Fanfic / C'est la Vie

C'est La Vie is the most recent in a series of Crossover fanfics between the two spin-offs of Yu-Gi-Oh!, GX and 5D's, whose names are all literary or musical references. A sixth fanfic is in the works, one which parallels Yu-Gi-Oh!: Bonds Beyond Time. Said fic has recently been published.

The plot is a slightly different take on the plots of 5D's Story Arcs, tailored to a theme more to the author, Genma no Ou's (and by association, he assumes, his fans') liking. It overlaps events and characters from GX in order to add an extra layer of complexity to the story; and given that it is much like any other fic about overly dramatic children's card games, it attempts to entertain by adding new situations while trying to keep everyone in character.

If you were looking for the webcomic by Jennifer Babcock, about two girls living in Los Angeles, look here.

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This work provides examples of:

• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: The way the story begins shows that it does originally fit in the 5D's timeline up until that point. It also makes it confusing exactly when the two diverge.
• Aerith and Bob: Between mixing two series with greatly opposing name themes and adding characters, these fics have this in spades.
• Ancient Conspiracy: Placido has been planning his big scheme for an indeterminate amount of time.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: The end of Chapter 38 seems to heavily imply that Paradox is Placido, the man he has been fighting since before the story started.
• Anime Hair: Yes, in a fanfic. Kyojo has black flames for hair, Taiyou has black and red messed-up hair, Alessandro has pointed dreadlocks...
• Apocalypse How: By biological warfare, if Paradox is to be believed.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Momentum's energy seems to do whatever is needed based on the plot.
• Artificial Human: The X-Units, the Diablo, the Emperors of Yliaster save for Alessandro. Now includes Paradox.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Placido; after he dies in the past, he is brought back to life by God himself as his servant. A bionic servant.
• Ascended Extra: Saiga. In the anime, he's a minor character; in Best of Times, Worst of Times, he is One of Darkness' henchmen. For about a chapter and a half.
  • The Saviour Dragons become a significant part of the plot, instead of just Ass Pull plot elements.
  • Placido, while by no means an Extra in 5D's, is far more important in this fic, being the leader of the group.
• Author Appeal: The Yugioh franchise mixed with Ancient Conspiracy, science, Gnosticism and many other things.
• Back for the Dead: In The New Morning, Professor Cobra returns to complete his goal from before. Or, as it later turn out, to die at the hands of an enraged Rex Godwin.
• Badass Biker: Everyone with a D-Wheel. Including GX characters.
• Badass Creed: Summoning chants for everything important.
• Badass Longcoat: Half the damn cast. Between Jack, Hell Kaiser, cameos like Manjyoume, and OC Kyojo... there must have been a sale on longcoats.
  • The evil counterpart to this is Alessandro wearing his cloak as a trench coat.
• Bald of Evil: Jose averts this in these fics, as instead he has a long ponytail.
• Bat Family Crossover: Basically the plot of the story.
• Batman Gambit: Aki stages her own kidnapping so she and Johan can finish off Reggie and David.
• Big Damn Heroes: The gang does this during the Diablo surge.
• Black Bra and Panties: Aki.
• Bloodless Carnage: When fights occur, this trope is completely averted.
• Body Horror: Placido's transformation is played up as more disturbing than in 5D's.
• Bottomless Magazines: A twist, and one that's played with. The only time the number of cards in a player's Deck comes into question is if one player is running Deck Destruction; otherwise, it seems irrelevant how many cards a player has left, and there will always be some.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Yusei and Hell Kaiser get this in the first two fics.
• Break Them by Talking: Placido has many of these speeches.
• Butt-Monkey: Arguably Judai. While not mistreated the same way as most examples, most of the unfortunate things in this story happen to him.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Part of the conflict between Placido and Yusei's group is that Placido's information to them consists of vague comments which make him seem like a Manipulative Bastard (not to say he isn't...)
• Canon Immigrant: The Summoners.
• Canon Foreigner: Four characters from the GX manga make very short cameos.
• Card Games: Subverted.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Alessandro, who appears to be a randomly-placed lackey in C'est La-Vie, later turns out to be Lucciano's replacement.
• Church Militant: Considering they work for God, Yliaster come across as these.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The f-word is tossed around a fair bit, especially by Crow.
  "You know what? Fuck you, Judai!" Crow snapped at the red-haired man, shoving him and almost making him drop Kyojo. "Don't give me that fucking teamwork speech after you fucking went and fucking ditched the lot of us just for a fucking shot at fucking Placido! You don't know the first fucking thing about fucking group efforts!"
• Combat Pragmatism: Placido. When a guard sees his metal eye, he shoots the guy through the forehead with a laser beam from said eye. Then jumps down the hole like it was nothing.
• Crazy-Prepared: Half the cards people run at any given time are about drawing cards.
  • Darker and Edgier: At times, these fics can be this in contrast to GX and 5D's.
• Defeat by Cameo: Kaiba and Fubuki show up briefly to become victims of Paradox.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Mostly averted.
• Demoted to Extra: Yugi. Justified in that he's not really the main character anymore.
  • Ushio gets this treatment as well, getting a single off-handed mention.
  • Misty and Carly in Best of Times, Worst of Times. This is due to Darkness making meals out of them.
  • Sherry Le Blanc. Justified in that it wasn't actually her.

• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Bommer.
• Dub Name Change: Played with; as of Redeem Us In Our Solemn Hour, the character originally called "ZONE" is apparently now called "Ylaidus".
• Eagleland Osmosis: Speaking Japanese with a Texan accent? What?
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: Rainbow Neos becomes a regularly-played monster, despite having only 3 appearances in GX.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Paradox versus Placido, Jose and Lucciano. The latter 3 want to overthrow the Signers to create a better world by eliminating the bad people; Paradox wants to destroy humanity altogether.
• Expy: The characters referred to as "Summoners" are in fact borrowed from the canon of Genma no Ou's friend, Tenebrius, from a story called "Yu-Gi-Oh! Tensei". Because of a mistranslation of "Tensei" as "Summoner", when it in fact means "Rebirth". Oops.
• Eye Scream: Placido.
• Eyepatch of Power: Placido sports one over his right eye when he doesn't wear the conspicuous metal eyepiece. He still has the Infinity Mark on it, however.
• Fan Disservice: The end of Comme Les Fleurs Du Mal seems like it will lead into a Lemon, but it doesn't.
• Flanderization: Placido's extremist attitude gets more extreme as the story goes on.
• Foreshadowing: Seemingly one line in Chapter 38 to Yu-Gi-Oh!: Bonds Beyond Time.
  "I will strip away the Paradox and show you truth..."
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: X.
• Gainax Ending: Best of Times, Worst of Times ends with nobody really knowing what's happened.
  • C'est La-Vie does this even worse.
• Gecko Ending: Slightly with The New Morning, since the effects are the same (minus the questionable fates of a few characters). C'est La-Vie, however, is entirely out there from anime continuity, and leaves an ending that leads into the Tenth Anniversary fanfic and leaves several more characters' fates in purgatory.
• Gnosticism: References get more and more frequent in later Chapters, to the point that it becomes a main theme of the story.
• A God Am I: As with in 5D's, Rex Godwin; but less enthusiastic this time.
• God Is Evil: "Zone" "Ylaidus" is.
• Godwin's Law: Apparently, Placido was responsible for Hitler being elected. He was also responsible for the man's death.
• Gratuitous English: Judai will occasionally break out into English, due to the story being in "Japanese".
• Gratuitous French: A conversation between Judai and "Sherry" in French.
• Gratuitous Japanese: It's described that although the story is in English, the characters are usually speaking Japanese.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Placido utters the Spanish "excelente" at one point, and Alessandro has a habit of calling Placido "El Capitan".
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Every antagonist believes that they are doing the right thing, and that the protagonists are doing what they believe is right but are fighting for the wrong side.
• Hammerspace: Hell Kaiser somehow fits the whole World of Darkness inside the Bootleg.
  • This becomes somewhat of a Chekhov's Skill in C'est La-Vie, where he uses this technique to take the patients of a hospital to the World of Darkness... because it's better than being killed.
• Hand Wave: See Timey-Wimey Ball
• Heroic Sacrifice: Surprisingly, Kiryu in The New Morning. While still technically evil.
  • Judai in Redeem Us, which pretty much destroys Yusei.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Paradox.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Placido's sabotaging Paradox's use of the Old Momentum results in his plan going terribly wrong when it explodes and warps Judai, Yugi and Yusei straight into the clutches of Paradox.
• Humans Are Bastards: The opinion of every single main antagonist.
• Hypocritical Humour: "Hey, what's with all the f** king swearing?"
• I Do Not Own: Genma's Chapters all begin with more of less the same, professional-sounding disclaimer, to the point where it seems to be Strictly Formula
• Immortal Hero: Somewhat averted, as characters will die, but Death Is Cheap is is full effect so...
  • Averted with Taiyou, who is already dead.
• Ink-Font Actor: Three friends of the Authors from the Janime Commuity Forum
• In Name Only: Syd, Lucciano Sherry
• Invincible Hero: Subverted; all Main Characters have lost at some point.
• Killed Off for Real: Judai
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Placido, in Chapter 39, talks about how Yusei and Judai's dialogue may seem to their audience. In context, the audience is The Gods, but it really seems like a Take That! to the entire franchise.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Played straight, subverted, and anything you can imagine.
• Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: Kyojo's "speaking Japanese with a Texan accent" can really only be described as this.
• More than Mind Control: Placido is possessed by the God several times later in the story, acting as a conduit between him and humans.
• Near-Villain Victory: Placido comes within a few seconds of winning in C'est La-Vie.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Judai taking Yusei's place in Best of Times Worst of Times results in Yusei temporarily losing his Signer Mark, letting the Drak Signers have at him.
• Not Quite Dead: Judai in The New Morning.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Judai is far more serious in this fic than he ended up at the end of GX and in the Movie, though it may have something to do with the constant antagonizing figures he has to deal with.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "Dark Glass" has no other identity in these fics. Paradox most likely counts as well.
• Overly-Long Gag: Crow's use of the F-Word can come across as this.
• Precision F-Strike: Crow's Hypocritical Humor example is one of his many.
  "Stop being so f**king naive!"
• Plot Hole: Attempts at averting it are made by the author, who tries to explain literally everything at some point or another.
• Random Events Plot: Even with a back story, C'est La-Vie comes across as this at times.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Several Decks used in ths series include themes of real-world Tournament winners: X-Sabers, Lightsworn, etc. This is even lampshaded by Kyojo.
  • later, it's revealed that the Apocalypse was caused by war between the United States and North Korea.
• Redemption Equals Death: Kiryu, Bommer
• Refuge in Audacity: Used In-Universe with Yliaster. According to Zone, Yliaster used groups such as the Freemasons, the Knights Templar and The Illuminati as fronts for itself. Using other secret societies as a cover for another one? Sure, why not?
• Retcon: Several as a result of Redeem Us in our Solemn Hour, including the changing of ZONE into Ylaidus, and the changing of The End of the World as We Know It from biological warfare to machine warfare hijacked by God.
• The Reveal: Godwin is revealed to be the enemy part way through his final battle; big brother got it wrong.
  • Placido's reveal is... somewhat more unique. He's revealed to be mechanical when an attack blows half his face off, revealing the mechanical features underneath and startling Taiyou.
• Robotic Reveal: Other than Placido, Alessandro is revealed to have many mechanical parts, and Lucciano is revealed as a Robot.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: "Placido" is at one point accidentally referred to as "Placid". The spelling also randomly changes from American to Canadian standard, resulting in a lot of random name changes.
  "–When this card inflicts Battle Damage, make the ATK of 1 face-up monster 0, and it cannot change its ballet position."
• Rule of Cool: Come on, speaking Japanese with a Texan accent. That really can only come from this trope.
  • Many of the moves made by characters. For example, Taiyou's Five Synchro Move.
• Running Gag: Crow swearing with the twins around, then cupping his mouth as though it will fix something. Dropped very quickly.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Both Paradox and Placido have this goal. It's even invoked almost by name.
  "When next we meet, you will know the truth of this world; and then, perhaps we can make right what once was wrong…"
• She's a He in the Anime: Lucciano is changed into a woman. A robot woman.
• Shout-Out: "One shall stand..." "...One shall fall."
  • Professor Nicholas Carswell is named for Genma no Ou's real life friend, Tenebrius, who in real life goes by the same name.
  • Fleurs Du Mal is one of Genma's favourite songs...
    • As are "Last Train - The New Morning" and "FREEDOM" (By La-Vie)
  • Judai ripping open a gateway and yelling at the contents.
    • Fullmetal Alchemist is heavily referenced in this fanfiction - most notably, the Gate of Truth and Judai quoting Ed in Chapter 39.
  • Placido intends to send Judai and Yusei to Judecca.
  • In Chapter 38, Placido pulls what can only be described as a Spark out of his chest, and then breaks it in two to forge the Circuit.
  • Chapter 37 also includes a reference to the Illuminati. While this is an actual group, it simply screams Angels and Demons. Come to think of it, the Religious Conspiracy motif of that chapter also coincides with The Da Vinci Code.
  • "From this point on, your fate and mine will be intertwined on a journey which will twist the very fabric of nature, of reality.
  • The name of the new fic is an extended version of the title of Our Solemn Hour.
• Shown Their Work: Referneces to Gnosticism, History, and science are abundant.
• Spell My Name with an S: There's more than one card in the story to be referred to by multiple names.
• Stable Time Loop: Paradox and Placido seem to form one. Justified in that they appear to be the same person.
• Tear Jerker: Invoked with Paradox's backstory.
  • Also invoked with Judai's death at the hands of Paradox.
• Theme Naming: Alessandro is named for Italian Tenor Alessandro Safina. Too bad the Character is Spanish South American...
  • Would you prefer the guy's name being Alejandro?
• There Is No Kill like Overkill: 8800 ATK. Triple attacking Dragon. No defences. Very subtle, Jack.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: The GX characters and 5D's characters are explained to not have aged evenly because Zero Reverse somehow messed with the flow of time in the Neo Domino area. Riiight...
• Translation Convention: The author makes it clear that the characters are actually speaking Japanese, even if the story itself is in English.
• Tron Lines: Placido gets these emanating from his face whenever God takes over.
• Tsundere: A rare male example in Alessandro. He can go from polite to rude to hostile really for no reason at all.
• Villainous Breakdown: Paradox seems to have started one at the end of Chapter 38 of C'est La-Vie.
• The Virus: Accorrding to Paradox's flashback, one is responsible for the end of the world.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Several characters randomly go missing by C'est La-Vie and never return. Not really explained why.
  • As of the start of Redeem Us, Paradox's outfit is slightly different, with no idea how it got that way; and his mental conversation with Placido has long since ended, leaving no indication how it ended.
• Wham Chapter: A few, but C'est La-Vie's Chapter 34 stands out. Not only does Paradox defeat Kyojo, the guy who mentored Jack, but Placido trashes Jack, Kiryu and Kyojo.
• Zerg Rush: The Diablo and the X-Units. Oh god.
  • Don't forget the Duel Zombies.