Pairing 1: Twistedshipping (Shadi/Maximillon Pegasus | Pegasus J. Crawford)
Propaganda: Shadi is a grief stricken spirit with no one to talk to and Pegasus is a lonely rich boy with time & money but no one to share it with. They've both suffered heavy loss and mad terrible decisions as a result. They've hurt people and are both people who are hurting. But they wear it differently; no one can see Shadi unless he allows it but Pegasus is a public figure. He must be seen, though no one can get close without his permission. The roles they play are so important to the people who the roles serve and yet they're always at a distance from the comfort of the people. All that to say, they should get to hug and be happy. Also the fan art is just beautiful. | Pegasus lamented how his heart was like the empty canvas he toted around half the world longing to fill, then immediately painted a portrait of Shadi and hung it up next to the portrait of his deceased wife. Pegasus clearly idolized Shadi for giving him the Millennium Eye, even though Shadi showed little regard for him, probably thinking of Pegasus as just another necessary step in moving fate along. I think it’s immensely interesting to explore how they both might grow around each other, and how they might recontextualize their shared past after spending more time together. Pegasus would start to see Shadi with something other than blinding adoration, and Shadi would recognize and appreciate Pegasus as a person and not a pawn. The ship has plenty of angst, but room for hurt/comfort and character exploration. And they both at some point, in Yugioh R and Dark Side of Dimensions, adopted a bunch of orphans and took on the role of a father figure; so there’s more fluffy AU potential, too.
Pairing 2: Nellshipping (Noah Kaiba/Amane Bakura)
Propaganda: Children of wealthy families who died in car related accidents!!
Now, let’s keep things civil. This is a silly poll where we can share why we love our overlooked ships. There’s no need to be nasty to prove your point. Bashers will be banished to the Shadow Realm.
Propaganda: A bit of a predicatable ship for her but it also just makes sense - the two dragons tied and connected to Kaiba in someway connecting and being together (Honestly surprised they never made a fusion monster for them but I digress) similar to Timaeus they are devoted protectors. And hey after everything she's been through I think she deserves to have a knight by her side don't you.
Pairing 2: Nellshipping (Noah Kaiba/Amane Bakura)
Propaganda: Children of wealthy families who died in car related accidents!!
Now, let’s keep things civil. This is a silly poll where we can share why we love our overlooked ships. There’s no need to be nasty to prove your point. Bashers will be banished to the Shadow Realm.
Random Nellshipping AU idea: Amane died. Noa didn't. At 28, he's the VP of KaibaCorp. A new employee comes in. She's 22, just graduated. She looks so familiar. Noa thinks. She's six years younger than him. He was six years old when Amane died. "When's your birthday?" "April 15". April 15 was the day of Amane's death. In other words, reincarnation is real.
the obvious option is, of course, Japanese summer festivals, so here’s some Nellshipping babies trying to catch goldfish at the festival booth~
the other option is SPORTS FESTIVALS which let’s be real are a beautiful source of OTP goodness
back story for the Moonblossom babies is that there’s a sports festival happening and they drew lots to see who got paired up with who for the three-legged race, and Selena drew Ruri, which makes her super awkward due to being Super Gay(tm) and Ruri is pretty oh no
but the Ruri admits that she’s nervous about physical activity and is worried about dragging Selena down, and Yuuri and Yugo got paired up which means that Selena has her chance to totally stomp Yuuri in this event (her life’s mission) and she gets to do it with a cute girl that she can help with her confidence at the same time! (Ruri invites her out for coffee later)
Random tragic Nellshipping AU idea: One day, a thief girl, Aisha, breaks info the house of an Egyptian nobleman, planning to rob him. But instead she finds the nobleman's son, Nazim, and befriends him. Years later, Nazim looks for Aisha but discovers she's been murdered, along with the other Kul Elnans. Nazim meets Aisha's brother, who calls himself the Thief King, and volunteers to help him get revenge.
Kelley why
But he would, this would happen, Noa would be the little brainy onethat calculates floor plans and gets TKB into places in an attempt toavenge that little girl that he befriended, and what if somehow therewas a connection between him and Priest Set, like maybe Noa is hishalf brother, Akhenaden's illegitimate son that he neveracknowledged, and so it's more than just hatred for the priest thatserves a pharaoh who killed his best friend, it's also jealousy,because Set was eventually claimed as Akhenaden's son but Akhenadenwon't acknowledge Nazim at all and not to mention the guilt thatwould come from being related to the man that was the reason forAisha's death and
Time Frame: pre-series (before Noa's death, he's eight and she's seven)
Summary: Noa has never had a snowball fight before—it's not becoming of the young heir of Kaiba Corporation. Amane decides it's time to fix that.
Noa startled awake to the sound of a splat. He blinked a few times. Ugh, his mouth tasted funny. What time was it?
It took him a few seconds to find the clock and squint through the haze of sleep to see the glowing numbers. Only six in the morning? He was going back to sleep...
Splat!!
He jolted up at the sound. What was that?? Was it coming from the window?
He stared at the window, glazed over with frost and lined with snow on the wooden frame. There were still flakes spiraling past in the near darkness through the glass.
Splat!
Something smacked against the window and left chunks of snow behind. What was...
He slipped out of bed and padded barefoot to the window. He had to clamber on top of the dresser to get to it in the first place, and then he had to wipe off the smoky condensation with the sleeves of his pajamas before he could see outside. He pressed his nose to the icy glass and squinted down into his yard. At first, all he could see were mounds and mounds of snow, glittering and practically untouched. Except for that little rut there that was leading from the back hedge all the way to below his window...
Splat!
He yelped and jerked back at the thing that had exploded right in front of his face. Curiosity immediately overcame fear, however, and he returned to the glass with his face and hands pressed to it to peer down.
He don't know why he hadn't guessed in the first place, he thought as he found the culprit.
Amane was literally rolling over onto her back, clutching at her stomach, her white hair splayed out onto the snow. He had missed her because the pale blue of her snow gear and her white hair very nearly blended perfectly into the landscape. She was shaking as she giggled, a little bundle of winter clothes rocking back and forth in the drifts of snow.
Noa grimaced, feeling his cheeks warm at how startled he had gotten. After a beat of hesitation, he wriggled the window just wide enough so that he could call through it.
“Amane,” he said. “What are you doing?”
Amane settled back in the snow with her arms sprawled out as though she were about to make a snow angel—and in fact, she did start spreading her arms and legs back and forth to draw the image in the snow as she spoke, her words punctuated with giggles.
“Look at all the snow, Noa-kun!” she said. “Look, look! There's so much!”
She giggled again and paused in making her snow angel, sticking her tongue out so that the snow fluttering around her might fall into her mouth.
“I can see that,” said Noa. He shivered as a breath of winter crept through the crack in the window. His father would be so angry if he knew that he was opening the window in this weather—he'd remind Noa that there was no time for him to catch cold. He had so many things to do: school tests, violin recitals, more review of Kaiba Corporation to prepare him for later. Of course, his father wasn't home right now. He was on a business trip to America and wouldn't be home for two days.
“You should come out! We can have a snowball fight!”
“Huh?”
“A snowball fight!”
Amane popped up out of the snow like a lily, her hair and her knit hat matted with the flakes. She sat upright like a puppy, eyes shining up at him with curiosity.
“Has Noa-kun never had a snowball fight?”
Noa frowned.
“I don't think so.”
Amane's eyes widened.
“Then you have to come, you have to come! Come on, come on, come on! It's so much fun, we have to play!”
“Um....I don't know...”
Father would say no, he thought.
But his eyes were drawn by the shining mounds of snow, glittering like diamonds even in the cloudy day, and the shiny eyes of Amane looking up hopefully at him. He bit his lip. Amane sat up straighter as though somehow she could reach all the way up to his second floor window and bop her nose against his the way she did when she was trying to get him to say yes to whatever idea she had spouted off. She said that it was meant to distract him into a yes, although Noa didn't really know how that was supposed to work.
He melted a bit anyway—saying no to Amane was difficult.
“Okay,” he said. “I'm coming.”
“Yay!” Amane squealed, flopping back over into the snow and making a vigorous snow angel.
Noa laughed in spite of himself. He closed the window firmly shut and then clambered off of the dresser, padding down the hall.
Luckily, it was Sachiko who was on duty today, and she liked Amane. The woman smiled with a sparkle to her eyes when Noa asked her to bring him his winter clothes, and Noa had a feeling she had already seen Amane outside, and maybe even overheard their conversation.
Despite his protests, she helped him get bundled up.
“You can't do this all by yourself, Noa-kun!” she teased. “How are you going to get your scarf wrapped with your mittens on?”
“I don't need a scarf,” he mumbled.
“If you're going to be having a snowball fight, you need all the warmth you can get...all right, there you go! Now off with you—it's not polite to keep a lady waiting!”
Noa blushed and burrowed his face into his scarf as he scurried off to the patio door. He slid it open with some difficulty, finding that his bulky clothes made moving much more difficult. He wasn't used to getting this bundled; usually when he went out it was just with his one, heavy coat and maybe gloves and a hat. Sachiko had wrapped him up in two sweaters and a puffy, waterproof coat, plus snow pants and mittens and scarf.
Amane wasn't where he had left her. In fact, he didn't see her anywhere at all. He blinked. He hadn't taken too long, had he? Where had she gone? She wouldn't have gone home after a few minutes—that definitely wasn't Amane's style.
He frowned as he took a tentative, crunching step off of the patio and into the snow, sinking almost up to his waist immediately. He huffed softly with annoyance at how deep the snow was and how hard it was to maneuver in it. He shifted forward another step, parting the snow around him like the waters of a very thick lake.
“Amane?” he called. “Amane-chan, where are you?”
And then the snowball smacked him in the side of the head and he yelped, wheeling his arms as he almost tumbled over into the snow.
A burst of giggles erupted from somewhere to his left, and he turned, blinking through the flakes tangling in his eyelashes to see a pale face poke up from a hole in the snow and then quickly disappear.
Oh, so that's how it is, Noa thought, a fierce rush of competitiveness firing up in his chest.
He dropped down to his knees and burrowed into the snow so that he was hidden like Amane was, and then started to ball up the snow between his mittens. Once he had made a sizable pile of snowballs, he chanced a peek over the top of his snow hole.
A snowball whistled towards him and he ducked. He grabbed his own snowball and launched it towards Amane's hole—except that it seemed to curve in the entirely opposite direction from where he had been looking, and smacked harmlessly to the snow. Amane's hole roared with laughter.
“You're bad at this, Noa-kun!” her voice floated up into the sky.
Noa flushed, grimacing. He wasn't particularly good at getting thrown things to go where they were supposed to. However...he was pretty good at strategy.
The snow was deep enough that if he got on his hands and knees, he could hide completely in it as he burrowed through. And it was just breakable enough to pack into snowballs but still be relatively easy to dig through. With a mischievous smile growing on his face automatically, he started to slowly push his way through the snow in an arc, swinging around so that he headed for somewhere behind Amane. He heard a snowball fall somewhere behind him and knew that the plan was working—she still thought he was in his hole. His grin was getting wider and wider as he calculated how far around he needed to go to be behind Amane, paused in his digging, and made another snowball.
He chanced a peek over his tunnel of snow.
He saw Amane's head poke up, too, although he was almost behind her now and only saw the back of her head.
“Noa-kun? Are you still there?” she said.
She lobbed another snowball towards the hole and it landed in there neatly—she was a good shot. He'd have to remember that for this snow battle.
“I didn't make you angry, did I, Noa-kun? I'm sorry I saw you're bad. You're not bad at snowballs. You just need practice, okay?”
Noa tried so, so hard to still his giggles as Amane stood up in her hole, craning her neck to see if Noa was still in his original hole.
“Noa-kun?”
Noa hesitated, aimed, and....threw his snowball.
It smacked her in the back and she yelped, jumping up almost a foot and then crashing back into the snow, arms wheeling dramatically. Noa couldn't help but burst out into laughter, trying to hide it with his mittens pressed over his face.
Amane popped back out of the snow with cold-reddened cheeks and wide eyes, looking all around as though she were a chipmunk who had just heard a fox jump into the snow. She finally saw Noa's head of hair poking out of the snow, a green flag against the white.
“No fair, Noa-kun, you are good at this game and you pretended not to!”
Noa couldn't stop laughing, and then of course Amane was laughing too because there couldn't be a giggle without her dissolving into a rolling pile of laughs.
And then he stopped laughing when she lobbed another snowball at him and it hit him on the top of the head, sprinkling snow all down his face.
“Ugh, Amane! Don't hit the head!”
She just squealed with laughter and scrambled out of her hole, attempting to scurry away through the snow. Noa laughed as he too climbed out of his hole and gave chase, flinging sloppy snowballs at her as they ran.
Their laughs twisted up between snowflakes and into the sky, where it echoed against the blanket of clouds. It would be some hours before they were finally too tired to run around anymore, and fell, gasping, back into the snow beside each other.
“That was fun, right, Noa-kun?” Amane said, turning her head to smile at him.
“It was when you weren't smacking me in the face with snow,” he grumbled.
She giggled and turned onto her side so that she could grip his hand with both of hers.
“Your hands are cold, Noa-kun. We should go get some hot chocolate from maman.”
He smiled at her, her pale cheeks flushed with red and her hazel eyes glimmering with energy despite her gasping for breath.
“Sounds good,” he said. “Let's go, then.”
Amane didn't let go of his hand when they stood up and started to walk. He didn't take his hand away, either.
