[✐fan essay] “Brands” Companion Essay: Cultural Crossroads and Malik's Clothing

[made_in_wonder]

Let's talk about Malik's clothes. I'd post pictures, but the computer my scanner works with is acting up, and if you don't know what Malik looks like I have no idea how you found this journal. (Stick around, however. By all means.)

Comments

[made_in_wonder]

Hmm...I'm pretty sure Rishid's cloak is the wrong cut, unfortunately. IIRC he doesn't have a cape-portion, just a hooded robe with sleeves, and Yami Malik's cape looks like it has neither sleeves nor a hood....fun fact: he leaves a dead doctor with a cut-up back in rishid's room in the manga when he goes to fight mai

Oh, I highly doubt Malik feels any specific connection to the people of modern Egypt - heck, he considers himself the most different from everyone else as not only a tombkeeper, but an Ishtar and the heir besides (which is why it's so cool that part of what Rishid says to inspire him in the BC final is "the fate of every human being", which can be interpreted all kinds of fun ways). And thank you for mentioning a real need on his part to start seeing people as people even after Battle City; I find it also really interesting that he never seems to express actual remorse for anything but killing his father. He doesn't understand why Yuugi would want to save him after everything he's done, but afterwards he mostly tells the others just THANKS YOU SAVED ME and not "yeah, I feel like dirt now". Doesn't think twice about using Anzu to get around after losing his body, either.

I do think it's possible for him to slowly change his mind in the face of evidence -- a lot of the Angstshipping fic I have planned revolves around him learning to think of Ryou not as "the Ring Spirit's host" or "the perfect pawn, look at you, all passive and avoidant >:(" but as a person in his own right with strengths and interests worth respecting/caring about.

God damn it, Malik, "see other person as human being" is an awfully awkward hurdle to overcome before a shipfic can realistically proceed. XD XD XD

Also, the whole "tombkeepers are special" thing is even further compounded and complicated by the conversation he has with Rishid in the stands as they wait for the other finalists to arrive, but that conversation makes so little sense I should probably just write a whole essay on Malik's Life-and-Death-Related Tombkeeper Issues and leave it at that.