#dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

realizing the barian symbol on peoples foreheads was literally the mark of the beast why was all of zexal ii just the book of revelations

ive been thinking about this ask for like a week now. HELLO.

#THEY CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT (ZEXAL BIBLE MOMENTS) #yugioh zexal #don thousand #anonymous #ygo posting #asks #god. yes ok v*ctor could also be a stand-in for the second beast but im using girag cuz HE DID ALL THE MASS MIND CONTROL FIRST!!! #AND HES GOT THE HORNS!!!! #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

Sorru to throw bullshit into here but its late and Im looking at Z-Ones DL portrait while I grind and does. The tip of his helmet look like Stardust Dragons nose or am I that tired. Also I juet realized he made the life support machine out of part from the replica of Yuseis runner and I'm kinda quietly losing it like he -cant- break the forces hes tied himself to anymore bc its a part of whats literally and figuratively keeping him alive I love ygo

NOW HOLD ON ANON YOU MIGHT BE COOKING HERE

actually. hang on lemme just. flip that dragon.

ah....sits with my hands in my lap and gazes out the window pensively...............

like i wanna say im a solid 92% certain this is just a design coincidence probably, but goddamn if it isnt a cool one. The way Z-one has tied everything related to Yusei to himself even beyond just Factkin Plastic Surgery. He doesn't even wield Stardust anymore but its ghost still lingers. Another facet lost to time.

also GRAAHH youre so right re: Z-one's life support contraption. I think about the way it deliberately resembles Yusei's runner (if not being outright built from it) SO much...God clings to an identity that isn't his so hard he would die without it. COOL !

#no need to apologize friend i am always delighted to shake z-one analysis around like an overjoyed dog with a chew toy #ygo posting #asks #anonymous #dana's ygo bible study #iliasterliker9000

[cyberdragoninfinity]

I loooooove reading your yugioh zexal thoughts, do you have a favorite piece of zexal symbolism?

AH THANK YOU!! 🥺 always means a lot when folks enjoy my yugioh chatter and ramblerants on whatever's got my brain in a vicegrip this time.... zexal is just sooo especially good for analyzing and thinking about they put SO much in that bad boy. So so many deliberate choices in there.

My FAAAAAVORITE piece of zexal symbolism is everything re: the Seven Barian Emperors paralleling the Seven Princes of Hell in demonology--I was really into classical demonology back in college and it was like getting long lost knowledge slammed back into my brain at mach speed. ESPECIALLY how it relates to Vector.

Like. It's pretty clear Vector's meant to invoke the demon Beelzebub, and it makes me absolutely insane. The way Beelzebub is deeply associated with flies/straight up known as the Lord of the Flies/occasionally considered leader of the "Order of the Flies" --> Mr. Heartland's fly motif and his acting under Vector's command. The way Beelzebub is often depicted as one of Lucifer's chief lieutenants, his second in command, a prince of Hell and sometimes even wielding more power than the Devil himself --> Vector acting as Don Thousand's second in command/his complex dynamic with Guy Who Is Effectively Alien Satan. The way Beelzebub is often associated with the sin of gluttony --> Vector's own gluttonous desire for power and blood and violence and chaos. THIS SHIT

It goes on and on and on!!! It's definitely the bit of symbolism that really opened my eyes to "oh my god it's Hell, it's Heaven and Hell and the Barians are demons" and I love it so much.

you almost have to wonder if Vector's bonkers expressive eyes could be linked to this 1863ish Beelzebub depiction...probably a stretch but still fun to think about ❤

#THAMK YOU for asking i love getting into ygo symbolism IT'S SO FUN!! THEY PACKED THIS CARROT WITH SO MANY SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS #vector #asks #ygo posting #anonymous #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

👀 would you care to talk about the symbolism of the other yugioh rivals

SMILES. i would love to. i cant speak for revolver or the bridge rivals yet and i havent seen enough arc-v to have a solid grasp on declan's symbolism yet but i will talk a little about the spinoff rivals i do know pretty well

as a sidenote, like. ok so Kaiba's main motifs and 'symbolism' is...well. centered around Blue-Eyes and dragons in general mostly, of course. And he kind of has those weird disease/virus and mild clown motifs that show up a little in his cards, and those are all plenty cool and they work for what seto kaiba needs to be! but imo that doesn't really get nearly as expanded upon either in the show itself or otherwise in official yugioh What Have You, compared to the guys who came later. i didnt have a good spot to say this otherwise so it's going here lol of course thats just my opinion on the matter

Chazz: anyway, so something I notice is explored a bit more with the spinoff rivals is that they'll have these motifs that actually get extended into their archetypes in the actual tcg, and it's so SO cool to see. Chazz/Manjoume has his whole iconic thunder motif of course, and he also gets that little s2 stint with the Society of Light giving him a brief Bright Distressing White motif and BOTH OF THOSE. HAVE BEEN INVOKED WITH ARMED DRAGON LV 10 CARDS

i really especially love Armed Dragon Thunder Lv. 10-- its whole effect is the Manjoume Thunder chant!!! IT'S DOING THE POSE. IT'S SO FUN.

and of course also Chazz is a character very tied to the symbolism of "weak" duel monsters, of "weak" decks, one-star monsters and the Ojamas especially, and that in general is such a fun spin on a yugioh rival. we do a complete 180 from Guy Tied Almost Exclusively to Very Powerful Dragon to Guy So Symbolically Correlated With Weak Monsters He Dresses Up as One in His Last (and one of his best) Duels. peace and love on planet finding strength in the unremarkable

Jack: ok so Jack is an interesting one. He's very symbolically tied to being the 'King' and to underworldly draconic hellfire imagery [which in of itself is really cool, and I think there's some very interesting dichotomy in there with how Jack's tied with a fiery hellish dragon motif but Yusei's tied to a cosmic heavenly dragon motif...i really love Jack and Yusei as narrative counterparts.] But the thing is, in the same vein Jack's tied deeply to Burning Soul-- the issue is 5D's also very clearly puts forward that the Burning Soul iconography is also tied (and in large part originated) with the Legendary Signer...who is. an indigenous brown South American guy.

And they. gave it to one of the arguably whitest Yugioh characters. Erm. ���� classic yugioh racially questionable moments !This is what I mean when I say the spinoff rivals have far more interesting symbolism to me--sometimes the interest is out of uhhhh not great narrative handling!! Gives even more to chew on.

Shark: yeah Shark is the one that makes me insane. There's no way to talk about him and his symbolism without getting into deep Zexal Spoilers, so. Be mindful of that. I'm gonna talk about him and Kite under the cut

ok so Shark is like the goddamn yugioh rival symbolism rivalry gold rush. You trip into the Reginald Ryoga "Shark" Kamishiro Kastle motifs and symbolism well and youre falling for ten thousand years. You cant talk about him without having to get into him also being Nasch, and then you have to talk about the Barian Emperors, and that second you get into that is the second you get sandblasted with some of the most insane symbolism yugioh writers have every cooked up.

There is so much goddamn demonology imagery and motif and symbolism jammed into the Barians I will be here all day getting into it. NOT EVEN GETTING INTO THE BUDDHISM INFLUENCE TOO. You cannot convince me that the Barian Emperors aren't supposed to correlate with the Seven Princes of Hell, alongside their deeply implied Seven Deadly Sin symbolism (and the Ursa Major symbolism too of course--it's what they get their names from!) To me I think Nasch is supposed to be tied to Leviathan especially, being an aquatic-based monster, but he could also correlate to Lucifer, playing on the pop cultural idea of Lucifer being the leader of Hell (and in demonology, typically associated with pride...pretty big trait of Shark's!)

That's just me barely scratching the surface with him. He's got the demonology symbolism, and Ursa Major motif, and seven deadly sins symbolism, and the sea predator symbolism and motif, and the royalty symbolism (good god his DUB SURNAME IS FUCKING KASTLE. THE PALER PART OF HIS HAIR LOOKS LIKE A CROWN.) And also all the insane numerology symbolism Zexal is leaking out the ears with. he's the fucking best. Why did they make this 14 year old so jampacked with this shit. it RULES.

Kite: it's so neat that Zexal has two rivals effectively. ANYWAY. Kite doesn't have as much 'oh my god it keeps going. it keeps going. oh holy shit' tier symbolism as whatever going on with Shark but he's got some stuff going on; I think it's especially cool that he and Mizar/Mizael have this "light vs. time" motif going on with their dragons, a Galaxy-Eyes arms race based on the speed of light. In general Kite's really associated with light, in the the very scientific sense, be it the way his jacket turns white when he duels, his Photon-filled deck, HELL even literally the way his eyes get damaged and his vision suffers is arguably tied to it, and it rocks. I feel like Kite is (esp since Zexal is supposed to parallel DM in a lot of ways) really the rival meant to parallel Kaiba the most, even down to having a dragon ace monster based around something bright (white dragon, photon dragon,) but I think they really took the time to expand on that inherent symbolism and show it off in even more ways narratively than we see with Kaiba. it's just cool the more i think about it the more i really like what they did with kite.

#THIS GOT LONG. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE !!!!!!!!!!!! HERE ARE WORDS #ygo posting #asks #anonymous #when i know about declan i will have things to say i am sure. for now im rotating these four guys around #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

i do think it's very funny that Kite Tenjo's grown 18 Year Old ass is beefing with middle schoolers for like a solid chunk of Zexal I, but I see people sometimes like "well theyre the same level of immature sooo XD" and.... no, not really? idk. Kite is a flawed guy, sure, his social skills are kind of dogshit and he tends to do things without thinking the consequences through, he's more emotionally-driven than he really seems to let on, but it feels like a bit of a disservice to his character to say he's as immature as a Literal 13 Year Old like Yuma.

Kite's someone who effectively had to grow up Way too fast, between having to look after his little brother AND being put through Mr. Heartland's underground duelist torture training AND being put to work with helping his Insane Scientist Dad achieve Acts of War Against Alien Heaven... of course his interpersonal relationships and ability to make friends is, a little fucked, but that doesn't necessarily correlate with immaturity on par with that of a middle schooler?!?! Kite's honestly probably one of the more mature characters in zexal's core cast; he kind of HAS to be, after years of taking care of Hart and being tasked with Ripping People's Souls Out of Their Bodies. (this is also why Chris Arclight parallels him so well...older siblings having to step up in the wake of their fathers being Deeply Unwell)

He has his moments of lacking maturity, sure, but he's also... 18. Honestly he's doing pretty alright for 18. He's not really, like, a manchild, he's just got a lot of shit on his mind. IDK. THIS POST IS RUNNING AWAY FROM ME tl;dr Kite isn't as immature as a 13 year old and to say otherwise really kind of misses a lot of how his strengths and weaknesses manifest. to me.

#ygo posting #idk just thinking about kite today. hes grown on me a lot and he's a really interesting character #also tangentially related but 'oh hes as mature as yuma so it's fine to ship them' NO SORRY. MISS ME WITH THAT SHIT!!!! #IN THE REALM OF A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP THE MATURITY GAP BETWEEN 13 AND 18 IS THE GRAND CANYON. YES HERE TOO #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

doesn't placido's route literally have you kill yusei in front of aki and then he taunts her for it like "now you know how it is to lose the one you love"?? THAT WAS SO FUCKED

OK YEAH. YEAH. ABOUT THAT. SO THAT ROUTE IS ACTUALLY PRIMO/PLACIDO'S TAG FORCE 6 ROUTE. AND I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY GODDAMN DAY.

like. the Three Emperors arent even like Tier-1 characters in TF6, they dont get unique story routes like the core cast, they dont get a unique endroute picture like in Tag Force 5, they just get plugged into the same WRGP team ups for all of their heart events. it's actually extremely hard to find adequate archiving of their events cuz, again, theyre not 'main' characters in this game. BUT FORTUNATELY. I AM UNWELL. AND I PLAYED ALL THREE OF THEIR ROUTES. AND ARCHIVED ALL THE ENDINGS. I assumed the three of them were gonna have some kind of generic endgame due to this. AND BOY WAS I. GREATLY INCORRECT.

Primo's storyline DOES END WITH HIM JUST KILLING YUSEI DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF AKIZA. AND YOURE COMPLICIT IN IT.

LIKE. DUDE??!? IN THE FUNNY YUGIOH VIDEO GAME FOR THE PSP???!?! YUSEI IS DEAD DEAD, HE DOESNT COME BACK HERE. JESUS CHRIST.

and then as if that wasn't enough, IMMEDIATELY after that the Ark Cradle descends and you have to hop on over there with Primo. And then you get there and he basically tells you how Relieved and Excited He Is To Die, and You Should Be Too.

^this fucks me up so much. that little smile. guy who is SO excited to give his life for a cause that doesn't give a shit about him. also sorry about my deck name JDFJGDF

Anyway he also talks to you about being created from despair and being made to act as God's vessel of punishment and how the people of this timeline should accept the fate God ("""God""") has decreed for them and it's honestly i think it's all one of my absolute favorite Tag Force conversations, it says SO much about Primo's character and it deserves a dedicated post of its own sometime.

And then it ends with him being like "that woman is going to come here and she's going to be pissed and it's our job to guard the Ark Cradle now" which just presents, such an amazing and haunting concept in that regard. This idea of Akiza leading the charge of the Signers to avenge Yusei's death. my GOD.

it's so fucked. it makes me cuckoo bananas. why did they go so hard on this story route that isnt even for one of TF6's main characters. Bad Guy Wins AU REAL!!

#ygo posting #asks #anonymous #yugioh 5ds #placido #primo 5ds #sorry for the tangent im normal about tag force primo i prommy (lying) #i will get into the rest of his tf6 end conversation sometime cuz it really is just a fantastic little character study... #iliasterliker9000 #anyway yeah the 5ds tag force games are fucking VIOLENT??! theres multiple routes where you just put main characters in the hospital #emulate the tag force games. my final message #tag force madness #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

I totally agree with your points about Primo and bees, because they do make a lot of sense and are more canonically accurate to him (although I personally have to confess i like the idea of him liking bees just because I like bees-)

I think however one point that could argue in favour of him at least having an interest in bees is the fact that he outright describes how bees dance, if I recall correctly. Literally no one just remembers while riding a motorbike in a life or death scenario which formation bees make when dancing, and also there's the fact that he knows bees dance. He's an android from a post apocalyptic world; just why does he knows about bees, specifically bees, of all things? Considering the state of that world, bees shouldn't exist.

Anyway, what's your take on why Primo just happens to know about bees? i mean one possibility is that he deliberately studied things to compare lester to

That's a good question! Definitely worth examining. Primo does indeed bring up this concept of bees dancing in the sub, and though he doesn't describe the specific formation, he does shares the fact about how they do it to indicate to each other where to find things (though irl it's pollen actually, not honey lol)

To me though, I think Primo having this knowledge is less out of a driven interest in bees themselves, and moreso an interest in what the bees represent to him. Primo is... a not a terribly subtle person, and he is Very Vocal about his interest (fixation, almost) in determinism and destiny. Bees are a social animal, just like humans, and to him the bees' dance is all but the beautiful instinct of a small and insignificant creature, an act they perform not out of free will but out of inevitability--just like the inevitability he believes befalls humanity in their eternal Synchro-driven self destruction.

imo with him knowing this bit of Bee Knowledge, he doesn't actually care about the bee part--he cares about the dancing. I really like his Duel Links taunt that ties into this, actually, I think it's a great little flicker of insight on this topic.

god LOOK at that fucked up toothy grin!!!! what you lookin crazy for!!!! he says it in such a gnarly mean snarly way too. And it's clear here he is Not talking about the "bees dancing to show each other where to find food" tidbit he shares in show, he could not care LESS about that part right now; he's comparing his opponent's implied struggling to the predetermined helpless act of an amusing little insect. Because that's the part he's most interested in. There's no way you can win this, destiny's already determined that. All you can do is repeat your own mistakes, Do the same dance over and over.

So why's he got this bee knowledge in the first place? Personally, I think it's probably something he's tripped over in his own pursuits of examining humanity's inevitabilities (and trying to figure out how to circumvent them and save the world) He's an android, it's not super farfetched to think that he could have just downloaded a swatch of topics related to potentially predetermined instincts of social animals into his synthetic brain, and then later gave pause to bees in particular while mid-working on the Diablo and having a Commanded By External Forces "swarm" of his own. Or, considering that. ah. well. Z-one is quick to compare those he deems insignificant to insects ( 8,) ), Primo might have picked that up as learned behavior and was already inclined to pick bees as his preferred metaphor for unimportant cogs in the destiny's great machine.

Hell, maybe even Z-one himself is the one who preprogrammed the knowledge of creatures great and small into Primo's robo-brain. 5D's is very nebulous about just how long the Emperors have been around, but I'm very firmly in the camp of "a long fucking time, and they have probably been through several time loops and alternate timelines and rebuildings," so i think there's been ample opportunity for Primo to make contact with that knowledge one way or another, not necessarily because he actively sought it out. The post apocalypse Iliaster crawled out of may have been devoid of much life at all, let alone bees, but these guys very literally have all the time in the world to become acquainted with past ecology. (also Z-one is a NERD!!!! i KNOW he would have been preserving knowledge of things like animals. something something the repressed unspoken hope that things will get better, etc. etc.)

anyway, tl;dr I think Primo's more interested in what bees and their little dance symbolize in the grand scheme of what Iliaster is working towards than in the bugaboos themselves, and I think a combination of his active efforts building a particularly bee swarm-like robot army, his own personal belief system, and also the fact he's an android himself (with no doubt an inclination towards gathering data relevant to his God's command) just made him more inclined to pick up some Fun Bee Trivia and keep it fresh in his mind. 🐝

#and hey well if it gives him some more wonderfully maddening pests to compare lester to #well that's just a bonus now isn't it <3 #placido #primo 5ds #asks #ygo posting #angel-of-sweet-revenge #dana's ygo bible study #apologies for 700 words of primo analysis. i like him a normal amount. HOPEFULLY. THIS IS COHERENT. #AND AGAIN THIS IS JUST MY HCS/MY READ ON THE CHARACTER IN-TEXT there's definitely other explanations you could posit #vis a vis where he got that knowledge from. and of course whatever hcs you could conjure. but this is my personal take! #i was sooo well behaved and good and didnt go into a 500 word tangent about primo's androidhood and his dynamic with zone and gods vs angel #and humans vs computers and machine. I THOUGHT ABOUT IT. BUT I DIDNT. yarns to weave another day #iliasterliker9000 #yugioh 5ds #long post /

[cyberdragoninfinity]

🔥 Unpopular 5D's opinion?

BROTHER THIS WHOLE BLOG IS AN UNPOPULAR 5DS OPINION. 5DS SEASON 2 NUMERO UNO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(but for realsies: a lot of 5ds fans really adamantly act like s1 and s2 fare these two completely different shows, and while i do think season 2 has many flaws and is. Clumsily Written In A Lot of Areas to Say The Least, to act like these two parts have nothing in common with each other is a disservice to the 5Ds' themes on the whole (and also season 1 has its stretches that clumsy and kind of a slog too let's be real. i know youre not going to bat for the four (4!!!!) fucking episodes of monkey duel spirit world dark signer meanderfest. come on now.)

dawg it's all about what makes someone a person it's all about how the bonds we have with one another can prevail in the face of external antagonistic forces both ancient (Earthbound Immortals) and distant future (Iliaster) it's all about how the dead can walk again in many a way it's all about how you'll always have someone at home who loves you. god i fucking love 5D's.)

#ygo posting #BOTH SEASONS ARE ALSO ABOUT COOL DRAGON. THIS IS INTEGRAL #asks #dana's ygo bible study #anonymous #idk just when i see people jokey joke like 'teehee just stop watching 5ds after s1 the rest doesnt matter!!' IT BOILS MY BEETS A BIT #THERE IS SO MUCH WORTHY OF MERIT BACK THERE IF YOU CARE TO LOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cyberdragoninfinity]

so the thing with the Three Pure Nobles' routes in Tag Force 6, they all are effectively the same set up (same set of WRGP duels, same 'endgame' (i.e. the Ark appearing)) but their Team 5D's opponents in the last round are all different, and then once you GET on the Ark Cradle these three just start saying the most harrowing shit at you and you can't leave and it's been in my brain for like 6+ months

they each make it very very clear to you how aware they are that theyre like.... not people, they're mechanical Things born from a moment of Agonizing Despair. Created by someone else.

^I wonder if him talking in first-person pronouns when describing the past is a fan translation choice or if this really is a situation of him being so distressed that Aporia's memories actually feel like something tangible and real he was There For. 8( (since it's established that Emperors learning theyre parts of someone else is a fairly recent happening--those memories were sealed off in their programming prior to Primo getting ripped in half)

Anyway with Primo you see how this burdened knowledge of being built from Literally Some Guy's Trauma is bleeding into his entire belief system (which is already kind of scrombled to begin with)

GOD. GOD!!! I feel like too often I see people characterize Primo and his cohorts as 1:1 copies of Aporia's various life stages (or literally them having been once human and "made" into robots later,) and/or as beings completely separated from Aporia entirely, and neither of those takes are really all that correct!! The Emperors are more like slightly off photocopies of Aporia, gijinkas of the worst moments of his life. They're not him, BUT, his memories are what made them, they're vessels for carrying his despair, and Aporia's themes and motifs are still baked into them at the very core. I've gone off before about Apo's ouroboros motif and this is one of the rare times YOU SEE IT SHOW UP WITH PRIMO TOO!!! IT'S CYCLICAL SUFFERING ALL THE WAY DOWN WITH THESE GUYS

You also get this really moderately distressing glimpse into how dedicated to the Emperor's 'God' (Z-one. Just Some Guy.) Primo is (and also how he considers his sword to be a great power Z-one has blessed him with, which i just think is cool. (^: archangel moment !)

he is SO hyped about purveying God's will with you!!! Immediately after this is when he starts revealing he's ALSO really hyped about getting to finally die in the name of Iliaster's mission, which I talked about in my other post about this route.

aahhaha...that's real cool buddy <:)....... <8,)

Anyway since this story event starts with Primo just killing Yusei in front of Akiza, she's then apparently approaching fast on Primo's location with the rest of the Signers, and it's all but stated that you WILL be taking care of that with him.

JUST. HIS GNARLY LITTLE SMILE SPRITE GETS ME HERE SO BAD. THE CACKLING. guy who was programmed to go to the ends of the earth for another man's cause. guy who fully believes in inflicting the despair that he's made of upon his enemies (suffer just as I have <;/3) mechanical avenging angel. God's specialest living weapon. there is NOTHING in TF6 that indicates finishing Primo's heart events will culminate this. he's so fucked up. it rules

#ygo posting #yugioh 5ds #tag force madness #placido #primo 5ds #long post sorry HFDHGUG i have so much to say about this particular chunk of tag force 6. ouroboros motif moment!!! #primoplacido is a miserable permanently 19 pile of wires and metal who wants to be god's bestest favorite angel #so he can save the future and then immediately die about it. i love him so much. i could talk endlessly about him #anyway i have an ask about lester's tf6 route i'll talk on that one in the future. it is also. emotionally difficult <3 #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

god the Three Pure Nobles/Three Emperors of Iliaster are so fucking funny. what if you were on your deathbed and you begged your best friend/old man boyfriend/the other last living person on earth to make robotic gijinkas of the three most horrible traumatic events of your life and use them as purveyors of his will and so your friend was like “well, shit. ok???” and then he makes them and all three of them FUCKING HATE EACH OTHER but your friend is still like “i need you guys to help perform the grave and necessary actions to help prevent a completely fucked sideways apocalyptic future for me” even though one of the Trauma Gijinkas is like 12 and another one is like 19, both notoriously fantastic (/s) ages for handling any sort of important high stakes responsibility.

so there’s just these three photocopies of Some Dying Old Man in the Future’s Absolute Worst Moments of Being Alive running around and one of them is roller skating around everywhere and one of them A.) has a sword and B.) is part motorcycle and one of them is an old old old man who’s also like 10 feet tall and built like a brick shithouse and also none of them seem to fully know they’re all 1/3 of a guy until your aforementioned bestie turned that .exe back on for them.

and THEN on top of EVERYTHING ELSE they can steven universe fuse back into a copy of YOUR ancient-future dead old man ass so now you get to live again in a mechanized form but also you’re built like a giant jacked monster-angel-werelion and this is NEVER elaborated on in the text proper. your best friend you begged to kickstart this whole thing kills you, also.

#AND THEY PLAY CARD GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YUGIOH #i like these guys a Completely Normal Amount I'm Definitely Not Constantly Thinking About Them (lying) #ygo posting #iliaster #yugioh 5ds #iliasterliker9000 #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

🔥🔥🔥 would love to hear your takes on Zane Truesdale and or just the Truesdale brothers in general

YESS

🔥for just Zane specifically: it is. deeply frustrating when both fans and official supplementary ygo media want him to just be The Mean Big Bad Sadomasocist Goth (i love Zane so much but DL Zane leaves a little bit to be desired imo!!!) Like... first of all this is literally not even a particularly villainous character. Yugioh has evil gnarly big bad guy characters and Zane really is straight up not one of them im sorry. And that I think that along with this very common fan read on Zane that he doesn't care about anything just speaks a lot to how his character gets particularly misinterpreted even to this day. Like oh my god I think even at his lowest lows in the Hell Kaiser days this is not a character who "doesn't care." If anything he cares TOO much. Like most if not all of what Zane Truesdale does is out of how much he cares about something, be it respect and fair play, the desperate rush of victory, his own sense of pride and mangled self-worth, or for his brother. He does things very deliberately on the whole. This is not a character of violence and apathy this is a mentally ill autistic teen staggering into young adulthood with heaps of potential piled upon him until the weight pushes him to an extreme that he can't really come back from, not without literally killing himself. i love him very much.

(i also cant say im a very big fan of the take i see where people wish he stayed dead after s3--among other reasons i just think the optics are not especially fantastic on being really gungho against a canon disabled character getting to Survive and have some semblance of a hopeful resolution. sorry)

🔥 for the Truesdale bros in general: really tangentially related to all of this i absolutely 1000000% disagree with this unfortunately rampant fan take that Zane is either A.) completely uncaring towards Syrus or B.) abusive or C.) both. No He Is Not. Try Again. These are two brothers with very different ways they engage with the world who have a complicated and for a long while pretty terse relationship, but to believe this is no love there is a disservice to both of them. The GX dub was so fucking real and right to have Zane tell syrus on two different occasions how much he cares about him and is proud of him. Miss me with the helpless Syrus takes and the Mean and Evil Zane takes it's about to be 2024 do BETTER.

#ygo posting #asks #anonymous #SORRY THAT WAS LONG i have a lot. to say about them. all the time. they are my favorite ygo character relationship #theyre so good if you really just sit with them and the whole big picture and see where the love has always been. sobs and wails #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

The Primo Bee Thing is so. perplexing to me. just absolute peak Fandom Defined Personality Trait. sorry. He does say a bee dances "beautifully" in the sub in the one (1) time he ever brings it up in show but I get the impression it's coming from a place of irony and fiendish gleeful superiority moreso than a place of "bees are his favorite animal and he's obsessed with them."

This concept of like "look at this beautiful act this insignificant creature performs, it doesnt even know it's at the mercy of predetermined events, ha!" To Primo bees are these little dancing circus animals, a novelty, a perfect example of how another strain of life so insignificant in the wake of fate (humanity) should behave.

^ [ love that this view is also seen arguably even more clearly in the dub--where Primo called Yusei a bee that's lost its stinger, and talks about how stingerless bees will wander aimlessly until they die, helpless to the laws of nature. There's such an implied undercurrent of....hopelessness, to that <:,) ]

Just this idea that I trip over Once A Week At Least that Primo really likes bees is so funny. Like... No, Not Really. Aside from the novelty of their infinite dance he kind of DGAF about them. When Primo talks about insects in general it's clear he doesn't really think very highly of them at best, and at worst is Actively Dripping Rage and Disdain About the Sheer Concept Of Them (especially since he equates them with humans.</3)

Literally one of his Win Duel voice lines in Duel Links is "You're nothing more than a worm crawling on the ground." 🥴 Bugs are so far beneath him in his often documented opinion!! Bees aren't even Primo's motif or symbolic animal or anything, they're a symbol of humans in all takes on this scene!! Yusei's the one gettin compared to a bee around here!!!!

tl;dr "Primo loves bees and this is one of his personality traits" is literally just straight up wrong and it drives me a little insane and I needed to talk about it. I think about it Often. No more Homogeneous Fandom Decided Personality Traits Based Off of One (1) Comment Made By a Character society has moved past Homogeneous Fandom Decided Personality Traits Based Off of One (1) Comment Made By a Character!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#ygo posting #dana's ygo bible study #SORRRYYYY SORRY TO BE A HATER IT JUST MAKES ME HEAD SPIN. 'HE WOULD NOT FUCKING WEAR THAT' (BEE KIGARUMI) #iliasterliker9000 #literally like. the Only real way bees as a primo motif would be appropriate is if youre exploring his dynamic with z-one #but im the only person who's insane about that character relationship so. The People Dont Know This One

[cyberdragoninfinity]

i know sometimes people will just completely pull out of their ass or misinterpret a mean or villainous character's actions so they can be exaggerated into just Absolutely Rotten Horrific Abusive People, Actually in fanworks or AUs, like even way moreso than they actually are in canon. i know this. ive seen this with yugioh characters OFTEN.

but let me just for the record say that in Tag Force 5 for the Playstation Portable Video Game System, Jakob's little story route DOES literally revolve around how much he can't fucking stand the way Lester and Primo go about things, and his belief that they need to be "taught a lesson" for committing the sin of EXPRESSING TOO MUCH FREE WILL???!?!??

And also this culminates in a chapter just called "PUNISHMENT."

AND IT. UM. WELL IT ENDS WITH JAKOB JUST FUCKING KILLING LESTER AND PRIMO IN FRONT OF YOU.

LIKE THEYRE JUST GONE. THEY DONT SHOW UP AGAIN. THEYRE DEAD. HE KILLED THEM. ONE OF THOSE WAS PERMANENTLY 12 AND HE KILLED THEM. and then has the gall to proclaim it to be the will of their God!!!!!!!!

AND OH ALSO YOURE MADE COMPLICIT IN THIS ENTIRE SITUATION AND ENCOURAGED TO REPLACE THE TWO ROBOTS LAYING DEAD TWENTY FEET AWAY. AND WELL THATS JUST YOUR VIDEO GAME FOR THE DAY

SO LET ME JUST SAY im not conjuring the idea that Jakob would be an absolute abusive old cunt to his two cohorts/grandkids out of nothing, this decrepit bastard does NOT seem to like primo and lester very much AT ALL and in fact if GIVEN THE CHANCE WOULD KILL THEM WITHOUT HESITATION. CRUSH 'EM LIKE SODA CANS. WOULDNT EVEN FLINCH.

#'dana i thought all three of these guys were the same guy' THEY ARE. :) SO YOU CAN FUCKING IMAGINE HOW I FEEL #YOU CAN IMAGINE. HOW ABSOLUTELY MENTALLY UNWELL APORIA IS. BASED ON THIS. #ygo posting #tag force madness #<--i need a tag for talking about tag force i love these games. this was so fucked up and its just a real thing that happens in a ygo game #iliasterliker9000 #dana's ygo bible study #<--new talking about spinoff meta tag also #iliaster #jakob 5ds #jose 5ds

[cyberdragoninfinity]

i havent been normal since it was pointed out how perfectly symmetrical Aporia's design is, and my subsequent realization that all three of the Emperors have such wildly asymmetrical designs in contrast.... these little imperfections, little things denoting how theyre not exact copies of Aporia, theyre 'flawed' mechanical recreations of moments that weren't supposed to be split up in the first place. their personalities are all so erratic and maladjusted because separately theyre in a way incomplete. and im ONLY SPEWING BLOOD EVERYWHERE A LITTLE ABOUT IT. PROMISE.

#ygo posting #iliasterliker9000 #another reason i get rabid dog when people act like it's canon that primo is A Perfect Robot Clone of Aporia BECAUSE HES NOT #THATS THE POINT!!!!! THE POINT IS THAT THE EMPERORS WERE NEVER HUMAN!!! #5DS IS ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A PERSON AND THINKING ABOUT THAT WITH THESE GUYS MAKES ME EXPLODEE WAHH #dana's ygo bible study

[cyberdragoninfinity]

Ok so if Vector is supposed to represent Beelzebub, then what are the other demons that you associate the Barian Emperors with?

ALRIGHT HERE'S WHERE THINGS GET TRICKY since with the other Emperors it's not nearly as clear what Prince of Hell theyre meant to represent as it is with Vector "Alien Beelzebub" Vector Zexal is. And it doesn't help that there isn't even a concrete list of the Seven Princes of Hell either, multiple authors have assembles their own version of the seven over the centuries! So we got a lot of different demons potentially on the field, and a little bit of It Could Be That Deep analysis has gotta be at the ready when considering the rest of Don Thousand's Finest. It's honestly a bit easier to try and maybe equate the remaining Emperors to one of the Seven Deadly Sins and try to work backwards to figure out their hypothetical demonology match from there (since I do very much think it's pretty clear the Barians are meant to parallel the sins on some level too because the Bible simply does not stop with Yugioh Zexal.)

The only other Emperor I feel fairly confident with is Nasch being tied to Leviathan, a pretty consistent member of the demonology 'royal' hierarchy and also, yknow, a fuckin water-associated sea monster! (and the first number we even see in the show is Shark's Leviathan Dragon, after all.) Leviathan's dead sin is Envy, which is maybe not the Most Shark-like, but still interesting to think about with him.

So that's Beelzebub for Vector and Leviathan for Shark. As for the others, I will posit some guesses:

Mizar: Most likely Lucifer for him... between his almost angelic type looks + having an association with dragons (as does Lucifer in the Bible) + Lucifer being the demon typically associated with pride it seems like it parallels him the best.

Girag: MAAAYBE MAMMON?? Demon who is kind of Just Some Guy but also associated with greed...since in his past life we know Girag would share the spoils of his conquests with the poor there could be some sort of wealth implied connection in there. Hmm...

Alito: Thinking maybe Satan [Prince of Wrath] for him.... his Barian form is even classic devil red which feels like a pretty deliberate choice.

Dumon and Marin/Merag: ok these two I have no real idea on. Marin could maybe be tied to Belphegor, who is sometimes described as taking on the appearance of a young woman??!? But idk. Dumon honestly almost has more in common with Furcas from the Lesser Key of Solomon than some of the more prominent demons. Hmm...

#IT IS ALL A BIT MESSY BUT STILL SOME CONNECTIONS CAN BE MADE #yugioh zexal #ygo posting #asks #echoflare841 #dana's ygo bible study #also theres definitely gotta be something in there re: rio using an ice based deck and depictions of Icy Hells in stories #i.e. the innermost circle of Hell in dantes inferno.... maybe rio could be representative of Satan in that instance but idk

[cyberdragoninfinity]

so in case anyone was curious, this illustration is largely based on several stained glass portraits of St. Michael the Archangel slaying Lucifer (in kickass dragon form,) but especially this one (a 19th century window from Calvados, France)

A.) i Love angels in stained glass especially when the colors go crazy, this isnt the first time I've invoked them with art of Aporia and the Three Nobles, but more important B.) one day I will go off more about Aporia's angel symbolism in general but for now I gotta talk about Primo's, I gotta.

His Archangel Michael parallels make my brain spin around So fast--the Nobels are definitely supposed to effectively be robotic angels, messengers of the Apocalypse and God's (Z-one's) plan to fix the future. Primo sees himself as a loyal extension of Z-one's will, an agent of vicious justice, the 'commander' of his Ghost army. He's the android gijinka of Aporia's young adult war trauma. He's uhhh technically not alive! Meanwhile, Michael the angel is the leader of God's holy army, a military commander... and in Catholicism he's also the patron saint of death and soldiers. :^) (and. cops. cringe.) (though the Three Nobles were the heads of Sector Security for a While, huh.....) (it goes so deep it doesnt stop)

And there's the sword, of course, Michael is The angel most often depicted with a sword (sometimes a 'normal' blade, sometimes on fire, sometimes it's a spear, etc etc,) it's a spiritual weapon associated with him, created by God. And oh hey Primo what's that you got there....

Haha Ok Cool Man 👍 Sick Godsword

In the Bible it's Michael who leads the charge against Lucifer and his army of fallen angels in the battle of heaven and hell, and it's very specifically mentioned Lucifer takes on the form of a dragon during this epic clash. *the dog is, in fact, taking out the Book of Revelations*

so DEEPEST APOLOGIES TO STARDUST MY FRIEND STARDUST DRAGON for making her representative of the Literal Devil in that illustration; though, from Iliaster's point of view, perhaps of course Stardust WOULD be their draconic devil stand-in, the ace monster of Yusei, the dominant roadblock to their plans, the (you could perhaps argue) counterpart of their God's image. To Primo especially he has it Aggressively out for Stardust throughout his entire psychological obsession with Yusei. He Wants to Slay That Dragon So Bad, He Wants It as a Trophy On His Wall.

Michael also gets described and depicted very knight like in religious art and discussions, he is frequently armored; Primo also has a lot of knightly vibes imo, design and narrative wise. (And of course so does Sherry...interestingly, Sherry actually ALSO has a lot of parallels with St. Michael, including the fact she takes part in the fight against Primo's duel bot army (y'know...the Diablo :^) and a lot of her Joan of Arc invocations as a character) (that's a story for another post though) (Trey from Zexal ALSO has St. Michael parallels too imo) (but again, that's it's whole other post.) (yugioh LOVES religious symbolism like a bear loves salmon.)

it's just a very neat motif weaved throughout Primo's character!! His attitude is notoriously pretty shitty and difficult to put up with, but at his core he seems himself as a defender of sorts. God's sword. This is the path that will save the future. Tangentially, take this Alleluia verse about St. Michael:

"dreadful judgement," huh? Like... a Judgement Day? A world in peril and needing saving? Wonder who else has something to say about that and is very tunnel-vision obsessed with the notion of being the one alone to grant this safeguard...

ah :)

#ygo posting #primo 5ds #placido #dana's ygo bible study #long post / #will reblog the art itself and point out some little details too methinks.... #iliasterliker9000