Moon clocks and art that one of my aunts absolutely filled her home with. I am going to be upfront and say that I really have no idea what the hell that's supposed to represent, because I always found them a touch folky and creepy, and I don't think of Téa as folky or creepy. Maybe Takahashi just wanted to show how cheerful she is. :P (Suns should not have faces, dammit!!) Also, that Statue of Liberty portrait was kind of pushy, because it bounced around all over the room and managed to appear in every single panel. I doubt that means anything, and yet I find it hilarious.

Sources that would be helpful for devising symbology in a soul room would include dream dictionaries, books on religious symbology (Not for imitating slavishly, but for ideas- especially if a character's religion is important to them), and imaginary therapy scenarios. I went on a mindwalk as part of a group therapy session in high school once.* Among other things, there was a path, a forest, a cup along the path, a pool of water, and a wall that stood in the way of the path and went as far as the eye can see in either direction. The way you imagined each of these things and what you did with them was supposed to indicate aspects of your personality and how you approached life. Keep that idea in mind when building soul rooms, and you may begin to find the excercise is actually very fun, and even better, can put you into very deep touch with a character, even an original one.

*(For the curious, my mindwalk indicated that I was quiet and contemplative, but materialistic, that I considered my sexuality mildly forbidding and mysterious but liked to, ah, tease the fish, and that death made me more curious than anything. At the time, this actually described me pretty well. Unfortunately I suspect going on the same mindwalk today would be colored by knowing what each thing represented. You can bet we laughed pretty hard when I said I teased the fish and then found out the pool represented sexuality.)

Little Voices: Pages 28-37

2010-06-30T10:52:00.005-04:00

Geez, I let this one go too long. Updating the blog has been a little more difficult lately, due to work.

I had all sorts of issues with the last panel of Page 28-- mostly, I didn't know what I wanted to do with it. Early lines included Joey talking about his father (out of character) and Yugi and Joey teasing Kaiba about having been adopted again (addressed in a later scene.) I only hit on the "talking nonsense" line after doing the bonus art mentioned in the last commentary. Kaiba muttering deliriously fixes everything in fanfic.

No, really, it does. Next time you can't figure out where your story's going, just get the man drunk. He will show you the way.

Page 29 is basically just a wrap up of the scene, but it still amuses me horribly. I love those little Calvin and Hobbes style chases, and I don't get to do them often in enough in serious storylines. (Also I got to draw Kaiba snoozing some more, echoing the first page in the sequence. I was pretty happy with that.)

As mentioned on the page, the random bystander lady belongs to My-Oh-Mai, one of our longtime readers who contributed to the open invite I keep mentioning.

I've mentioned in the original comments for page 30 that I love Duke. I say that about a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh characters. This is because it's true. XD

Duke is one of those characters that I draw consistently off-model, mainly because his hair didn't make much sense in the series (Hah, hair making sense in this fandom. Right.) When I talk about a character's hair not making sense, mostly I mean things like the fact that Duke's headband doesn't seem to circle around his head, instead terminating behind his bangs (without even a string to hold it up) and the fact that you really just can't tell where Téa's bangs start or where the part of her hair begins.

Other than that, I like drawing Duke because he dresses in a semi-girlish way-- not unlike the way that I dress, to be honest. (Although I seem to trend toward Atem's jewelry tastes.) This makes him easy for me to dress while keeping his outfits interesting, so drawing him is actually pretty relaxing. (It helps that he has a pretty ponytail. I love drawing hair.)

Tristan's nephew right there appeared in the manga. I like the fact that Tristan has a nephew, and that he gets pressed into watching the kid; it adds a dimension of harrassed younger brother to him that I identify with and am entertained greatly by. I gave Johji some aging up for the simple fact that time has passed and babies grow quickly; Johji will probably make more appearances, and he will look different every time.

Also I totally drew a picture of freaky baby Johji when I was prepping for that page. It makes me feel mildly dirty. XD

As noted pretty much everywhere I've mentioned her so far, Amber, making her introduction on page 31, belongs to SK Dark Dragon, who I asked for permission to use the character some time ago. We used to hang out in the same Yugioh forum back when TV.com was TVTome, and she hosted some of my early fanart on her website before I was allowed to have a DeviantArt account. I became very fond of Amber after reading several stories that featured the character, and asked if I could write a version of her into the future story I was concocting. Obviously, she said yes. (But I asked her again a year or two ago, because we hadn't talked in a while. XD SK still said yes.) (SK now has a blog on BlogSpot, and as she says herself, usually calls herself Little Scarf Girl now.)

Anyway, I liked Amber enough to let Duke chase her around in Game of Dreams. There is some amount of canon that indicates that Duke isn't entirely straight, but anybody who's read The Law of Purple knows I don't give half a damn about that kind of thing. XD Not being entirely straight doesn't disprove any hetero tendencies. (Incedentally, the LOP character Lette was very mildly inspired by SK, although they're absolutely nothing like each other and Lette isn't actually based on her. It's complex.)

Sometimes, YnY being a slightly disjointed online comic requires a scene to wrap quickly. I usually go for humor when this happens.

Also, I was very gratified by the positive response to Amber. Often when you introduce a recurring non-canon character into fanfic, a lot of acid is spat. (And let's be frank, a full-body shot is like the equivilant to a Mary-Sue description page in comics sometimes.) I'm sure it helps that she's not actually mine. XD

Some people were a little confused by Bakura's soul room on page 32. At least one person who was confused by it seemed to have never read the manga; this is where I got a lot of my ideas on what a proper soul room should look like. Téa's, for example, used a dance studio as a starting point, with lots of mirrors to indicate a confident personality, and an open ceiling to indicate an open personality. There was a cute little love seat and a tree in the middle of the floor, and a framed picture of a superhero without a face, which represented Atem (she didn't know who he was at the time.) There was also a portrait of the Statue of Liberty holding a ballet shoe and a soft drink cup. XD Another character, who spent a lot of time with himself and concentrating on ancient knowledge, had a dark soul room which used a library as a starting point.

Ryou's soul room started as a combination between a medieval courtyard and a Japanese garden, to represent, among other things, his love of the fantastic (as manga readers and those familiar with Series 0 will know, he likes to make his own tabletop RPGs.) On the wall directly opposite the viewer is a window hidden by a curtain and obscured by willow trees; behind this shroud is a portrait of his mother and sister, who died prior to the series. Though I doubt we'll ever see the portrait, his sister is slightly more prominent in the image, because he wrote letters to her in the manga, which indicates to me that he took her loss harder than that of his mother.

To the left of the portrait, from our viewpoint, is another arch. In this arch, which is uncovered, you can see a portrait of Yugi, Téa, Tristan and Joey, although the distance involved makes it a smallish picture and therefore obscures exactly who is represented there. These four people are the only friends that Ryou has had that have not abandoned him or rejected him outright when they learned that he was possessed, and who went to great lengths to help him even when they didn't know him that well. Therefore he holds them in a place of great importance, and they get to have a picture in his soul room.

Even more prominent is the statue to the left of that, whose feet can be seen in the side of the panel. This is Atem, who he's given a Theban style monument in his head. I refuse to go very deeply into that, aside from the fact that it started in the same place as the portrait of Yugi-tachi. (I did mention elsewhere that there were going to be undertones of this.)

Somewhere in the soul room, where we cannot see, there is probably a smaller image of his father, whom he doesn't seem to be especially close to. This is understandable, because Ryou's father would appear to be out of the country a lot. On the opposite wall from the viewer, there is another window, but it looks "out."

The pool in the floor handles several jobs. First of all, it represents a deeper emotional and spiritual side to Ryou that he keeps private. Secondly, it divides his soul room into two parts: the "lighter" side, with Atem, his friends, and his father (and his sister and mother hovering in between) and the "darker" side, which features more trees, some ivy on the wall....

And a screen door, which leads us into page 33, and Ryou into a blank room. The screen door was Invid's idea. As anyone who is into this fandom knows, when Atem and Yugi's soul rooms were depicted, we never saw inside Yugi's (except for a few toys scattered on the floor), but there was a hallway dividing the two rooms, and the hallway itself resembled Atem's room more than it did Yugi's (Although Yugi's door had something that looked like metal plating and circuitry on it. Which is awesome.) Invid postulated that this hallway represented the fact that Atem's soul room actually existed within the Millenium Puzzle, and thus if Atem had actually fully inhabited Yugi's body, it would have looked different.

Hence the screen door. Yami Bakura's blank soul room is actually directly a part of Ryou's room, but their souls remain distinct; Yami B is just hiding out in Ryou's head. Since it's a single vessel containing two souls, there's only one soul room, but it's been divided into two by a screen door so as to represent the separation of the actual personalities.

Yami Bakura is currently in a very bad way, as the blankness of his side should indicate. Consider: if everything in Ryou's room means something, and the Escheresque maze in Atem's soul room represented hidden secrets, what does blankness mean? Marik will get to show up later and explain a bit of this to us, and to Ryou.

I was aware that having Yami Bakura turn out to be alive might put certain readers off. I can only say that I had several good reasons for doing it; which can be summed up like so: There is a starting point from the series for this that makes it possible (the fact that several times he shunted part of his own soul into objects other than the Ring.) I like him and want to see him heal. And he plays an important role in later stories, a role that only Yami Bakura can play. (Also Yukai likes him a great deal. I'm not sure why, because Yukai actually has to have a human relationship with him, and I don't, but there you go. They have some weird things in common with each other, and they're both snarky. Maybe that's enough.)

Ryou maybe loses some of those manly points he's been racking up on page 34. I have to admit I kind of giggle when he drops Yami B, even though it's horrible. Mostly he didn't expect Yami B to flop like that, but he's also startled that Yami B doesn't seem to be a figment of his imagination. I dressed Yami B in darker clothes than Ryou to make it simpler to tell them apart. As time goes by, I'll be using varied methods, like shadow scars, actual scars, shadows over the eyes, mascara, and context. I try to draw Yami B's little hair horns that started to show up in Battle City, but somehow that doesn't make them look different enough when I'm the one drawing them.

Do notice that on Yami B's side of the soul room, the screen door appears to be just floating there. XD Aside from that, I am very pleased with Yami B's hair, and the way he looks as Ryou is dropping him. The dropping pose came about in a very natural way and I'm not sure how I did it.

Yami Bakura wants you to help him, Roooo! He is bleeding spiritually! Augghhh!

I don't really have anything else to say about page 35, because I said most of it in the comments. XD

Page 36 features that nice statue of Atem. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, although it seemed to confuse at least one person into thinking Atem was alive in Ryou's head too. O_o He's not. That would be weird. And also he'd be like "Bakura, I don't want that half dead guy on my feet, put him back." Other than that, I'm happy with the progression of the page, and stuff.

On page 37, Ryou once again references time. I may as well mention here that the next storyline is another half a year later, but that it takes three months, and that the next two storylines coexist over a time period of about a year. I'm mildly shaky on exact time within the actual series, but have chosen to assume it covers a time period of maybe a year to a year and a half. The end of the last story will be about seven years after the Ceremonial Duel. :P

Ryou moves Yami B from the "dark" side of his room to the "light" side of his room and puts him at Atem's feet. Make of that what you will.

Let it be known that I have no intention of reviving Atem in the same way. He's conclusively dead. He has every reason to rest in peace. Bringing him back would destroy the point of the series ending, which is "death must be accepted." Yami B's problem is partly an inability to take the moral to heart.

(Despite this, Atem manages to be very present throughout Game of Dreams, as the statue itself indicates.)

This page was the result of a lot of last minute editing, and it was mostly because I suddenly realized I had never made it clear, anywhere in the storyline, that Yami B has amnesia. I'm not sure how that happened, but I like the page.

This situation is not permanent, but won't be changed during Game of Dreams, because it's partly thanks to Yukai that the change happens. There, ya'll have your spoiler for the day. XD

Next up, Ryou goes looking for answers!

Character Study: Tristan

2010-06-15T22:14:00.003-04:00

Character Study: Tristan Taylor

Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Fifteen to seventeen
Character Archetype: The Pinch Hitter, the straight man (As in comedy, not as in sexuality. :P)
Probable Element and Alignment: Earth, Lawful Good
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: Sort of a "cool tough guy" lilt.

Poor Tristan. Poooor, poor Tristan. When he's not being ignored, he's being made fun of for being boring. They really could have put more about the poor guy in the DM anime; he has more backstory than Téa does.

For example, we know (mostly from the manga) that he has an older sister, who married a guy with a motorcycle, and that their son, Johji, is already a disturbing little pervert before he can walk. We also know that Tristan's sister probably picks on him, because he was apparently bullied into watching said nephew. His brother-in-law apparently trusts him enough to let him borrow said motorcycle, indicating that he's pretty trustworthy.

We know that Tristan has a dog and that apparently he never thought to get her spayed. We know that he's a fairly sensible guy who doesn't see the point to overly expensive shoes just because they're the cool thing. We know that he used to look up to Joey and that he apparently used to hate himself before he really became friends with Yugi, at one point telling Yugi he didn't want him to fight gang members "because even though you're my friend, I don't want you falling to my level." Like with everyone else, Yugi was a good influence on him.

We know that he tends to like shy girls (because the other girl he's crushed on is Miho, who in her appearance in the manga never is seen directly face on, only from the side) and we know that he's usually ready to get caught up in Joey's enthusiasm when it involves either fighting or flipping skirts. We know that he's a crack shot, and that he likes Westerns.

From the anime, we know that he's always ready to step up when no one else is there, that he's got a better sense of how to carry a souless shell than Kaiba does (Fireman's carry, Kaiba, not bridestyle! XD) that he's a bit more skeptical than Yugi, Joey OR Téa as well as a bit more realistic, and that he's willing to lie his head off to impress a pretty girl (Serenity.) We also know he's about as shameless as Duke.

Just by looking at him, we know that he's the kind of guy to get a crew cut. Because I'm fairly sure that's what that's supposed to be. ^_^''

(I've heard SOMEWHERE he wants to be a pilot someday, but I know not where I heard that, and he apparently doesn't mention what KIND of pilot, of which there are many.)

Point is, we know a lot about this guy, and he presents himself as pretty likeable, when he's not chasing after redheads. The thing about Tristan is that he's a fairly believable, ordinary kid. Aside from everything else I've listed, he's probably from a family that's comfortably middle-class, because his clothing is always neat and looks like his mother picked it out to make him look handsome. His family life is probably boringly stable, and so it's possible he got caught up with Joey more because of Joey's charisma and his own boredom than because of any dramatic strife in his own life.

All of Tristan's major flaws come out more strongly when he's crushing on someone than at any other time. I've mentioned he seems to crush on shy girls (obviously this isn't as true in Season 0, but I don't count it in my canon because Season 0 was totally insane.) I suspect this is because Tristan is essentially looking for someone to protect. But if there's anyone I tend to feel should try to date outside his own type...

In order to impress Serenity, Tristan puffs himself up by lying about his own abilities as a duelist. As I've mentioned, he's already got plenty of good qualities, and if he was just himself Serenity would probably be plenty and appropriately impressed with him. But for whatever reason, Tristan decides being a crack shot and a pretty sensible guy aren't good enough for this girl. Perhaps he's been luckless enough in love that he feels the need to lie, or maybe he's decided she wants a good duelist because her brother is.

He also lies because he's trying to protect Serenity from the reality of who Joey really is: a kind of goofy guy who doesn't really manage to look cool all the time. Tristan doesn't understand that Serenity doesn't expect Joey to look cool, that's not why Joey is her hero. He assumes he knows what she wants, and he's dead wrong. The worst part is, even after she calls him out on the lying, he continues trying to protect her, from Duke, behind her back. As Duke points out, Tristan really doesn't know what Serenity wants, he's just being possessive.

So yeah, when it comes to Serenity, Tristan lies to her, assumes too much, and acts way more possessive than he has the right to (the girl never ONCE said she liked him like that), and I have to admit I don't care for that. (I'd prefer to see him with a woman who will tell him in no uncertain terms what she wants out of him, see how he likes THAT. XD) When it came to Miho in the manga, he was far too eager to have Yugi write the love letter he was going to give her, once again showing that he just doesn't seem to think he's good enough to win a girl on his own.

Despite this, he does at least want very earnestly to fill the role of "shining knight" for someone, and if he just were himself, Tristan wouldn't be half bad at it. As I noted, he's very capable and responsible. He can take on two to five thugs alone (as long as he doesn't have to worry about innocent bystanders) and can still grin while he's doing it, a prerequisite for many young women when it comes to "my hero."

I don't tend to think he's a very good judge of character, though. He assumes, because she is a quiet and polite girl, that Serenity is "sweet Serenity," pure and innocent and easily broken (a lot of fans make the same mistake), but she's actually canny, surprisingly resilient, and likes the idea of nobody being able to push her around. He mistrusts Mai as a femme fatale for much longer than the other characters do, when Mai is actually sensitive, good, and sad. In other words, Tristan takes people at face value, and has a hard time getting past that first impression, even with his friends.

Another sign of his "rescuer" trait is the fact that he's the one who trotted all over Pegasus's castle looking for soulless bodies. He's also the one who dragged Bakura and Téa all over selfsame castle trying to prove that Pegasus was cheating, he's the one who offered to carry Bakura after Yugi had to blast him with Slifer, he's the one who tried to shake Joey out of a coma during Battle City, and he's the one who carried Joey when Joey lost his soul during Waking the Dragons. Tristan is proactive, and he's not only unafraid to shoulder the burden of an injured friend, he's eager. He's also apparently got some wisdom with regards to how to do that, since you'll notice that he almost always resorts to fireman's carry, which is considered the "proper" way to carry another person.

Of course I haven't really mentioned the fact that Tristan is kind of a pervert and used to pick on people. They're part of his character, yes, and yet somehow they feel kind of incidental; he'll read dirty magazines and appreciates Serenity's body because he's a man, he used to pick on Yugi mainly because he used to be angry all the time and it was a way to vent his frustration at the world.

And hey, also because Joey did it. He's something of a follower, at least when Joey is concerned. It's not that he can't think for himself (because obviously he can) it's that it's so easy to get caught up with whatever Joey wants to do. Often when Joey's not around, Tristan is much calmer, and steps up as the point man, even when Yugi's there (especially when a situation requires a certain kind of action.) Tristan's parents probably see Joey as a bad influence on him, which admittedly Joey sort of is. XD (If there's any reason at all that Tristan fights with his parents, this is it.) Tristan is a second-in-command sort; he can lead, but if his chosen leader's there, he does what the leader wants, even when he's trying to be a voice of reason.

(At one point in the manga, Joey decides he needs new shoes-- and not just new shoes, super special awesome air pump sneakers. Tristan complains through the entire story that this is just ridiculous, and even offers Joey a pair of his own shoes, but he still goes with him to the crazy scorpion shoe store, is still willing to beat the crap out of the guys that steal the shoes later, and doesn't exactly try to stop Joey from stomping his foot into a sneaker that allegedly has a scorpion in it. Joey, by the way, continues to wear these shoes for pretty much the entire rest of the series.)

Tristan is only a piece of the unit that makes up Yugi's core group of friends, and he's a piece that tends to fade into the larger picture. But if he wasn't there, the series would sorely miss him, and the support, reason, and stability he adds to the cast.

Final Distillation:
Tristan is capable and responsible.
He's Joey's wingman, and therefore picks up any slack in the group.
He also keeps the other characters on a straighter course. He's stable.
Tristan is a "rescuer." His taste in women reflects this.
He tends to take people at face value.
He gets caught up in Joey's charisma very easily.
Tristan is proactive.

As always, comments can be made either to the DeviantArt journal, here, or through our Gmail, I'd be happy to hear them.

XD Old dubmerch is fun

2010-06-07T15:09:00.001-04:00

So the other day Mom brought home some elderly Yugioh magazines and such (circa Pyramid of Light) that she found free/cheap at a yardsale, and I have a few comments in reaction to them:

1. I never knew that Scholastic printed a "guide" to Yu-Gi-Oh using the overused official art and barely-informative blurbs. I was horribly amused. (Kid brother William ended up with it, and he's thrilled.)

2. Johnny Depp as Marik. My brain just about exploded trying to imagine him in one of those belly shirts, pretending to be fourteen. It didn't help that Beckett readers also voted the Rock to be Odion. I seem to recall hearing something about this back when it happened. Other trials on my sanity included Jim Carrey as Joey and some random homely child actor as Yugi (keep in mind he would have had to also play Atem. And, you know, the kid was like ten, and Yugi is older than Marik. Who would be Johnny Depp.) Oh yeah, and Hillary Duff as Mai. They VOTED for these. Never leave casting to a bunch of pre-teens.

3. Hayden Christiansen as Bakura? Hayden is six foot two. Bakura is shorter than Joey-- who is something like five foot nine.

4. Obelisk the Tormentor versus any critter in any other number based card game: Depends on how easy it is to feed Obelisk. DUH. XD

5. I was reminded very strongly as to why I quit buying these things shortly after starting. On the one hand, nice little art gallery. On the other... Yeah. I was never twelve when I watched this show.

On a related note, we were watching Duelist Kingdom episodes again recently, and I suddenly realized for the first time that Hitotsume Giant is wearing shadow pants, even in the dub. Holy cheese.

The Science of Pairings

2010-05-22T22:33:00.002-04:00

(Note: Feel free to go find "She Blinded Me With Science" on YuuTube or whatever and listen to it while reading. I don't think it'll add any flavor or anything to it, but you never know.)

Nobody knows for sure what makes any particular fan fall in love with a particular pairing, be it canon or otherwise. Maybe a glance passes between two favorite characters, and a surge of emotion swells in the chest of the fan in question. Maybe one stumbles across a pairing on a fanart hunt, and cannot help but think, "You know, there's something about that which just feels right." Or maybe one comes across a fanfiction or comic that just handles the pairing, and the characters, so well that it fixates in the mind.

I could tell all about how I fell in love with Kaiba/Serenity first because of fanart, then because of watching the characters myself. I could also tell how it happened that I fell in love with any of my Téa pairings, with Joey/Kaiba, with Joey/Mai, with Ishizu and Pegasus. I can tell the exact story of how I arrived at every single conclusive pairing in YnY, too. But each of them would take at least as long as a character study to explain properly.

This essay is about how I think about pairings in general, what I think makes them appealing, and how two characters can bubble together in a way that makes a story worthwhile. Please be aware that much of this is based solely on my own opinions and my own observations of real relationships-- most especially on what I observed of my own parents, my father and his first wife, my aunts and uncles, my siblings and their respective exes and current mates (I don't feel that examining my own romantic relationships would be very helpful, as I can't exactly be less than passionate about them. XD There will be a few observations as handed to me by other people, however.)

Obviously, the differences between two people in a pairing tend to give it a lot of its conflict, and therefore, its fire. But similarities can do the same, and in any event a couple with the wrong mix of similarity and difference, or characters too similar or too different, cannot work if you want the characters involved to feel real or be interesting as a couple. Too, tailor-making a character to fit with another usually backfires without the right kind of interplay. (Making a character, for example, who has an uncanny understanding of Kaiba's tics and issues, is exactly what he wants in a woman (or man!), is infinitely patient with him all the time, is great with Mokuba, etcetera, would probably find that Kaiba was about ready to launch her from a cannon off the roof of KaibaCorp in a fiction that handled him realistically. Kaiba can't stand perfection in other people-- and really, who can?)

I tend to find that the most important differences and similarities lie in temperament-- likes and dislikes, while important, mean nothing with incompatible temperaments. These characters might be friends, but that doesn't mean they could stand each other for more than a few hours. Yet the cocktail will be different between any two people: I like both Seto/Wheeler pairings but for totally different reasons. Serenity is calm and patient yet quietly strong, Seto is abrasively stubborn and dramatic, yet often gives in to patience with time and is terribly vulnerable under a veneer of arrogance. Joey and Kaiba are like two sides of one coin, yet Joey is an extrovert and good with people, while Kaiba is not. These are both mixtures that appeal to me, and it's also the real reason why I think both pairings are so popular, although plenty of fans on both sides don't seem to have any idea what really drew them to the couple interplay.

Some differences or similarities in temperament are more forgivable than others. Two fiery personalities with short tempers are going to have a harder time meshing than two calm ones. (Although as many foe-shippers will tell you, sometimes that's half the fun!) I have a lot of such pairings that I like quite well, but not as long term relationships. Other differences and similarities don't really matter much at all; I see a lot of Kaiba/Rebecca on the basis that they're both "geniuses" and therefore would have an easier time keeping up with one another, but I tend to see being able to understand the other person's work as more of a bonus than as a necessity. (Kaiba and Rebecca are practically a male and female version of each other and are both temperamental, stubborn, and oversensitive. While I understand how this draws other people to the pairing, it reminds me way too much of the relationship I have with my father. No thanks.)

Often, a pairing will work less when you toss the characters together as they are, and more if you let one or both of them grow up a little. With Kaiba and Serenity, for example, both of them need to work on their social skills, while Tristan would be much more successful at any romantic relationship if he could just garner a little more confidence.

In some cases, we can see that certain characters clearly have "types," based on the characters they go after within the canon. Rebecca's "type," at least at the moment, is a calm, kind, gentle sort of person (obviously there'd have to be a lot of patience there, too.) Joey seems to go for the tall, well-built and forceful type (although he values their vulnerable sides. XD) Téa likes them stoic and enigmatic. Tristan prefers quiet, shy, "princess" types (and he's easier to pin down, because he's had more girls he's crushed on.) This can certainly tell a writer what kind of characters a character will chase after, but it says nothing about who a character will actually end up with-- sometimes a person picks a "type" that turns out to lead them into destructive relationships no matter how often they try. (Tristan, in my opinion, definitely needs to go against type: he comes on too strong and tends to scare the shy ones off.)

When I consider a pairing, I not only take into account whatever interaction the characters might have had (including any assessments they may have made of each other) nor do I merely consider temperaments (although that's a large part of it), but I also think about the relationships they have outside of the pairing. All Seto Kaiba pairings absolutely MUST consider Mokuba's feelings in the equation: since Mokuba trusts Yugi, the closer someone is to Yugi the more likely Mokuba is to approve. The more stable and level-headed the potential mate is, the more likely Mokuba is to approve. The older the brothers are at the time of story (like, if Mokuba is in his twenties) the less likely Seto is to care about Mokuba's opinion, and he's also less likely to care about Mokuba's opinion pre-Mind Crush. The way she/he treats Mokuba when Seto's not around is a huge factor, and so is the way Mokuba treats him or her when Seto IS around. I can easily see Seto sneaking around with a relationship just because he's strongly suspicious that his little brother wouldn't like it. Similarly, I can see Mokuba trying to set Seto up with people.

No matter who you pair Serenity with, Joey's going to be mad (unless it's Yugi. Or possibly a woman. Who isn't Vivian.) So the real question there is, how are Tristan and Duke going to respond, and does Serenity care about their opinion OR Joey's? Joey doesn't particularly care how his friends respond to his love interests, as long as they're not unkind to said interests, but it should still be taken into account that, for whatever reason, Tristan disapproves of most of them. XD (He probably cares more about what Serenity thinks, but less than Seto cares about Mokuba's thoughts-- partly because she's not dependent on him to support her.) Ishizu's brothers should be considered at the same time one considers any pairing involving her, not because their disapproval would keep her away from anyone but because it adds significantly to the story. Any pairing with Pegasus has to consider (unless it's Cecilia herself) how he might reconcile his widower status with his new relationship, and whether he'd be able (I dislike Mai/Pegasus as a pairing for the sole reason that the person who suggested it to me said "because she looks like his wife" and it really, REALLY put me off.) Mai pairings have to consider the fact that she's a sought-after woman-- who really knows for sure how many other Jean Claude Magnums there are in her past? (Certainly Valon can't be ignored, either, if you're going by anime continuity, and Joey can't ever be ignored here, even if you only consider him her close friend.) Téa is more likely to ask her friends directly what they think of a boyfriend or girlfriend, but not what they think of a crush.

Sometimes, after considering the out-of-pairing interplay, the potential conflict I see causes me to drop a pairing. I don't pair Téa with Joey more because Joey would be determined not to hurt Yugi than because they wouldn't make a good couple (and I don't like that kind of "we can't hurt him! SNOG" story. Personal taste.) Other times, the potential reaction sucks me in, and I just can't keep myself from rubbing my hands together and grinning from thinking about it. I love the idea of Ishizu marching her brothers into a family meeting and declaring, like a general heading into battle, "I am in love with Maximillion Pegasus!" I also love the mental picture of their faces after she's declared. XD (Sigh. Now I have to do a picture.)

Finally, how the two characters actually do treat each other, or how they might treat each other. This is wrapped up heavily in temperament-- Joey's going to be at least a little rough and playful with pretty much anyone. Yugi will be sweet and supportive even if he doesn't want the relationship. Most people who try to have a relationship with Kaiba are going to find themselves taking on a mildly parental role, and because of this, their probable parenting styles should also be considered. (I'm not saying Kaiba's an overgrown child. He just tends to need somebody who can handle his vulnerable side in a way that won't backfire and piss him off.) This is pretty important towards whether a relationship will work, yet at the same time, the way two characters treat one another will and should change within a story, especially one focused on a pairing.

Anyway, that's the bulk of it. Hope this got the gears working for at least a few of you (and if you can't figure out why someone likes a pairing? Ask me, I can probably come up with at least one reason.)

On the Subject of Kaiba Brands...

2010-05-14T20:00:00.000-04:00

...I rest my case.

Need I say more?

Little Voices: Pages 20-27

2010-05-08T12:22:00.004-04:00

As I noted in the last commentary, I wanted to talk about pages 20, 21 and 22 as a unit, so that's what I'm doing.

Bakura has always been a fascinating character to me, and I tend to feel that he gets a bit abused in current fandom (mostly, apparently, thanks to the Abridged Series, but the character abuse has always been there.) Throughout the series, the man was living a horror story, but it's kind of a different one from the abuse-slash that ran rampant in the fiction lines for a while there (I'm sure it still does, but I stopped reading it a while ago.) So I try to handle him with a bit more respect than that. What I wanted, with this scene, was to really strike the readers with the pain and horror of his story, and contrast it with the quiet dignity and anger he has while he's telling it.

I also wanted to point out that he's not really the weak sissy-boy that people think of him as being. XD I don't think any of us would have fared much better in his position.

Yes, he did sort of cut off a friendship speech on page 22, although I don't think it was a friendship speech that was going to run on for more than a sentence. One of the other things I happen to like about Bakura is that something about his voice lets me wax more poetic than I usually get to in comics; Joey gets surprisingly poetic sometimes too, but most of the time, for most characters, poetic descriptions and musings sound odd in regular dialogue. Maybe that's also why I enjoy writing Japanese people in general.

Bakura's also quite a bit worried here that there's some specific reason that the Ring kept teleporting back to him, and that it's a reason he doesn't want to know about. I'll sort of spoil it by saying that he discovers most of the truth by the end of Little Voices.

Also, the black bird from page 21 is gone in 22.

Page 23 starts one of my favorite scenes in Little Voices. The girl in the first panel replaced a different character in the precomic: Green, from my original webcomic The Law of Purple. I replaced him because it didn't make any sense for an alien to be dueling Yugi in Game of Dreams, and enough of the people who read YnY also read LOP. XD (Unfortunately, that's also why I couldn't use anyone that got sent in: Green's voice is too uniquely his own, and wouldn't have worked for anyone in the handful of characters I have in the pool.) I kind of wish now that I had drawn Green's Frog Shirt on her, though.

I have a short skit in my head of what happened right before Joey ran up to Yugi, for the interested:

Joey and Serenity see Kaiba sleeping on a bench in an out of the way corner.

Joey: What the hell?

They lean over him.

Serenity: (slightly pink, because Kaiba is a cute sleeper) Maybe we should wake him up.

Joey: Nah, let him sleep. We need to find Mokuba.

Serenity: We can't leave him here by himself!

Joey: So, you stay with him and watch him!

Serenity: (blushing madly) JO-EEY!

But Joey is already gone.

He was tucked beside a vending machine, btw, that somehow never got drawn. I'll probably do gimme art of it later. Also, I love how Serenity gets almost comfortable with teasing him, then switches into Mom Mode on page 24. The Kuriboh Bag was inspired by Aaliyan, who also, by the by, has done some gift art for me featuring Yukai and her character Kipacha. :3

I've had the idea of Kaiba coming down with the flu for years. It was in all the very earliest versions of Game of Dreams, including the version that wasn't actually part of YnY as a story. (In a couple of them, Serenity had to deal with him all by her poor little self. Weep for her.) I like how it brings him down without involving a crapload of drama, which to be frank a lot of fanfiction could do with less of. (I prefer craploads of drama to be used in cautious amounts.)

And since this scene deals with Serenity seeing a little more past the Kaiba Ultimate to the vulnerable Seto, I had to let Seto see a little bit of Tough Girl Serenity on page 25. She's still embarrassed as hell, and not as sure of herself as she was in Magic Light when she was hitting her father upside the head with a turkey, but she absolutely refuses to fail at what she's been charged with doing, and Kaiba can respect that.

Also, page 26 totally proves Serenity right and Kaiba wrong, when he passes out just like she said he would. Take that, boy. XD I think Joey's Duel Disk looks more like a spaceship glued to his arm in the first panel, but somehow that amuses me more than it annoys me.

Yugi's laughing mainly because, when I was first writing all this, I had to express how hard I was laughing somehow. There aren't words for how pleased I am with that expression. Serenity's little girl act gets me going pretty badly too. X3

Poor Joey. His legs are still hurting him, and now he has to carry Kaiba around. (You must really care, Joey, if you're still willing to put up with this.)

I did several inked versions of panel three as practice, because I was worried Kaiba passing out wouldn't look quite right. I think it paid off. Second panel's "What's going on with you" feels kind of clunky, but it's for a good reason: Joey knows Kaiba well enough to know "What's going on" and "What's wrong with you" would both be taken in completely the wrong way, so he phrases it in a very deliberate way, so that Kaiba understands him.

There were two extra pages that would have gone next, but they were, despite amusing, slightly tedious and messy with the flow. (I might post sketchy versions of them later.) The first one mainly featured things like Mokuba declaring that he was going to do a paparazzi check, Yugi taking both Joey and Kaiba's Duel Disks (because Kaiba by himself is heavy enough) while Joey shifted him into a better position, Serenity arranging some benches for them to lay Kaiba down on (so he wouldn't be on the floor, you know), and Kaiba muttering utter nonsense through his fever. (At one point snuggling into Joey and smiling in his sleep, which weirded Joey out more than just a bit. XD) The second page mostly covered them putting Kaiba on the bench (Yugi is helping Joey with all the more awkward parts of moving Kaiba around, btw, like making sure his head doesn't flop back violently).

And of course he wakes up on page 27, because Serenity got something cold for his head. This scene is, as a matter of fact, the exact and only reason I designed that bulky, poofy leather jacket for Yugi to wear in this storyline: It was designed to look good, yes, but it was designed first and foremost to double as a decent pillow for this scene. Their Duel Disks are all underneath the bench, and Yugi, Serenity and Joey are all sitting on the floor because they're hoping to shield him from view a little more. (I doubt it's really working.)

I like the one-liner scolding from Mokuba while Serenity's making a relieved face in the background. I also like that, while Joey's scolding Kaiba and Kaiba's snarking back at him, Kaiba is also noticing where Joey's coat is and is practically hugging the thing when he tells Joey not to touch him. (I'm not entirely sure he's aware that he's doing it.) It's another one of those nice things about comics; doing one thing with the dialogue and another with the imagery, and also just doing two things at once. (Kaiba started shivering violently when Joey put him down; that's why Joey gave him the jacket.)

I'm also very amused at Joey calling Kaiba an idiot. When Kaiba does things like running off without seeking help or refusing to accept help, Joey's reaction to me always says "Kaiba, you are an idiot!" And while Joey has plenty of his own idiotic moments, it's pretty well a fact that Kaiba can be a real idiot himself. I just sort of like watching them call each other idiots. I had a lot of male friends in high school who interacted exactly like this.

Kaiba's facial expressions turned out a lot more little-kid vulnerable than I had originally planned here, but it's something that I'm happy with. Joey's all "Don't you DARE get up" and he looks totally docile in response, whereas in the sketch he looked more like a wet cat. I basically decided, factoring the exhaustion and the sickness with the fact that he totally had no idea where he was for a moment there, that he probably doesn't have enough energy to look like a wet cat quite yet. XD

Kaiba just has one of those character designs that looks quite childlike and youthful as soon as he stops yelling and looking fierce. So drawing that vulnerability out of him is really pretty easy, even to do by accident. :P

There's a little hint of the direction I'm going with Mokuba in this page, too, which is basically that he's going to be as awesome as an adult as he is as a little kid. 83 I've always felt there's a strong undercurrent in Mokuba and Seto's relationship in which Mokuba is taking care of Seto as much as Seto is taking care of Mokuba, and I certainly know I'm not alone in that opinion. And since this (Mokuba as caretaker) began sometime in the series and got stronger as time went by, I like to take the opportunity to play with it here. (Of course, Seto doesn't always realize he's being taken care of, but that's his problem.)

Oh, let's see, what's coming next... Next few pages, this problem gets resolved, and then we discover where Duke and Tristan have been this entire time. Then I believe it's back to Bakura, which is as it should be. XD

Thanks for the warning!

2010-04-19T19:57:00.002-04:00

I seem to abuse Kaiba a lot in these, eh?

Character Study: Téa

2010-04-12T20:42:00.006-04:00

Character Study: Téa Gardner

Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Fifteen to seventeen
Character Archetype: The Sensible Love Interest (XD), The Childhood Friend, the Diplomat
Probable Element and Alignment: Air/Wind, Neutral Good
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: She usually speaks in a way that rises above all the other voices in a room, without actually shouting. (Btw, I don't want to hear any wisecracks about that description, people, because that's also how I talk... when I actually talk at all.)

Oh, Téa. Why does such a large chunk of the fandom hate you? Is it because of the friendship dialogue getting so dialed up in the dub? Then why don't they hate Yugi? He was worse. Is it because they're just not paying attention? One hopes not, when they spend so much energy on you. Or is it just because you're an incredibly sexy woman, and they rather perversely see you as a threat?

Téa is not that girl that picked on you in high school. She may dress like that girl, she may have a figure rather like that girl's, she may even have cut her hair to exactly the same length. But she does not act like that girl. She hangs out mainly with that punk delinquent Joey and that screwy little nerd Yugi, who happens to be the school punching bag. She's the girl I wish I knew when the girl that picked on ME in high school was at her worst, because Téa's the girl that steps in, stands up for you, and makes you feel like you're worth more than shoe gum.

Téa is golden. I'm not saying she's a flawless person. But she's definitely not the person I keep hearing she is. The person that Téa bashers say they hate is a "bitch," a "slut," a "whore." That person supposedly is trying to "seduce" Atem, or Yugi, depending on who you ask. That person is "weak," she's a "shrew," she's "nasty." That person is not the character I know and love.

Téa could seriously use some better press, is all I'm saying.

First of all, I have to ask if any Téa bashers who call Téa a slut actually know what a "slut" IS. Do you? I'll explain, for our younger peeps. A "slut" is a person who is very sexually active, and not very sexually discerning. A slut, by the end of the series, would have at least tried to sleep with most of the male members of the cast, which would have given Téa plenty of opportunity to be one, with so many men around. (Yet we can't PROVE she slept with ANYONE.) A slut would not have latched on to one man, declared that she had "fallen in love" with him, and then followed him, supportive and uncomplaining, into some of the most dangerous situations she'd ever been in in her life.

And a whore would have been actively hitting the male characters up for money in exchange for sexual favors.

As Yugi would say, Téa's "not that kind of girl!!" She'd rather get a job at Burger World.

Then there's the accusations of weakness and cowardice. And here I have to ask, "What the hell do you want, Supergirl?" Because then she would have been criticized as a Mary Sue, for one thing. Téa hits people with globes, bites creepy gym teachers twice her size in the arm, kicks mummies' heads off, and will stand up and scream to Yugi to run away after a guy with a gun tells her to be quiet. Examples appear in every single different sub-continuity. Téa kicks ass. She ain't Supergirl, but she doesn't let that stop her. If a situation needs a crowbar, she'll use the crowbar, whether it means for prying or cracking heads.

Is Téa trying to "seduce" anyone? Ehhh, I'm not sure, and even if I was, I wouldn't be sure that's such a bad thing. What difference is there between seduction and expressing love, when you're trying to get a man to love you back? More importantly, she goes from trying to get Atem to stay with her, spend time with her, to giving him the key that sends him out of her reach forever. Téa, like most of the core cast, is dynamic and grows up as the story progresses.

She begins, in the manga, as an over-righteous "good girl" who plays big sister to Yugi, is intoxicated by the mystery and dangerous allure of Atem, and as the sort of girl who believes true love means happily ever after. Her main character flaws are, quite simply, that she's a little too quick to correct, and that she's got something of a Pandora complex (Pandora the Greek chick, not Pandora/Arkana.) You can see the Pandora complex several places besides her crush on a guy she doesn't know, by the way: directly after being told "Opening this jar will either get your soul eaten or all of Japan will be destroyed," what does she want? To open the jar, of course. She had no interest in the thing until she knew it was dangerous. (She's also a bit reckless early on, just in general.)

She has absolutely no sexual interest in Yugi at all at this point, even when she finds out he's possessed by the being she's "in love with." He's her "little brother," a little brother who needs her protection. She simply isn't attracted to him. Atem, on the other hand, saves her life several times, becomes her protector and defender of her honor. She thinks of him as her superhero, or her knight in shining armor (there was a picture in her soul room at one point before she realized who he was in which Atem was represented as a faceless man with a suspiciously Superman-like costume. XD)

And here she is, with a "little brother" and a knight in shining armor, and they happen to be two different people cohabiting one body. Talk about frustrating. However, she's genuinely happy for Yugi when he starts to stand up for himself ("He's not a scared little boy anymore!" *happy tears*), and decides eventually that it doesn't matter, that Yugi and the other Yugi are close enough to the same person, and she's close enough to him, that it's okay for now.

This is where she is when Battle City starts, and she discovers that her knight in shining armor is actually an amnesiac pharaoh, not just a shadow that crosses her friend's face. And suddenly everything is thrown into confusion again. Does she love the pharaoh, or does she love what he brings out in Yugi? And what will she do when Yugi-- Atem?!-- has to face his destiny?

Because she doesn't know what else to do, Téa chooses to support both of them. After all, whether she loves them this way or that way, they are her friends, and one thing Téa knows is that friendship means supporting someone, no matter how hard it is.

And I think that's when something new about the relationship between love and friendship enters Téa's head and begins to solidify: Sometimes when you are in love with someone, you think about what's best for that person, not what's best for you. She slowly begins to transition from girl to adult once this enters her mind.

During the Waking the Dragons arc, Téa finds herself dealing with Atem alone for the first time. Not only that, but he's in a bad way. Suddenly, she's seeing him at his absolute lowest. And she finds she still loves him. She learns what hurting for your man's pain feels like. That superhero-worship kind of dies, falls by the wayside in the face of the fact that Atem, for all his godlike power, is human. In the anime at least, her love for Yugi softens back into the background of her heart for a while. As far as she's concerned, she's figured it out. Personally I suspect she's got it less figured out than she thinks she does, but that's life. XD

And then comes the Memory arc, and Atem facing his destiny. Téa knows the purpose of this is finding his name. She probably has a feeling of what's coming after that, that he's going to essentially die. But instead of sabotaging what she knows will take him away from her, she buys him a gift: A cartouche, to carve his name on. So he'll never forget it again, so he can keep it with him.

That's a long way away from the girl who'd hop into a potentially bomb-ridden carousel to make him be with her, and a long way away from the girl who longed for something dangerous to happen so that she could hear that voice again. This is the woman who, knowing that goodbye is soon, chooses to do something meaningful for him, and to help him face his destiny in any way she can. It's pretty beautiful, and I'm sorry all you bashers are missing it.

By the way, that over-righteous streak sticks around. Kaiba gets the brunt of it (which is hilarious), although she does let up a little after Duelist Kingdom's "What do you have at the end of the DAY?!" speech (shortly after giving it, you know, she finds out she was totally off-base in yelling at him. XD) although she also yells at Joey during Battle City for not "just saying Mai was in your dream." She's a little too eager to explain other people's motivations (Joey stops her from telling Kaiba about Serenity, and you can bet if she'd been anywhere near Alister during Doma Kaiba would have had to tackle her to get her to shut up about how Gozaburo treated his own sons...)

Téa is always the person in the back ready to tell the villain why his behavior isn't kosher. It settles down a bit into simple vocal righteousness, but she continues to feel strongly about everything, and she continues to be very willing to say so. She's a lady that speaks her mind, and most of the time, it works out for her, so she's not going to stop doing it any time soon. (And in most cases, it's not really that much of a FLAW, just a TRAIT.)

Outside of her love for Atem, which shifts from selfish to selfless, Téa is generally just a very kind sort of person, although quite a bit less self-crucifying than Yugi. Her first inclination at meeting someone new is to make them feel welcome in her life. (Except women who throw themselves on Yugi and go on about being awesomer duelists than him. XD) Even when she has a bad first impression with someone, she doesn't necessarily give up on that person; she's willing to be friends with Rebecca and comforts her when she needs comfort, she does similar for Mai, and she becomes an "irritated mother" figure in Kaiba's general direction, calling him "Kaiba-kun" in the Japanese (for those of you unfamiliar, that's a friendly/familiar-to-a-male suffix, and more importantly, she's one of the only characters who bothers calling him "kun," including his own brother, who uses the highly respectful "sama") and trying very hard to rein him into the rest of the group, not caring that he'll bristle and wanting very much to help him when he needs it. I think she's too abrasive to be quite the right person to drag him into the group, but it helps that Mokuba likes her.

(In my humble opinion, Mokuba probably likes her because she DOES speak her mind, and also possibly because he's just about that age, ha ha. That doesn't mean I think he has a crush on her. O_o)

Besides telling Kaiba off, she also treats herself as the "mama" within the group in general. She gives Joey relationship advice. She provides comfort where she sees it needed. She tries to provide a reasonable and cool voice when things get heated. (She doesn't always succeed.) (Okay, she doesn't USUALLY succeed, but this is Yu-Gi-Oh!, AKA Testosterone Land for Nerds.) Téa probably would make a good (although somewhat authoritarian) mother. XD

I have one final thing to say, and that's that if you're going to hate a character, hate them for traits they actually have, and don't let it affect how you write them. (Maybe it sounds hard to YOU, but if I can do it, you can. I ain't THAT amazing.) Your story will be more enjoyable to more people for the effort, whether you're working with Téa or anyone else.

Final Distillation:
Téa changes from loving selfishly to selflessly.
She's unafraid to use whatever force a situation needs.
She feels strongly about right and wrong and is unafraid to speak her mind.
She is kind, and willing to extend her kindness to people she doesn't necessarily like.
When she says "Friends help each other," she MEANS it.
Which means she'll end up mothering most of her friends some way or another.
She's mostly reasonable, most of the time.
But she will totally kick your ass if she thinks it needs to be kicked.
She's got a touch of Pandora complex, although she can rein it in if necessary.
She's not afraid to hang out with the unpopular guys.

As always, comments can be made here, at the DA journal, or through the G-mail.

Disclaimer: In case you my readers have not yet noticed, I often tackle the character studies beginning with the way that a large portion of the fandom reacts to a character. I am not accusing any one fan in particular of anything regarding any character, especially not Téa. But it is an inarguable fact that, especially in the early days of English speaking fandom, and even now, there were a lot of fans who absolutely demonized this particular character, in the general way that I have described and for those general reasons. It is that nebulous creature that I address, not any one person, even though I admit to having encountered more than a few people who did, word for word, say such things, and even a smaller number of people who admitted to the reasons.

So I'd appreciate not getting a dozen defensive comments about how you never said anything like that, whether you liked her or not. I understand. Please approach the essay as what it is, which is not a criticism of any one real person, but an evaluation of one fictional person and, to a lesser extent, of the fandom that she finds herself in.

(To be quite frank, I'm actually horribly fond of Téa bashers. They're like a milling horde of annoying kid siblings, and this essay wouldn't have had much direction without them. I wrote a large section of it by going into a basher forum and poking the hive until they all started buzzing at me. XD)

Therapy, Joey Style

2010-04-05T19:48:00.003-04:00

Lines taken from "Rescuers: Down Under." Man it's been a long time since I watched that movie.

Little Voices: Page 15-19

2010-03-28T20:38:00.002-04:00

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

2010-03-20T13:55:00.006-04:00

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

2010-03-20T13:54:00.004-04:00

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

2010-03-15T20:01:00.005-04:00

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!

2010-03-06T21:18:00.004-05:00

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

Duel Puzzle

2010-02-26T16:22:00.009-05:00

I've been perusing a lot of stuff lately, looking for blog ideas, and naturally, I have run into people who complain about the YGO:DM dub. A lot. Including, most particularly, lots of people who yell "this dub sucks!!" (One of the things that gets me is people who complain they should have dubbed the first series. They didn't and DON'T have the RIGHTS to the first series, you twits, they couldn't have dubbed it if they wanted to!)

Now, I am not going to say that 4Kids did a perfect job dubbing Yugioh. The only "perfect" dub I have ever seen is the dub of GaoGaiGar, which takes you half a minute to realize "Hey, I'm not supposed to understand Japanese!! Hey, they're talking in ENGLISH!" We don't live in a perfect world. The GaoGaiGar dub only lasted about twenty out of fifty episodes (And by the end of this essay, you'll know why.)

But it really cheeses me off when people call the dub by 4Kids of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters "bad."

I grew up on Power Rangers and reruns of Voltron. No one has any right to call the Yu-Gi-Oh! dub "bad." At worst, it's an "average" dub. Invid and I would call it a "much better than average dub." Regardless of who did it, 4Kids or otherwise.

You know why the dub of GX sucks so much? It's because of the idiot thankless masses who made the dubbers hate their job by focusing only on the negative and not ONCE appreciating what they do RIGHT.

So today, I plan on showing my appreciation for the 4Kids dub by pointing out all the things they DIDN'T do, that they COULD have, that older dubbers WOULD have.

1. They bothered to keep a significant portion of the original names, and didn't name anyone anything like "Kaz Kazington." The GX dub did this, possibly out of sheer spite. In a BAD dub, the SERIES wouldn't have kept its own name: They would have called it "Duel Cards" or "Shadow Puzzle" at BEST. Yugi would have been named something like "Danny," Kaiba would have been "Kenny" (to explain the K), and Joey would have been named "Mack." And the Winged Dragon of Ra would have been named "Phoenixtron."

"HA! YOU can't use Phoenixtron, because YOU don't have its ACTIVATION CODES!"

2. Nobody's sex got switched. I have been, time and again, SHOCKED and ecstatic at 4Kids' track record over this. Even One Piece's drag queens stayed their own sexes. Yubel even stayed a transsexual!! In a BAD dub, Bakura would have been named "Anita" and Alister would have been "Regina." They might even have bothered to draw boobs on them. I have a LOT of love for 4Kids when it comes to this. (WHY would a bad dub have made Bakura female? "We need more female characters!" No other reason, unless you like "Well he was VOICED by a woman so why not?")

3. There was pretty minimal fiddling with the plot. Now, I'm sure some fans reading this are going to launch into a long list of all the little things they considered fiddling with the plot, like "Welcome to AMERICA" and the apparent lack of Yugi getting shares of Industrial Illusions (it's not like the Japanese version or even the MANGA ever care about it afterwords, but whatever.) I'm not talking about changes like that. In a BAD dub, Kaiba would be chasing after the other characters because he was in love with Téa (who would be named "Alice.") Bakura-- I mean Anita, would be actively crushing on Yugi, Alister-- I mean Regina, would be mad at Kaiba because he was in love with Téa, and not "her." Pegasus, who, by the way, would have spoken with a very oversexed French accent and laughed like Pepe Le Pew, would have engaged in Duelist Kingdom just to be a jerk. Oh yeah, and Yugi would give up the Face Off duel because Kaiba asks nicely.

"Alice is going to Danny's grandfather's shop!!" [VEEN!]

4. They let Cecelia be dead. In Duelist Kingdom they even let Kaiba's parents be dead. I agree 4Kids did poorly on this later. But I'm more inclined to blame soccer moms writing angry letters than the company, even if it was stupid. At best, in a BAD dub, Cecelia would be in a coma and Pegasus would be trying to revive her by putting other people in comas. She would wake up really late in the series, but we'd never see her. (Also her name would be Patricia.)

"I just got a phone call from the hospital! Patricia finally woke up!"

5. In a BAD dub, Mai would be wearing a turtleneck. In a bad dub, Atem wouldn't have been wearing a horribly drawn shirt, he would have been glowing.

"Aren't you hot in that, Mary Jane?"

6. They kept the lip synch pretty close. Now yeah, part of the reason is because they have better tech for that now, often abused to dub out women's breasts, but it's still something I have to appreciate.

"YUGI I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL HA HA!"

7. In a bad dub, they wouldn't even have let Obelisk (who would be named Titanos the Mighty) punch Marik, much less Joey punch Atem (the latter was a pretty graphic punch, so it's understandable. It was also a friend punching another friend, which the 4Kids people seem to have trouble with. [/sarcasm])

"The AIR PRESSURE of Titanos's fist sent him FLYING!"

8. They bothered getting nice music for it. I DIE every time I hear a rap intro for a kids' show these days. Maybe you don't like all-instrumentals, but at least they didn't take the opportunity to go on about "JO-ey, he's Yugi's friend/ Stands by him to da very END."

"And we're/ and we're/ and we're/ GETTING DOWN WITH THE HEART OF THE CARDS!!!"

9. Nobody had voices like Erica Scheimer's "little boy" voice. I'm sorry, but you wanna complain about Serenity sounding "too old?" Watch He-Man for a few hours straight, you'll just be happy she has a voice that sounds like a normal human being. (Not to knock the talent of the Filmation staff. They worked with what they had.) And what are you on about "they don't sound like teenagers like they did in the Japanese?" Where are you people getting thirteen year olds that sound like four year olds and teenage boys that sound like middle aged women with lung cancer? I WANT TO KNOW.

(I happen to be in love with Serenity's voice, by the way. Not Lisa Ortiz, though she strikes me as pretty cool. Just her voice.)

10. Yes, they dubbed a show aimed at teenagers as though for little kids. But guess what? Shows aimed at teenagers don't MAKE it over here unless they're live action. This is exactly why the Uncut!Dub didn't last very long-- it was a financial sinkhole. I'm not sure why. You'd think teenagers would have enough money to have more power in the market than eight and ten year olds. But those few shows that ARE aimed at teens still have to be SAFE for their younger siblings, because there ARE NO TIME SLOTS in the States for teenage viewers, only for little kids and adults. The Yugioh dub actually was aimed at teens-- it was just being tamed down because little kids were going to watch it anyway. If they hadn't dubbed it the way they did, there would have been no Dan Green screaming "YUGI! IT'S NOT FAIR!!" because the show wouldn't have lasted that long.

And that would be a crying shame.

Little Voices: Cover to Page 14

2010-02-20T14:02:00.005-05:00

Just to head off any more of those questions about this and Magic Light, YES, these are directly connected stories. Yeesh.

I am insanely pleased with the cover for this puppy, all except for one thing: The cards in Bakura's hands are "Unity" and "Soul Resurrection," which you can barely see. (I complained about this elsewhere.) Unlike the cover for Magic Light, this thing goes way heavier on the inks (which my art has come to do in the past year or so) and I think it really works. That shadow scar really entertains me for some reason.

Yes, the cards point to bits of plot. Yes, the plot involves Yami Bakura. No, you don't get to get spoilers. That would be silly.

Page one, of course, involves Bakura Ryou chest. XD Now, as ya'll know, I've talked and talked about using the dub names. "Ryou" never gets mentioned as his name in the dub, he's only called Bakura. But for heaven's sake, he needs two names. I spell it "Ryou" instead of "Ryo" (like the manga) for two reasons: the "U" changes the sound, and "Ryou" sounds like what they say in the Japanese. "Ryo" makes me think of Shaman King, and after all these years of reading fanfictions calling him "Ryou," it looks kind of emasculated without that last letter.

There's a lot more CG airbrushed shading on this page. I have to admit, I like my CG shading-- and it does make it look more... uh, night-timey here. But I think what really clinched it was the black page. I totally did that on the compy, not with a marker, although the "Not there" panel did originally have black sharpie all over the background, which is why it now looks like there is no panel border for that panel. Go figure.

When Bakura says "It's been six months," by the by, he means since the end of the Memory Arc. In case anyone WASN'T clear on that. O_o

As I mention in the DeviantArt comments for page two, everybody in the first panel is somebody.

I really enjoy Joey in Little Voices. He cracks me up all over (He was pretty funny in Magic Light, but not like he is here.) His expression in the last panel here wasn't quite as manic as the original sketch, but it still makes me laugh. (And so does Yugi's sympathetic pout in panel five. XD)

Little Voices makes a lot of off-hand references to the final episode's Japanese ending song sequence, which showed a bunch of "what are they doing now" type moments. That first panel of page three is the first, and the later pages with the Schroeders and Pegasus is a longer one.

I chuckle that Joey "always" worries about Kaiba. Kaiba's costume here is intended to enfold him in a somewhat protective way, like armor. Because he's been feeling somewhat vulnerable since he accidentally ran Joey over, you know. As for page four-- Mokuba is chasing around after Serenity for much the same reason he was in Magic Light. Also, HIS costume is intended to emulate Kaiba's Battle City costume, although you can't see much of it.

Rebecca, on page five, is essentially the same bubbly nightmare she was when last we saw her. Her life has been going well since the end of the series. I think she's growing up just a wee bit, though, if only in that now, she's actually trying to KISS Yugi. XD

Page six: Once again, a guest in the first panel. Thistle, incedentally, was the first character that got sent in (not counting the characters that belong to friends of mine who all said "go ahead and use them if you want.") She'll probably appear in several different incarnations, because I did a lot of sketches of her that didn't all look like what was originally sent me. XD

I've always had it in my head that Mai gave Valon Joey's email. I'm not sure WHY Mai would do that, except possibly that she found the idea very amusing.

As for Valon, his emails typically consist of video mails ("Gueass who, Wheelah!!") and porely speld threts to treet mai rite. XD (Considering Valon's background, wouldn't he be somewhat illiterate?)

One of the things I've long tried to do with my craft is tell as much as possible with the pictures, and especially the facial and body expressions, as much if not more than with the dialogue. If your characters stand there and tell the whole story with talking, there's no point to making it a comic; you may as well be writing an online chat. The fourth panel of page six illustrates what I'm talking about-- there may be talking there, but the real story is in Yugi's face and Joey's hand on his shoulder. And I'm pretty happy about that.

Ironically, I had a lot of trouble with Téa and Bakura's scenes, and technically this chapter is about them. (You'd never guess it, considering one of the upcoming scene sets, but that'd be spoiling.) Originally Téa was way more emo on page seven, page eight wasn't even there (and it's pretty silly that it wasn't, because it clarifies a lot) and page nine was... um... gooier. Bakura and Téa are essentially "together" here, but I wanted very much to not let it feel like Bakura was taking advantage of her grief, and at the same time I didn't want it to seem like Téa was taking too much advantage of his kindness or shoving Yugi aside too callously. Some of the original pages made me make "ew gross" faces, if only because I made the mistake of trying to make several of them funny, and I'm actually still in the process of reworking parts of this chapter just because this sort of awkward relationship can be hard to work with.

(And I was in a relationship something like this once, sort of on Bakura's side of it, which only makes it harder.)

All Bakura really wants here is a happy ending for the people who helped him, and it's putting him in an uncomfortable position.

I think of page ten as the coup de grace of this project thus far. You see a lot of Kaiba angst scenes, and a lot of them go too far in one direction or another. His best "angst" moment in the series was probably the Face Off duel, and there he was caught and stripped of his armor right in front of an enemy. (I tend to think the real reason he was such a jerk to Yugi about it later is because he was trying to calm his own self down-- and also because Kaiba really doesn't realize how jerky he sounds sometimes. XD) Here he has chosen the time and place for himself, so I got to let him angst calmly in the rain. XD I actually really enjoy drawing rain, when it turns out right, and sadly touching scenes are my true art, so this page was essentially "GDG spoiling herself."

I think Kaiba's relationship with his biological father is really important to his character, especially since his father was the first formative figure in his life. It's usually overshadowed in fanfic because his screwed up relationship with Gozaburo is so out there and obvious, and most fanfictionists only care about his mother. I prefer a focus on Mokuba's relationship with his mother, since their lives only overlapped in a whisper, and a focus on Seto's relationship with his biological father. (Yes, I'm the author of "Happy Mother's Day," but that's not the point. "Happy Mother's Day" covered all I ever need to write about Seto's relationship with his mom.)

Even in the orphanage, Seto was telling Mokuba to "man up," to "buck up and be strong." He didn't get that attitude from the orphanage staff. I think he saw his father as a very strong and stoic person, and so when he chose to take over as Mokuba's father, he tried to emulate that. Part of what happens in Game of Dreams is that Seto comes to realize that presenting a strong face to someone who needs it isn't the same as never letting that facade slip.

Also, first panel: That is lightning dancing across the clouds. Lightning does that. Roar.

I'm really happy with the effect of non-standard gutter filler (it's not all white, it comes in different shades of gray) on this page, too. Overall, the whole scene was intended to indicate the turmoil of Kaiba's heart, while letting him still stand there looking stoic as possible (he refuses to answer whether those are tears or rain. Make up your own minds. (wink)) And I think I achieved that goal pretty well.

Page 11, of course, starts the other scene of Little Voices that references that ending sequence at the end of the final episode. I had some issues with the silly dialogue here, but it turned out okay even though I felt like I was parodying the series when I wrote parts of it.

Several people have complimented me on how well I write Pegasus. I'll tell ya'll a secret: I've been possessed by his dead wife since I was fourteen. XD I could even tell you some of that really private stuff, like the way he mutters in his sleep, but I won't. (wink) (Actually it's because I really enjoy writing campy, maliciously gleeful people. He's just sort of my Type when it comes to dialogue.)

"Scheiße" (the "ß" is pronounced or can be alternately written as a double "S," for "scheisse," or "shy-sa") is German for "Shit!" Yes, I learned this in German class, in high school. Part of the reason I even bothered including the Schroeders (besides the fact that I love them) is that they give me an excuse to put random German in my fancomics. (Hey, it's why the Japanese made him German too, and you know it.) German class was one of the real joys of my high school experience-- aside from art and choir class it was the only academic thing that I got really excited about, partly because the teacher was like an uncle to me, but also because I really just adore the language. Leon's accent will eventually get much thicker, for exactly this reason.

I like that little Curse of Dragon on page 12. He represents what's really going through Yugi's mind. XD He also wasn't there in the original sketch comic, funnily enough; there were just a bunch of ellipses and Yugi's horrified expression. XD

Yugi's kind of snarky in my comics, have you noticed?

I mentioned in the comments for that page that the idea of Yugioh characters as crime lords really cracks me up. If someone brings a fanfic to me that plays with this, and does it well, I swear I will make you art. You can call me out on this.

I like page 13's first panel. Yugi looks so grown up. XD It was with these pages that I decided to (finally) consider YnY comics to be on a schedule, because apparently treating my hobbies like hobbies means they collect dust in the corner.

The idea of Zigfried being at least a little intimidated by Pegasus has been kicking around the back of my mind for a while now. I think that regardless of what HE says happened regarding the contracts with I2, (he's an unreliable source, you know) that probably what really kept him from getting a contract was a combination of practices Pegasus didn't approve of (like crashing Kaiba's appointed demonstrations) and Pegasus being kind of scary to Ziggy. Pegasus likes Leon, on the other hand, but will only let him push so far. XD

Because a friend asked about it, here's a brief explanation of a standards war, as given to her:

A standards war is essentially this: say Kaiba uses one operating system for the Duel Disks. Now say that Ziggy comes up with a different one that isn't compatible with Kaiba's, for the sole purpose of forcing people to choose one over the other. Now say Ziggy throws a bunch of tournaments that use his operating system only, with lavish prizes (and other marketing ploys, like a lower price, easier maintenance, lighter weight, etc.) Obviously, Kaiba would have to respond to that.

What Yugi did here was essentially force Zigfried to not do that, by insisting that both systems be compatible. Now, Kaiba still has a competitor, but it's not the metaphorical bloodbath Ziggy was suggesting to Pegasus.

And you can see why Yugi would find that more acceptable.

As I mentioned in the original comments, page 14 was going to go up on Valentine's Day originally, but I couldn't get it done in time. I'm happy with it, though, and that's what matters.

Page 14 really shows what I mean by "telling a story with images," and also demonstrates powerfully why Game of Dreams and YnY as a whole are being done as comics instead of prose. This single page would have taken your average fanfictionist (who is admittedly less skilled than I am individually, since the average has to include people wh0 r1te lyk th15) the length of this entire blog post to tell. It packages two relationships and a dozen things about both of them into six images.

When I was a kid, I used to think that giving people happy endings meant you had to give them all exactly what they wanted, and therefore Pegasus couldn't have a happy ending without all sorts of problems. I know better now, of course-- sometimes happy endings have to do with learning and growing to accept what must be accepted. I think Yugioh as a series is a lot about that.

Pegasus will always grieve for Cecelia, but he's no longer cutting himself off from life because of it. And best of all, he's found someone who can understand that.

Happy Valentine's Day?

2010-02-14T22:03:00.003-05:00

Since I want to get into the habit of posting once a week, no matter what, and since all my ideas for this week felt uninspired at best, here's a screencap comic.

Yaaaay.

Fanfiction Peeves

2010-02-05T20:30:00.005-05:00

I was looking through some notes for some pairing essays that I did, and MAN, I am rather opinionated, aren't I?

For those of you who follow this blog without following us at DeviantArt, you might have missed that I plan on updating at least once a week here, and probably at least once a week at the DA, from now on. Trust me, I have every determined intention of actually doing this. I'm making my Angry Yugi Face right now. (The little cute guy. I couldn't pull off Atem by any stretch of the imagination.)

So for today, I give you my list of things which, if I see it in the first few paragraphs of a fanfic, I'm liable to close the window and look elsewhere. I don't actually run into them on a regular basis (thank RA), because I now only skim recommended and favorite fanfic lists, but I still find 'em from time to time. There's no accounting for taste. XD

1. Kaiba using the word "mutt" when referring to anything other than an actual dog.
-Kaiba only very rarely uses animals as insults, even in the dub, and he really only ever insults Joey to his face. (Probably because he's going for a reaction, because I don't see him as actually disliking Joey.) I think he's called Joey a "monkey" more than he's called him a dog, so really, we should be calling it "Monkeyshipping" instead. Or "Bonkotsushipping." Maybe "Moneybags-shipping."

2. References in the narration to Téa as a "bitch," "mean girl," or anything else blatantly negative.
-Okay, I get that you don't like her, but good narration is unbiased. This also goes for when a character who is friends with Téa in the show reacts with some form of horror or distaste when they see her coming. I GET that you don't like her, but Yugi DOES. A good fanfic writer accepts that sometimes a character they like gets along with a character they dislike.

3. Taking a character out of a scene from the show due to dislike.
-Yeah.

5. Slavish imitation, in dialogue, of a character's accent.
-So you want the characters to "sound" like themselves. I understand. But Joey's "voice" has little to do with his accent, it has to do with the words he chooses to use. Having him say "da" instead of "the" is one thing. Having him say "Da quick braown fohx jumped ovah da lazy dohg" is quite another. Writing like that hasn't been in fashion since Mark Twain. Stop doing it. (On the other hand, using British spelling, like "colour" instead of "color," is a perfectly acceptable way to imitate a British accent. Why? It's less distracting.)

6. Runtogethersentencesandparagraphswithoutformatting.
-Don't upload with notepad; save it into Word or something first. And if FF.net eats your formatting anyway, keep at it until it's at least sort of readable. Just trust me on this. Don't have any of the acceptable filetypes except for txt? Get them. You're going to need them eventually anyway.

7. Mixing dub names and Japanese names, such as calling Serenity "Shizuka Wheeler."
-Following a mixed continuity? Almost impossible not to do, since the different continuities fill in each others' gaps. Using mixed names? Confusing and weird. I used to put up with this, but my tolerance has gone down the more I've seen it.

8. A character like, say, Tristan, calling Téa "darling," and then you realize a few sentences later it's because he's gay.
-Tristan would be the butchest gay guy ever. Not all gay guys talk like that.

9. Realizing a few sentences in that the character you thought was a canon character is actually an original character who happens to have the same name.
-Curse you all for the confusingness! Make it clear from the outset! Good grief.

10. Author's notes that say anything along the lines of "Marik is the yami, Malik is the hikari, okay?"
-It's not so much that I begrudge you the right to do that, but if you do, you're going to confuse me. It's a difference of one letter that doesn't actually happen to be much difference; the dubbers call him "Marik" because that's what the Japanese VAs sound like they're saying. And I, personally, am very mildly dyslexic: I am going to forget which you said is which, and I am going to get frustrated. Besides that, it's not even accurate to either versions of the show OR to the manga. Call Yami Marik something else in narrative-- if you don't like "Yami Marik" (and there are so many reasons not to) you can call him "Ishtar," or "the Ishtar demon," or whatever else that appeals to you and makes sense. (Yami M himself considers his name to be that of the original Marik Ishtar, because he considers himself to BE his "hikari.")

11. A sex scene between two members of a non canon pairing in the first chapter.
-I love silentshipping, as anyone who knows me should know. I love it to death. But I accept that any fic featuring it needs to nurse it along, to nurture it and let it grow. A good silentshipping story accepts that the "blimp scene" doesn't point to eternal love; Kaiba's reaction to meeting Serenity again would probably run more along the lines of "Oh, it's you. Uh. Hi." Not the first meeting, but it might as well be. Personally, this fanfictionist can't see Kaiba as a "kiss on the first date" kind of guy, much less a "sex after the first walk in the rain when we're not even sort of dating" kind of guy. I mean, yuck.

12. The lyrics of a song, cut and paste verbatim.
-I have no problem with songfics, even though ff.net's management does (obviously, you get around THAT by not posting it on ff.net) but I didn't click into your fic to read a huge block of text that didn't come from you. If you're planning to incorporate the lyrics into the story itself, be a little more creative than that. And if your story is only INSPIRED by a song, all you need to do is point out the song's official video on Yuutube and inform the reader of the relationship. It'll keep you out of trouble AND be less annoying. I didn't used to click out of these right away, but now I don't tend to waste time on them-- because I've spent too much time already reading through the songs in the past, only to find out that the story itself is only two paragraphs long.

13. Overly cute stuff.
-I'm not really talking about fluff here. When I come across a sentence like "Yugi skipped across to Kaiba and stared up at him with enormous puppy eyes," there's something wrong.

14. A character being the wrong gender without explanation.
-If it's an AU (alternate universe), please, please tell us before we start reading. If it's NOT and Kaiba is secretly a woman, please explain in the story WHY she's a crossdresser (and shame on you if Mokuba doesn't know already.) And for heaven's sake, DON'T gender switch someone just because you like a pairing but can't get past the ghey. Pairings don't have to involve sex or romance. Write something where they become brotherly friends and get it out of your system.

15. Male pregnancy with no explanation.
-One time I read this story in which Bakura was "getting really chubby" and the doctor was all "Oops, Marik, you got him preggers!" It was supposed to be funny, but the fact that nobody even batted an eye at the idea of a pregnant man and the only explaination was "gay sex" really killed the humor for me. Even humor has to make SOME sense. When you treat male pregnancy like it's a normal thing, it is not funny absurd, it's just absurd absurd.

16. When the summary of the story is essentially the first paragraph.
-It's a narrative. Not an essay. Take a writing class.

17. Dialogue, in a supposedly serious story, which sounds like chat-room speak. And also narrative that sounds like chat-room speak.
-USE PUNCTUATION. USE IT. USE SPELL CHECK. IT DOES NOT COST MONEY. For that matter, reread your story before putting up for the rest of us to read. The computer, she misses things.

18. Being dumped into a non-canon status quo without any warning, explanation, or reaction on the part of the characters.
-If it's a few years in the future, say so in the narrative. If it's AU, say so in the author's notes (unless it's a case of "AU clashes with Canon Universe," then you can just do it in the narrative.) If the story opens with Pegasus essentially saying "I love you kay?" to somebody we've never met before, there needs to be some explanation of how the characters got to that point, like "ever since they had met several months before" or "Since Joe was the first person Pegasus had laid eyes on after drinking the magic potion...." I mean, seriously.

19. Mokuba needing a babysitter.
-Did we seriously watch the same series, guys? This kid is an awesome little ninja who referees tournaments and is the vice president of Kaiba Corp. And when he's not in school or being Kaiba's ninja messenger and head general, he's hanging out in Kaiba's office, apparently making sure he stops working long enough to eat and sleep. If anybody needs a babysitter, it's Kaiba-- and he's got one: Mokuba. Being able to take care of himself and more mature than he might have been otherwise is one of Mokuba's character traits-- and anyway, at the age of ten, he's already old enough to be left home alone by most countries' laws. The same goes for Mokuba feeling ignored by Kaiba or for Kaiba abusing Mokuba in any way after Duelist Kingdom. This isn't going to happen.

20. Kaiba having a girlfriend that Mokuba doesn't like.
-Unless she has eldritch powers and is controlling Kaiba's mind, this isn't going to happen either. Kaiba places his brother's needs above his own when it comes to this kind of thing. Mokuba doesn't need any help getting Kaiba's brain out of the gutter and the girl out of the house-- all he really needs to do is say "Well, Seto, I hate to say it but she's kind of a bitch" and Kaiba'll respond with "Oh well, sex isn't everything." (My cat has a similar hold on my love life, so I know what I'm talking about.) (On the other hand, if your story actually features this conversation in just the first few paragraphs, I would totally read it.)

21. Yugi being significantly younger than the rest of the cast, or Mai being in high school with the rest of the cast.
-Yugi is shown as being in high school. Mai is explicitly stated as being out of high school even in the dub-- as being IN HER TWENTIES even in the dub. Yugi is not a little kid and Mai is not a teenager; jokes are made right in the series about Yugi looking younger than he is, and a large part of Mai's character is that she's been around the block once or twice. I'd totally read a story about Mai before Duelist Kingdom, but you can't just shove her in a Domino High uniform, plop her in Yugi's class, and expect me to go along for the ride.

I'm stopping here, because these are the main things that kill a fic for me in the first chapter. Ciao for now!

Kaiba Brand

2009-09-10T20:30:00.001-04:00

(Hello, YnY blog readers. I am not GDG, but her brother Invid, who as a guest blogger may occasionally post here when I have the urge. The top link in "Linkage" here at this blog is Awesomer Than Thou, my blog. Click it. Click it now.)

Something that GDG talks about (well, complains about) is that the "non-sequel" Yugioh series have turned the characters of the DM series into archetypes to be utilized.

Kaiba, obviously, is one of these; in fact, he's the most obvious of them. To the point where GDG has labelled the various "Kaibas" in somewhat derogatory fashion.

Kaiba is the genuine Kaiba, of course. Whether or not you accept substitutions or imitations no doubt depends on your tastes.

You might, for instance, find Manjyome Jun/Chazz Princeton, Kaiba lite, less filling but more entertaining.

Or you might go for the hearty but bland store-brand Kaiba, Kaiser whatever-the-heck-his-real-name-is, whose only real characterization in the first season was that he was too perfect for his own good. (Be careful, he goes bad after a while.)

There's also Edo/Aster Phoenix, named either for a Yugioh-related Internet personality (there isn't a version of his webpage I know of that isn't five years out of date, hence the Google search) or a flower, who is known as both British Kaiba and diet Kaiba. Because he's British, and can give you brain damage.

Then there's Jack Atlas, who is for obvious reasons known as ghetto Kaiba. The guy does have, unlike his non-genuine Kaiba predecessors, some honest and genuine angst-you have to give him points for that, at least.

Jack is trying for a re-branding, though, having grown tired of the current characterization: Pimp Kaiba.

Only time will tell if he is successful.

Comic FAQ

2009-09-05T19:50:00.002-04:00

I've been getting enough attention for the comic that I think it's about time we put together a Frequently Asked Questions List. My definition of Frequently Asked Question is that enough people have asked me enough times that I find it annoying (and to be honest, I like to not telegraph where I'm going with things, so plot directed questions tend to bother me anyway.)

I will add to this as time goes by. Since it'll be the only post with the label "Comic FAQ," you'll only ever have to click on the side to find it. Also, I plan to link it like crazy.

1. What the heck is going on here?
This is a long-term fancomic that builds on the first Yu-Gi-Oh! series (before GX). Game of Dreams is set in the seven years after the series ends, and is seven longer stories with some shorter, supplemental bits thrown in between. It is building up to the birth of Yukai, Yugi and Téa's son. Yukai no Yugi itself follows events that take place when Yukai himself is fifteen, twenty-two years after Atem passes on. Everything posted at the YnY DeviantArt page is part of the same fan continuity.

2. Will Game of Dreams feature X pairing?
I hate, hate, HATE being asked this. Look here, if you want the spoilers (they're not heavy spoilers, I suppose, because I do dance around them, but they're still spoilers). If you're really so sore for some pairing or another that you don't think will show up in GD, email me (through the blog email) and I'll think about posting some art or a comic featuring that pairing at my regular DeviantArt account or here, if I think I'm risking getting banned over it. (Note: second link is definitely NSFW.) If you're nice about it. Like I said, I'm flexible. (The only pairing I can't really figure out is Téa/Hitotsumi Giant, which I HAVE seen. Just don't ask me to try drawing it.)

3. Why don't you update more often/regularly?
This is only frequently asked by people who don't read my other two webcomics. They are both original, in full color, and update three to five times a week. The fancomic is easier to work on, because it's in black and white, but because I'm actually working toward making some kind of living tied to my original comics, they take priority. This is part of why the fancomic is posted on DeviantArt; to make it easier to follow. (Maybe someday I'll start posting it on DrunkDuck or something loony like that. I think they allow fancomics.) My original comics are called The Law of Purple, which has been running since 2004, and Alien Revenant, which I started in January of 2009. If you like my art, and you like my writing, you'll probably enjoy checking them out. (Also, looking at LOP can show you where my art skills were back in 2004 when I started it! Sweet Osiris.)

4. What's this about submitting fancharacters?
Look here.

5. Ha ha, Slifelmo is awesome.
Thank you.

6. Wait, are you a guy or a girl?
YnY has two people that write it and one person that reads it ahead of time to see if it's really as entertaining as we think it is. The person you're usually going to be talking to (and who is writing this) is Golden-Dragon-Girl, who (last time I checked) is definitely a girl. She wrote most of Game of Dreams herself, and also does all the art. The person who she co-writes it with is her older brother, who calls himself Invid most of the time, and who is definitely male, so far as I can tell. He at least partially created a lot of the non-offspring characters and also writes most of the duels for YnY. The plot of GD also wouldn't be the same without him. The person who (usually) betas for us is this wonderful lady. Don't bother needling her for plot points, she's not going to tell you. (She does NOT typically look at the art ahead of time, either.) The YnY DeviantArt page insists that he's male, and I'm not about to argue with him. :P

7. Do you take requests?
No, only friendly suggestions and niggling thoughts that won't go away. I'm likelier to do something you ask for if you meet any one of the following conditions: A, if you're nice about it, B, if you really sell it, C, if you're a friend of mine already, and D, if it has anything to do with my OC kids interacting with your OC kids. In case of D, because I happen to love that kind of stuff.

8. Do you mind fanart/if I color something you did?
Please, show me if you do. That kind of stuff makes me feel horribly loved. :3

Guess what I'm wearing

2009-08-19T14:20:00.000-04:00

So I've been thinking about clothing.

No, despite my femaleness, that actually is sort of unusual-- I may have a wild assortment of clothing, but it's only because I also have a small assortment of other women who love to buy me clothes. Mostly my mother. Whenever she's at a yard sale and sees a nice dress shirt, a t-shirt she thinks I'll like, or pants that might fit me, she buys 'em (because they're ALWAYS cheap). I have collected more clothes than I'll ever need through the habits of my mother.

But I digress.

What I mean is that I've been thinking about the clothing the Yu-Gi-Oh characters wear (of course I have) throughout the DM anime (and also in some parts of the manga.)

And I have several observations to make (of course I do).

First of all, you can tell a LOT about Kaiba's insecurities through looking at his clothing. In his first manga appearance, his school uniform practically sags around him, only really fitting at the shoulders. I've long suspected that right before he entered high school, the hormones suddenly set in and he shot up from anywhere to a foot taller to two feet taller than he previously was. (I think this is partly because he always looks so SHORT next to Gozaburo in flashbacks.) So Seto hasn't filled out enough to fit in his uniform.

You can tell this is a source of insecurity for him because of his Battle City onwards costumes. All of them have over-wide shoulders, and the white trenchvest is clearly intended to make him look larger. It's like a lion's mane.

As for what he wears in Duelist Kingdom? I'd been looking at how subdued it is compared to his later costume (and even his earlier costume, that white suit with the huge red cape? That thing was so overblown.) And suddenly it struck me.

Those are Kaiba's pajamas and his house coat. Lots of people, Japanese or otherwise, wear shoes inside their homes that technically could be worn outside, but aren't so as to keep the house cleaner. He was essentially vegging out in his house, not bothering to wear dayclothes, while he obsessed over his Duel Disk prototypes and losing to Yugi and being soul-broken. (XD) He left by the window. That blue duster is the shortest of all non-uniform coats he wears in public (Neither of the white suits count, because suits are a kind of uniform). His pants are loose and comfortable looking, much unlike his regular clothes, which are usually sleek and form-fitting. His shirt doesn't cover his neck (Kaiba always covers his neck!) instead lazily drifting away from it and exposing his collarbone for all the world to see. Not only that, but the housecoat doesn't have a collar-- the shirt collar is what produces the effect most of his coats do by themselves. His pants and shirt are the same color, and it's a color that pants don't tend to be. Finally-- he's not wearing any socks.

Which kind of gives a new flavor to Kaiba's part in Duelist Kingdom, if you ask me. Makes it feel even more desperate than before. I like that.

And now you all know what Kaiba wears to bed. :D

Here's another random doozy: Serenity's outfit ethstetic tends to be a feminized, extremely toned-down version of Kaiba's. I do not say this lightly. Certainly, we only really see her spend a lot of time in the Battle City outfit, but that's what both their Battle City outfits ARE-- a high-collared vest over a shirt. It's probably because I'm a silentshipper, but I find this hilarious. Follow that theme for Serenity (feminized and toned-down Seto Kaiba) and you won't go far wrong when it comes to costumes that feel "right" for her to wear.

Of course, she also looks pretty good in a plaid skirt, but then she IS much, much liklier than Kaiba to be running around in a skirt at ALL. (snickers)

Joey, of course, wears whatever didn't smell bad enough that day. He probably bought it off the cheap rack, but since he's scruffy it works for him. Tristan dresses in a similar fashion but it's likelier his mother buys his clothes, because they look to be in better shape and of higher price tag.

Yugi of course is a punk with an Egyptian bent. It's not entirely clear if he only became a punk AFTER he was possessed, but I think he just didn't have the guts to wear his collar to school before (Atem had to have found the thing SOMEWHERE.) He also likes hoodies, although you wouldn't know it if you'd never read the manga. I like Yugi in hoodies, but I also like real-life punks in hoodies, so go figure. The hoodie doesn't detract from a goth/punk ethsetic at all. Atem seems to have at least SOME influence on what he wears, of course-- sure, there's the jewelry choices, but I'm actually thinking more about that uniform. Egyptians were kind of weird about fashion, by our standards, and it may well be that Atem likes that damn uniform because in ancient Egypt everybody dressed pretty similarly. (And yes, I know he's the one putting on the muscle shirt under it. Pharaohs dressed up their uniforms, but they still dressed pretty similarly to everyone else. The muscle shirt may be what he sees as an acceptable way to mark himself as different from Yugi's peers, and since it's like armor, that makes a lot of sense.)

Téa is always up on Japanese "respectable girl" fashion, although I do admit the yellow dress shirt flaring out from under the pink vest in Duelist Kingdom probably wasn't the best choice (I love her boots there, though.) She never vamps it up too high, she never goes too far into any counterculture. In short, she's a bit preppy. That's fine for her; it works with her sensible personality. She also wears shirts with Engrish on them, but that keeps getting dubbed out. Other than the Engrish she looks much like any American high school girl you might see in the mall or walking down the street. (I love the Wavebody shirt.)

Mai's sort of a cross between trashy and classy, and it's a very weird cross that works very well. She doesn't get enough different outfits. Also, she's the only major character to have a color theme that she sticks to faithfully-- that is, purple. Most of the other ones waver between two colors or don't stick to a color at all (Joey and Tristan don't stick to a color, Kaiba vacillates around the cooler colors and black and white, Téa likes pinks and yellows for some unfathomable reason that probably has to do with Takahashi's own weird preferences. Yugi... well, Yugi's usually wearing his uniform, and that doesn't count, especially since it's probably because Atem's all like "Woot! Uniform!" That wacky Egyptian. XD)

Out of the characters, the two who have the most different outfits are Téa and Kaiba (I'm sure you've never heard THAT pulled out as reasoning for azureshipping!). The outfit which potentially says the most about the person wearing it is Mokuba's Battle City outfit, which includes a very ornate cross necklace. (What does it say? That's up to the fanfic author. Takahashi probably just thought it looked cool.) Sexual-orientation-confirmation prize goes to the French maid outfits Zigfried had all his female servants wear. Most iconic is probably either Kaiba's Battle City outfit or Yugi's Battle City outfit (although Yugi's hair carry most of his outfits. You can't get too complex with clothes when someone has hair like that.) My personal favorite outfit is the white vest and black turtleneck Yugi wore during the Dungeon Dice Monsters episodes. It's Just So.

Colors that should be worn more often:
Blue, for Serenity and Mokuba, green, for Téa, and red, for everyone else.

Maybe, after I've finished the next character study, I'll do an essay about how Yugi and company can be adapted or interpreted as a Power Rangers/Super Sentai team. 83 IT'LL BE FUN.

Wacky Dub Moments: The Best and the Worst

2009-08-17T12:57:00.000-04:00

Note: This list refers to those moments in the dub that were just so nuts, even the people watching the series for the first time noticed they were kind of off. The "Worst five" list is the "Worst Five" because, even though I'm a dubbie, they interfered with my enjoyment of the episode even the first time around, when I didn't know what had happened in the Japanese. Most of them because they involved dubbing inconsistencies. The "Best" list is the "best" list because all of them made me laugh the first time I encountered them, and still do.

Worst Five:
1. We're all living in America, America is wunderbar...

-In the first episode, Kaiba refers to himself as the Japanese champion. When being welcomed to Domino, Ishizu is told, "Welcome to America!"
What is the Japanese champion doing attending high school in America? Our standard of teaching sucks compared to Japan! (Apparently, Domino City moves between countries, because later they talk about going to America during Waking the Dragons, and it was made quite clear they needed plane tickets to get back home. The only explaination for that, if Domino was still in America, is that it's in Hawaii, and somehow I just don't think it is.)

2. Yugi, let me help you!

-Up to that point, it was pretty clear that Atem was doing the dueling when Yugi's eyes went all slanty. Changing that episode, so that Atem was supposedly being held back, instead of in need of Yugi's skills, threw the entire thing into confusion.

3. The Magic Marker.

-Dubbing out women's chests. I have an entire article about this at my Horakte's Sock Drawer blog. My body is not a corruptive force, and neither is Mai's, no matter how low her neckline is, as long as she's still actually clothed.

4. I miss you, Kaiba.

-(sputter) Mokuba just called Seto by their ADOPTIVE SURNAME! In one of Seto's FLASHBACKS! From BEFORE they were ADOPTED!

5. After our parents died-- I mean disappeared...

-In Duelist Kingdom, Mokuba and Kaiba both clearly say their parents passed away or DIED, respectively. During Noa's storyline, the policy on death had been changed, so Kaiba had to say they had "disappeared," clearly contradicting earlier dialogue. The only way to explain this away is that previously, they'd been talking to themselves, and so apparently Seto and Mokuba don't say the truth of what happened to their parents in front of each other?

Best Five:
1. "You can beg later. When you are punished." "Huh!?"

-Every single time Pegasus suggests locking Croquet away or torturing him, Croquet responds in the most bewildered tone of voice, like he has no idea what the hell Pegasus is talking about. It's hilarious.

2. "No I refuse!"

-Invid and I quote this at each other sometimes.

3. "You'll pay for that stinging jab with your life points!" "DUEL!"

-This too.

4. "When that blade touches your legs, it'll send you straight to the SHADOW REALM!"

-My soul is in my LEGS? Bahahahaha. No, no, what does it really do?

5. Pegasus's favorite fruit juice.

-Oh come on, like little kids don't know grown-ups drink wine. It's better than what Daddy probably drinks. It even has health benefits. And anyway, shouldn't it be GOOD to show the bad guy doing something you don't want little kids to do? He's the BAD GUY.

I find most of the other really weird stuff in the dub fairly easy to ignore, actually. It mainly amounts to looking elsewhere on the screen, or closing your eyes for a few moments and thinking about butterflies. XD

Obviously, this is all a matter of opinions. But it made ME laugh.

Character Study: Joey Wheeler

2009-08-12T17:54:00.000-04:00

Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Fifteen to seventeen
Character Archetype: The Open-Hearted Hero, twisted into a supporting role.
Probable Element and Alignment: Fire, Chaotic Good
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: Typically, an inner-city sort of accent and rather odd twists on common phrases, like "Smell ya later."

Like most of the main characters, Joey suffers from a lot of mischaracterization and misunderstanding, which could be seen as odd as he's a basically straightforward person. But straightfowardness and simplicity are not the same as being a flat character-- Joey is equally as complex as Yugi or Kaiba (albiet much less fractured than Kaiba). Joey's most common plague is the label of "the dumb one." He's also shown as the "girly one" in a lot of puppyshipping fics, which quite frankly is beyond me, since Joey is also one of the most, if not THE most, masculine characters in the series. (Invid comments, "He is less masculine than Rafael, and... um... and Panik. Maybe Mako.")

What people who label Joey the "dumb one" tend to miss is that he's actually the leader of the group. Yugi is the main character and the Chosen One, certainly, but he's perfectly happy to stand in back and let Joey take point. In group shots, there are always two characters leading the stroll-- Joey with Yugi slightly behind him. Joey almost always enters a room first. Joey usually speaks first. It usually means something is up when anything different happens.

This is because Joey's base character is that of the typical shonen hero: hot-headed, good-hearted, too quick to speak and act. The man always says the first thing that comes into his head (and speaking from experience, that usually ends with you saying many very strange or stupid things.) Compare both Yugi and Joey to the first other shonen heroes that spring into your mind-- Ash Ketchum. Naruto. Goku. Luffy. Who resembles them more? (Hint: It's not the short one.)

This does not mean Joey is stupid. He's merely much, much less reserved. When he does take the necessary time to think things through (and this is difficult for him mainly because he has too much energy and can't calm down enough most of the time) he's easily as strategic as Kaiba. If there's anything "wrong" with Joey per se, it's that he has ADD.

Joey is, in his own way, a crazy sort of ingenius. Because Yugi stands beside him, we tend to overlook his incredible accomplishments. Even with Yugi there, no one else would have had quite the fire and ability to come in second at Duelist Kingdom despite having had no name for himself before (and Joey did give Yugi a run for his money, so to speak.) Yugi doesn't assist him once during Battle City, but once again Joey excells despite occassionally thinking too fast. Pegasus displays genuine admiration for him during the duel with Bandit Keith (and in the dub, tellingly, Joey is never called "Joey-boy" by Pegasus. He gets "Joseph," which for Pegasus is much more respectful.) In the Oreichalchos saga, he finds himself with the most difficult of the three dragons to use (Hermos, who needs not one but two monsters on the field AND you have to figure out what the heck your new toy DOES) and yet uses it skillfully after only one "trial" duel (the one with Mai, interrupted by Valon.) Joey's growth as a duelist is also another sign of the fact that he's a more traditional shonen hero than Yugi is-- Yugi already had his skills, just not the confidence. Joey had more confidence than he had skills in the beginning, but his mastery of those skills is quick and incredible.

Beyond all that, Joey has a very strange collection of skills. Most of these are best on display during the early manga and the anime's Duelist Kingdom, in which Joey avails himself as
1. A carpenter
2. A locksmith (or a lockpick, but they're essentially the same thing)
3. A pickpocket
4. and a cook.
For whatever reason, Téa refuses to eat Joey's cooking during the Oriechalchos saga, but I suspect that either the writers or Téa forgot that, during Duelist Kingdom, he was the only one who bothered making their dinner outside the castle worth eating. (Probably the writers, as Téa is infallible. XD [/joke]) Joey's purpose within the gang, as a team, is to take point and to take care of random needs presented to the group. Because of this he's sort of a Swiss Army knife when it comes to his abillities: they're small, but numerous and practical. (He's a good fighter, but an unskilled one. This is why Kaiba always wins.)

Probably Joey's skills come from his background: he's the son of a divorced alchoholic who essentially grew up on the streets and had to fend for himself. He spent a lot of time in gangs before coming to high school and terrorized a lot of other kids. Before becoming friends with Yugi, his main prospects for the future included armed robbery and carjacking. One wonders how he ended up at Domino High instead of Rintama High-- potential reasons include a falling-out with Hirutani or the realization that this path was no way to keep his promise to his sister (in Japan, remember, students have some choice in what high schools they go to.) My personal favorite theory is that Tristan had something to do with it. Most likely, it was a combination of all three. Joey is one of the only characters whose direct relationship with his father is vital to his character. Though his father's neglect almost ruined Joey's life, Joey actively continues to support him financially throughout the series. (This is probably the real reason he continues to hold a job after getting the Duelist Kingdom money, at least so far as the dub is concerned. If papa knew Joey had money, he might drink it all up.)

Not that I'm sure Joey suffers from active physical abuse from his father. He probably has been hit with the occasional beer bottle, and most certainly has obtained a few bruises over the years, but it occurs to me that Joey might not even realize he's being abused, seeing that he himself is very rough when physically affectionate. If anything, "That's just how Dad is when he's drunk." He does love his father, which the early manga makes clear, and at least at that point, is convinced that just obtaining financial security will "fix" their relationship (he probably already feels otherwise by the end of the series, though. Kaiba is living proof that money does not equal happiness. XD) Being a top duelist makes money less of a worry later on, I imagine, but as part of his early character money is a constant struggle and source of envy for him.

One of his greater accomplishments as a man is proving himself capable of earning, winning and providing for his loved ones, something his father failed to do. The actual most likely source of the family's falling apart, and even the most likely source of his father's alchohilsm, were struggles with Serenity's medical issues. Joey solved the problem. Part of the reason for his success was learning to accept the help of others. Joey's father probably never learned that, and I can imagine him having once been a very proud man.

Another oft-overlooked aspect of Joey is that he is an awesome judge of character, once he's past that first impression. Out of the characters in the series, the ones who understand Kaiba best by the end of it are Mokuba, Yugi and Joey. When Mai needs things said to her, it rarely takes him long to ferret out the best thing to say (even though, as noted before, all the wrong things to say come out first, because he always says the first thing that pops into his head.) He also has slightly better social skills than either Yugi or Kaiba, at least in that he's unafraid to approach people he finds interesting and presents a more approachable manner himself. He's definitely better-adjusted than Kaiba is, although their respective characters share a lot in common. (This isn't surprising given their respective archetypes, which are two sides of the same coin.)

Something that most people DO understand about Joey's character is that he's almost everybody's best buddy, although I don't think most of them quite realize how far the series pushes this. Yes, he's Yugi's best friend, but he's also Tristan's best friend, and he's Bakura's pretty darn good friend, and Téa's best (platonic) friend, and his sister's best friend, and he sure does get along with Duke quite well. Mako likes him, Mokuba likes him, Pegasus respects him, Valon likes him (eventually), Mai falls in love with him. Marik likes him, and he's seen exchanging rough affection with Odion at one point in the manga. And, of course-- Kaiba likes him, too. As I noted in Kaiba's character study, Kaiba picks on Joey because Joey is funny. More importantly, by the end of Battle City, Kaiba even respects Joey, although obviously that doesn't stop him from teasing Joey. Kaiba doesn't have very many friends at all, much less ones he can tease. Joey fulfills an important role for him, and in turn, Kaiba gets Joey mad enough to stand up and excell. If Yugi, Tristan and Téa provide Joey with the support, and Serenity provides the motivation, Kaiba stokes the fire and acts as the grinding stone to sharpen Joey's determination. (wow what a mixed metaphor.) By the end of the series, Joey is one of Kaiba's closest friends, even if Kaiba isn't one of Joey's. (Although I do believe Joey considers Kaiba to be a friend. Just not the kind you borrow money from. XD)

Earlier in the study I commented that Joey is one of the most masculine characters in the series. People familiar with the cross-dressing fiasco from Series 0 may feel otherwise, but one thing to remember about that is that Joey IS Japanese. Before becoming infused with Western culture, the Japanese wore what was essentially unisex clothing, the main differences being in how people tied their kimonos. I tend to think this makes the average Japanese person more comfortable in his or her masculinity or femininity, and Joey is one of the most comfortable people in the whole series-- if he does things like that, it's because he's comfortable enough in his masculinity that it's not a big deal to him. Out of the male characters, Joey's body language is among the most masculine, when he's not effecting someone else's. (He's also got that horribly terrifying "macho" face he and Tristan both do, but I'm not going to go too far into that.) For Joey, much of the series involves his proving himself as a man. The first time I watched the scene where he and Mai part after Battle City, I felt like he had "arrived." The "final duel of Battle City" scene only solidified that. (Invid disagrees: he feels Joey "arrived" during his duel with Yami Marik. I'm cool with that, but his parting with Mai made it feel more sealed and permanent to me.)

Joey is boisterous and immature at the beginning of the series, wandering aimlessly through his life. By the end of it, he's still energetic and boyish in the best ways, but he's also become the man his father never managed to be, with drive, purpose and yes, even dignity.

Final Distillation:
Joey is the leader.
Joey has a lot of crazy skills, many of which wouldn't seem to have anything to do with each other.
He's brilliant when he thinks things through.
But he rarely thinks things through, because he has too much energy on his hands.
He's incredibly masculine, and very comfortable in that.
He always says the first thing he thinks of-- his heart is on his sleeve.
Eventually, everyone likes him.

Fandom Rant: Kaiba, Kisara, and silentshipping

2009-08-08T11:33:00.000-04:00

(glances at title) That seems a little off, does it? Well, it's not.

Recently while searching for more stuff to put into YnY's collection of other people's Yu-gi-oh next generation stuff (this doesn't count GX, it's fanmade nexgen of the original cast I look for) I became more aware of the attitude that many Kisara/Kaiba fans have toward other Kaiba pairings.

As one shipper put it: "Seeing Kaiba with anyone but Kisara sickens me." (Emphasis mine.)

Sickens you? Really? That seems a little harsh, for one thing.

I guess I can understand the roots of this rather arrogant, evangelistic attitude about the whole thing. Kaiba/Kisara is considered "canon" by most people. (For the record, I actually like the person who said that, just not what she said. Which is why I'm not pointing out her name, because I don't want any jerks getting the idea that I want her flamed or something.) Some anti-silentshippers, whom I have much experience with (being the stalwart captain of the ship), go so far as to call Kisara "evidence" that Kaiba and Serenity shall "never be." My fellow silentshippers have gone to such extremes in order to "get around the obstacle" of Kisara as claiming that Serenity is Kisara's reincarnation. This is preposterous, and it's kind of disheartening that they feel the need to stretch so far.

Here's what really bothers me about the whole thing, though-- Seto Kaiba and Kisara are not actually a canon couple.

You read right. And I'm not insane. Kisara's in love with Priest Seto, not Seto Kaiba. Kaiba is Priest Seto's reincarnate, sure-- but he's not Priest Seto himself. Are Yugi and Atem the same person? All evidence points to NO. In Yu-Gi-Oh, reincarnation is not resurrection. If Seto Kaiba is fulfilling some destiny, it's because Priest Seto is using him, by proxy, to get the job done. Kisara herself says, "you're like him, but you're NOT him." And even more than that? By the time Priest Seto would have died, he and Kisara were actually a merged soul. THAT soul is the one that would have been reincarnated, which is how Kaiba still had a Blue Eyes as a Ka. (The Shipper's List agrees with me: "blueshipping" is Kaiba/Kisara, "Mizushipping" is Priest Seto/Kisara.)

Which, in a way, makes Kisara Seto Kaiba's mother.

Give me a few moments, I need to get over the squick factor before I can continue.

Kisara has no direct reincarnate counterpart, but Kaiba decorates all his stuff with twisting, twining Blue-Eyes White Dragons. He feels a direct affinity for it. Priest Seto had no relation to the beast until he fell in love with Kisara. You can call that a sign that Kaiba remembers the romance somehow, or you can see it as something deeper-- Kisara living on within Kaiba himself. He's like her child. I, personally, find that a lot sadder and more touching, especially since we have no real hint of what his biological mother might have been like. (There are going to be photographs shown of her in Game of Dreams. I intend to make her look rather like Kisara, for the reasons given.)

Now then-- because Kisara has no direct counterpart, making one for her is essentially creating a fancharacter. I've mentioned elsewhere, I don't care for OC pairings, if I can help it.

So I'm going to stick to silentshipping, thank you.

Magic Light: Page 31-Bonus Tabloid

2009-07-03T18:34:00.000-04:00

DANG, I need to not make goals for when I'm gonna post these things (I had the goal, I'ma post a commentary blog once Magic Light's DONE, not sooner. Dippy GDG, DIPPY!)

SO.

In the previous commentary, I promised stripey socks, and on Page 31, I delivered! I don't know if there's something in the Domino HS dress code that forbids girls from having interesting variation between their clothes or something, but it's actually a little annoying. The boys have all sorts of variation-- the studious, repressed, and straight-laced wear their uniforms like they're supposed to, the slacker kids wear their jackets open, Yugi gets away with a black shirt and a leather collar, the little punk, but the girls? The girls all wear their uniforms exactly the same. Except those chicks hanging around Kakenura or whatever his name was (the false seer guy from the manga) who were wearing priestly accrouments over their uniforms, and that doesn't count. XD

Which makes absolutely no sense, because girls are crazy about accessorizing and wearing cute stuff. XD

ANYWAY. I also love Yugi's expressions in that page. I think he swings between being amused with or put off by Serenity, probably because she's so like Joey, in her way. (lol)

I confess, Mai's legs are too long in Page 32. This used to be a real problem for me, but I'm working on it, and when I pay attention it's not too big a deal.

I like designing outfits for her, though. For some reason, Mai's outfit esthetic comes naturally to me (which is odd because you couldn't catch me dead in those skirts.) Probably just 'cause I like looking at her.

Yes, I'm an extreme Mai/Joey fan. What's there in the series is the only real "out" love story Yugioh GOT until Jessie/Jaden (I'm mostly kidding) or perhaps Jack/Carly (I'm not kidding at all.) I'm the last person to say that "evidence" is really a reason to support a pairing, but I like what the series writers did with it. It was beautiful. It was only missing an ending.

And anyway, you know after the Doom saga parting Mai was going to come running when she heard about Joey's accident. :3

I admit: I may be writing this, but Page 33 STILL had me muttering "it's about damn TIME you told her, you big jerk." XD Also, that nurse's expression was even funnier in the sketch for this comic. Maybe someday I'll scan it and post it in YnY's scraps or something.

Also, I don't know how, but Joey always ends up being oddly eloquent when he needs to be. That's probably part of why I love him. (Mai too. Who can resist a goofball who has the ability to suddenly transform into Shakespeare?)

Pages 34 and 35 were really fun to do. I love writing Kaiba being sad, and I love writing Serenity tripping over her own words. Ironically, Page 36 was originally a last minute afterthought-- I was going to leave Seto and Ser hanging at the lines "thank Mokuba for the locket" and "Ehh!?" And it turned out to be one of the best pages of the entire thing. Mokuba's been great throughout the whole story; I should really buy him a parfait.

Kaiba's expression was just so awesome I made it into an icon. XD (Feel free to use it, just make sure to point anyone who asks about it back to me!)

Yes, Mokuba set the Batman ringtone specifically to his brother. He considered a James Bond theme briefly, maybe Mission Impossible, but after a lot of snickering about how there's no WAY Kaiba gets that much action, he settled on Batman instead. XD

Also, that kid wasn't actually intended to BE anyone, but as someone pointed out, he DOES look something like Leon Schroeder. I have no problem with this at all. I think Mokuba and Leon would have an easier time hanging out with each other than they would with other kids their own age.

Téa is reading The Book Of the Dead in page 37. Sadly, due to angle and her arm, that wasn't entirely clear. ^^; I have the same feeling toward the covers of these things; I had this cute idea that all the Game of Dreams covers would have cards on them that represented an overlying theme of the chapter (Magic Light's was Yu-Jyo) and I've gotten almost finished with the next cover and you can't tell what the cards are at all.

FYI, because (I can't believe I DID oh Bastet) I've actually had issues about this before with other people, I'll say it right now: The Book of the Dead is the English name of Coming Forth By Day, a collection of spells and a guide to the Eqyptian afterlife. It is NOT A FICTION PIECE they based The Mummy on. They based The Mummy on a novel (or maybe it was a play) called The Mummy.

For Ra's sake.

I like Bakura in this sequence. Especially his expression right here from Page 38:

That looks way better than it has any right to. I think not being worried about being randomly taken over is good for the lad, he's got a much better idea what's going ON now. XD

Serenity's behavior from Page 39 on probably surprised a few people, but I got mostly positive feedback so that's fine. XD I actually see it as perfectly in character. Joey's mad at Mom, Serenity's mad at Dad. Serenity is MORE mad at Dad when Tristan comments that, hopefully, he won't have anything to throw on hand. Serenity also wants to be like Mai when she grows up (and to be honest, squeaking in like a mouse WOULD have gotten something thrown at them. Scaring the pee out of him probably was a better idea. XD)

I like Serenity's plaid skirt.

And on Page 40, we see what my design for Mr. Wheeler looks like. I sort of worked backwards from Serenity and Joey and took out anything they more likely got from Mom. My Mr. Wheeler is blonde. He's also named Jonathan. XD (Because if they got "Joseph" out of "Jounouchi," why shouldn't I get "Jonathan" out of it?) I love how bewildered he is.

Of course, Ol' Jon ain't taking threats on his beer lying down, but Serenity ain't taking threats on her person any less seriously. XD The only other thing I have to say about Page 41 is that, from time to time, I work as a bagger. I promise I've NEVER put anything that ridiculous together-- but I HAVE seen other people do it.

Page 42! I have no idea who that guy is! It doesn't matter! Yugi's making mincemeat out of him!

When Yugi says "sorely," he means it. Feel the fear, goggles wearing fool! FEEL THE FEAR!

XD

As for the Bonus Tabloid, you can mostly draw your own conclusions. It's there to be funny. There's going to be at least one for every story of Game of Dreams. I don't know if they're all going to be issues of The Big Eye, though. One thing about the secondary cover article, however? The one that's headed "BOUGHT OFF???"

Still can't see it? Look a little closer. Closeeeerrrr..... EGADS! That's a KaibaCorp symbol on that paper! Kaiba gave Mrs. Wheeler his business card!

(Well, he had someone pass it on to her, but still.)

Character Study: Seto Kaiba

2009-06-15T20:29:00.000-04:00

Approximate Age: (by the Japanese anime) Fifteen to sixteen
Character Archetype: The Wounded Antihero
Probable Element and Alignment: Light, Chaotic Evil (pre-Mind Crush) Lawful Good (post Mind Crush.)
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: He tends to have somewhat clipped speech, and he also tends towards rude manners of address. He's not very good at talking to people.

Kaiba is one of the easiest characters to write out of character. He's one of the (cough) most studied characters in the fandom and one of the least understood ones at the same time. As Eric Stuart would say, he's a pretty deep guy. It's interesting that we the fans, who supposedly have deeper insight into the world of Yugioh than the characters should, don't seem able to understand him any more than the other characters do-- he's often cast as either evil, the romantic "bad boy" or simply as the prick everybody loves to hate, but he isn't actually any of these things.

I tend to see Seto Kaiba as being one character very slightly fractured into two, in the way that Bruce Wayne and Batman are presented as being the same person but act very differently. In the case of Batman, Bruce is the mask, Batman the brutal true personality. In the case of Kaiba it's a bit different, because both aspects of his personality are equally himself.

I will refer to the two halves as "Seto" and "Kaiba," which is what I do when writing narratives anyway. XD

Seto is a tortured, frightened child. He's terribly sensitive, easily hurt, insecure, and extremely needy. Kaiba is the mask, the protective, badass outer layer that takes on a persona not unlike that of James Bond-- without the sex, because even loveless sex would allow another person too close to Seto. People can have relationships with Seto Kaiba based on one of the two personas or both. They aren't totally separated from each other but they're different enough that he can switch back and forth to an extent.

This can easily be traced to his chaotic childhood-- He grew up crooked because somebody kept breaking him bit by bit as he went. (I actually have this theory that his biological father accidentally started the process by constantly telling him to buck up and be strong.)

His only adult relatives (so says the manga) basically threw him and his brother away the minute they had gotten through the money his parents left behind. It's possible-- and sadly, somewhat probable, that they didn't even get through the money. He lived daily with the constant threat of separation from the last person left to him (it's little wonder he was desperate enough to cheat Gozaburo in order to get adopted.) And then it turned out that the man he himself had chosen was a psychotic and abusive jerk, if not a sadist. Who wouldn't be a little twisted after all that?

The other aspect of Seto Kaiba's character that makes him difficult to pin down is this: He's dynamic, and part of that changing character shows in that his two halves slowly meld together as the series progresses.

In the beginning of the manga, the only part of "Seto" that we see is the oversensitive part. "Kaiba" is almost entirely driving the boat, and that's what makes early manga Seto Kaiba so insane and bloodthirsty. What I find fascinating about early manga Kaiba is that Atem-- psycho, wrathful Atem, not the noble king he is by the end of the series-- has mercy on him TWICE. Yes, first he made him "experience death" and then he tears the poor boy's mind into pieces, but both times it's something he intends his adversary to learn and grow from. This is the man who came closer than anyone (excepting a certain gunman) to actually MURDERING Yugi and his friends, and Atem still has pity on him.

Because by the time Atem applies the "Mind Crush" (or whatever you choose to think of it as), Seto Kaiba is such a scarred and twisted human being that the only way to fix him is to shatter him, so that this time maybe he heals right. (This is even pretty close to what Atem tells Mokuba in the comic.) Even in the Duel Monsters anime, this is more or less accurate. As Atem says there, Seto is searching for himself.

In Duelist Kingdom, he's balanced more between the two (and this is fairly clearly authorial intent, if you HAVE read enough of the manga to be aware of the "inner puzzle" symbolism that originally went with that.) But we see much more of "Seto:" we see him hurting, loving, and even trusting Yugi so far that he's willing to risk death for it-- and also suicidal, since he doesn't seem to mind the idea that Atem MIGHT kill him after all. I personally think that one of the factors that brings Seto out so much more strongly in Duelist Kingdom is that Pegasus somehow got more past "Kaiba" than anyone before Mokuba, and so his betrayal hurts more deeply. (Consider how important Duel Monsters was to young Seto, and the fact that Pegasus essentially allowed this broken child to directly influence the way the game itself was played. That must have meant a lot.) I tend to see Kaiba's reaction to Pegasus later as that of someone deeply dissappointed in a personal hero.

In Battle City, he's starting to settle into being both Kaiba and Seto at once-- and the Kaiba aspect of himself is also a bit calmer, the Seto aspect a bit stronger. We see a lot less drastic switching back and forth. He doesn't scream or yell or throw people around when he's ticked off at them, either. (Except when they need it.) He has fun from time to time. During the anime's Noa arc and with the destruction of Battle City Tower, he symbolically and literally defeats Gozaburo and leaves him behind forever. During the Noa arc, the anime watchers get to understand why he is what he is, and his relationship with his brother becomes stronger than ever. (I'm sure I haven't gone enough into his relationship with Mokuba, so far as certain of you are concerned, but I feel that's actually better discussed in Mokuba's essay.) As far as the comic is concerned, this state of affairs is enough to let us, the readers, know that he's going to eventually be okay.

In the anime, of course, we get about two seasons more of Seto Kaiba character development, and for those of us who enjoyed that part of the anime (for one, me) Kaiba's behavior was one of the main points of enjoyment. He becomes closer to Yugi and company, for one, and betrays the fact that maybe, just maybe, he actually has warm human feelings for them. Note the scene in which the Yugi clan is running away from the possessed rats. Several times he keeps Tristan from dropping Joey's soulless body, at one point even dragging Joey onto a fire escape and then holding Tristan up long enough for the rats to pass by. His hissy fits are also wonderful-- the hissy fit about Yugi losing to Raphael (so that's how Kaiba acts when he's dissappointed in people), the panic attack at the discovery of Paradius (what else would you call that?), and that last delicious, encouraging jab at Atem from the dub-- "You'd better not screw this up." YES, it's a jerky thing to say, but it's also a word of encouragement. Kaiba's not very good at talking to people, remember. And, of course, the subplot involving Alister, deliberately set up to be Kaiba's mirror, is terrific. Kaiba displays pity and compassion for Alister-- not because he deserves any compassion, but because he needs compassion, and Kaiba has compassion in him to give. He's not a romantic hero, but he's hardly evil, and he's much more than just a mouthy prick.

The most important piece of character development in the anime after the Atlantis arc, I feel, is the reaction he has to Yugi's proclaimation that Yugi will be dueling Atem. (I am glad he's in the AE arc in the anime, of course, but mostly because that gives a sense of closure in that he finally understands his role more fully.) He wants to duel Atem, he says, because he was the one who should beat Atem. But what Kaiba says is rarely exactly the way he feels. He wants to duel Atem because not dueling Atem feels like he won't have properly said good-bye. Atem is as important to him as Atem is to the rest of the group, and his behavior here is what proves it.

This brings up one more important aspect to Kaiba when it comes to writing him in character. Kaiba almost never says what he feels. He keeps silent at times that most people would feel a need to say something. When he does say something, he often sounds like a jerk even when he's not trying to be. This makes his facial expressions fairly important, and I personally often finding myself writing what I WOULD have him say, if he said things, and then taking it out, simply because it works better when I know what's going on in his head but don't reveal it.

One last note, and this being on the interaction between Kaiba and Joey: I get the very strong impression that Kaiba thinks Joey is hilarious. This is why he picks on Joey; not because he hates him, but because Joey is fun to pick on. Except when he landed at Duelist Kingdom, and then he was picking on Joey because, quite frankly, Joey was being a jerk at the wrong time. Eventually he and Joey are essentially friends; more on this in Joey's entry, I'm sure.

Final Distillation:
Kaiba is a collection of extremes.
Kaiba is dynamic and becomes a more stable person through the series.
He is a jerk partly because he has no social skills, but also partly because he really is just a jerk.
He still has warm human feelings anyway, and can be somewhat needy.
He's actually rather fragile, at the same time that he's tough as nails.
He rarely says what he means, and often says nothing when most people would.

Feel free to comment on this and tell me whether you feel I've left something important out, or if you think I'm completely off base, or even if you agree with me. Comments can be made through email or right here, since I do believe anon-comments are enabled.

Wargh

2009-06-13T14:58:00.000-04:00

I need to post more.

This will happen.

Unfortunately for me, the local station that airs the 5Ds dub has moved it to 7:00. 7:00 AM.

This is too early for me to be up in the morning. I got up at 9:00 three days in a row and actually feel sick because of it.

Fortunately for you, me ducks, this means I have to be less passive about getting my "sort of Kazuki Takahashi style art and YGO characters" fix. Which also means I'll have an easier time being more active with both the blog and the comic.

Yay!

There are three pages left in Magic Light. The next story, which shall be titled "I Hear Little Voices" (either Hear Little Voices or just Little Voices for short) should be of comparable length, depending on how many pages I add or compress, but I'll try to get it out more consistently.

There you go. A blog update. (wanders off to eat food)

5Ds Batman ninja boyscouts in FUZZY VESTS OF DEWM

2008-11-14T17:50:00.000-05:00

Several things I want you to note here:

Yusei, Crow, Kiryu and Jack apparently used to be members of the Batman Boy Scouts.

Their uniforms were terrible.

Turning into a dark signer obviously has made Kiryu prone to laughter-related seizures.

Yusei, Crow, Kiryu and Jack don't actually age, or else they're all a lot older than we were previously led to believe. How many things did they do while looking that exact age?

I suppose I can forgive them if they were, say, fifteen when they did the Batman Boy Scout thing, and they're like, eighteen or nineteen now. But for Yugi's sake. Characters in Yugioh used to look differenter than that at differenter ages!!!

Anyway, believe it or not I'm horribly amused, especially at the whole ninja scatter thing toward the beginning of the clip.

Fandom Rant: A slow descent into madness, I tell you

2008-11-03T19:44:00.000-05:00

One of my biggest problems about the world that GX makes the YGO world into is that it legitimizes one of my oldest brother's* main complaints about the series as a whole-- that is, "Why the heck are they making such a damn big deal out of a card game?!"

In YGO:DM, it mostly makes sense, most of the time. In Duelist Kingdom and Battle City, they're in the midst of tournaments, both of which have enourmous stakes tied to them. In Noa's arc, it's like Noa is restricted to some sort of "game engine." During the Oriechalchos saga, the villains have a scary magical weapon they can use to FORCE people into dueling them. AFTER the Oriechalchos saga, it actually stops being so much about cards. (And the Grand Prix tournie is really just sort of a cool-down romp compared to Duelist Kingdom and Battle City, even WITH Zigfried von Shroeder hacking into KaibaCorp's computers.)

(And in YGO:TM, the card game was really mostly such a big deal because KAIBA IS INSANE. I know it, you know it, we all know it. Kaiba is not constrained by our definition of what is meaningful or meaningless because he's obsessed.)

In GX, there's some implication that there are tournaments in the big dueling leagues, but you could easily claim there aren't, because of Kaiser's depressive stage-- that is, he's mainly moping that his sponsors are leaving him, not that he's getting knocked out of tournaments left and right. This might make more sense if they had somehow made explicit that the tournaments worked on some sort of system that rewarded a high win rate instead of constant winning streaks, like professional football. Instead, they let you wonder about what exactly Kaiser talking about sponsors actually means-- and this, unfortunately, leaves open the path they seem to take for 5Ds.

I've mentioned that I enjoy 5Ds, but that doesn't mean I think it makes any sense. It's pretty clear there are no actual tournaments. Cards are treated as outright weapons, despite the fact that we have seen that nobody can summon the Seal of Oriechalchos and randomly steal souls. (And if it turns out they can, I will be distinctly annoyed.) Professional duelists don't seem to duel in tournaments at all-- show duels take place entirely due to challenges, and the living of a duelist is entirely dependant on their sponsorships. In fact, it's set up rather like professional boxing in the era of Mohammed Ali. Which is extremely wierd if you think about it too hard, which is what I'm given to doing. No matter how wrapped up in it you may get, there's still that little question of WHY? WHY does it make any sense for the police to force criminals into dueling them? WHY doesn't Yusei just whip out a pistol and shoot somebody? Why don't any of his opponents? They ARE supposedly criminals, are they not?

In DM, dueling did tend to take center stage. But regardless of how many times the Pointy Finger of Death tried to tell you otherwise, guns and other truly deadly weapons were a stark reality within that world. In the world of 5Ds, no matter how dystopian it may paint itself, the fact remains that the worst injury we've seen came about because Jack flipped over on his damn motorcycle. And he recovered from THAT pretty quickly, all things considered. (Invid wants to remind me of Goodwin's cybernetic arm. I say pfah-- that was magic.) The only people we've seen with significant ability to use magic involving cards are all signer-types. Thus, treating cards like a deadly weapon when dealing with the general populace, which does not contain a high number of signers, MAKES NO SENSE.

*When I speak of my oldest brother, incidentally, I do NOT speak of Invid. I have three brothers, and Invid is only one of them. My oldest brother is known best in the web-circles I run as "GAARDIAN," and is on an active mission to get me out of this fandom, which Invid is not. My youngest brother is younger than ME and is not known by anything on the internet, because he's only seven.

Magic Light: Page 23-30

2008-10-23T16:57:00.000-04:00

Yeah. I fell behind on some of these a little bit. OH WELL.

SO. On page 23, I drew the best Duke Devlin that I have ever drawn. Ever. Speaking of which, I was using the last few manga issues as reference for these pages, and I don't think even Takahashi is entirely sure how to draw the guy. His headband just kind of.... vanishes behind his bangs. Never to be seen again. I sacrificed accuracy to the character design so as to draw a headband I could believe existed.

Kids? Duke is a player. Serenity is not stupid. She's either very uncomfortable or insincere pretty much every time he's up in her face. Serenity knows Duke is a player.

Which is pretty much why I spit acid at the pairing. There are ways it could work, but to be quite honest I don't think Serenity would put up with it for very long. She's just too nice to tell him so and is hoping he'll eventually lose interest.

As I noted in the comments for page 24, this is pretty much Duke giving an honest opinion for once. I tend to think he mostly chases Serenity to agitate Tristan anyhow, but apparently with everything going on, he's gotten a little tired of Tristan denying that it bothers him. Or something. This is so in character I can't even puncture it in a way that makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about. (What can I say? I write more intuitively than anything.)

Yay for page 25! I used to ship those two, before I stopped shipping Kaiba/Ishizu. No, I seriously, seriously did. I can't even remember why. But I do know that any good story that considers romances seriously has to take into account all the relationships outside the romance, and this is an important one. Even more important, for the purposes of GD, than the relationship between Joey and Kaiba. Why? Because Mokuba loves his big brother desperately and wants him to be happy. I'll let you consider the implications of that on your own.

Red Eyes Plushie is awesome. He's also a little on the fat side, but that's because I was trying to consider the need for stuffings.

I don't actually have much to say about page 26 except that it was mucho fun to draw. XD

Small spoiler for page 27: Serenity is deliberately fooling herself. She knows perfectly well it was not Kaiba who would be so thoughtful as to give her such a gift, she knows perfectly well Mokuba's the considerate one.

She does not care. Right at this moment, she feels good, she knows that Mokuba is a potential avenue to spend more time in the vicinity of Kaiba anyway. And he's a nice kid.

I totally wiggle my butt like that when I'm happy. XD Picked it up from my cat.

The Ishizu of page 28 is not the best Ishizu I have ever drawn. But that's okay.

For some reason I find the line "after destiny comes paperwork" both hilarious and deeply profound.

Page 29 and page 30 make me happy for a number of reasons. For one thing, Pegasus feels completely in character. For another, he's gorgeous.

GORGEOUS.

Check out that shading around where his left eye used to be. It terrifies me. I love it. XD

(I don't consider this bragging, because I often don't have a clue how I pull this sort of thing off.)

Also, it makes me happy because I love the pairing. Whoof. Perhaps essays on such matters will rear their over-emotional heads sooner or later.

Preview for the next set of pages!

Striped socks will be seen. Joey will get a most welcome break from hospital boredom. Serenity will give Kaiba a guilt trip without meaning to. Téa will do some reading. Serenity will "reconcile" with her father. (Not really.) And then Yugi will end Magic Light with some introspective narrative. :D On to the next story!

Fandom Rant: afive dees summoar

2008-09-20T19:04:00.000-04:00

XD Yes, I know, twice in a row. When the comic updates more regularly there'll be more variety, promise.

Just really a few comments anyway: There was this very-likely-dubbed-in talk about Yusei being an insectophobe, and it was really funny because they'd all go "OMG YUSEI HE IS SO SCARED!" and Yusei was all "-_- what are you people talking about?!" (Not vocally, his facial expression said it.)

And Yusei quoted (paraphrased?) Yugi from the Panik episode of Duelist Kingdom, which was one of my favorite episodes from the Duel Monsters series. XDD He is Yugi's mindslave.

Also, whatta heck was up with the bully dude (Lenny)'s posse? Why the giggling man's hand no move?

Jack's voice is still absolutely hilarious.

Fandom Rant: AFIVE DEES first dub reaction

2008-09-13T12:37:00.000-04:00

:D

So we finally saw the first (dubbed) episode of 5Ds, the dystopian-future-tron-duelingtron-Yu-Gi-Oh.

Yusei has Tristan's second voice. Which is awesome. It's also really funny that everyone calls him "Yuse." Like Joey's "Yuge" for Yugi but bizarrely more effeminate. (If we slashed them, Yusei would totally be Yugi's uke. XDDDD YES LITTLE YUGI. He'd be in his thirties or so by now, though, so it'd be weird.)

Jack Atlas's voice is hilarious.

Jack: Ah'ma fake Aw-ssey! Ah'm sucha fake Aw-ssey yure HAID'll asplode!!!

Riding dueling is now "Turbo Dueling," which I'm sure certain lucky folks knew already. All I gotta say is, "It sure sounds less stupid to be the Champion of Turbo Duels than the King of Riding Duels." That and less...........

Less sexually charged. :P

Speaking of which I'm kind of relieved at which song they ended up with. That's probably the least homoerotic one the kids could've voted for.

Little brother (who is seven) had a real problem with that, btw. He kept going "No, YUGI is the king!"

Yukai says he loves this series, which is no surprise.

Also, "Trudge," the cop who is actually Ushio (yes that Ushio) has Dan Green as a voice actor, which is absolutely hilarious because he sounds like a very cranky Atem.

And my final part of this post is actually a wonderful SKIT regarding the opinion I've had of "riding duels" ever since they announced the idea:

Kira: So it's actually a format of Duel Monsters that encourages
driving recklessly?
Yukai: Yeah. Doesn't it ROCK?

Oi. I'm going to have a time keeping him in line from here on out.

Final analysis? Better than GX. Still not counting it in my continuity regarding YnY because GX messes like hell with the timelines and continuity and 5Ds supposedly takes place in its universe.

That and it's way too close to YnY's actual time period for that to work. XD

Fandom Rant: Dub names vs Japanese names

2008-07-17T20:51:00.000-04:00

A Rose by Any Other Name...YGO by ~Golden-Dragon-Girl on deviant ART

On the virtues of the dub names versus calling everyone their original names:

As readers of this blog may have noticed, those of us working on YnY follow what is best described as a "mixed canon," taking tidbits from not only both the manga and anime but also picking and choosing from the Japanese and English language versions of the anime.

Most significantly, we use the dub names but mostly adhere to the Japanese timeline and ages.

I am aware that many anime purists regard the preferential use of dub names as utter blasphemy, perhaps the highest form of it. I also don't give a damn, because my reasons for using the dub names are as perfectly acceptable as the reason my family uses a slightly different surname than the one we would have used in Denmark.

1. Dub names, when done well, make unusual characters more accessable to a different language audiance. When I say "done well," I mean the characters are renamed things like "Téa" (a slightly exotic but pretty and pronounceable Spanish name) or "Joseph" (a biblical name that doesn't interfere with the wordplay involved with the word Yu-Jyo) instead of the slew of weird, distinctly British names that were given to all the GX characters with American accents (except for Jesse and his southern drawl.)

2. A lot of the names Kazuki Takahashi gave characters were, quite frankly, weird. I'm not even talking about the Japanese characters. Be honest, can you imagine any sane, supposedly "respectable" American businessman naming his son "Pegasus?" "James," certainly. "Maximillion" is still a bit unusual, but it's believable. And it still gives similar connotations to what I suspect Takahashi had been going for in the first place. Don't even get me started on "Cyndia" and "Cadeline." Those are supposed to be "Cynthia" and "Catherine," and you all know it, bastards.

3. No English speakers I know but me have penetrated the deeper meaning of the name "Mai Kujaku." "Mai Valentine" may be punny, but none of us had to look at plant catalogues to get the joke. ("Mai Kujaku," or rather, "Kujaku Mai," refers to a breed of sakura tree, if I remember right. It actually has nothing to do with peacocks at all.)

4. The odd mixture of Japanese and non-Japanese names adds a multi-ethnic flavor to the culture of the series that I happen to like very much.

5. Roger Slifer was a producer of the 80's Transformers series. Anyone who helped bring that monstrosity to the attention of the world at large has earned getting a God Card named after him.

6. Because Duke Devlin just sounds way cooler than Otogi whatever-it-was. And more Irish. You have to love the Irish.

7. Changing names of characters is a time honored tradition that predates the Roman Empire. So is changing names of people when they move somewhere new, and it's a related issue.

8. Because "Honda Hiroto" sounds like a car to American ears. (E.g., to mine.)

9. Because BELIEVE IT OR NOT, they dropped a lot of the original names I hate and kept most of the ones I like. Except Kujaku, because I do like that word. But I deal with it because they needed to keep a joke in there that viewers would understand.

10. Because I'm a prick, that's why.

I admit it: listening to people whine about dub names when they should be complaining about fundamental changes to story or to characters, like making Rebecca more impressive by youthening her or making Kaiba less impressive (and somewhat nonsensical) by aging him, or complaining about inconsistent dubbing, a real problem in YGO, really bores and irritates me.

(Kaiba is made nonsensical by aging because, if he were REALLY eighteen, what's he doing in Yugi-the-fifteen-year-old's homeroom? That would imply that the great CEO of KaibaCorp has been held back in his classes, multiple times, making his status as a high school student and businessman not just unusual but bizarre.)

Incedentally, some interesting tidbits on dub name meanings:

"Téa," so far as I could tell, means "princess." It is also the name of Téa Leoni, who costarred in the movie "Spanglish," which I would say pretty much verifies its authenticity as a name.

"Joseph," as I noted, is biblical, and it means "God will multiply." This has nothing to do with my decision to give him five children, I swear.

I couldn't trace "Tristan" exactly, but it seems to be a form of "Tristram," which means "sorrow" and was the name of a knight in an old story who was torn between two women.

All the surnames of those particular characters are English and refer to occupations, as if they were following a deliberate theme when renaming Yugi's support group.

It's pretty obvious what "Duke" means, but "Devlin" is a Gaelic name that means "fierce." Rocking.

There was a kid named Underwood in my high school. I can't say I ever met him.

"Odion" means "born of twins." There are several Egyptian names that the book I found it in claims mean "born of twins," and no matter how many times I see it, the meaning of the phrase "born of twins" continues to mystify me. (His name was probably changed on account of being too distinctly Arabic.)

"Maximillion" means "the greatest."

"Cecilia" means "blind." 8X

"Alister" apparently refers to a name rather big in the occult-- It is also a form of "Alexander" and means "defender of man." His name was probably changed because the name "Amelda" is stupid. And doesn't mean anything. At all.

"Solomon" is also a biblical name, associated with the wisest mortal found in the Book, and means "peaceful."

"Serenity" and "Shizuka" apparently mean approximately the same thing, which means it was just another example of the dubbers trying to make the series more accessable to an english speaking audience.

"Mai" may be her name in Japanese as well, but it is also a Native American name that means "Coyote," a Scottish form of Margaret (which means "pearl"), and can be taken as a form of "Mary," which means "bitter." In Japanese, "Mai" means "Dance," which means that "Kujaku Mai" translates literally into "Peacock Dance." "Valentine" of course was chosen for its connotations of romance, and the "my valentine" pun, but it's actually a Latin name that means "valiant." Pretty much all of these name meanings can be taken to apply to the character, which is weirdly cool.

Approximately half of the characters in the YGO:DM dub (That's the one most of us Americans think of as Yu-Gi-Oh!) either kept some form of their original names or their dub names refer to their original names. A good majority of the ones that got their names changed have easily divined reasons the names did change. (Lip flap, lingual jokes, accessibility, and the horror of listening to American VAs mispronounce Sogakoru, which I am quite confident I have misspelled.)

In fact, it's easier to explain why the names that got changed got changed than it is to explain why Seto and Mokuba Kaiba's names didn't change! (I figure they kept them because they were cool. And, you know, they couldn't very well change the title character's name without changing the name of the show, and maybe they didn't want poor Yugi to stand alone in the Japanese name department. XD)

Character Study: Yugi Moto

2008-07-14T21:02:00.000-04:00

Approximate age: (by the Japanese anime) Fifteen to seventeen.
Character Archetype: The Cute/Little Sidekick, twisted into the hero's role.
Probable Element and Alignment: Dark, Chaotic Good
Most Obvious Vocal Quirks: He says "Yup!" a LOT.

Yugi is, as anyone who knows me well enough to hear about my childhood knows, a particularly personal character for me. He is small yet unusual enough to attract attention, shy but incapable of fading into the background, gentle and innocent yet not so naiive as people would believe. He is very smart but doesn't do as well in school as he probably could if he simply applied himself (this is a curiously American trait; one wonders how the Japanese Yugi picked it up.) He has mostly been raised by his mother and grandfather; his father is largely absent due to work obligations. Yugi has developed a healthy respect for the storytelling tradition, as he has grown up metaphorically at his grandfather's knee, listening attentively enough to random dueling advice and stories to be able to recall important tidbits while under pressure. (Exodia)

The story of Yu-Gi-Oh! can be seen as his coming of age story. Atem may act as the Superman to his Clark through much of it, but Yugi first solved the puzzle after standing up for the first time to one of the many bullies that once made his school days a living horror. (Yugi before the Puzzle was rather typical bully fodder: just odd enough to attract attention, an easy target, someone who buried himself in his hobbies and was liveliest at home with familiar people.) By the end of it, no matter what canon you may follow, Yugi had to prove that he was capable of standing on his own two legs before Atem could lay down his sword, and he does. He has gone through plenty of major events, Atem or no Atem, to do so.

One of my absolute favorite things about Yugi is his non-judgmental acceptance of everyone, even after he has delivered them well-deserved kicks to head (or Atem has) so long as they realize what the kick in the head was FOR. Sometimes these "kicks in the head" aren't so much punishments delivered as they are simple displays of mettle: all Joey needed was for Yugi to prove he gave a damn. (Same applies to Tristan.) He's not silly about his acceptance-- when Kaiba does something wrong, Yugi will still call him on it. But no matter what Kaiba does, Yugi will forgive and forget. The matter is dropped. It will not be brought up unless forced. (Yugi's rather Christ-like that way.) He might regard the other person with a certain amount of suspicion the next he sees them, but it's the suspicion afforded a dog known for biting. There is no hatred.

That last paragraph covers what I tend to think Shadi meant when he called Yugi a soul of purity and innocence. This is a common misconception regarding the character, and a common misconception regarding the meaning of purity and innocence.

A person's purity and innocence has nothing to do with their sexuality at all. Being a virgin does not make one pure, it makes one a virgin. I know plenty of people who are or were perverts at the same time as being virgins. (Myself included.) Regardless of what sexuality you may regard Yugi Moto as being, he is a sexual being. He gets territorial about Téa, borrows pornography from Joey, knows exactly what Mai is trying to do when she grabs his hands and is appropriately abashed when pressed into Vivian's chest. (Freaking out over Vivian smashing his face into her mammaries is not the reaction of a sexually naiive person-- it is the reaction of any normal person who is attracted to people with boobs, and possibly any normal person who considers boobs sexual in any way. That scene says more about Vivian than it does about Yugi.) Even losing his virginity in the course of the series probably would not have deprived him of this stellar review on his soul's cleanliness.

Yugi typically has simple desires, despite being a complex person, and it's not difficult for him to achieve personal happiness, a healthy way to be. Unfortunately acheiving his desires is not always easy: His basic, most fundamental desire after hamburgers and strategy games is for the people around him to be happy and healthy.

This desire is probably the root of his willingness to follow destiny when it calls, and to help his friends when they need him. He wants to be relied on, and he knows that someone has to do it, so he steps up. I tend to think that his willingness to be a hero, mostly eschewing the glamorous bits and happily doing the hard parts with only the occasional complaint, is an expression of the boundless love he has for everyone around him.

Yugi has probably one main frustration, and that is that he is constantly underestimated or mistaken for much younger than he really is (this even happens in the fandom, after multiple jokes are made about it and he is shown as being in High School in all the media he's found himself in.) This is also the root of his being an easy target, as he is also typically a shy person at the beginning of the series (gentle souls forced into mixed company often are by nature). If he had been Joey's height, or Tristan's (Tristan is the tallest of the main characters in the series), people probably would have left him alone in the corner after failing to coax some appropriate reaction out of him, and he'd have been described as "creepy" as well as "gloomy." Instead, he got run over. Joey calls him "girly" and many others who underestimate him gravitiate towards calling him wimpy. It is not easy in a teenager's world to be shy AND short.

As a dynamic character, however, Yugi eventually overcomes this obstacle with Atem's help. Rest assured that in the end he will be just as much a master of acting four feet taller than he is in reality as Atem was. (I'm fairly convinced he's more physically developed by the end of the series anyway.)

Yugi is also often underestimated by the fandom because, even when he's not being shy, he's just kind of quiet and lets Joey take the lead in social situations. I just think it's out of his nature to be overbearing, and that he's much more of an anime sidekick-type compared to Joey, who is more like the typical anime hero (more on this in Joey's study, of course.)

Rather obviously, Yugi's something of a nerd. He likes to concern himself with little complicated things that take a lot of concentration, like models or (ahem) puzzles. While his hair might not be a proper indication (considering it seems to be hereditary), he seems to be something of a punk as well, and if he were an American I would suggest he listens to such bands as Black Sabbath and Marilyn Manson. (We shall rely more on the fact that Atem even could find a collar and crazy belts to cover him with at such short notice. That and on the fact that he was described by a fellow wallnerd as "gloomy.") Considering Kazuki Takahashi's favorite American comic is Hellboy (so stated in an interview), and the way rock music has infused itself into the Japanese consciousness, such suggestions for his choice of music are still perfectly feasable.

There is one more important aspect to Yugi's character this essay would be woefully incomplete without: Yugi is an anchor in a storm. If it weren't for Yugi, his friends wouldn't even be friends with each other. Some of them wouldn't be friends with themselves. Once he has developed more confidence in himself, he becomes the friend his friends turn to when they need stability, and that includes Mokuba and Seto Kaiba and yes, Atem himself. Yugi becomes Atem's sanity, in fact, just as Atem becomes his teacher and guiding force. Because of his gentle and accepting nature, Yugi improves the self-worth of people just by interacting with them.

Final Distillation:
Yugi is a friend to all and a kind, loving soul, but he is not a fool.
He does not hate, despite the wounds he's suffered.
He is very easy to underestimate.
He is a dynamic character, changing throughout the story.
He is easy to please.
He is brilliant but not intense.
He does things because they need to be done.
He pulls people together.

Feel free to comment on this and tell me whether you feel I've left something important out, or if you think I'm completely off base, or even if you agree with me. Comments can be made through email or right here, since I do believe anon-comments are enabled.

Character Study: What this is

2008-07-14T20:50:00.000-04:00

I would likely not be so bold as to write as extensive fanworks as Yukai no Yugi or Game of Dreams if I did not feel I have a certain level of intimate knowledge into the characters at my disposal. (One can always tell when I've been reading Sherlock Holmes; my writing will probably carry a peculiarly Victorian flavor for the next few hours at least.)

I have never felt the need before to collect my understandings and interpretations of the characters into essay form, as it has always been all in my head. But I've noticed that I really enjoy talking about these aspects of character in forums, and that I enjoy sharing them even more. Invid has something he does called "Character Distillation," in which he strips the character down to his or her most fundamental aspects. I am concerned just as much with silly minutia, however, as I feel that these tiny quirks are what truly give a character personality, serving to humanize these fictional beings as much as possible.

Of course, we all take our own experiences and outlooks to the table, and so my understandings of these people will be different from that of not only the random fangirl or boy of DeviantArt or ff.net, but from their creator. There is nothing wrong with this so long as they come across as being like themselves in the final cut.

And so I give you: GDG's Character Studies.

A few notes on format:

While a character's age does not dicate how they will act, it does influence it, something the people who write Ninja Turtles seem to keep forgetting.

"Character Archetypes" aren't really ones you'll be likely to find in Campbell's studies of the subject, but rather are common anime character types mixed with common "Western" ones. While Japan's megamythical character set overlaps with that of the rest of the world, there are some interesting differences, and Yu-Gi-Oh! freely employs influences from both cultural universes. (It also happily employs characters of certain types in roles they rarely get to occupy.)

"Probable Element and Alignment" is sort of a weirdly mixed marker because the Alignments follow, mostly, D&D rules, while I think the elements tend to follow rules I sort of made up using the card game and the series. XD "Dark" people are more likely to be calm, smooth and collected, "light" people are more intense and hyperactive.

Vocal quirks are important when trying to achieve a character's "voice." See more about this at Invid's blog.

Final Distillation is for anyone too lazy to read the entire essay, but at the end so that hopefully you'll accidentally notice something that interests you. I'll try to keep these brief summaries.

First up, naturally, is Yugi. X3

Magic Light: Page 19-22

2008-07-04T12:04:00.000-04:00

In Page 19, Tristan comes to an interesting realization-- and Yugi shows signs of having known the same thing all along.

Like I've said before, I think of Yugi and Joey as being two of the only people in the entire series who understand Kaiba on any level.

Also, I think it's cute that Yugi apologizes for "yelling" at Tristan when most of us would have called it "stern telling off that Tristan needed."

I don't have that much to say about page 20 except that for some reason, adding lines around Serenity made the first panel much more dynamic, and that I like the effect that adding a gradient over the entire page had on the feel of the page.

I love page 21. I think it's the best page in this sequence, because of how well it shows the dynamics between the two characters (and because of how pokeable Yugi is in the first panel.)

Poke him! Poke him I say!

Also, this is the second time I've made a joke about drugs in this fancomic. There must be something wrong with me.

Of course, page 22 is good for interaction too, and I like it in part because it lets Joey's more vulnerable side out (a side of him I don't go into very often).

"Were you aware my sister has a crush on Kaiba?" is Joey's way of changing the subject to Kaiba without seeming like he actually gives a care about Kaiba (even though he does-- as I noted before he pretends to be unconscious whilst Kaiba is apologizing for Kaiba's benefit).

XD Joey thinks Kaiba is funny. Clueless, and funny.

Yugi: "I am the rock!"

(is smacked)

Magic Light: Pages 16-18

2008-06-22T20:43:00.000-04:00

This scene was a bit harder on me because I had very specific things in mind and it didn't always pan out quite right. I am pleased anyhow, though.

That doctor Téa asked for directions is totally Sephiroth. I don't know why I'm so convinced of this.

I love Téa. XD This scene was mildly inspired by several humorous scenes actually in the series, incedentally: Téa rubs her shoulders when she has to use the bathroom (Duelist Kingdom), Téa comes up with pretty decent lies when she wants out of a situation (Battle City), Bakura shows up in weird places (all the time.) I actually tend to think that, since Bakura has been shown to be very attractive to teenage girls (shown? HA!) he probably has spent enough time with them to know where a woman will probably go in a public place when she needs to be alone.

Also, it was important to me that I show some of Bakura's "real" personality showing through. He seems fairly sensitive and empathic, and without Yami Bakura giving him all those blackouts anymore I'd think he'd be more likely to take his own initiatives, too, especially with those people who stuck with him despite his being possessed by an elder god thing.

I tend to think that all this time, Yugi's suspected this but pushed it aside because he didn't want to think he was competing with Atem. (His love/lust for Téa is canon, it's pointless to argue about it because Takahashi even talks about them getting married. XD)

Also, you can practically hear his poor little heart shatter into pieces and crash all over the floor in this scene. :(

Yes, Bakura sees him and isn't telling Téa. Would you? Be honest.

For some reason I seem to like scenes with Yugi accidentally overhearing things. In half my unfinished plot bunnies there's a scene where Yugi accidentally overhears a heavy conversation. He's overheard everything from "I was in love" to "why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?" XDD

In page eighteen, Téa shows that she has Yugi's personality down. Also, the line "I thought I was done" is a reference to the fact that I don't think Téa can let this go so easily. She thought she was prepared. She thought she was finished, but she's not. In a way, I drew from my own grieving experiences for this.

I have one more panel I want to comment on:

First of all, I was listening to "Sonne" whilst inking this page, which is really just hilarious when you think about it.

Secondly, this particular line inspired this slightly slashy piece on my main deviantart:

Intoxication-Yugioh-slashy by ~Golden-Dragon-Girl on deviant ART

Intoxication
is the color of your eyes
Liberation
the promise in your smile
Give me one last day
to fall upon your arms
You are the warmth in the dark
and I am drowning
No more myself in you.
Resurrection
my breath within you sighs
Captivation
alive within your smile
I wish that I could stay
be human in your charms
You are the light in the dark
and I am screaming
Once more myself in you.

See, nothing against slash at all. XD

Pairing Crack: Whar's teh slash?

2008-06-20T20:47:00.000-04:00

Darnit, this is the wrong computer to upload an "appropriate" image from to head the blog off with. Oh well, we can edit it later. XD

There's no way to keep everybody happy when it comes to pairings. Some people only like a fic when all the pairings are "totally and undeniably canon," whatever that means, while others can't stand anything resembling canon pairings and will only read a fic if Weevil is paired up with Princess Adina from the VR episodes right after Duelist Kingdom (or something equally WTF.)

And then, of course, there's the people who can't stand slash ("gay" pairings) and the people who can't live without it.

This is a nexgen. GDG and Invid (the authors) are both very creeped out by MPreg. Therefore, there will be little actual slash to speak of between canon characters.

That doesn't mean either of us really has anything against slash. Invid doesn't like sex in his fic fare at ALL, and GDG is bisexual. All sexual relationships in YnY and Game of Dreams will not so much be shown as hinted at (sometimes very, very strongly.) We believe that, for the purpose of this story, less is more.

There will be hints of pairings that don't actually end up happening in the long run. The driving force of Game of Dreams is mainly to get everybody together that are parents of main characters of YnY. After that, pairings won't be quite as central, despite the fact that Yukai's sexual orientation seems to be Kaiba's daughter. (If you've read the preboot, you know this already. It's not a spoiler.) But slash will rear its crack-dazed head more than once in both YnY and GD, occasionally humorously, sometimes as nothing more than a whisper, and possibly for real at least once.

But I refuse to limit any two characters by keeping them solely to each other. Yes, Kira Kaiba is Serenity's daughter and GD needs to explain how a heck that happened. But Kaiba's relationship with Joey plays a major role in that, as does Serenity's relationship with Joey. Even Mai's relationship with Joey. And the same goes for other relationships that exist in this fancomic, up to and including relationships with dead characters.

Game of Dreams is not a romance about any one pairing. It's about a web of relationships both romantic and otherwise. And YnY isn't really a romance at all. It's about a father-son relationship (and about one of the most entertaining characters I've ever devised, including my original works.)

One of the reasons I arrived at some of the pairings I use, in fact, is the fact that they create very interesting relationships between the main Yukai no Yugi cast. If, for example, Joey and Kaiba ended up together instead of Serenity and Kaiba, then not only would Yukai not be all weird about Kaiba's daughter (as opposed to Kaiba's niece, which mightn't be so charged), but Kira and Ken (Joey's oldest son) wouldn't be cousins and wouldn't act like siblings. I find the fact that Kaiba and Joey's kids act like brothers and sisters to be much more interesting than an uneasy friendship or fullblown rivalry would be.

If something having to do with pairings disappoints or upsets you, I apologize. Go over the Golden-Dragon-Girl account at DeviantArt (or email at yukaimotou@gmail.com) and send me notes demanding your slashcrack there. Or your hetcrack. Or your Weevil/Adina crack. It might not work, but then again it might. But don't knock YnY for something you dislike about the canon character pairings. You'll deprive yourself of all the crazy slashy jokes we start making about three (four? five? something like that) chapters in.

What's up so far and commentary

2008-06-18T19:22:00.000-04:00

So right now we're working on the first part of Game of Dreams, which is the prologue to Yukai no Yugi and'll be in seven parts (The number of times I've written that....)

Thus far there are fifteen pages but they'll all be linked in the cover comments by the time it's done.

Now for "indepth commentary", I suppose. If you haven't read the fifteen pages yet, it'd be better to do so now.

I worry I'm going to be accused of overdoing the drama here. The first page narration only barely manages to not be overwrought, although most people seem to not care about the first page much even though I was mostly very pleased with it. XD

Is it wrong that I'm amused that the grand majority of the comments, including my own, on page two, go along the lines of "No, Joey!!" We all sound like Serenity or something. (I would post a video of Serenity yelling "No, Joey!!" but I can't find it on Yuutube and I can't remember the episode number. XDDD)

I don't remember why Yugi was in the shower in his first scene. I think I just wanted something for him to be doing. ^_^; Which means, natch, that I'm a pervert, because that was the first thing I thought of. Also I admit to being pleased with how he looks in most of his scenes; I have trouble drawing big-eyed Yugi because apparently "cute" just isn't programmed into my style or something. >D (I LIE?)

One of the important things I tried (and possibly failed) to get across in these pages is the fact that Yugi understands Kaiba-- and Téa and Tristan do not. In fact I tend to think that, other than Mokuba, Yugi and Joey (yes, Joey too) are the only people who really understand Kaiba in any way. Which is part of something he comes to realize in the background. And Yugi considers Kaiba a friend, which is why he so insistently tells him not to worry, Yugi will take care of things.

That's also why Yugi keeps asking Kaiba if he's okay. XD

It's not very clear, but Kaiba actually helped to lift Joey off the front of the car, and has blood on his clothes. That's what he's burning in a garbage can on page seven. He talks about self-therapy because his doctor has him on some medication to mitigate such obsessive compulsive behavior, and being Kaiba, he's ticked off by the idea that he'd need to take medication for something like that. I don't know WHEN he started to take the medication, but I suspect it started right after Duelist Kingdom, and that he stopped taking it at some point before or during the Doom arc, because he was convinced it was causing hallucinations. During the Doom arc he realized that it couldn't possibly be the medication causing him to see things, so he's going back on it as a trial run. XD This theory, obviously, only holds up in the dub.

If you don't follow the dub continuity then just assume he started taking it some time in the undefined past, I'm mostly joking anyway.

In page eight's dream sequence, I'm mainly referencing a line from the manga right after Death T; in which Mokuba says that his and Seto's father died "in an accident" when Mokuba was three. I strongly suspect this of being a car accident. I have not seen anything to refute or contradict this suspicion within anything canon. I'm writing under the assumption that it WAS a car accident because that makes the impact of the accident with Joey more personal.

Do note the bandaid on little Seto's cheek.

In case nobody was aware, Kaiba sleeping in means there is something VERY WRONGTM. Thus Moku-chan's concern. (I've only seen him asleep when he was actually either knocked unconscious, soulless, or both. Heee.)

In page 10, I wanted to imply (from Yugi's expression) that Tristan has been bitterly harping on this line several times already. Also, Yugi sounds like Atem (which as I note in the comment will be gone into) and Téa's just like OMG. 8O Notice her posture in the last panel, if you aren't too distracted by the evil shadow trying to eat Seto's shoulders.

If it isn't clear in the next page from the positioning of characters, Serenity is going in one direction (after Kaiba, in the direction of Joey's room) while Téa is running in the opposite, the direction Kaiba came from. One of the things that will be set up in this story arc is a sudden drift between Yugi and Téa. There were things that happened in the main anime and manga that I was unsatisfied with the resolution of, in this case, Téa's mourning of Atem. She was in love with him (so sayeth the manga outright), and being someone who's been in love with people I can't have, this is something I want to see real development and human behavior in, because I've been there.

In pages 12-15, I mostly wanted to lay the groundworks for my version of Silentshipping. I'll admit it. Anyone who's looked at the character sheets for YnY proper know that this story has Silentshipping in it. Basically, I have several things here to say about the pairing itself and how I write it:

1. Kaiba's relationship with Joey is vital to this pairing. I have committed Puppyshipping for its own sake before, but it's also very important to Silentshipping because Joey is the most important man in Serenity's life, and because in canon, I often read Joey and Seto's relationship as being love/hate/twisted fraternal. On whatever level, Kaiba cares about what happens to Joey by the end of the series, and what's happened hurts.

2. I am perfectly aware that he has no idea who she is. That's what makes page 13's second and third panels so awesome. XD

3. Yes, Serenity is crushing on him. In the VR Noa arc, during Kaiba vs. Jinzo, you can see her clapping insanely when he makes a spectacular move. She does that for Joey, but I somehow doubt she does it for Yugi. (chuckles) She blushes badly when she has to talk to him in the blimp arc, obviously screwing up all her courage. At the very least Serenity finds Kaiba both exciting and intimidating.

4. Serenity is the second person in fifteen pages to ask Seto if he's okay.

Other subjects of note in this scene include that Joey is listening to the entire conversation, is only pretending to be asleep to spare Kaiba the humiliation, that Kaiba is desperately trying to assauge his guilt, and that Kaiba is making the mistake of assuming that not being hurt means he's got no right to be upset. Also, Serenity is annoyed that Kaiba remembers Mai and not her.

Asj and I had a short discussion about how Kaiba would have referred to Serenity if he had seen her duel.

~AsjJohnson
Hmm...
Serenity should realize that Mai's a duelist and she's not. I do wonder what may have happened if Kaiba was there to see that duel she was forced into... O_o No wait, that would be a bad idea because Serenity was all whiny. ^_^" Perhaps if he saw near the end... I think Serenity got it together at the end, if I remember right... Then Kaiba would think of her as "Virtuous, mahogany-haired, Saint-Joan girl" (... that is the
name of the card, right? >_>" I think it was...) Heh. First I was going to say "cute" instead of "virtuous", but I couldn't picture Kaiba using that word - even if I meant it as "short and child-like, like Mokuba". ^_^"

--~Yukai-no-Yugi
XD Yeah, I was kind of dissappointed I didn't have enough room to write "Well NOW I know how to get his attention..." next to Serenity's head there.

Saint Joan, yeah. Virtuous doesn't really sound like him either, though, maybe just "short" or "bubbly?" XD And he'd probably say "redhead" because it's shorter. Hee.
--
~AsjJohnson
Hmm...
Well, I guess I can't argue about Serenity having brown instead of red hair anymore ^_^", because I'm pretty sure I've heard Ichigo from Bleach being referred to as having red or orange hair - and I'm still confused about that, when it's definitely blond... v_v (pretends to compare Ichigo and Ed) Ed's blond hair is oranger than Ichigo's orange hair.Anyhow... Um... was there enough room to say "I need to become a duelist"?I basically decided on "virtuous" because Kaiba says Serenity's a virtue name.
^_^" Perhaps Kaiba could just call her "Mutt-sister"? Seems more appropriate at the moment, since he didn't see her dueling. (tries to keep from laughing as I picture Kaiba calling her "virtuous Mutt-Sister" - and then tries very hard not to laugh as I picture Serenity's look, which is similar to panel seven except that she's smirking darkly as she considers how to kill him.)

--
~Yukai-no-Yugi
I actually thought of writing that AFTER I had already
written OMG, so no, sadly, there wasn't. (Sigh! XD)
Pfa ha ha ha ha!
"Virtuous Mutt-sister." XDDDD Darn you, now I've got it in my head too!
X33

(Serenity: DX Keel yuuu!!
Kaiba: What? What'd I say?)

Nah, if he did that he would have said something about Mai having a corny name.

XD If I have something wrong with me, I don't care, because I have more fun this way.

Speaking of that duel, I actually think it shows Serenity to have prodigious talent when she calms down.

And then Joey ruins the moment by letting Serenity know he's awake. Take note of his expression in the largest panel of page 15. I applaud Serenity for not losing her cool the entire scene, though.

Right now there are four and a half pages in production; three are scanned and cleaned but not shrunk.

This is a blog

2008-06-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

Duh.

This has basically been set up for behind the scenes blah about this fancomic right here. It'll probably turn into a dumping ground for things about Yu-Gi-Oh in general, too, knowing me.

And that's all I gotta say for right this second.