End of year question meme

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

'Tis the season.

You know what to do.

Comments

[rollplayinghouse]

Seto is mmmmore neutral on Intensity, though that's obviously not a high bar to clear.

A lot of that is that Seto does not see Intensity as related to him in any way other than physical appearance - I think he actually explained his view most clearly to Man Eater, who is the only one who actually asked him to explain what was up with the body double thing: Intensity is clearly a reincarnation of some kind, but from an ancient Egyptian point of view, the physical body is one of the parts of the soul. If he compares them with Yugi and King, Yugi clearly has Atem's physical body, but is also clearly not actually Atem in any way (since Atem was in the puzzle and then they were two people in one body). And from what King said, Seto's actual spirit/personality/etc was waiting for him in the afterlife. So as far as Seto is concerned, Intensity just has some spiritually recycled version of his physical body, and any other commonalities between them are coincidental.

That neutrality apart in a few places:

1) He has to not think too hard about the connection/relationship between Intensity and King. A lot of that doesn't have anything to do with Intensity directly so much as the fact that if he thinks too hard about King having a personal/romantic(?) relationship with Intensity, he has to think about the Pharaoh having personal/romantic relationships and also about himself hypothetically having personal/romantic relationships, and he just does not know what to do about that at all. Seto is perhaps even worse positioned to have normal human relationships than Intensity was to start with, and Intensity has clearly had a lot of improvement. But King basically told Seto to learn to be a human being, and King has a boyfriend(?) who is Seto's body double who is apparently capable of interacting with the Pharaoh like a human being, and thinking about that makes Seto feel inadequate/jealous on a level he's really not emotionally prepared to evaluate. It not that he's jealous of Intensity having a personal relationship with King specifically (? he thinks? he has not managed to actually contemplate whether he would enjoy that because it's so wildly out of his field of reference), but there's clearly... this whole world of things he doesn't understand, that the Pharaoh wants him to understand. And he doesn't enjoy feeling so deeply incapable of doing what was requested of him.

2) When Intensity reminds him that he wasn't capable of stopping Atem from locking his soul in the puzzle. HE GENUINELY FEELS THIS WAS A DEEP PERSONAL FAILURE OF HIS and can't defend it. Which is why his only real retort was "well you didn't stop him from dying either and you're clearly jealous I even had the chance to try because you weren't actually close to him." (Note, Seto definitely does not think King going to the afterlife was a good thing. Better than being in the puzzle for sure, but he would definitely have preferred he not die.)

3) Blue Eyes. SETO HAS...... A VERY LARGE AMOUNT OF UNRESOLVED KISARA FEELINGS. And he's obviously very possessive of her. He's also not at all emotionally prepared to contemplate the idea that his body double's robot dragon has a real connection to her.

All of those are not strictly reasons to dislike Intensity so much as places where Intensity triggers feelings of grief or inadequacy, though, and since Seto tries his best to avoid actually feeling those feelings of grief or inadequacy, mostly he just finds Intensity to be obsessive and annoying. He attacked him for... existing? And... getting punched in the face?? What's his deal. Geez.


Do Intensity's current feelings on ZRAEL overall. (I do want Maki CR too but I think I want to get a bit further in at least the present thread first)