#top ten most morally grey deities in the world

[camping-with-monsters]

I’m doing these fully rendered half body-ish shots of some of my ocs for a mutual server art collab event but here’s my babygirl (literally) Einin and my menace idiot bird godlike Cuckoo :)

[entamewitchlulu]

Arc V Month Day 4: Favorite Characters

A-HAHA OH GOD WHAT A HARD CHOICE, ok here are my TOP TEN: under the cut for gifs and length lol

10. Yuzu Hiragi

What a QUEEN.  Love her drive and initiative, her unwavering strength, her growth, her self-confidence and ability to realize where she needs improvement and then seek that improvement out, and her unwavering trust in her friends and loved ones.  What an incredible girl <3

9. Sora Shiunin

MY CHILD!!!  I just love this terrible little gremlin.  I got the sense that he would be an antagonist basically from the moment I saw him, but I didn’t expect them to give him such a lovely about-face back to the heroes the way they did.  His internal conflict and eventual hard turn into the hero’s corner was really beautiful to see, and he has some INCREDIBLE card themes as well.

8. Yuuri

LOVE this terrible goblin, oh my god.  My trash son.  All funnies aside, though, Yuuri is literally not only one of the most entertaining antagonists I’ve ever seen, but the little bits we get about him are just enough to craft a rather interesting, if depressing, picture of his backstory and how he turned out the way he did.  He’s pretty much got everything: meme faces, fun banter, an incredible voice actor, is one of those chaotic evil villains which are my guilty pleasure, but has a really solid foundation to explain why he is the way he is, without taking unnecessary time to overexplain it.  His character just kind of bubbles up through his behavior, and I want to be able to write characters like that.

7. Tsukikage Fuma

It was such a surprise to me that Tsukikage not only ended up being as well-written and involved as he was, but just how quickly he jumped up onto my top ten.  When he was first introduced, I really just thought he would be a mostly ignored side character -- but he quickly proved himself to be one of the most competent members of the team.  And not just competent, but with character depth, too: seeing his relationship with Sora in the wake of losing his brother develop was such an amazing mini plot that the story could have easily skipped over, but decided to make into important character moments.

6. Grace Tyler

Ok.  I’ll be honest.  She’s mostly here because I’m Gay.  But okay, gorgeous character design + exactly my type of fictional evil lady aside, Grace is really interesting to me!  She and her sister came onto the scene as total villains, but while Gloria took some more doing to get herself on Yuya’s side, I found Grace’s pretty much chaotic neutral personality where she just follows what she finds interesting rather than having any specific loyalty to Academia to be super endearing, and honestly, her fangirling over Yuya is kind of adorable.  Same, Grace, same.

5. Ray Akaba

WE STAN A QUEEN.  Okay, for as little screentime she gets as herself, Ray is honestly one of the coolest characters in the show.  She was just an ordinary girl who decided to take on Card Game Satan without even flinching, rather than the deity we had all thought she would turn out to be, and if her incarnations are anything to go by, she was a headstrong, tough, but caring girl who really, really loved the world she lived in, and was more than willing to put her life on the line to save what she loved.  That’s heroism.

4. Rin

I really have no idea when exactly it happened that Rin shot straight up to the top of my fave Arc V girls, but I’m not complaining.  She has probably one of the most appealing designs in the show, an incredible archetype that needs more cards, and she’s just?? Cool?? (no pun intended lol).  She’s got a bit of the nagging girl stereotype in there, but the fact that it’s likely born out of a very understandable fear of losing Yugo especially in the kind of society they live in, it makes sense and adds a sense of tragic romance to Rin’s character.  She’s a powerful person living in a world that wants to break her down, decided to become hard to deal with it, even if that sometimes means being mean to the one person she truly cares about in order to keep him safe, if only that means that he can stay soft where she can’t.  Rin, like Yuuri, has a lot of depth to her character that comes out in very small, underlying tones, and I think that’s why I became so invested in piecing together her story.  And anyway....her possessed evil form is really cool sdkfja;s

3. Reira Akaba

Can I get a whoop whoop for literally one of the most awe inspiring character arcs I’ve ever seen in a kid’s shonen anime???  I knew I was going to like Reira from the beginning because my internal desire to take care of small cute thins went off like an alarm the minute they were introduced.  But then Reira had one of the most powerful arcs I’d ever seen?  Watching Reira change from a shrinking flower too afraid to express themself, into a badass taking out 3 people at once in a single turn, to LITERALLY THE SAVIOR OF THE ENTIRE WORLD, was jaw-dropping.  Who would have ever thought the little sibling character would be the one to save the world?

2. Reiji Akaba

My love for him has only grown exponentially the more time passes.  Reiji hits every single one of my buttons: he’s a morally grey, yet still firmly heroic character.  He is strong-willed but keeps his feelings lowkey.  He’s a child who had to grow up too fast, learned to hide what he was feeling until even he didn’t know, all for the sake of protecting what was important to him.  His choices are inscrutable to others, seemingly callous or even cruel, but underneath all he is is a teenager trying to do the best he can with what he’s given, forced to give in to collateral damages he doesn’t want because he cannot see any other way to protect the most people possible.  He’s honestly a tragic hero in a way, and in a very different show, he might have ended up differently.  But his arc ended up being one of heroism in the end, and without him, the world probably wouldn’t have been saved.

1. Yuya Sakaki

Y’all have been here long enough, you knew who was at the top.  What can I say about Yuya that I haven’t said already?  He’s such an incredibly powerful character with an incredibly powerful arc.  His journey from depression to conviction is one that will stay with me for the rest of my life.  Watching him grow, learn, and reach out to others, bringing others together through his convictions, was a life-changing experience for me.  I aspire to be like Yuya as much as I can, and to bring love and smiles to the world around me.