nenya85 - Tumblr blog

[nenya85]

before you ship something stop and ask yourself... Is this otp material? Make sure your characters are:

Obstinate and inflexible in their actions

Terrible for each other in most circumstances

Poor communicators

[nenya85]

Hmmm

[nenya85]

ive read the argument that kaiba would stay in school to beat yuugi at grades, but i don't really think this squares. i think kaiba would see yuugi's "D+ SEE ME AFTER CLASS" on his math test and laugh his way to the administration office where he files his "i am dropping out of school and you won't stop me" paperwork and never steps foot in a high school classroom again.

like i think he went to high school as some kind of boring formality more than anything else. gozaburo seems to have had him in some kind of accelerated curriculum of languages, social studies, business management, and judging by DM, STEM as well (and being some kind of STEM prodigy just makes sense for him anyway, no matter the canon; he designed the duel disk!) so in the end he's just miles ahead of any high school curriculum regardless.

in addition, "beating yuugi at grades" is like... a perpendicular exaggeration of his competitive tendencies. first of all, he knows and acts like he is the smartest person in any room he walks into. he shows no signs of wanting to prove anything in that respect. he does not feel the need to prove he's smarter than yuugi because he already knows he is. second of all, "grades" is not the same as "duel monsters." grades are, in the end, a measure of how well you can take a test. Duel Monsters means something entirely different to kaiba--it is connection, passion, a vehicle of emotion; it is rising to meet the challenge of someone else, through an antagonistic/responsive zero-sum card game, with your whole being. a grade is something you can earn by yourself--a solitary victory. someone else can also "win" at grades and it has nothing to do with you. duel monsters is something you have to play with someone else, with an outcome constructed via interactions with other people.

in other words: he dropped out of high school the end

[nenya85]

What a weird collaboration: Yu-Gi-Oh! x Sanrio x McDonald's Happy Meals?

Can barely tell Cinnamoroll is dressed as a BEWD, but I couldn't resist...

[nenya85]

Book #25!

Fic: Apep Swallows the Moon

Fandom: Yugioh!

For: Me, the author!

A rebind of my very first bind - same fic, but updated with new skills, supplies, tools, typeset, and design sensibilities! This fic is about some horrible painful body transformations (weredragonism) and ritualistic axe killings in the woods at night, so I wanted the cover and the end-papers to reflect the bloody, uncanny, torn flesh feeling. I first cut a strip of the neon red slub and lay it across the (bradel bound) bookboards; once that was glued down, I tore up the scaly paper until I had the ideal shape for the cover. The end-papers are, of course, Crepaldi.

Typesetting details below the cut!

The fic also deals with ancient Egyptian myth and magic, so the typeset has ancient Egyptian elements, like a panel from the Book of the Dead where the gods kill the demon snake, Apep, that I used for the title spread. Apep is in the odd-page header of every chapter, but each chapter has a different hieroglyph in the even-page header, reflecting a key character from that chapter: the cat, the brother, and the Pharaoh.

BEHOLD! Demon snake!

[nenya85]

Apparently tomorrow is World Penguin Day. You know what that means.

[nenya85]

'Sweet Victory' Happy 8th anniversary to DSoD! I'm so glad this series, this movie and this ship are a huge part of my life! So endlessly happy!!!

[nenya85]

HAPPY 8TH ANNIVERSARY OF YUGIOH THE DARK SIDE OF DIMENSIONS🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

8 years ago even a few weeks before this game-changing gay movie was out, I knew my life as a longtime Yugioh fan, as well as my life in general, would never be the same. I owe the DSoD a bunch: I drew hundreds of pieces of fan art; I met awesome friends both online and in person; and most importantly, the DSoD was what significantly helped me get through hard times. 🥹🥹

I tried the pixel art style this time. I'm not sure it worked the way I had intended to, but I did my best😆

[nenya85]

Headcanon: What if Kaiba had found the Puzzle?

@bifca

Sorry for the delay.  It took me a while to come up with a headcanon.

Mokuba was with his brother when they found the box.

Seto Kaiba had taken over Gozaburo’s office along with his corporation.  He’d moved in immediately and started cleaning house, his scowl growing deeper, more firmly etched into place with each file he opened.  Mokuba watched him in silence. His brother was too busy to talk and even when he wasn’t, he was distant, as though he had moved into a different time zone without leaving the room.  

Mokuba’s attention had wandered when he heard Kaiba’s sharp intake of breath.

“Nisama?” he asked, turning his brother’s title into a question.

Kaiba grunted.  He was leaning over a small box, poking at whatever was inside.

“I found this thrown into the bottom of a drawer.  I wonder what Gozaburo wanted with it.”  He held up a letter, read it and grunted again.  “One of his public relations gimmicks was funding an archeological dig.  I guess we put him off orphanages for good.”

Mokuba came over and peered inside the box.  “And they gave him some sort of puzzle as a thank you?  It looks like gold, it must be valuable… but I never saw him play with anything before… well, except for chess.  I wonder what it’s supposed to be.”

Two pieces were stuck together.  The rest lay in a heap at the bottom of the box.  “He didn’t get far, at any rate.”  Kaiba picked up the conjoined pieces and turned them over.  They’d been rammed together awkwardly.  Kaiba threw back his head and laughed.  “He only got two of them to stick and they don’t even belong together.”  

Seto worked on them for a moment.  There was something satisfying about undoing his adoptive father’s handiwork, about the way the pieces sprang free.

“There’s something engraved on the inside of the lid,” Mokuba said, tracing the hieroglyphs with his finger.

“Whoever puts this puzzle together will be granted his deepest wish,” Kaiba read slowly, wondering why he instantly knew what the unfamiliar shapes meant as though he’d breathed in the knowledge with the air.  “That’s stupid.  Wishes are for children.”  Kaiba threw the pieces back in the box and slammed the lid.  But Mokuba noticed his brother kept the box on the top of his desk.

Over the next few days, Mokuba caught his brother twisting the pieces together after particularly difficult board meetings.  On the day that Kaiba Corporation’s weapons factories closed their doors, Kaiba managed to put the first two together.  More followed, matching each milestone in the new Kaiba Corporation that his brother was building.  

As as the puzzle came together Kaiba looked less haunted.  But that wasn’t enough for Mokuba.  His brother still didn’t look happy. He looked careworn and creased and defeated by his new responsibilities in a way that Gozaburo had never managed.

Then finally, months after they’d found the box, the day came when there was only one piece left.  Mokuba looked at the almost completed puzzle.  It was easy to see that it was an upside-down pyramid now.  He couldn’t help but remember the words on the inside lid, the words his brother had discarded and forgotten.

“Can I help you put in the last piece?” Mokuba asked.

“Of course,” Kaiba answered with a smile.  “I was waiting for you.  It’s only right that we do it the same way we do everything else – as a team.”

As their fingers slid the last piece in, Mokuba closed his eyes and whispered, far too softly to be heard by his brother, “Please, all I want is for Nisama to find a friend…. someone who’ll look after him the way he does for me.”  

Mokuba smiled as he heard the last piece click into place, as if the Puzzle itself, now gleaming in his brother’s hands, had nodded in answer.

[nenya85]

We Have a Winner! Yu-Gi-Oh! DM's best character is Blankey!

[nenya85]

Happy birthday to Honda Hiroto, holder of the nerd herd’s one shared brain cell and resident beauty on duty 😎 🌸🌸🍈

[nenya85]

You know, I really want to know some of yours too! J M (and did you consider putting it in Life After Life?) T

Thanks for asking @winxhelina and yes, I meant to ask about Urban Forest Fantasy!

If any one else wants to ask (please!) the list is here!

J:  What’s your favorite fanfic trope?  Have you written it?

Does enemies to lovers count?  On a slightly more serious note, really love – both to write and to read – characters who have very good reasons not to trust, learning to trust and characters who are used to not being cared about discovering what it’s like to be cared about.

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with?  Did it turn into a story?

I once saw a doujinshi frame that showed a mini-Atem biting High Priest Seto’s hand.  I have no idea what was going on, I think it had something to do with magic gone sideways. When I saw this frame, I really wanted to write a story where a tiny Atem bit Kaiba, so I came up with an entire plot that turned Atem action-figure size, and yes, I ended up writing it and titling it (with yes another pun title) “Downsizing for Beginners.”

In “Life After Life,” I totally cleared out all my AU ideas!  I was really glad to write a Seto’s parents live AU, because I find it interesting to explore what about him might be the same and what might be different.  

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

The thing is every time I think of a trope that I can’t stand, I immediately think of a story that handled it so well, I loved it.  

[nenya85]

Prideshipping is fucking insane they're like What if I tormented you what if I saw in you something I could never have what if I destroyed your mind and gave you the chance to rebuild your heart anew what if I deemed you the only person worthy of killing me what if I was willing to do it what if I chose this over and over again what if you were my only friend in the world what if I want you to hurt the way I hurt what if I could never ever ever accept that you're gone. And their only way of communicating any of this is by playing card games

[nenya85]

If I give Kaiba anything politically/ideologically its that based on his nearly all-woman workforce and respect for Ishizu I think he is probably notably less sexist than your standard corporate officer in 90s Japan. Not because he has ever seriously considered women's experiences though. I think he simply believes that constraining people to only certain jobs based on such characteristics means that humanity loses out on the potential advances made by one who turns out to be a really good programmer or whatever, and that this aligns with his self-conception as being a man of science and progress. He has never actually spoken to a woman about non-work things for longer than like ten minutes. But Jonouchi literally told Anzu to get back in the kitchen one time so the bar isn't high

[nenya85]

H and R!

@steinbecks Thanks for asking!

If any one else wants to ask (please!) the list is here!

H: How would you describe your writing style?

This question really made me wish I’d taken a literature or creative writing class, so I’d have an idea what a writing style is.  I tried googling but came up with nothing helpful, so I’m going to wing it.  

I try for simplicity both in words and in what unfolds in the story, itself; I want the events to flow in a way that feels inevitable, as if the story could only unfold in the way that it has. 

The other thing that’s very important to me is how the story sounds.  One of the things I love about English (it’s certainly not the bizarre spelling and nonexistent pronunciation rules) is its precision, that it’s possible to find not just an adequate word but the perfect one.  I’ll usually have at least one draft where I read the story aloud so I can hear the words.

I tend to write by theme: there’s something I want to explore and the arc of the story must bend to that, in a way that feels almost simple, but at the same time, I want the words themselves, and the rhythm they achieve to feel light and almost musical. I put a lot of work into making the story sound effortless.

And I’m quitting on this answer while I’ve at least wrestled it to a draw.

R: Which writers (fanfic or otherwise) do you consider the biggest influence on you and your writing?

One thing Kurt Vonnegut once said that, “The reader has to be clever enough to put on a whole show in his head.  He has to build the sets, cast the show, put costumes on, hear their accents, see how they move, and that’s a terribly skilled thing… (my books) have a real simplicity, I think, because I’ve always been aware of the reader and (try to) make things easier.”

This has always stuck with me because I loved his approach of putting the reader at the center of the story and because it acknowledges how much each reader brings to the table.  I put a quote by literacy researcher, Louise Rosenblatt, "A story's just ink on the page until a reader comes along to give it life,” on just about everything that’s written because I feel like I’ve done my half in telling the story when I post, but each reader is a partner in closing the circle for themselves.

The fanfiction story that influenced me the most was AmunRa’s Intruders, (TW: rape) which is on FFNet.  It’s a long, epic story and it honestly made me understand that fanfiction has no limits in terms of what you can do or attempt to do.  It made me want to try to write to my own limits as well.

[nenya85]

I think Kaiba's "political" "ideology" is very easy to infer based on his words and actions and it is simply that he believes he is smarter than everyone else and that everything would be solved if he were unquestionably in charge of everything. He is perfectly happy to break laws when they inconvenience him or to blackmail or manipulate public officials to prevent them from acting against his interests; I also think that he would not hesitate to use the full force of the existing law against someone else when it suits him. Seto Kaiba hates the machinery of war and the suffering of children and wants to bring about a game-powered utopia where neither exists, but this is expressly a world where he sits as its unlimited and omniscient corporate techno-dictator.

Like, this is very text. Kaiba is skeptical and irreverent of any authority that he does not control, will seek to ignore or disregard it when he can and take control of it when he cannot; authority that does belong to him is rightful and should rarely or never be questioned by anyone else. Kaiba would like to fire god and redesign the world from the ground up, with him the fighter jet pilot's seat, and he doesn't particularly care what anyone else has to say on the matter.

[nenya85]

Just remembered that in the warehouse duel with Bandit Keith, Yugi and Jounouchi risk their lives to save the Puzzle when the warehouse catches on fire because an ordinary fire could destroy it. Mount Doom FTW!

SUPER MEGA NERD POLL TIME

Just watched Honda chuck the Millennium Ring into the forest surrounding Pegasus' castle and said *out loud cuz I'm home alone* NAH BRO THAT AIN'T GONNA CUT IT and then began to wonder... what would?