Pharaoh ❝gg ez❞ Atem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
puzzlekeeper) wrote2019-01-10 12:46 pm
puzzlekeeper) wrote2019-01-10 12:46 pm
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i almost broke 5k and am having a fit of nostalgia, so old school journal question meme it is
insert question, receive answer and another question, rinse repeat WE'RE ALL OLD AND KNOW HOW IT WORKS
insert question, receive answer and another question, rinse repeat WE'RE ALL OLD AND KNOW HOW IT WORKS
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CURRENT STATUS: MIFFED!
But starting from the top - King has always been intrigued by Intensity, basically since their first meeting. It started because every-fucking-body around him was like "hey you should meet this Intensity guy" (probably for their own lulz, let's be honest), and then Intensity IMMEDIATELY came on strong in their first conversation. King actually had a bad impression of him for a while - Intensity only ever shows King his most condescending, acerbic, nasty side, and takes stances on things that King just can't/won't agree with. And because it's Intensity, his manner of debate is telling you your opinion is Bad and Wrong and you're an idiot. So right off the bat his feathers were kind of ruffled, and Intensity immediately laying out his "TAKE OVER THIS PLACE AND REMAKE IT IN MY OWN IMAGE" plan when King already had a bad impression of him was like... hmmm...... seems like bad civ. So very early on, around the time Intensity was like "I'm going to test you first", King was also silently testing Intensity even though he never said as much. Testing him for: am I going to have to overthrow and kill you if you become the next scourge upon this cursed place?
So the next few weeks/months were mostly King going along with whatever bullshit came up between them, trying to suss out Intensity's character better and never quite succeeding because: see above about how he always presents himself to King. He's talked to others about Intensity (Maki, Cobalt, Nine-Nine, Angel, maybe some others I don't remember) and gotten mixed answers. Some people think King's paranoia is hilariously unfounded, while others (Nine-Nine) were like [thinking emoji] about it, and still others were like "Intensity is the nicest guy ever who helps me all the time and is very kind."
King: ????????
He can't really picture it, but he's heard of it from several people and seen the evidence secondhand (Intensity making Nemesis a new arm, for example), so it's clearly not all bullshit. And to be honest this kept him from just writing Intensity off altogether, that there's clearly more to him than he's showing King. It just makes King's job of feeling him out more difficult, but that also makes him more determined, because: Atem vs. puzzles and challenges.
As of now King is still testing him, and his paranoia about Intensity In Power hasn't gone away, but it has eased somewhat. King still takes major issue with some of Intensity's stances - particularly his opinion on who's expendable and what are acceptable sacrifices - but he's willing to work with him for now while their goals are still aligned. He meant it when he said they need Intensity if they want to succeed, and he does see Intensity as absolutely integral to this effort. But if he has to overthrow and murder Intensity, he will. But... he really doesn't want to, which leads into the more personal side of things.
Against all better judgement, King likes Intensity. He's proud and arrogant and competent, and always rises to whatever challenge is thrown at him. King respects that - obviously - but also enjoys it because it always means a good time. He gets a thrill out of their challenges and back-and-forth, and he enjoys wringing out any and all reactions he can get from Intensity. Intensity genuinely challenges him and always keeps him on his toes, which is something King basically NEEDS in order to be happy at all. He wouldn't call them friends at all, but he would absolutely call them rivals.
And then there's the fact that he's insanely attracted to Intensity. OBVIOUSLY. Even though he has challenge and escalation problems, he absolutely would not have let mistletoe go where it did if there weren't something else besides competitive pride simmering under the surface. He hasn't examined it too hard because 1. he's pretty sure it doesn't matter and 2. he has no idea what to do with Intensity anyway so there's no sense considering it too hard. The entire encounter he really hasn't let himself overthink because he assumes it meant nothing, and Intensity never really making any moves to follow up on it kind of confirms it for him. (But there's also the nagging in the back of his mind that some of that didn't feel entirely shallow or devoid of feeling, and he was careful about avoiding Intensity's very obvious vulnerabilities and insecurities specifically BECAUSE it wasn't entirely devoid of meaning, BUT ALSO STAY BACK BRAIN-SATAN.) Would he be interested in things going down that path? Yeah, probably. But it's not something at the front of his mind as a serious possibility because, looping back around to: MIFFED!
Intensity's sudden weird swing in behavior since that memory thread is really bothering him, since their comfortable (but still exciting/challenging) give-and-take has morphed into something not at all fun or comfortable and actively distressing for both parties. Intensity murdered the fuck out of him and didn't even enjoy it! And won't even gloat about the victory! And runs and deflects when King tries to confront him! IT'S ALL BAD AND WRONG! INTENSITY WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. I made a whole plurk about this so I won't go on and on about it, but King is definitely going to try and figure out what it is he seemingly did or said that caused the issue, because he can't work with this AND he can't avoid Intensity, so it needs to be solved.
And hilariously, none of this even touches on their shared past - which Intensity loves bringing up even though King basically NEVER does, knowing Intensity hates it. (Get your shit together, Intensity, who's the one obsessed with their past here?) I've said it in a few places, but King has enough memories to know there's some element of Destiny going on between them - this is the third place/lifetime/universe they've been thrown together, and he absolutely believes there must be a reason for it. No matter what shape his relationship with Intensity takes - friend, enemy, something else?? - he knows Intensity is Important and so there's no way he can overlook this relationship, even if he wanted to. He still wants to unravel exactly who they were to each other in the past, but it's not nearly as high a priority for him as their current and future relationship, whatever shape that takes. So despite all of Intensity's groaning and whining about THE PAST!!!!, King's actually extremely forward-looking about everything.
W H E W
ok reverse me. What's new 8')
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Kissing game fucked with him hardcore though - no matter how much he enjoyed it and tells himself it was just a game. Because they both went all in to try and get under each other's skin and though they called it a draw, both of them know that King CLEARLY won that round. King walked away from that encounter with new knowledge of at least two of Intensity's vulnerabilities/insecurities and Intensity didn't feel like he learned much about King at all. Not anything that can be used against him anyway. So the playing field feels very skewed in King's favor now, and Intensity doesn't like that. And even in spite of his disadvantage, Intensity wants to do more with King which just screams DANGER DANGER DANGER. This is going to blow up in his face.
And then came King's next memory. So I specifically picked DSOD "flesh is a prison for the soul" crazy marketing speech as Intensity's first memory because Intensity is allergic to memories, so I needed something that conveyed the importance of his brother, his company, Blue Eyes, and Atem in case he never took memories again. So he knows that he's obsessed with whoever is "the king sleeping in the puzzle", but he didn't know who that was because 1) he was dead at the time of King's first memory and 2) he is currently residing in the beautiful state of Denial where he wasn't going to think about it too hard. But now he has to, and he has to come to terms with the fact that memory!Intensity had spent months of labor, potentially millions/billions of dollars, and was holding a tournament as a smoke screen for King. All while watching a memory of Yugi and King being sickeningly sweet together.
I'll take insecurity and jealousy for 500, Alex.
And in typical Intensity lashing out, the only way to get rid of bad feelings is to bury them so they don't exist and can't hurt you anymore. So conveniently Hunger Games rolls around, they start in the same area, and they have a standing duel agreement. Perfect. Let's use that. And because Intensity and King are Intensity and King, they certainly don't pull their punches (as shown by Intensity shooting him point blank right out of the gate). But then King just. wouldn't. die. He wouldn't even slow down. He was just this immortal righteous being that luckily missed all of his strength rolls so Intensity didn't die immediately. So Intensity made sure to END THE DUEL by whatever means necessary (aka tossing King into the abyss).
And then felt like shit afterwards. Good job. Gold star. Nothing productive came out of Intensity murdering King in a death duel.
Now what? Well obviously the answer is to retreat, regroup and pretend that no emotional or existential crisis ever occurred. And Intensity is really at a lost of what his next move should be. And he's not a person who shares a lot so he doesn't even know who to get advice about this stuff. His trust levels/understanding of how relationships work are also real low now (get to that in a second) so that doesn't help much either. Luckily, the one person who he trusts completely has come to his rescue. Bless Angel, really. And though Intensity did not actually provide 1/10th of the context needed to understand the situation, she replied with "If things happens over and over, it is because that is what we choose each time." So looking back on his amnesia life and bad decisions - Intensity chose to marry King in the Wedding Game, he chose to take things as far as he did in the kissing game, and he has also acknowledged King as someone who has enough similar goals that he wants to ally with up until at least end game. So now he has to figure out what that means and take responsibility for his actions. And he's going to decide what Intensity wants from his fucked up relationship with King, and fuck whatever Kaiba wanted. Screw that guy - he was an idiot.
Stayed tuned on what that looks like because fuck if I know what that is at this point in time.
Re: Trust and understanding people: Running parallel to the King stuff is also this internal conflict of Intensity versus friendship/allies. Obviously, the garbage that comes out of his mouth is that he is required to look after his unit because they are his unit, he has employees that are useful, and has not-romances that are fun and stress-relieving (most of the time). And he was pretty comfortable in his view of allies against a common goal and thought that the people he worked with had the same sort of understanding. Which turned out to be not to be quite true. Especially in the last round of Hunger Games. Did he expect Mori to protect him - absolutely because that is the type of person Mori is. But he did not expect him to defend him so hard against Yugi. And then Yugi accusing him of hiding behind Mori hit a sore spot because "Isn't that what allies do?" People have been on his case about treating people better and Intensity does treat Mori with as much respect as he is actually capable of, but then is still called out for having allies. And it's very much like damned if you do and damned if you don't in Intensity's eyes -- because if he loses then it's because he is a lone asshole with no friends and if he wins with allies he's using them. ?????
This was further exasperated when he talked to Nemesis post game (which has been a habit of theirs from day 1 and she was the first person to call him a friend) and she was confused about whether or not they developed this habit because he was checking on his useful people/investments. And he was so upset by that accusation that he attempted aggressive Intensity style friendship, which just made her think (probably correctly) that the headshot was fucking with his brain more than he was letting on.
So this reconciliation of "can Intensity do allies" is probably going to tie pretty closely into how he attempts to approach King, so yeah--- very rambly. Thanks for coming to my talk I guess. And whew. We'll see how their next conversation goes (which will hopefully be soon. He just needs a cooldown period and I need to finish a couple threads).