#maai asks

[myriad-of-things]

Love your YGO spreadsheet! I have a couple questions. What counts as cheating at a card game? In particular, are you counting uses of the Millennium Eye/Millenium Necklace? Does Zigfrid's hacking of the tournament count?

(I can only think of three instances of cheating off the top of my head - Mai's scented cards, Bandit Keith's cards up his sleeve, and Espa Robas whole setup, and am confused how it goes up to 9).

Also, what are the instances of the Pharaoh committing murder, if you don't mind?

link to the original post here.

great questions! I counted cheating at card game as the usage of any outside, non-magical force for personal gain at no consequence of the user and to the detriment of the opponent. So for example, I did not count Kaiba threatening to jump off a building in Duelist Kingdom because that would've been a detriment to himself had he followed through with it.

I didn't count Millennium Item usage as cheating at card game, mostly because it gets very tricky to parse. If I draw the line at Pegasus using the Eye to read people's minds, then does the Pharaoh being able to draw whichever card he needs count as cheating at card game? Acts of magic which could be filed under Acts of God so I limited it to non-magical sources.

As for the 9 instances, they are:

Mai's scented cards

Bandit Keith's cards up his sleeves

the rare hunter with his fake Exodia cards

Esper Roba's set up

Weevil paying a kid to steal Joey's duel disk to slip a bug card into his deck before their duel

-8. THREE separate instances of Johnson (Big 5 member, ironically a lawyer) cheating against Joey by manipulating the probability of his dice rolls. You could count this as one, but I counted it as 3 at the time

9. Zigfreid's illegal use of the Golden Castle of Stromberg

notice how most instances of cheating are against Joey and he still wins.

Obviously, there's a chance that I might've missed some instances or not been as consistent since this project went on for over a year. I had even considered using TCG rules, but coaching happens all the time and the Pharaoh was making up rules in early s1.

My ultimate goal was to gauge cheating using the guidelines presented in the context of the show. So, simply put, I considered cheating to be what the show frames as cheating. Interpret the law in the spirit of the law, as the legal researchers would say.

[myriad-of-things]

Do you have stats for Yami Bakura/TKB/Zorc separate too?

hmm that will be a bit hard to parse. I will define "separate" as in "visual appearance when committing the crime." In that case, this would be the breakdown:

Yami Bakura is still crimes georg even amongst his various alter egos lmao

original post here

[myriad-of-things]

The funniest part about Arrin trying and failing to marry Siv is the fact that he wanted to do that only because she could deflect spells, and he thought she'll defend him from hagsfiends if he married her. "Lady Siv, pls pick me up I'm scared"😂

Also, I personally thought the "hagsfiends have no gizzards and therefore can't tell right from wrong" bit was a lie, both because we had six books of pure ones churning out the "we have those finely tuned organs, and that means we're the superior species" propaganda before this, and because we first hear it from Grank, who doesn't have the best record of telling right from wrong either. (His first meeting with Theo becomes very harsh in hindsight when you re-read it as an adult; like, I know he is supposed to be grieving H'rath and some of his knights, but he still acts like an ass towards Theo)

Didn't he also want to marry Strix Emerilla as well? Lmao you right, this guy really is the embodiment of "vaguely female figure, pick me up I'm scared"

Yeah, the gizzard thing always rubbed me the wrong way, because what would an organ know about right or wrong? I think it's just the owls telling themselves that so they can claim they're superior over other creatures. Which is ironic, in many senses. The owls do do many questionable things...

[myriad-of-things]

Okay, so, the hagsfiend headcanons >:D

First, I am a simple person: I see dragons, I have to at least check out the idea, so when Lasky introduced Penryck "the Sky Dragon" and then did so little with him, I was very disappointed and made up a few headcanons about him:

- in the First Collier it is mentioned that Arryn had a son; my headcanon is that Penryck met Arryn's son first and he, in turn, convinced Arryn to hire Penryck (because I doubt Arryn would've considered hiring hagsfiends all on his own, he would've tried to get an owl warlord on his side instead)

- Penryck is actually better at diplomacy than Arryn, and he was trying to recruit some of Arryn's generals during the second half of The coming of Hoole; that's one of the reasons there are rumours about them going separate ways at the beginning of To be a King (also, his POV in the Coming of Hoole is him mentally rolling eyes at both Arryn's racist shit and his incompetence as a strategist, and I wish there was more of villainous flashbacks because trying to reverse engineer Sklardrog's personality off one pov and a handful of lines is painful)

- A bit more speculative one: Penryck crossed paths with Theo's father and uncle(possibly killed or ordered to kill the latter). Theo asks Grank if he's sure that Penryck killed the high king ‐ why specifically him and not any other warlord? Either Sklardrog's reputation is that scary or Theo had a personal reason to fear him. (This bit never came up again in the books, though, so it stays a speculation)

- Hoole's first time using firesight was a big missed opportunity. Imagine if he saw hagsfiends just living their lives and started doubting what Grank had told him?

- A rather sad one: I thought a lot about Ygreek and Pleek. A lot. (Mostly ranging between "Who hurt you, Grank?" and "Who hurt you, Kathryn?") Because the more I thought about it, the more it felt(at least the translation) like a part of Ygreek's desire to have a child comes from wanting to fit a "proper family" mold; we don't get a similar in-depth introspection about kids from Pleek's point of view, but since Grank picks him out instantly when he looks into the Ember, I headcanon that Pleek comes from a noble family (probably not as rich as Arryn, Siv or Grank himself), and he probably heard plenty of that "your purpose is to have an heir and pass on the family name one day" nonsense before he met Ygreek. So they both have their share of internalised issues about having kids.

(Oof, that got wordy)

I LOVE DRAGONS. I agree, I wish Penryck's character had been explored more. He does seem to be better at diplomacy from his short conversation with Lord Arrin. Lord Arrin's character pretty much boils down to "I want the throne" and "I want a wife," so it makes sense that Penryck was pulling all the strings behind the scenes. In terms of appearance I'd like to think Penryck had claws on his wings, perhaps scaled talons and very long ear-tufts to the point where they looked like horns.

I just think it's funny that owls are convinced hagsfiends are evil when all the hagsfiends in the legends books were hired by owl lords to overthrow King H'rath. The hagsfiends were definitely taking advantage of the situation there, but it's strange that they're considered more villainous than the owl lords who 1) have a gizzard so they know right from wrong, and 2) still chose to do wrong.

I believe it was confirmed that Pleek was a noble lord, which makes me respect his character more because like you pointed out, he probably faced a ton of pressure from his family to have an heir, and also backlash for falling in love with the enemy. When the war starts he would most likely have lost all his noble titles for consorting with a hagsfiend. He gave up so much for Ygryk, and it feels like a further punishment that they can't have a normal family together. Ygryk would probably also feel a lot of guilt for causing her mate to be cut off and shunned by his kind. Pleek and Ygryk may have been horrible parents to Lutta, but they also didn't have the best situation.

[myriad-of-things]

Yo, i read your amazing minecraft Spy x family fic, and i made a little something haha ! Twitch streamer Yor! (Its not the best edit, but hopefully you like it)

OMGGGGGGG STREAMER YOR!!!

I love the roses around her facecam! It's such a personal touch. Also I just noticed her jewelry and tattoo lmaoo, wonderful

Is Yor trying to speedrun or something? I see the lava pool portal but she looks so lost lmao

someone pls get twilight in here maybe he can help

this is the fic btw :)

[myriad-of-things]

myriad i have a idea for tttthe uhm ymnrn what if gb80 is like a dragon selkie thing

oh where his coat is actually his dragon scales/wings?

funny that you bring that up....

In the next chapter of ymnrn there'll be a line where dream notices that the pattern of bullet holes in his jacket matches the bullet holes in his wings. Now I don't know if it would mess with him returning to his dragon form if his coat got stolen because I didn't think that far, but honestly it MIGHT :O

[myriad-of-things]

BBH, Angel of Judgement

Bruh this took me sooooo long cause I went and watched his solo videos to get to know him better. Just based on his skin and username I assumed he would sound super hardcore but he’s actually so sweet and the kindest. person. ever. He gives the hackers on his server so many chances and I think it’s hilarious (and fitting) that he literally has a purgatory for them.

I was gonna make him look more human but I can’t do faces or hair so I said screw it and just went full eldritch for his design.

[myriad-of-things]

Also, Niki kind of held Will's Love or Host together by making both Minx and Will fall in love with and support her, meaning there wasn't much conflict. Will got really lucky to have meshed perfectly with Niki right away so there was an obvious choice, while also having Minx actually support them rather than causing maximum chaos. George's loh is gonna be a full on disaster

Oh yeah, completely agreed. Especially now with rumors that our favorite green man will be a contestant as well.

Honestly I don’t get the point of George doing a LoH anymore cause Dream’s presence might make it all a joke. Does George actually want a relationship or is this just another publicity stunt like the UK vlog that we can safely refer to as Schrodinger’s vlog now since it seems to exist and not exist at the same time?