In this part, i'll answer some questions from you guys and just some general misconceptions.
Q: Wasn't the original premise of this story going to be about reishi being yugi muto's daughter, what happened?
A: for those who don't know, The original Description of this story was " 50 Years after The End of the original duel monsters, A new Legend named Reishi Motou Rises from the Ashes to challenge the world. Can she defeat a new enemy called the Shadowmancers and discover the truth behind her past?" Implying that this story was a direct sequel to the original duel monsters. Indeed this was my original intention but as I continued to write the story and develop, I realized that the plot had almost nothing to do with the original duel monsters story. Not only that but I couldn't find any way to include any of the characters from that story without it being contrived or them stealing the spotlight. So I decided to make it a completely original story. I changed reishi's father from being yugi mutou to being Reiji Sakamoto, A famous dueling champion. Changed a few minor details and that was that. Now there still are some references to the oh duel monsters like reishi's deck and creatures being loosely based on yugi's, plus certain location names are callbacks to characters in that series but other than that, its almost original. So with that being said, I didn't intend to deceive you all and I apologize.
Q: What was the inspiration for this story?
A: I didn't really have any in particular that inspired me to write this series. I've always been a fan of yu-gi-oh and I always wanted to give my spin on it. Certainly I have influences though. I'm a feminist and I try to put messages of female empowerment and resilience in my stories. Call me a simp for jane austen and virginia woolfe. I'm a fan of anime (Obviously) so there's a lot of influence there, especially from high school anime. Finally I really like classical literature, the simplicity and duplicity of it, really attracts me. So yeah.
Q: Why are hattori and shima so thicc?
A: Hattori drank a lot of milk when she was growing up and Shima is partially a gymnast so her body is quite toned.
Q: Does shima duel?
A: Yes. Shima will duel in the sequel/main story.
Q: Why do you sometimes switch between meters and feet in describing how long things are?
A: My family moved around a lot when I was a kid. We lived in the uk,,canada,japan and brazil when I was little, so I learned a bit of the metric system and the old imperial ones from American schools. Its just an old habit of mine. In the future i'll try to be more consistent.