Decided to post the art in this separately because I really enjoy it but it's buried a liiittle under text :]

@arcvmonth Day 27: Square Zero!

It's always fun to speculate on what Zarc and Ray were to each other. Did they know each other before Zarc lost his mind? Did they ever duel before then? Was it just passing by each other in waiting rooms before their next duel? Were they possibly romantically involved or the feelings their counterparts have for each other due to growing up in proximity to each other? Or even some twisted subconscious knowledge of being the only people left from the original dimension around them?

Sometimes I wish we knew more about them, but I think the mystery surrounding them is so much more alluring. So much of Arc V can be left up to speculation and theory and I think that's a big reason why I love it so much.

THE VOICES

THE FACES

I CAN'T

@arcvmonth day 27

Listen, I know that drawing Reiji for this day seem weird and unfitting, but I have my reasoning. See, the Original Dimension split 14 years before the show, since Yuya, Yuzu, and the counterpart are all 14. Reiji Akaba is 16 years old. Reiji was 2 when the world split, so he might have had the memory to remember the split! And Ray Akaba (assuming Reiji is Leo’s biological child, or was with Leo since the OG) would know Reiji and her baby brother Reiji!

Someone's probably already pointed this out already, but I didn't know until @ratthivolt pointed it out to me, so thanks for that!

I'm not sure if people have seen this, but this is Kazuki Takahashi's afterword from The Comiq where he discussed how he felt he was drawn to the theme of "freedom."

The fun has just begun! This time with screentones lmao! I'm an addict.

-

Congrats to @pinkprimrose05 for winning the 100-comment celebration! If I'm not horribly incorrect I believe they wanted this. Probably. Sorry if I am lmao.

It's unreal how much better this is than the original. How many eyes have been scarred by chap 24? Anyway! Can't wait till I've released the next batch of Art crimes because the 100 kudos celebration is already overdue and the 150 comment celebration is fast approaching /genuine.

ARC-V Month Day 30: Curtains Down

@arcvmonth

Well, that's that. ARC-V Month is coming to a close and... While I know I lost a ton of momentum later on in the month, I'm still glad to have contributed to this journey. (I cannot believe the post of me saying two words about Chojiro is my best post. And I focus on Melodious and Yuzu.)

It was really weird having the OC prompt so late, because the event felt like a massive theatre Opera and the authors presented themselves or their close friends kind of at the last minute. I know, it's a bit weird to say, but... Yeah. That day just kind of exploded.

Also this event got me to know you all a bit better, and Tumblr in general, as I'm still a newbie to it. I'll say I've learned quite a bit this month.

As for favorite works, I know it's a bit biased, but it has to be phantomknights' Day 2 entry. I mean... Yeah, I know it was inspired by an idea I had, but it came out so well that I would have declared it anyway. Not that it's the only thing I liked from this month. Far from it.

I don't have much more to offer now, admittedly... And not even in the near future. Tomorrow I'm going to the beach for two weeks, and I don't know how much of my time will be spent on Tumblr. Probably not much.

So, after I bow out, I would like to ask you a favour... I kinda wanna do a Q&A in general. Feel free to ask me what you like, about Yugioh, Melodious, my complicated relationship with ARC-V etc. I'd be happy to answer and share, and talking to people about interests is always nice.

Lastly, I need to thank people in particular.

I thank @pinkprimrose05 for guiding me through this new experience, as well as @enter-the-performapals and @ninozero5 to make this event possible!

I thank @wearepopcandies for the beautiful "casual Bloom Diva" sketches sent to me for my Day 5 Entry!

Source here!

And last but not least, I thank @phantomknights for the miracle drawing of Yuzu's Bloom Diva cosplay!

Source here!

And that's all, ladies and gentlemen!

Now I'll be off, but always up to talk whenever you feel like it. I hope this month was joyous for you all as well, and keep going in harmony with your lives!

So... Until then!

*curtsies*

...

Oh and also...

Day 27: Square Zero @arcvmonth

I really loved the reveal of the Original World itself. It felt like payoff for some of the biggest mysteries in the series. It was so satisfying and engaging to hear Leo’s story. It made perfect sense as to why we couldn’t learn about the Original World sooner too. Leo was the only survivor of the Original World’s destruction and because he was locked away at Academia, there was no way for the cast to confront him until they got there. I always thought that the creation of the four Dimensions was a hard reboot of the world. The counterparts, as well as Leo, were just tossed through time and space to arrive at specific points in their respective Dimensions. We don’t see any other established characters in those flashbacks. They already had younger designs for Yusho, Yoko and Shuzo, so they could have included them or other established characters to indicate that everyone older than fourteen was from the Original World placed into new Dimensions. Yoko had her flashback when she was in a biker gang and how she met Yusho, which means that they have memories from before the counterparts were created in these four Dimensions. Reiji was also never mentioned in the flashback. Even if they didn’t want to design a two year old Reiji, it would have been extremely easy for him to get a mention. It could have even been a reason as to why Ray wanted Leo to stay. She could have said that Reiji needed his father more than his sister, which would be pretty depressing, but it would have been an easy way to indicate that Reiji existed in the Original World. What happened after the Zarc battle was more of a soft reboot by comparison since it was trying to restore balance as opposed to creating new worlds from the destruction of the Original World. It seemingly only affected the Standard Dimension since it had become Pendulum, most likely due to Odd Eyes now being a Pendulum Monster instead of an Effect Tribute monster like it was in the past. There was no indication of any of the other characters in the other Dimensions having their memories altered and there was still destruction from both the Dimensional War and the Zarc battle left, so it wasn’t exactly what happened the first time Zarc was defeated.

It also made me reevaluate Leo as a villain. For most of the series, I just assumed that he wanted to merge the dimensions for power or something like that. I thought that he worked well as a villain from the shadows. We don’t really see him that often, but because of Academia’s looming presence for most of the series and Reiji’s motivation to stop Leo, he never feels forgotten. The fact that he brainwashed Academia to become his personal army still made him imposing as well. But finding out that his true motivation was to bring back Ray really changed my perspective on his character. It made him more complex than I expected. At the end of the day, he is a father grieving for his lost child, willing to do anything and everything to get her back. That motivation is understandable, if not sympathetic. It even makes sense why Leo is willing to do such terrible things because he doesn’t see the other characters as real people, not even his own family. He knows that these Dimensions are not his Original World, so it’s easy to write off all of these characters as expendable since they aren’t real to him. Leo wanted his daughter and his world back by any means necessary. While the audience could understand his thought process, by this point we had seen characters from all four Dimensions. We had seen their different personalities, bonds and goals, so we couldn’t just see them as expendable pawns for Leo’s own objectives.

Even though his backstory makes Leo more sympathetic, I love that the show immediately calls him out through Reiji. Reiji pointing out that he is a threat to the peace of the four Dimensions and that he’s a bigger threat than Zarc was incredibly satisfying. As understandable as his grief for Ray is, Leo did a lot of terrible things. Instead of honoring his daughter’s sacrifice, he was actively trying to undo it, never even considering the consequences, all because he was blinded by his grief. Nothing and no one else mattered to Leo more than Ray, not even his new family. His actions caused a chain reaction that led to Zarc’s revival. He wrote it off as it was fated to happen due to Zarc’s will. While Zarc clearly wanted to be revived, without starting the Dimensional War and kidnapping the Bracelet Girls, I don’t think the Dragon Boys would have been able to meet each other, let alone merge to form back into Zarc. He was too set on reviving Ray that he didn’t factor that she’d need a host body like Zarc did.

While Leo may not have been punished enough for his action to satisfy fans, I don’t think he was really rewarded with anything either. Ray was revived, but she never talked to Leo. She communicated with Reria about how she needed to be revived before Zarc to stop him, but that wasn’t because she wanted to reunite with her father. By that point, nothing could stop Zarc’s revival and Ray knew that she was the only one able to defeat him. Leo doesn’t get any kind of reunion with Ray to deal with his grief and he still loses his daughter after the Zarc battle again anyway. Leo abandoned his family, turned Academia into his personal army, spent years planning an invasion on the Xyz Dimension, carded countless people in Heartland, kidnapped the Bracelet Girls, used the carded people as fuel for the Arc V reactor and attempted to force the four Dimensions back into one in the vain hope of getting both Ray and his Original World back. And he’s rewarded with nothing. All his actions did is nearly cause another world destruction event. I think that combined with the fact that he’s still left without Ray were the wake up call Leo needed. As much as I love Reiji calling Leo out during their duel, it wasn’t going to change Leo’s mind. He was so close to getting Ray back and he was well beyond the point of listening to reason, so he wouldn’t really believe Reiji was in the right. I think that seeing that Zarc was so close to destroying the world and that the cycle nearly started over again were what finally made Leo reflect on his actions and behavior.

I don’t think he was forgiven so much as he saw the error of his ways if that makes sense. I don’t think that the rest of the cast would now be perfectly okay with Leo. Sora and Asuaka were at Academia as he was working on the Arc V reactor with Ray still inside it, but I saw it more like they wanted to save Yuzu as opposed to trusting the Professor now that the Dimensional War was over. As satisfying as it would have been to see Shun punch him, the fact that he didn’t do it was more because he realized it would be pointless way of dealing with his anger as opposed to forgiving the man who destroyed his home. He is with his family during the finale as Yuzu is revived, but I never saw that as an indication that he’d be welcomed back with open arms. Reiji may not have the same anger towards his father, as indicated by how he helped saved Leo after he was defeated by Zarc, but I don’t see that as necessarily the same thing as being forgiven. I think dealing with a loved one who has done terrible or unforgivable things is a bit more complicated than that since there can be a lot of conflicted feelings involved. I think that there are more layers to forgiveness and redemption than fans in general tend to acknowledge. Leo recognized that his actions were wrong, but I don’t think he’s rewarded with the family he abandoned just because they’re standing together in the finale. I prefer the head canon that he remains in Fusion, trying to undo the damage he caused to Academia somehow, and Reiji accepts that. He’ll still keep an eye on Leo to make sure he doesn’t cause anymore damage, but after how the Dimensional War turned out for him, Leo wouldn’t be using Academia for another invasion. Leo being left with basically nothing after all of the damage and pain he caused is probably one of the most fitting punishments he could have gotten too.

||Day 25: Woe, Angst Be Upon Ye

Oh, would you look at that? Today we are gathered here for the express purpose of hurting our poor little meow meows and giving them more trauma on top of their existing issues! How fun! || @arcvmonth

... alright, fine, they might get a happy ending. No promises on that front, though.||

"Yugo...not even the death can tear us apart."

This drawing can be in ARC-V month right, because if that is not the case, then i don't know what to do with this T_T

Follow me on twitter :3 ---> @Kitaro_S2709

Oh no he angy.

@arcvmonth day 25

with the business of being, the business of breathing, the business of eating, the business of being a bad man. i am a bad man.

Day 23: Back At Class, They Never Taught A Thing @arcvmonth

Out of all of the Academia characters, Dennis is by far my favorite one. I thought that he had a really good and memorable debut and his personality really shined through too. His deck was pretty cool as well. It’s so interesting to me that Arc V had two undercover Academia spies and both of them turned out to be so drastically different from each other. It didn’t take long to confirm that Dennis was from Academia. I remember the theory that Dennis was really Yuri in disguise because of having Polymerization in his deck. It lasted only a week, but it was a fun theory, even if it made no sense. The fact that the audience knew about Dennis being a spy way before any of the characters did provided some buildup to the reveal in his second match with Shun. It was still pretty intense to see Dennis’ cheerful and upbeat personality disappear as soon as Trapeze Magician was destroyed and he summoned the giant Ancient Gear Golem.

One detail about Dennis’ time in Heartland always stood out to me. He told Shun that he wanted to keep performing, but once he found Ruri, he didn’t have any other choice. He had to fulfill his mission to Academia. While it was still a mask for his uncover mission, Dennis clearly loved being an entertainer, to the point where that became his true self. He never fit the role of a duel solider like did as a performer. But despite how much he wanted to keep performing, Dennis still completed his mission. Granted, it may not have changed much of anything in the grand scheme of things if he never told them about Ruri. If Dennis wasn’t the one to signal the start of the invasion, then it probably would have been another Academia soldier. Leo had been spending years planing for this invasion, so it was going to happen regardless of what Dennis did, but the point is that he didn’t have the courage to make that choice for himself. He felt too obligated by his loyalty to Academia to even consider just staying in Heartland as an Entertainment Duelist. Despite going all out with his Academia cards, he couldn’t defeat Shun, which is a big deal for Academia students who are taught to look down on Xyz users and enjoy hunting them as if it was all a game.

I really liked Dennis vs. Kaito. Dennis’s Performage monsters have pretty cool designs and I really like Arc V Kaito’s Cipher monsters, so getting to see them duel each other was fun. The most memorable part of the match was definitely the ending though. Dennis and Kaito were able to put on a performance that entertained the people around them. Yusho could recognize how much Dennis loved to perform and offered him the chance to join their fight against Academia, but once again, Dennis believed that he didn’t have any choice. He already burned that bridge with the Lancers and believed that they wouldn’t accept him back. Not just because of his reveal of being with Academia, but when he was set back after losing to Shun, Dennis provided them with information on the Lancers. He’s the reason why Leo has his own Pendulum cards. They could have potentially learned about it from Sora when he first arrived back at Academia, but Dennis actually had Pendulum cards in his deck, so it would be easier for Leo to use them to create his own Pendulum cards. It is sad that he felt that they wouldn’t accept them when Yuya would have been willing to at least hear Dennis out, if not give him another chance, based on what happened with Sora. I’m less confident about Shun giving him another chance given his involvement with Ruri’s kidnapping, but he was becoming less of an angry bird at this point, so he might have been willing to at least hear Dennis out. But he felt that he didn’t have that option. And he gave the information that Kaito wanted after winning the duel, so he didn’t fee like he could return to Academia either.

Even when I was watching the episode for the first time, the moment Dennis started moving backwards on the ship, I was wondering to myself “Oh man, is he really going to jump off the ship?” Dennis was torn between two options, as symbolized by the two sides of the ship’s deck, and instead of making a choice, it was easier to take himself out of the equation by carding himself. It was a shocking and tragic moment. As sad as it was, it kind of made me really love Dennis even more. He was so conflicted over his true feelings and his loyalty to Academia that he couldn’t handle it. He didn’t have the courage or strength to make his own decision. It just showed how much Academia’s teachings affected Dennis and that made him so much more interesting to me.

It’s really interesting to compare him with the other former Academia students in this regard. Sora had his friendships with Yuya and Yuzu, which slowly made him realize that Academia would hurt people he cares about and he gradually accepted that he was their alley instead of their enemy. Serena was understandably shocked to learn that her entire worldview was a lie, but because of her prideful warrior nature, she immediately wanted to stop Academia and help save Yuzu. Arc V Asuka was horrified to see what Academia was willing to do even to their traitors and learned what Academia had really done to Heartland afterwards. She never wanted to use Fusion monsters or Polymerization again, which is why she runs a Ritual Deck instead. These characters had support from either friends or their own convictions that allowed for them to make the stand against Academia. Dennis did not really have that. Not because he didn’t have any friends. He enjoyed his time with the Lancers and I believed that. He was still a spy, but he was clearly having more fun being with them than with Academia. At the very least, I believe he saw both Yuya and Gongenzaka as his friends. But because Dennis lacked the courage to make a choice on his own, I don’t think having support from Yuya would have been enough, especially when even Yusho reaching out to Dennis didn’t help him.

Yuya vs. Dennis was such a great duel too. Even though Academia was effectively destroyed, Dennis was still more willing to initially play the villain in their duel, similar to what happened when he dueled Gongenzaka back in the Synchro arc. But Yuya could pick up on the act and encouraged Dennis to be his true self. This time, Dennis accepted that option and that allowed for both of them to put on a fun duel that entertained the people of Heartland. There is such a clear different between Academia Dennis and Entertainment Duelist Dennis with his demeanor. Both Yuya and Dennis look so genuinely happy after the duel ends too. I especially love how Yuya asked Dennis to become an Entertainment Duelist teacher for the kids in Heartland. He was clearly caught off guard by that idea, but instead of saying he doesn’t deserve it, Dennis agrees to it. While he didn’t have to worry about his loyalty to Academia anymore, Dennis choosing to embrace his true self is still really huge. He accepts that he is an Entertainment Duelist and doesn’t try to hide behind the mask of a villain or soldier. This also provides a way for Dennis to atone for his part in the Dimensional War. Heartland is still in ruins and the people are still understandably traumatized over what happened to them. They most likely aren’t going to be happy to see Fusion monsters or Polymerization cards anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t start the process of healing from the war. By teaching Heartland kids about Entertainment Dueling, Dennis is able to finally be himself while allowing the people of Heartland to remember how fun dueling can be at the same time.