#julysecnd

Who was the first person you came out to? - my sister, I think in person. :’) 

Ideal date? - Art gallery, dinner and a movie all in the same day <3

Ayyyy another flight rising player!! i dont know if you consider that a blessing or a curse bc the site can be super addicting

Unforunately i havent got the time (and patience tbh breeding cooldown takes too long for my needy and poor soul, i spent so long breeding a shark dragon and i still cant hit the right colors for a coatl) to play lately, but i still love them dragons a whole lot. maybe ill pick it up again now that daddyzarc is partially gone and i need a new creative outlet

6. What themes do you most enjoy writing?

Judging by how much it appears in my fics and story ideas, I love writing about loneliness and what it feels like to be close to only a few if any people, which is probably a reflection of my self-isolating tendencies, woops. I’m also fascinated by stories where someone is or at least looks human but has something definitely Not human going on with them or their body, so I like writing about that when I can.

Oh, and I don’t think it appears in many of the fics I’ve actually posted, but I really love writing about personal identity and how people can struggle to figure theirs out.

7. What themes do you have the most difficulty writing?

Does romance count as a theme?? For the love of god, I sure do struggle with writing it, but I keep trying anyways because I’m here to suffer. Besides that, I think I have a hard time with writing heavier themes like depression or death. I’m not really fond of writing angsty stuff in the first place, and when I do write something that goes close to that, it becomes difficult to keep it from sounding like a cheap angstfest or whatever.

9. How do you choose a POV for a story?

Hmmmmmm. I’ve never really thought before about what my process for this might be, but I think it depends on the scene(s) I want to write. If the story is focused around one character’s feelings about a particular event or person or whatever, then obviously the story should be from that character’s pov, so that’s pretty natural. In cases where it’s less obvious–like if there are several characters in a scene, or if I have a story idea but am not sure whose thoughts I want to focus on–then I sometimes will write part of the scene in my head and see from the needed description which character is best-suited to be the perspective. Oftentimes, if one character is doing something unusual or just is unusual themself, then the perspective will go to another character so they can react to the unusual person.

9. favorite time of day and why?

Dusk. Every thing looks better at dusk, and you can't beat sitting out in dusk, chilling out, during summer.

13. what's something you learned recently?

That I've lost the little ability to do algebra that I gained doing my GCSE Math lmao.

18. Are you musical? Play any instruments or sing? Would you ever perform for an audience?

(aaaa ssry this be late)

Yusaku and Yuya are one in the same. Being as they are both protagonist characters, the characters are bound to share many similarity. However, this does not devalue their unique characteristics that make these the characters we know and love. 

The most obvious comparison is the range of summoning methods that each character possess. Of the summoning methods right now (Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, and Link), both characters used All minus 1 methods of the possible methods during their respective era. 

Yuya used everything possible but Ritual (4 out of 5), while Yusaku used everything possible but Pendulum (5 out of 6). Of course, this is a catch 22 situation since characters like Jaden and Yugi are automatically disqualified due to there being only two methods during their era and such. But my point still stands that Yuya and Yusaku were written to tap into many summoning methods. 

Beyond the summoning methods, they're monsters also has a lot in common. To kinda piggyback off the previous point, both Yuya and Yusaku (and I would argue Yusei as well) used monsters that represented many important characters and themes of their respective show.

Firewall Darkfluid Dragon and the Odd-Eyes mixes each carry properties of specific characters. For Yuya, each of his monsters represents the other Yu-boys. The significance is that Yuya uses these monsters to carry on the wishes and souls of the other counterparts, and thus he fights them for the finale for a grandiose and entertaining spectacle. For Yusaku, Firewall Darkfluid Dragon appears during the Season 2 finale. During the duel, it represents the Ignises that were killed by Bohman, and this could be seen in the many attribute-based attacks it fires out.

Furthermore, Yusaku and Yuya have a pair of significant monsters that are banned. Although there are smaller things that got banned (like performapal monkeyboard for example) Firewall Dragon and Astrograph Magician are major players to the plot of the shows that became forbidden monsters (as of right now, late 2019).

Astrograph Magician is a monster whose existence brought forth the almighty Supreme King Dragon Z-Arc, which is the final boss of Arc-V. Meanwhile, although he doesn't play as critical as a role like Astrograph Magician, Firewall Dragon is a beloved baby and, in my honest option, Yusaku's actual ace monster. For Yuya and Yusaku to have their major monsters bite the dust is telling.

Shifting away from the card game aspect of these characters, they share many traits with one another.

This may be odd, but I feel like both characters focus on the theme of split personalities, with Yuya being more blatantly clear about this due to the nature of his show.

What do I mean?

For Yuya, he is a quarter of Zarc. He is a piece of a whole, and thus the Yuya that we know is not actually a completed person. We can see this in how each boy are opposites of one another in many different ways. My theory is that they represent a core personality of the original Zarc, with Yuri (and to a lesser extent, Yuto) being the corrupting entity. However by the end of Arc-V, Yuya does develop into a completed person after acquiring the rest of the counterparts and repressing Zarc's resurrection.

For Yusaku, I feel like this analysis is part of the subtext. The Lost Incident is the major plot of Vrains. From here we learn that Ai was born from Yusaku's suffering and trauma. This connection has probably been made a multitude of times already, but I always considered that Yusaku and Ai represent two parts of a single person (that being Yusaku, the original). Ai is an energetic extrovert while Yusaku is a serious introvert. It feels like the Lost Incident stole pieces of the victims' personality and made the Ignis out of it (the rest of the kids provide evidence as well, but that's a discussion for another day).

This means that Yusaku is not a whole person in the same way Yuya is not a whole person.

But that's sad, so here's a couple of fun comparisons:

Along with Jaden (and Yuma too?) Yusaku and Yuya have the habit of falling asleep during school.

Also, by inverting the colors of their hair, they bear a striking resemblance (but not exact) to one another.

They each have a few moments where they eat a sandwich (Cal Kolter Do Not Interact) in very adorable ways.

I can also argue that they both have pets since Yuya has several dogs and a cat while Yusaku has a roomba, but calling Roboppy a roomba feels blasphemous after what happened in Season 3.