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I COULD FIX HIM (yugioh arc v)
Nov. 9th, 2022 02:16 pmcongratulations to arc v for winning the #1 toxic ex i am most unable to break up with award for the 6th year in a row. as i have my statutory interpretation final due in a couple days i figured it was about time i followed through on all my rageful/despairing/miserable tweets over the past few years about how i could have done arc v better so i am going to explain my vision of how arc v's plot SHOULD have gone, which is objectively the correct way as i guarantee i have spent longer thinking about arc v than the arc v writing team. i am operating off my 5 year old fury and bewilderment skewed memory of s2/s3 so i can't say for sure that i remembered everything in the original plot accurately but it was bad so i don't think it deserves accuracy anyway.
we are going to keep s1 because s1 slayed, and start diverging from canon from s2 onwards:
SEASON 2
i'm okay with most of the events that happened in synchro, but i'd focus more on really questioning and digging into yuya's whole duel philosophy because duelling for entertainment takes on such a dark aspect in the friendship cup since the audience is indeed very entertained by spectacularly violent duels, and their complacency with the system can't be shifted with the Duels4Smiles philosophy yuya inherited from yuto alone. because they are smiling! they love brutality! idk/c how exactly this would be resolved but i want to see yuya grapple with how to genuinely reach the synchro residents and make them understand that their society is deeply fucked up and needs to change, while trying to stay true to his belief that duelling should be a instrument for giving others joy. entrenched systems of material inequality can't be fixed with jokes and emotional upliftment (and 5ds literally did manage to tackle this exact topic even via card games so there's no reason why arc v can't address it properly), i want yuya to realise that ideals are not enough to translate into concrete action and that yuto was literally a rebel soldier and the smiles thing was contextual and kinda metaphorical and not like.... Literally the only solution to every problem ever.
not to be a 5ds stan but i'd also touch on jack and crow's ex-friends history because it literally seemed like they didn't know each other in arc v verse and i feel like if their backstory from 5ds where jack seems to be a class traitor but actually isn't was preserved then their presence would be so much more impactful. i think it's fun that arc v jack is settled and on the other side of his character development to 5ds jack so he genuinely can function in a mentor capacity to yuya, so that can stay. shinji is nothing to me, we can get rid of him. or i guess we kinda need him to be the advocate for violence who kickstarts the commons uprising but i feel like crow could have done that in a better and cooler way. sergey was kinda freaky to me though i appreciated the earthbound immortals callbacks even though it was just the aesthetics of nostalgia without any of the substance that made 5ds good, so maybe that duel should have been jack v crow and that's how their arc v universe backstory could be revealed... i do think it's thematically appropriate as well other than the fanservice since it's really relevant to the greater class tensions brewing in synchro. umm also i want <impossible world theory> to be canon but it doesn't have to be directly onscreen in the text but just know that it's real and happened for real To Me.
dennis traitor reveal was perfect, no changes necessary. sora's guilt over betraying yuzu and yuya building and building until he sort-of-not-really betrays academia to rescue yuzu was also perfect, again no changes necessary. jack/reiji/reira diplomatic royalty dinner with free mentorship was very funny and can stay. reiji_slay_fancam.mp4 trapping roget in the infinite loop was pretty good iirc and i love seeing less common duel mechanics get highlighted, so that can stay too. unsure how i feel about yugo v serena, on one hand i am so so glad that my girl reached duel tenimuho, but on the other hand WHY DID SHE HAVE TO LOSE TO YUGO. actually i think i'd change that duel to yuzu v serena because i wouldn't be mad about yuzu beating serena, in fact i would be heart touched as fuckkk and also serenadeshipping reuniting in the duel arena as reluctant rivals would be very interesting to see and i truly believe that yuzu is the person who should have awoken duel tenimuho in serena.
however, serena getting captured after being paralysed by nerve gas was literally such a stupid way to disable her like it was legit infuriating watching her just like lying there while reira tried to fight off academia soldiers to protect her... which i admittedly was very heart touched by like aww inlaws but like. extremely insulting of the show to not even give serena a chance to defend herself!!! i think she should have been duelling the academia soldiers 1 v however many and doing a pretty good job since she is literally an epic prodigy duellist but like one of the academia guys cheats somehow or sneaks up on her and knocks her out, which would also be thematically effective bc serena is very much an Honour And Fairness guy and doesn't necessarily expect dirty play from others. THEN reira could step in to try and stop them from taking serena but is sadly also unsuccessful.
so i think synchro arc should conclude in more or less the same way as canon: synchro in chaos from the rebellion (uhhh i think jack and crow can handle it though. later. fuckass high council promising socialism and equality can still happen so long as it's pretty obvious that's a lie to save their skins and more work and policy building needs to be done but again: i think jack and crow can handle it), serena recaptured by academia, yuzu in fusion, lancers minus serena in xyz.
the key thing i want to change is giving ruri and rin actual personalities and character arcs, so i'd give them an entire subplot during s2 intercut with the synchro subplot. the mind control via parasite was extremely lazy so i want to see them being like forcibly integrated into academia and like, manually brainwashed and gaslit into genuine academia believers. now that i've thought about it for several years i think that i don't actually hate the parasite mind control, i just hate the way it was executed in canon, so the disgusting parasite insect thing can still be implanted in them both as a dormant backup plan. but i want ruri and rin to be won over by the academia ideology for real!! ofc i do think that it's going to be much harder to convince ruri than rin, because ruri was an active enemy rebel soldier who watched academia decimate her homeland whereas rin doesn't even know what academia is since they haven't openly started invading synchro yet, so maybe a liiiiitle bit of mindhacking to suppress some of ruri's memories and make her a blanker slate is in order. shamelessly pulling from hypmic nemu here but i also want ruri to be kinda getting swayed for real to academia ideals underneath the brainwashing/memory erasure.
i would really love rinruri classmates ;__; but i think it's unlikely that would be allowed until they were both totally convinced of the righteousness of academia's mission. BUT i do really love the idea of them having adjacent rooms in their exile tower (i think they might have been jailed in separate towers in canon but i don't care) and whispering to each other through a little gap in the wall and the sound of each other's voices being the only anchor keeping them sane in the first few precanon months of captivity before they start getting the whole academia indoctrination package. i think this would make them much more effective villains and give their s3 duels so much more emotional weight, especially bc they would actually exist as characters in their own right and not just as the objects of male characters' desires.
in terms of inventing personalities for rin and ruri, the 1.5 canonical glimpses of precanon rin mostly make her seem like even more violent yuzu, so i think she should be the loudest and bossiest and most straightforward bracelet girl. maybe also the most loyalty>ideals one, i think she really truly prioritises the people she loves above all and occupies the opposite end of the spectrum to serena's heartfelt adherence to ideals and systems. rin is a prodigy mechanic, which makes her popular in academia bc she's so good at tuning up duel disks. probably there's less stigma against synchro than xyz so she has it easier as well. we mostly see ruri in canon from shun's pov where she is [char vc] gentle which is imo obviously biased as fuck, nobody should ever trust shun as a narrator, so i think ruri should be like sayla if sayla were lacus. a kind and empathetic girl with a steel spine and unreal amounts of bravery to like a frankly stupid extent. basically in error/inheritance ruri is canon to me. i literally have such a distinct vision of ruri in my mind i can't really explain it but just understand she is brave bird maiden of the world. TO ME.
SEASON 3
first of all, zexal deserves its second cameo!! i suppose shark would be the obvious contender as kaito's counterpoint to mirror jack and crow being the 5ds cameo characters, but it would also be funny/interesting if the other zexal legacy character was like, iv or rio or someone. shark/iv/rio/whoever staying affiliated with the resistance network while kaito is doing his batman vigilante thing would slay, i do think that would be a good thematic callback to zexal as well esp if there's some indication that kaito left the resistance or refused to join because haruto is missing. that's technically more cameos than allowed but zexal is so good though.
i also think being back in heartland should anchor yuto enough to have more of a presence again ala astral or atem. even if he isn't a corporeal spirit that others can see, he should be able to at least take over yuya's body and interact with other characters properly T___T i want shun and yuto to be able to kind of not really reunite in the ruins of their hometown, even though it's without ruri and without yuto's physical body, but it gives them a little bit of peace and closure after the anguish of yuto's death in s1 where shun was prevented from intervening by reiji.
the tyler sisters' three duels and edo v yuya were both extremely badly paced and shouldn't have resulted in fanatical academia commanders switching allegiances at the drop of a hat. it literally didn't matter to the plot whether the tylers changed sides or not, so i think they should have stayed loyal to academia but maybe felt like benevolent enough to let yuya shun et al go, in a cat watching a broken winged bird struggle kind of way. unfortunately edo did need to be swayed to the side of the lancers so i think there needed to be more emphasis on his pre-existing internal turmoil where his heart believes in entertainment duelling but he's been conditioned since childhood into loyalty to academia, so that the duel with yuya is more explicitly his last straw. also i don't remember the specifics but i do remember being really mad about the DuelsWithSmiles philosophy reverting back to its pre-maiami championships developments simplistic nature so we gotta keep the You Can't Save Everyone With Ideals Alone level up from synchro.
i kinda hate yusho so we can just cut all his bits, i really don't care, what did this man do successfully. quickly. dennis's parts once again outsold everything else so i think we can keep his scenes intact, absolutely loved the culmination of his internal guilt but not really arc once he can no longer run any further being the decision to help out the lancers one last time and then kill himself so he doesn't have to commit to choosing between academia or the lancers. really sad but really fitting for dennis i think.
overall i feel like xyz arc was super shortchanged and there was no reason to drag out synchro arc to an entire season just to cram xyz into a handful of eps, so i would be cutting down synchro to give xyz more screentime. i would show more of the daily resistance operations in the same way we got to see daily life with the commons in synchro esp bc i'm really curious about how the resistance is even running like are the adults all dead? there should also be more pre-invasion flashbacks to ground allen and sayaka in the xyz ensemble since they really just come off as random guys who are also there, like sayaka blaming herself for ruri's capture is such an interesting dynamic angle that should have been fleshed out more!! like how close were sayaka and ruri? how does shun feel about this? i also want to see more of ruined heartland city, i think shun should take the lancers to a resistance hideout that he reveals was his old classroom or something. like really drive in the horror and loss.
i love that asuka is running a mini shelter for academia escapees within fusion and i loveeeee asuka saving yuzu so that part can stay. i don't love parasite mindhacked serena pretending to reunite with yuzu and then surprise capturing her due to evil brainwashing, i think it's maybe acceptable for serena to be parasite brainwashed due to lack of time to properly recondition her into an academia believer but i'm also deeply annoyed by the bracelet girls getting captured by everyone and their dog like the damsel in distress thing is exceedingly boring. and the damage to serena's reputation due to perceived betrayal kinda landmines me crazily. but sora arriving with reiji and reira to save the day and reconcile with yuya even though they were too late to save yuzu was really good T__T
i think either we keep in the serena trap so sora can finally conclude his heel face turn and confirm his place on the lancer side, or academia uses serena as a hostage to force yuzu to give herself up. yeah tbh this would be worth losing the official sora loyalty switch, which can still be finalised once our heroes reach academia, because it reinforces yuzu's heroine of the world nobility and courage and willingness to sacrifice herself for serena and TRUE CLONES LOVE and gives yuzu back some agency instead of constantly being tossed around from captor to captor and reminds us all that yuzu is the real protagonist of this show. in fact the mind control aspect can still be kept in but in a less landminey way, if the academia guy in charge of this capture mission explains that serena is being mindhacked and basically threatens to force serena to kill herself unless yuzu goes with them.
now that we've done the appropriate setup for turning rin and ruri into real academia soldiers we can have some epic and emotionally meaningful duels against their loved ones!! no real thoughts about yugo v rin except that rin being the most genuinely convinced of academia's ideals and the most tenacious one should lead to extremely heated ideological debate against yugo. rin never saw or knew what academia did to xyz or even to synchro, so i do want to see how she responds to yugo's equally impassioned arguments about academia being war criminals who are also kinda the guys responsible for the crazy class divides in synchro and therefore all of rin and yugo's social problems growing up as commons kids, and whether her new conditioning can hold up against that or if rin will double down and not listen to yugo at all. which i think she will because i think that's kinda what rin is like. rin can win this duel as per original canon as well but she doesn't kill yugo because she does still love yugo and believes he can be brought over to academia's side as well.
kaito v ruri kind of a weird af choice for Ruri Evil Reveal duel but sure peggle. like i don't really know why shun wasn't there from the start and kaito was filling in for shun for a bit, though Me And My Rival At Home's Little Sister is a pretty funny dynamic conceptually. anyway probably the most important or at least top3 most important changes to me personally is KUROSAKIS DUEL... again i'm cribbing from what i've osmosed of aohitsugis showdown but i literally just want that for shun and ruri. like partly mindhacked partly Real Academia Believer ruri facing off against shun who doesn't want to hurt ruri / continues to underestimate ruri but there's no other way to get through to her and it's very angsty Will Love Be Enough? and ruri willingly summons independent nightingale even though it's a fusion monster and she swore never to use the enemy's summoning techniques and this is what drives home to shun that ruri is not the delicate violence-averse little sister he remembers and maybe never was. my god i just got so mad and pressed again thinking about how the message of original canon shun v ruri is that ruri wanting to be "independent" is a sign of deep evil and wrongness and only the ruri who unquestioningly obeys her brother is good and the real ruri.
obviously shun would be like furious and disbelieving and How Dare You Betray Our Fallen Comrades but he is 1) so bad at logical argument because he's way too emotive and angry to engage 2) operating under serious delusional misunderstandings about ruri and her personality like shun is literally under char levels of assumption and misconception, so i really don't think he can change ruri's mind intellectually even without her mindhacking. i think the key to getting ruri on board with academia is for the professor to convince her that everyone who was killed will be brought back to life once the dimensions are reintegrated. that's the kind of hope ruri would cling to and i think that would help her understand academia's vision, because the human cost of the war would not longer really be a cost if it's only temporary. so that's ruri's stance, which has (to her) more solid ideological and practical basis so it's harder to shake off the mindhacking. so they have no choice but to battle it out anguishedly.
instead of the scene where the suppressed Real Ruri inside Parasite Ruri stops her from countering shun's killing blow and allows shun to win i think ruri does need to win this duel. even in canon ruri has been a prodigy duellist who can beat shun since she was a literal toddler and i think winning is necessary to force shun to come to terms with ruri's strength and personhood separate from his love for her. BUT i do still want there to be a scene where shun breaks through the mindhacking with some combination of dealing heavy damage and genuine I Know You're In There Somewhere desperation and ruri has a disoriented Wait Why Am I Fighting My Brother? hesitation moment and love is almosttttt enough but the parasite kicks in again and ruri still wins the duel. ruri then lets shun go as well, i don't think she believes he can be convinced to join academia in the way rin believes yugo can but she does love him too much to kill him.
i really like the concept of ruri/serena v yuya(yuto)/shun tag duel so that can stay, world's most depressing doubles match fr. serena would have to be fully mind controlled ofc and i would like to see ruri acting as control tower and serena acting as weapon. i think yuto needs to have control of the body for this one the whole way through though, like yuya can just take a break, i honestly don't care about the zarc darkness resonance thing. i think this duel needs to be interrupted before anyone wins... maybe by reiji so my ship can be in the same frame? or more realistically by yuri to collect the bracelet girls so the ray reintegration process can begin. i did enjoy reiji's male hysteria daddy issues moment when he chooses to side with yuya over leo so that can stay, i always like to see yugioh protag and yugioh rival working together.
i guess yuya can still lose control despite his and reiji's best efforts to hold zarc back and end up absorbing his counterparts and reawakening zarc, but everyone lining up in dimension order to duel zarc was so stupid so we can just get rid of that, or at the very least condense it, i am aware this is an extended card game advertisement and they do need to be showing the new cards they want to sell. i mostly think it was so sickening that they just had the bracelet girls helplessly trapped in the arc v reactor thing just spectating while everyone fights to save them.
in the same way that the presence of zarc inside yuya is so evil it literally disintegrates the parasite i think that the growing presence of ray inside the bracelet girls should also be powerful enough to disintegrate the parasites so they can all get unbrainwashed on their own. no time to sort out ideology because they need to deal with zarc first, so while all the guys are getting thrashed by zarc the bracelet girls are having a newtype clone empathy link moment where they all come to understand that the only way to stop zarc from destroying the worlds is by relinquishing their individual identities and fusing back together. and this should be treated as a really sad and horrible thing because they ARE different girls and none of them are ray but they are willing to sacrifice themselves to save everyone. so instead of forcible reintegration they do it on purpose, knowing exactly what they're giving up, but facing the prospect of nonexistence calmly and with hope. surely it is a privilege to approach the end etc.
i am not super sure what to do about reira, i kiinda like reira v reiji in principle and think that duel has a lot of delicious angsty brocon potential but the stakes are too impersonal and don't really make sense. like if reira is hearing ray's spirit and believing that fusing the bracelet girls is the only way to stop zarc and explains all this to reiji, canon doesn't really give a reason as to why reiji wouldn't make the For The Greater Good judgment to let it happen, since the pointtttt of akaba brothers drama is that reiji literally does value reira he's just bad at showing that he cares about anyone, and the show dropped the prodigyshipping ship tease threads )': so as the prodigyshipper and text repairer in question i would obviously emphasise reiji's care for serena as the reason why he's so resistant to the idea of sacrificing the bracelet girls to resurrect ray. serena's always been the exception to reiji's usual methodical utilitarian rationality, he always acts irrationally when it comes to protecting her, and it would LITERALLY MAKE ALL OF THIS MAKE SENSE to make prodigyshipping canon like it should be. so this needs to be happening at the same time, which also neatly prevents reiji from joining the zarc fight for a while since he's a bit too op.
anyway zarc kills all the other guys and eats their souls to grow in power. meanwhile, guided by ray, all the bracelet girls agree to combine themselves together inside the reactor and they all slowly disappear into sparkly soul particles and reappear outside of the reactor... but it isn't ray! it's yuzu! but with all the strength and power of the other bracelet girls inside her, because the entire point is that the bracelet girls aren't ray, and leo's plan was always doomed to fail because he didn't understand that and he didn't respect that the bracelet girls weren't just 1/4 of ray, they were each their own person. and it's yuzu's turn to I Know You're In There Somewhere duel zarc in the attempt to bring yuya back so they can all defeat zarc Together. having yuzu duel zarc would also be an excellent bookend to the show, since it starts with yuya v yuzu, and also the role reversal where the protag turns out to be the final boss villain and the main girl turns out to be the protag would be really cool.
so yuzu is duelling zarc, and it's going well at first, but just as ray=/=bracelet girls, zarc also=/=yu4, and zarc begins to make a comeback bc by pure numbers it's 5 (zarc/yuya/yuto/yugo/yuri) against 4 (yuzu/serena/ruri/rin). but it's okay, because ray is also here! reira allows ray's spirit to take over his body as a vessel and ray joins the duel to even out the playing field. and with the support of ray's strength, technique, knowledge of zarc's strategies, and most importantly 風花雪月 cards, yuzu deals the final blow to zarc and there's some cool power visualisations of the 風花雪月 cards backed by the spirits of the bracelet girls trapping zarc in bright golden light and then zarc disappears and the cards flutter down to the ground.
now yuzu and ray are the only two people still alive in the ruined academia hall and it's time for some being girls who are sort of but not completely the same person is the most special thing in the universe newtype mind palace d&ms. ray picks up the cards that are holding zarc and the yu4 and she and yuzu discuss what to do next. ray says that splitting the dimensions apart was like a stopgap measure to hold zarc back and if they're reunited it will free the souls of everyone killed to fuel the arc v reactor and bring everyone back. yuzu says, so yuya and the others can come back? even serena, ruri, rin? ray says, of course. i'm not you, and zarc isn't yuya.
yuzu asks if zarc might ever come back. ray says, not this time. instead of splitting herself and splitting zarc across dimensions, she's going to take zarc away from the dimensions entirely and leave the bracelet girls and yu4 to be their own people and she and zarc will just exist outside of spacetime. i think this would also rehabilitate zarcray in my eyes, it would be pretty funny and romantic for them to do a professional rivals to enemies to newtype ghost lovers checking and balancing each other together for eternity trajectory.
yuzu says, but you'll be gone too. ray says, i already am. ray sacrificed herself to seal zarc away in the first place and leo refused to honour that sacrifice, but ray chose to give up her life and she has no problem sticking to that decision since she knows she is supposed to be dead. their time is over, the universe has been reset, this life belongs to the bracelet girls and the yu4. out of the 風花雪月 cards, ray withdraws a glowing ball of light which is zarc's soul, and then she passes the cards to yuzu. the sleeping forms of the yu4 are vaguely visible inside. ray says, i'll leave the rest to you, yuzu-chan. then she and zarc disappear.
alone but not alone because she has the other bracelet girls with her, creation goddess yuzu resets the universe one last time, freeing all the souls trapped in arc v and bringing everyone back to life and uniting the dimensions--not merging them, in the way that leo tried to merge the bracelet girls into ray, but bridging them together so they retain separation but are connected. burn starts playing over the end credits. the yu4 emerge from the cards. yuzu herself shimmers and separates back out into four different girls who all tearfully but joyfully hug each other. cue montage of scenes from across the four dimensions of people blinking back into existence, ruri and shun and yuto reunite, reiji and serena and reira reunite, yugo and rin, dennis blinking in surprise to find himself alive again and smiling ruefully, and the show ends with yuya and yuzu smiling at each other and together again. i can throw the main canon het a bone i don't mind.
i don't think we need this. it was already incredibly bad in the show and wouldn't make any sense with my new and improved ending. i still think "we need to make the demon baby laugh by duelling in front of it or else the world will end again" is one of the stupidest plot points i've ever heard of in my life. we literally only need like maybe a short postcredits scene to show the in-progress work of rebuilding infrastructure and governance in the wake of the war but there is a general atmosphere of hope and idealism and idk maybe a camera pan up to two lights in the sky for zarc and ray, still watching over the new generation.
but i also do have thoughts on how i would fix the coda arc without getting rid of it altogether:
anywayyy if you read all that thank you for staying 🙂💖 this is a topic i have been furiously thinking about for many years and will probably continue to think about for many more years in the future until i die and i request arc v to lower my coffin into the grave so it can let me down one last time. not kidding when i say arc v is the worst anime i have ever seen in my life and indeed the worst story i have ever experienced in my life but it is tragically still my """"""favourite""""""" because 1) fuck my stupid baka life 2) no other show has serena nolastname in it. unfortunately. 😞
we are going to keep s1 because s1 slayed, and start diverging from canon from s2 onwards:
SEASON 2
SYNCHRO DIMENSION
i'm okay with most of the events that happened in synchro, but i'd focus more on really questioning and digging into yuya's whole duel philosophy because duelling for entertainment takes on such a dark aspect in the friendship cup since the audience is indeed very entertained by spectacularly violent duels, and their complacency with the system can't be shifted with the Duels4Smiles philosophy yuya inherited from yuto alone. because they are smiling! they love brutality! idk/c how exactly this would be resolved but i want to see yuya grapple with how to genuinely reach the synchro residents and make them understand that their society is deeply fucked up and needs to change, while trying to stay true to his belief that duelling should be a instrument for giving others joy. entrenched systems of material inequality can't be fixed with jokes and emotional upliftment (and 5ds literally did manage to tackle this exact topic even via card games so there's no reason why arc v can't address it properly), i want yuya to realise that ideals are not enough to translate into concrete action and that yuto was literally a rebel soldier and the smiles thing was contextual and kinda metaphorical and not like.... Literally the only solution to every problem ever.
not to be a 5ds stan but i'd also touch on jack and crow's ex-friends history because it literally seemed like they didn't know each other in arc v verse and i feel like if their backstory from 5ds where jack seems to be a class traitor but actually isn't was preserved then their presence would be so much more impactful. i think it's fun that arc v jack is settled and on the other side of his character development to 5ds jack so he genuinely can function in a mentor capacity to yuya, so that can stay. shinji is nothing to me, we can get rid of him. or i guess we kinda need him to be the advocate for violence who kickstarts the commons uprising but i feel like crow could have done that in a better and cooler way. sergey was kinda freaky to me though i appreciated the earthbound immortals callbacks even though it was just the aesthetics of nostalgia without any of the substance that made 5ds good, so maybe that duel should have been jack v crow and that's how their arc v universe backstory could be revealed... i do think it's thematically appropriate as well other than the fanservice since it's really relevant to the greater class tensions brewing in synchro. umm also i want <impossible world theory> to be canon but it doesn't have to be directly onscreen in the text but just know that it's real and happened for real To Me.
dennis traitor reveal was perfect, no changes necessary. sora's guilt over betraying yuzu and yuya building and building until he sort-of-not-really betrays academia to rescue yuzu was also perfect, again no changes necessary. jack/reiji/reira diplomatic royalty dinner with free mentorship was very funny and can stay. reiji_slay_fancam.mp4 trapping roget in the infinite loop was pretty good iirc and i love seeing less common duel mechanics get highlighted, so that can stay too. unsure how i feel about yugo v serena, on one hand i am so so glad that my girl reached duel tenimuho, but on the other hand WHY DID SHE HAVE TO LOSE TO YUGO. actually i think i'd change that duel to yuzu v serena because i wouldn't be mad about yuzu beating serena, in fact i would be heart touched as fuckkk and also serenadeshipping reuniting in the duel arena as reluctant rivals would be very interesting to see and i truly believe that yuzu is the person who should have awoken duel tenimuho in serena.
however, serena getting captured after being paralysed by nerve gas was literally such a stupid way to disable her like it was legit infuriating watching her just like lying there while reira tried to fight off academia soldiers to protect her... which i admittedly was very heart touched by like aww inlaws but like. extremely insulting of the show to not even give serena a chance to defend herself!!! i think she should have been duelling the academia soldiers 1 v however many and doing a pretty good job since she is literally an epic prodigy duellist but like one of the academia guys cheats somehow or sneaks up on her and knocks her out, which would also be thematically effective bc serena is very much an Honour And Fairness guy and doesn't necessarily expect dirty play from others. THEN reira could step in to try and stop them from taking serena but is sadly also unsuccessful.
so i think synchro arc should conclude in more or less the same way as canon: synchro in chaos from the rebellion (uhhh i think jack and crow can handle it though. later. fuckass high council promising socialism and equality can still happen so long as it's pretty obvious that's a lie to save their skins and more work and policy building needs to be done but again: i think jack and crow can handle it), serena recaptured by academia, yuzu in fusion, lancers minus serena in xyz.
FUSION DIMENSION
the key thing i want to change is giving ruri and rin actual personalities and character arcs, so i'd give them an entire subplot during s2 intercut with the synchro subplot. the mind control via parasite was extremely lazy so i want to see them being like forcibly integrated into academia and like, manually brainwashed and gaslit into genuine academia believers. now that i've thought about it for several years i think that i don't actually hate the parasite mind control, i just hate the way it was executed in canon, so the disgusting parasite insect thing can still be implanted in them both as a dormant backup plan. but i want ruri and rin to be won over by the academia ideology for real!! ofc i do think that it's going to be much harder to convince ruri than rin, because ruri was an active enemy rebel soldier who watched academia decimate her homeland whereas rin doesn't even know what academia is since they haven't openly started invading synchro yet, so maybe a liiiiitle bit of mindhacking to suppress some of ruri's memories and make her a blanker slate is in order. shamelessly pulling from hypmic nemu here but i also want ruri to be kinda getting swayed for real to academia ideals underneath the brainwashing/memory erasure.
i would really love rinruri classmates ;__; but i think it's unlikely that would be allowed until they were both totally convinced of the righteousness of academia's mission. BUT i do really love the idea of them having adjacent rooms in their exile tower (i think they might have been jailed in separate towers in canon but i don't care) and whispering to each other through a little gap in the wall and the sound of each other's voices being the only anchor keeping them sane in the first few precanon months of captivity before they start getting the whole academia indoctrination package. i think this would make them much more effective villains and give their s3 duels so much more emotional weight, especially bc they would actually exist as characters in their own right and not just as the objects of male characters' desires.
in terms of inventing personalities for rin and ruri, the 1.5 canonical glimpses of precanon rin mostly make her seem like even more violent yuzu, so i think she should be the loudest and bossiest and most straightforward bracelet girl. maybe also the most loyalty>ideals one, i think she really truly prioritises the people she loves above all and occupies the opposite end of the spectrum to serena's heartfelt adherence to ideals and systems. rin is a prodigy mechanic, which makes her popular in academia bc she's so good at tuning up duel disks. probably there's less stigma against synchro than xyz so she has it easier as well. we mostly see ruri in canon from shun's pov where she is [char vc] gentle which is imo obviously biased as fuck, nobody should ever trust shun as a narrator, so i think ruri should be like sayla if sayla were lacus. a kind and empathetic girl with a steel spine and unreal amounts of bravery to like a frankly stupid extent. basically in error/inheritance ruri is canon to me. i literally have such a distinct vision of ruri in my mind i can't really explain it but just understand she is brave bird maiden of the world. TO ME.
SEASON 3
XYZ DIMENSION
first of all, zexal deserves its second cameo!! i suppose shark would be the obvious contender as kaito's counterpoint to mirror jack and crow being the 5ds cameo characters, but it would also be funny/interesting if the other zexal legacy character was like, iv or rio or someone. shark/iv/rio/whoever staying affiliated with the resistance network while kaito is doing his batman vigilante thing would slay, i do think that would be a good thematic callback to zexal as well esp if there's some indication that kaito left the resistance or refused to join because haruto is missing. that's technically more cameos than allowed but zexal is so good though.
i also think being back in heartland should anchor yuto enough to have more of a presence again ala astral or atem. even if he isn't a corporeal spirit that others can see, he should be able to at least take over yuya's body and interact with other characters properly T___T i want shun and yuto to be able to kind of not really reunite in the ruins of their hometown, even though it's without ruri and without yuto's physical body, but it gives them a little bit of peace and closure after the anguish of yuto's death in s1 where shun was prevented from intervening by reiji.
the tyler sisters' three duels and edo v yuya were both extremely badly paced and shouldn't have resulted in fanatical academia commanders switching allegiances at the drop of a hat. it literally didn't matter to the plot whether the tylers changed sides or not, so i think they should have stayed loyal to academia but maybe felt like benevolent enough to let yuya shun et al go, in a cat watching a broken winged bird struggle kind of way. unfortunately edo did need to be swayed to the side of the lancers so i think there needed to be more emphasis on his pre-existing internal turmoil where his heart believes in entertainment duelling but he's been conditioned since childhood into loyalty to academia, so that the duel with yuya is more explicitly his last straw. also i don't remember the specifics but i do remember being really mad about the DuelsWithSmiles philosophy reverting back to its pre-maiami championships developments simplistic nature so we gotta keep the You Can't Save Everyone With Ideals Alone level up from synchro.
i kinda hate yusho so we can just cut all his bits, i really don't care, what did this man do successfully. quickly. dennis's parts once again outsold everything else so i think we can keep his scenes intact, absolutely loved the culmination of his internal guilt but not really arc once he can no longer run any further being the decision to help out the lancers one last time and then kill himself so he doesn't have to commit to choosing between academia or the lancers. really sad but really fitting for dennis i think.
overall i feel like xyz arc was super shortchanged and there was no reason to drag out synchro arc to an entire season just to cram xyz into a handful of eps, so i would be cutting down synchro to give xyz more screentime. i would show more of the daily resistance operations in the same way we got to see daily life with the commons in synchro esp bc i'm really curious about how the resistance is even running like are the adults all dead? there should also be more pre-invasion flashbacks to ground allen and sayaka in the xyz ensemble since they really just come off as random guys who are also there, like sayaka blaming herself for ruri's capture is such an interesting dynamic angle that should have been fleshed out more!! like how close were sayaka and ruri? how does shun feel about this? i also want to see more of ruined heartland city, i think shun should take the lancers to a resistance hideout that he reveals was his old classroom or something. like really drive in the horror and loss.
FUSION DIMENSION
i love that asuka is running a mini shelter for academia escapees within fusion and i loveeeee asuka saving yuzu so that part can stay. i don't love parasite mindhacked serena pretending to reunite with yuzu and then surprise capturing her due to evil brainwashing, i think it's maybe acceptable for serena to be parasite brainwashed due to lack of time to properly recondition her into an academia believer but i'm also deeply annoyed by the bracelet girls getting captured by everyone and their dog like the damsel in distress thing is exceedingly boring. and the damage to serena's reputation due to perceived betrayal kinda landmines me crazily. but sora arriving with reiji and reira to save the day and reconcile with yuya even though they were too late to save yuzu was really good T__T
i think either we keep in the serena trap so sora can finally conclude his heel face turn and confirm his place on the lancer side, or academia uses serena as a hostage to force yuzu to give herself up. yeah tbh this would be worth losing the official sora loyalty switch, which can still be finalised once our heroes reach academia, because it reinforces yuzu's heroine of the world nobility and courage and willingness to sacrifice herself for serena and TRUE CLONES LOVE and gives yuzu back some agency instead of constantly being tossed around from captor to captor and reminds us all that yuzu is the real protagonist of this show. in fact the mind control aspect can still be kept in but in a less landminey way, if the academia guy in charge of this capture mission explains that serena is being mindhacked and basically threatens to force serena to kill herself unless yuzu goes with them.
YUGO v RIN + SHUN v RURI
now that we've done the appropriate setup for turning rin and ruri into real academia soldiers we can have some epic and emotionally meaningful duels against their loved ones!! no real thoughts about yugo v rin except that rin being the most genuinely convinced of academia's ideals and the most tenacious one should lead to extremely heated ideological debate against yugo. rin never saw or knew what academia did to xyz or even to synchro, so i do want to see how she responds to yugo's equally impassioned arguments about academia being war criminals who are also kinda the guys responsible for the crazy class divides in synchro and therefore all of rin and yugo's social problems growing up as commons kids, and whether her new conditioning can hold up against that or if rin will double down and not listen to yugo at all. which i think she will because i think that's kinda what rin is like. rin can win this duel as per original canon as well but she doesn't kill yugo because she does still love yugo and believes he can be brought over to academia's side as well.
kaito v ruri kind of a weird af choice for Ruri Evil Reveal duel but sure peggle. like i don't really know why shun wasn't there from the start and kaito was filling in for shun for a bit, though Me And My Rival At Home's Little Sister is a pretty funny dynamic conceptually. anyway probably the most important or at least top3 most important changes to me personally is KUROSAKIS DUEL... again i'm cribbing from what i've osmosed of aohitsugis showdown but i literally just want that for shun and ruri. like partly mindhacked partly Real Academia Believer ruri facing off against shun who doesn't want to hurt ruri / continues to underestimate ruri but there's no other way to get through to her and it's very angsty Will Love Be Enough? and ruri willingly summons independent nightingale even though it's a fusion monster and she swore never to use the enemy's summoning techniques and this is what drives home to shun that ruri is not the delicate violence-averse little sister he remembers and maybe never was. my god i just got so mad and pressed again thinking about how the message of original canon shun v ruri is that ruri wanting to be "independent" is a sign of deep evil and wrongness and only the ruri who unquestioningly obeys her brother is good and the real ruri.
obviously shun would be like furious and disbelieving and How Dare You Betray Our Fallen Comrades but he is 1) so bad at logical argument because he's way too emotive and angry to engage 2) operating under serious delusional misunderstandings about ruri and her personality like shun is literally under char levels of assumption and misconception, so i really don't think he can change ruri's mind intellectually even without her mindhacking. i think the key to getting ruri on board with academia is for the professor to convince her that everyone who was killed will be brought back to life once the dimensions are reintegrated. that's the kind of hope ruri would cling to and i think that would help her understand academia's vision, because the human cost of the war would not longer really be a cost if it's only temporary. so that's ruri's stance, which has (to her) more solid ideological and practical basis so it's harder to shake off the mindhacking. so they have no choice but to battle it out anguishedly.
instead of the scene where the suppressed Real Ruri inside Parasite Ruri stops her from countering shun's killing blow and allows shun to win i think ruri does need to win this duel. even in canon ruri has been a prodigy duellist who can beat shun since she was a literal toddler and i think winning is necessary to force shun to come to terms with ruri's strength and personhood separate from his love for her. BUT i do still want there to be a scene where shun breaks through the mindhacking with some combination of dealing heavy damage and genuine I Know You're In There Somewhere desperation and ruri has a disoriented Wait Why Am I Fighting My Brother? hesitation moment and love is almosttttt enough but the parasite kicks in again and ruri still wins the duel. ruri then lets shun go as well, i don't think she believes he can be convinced to join academia in the way rin believes yugo can but she does love him too much to kill him.
i really like the concept of ruri/serena v yuya(yuto)/shun tag duel so that can stay, world's most depressing doubles match fr. serena would have to be fully mind controlled ofc and i would like to see ruri acting as control tower and serena acting as weapon. i think yuto needs to have control of the body for this one the whole way through though, like yuya can just take a break, i honestly don't care about the zarc darkness resonance thing. i think this duel needs to be interrupted before anyone wins... maybe by reiji so my ship can be in the same frame? or more realistically by yuri to collect the bracelet girls so the ray reintegration process can begin. i did enjoy reiji's male hysteria daddy issues moment when he chooses to side with yuya over leo so that can stay, i always like to see yugioh protag and yugioh rival working together.
ZARC + RAY + FINALE DUEL
i guess yuya can still lose control despite his and reiji's best efforts to hold zarc back and end up absorbing his counterparts and reawakening zarc, but everyone lining up in dimension order to duel zarc was so stupid so we can just get rid of that, or at the very least condense it, i am aware this is an extended card game advertisement and they do need to be showing the new cards they want to sell. i mostly think it was so sickening that they just had the bracelet girls helplessly trapped in the arc v reactor thing just spectating while everyone fights to save them.
in the same way that the presence of zarc inside yuya is so evil it literally disintegrates the parasite i think that the growing presence of ray inside the bracelet girls should also be powerful enough to disintegrate the parasites so they can all get unbrainwashed on their own. no time to sort out ideology because they need to deal with zarc first, so while all the guys are getting thrashed by zarc the bracelet girls are having a newtype clone empathy link moment where they all come to understand that the only way to stop zarc from destroying the worlds is by relinquishing their individual identities and fusing back together. and this should be treated as a really sad and horrible thing because they ARE different girls and none of them are ray but they are willing to sacrifice themselves to save everyone. so instead of forcible reintegration they do it on purpose, knowing exactly what they're giving up, but facing the prospect of nonexistence calmly and with hope. surely it is a privilege to approach the end etc.
i am not super sure what to do about reira, i kiinda like reira v reiji in principle and think that duel has a lot of delicious angsty brocon potential but the stakes are too impersonal and don't really make sense. like if reira is hearing ray's spirit and believing that fusing the bracelet girls is the only way to stop zarc and explains all this to reiji, canon doesn't really give a reason as to why reiji wouldn't make the For The Greater Good judgment to let it happen, since the pointtttt of akaba brothers drama is that reiji literally does value reira he's just bad at showing that he cares about anyone, and the show dropped the prodigyshipping ship tease threads )': so as the prodigyshipper and text repairer in question i would obviously emphasise reiji's care for serena as the reason why he's so resistant to the idea of sacrificing the bracelet girls to resurrect ray. serena's always been the exception to reiji's usual methodical utilitarian rationality, he always acts irrationally when it comes to protecting her, and it would LITERALLY MAKE ALL OF THIS MAKE SENSE to make prodigyshipping canon like it should be. so this needs to be happening at the same time, which also neatly prevents reiji from joining the zarc fight for a while since he's a bit too op.
anyway zarc kills all the other guys and eats their souls to grow in power. meanwhile, guided by ray, all the bracelet girls agree to combine themselves together inside the reactor and they all slowly disappear into sparkly soul particles and reappear outside of the reactor... but it isn't ray! it's yuzu! but with all the strength and power of the other bracelet girls inside her, because the entire point is that the bracelet girls aren't ray, and leo's plan was always doomed to fail because he didn't understand that and he didn't respect that the bracelet girls weren't just 1/4 of ray, they were each their own person. and it's yuzu's turn to I Know You're In There Somewhere duel zarc in the attempt to bring yuya back so they can all defeat zarc Together. having yuzu duel zarc would also be an excellent bookend to the show, since it starts with yuya v yuzu, and also the role reversal where the protag turns out to be the final boss villain and the main girl turns out to be the protag would be really cool.
so yuzu is duelling zarc, and it's going well at first, but just as ray=/=bracelet girls, zarc also=/=yu4, and zarc begins to make a comeback bc by pure numbers it's 5 (zarc/yuya/yuto/yugo/yuri) against 4 (yuzu/serena/ruri/rin). but it's okay, because ray is also here! reira allows ray's spirit to take over his body as a vessel and ray joins the duel to even out the playing field. and with the support of ray's strength, technique, knowledge of zarc's strategies, and most importantly 風花雪月 cards, yuzu deals the final blow to zarc and there's some cool power visualisations of the 風花雪月 cards backed by the spirits of the bracelet girls trapping zarc in bright golden light and then zarc disappears and the cards flutter down to the ground.
now yuzu and ray are the only two people still alive in the ruined academia hall and it's time for some being girls who are sort of but not completely the same person is the most special thing in the universe newtype mind palace d&ms. ray picks up the cards that are holding zarc and the yu4 and she and yuzu discuss what to do next. ray says that splitting the dimensions apart was like a stopgap measure to hold zarc back and if they're reunited it will free the souls of everyone killed to fuel the arc v reactor and bring everyone back. yuzu says, so yuya and the others can come back? even serena, ruri, rin? ray says, of course. i'm not you, and zarc isn't yuya.
yuzu asks if zarc might ever come back. ray says, not this time. instead of splitting herself and splitting zarc across dimensions, she's going to take zarc away from the dimensions entirely and leave the bracelet girls and yu4 to be their own people and she and zarc will just exist outside of spacetime. i think this would also rehabilitate zarcray in my eyes, it would be pretty funny and romantic for them to do a professional rivals to enemies to newtype ghost lovers checking and balancing each other together for eternity trajectory.
yuzu says, but you'll be gone too. ray says, i already am. ray sacrificed herself to seal zarc away in the first place and leo refused to honour that sacrifice, but ray chose to give up her life and she has no problem sticking to that decision since she knows she is supposed to be dead. their time is over, the universe has been reset, this life belongs to the bracelet girls and the yu4. out of the 風花雪月 cards, ray withdraws a glowing ball of light which is zarc's soul, and then she passes the cards to yuzu. the sleeping forms of the yu4 are vaguely visible inside. ray says, i'll leave the rest to you, yuzu-chan. then she and zarc disappear.
alone but not alone because she has the other bracelet girls with her, creation goddess yuzu resets the universe one last time, freeing all the souls trapped in arc v and bringing everyone back to life and uniting the dimensions--not merging them, in the way that leo tried to merge the bracelet girls into ray, but bridging them together so they retain separation but are connected. burn starts playing over the end credits. the yu4 emerge from the cards. yuzu herself shimmers and separates back out into four different girls who all tearfully but joyfully hug each other. cue montage of scenes from across the four dimensions of people blinking back into existence, ruri and shun and yuto reunite, reiji and serena and reira reunite, yugo and rin, dennis blinking in surprise to find himself alive again and smiling ruefully, and the show ends with yuya and yuzu smiling at each other and together again. i can throw the main canon het a bone i don't mind.
CODA ARC
i don't think we need this. it was already incredibly bad in the show and wouldn't make any sense with my new and improved ending. i still think "we need to make the demon baby laugh by duelling in front of it or else the world will end again" is one of the stupidest plot points i've ever heard of in my life. we literally only need like maybe a short postcredits scene to show the in-progress work of rebuilding infrastructure and governance in the wake of the war but there is a general atmosphere of hope and idealism and idk maybe a camera pan up to two lights in the sky for zarc and ray, still watching over the new generation.
but i also do have thoughts on how i would fix the coda arc without getting rid of it altogether:
- no demon baby. non-negotiable. the important duels in the coda arc are all independently motivated anyway. we can keep the premise of the bracelet girls being missing / still trapped inside arc v and the overarching plot of the coda being to hunt down the arc v fragments across the dimensions so the bracelet girls can be freed.
- lean more heavily into the lotus eater dream / time loop reset vibes at the start where nobody remembers the whole interdimensional war / zarc and ray / etc thing so it's more of a creeping realisation that wait, something is wrong, something (SOMEONE) is missing rather than tsukikage just randomly announcing it to everyone.
- keep the part where yuya shows up in xyz dimension and allen and sayaka are like umm yeah akaba reiji called shun to join his scavenger hunt but shun ghosted him and went to fusion dimension to look for ruri. bc that was really funny.
- dennis's redemption duel was perfect showstopping amazing a really well-written and emotionally touching conclusion to his character arc so i would keep that intact. his motive is atonement for his war crimes against xyz and trying to reclaim the entertainment duelling philosophy and realise its potential to bring people together and give joy to others, which works perfectly w/o demon baby thing.
- shun's anger and grief over finding out that yuto and ruri might be permanently gone causing him to recklessly challenge yuya to a duel also makes perfect sense, but i really don't believe that he would set the stakes of the duel of If I Lose, I Will Happily Give Up My Entire Primary Driving Motivation This Entire Series so i would just leave that bit out and have shun be like extremely unhinged and destabilised while blocking yuya's access to the arc v fragment in fusion bc he wants to get ruri out of there. i love that shun's last and most powerful ace monster is final fortress falcon, who is geared around protection instead of destruction like all of shun's other monsters... 揺るぎない信念と深き慈愛の心 in the summon chant... it's all love always has been. but also it must be said that ultimate falcon outsold on a stats/utility basis so hard it's not even funny so final fortress falcon was kinda a downgrade in execution, we need to get her better effects and at least 5000 atk like at least make her a crazy beatstick for how hard she is to summon lmfao.
- anyway shun obviously needs to lose this duel and let yuya take the arc v fragment as promised but i think he should still be bitter and grieving and yuya should feel really guilty about it.
- i am literally a jack atlas onepicker but HE SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE PENULTIMATE DUEL IN ARC V LMAO HE DOESN'T EVEN GO HERE. it was funny when jack yelled at yuya to get a fucking grip but this duel should not have happened.
- there's kinda no justification for having a reiji v yuya duel in my version of the coda other than like... ceremonial purposes? but i'm not mad about it being the finale duel, i do think it would have been better if it was penultimate and yuya v yuzu was the finale for bookending purposes like i said before, but the duel was fine i guess, yuto/yugo/yuri regaining some sentience and communicating with yuya was good, the real zarc sealing method was the friends and clones we made along the way or whatever. i do think that it's nice if the yu4 assert their separation from zarc and therapise him from the inside.
- i do definitely think that if you're going to have a ""happy"" ending then the bracelet girls and yu4 all need to be resurrected again like no way you're writing 6 entire characters out of existence and being like my job here is done 😂 i also don't like the four dimensions being merged into one dimension, i think that's kind of horrifying and runs counter to what arc v was setting up in s1 re: bracelet girls being different from each other -> similarly the dimensions don't need to be forcibly integrated to be connected.
- I SERIOUSLY HATE IT WHEN GIRLS DIE. like even if they don't all regain corporeality they should at least be sentient and roomsharing in yuzu's body. and same with yu4.
- i just keep getting so heated and smad every time i think about how my all time yugioh onepick, literally my #1 character from my #1 fandom, was batted around as a pawn with no agency for her entire life and then incapacitated for half the show and then fridged and then permanently written out of existence altogether like it's just so sick that someone as fiercely desperate for freedom and selfhood as serena got to experience like 2.5 moments of joy and love and connection and affirmation of individuality and opportunity to take action on her own behalf in the middle of all that misery and loneliness and then she suffered until she died and then she was erased from the text for good just to really drive the injustice home AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO FIND THAT A NICE AND PERFECT AND HAPPY ENDING? KYSSSSSSS
anywayyy if you read all that thank you for staying 🙂💖 this is a topic i have been furiously thinking about for many years and will probably continue to think about for many more years in the future until i die and i request arc v to lower my coffin into the grave so it can let me down one last time. not kidding when i say arc v is the worst anime i have ever seen in my life and indeed the worst story i have ever experienced in my life but it is tragically still my """"""favourite""""""" because 1) fuck my stupid baka life 2) no other show has serena nolastname in it. unfortunately. 😞
