Pure Ichor

This is CRAZY work. What do you MEAN they left this out of the dub?

I thought Diva's beef with Kaiba was him being rich and owning a company (which, okay, eat the rich), but this makes Diva's position so much more valid?

Is Kaiba the god-king-emperor of Domino City? Is Domino City some authoratarian capitalist city state in Japan?

Are the people of Domino just chill with this? Is there some non-dueling salaryman who made and registered a deck the way we'd grumble and go down with our identification documents to the local town hall?

I need that series. A series about an average salaryman in Domino City who can't name a duel monster and is just trying to get by but this insane CEO keeps slowly eroding the local government and implementing bat-shit crazy laws involving a children's card game.

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First thing just quickkkk: Diva has beef with Kaiba because Kaiba brought back the puzzle and risks bringing Atem back and end Prana, not because he is a dictator or rich. Indeed he ignored Kaiba to the day Kaiba pulled the puzzle from the ground and started in his opinion being a threat. Of course he'll call Kaiba a crazy dictator and oppose anything about him.

Diva is not an unbiased narrator because of course, he wants Kaiba to NOT PUT THE PUZZLE TOGETHER. It is why after losing to Kaiba he decides to "Erase the vessel" (starting a self-fulfilling prophecy descent).

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Now, register your deck.

Domino revolves around Duel Monsters much before Kaiba and this is shown in canon. Pegasus created Duel Monsters, and after this happened, some people became DUELISTS.

Dueling is not synonymous with 'playing Duel Monsters'.

The status of "Duelist" is depicted in the series. Kaiba values dueling and duels because dueling is measuring skills, willpower, adaptability and nerves. We know some duelists are also not TRUE duelists (because they cheat, are disrespectful etc etc). Kaiba will recognize Jounouchi as a TRUE duelist after he saw some of these characteristics in him.

In Domino all the culture, economy, entertainment, and technology are heavily centered on Duel Monsters.

Think of a city obsessed with football, everyone knows the rules, there are stadiums, youth leagues, there will be an academia (GX) merchandise is everywhere, the local billionaire is passionate, the sport influences tourism at many levels.

Respect for dueling does not mean dueling solves everything.

James from accounting can go home, microwave lasagna, ignore football entirely, and complain about taxes being too high with wife (or hubby whatever, in YGO we know everyone is GAY.)

Domino clearly has millions of ordinary people and there is no evidence courts are replaced with duels, contracts are enforced by duels. Criminal cases, divorce, inheritance, taxes, or anything resembling ordinary civil law is NOT ONCE settled through Duel Monsters.

The series has still police and prisons and hospitals and characters go to school. Kaiba himself has canonically legal departments and corporate lawyers. If duels settled lawsuits, KaibaCorp wouldn't need an army of attorneys.

What we DO know instead, is that every specialization is clearly respected especially from Kaiba. Kaiba shows he has lots of employees, engineers to build and program, Isono to help him with security, lawyers for his trouble, diggers to dig...

DUELISTS DUEL.

In the world of Yu-gi-oh! I see dueling as a choice just like becoming a Pokémon trainer in the world of Pokémon.

Unfortunately (Or fortunately) Magic revolves around some games. Duel Monsters is one of them since Ancient Egypt, and all the rest we know.

Some cards are special (like some Pokémon are legendary), some duelists have the ability to turn duels into Shadow Games... Some Duels are necessary to BET on important things (How many times we see betting LIFE!).

Diva vs. Kaiba is a duel with a bet on the Puzzle Kaiba wins (With Atem's intervention, even). Diva does NOT respect this loss, one of the reasons he will be doomed.

Some duels can help solve and untangle magic problems and feelings like rage, revenge, power, love, elaborate grief, talk in an obscure language that sinks into decks that link souls... other will just make people win prizes. (Haga wins a cup, for example).

But magic, magic duels, revenge, rage, wanting to become a champion, and all the rest does not impact on law and I see no reason why it should at all.

By DSOD what we know is: thanks to KaibaCorp, Solid vision is everywhere, there's Duel Links infrastructures, Transcend Game sold egg-visors, there are ranking databases and Kaiba could easily appear on TV since DM to communicate.

If Domino has effectively become the world's dueling capital, it isn't crazy that DUELISTS to be also residents HAVE TO RECEIVE some sort of KC duel ID and Yugi is famous.

This sentence, to me, means: IF YOU ARE A DUELIST (only if you are a duelist, since Dueling is of this importance), YOU HAVE TO REGISTER YOUR DECK OR YOU CAN'T HAVE DOMINO RESIDENCY.

This is because KaibaCorp has become so influential that civic administration in Domino is by now intertwined with Kaiba's dueling infrastructure.

"you made them, just make them do what you want!"

Baby's first AI-generated comment, woohoo! 🥰

It's tragic: as much as I'd love my writing to be described as "feels like calm after a storm"...this specific story is 1,5k words of Keith whump, with the most graphic description I've made of a character burning alive. Something very heartwarming, if you will, but not exactly calm.

[Side note: it did remind me that I didn't share this story here. It's a companion fic to @scorp2510's VLD/HSR crossover (which I affectionately call the KIAverse, since its first fic is KIA - Killed In Action.) I'm not sure many of you are into such a crossover, but it was the first flash-fic I wrote in a while, so here goes: The Pyre, VLD/HSR crossover on AO3. I need to remember posting my stories on AO3 and sharing the links on Tumblr more often. I have a stupid backlog.]

Anyway.

The comment disappeared since, but I'm slightly concerned that this is a Registered User, which means scammers now manage to make accounts in spite of the invitation system.

In my case, I'm somewhat blasé about it, since I'm not exactly looking for comments when I post (don't get me wrong, I love receiving them! And being enthusiastic along with readers is so cool! But I mostly post on AO3 for archiving purposes first and readers later.)

But for writers who really rely on comments to remain motivated, receiving something like this and realising it's fake might be devastating.

This is, thus, your regular reminder to comment on the fics you like, so that writers know that REAL PEOPLE actually, genuinely enjoy their work. Comment with your own words, with your own feelings. Emoji and keysmashes also work. Just be yourself and don't overthink it.

DON'T LET CHATGPT WRITE YOUR COMMENTS FOR YOU. DON'T LET CHATGPT RUIN THE STORIES YOU LOVE READING.

I mean this STOP GENERATING, it fries your brain. It takes away your words, it kills your creativity slowly and it will be so hard to recover it.

Write a little less, read a little less, comment a little less, but do it YOURSELF.

Trust your brain and trust your emotions! Trust that any comment produced by you is better than feeding an algorithm and copy paste like a parrot.

Slow down, take your time!

STOP treating and creating and consuming fic and art like drugs.

Fandom is our space, shielded from money and burnout. It is a beautiful, beautiful culture of gifting each other our creativity and take care of our imagination.