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[steve0discusses]

Little update

Hey y'all, you've probably noticed my posts have kinda been far in between. Just so you know, I still have long covid and it uh, got worse this winter (I got sick in like end of summer and it rudely got me even more fatigued) I still have plans to finish this season, though, eventually.

I just don't want y'all to think I've abandoned it, when I haven't. I just have no hobbies rn, that's all. Pretty common on the internet to see blogs kinda vanish when creators get burnt out, but this isn't a burn out thing, this is a...literally can't do it because of fatigue thing. Which is different.

But I do see people leaving nice likes and comments occasionally and I just want to let you know it does fill my heart with warm fuzzies, so thanks for the support even when I am absent from the algorithm <3 The Yugioh community has been like such a sweetheart to this blog, fr fr.

[steve0discusses]

Every event in this sequence of events was more unhinged than the last.

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 50: Tristan Hates Horses, I Think

Been a while! Tumblr’s annoying as hell changes to the text editor took a lot of wind out of my sails, ngl. It had some problems they're resolving as they go, but it was really annoying to use and to edit if you write any amount of youknow……words….

And I was talking to a friend about this, and they were like “have you tried writing it in google docs and copy pasting it after?” And I happily realized when you copy paste from google docs, it also copies the PICTURES. This has literally saved hours of my life, y'all. It has turned something that was so frustrating I didn't want to open tumblr again into something that is no longer an obstacle so I can write once more!

So lets travel to Yugi’s brain, where Tristan desperately has to make up for all the work he hasn’t done because he was just a wee tiny bit possessed.

It may be hard to pick up where Tristan is on this picture, and I hope I recorded it somewhere in OBS like 2 months ago when I finished the series because it was such a funny animation, but hot damn this boy has hops.

And  you can see him there on the ground in the bottom left corner, that isn’t a rock, that’s Tristan having toppled a man with his bare hands, a man who had a sword and was sitting on an armored horse.

Can you believe this guy ran for school president? And then lost and humbly became the janitor?

Meanwhile, Joey discovered magic.

Confirmation that duel disks are made out of old tank parts.

Realizing for the first time that magic exists, they decide to peace out.

Back in the real world, Mokuba and Roland don’t know where the hell Seto went. Which is weird, I figured Seto would at least leave a note or a text message or…anything…but apparently even if he did, he just disappeared at some point down in Marik’s old living room.

So Roland and Mokuba decided that in order to find him, they would have to take a massive Boeing 747 to find their lost child.

Some kids have a motorcycle, some kids have a scooter, Mokuba just wants the most boring ass big commercial plane that is meant to sit a couple hundred people in an awkward way. That’s what Mokuba wants.

Just Mokuba things.

My bro who edits these for me wrote in huge ass letters "ROLAND SIGHTING" While saying "ROLAND ROLAND ROLAND" so I want y'all to know how much we appreciate a good Roland in this house.

Speaking of, I know it's like season 5 but...who is the other guy? He wears funny sunglasses but I have never heard his name, not once.

But this is when the plane was filled with heavenly light.

They begin to see the fight happening between Seto Kaiba (the OG Seto, the one that is cool and isn’t depressed because his not-wife died) and Bakura (who is now Zorc). Don’t ask me how the time stuff works, and why we see it now of all the times in human history, and right over Egypt in the sky. Don’t ask me why.

I assume it’s time compression shenanigans, just like FF8, so maybe it’s just every moment in time is able to see this UFO in the sky, but overall, it’s here because it looks cool. The fact that this right here is actually not a physical place, but is actually a figment of Yugi’s imagination shaped by Pharaoh’s botchy memories--is neither here nor there. Instead, it’s everywhere. 

Seto is unimpressed by this, because he knows how science and timelines should work, and this wouldn’t pass Kaiba Corp inspection.

Back at the yellow palace made of cheese and mario blocks, Pharaoh is still knocked out from that time he summed all 3 dragons last episode, which to me feels like just eons ago. 

But it’s OK, he’s fine now.

Typically he’d be dead, because his dragons died on the battlefield and their life force is connected to their monsters. But not only is Pharaoh 1.) already dead and 2.) the author of this universe and cannot die or this universe ceases to exist he’s 3.) got the puzzle, which means he can’t actually perma die, unlike everyone else in his court who is perma-gone.

He is not surprised by what is currently happening in Egypt’s downtown strip.

This is probably every day in Domino. Every day Seto Kaiba wakes up everyone in town with his three-headed dragon princess just because he can. Hell, Seto was doing this fight with Bakura on the top towers of Domino just this morning (or last morning…not sure if time passes in real life the same way it does in puzzle life)

The audacity of Yami right now, the one moment Yugi isn’t there to scream about ledges, this boy is leaping joyfully off that ledge. 

He fuses with the dragon which gives him this familiar outfit.

I thiiiiink it’s the same outfit as Alexander season? I’ll be real with you though, I don’t really want to look it up. Either way, good to see the return of putting on a ton of armor in a card game, I don't think we've seen it Canonically since that one time Joey did it against Valon, and ever since then, Joey kind of forgot it was a thing he can just do.

But unlike Joey, Yami doesn’t take the opportunity to punch Zorc in the face, instead he just loses yet another time.

This time he didn’t even pass out, he barely even died. This is progress, truly.

But as Zorc is powering up the peepee missile to fire in Yami’s face (what a way to die!), Shadi has decided to inform us why he’s been stalking these kids for this entire show.

So there’s two ways to read this. 1.) Shadi was Hassan the entire time but had to go back in time from this moment in order to do it or 2.) Shadi possessed the power of Hassan last second so Yami could avoid death one final time.

Both of these explanations don’t fully make sense to me, I’ll be honest, because in order to know that he’ll be needed in the first place, Shadi had to know that Yami would die at this particular moment--a moment that is a different timeline than has ever existed before.

So really, Shadi was just going by a hunch. He was like “I dunno, I’ll see how this goes.” which is more in line with the Shadi we know and love.

Is it a crying shame that Shadi, who has been with us for so many seasons, and it so integral to this show had such an unceremonious death? Yeah. I feel like I didn’t quite get the closure I wanted but I’m also sort of confused as to…what happened. But I’ll leave it there because apparently we get more Shadi content in Dark Side of Dimensions.

Anyway, I have no idea if these images will even fit into a post with how how tumbler does posts nowadays, and I'll be real I had to re upload the last bit of it, which I suspect was over 15 images???? Not sure??? but we found a workaround! google docs works!

Also, Seto didn’t die today! Instead it was Shadi! For a SECOND time!

I cannot believe how freakin lucky Mana is, this girl is still kicking and if Mana survives everything I am…going to be astonished, that’s what. Mana secretly OP, who knew?

And always you can read the rest of these here

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

if I turn it into a link it doesn't work right because the text editor is really, really bad. I hate it a lot. But uh...feel free to copy paste it until I can get links to cooperate.

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep : I don't know the episode numbers anymore I never wrote them down, so from here on out, I'm just going to number up from my previous post. So I guess episode 49

Fun fact I finished this post a week ago and then never pressed send. I can blame this on a lot of things, (work, illness, brain fog, etc) but at this point we just know it's the universe trying to keep me from finishing S5 of my Yugioh reblog, lmao.

So, last we left off, Sad Seto was next to die.

What makes this extra weird is that the other Seto is going to just watch this entire thing happen. He apparently didn't have enough traumatic disassociating while watching his Blue Eyes Wife die, now he will disassociate from watching himself go out in a blaze of glory, too.

Sad Seto's strategy against Zorc is not really what you'd expect out of the #2 of Egypt's court. Although...I guess before everyone biffed it, Seto was more like #5? #6?

He's above Mana I feel. Barely. Mostly because Mana probably isn't the right age to legally work, even in ancient Egypt when the working age is like...if you can walk.

But he was apparently so busy doing Aknadin's taxes that he's decided it's good judgement to throw himself at a 800 ft tall dragon/crotch/man.

for his credit, Sun Tzu's art of war hasn't been written yet.

And Sad Seto realizes his true purpose, which is that he has a smarter, stronger, and more powerful girlfriend (ish.) Which is a running theme on this show, as we all know.

In a bizarre cut that I can't believe they left on US TV...other than I think they couldn't cut this any other way, the penis dragon attached to Zork extended it's neck up to grab Blue eyes by her neck and just fling her into the ground, killing her instantly.

I don't like that the neck can extend longer. I don't like that it's a function of the dragon crotch. They knew. They knew what this looked like. Thanks, I hate it.

Also what an embarrassing way for Seto's past self to die. Truly the hieroglyphs about this event will be wild, and thousands of years later, Grandma Muto probably looked at this event etched into stone and just thought it was weird ancient pervert stuff.

Sorry if you were thinking Sad Seto would recover last minute and realize he's like the most OP person in Yugioh. He instead rotted from his hand and joined the rest of our Egyptian cast in Shadow Hell.

Leaving us with just Mana. And like kudos to her, but how on EARTH did she survive so freakin long!? Like of all of them, I thought Seto would be the last one. Not Mana. Not in a million years did I think it'd be the girl who hid in a pot.

But youknow maybe that's why she survived?

And then Bakura casually walked away from the only Seto who matters. Which is fitting, because if memory serves, that's also what Yami did to Seto for like half of the Battle City tourney.

It's such a weird strange bod on this dragon. It's such a strange bod. He's both got kind of a belly, but also is ripped to shreds. Such a weird bod.

In case you were like "We haven't given Seto enough motivation," we also toss in a few nearly dead brothers just to make sure we have properly traumatized this boy to the point where he'd duel someone who isn't Yugi Muto.

Seto decided magic exists 6 minutes ago, and he's already better at magic than Yugi Muto who's had access to it for YEARS.

Like he learned about magic in a different culture, a different time, a different language, and now he's fighting the final boss.

But it's Seto, so I buy it. He would speedrun his life like this.

That's the dialogue of the show where he says his first words were "neutron blast attack" and youknow...he probably has very few memories of himself as a child since his parents died and his other family put him up for adoption...but he knows his first words?

That, or Seto likes making his brand a reality by making up whatever nonsense it takes to make that brand legit. Which I can also see him doing.

Also please don't look at this foreshortened hand, don't look at it, ignore that this happened.

So thanks to Bakura's weird choice to drag Seto into this universe in the first place, now Bakura has to fight Seto and his 3 blue eyes that would not have existed here otherwise.

++++++ME RANTING ABOUT THE SETO ARC FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++

TBH it kinda makes the whole Sad Seto arc feel kind of like it didn't need to exist. Like this is the Seto fight that matters. This one right here, and although they share a name, it's not with the same guy who fought Zorc at the beginning of this episode.

And like I could add it to a list of problems with this season. But Sad Seto started out so interesting, and then forgot. It was like he only existed to introduce the dragon, and not explain anything at all about the nature of Seto Kaiba we know and love. Like the possession of Aknadin can be a parallel to how Seto was raised following Gozaburo's footsteps, but youknow...that's all old territory.

Like, I wish I had any sort of new growth from the interaction of either of the Seto's together in the same room, much like we've been getting from Yami facing his past self. Yami's been growing a lot, he's been facing his demons, but Seto? Seto's been walking around this desert trying find wifi.

(which like he did find a "wifey" which is almost wifi but wasn't as helpful because she was dead)

The Seto Kaiba who is fighting Bakura right now, is the same exact guy we saw at the end of the last arc against Zeigfried Von Schroeder.

Which means the reason that Seto is now souped up and capable of going up against Bakura isn't because of anything we witnessed here in this arc, but because of the weird horse guy last arc who taught him how to put up a better firewall.

And maybe there was a draft where Seto decides he is a spiritual reincarnation of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Maybe there was a draft where he gained a new ability. Maybe there was a draft where he realized the gravity of what was happening and wanted to save the world.

But it ain't this draft, unfortunately.

Seto is here not because of an internal growth reason, but because he was on a tablet in S2, and we have to know where that plot thread went to have an ending...but the show rewrote what it initially said in S2.

Like in the OG timeline, it was Seto who killed Pharaoh. But here we found out it was actually Aknadin who possessed Seto to kill Pharaoh. (and at some point in that fight, Pharaoh stuck his soul in a box and sealed away Zorc)

Sad Seto was apparently a chill bro the entire time. Just a nice guy who arrested half of Cairo and had a sort-of-girlfriend for about 8 hours before she biffed it.

And I would have been OK with that, if it were more interesting than what we initially thought happened in the past: where we thought it was a kickass Seto launching a coup. But unfortunately, it's not, instead it's a boy who started out powerless, and continued to be powerless despite working in Pharaoh's literal court. He didn't even have the power to not get possessed.

And I am sure there were other drafts, and endings are hard, and the author did get hella hospitalized while he wrote this season, animation is a miracle of many moving parts and budgets, and we were lucky to even get an ending to this show. So I don't want to sound like I'm complaining when there are so many worse directions this show could have gone. I'm just a little surprised it went this direction, mostly.

But say what you will about Yugioh, it doesn't like to be predictable, doesn't it?

+++++++++++++++++++OK I'M DONE++++++++++++++++++++++

Speaking of characters who haven't gained anything from being here, Tristan is no longer possessed!

Tristan begs his apologies and Yugi takes it gracefully. Which means, it's time for the main character of this entire show to finally re-enter the plot.

And they do so, in style.

Y'all I remember being excited about the look and style of extreme sports, but I do not remember this many heelies in the 00's.

Anyway, this is the link to read these in chrono order, you know the drill. See you next time to see yet another girlfriend biff it!

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[steve0discusses]

Ep 48 Pt 1: Just Me Thinking too Much About the Shape of Obelisk's Ass

Got swamped by work stuff and sick stuff pushing my stupid fatigue to 11 but hell I need to write about Yugioooooh.

Last we left off, Isis and Shimon died in order to get Pharaoh back the puzzle so he could pull out the spicy god cards.

And I need to discuss butt plate.

(read more about Obelisk's ass under the cut)

I know that Obelisk probably never does a big sitty at any point of his day, but considering I have chronic fatigue now and I just big sitty all the time, I think about sitting a LOT. Like a LOT.

Anywhere this man sits down is destroyed. Like anywhere. He's got a gardening hoe for a rear end. This man could kill you with his butt in a way that's just way more devastating than his fists.

Why does this exist? Like have we EVER seen the back of a god card before? Like ever? It's fascinating, and parts of me wonder if whoever was doing this episode started sweating bullets when they realized "Does Obelisk have a butt? And how chiseled is the butt? I'm very concerned like, does he even wear pants? How cheeks are these cheeks?"

And like was the solution between if Obelisk would have a bubble butt or a flat butt to instead put a giant knife on his ass to cover it up? because I can respect it. It's a weird character design decision but so is this entire show.

And the character design is about to get a little weirder his episode because Yugioh reminded us that fusion exists.

Bakura is true to his word, and so we say "so long" to the theatrical pocket universe where these two yell asides at eachother across the DM table. We will go back to the isekai where Bakura will now become Zorc for the rest of the show.

Does the show give Zorc a British accent, do you ask?

No.

And I'm as confused and disappointed as you are. Alexander the Freakin Great had a British accent. But Obelisk? Absolutely not. Would not make sense. Who would do that?

Now in case you forgot, because I only do like one of these a month, Seto was left behind at the castle courtyard because Yami did not give him a ride to Kul Elna. You may be asking, isn't the...castle courtyard in the capital? Like right in front of us? Like why would Seto be in the desert?

I don't know.

Maybe that was not the capital where Sad Seto watched his not-wife die? Maybe that was somewhere else? Geography in Yugioh is such a mobius strip I've sort of gotten used to this.

Anyway, Seto is in the desert, and it may have been something we found out and I forgot because my fatigue is kicking my ass but like...I'll accept it because it's very funny to me that he's hiking around sand in that outfit, comes over a dune, and just sees those God card he REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted 4 seasons ago but lost to Yugi Muto just mocking him up there in the sky.

Also Seto believes in magic now. It was a very abrupt thing but it had to happen eventually. Better late than never, I guess.

And then the Egyptian Gods freakin biffed it.

Isis and Shimon would be shaking their heads about how they died for freakin nothing from their afterlife plane, if any of this were in fact actually happening and not a weird simulation in Yami Muto's mind that is in a puzzle wired to Yugi Muto's brain.

Speaking of which, back at Yami's tomb, Yugi is having a meltdown.

It's part of his creative process, having a meltdown. Yugi would have massive creative block without his routine. That's just world building.

Yami is also going through his spin cycle, now that the moon blocked out the sun and we don't have any way to fix that.

Except we actually do have away to fix that, we used it in Season 1 when we went up against Mako Tsunami (don't ask me how I remember that random fact but don't remember what I ate for breakfast) but the problem with the ancient Egyptian version of this card game is you can really only summon like 1-3 cards at a time. So, they're boned.

And now it's Seto's turn to fix Yami's problems, which like, wouldn't be the first time, wouldn't it?

Problem is, this Seto is just SO BAD at cards.

I really should've put the towel on this shot ps but like...I got tired. I got a bad fatigue week, so we're gonna go au naturale with this episode.

Now one of y'all did a fancy reblog and showed how Zorc looked in the Japanese version which can I say--is SPICY. Like the US version tried to connect the neck more with the neck of the dragon, so it's like a tummy dragon instead of peen but it uh...doesn't work from this angle, does it?

I'm just still reeling about how there is a dragon dick and it aired on kid's tv and they fully got away with it.

EGYPTIAN ROLAND SIGHTED.

We love Roland.

I'd recognize that bad stache anywhere. Just because you don't got glasses on doesn't mean we don't know you got a Roland doo under that headwrap.

Bless this man.

Also, Roland is shredded? I'm just gonna leave that there.

And that ends this segment. With the way we do image blocks...I uh will have to end it here. I can't have like more than 30 blocks total? And we're at 15 images? I don't know if it's adding text blocks to image blocks in that addition? I'm not sure how this new post system works so I'll just cut it here anywho.

Until then I'm going to go lay down prone on the ground like Yami muto in the image above. Kinda jealous of him rn not going to lie.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

(and for those who just got here, you can read these caps all in chronological order by using this link right here. Assuming it's the right link. With the new Tumblr post thingy, it has been randomly removing /chrono from the end of my link? Which sucks? anyway, hopefully it works.

[steve0discusses]

Episode 47 S5: Mana Runs too Slow and it Kills 2 People

Tumblr decided to change the way it does image posts so this is going to be my hell. I can only have max 30 "blocks" of images (yikes) and uploading all your images at once and then just adding text in between is actually not possible! (least it's a nightmare on browser. I have not figured out how to drag my text in between images, so I'm just uploading every image one by one and hoping I don't forget one)

thanks, I hate it!

Peeking up at us over the horizon, our end of the world apocalypse has reached the next step of his rampage: which is to shoot glowing missiles out of it's Dragon crotch until Egypt is destroyed.

Seto is doing his best to look productive, but unfortunately this is Sad Seto, who is still buffering.

Just uh...give him a minute. He has to remember how to be Seto.

(read more under the cut)

I'm pretty sure Kissara told him straight up to call her whenever, and considering how few words they've ever said to each other, you'd think he'd remember the words she said like half an hour ago. Then again, he was kind of...sleeping when that happened. Or hallucinating, or dreaming, or all three.

Bakura and Yami are watching this pan out from the Shadow Game Zone, Bakura kind of nodding slowly while Yami becomes overwhelmed with embarrassment over how much everyone around him is screwing it. This is not meant to be funny, but it was very funny to me.

I have brought this up before, but Bakura does bring up a good point, that this entire arc was kind of against the grain of who Yami became over the course of the last 4 seasons.

+++++STAND BACK I'M GONNA RANT, FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++

Don't get me wrong, Yami LOVES to make bad choices that end the world. But why would he continue to go back here and destroy the world of the future he knows and loves so much? Especially since it already went SO south with Dartz the last time he opened pandora's box?

He has a new identity now, he has so many friends, last arc was just so many women throwing themselves at Yugi. His life is really good! I think they could have developed more of a line of logic between last arc and this arc, but like with a lot of things in this arc, it was rushed.

So him giving up his newfound modern identity that he made all himself through hard work and friendship first off feels kinda bad. Like I'm OK with him being a new guy, he worked hard for that! Lets not go backward now.

And then him coming here to regain his old identity is sort of like the show knew what it must do, but the characters were like "nah." and then went and did it anyway seemingly at gunpoint.

And I kind of wish there was any contrast between who Yami's new identity is in the future and who Yami was in the past. It would be fascinating to dive into the fact he's now two people yet again, even though Yugi is no longer in that bean. but eh save it for the fanfiction, because they needed to end Yugioh in a certain number of episodes.

And that happens sometimes. Stories are character driven, and when you try and drive the characters, they become less like people and more like iconic symbols. Here's our hero. He must do this because he's the hero. That's it, that's the reason. Welcome to Shonen Jump.

+++++++END RANT AKA THIS ARC HAS COOL IDEAS AND I WISH IT HAD ENOUGH TIME TO DO THEM BETTER++++++++

Problem is, Yami isn't that meta. He's dumb though, so in a way it does make a little sense why he had to open the box. He dummy thin.

Dummy thin and still can't read.

And like in case you've jumped in here after my accidental hiatus (hello!) and not realized this, I had to binge watch the rest of the season before we cancelled our Hulu subscription. There was the option of watching it for free on the Yugioh website, but I didn't want to change my Photoshop actions.

So get ready for me to talk about how the ending of this show bothered me, for like 8 episodes. I'll try to keep it in, so we can get there when we get there.

But you can't say lines like "We were meant to be together." in the context of this arc, you can't DO that, show.

Apparently the creator of Yugioh got hospitalized while he wrote this arc, hence the dick king demon. But also it got....messy. We have like 3 seasons of development in like 8 episodes, buckle up. They did the best that they could do with the resource's given, and we'll even get to meet my favorite character a few times before it's over (the Storyboarding God that occasionally guest stars on Yugioh, love that guy)

Back on the playing field, Yami is running out of options, when Isis informs us we can just go to McDonald's and get more McGuffins.

Out of basically no where, Mana zips onto the screen because she's ready to have at least one girl's night before the end of the world. The contrasting energy from both Mana and Isis is peak goth babysitter vs the parrot that hides behind the couch and bites your feet.

Back near Pharaoh's tomb, Yugi is still dueling over a deathpit with the child who these kids think is Ryou bakura.

This is not however, Ryou Bakura. It's sideways adjacent evil Bakura.

And it didn't really matter that this plot point ever happened because it's not like Yugi, Joey, or Tea ever catch on that this isn't Ryou anyway. But at least I, the audience can feel a little bit better about the weird twist by the dub there.

Ryou is still passed out on some stone steps. He's fine.

You might be wondering "Oh so what asinine thing is Isis going to have to do to get the items back?" and uh, you're wrong actually.

Turns out we could have just picked up the items in the desert at any time but I guess we forgot. I'll blame it on Shadi.

Joey Wheeler, who can punch out probably anything but a ghost, chooses to hide behind Tea because he knows she can punch a ghost and I believe it, too.

Back on the surface, is a scene that would have been emotional if it hadn't been 3 minutes. it was NOT enough time to give a proper send off to our girl Isis here, and they tried, but if you imagine the Yakety Sax song playing under this death here, that's about the speed at which this girl biffed it.

speaking of Yakety Sax theme, this is what was happening while Mana was crying her eyes out.,

And you may ask, was it really that goofy? and yes, yes it was.

and like I get it, animation and pacing are really, really hard. Parts of me wonder if maybe on paper this seemed OK. If maybe even as a storyboard this seemed OK. But something you learn quickly when doing any sort of narrative art, is that you need like 2x as much space as you think you do. Pause is an underrated godlike skill that takes a lifetime to master.

However, it still had good stills going on, it still had some lovely direction just...I mean they dropped Isis from top to bottom of that frame so freakin fast it was like she was a dropped banana hahaha.

They still have to carry these items physically to the Pharaoh, and so becuase Mana is a slow runner, 2 people freakin died this episode distracting Zorc. Which is also the title of this episode because I want to send home howfreakin funny that is to me.

Ah, back to Episode 1.

So how breathtaking and epic is the Kaiju fight you ask? Well good thing for you, I capped it.

The look on Seto and Yami's faces about sum it up.

And as quickly as he showed up to do a few silly punches, the great Exodia was cut exactly in half. Don't ask me how the card logic works for that, I have forgotten how this game works already.

Mana finally makes it to Yami, cursed puzzle in hand, and that ends this episode.

Can you imagine adding 7 characters to a story knowing you have to kill all of them individually before the anime arc is over? Breakneck deaths going on here.

Sorry for all you people that were so deeply attached to Shimon, the guy who isn't even Grandpa, by the way. A moment of silence for all 4 of you.

And we get back this thing. This horrible thing made out of thousands of dead people's souls. The thing that trapped him for 5000 years and launched him into the future. The only thing that can save mankind.

(If I have used this Mokuba joke like this before forgive me it was like a different lifetime before I caught covid, and I will not be able to regain those memories because I cannot curse myself with a rude ass puzzle.)

The abusive relationship with the Millennium Puzzle is a whole anime college essay I would write if I had half a brain, but alas I have the immune system and fatigue of a sickly gerbil or a goldfish that feels a little bit chilly. So I will not be writing that in depth episode but like...

Think about how far we've come with this jackass puzzle. And yet, I'm supposed to forgive it? Nah I don't think I have yet. Go to hell, puzzle.

This puzzle can go straight to hell.

Anyway, if you just got here you can read these recaps in chrono order at the link here:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

PS I had to do so much assholery to get that to go to my chrono link and not my main link. They would just. Change my link. They would just change my link every time I pasted it. Tumblr you have GOT to give me my old post editor back omg.

[steve0discusses]

So in case you were wondering, because my hulu sub is ending and I didn't want to deal with fixing all my actions for a slightly different sized setup, I went and capped and watched all the episodes till the end before this month is through and DAMN.

5 seasons and that was the ending? Like...holy crap. I was certain there'd be at least one more episode to talk about any of the-NAW IT'S JUST OVER DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT.

Anyway, I'll have plenty of words here eventually, but I did it in a big ol batch, and I have quite a bit of formatting and editing to do before we start seeing posts, but also just...

...serious talk were there some serious funding issues with the last season? It just ended SO QUICKLY. And the ultimate arc of Pharaoh and Bakura was like half a season for some reason? The other half was Zigfried stuff and that random movie with Alixander the great (that didn't release in Japan) like what happened? The show seemed to know it was a hasty ending, too. It was so weird.

But at least I can finally say, I have finished this show, well...1 series of it, because there's like 6 more, but we FINALLY did it guys, finally.

[steve0discusses]

So Where do you get S5 of Yugioh if you're cancelling your hulu subscription?

Asking for a friend (it's me) because Hulu lost it's gd mind and thinks it's ad-free service should be like nearly 18 bucks a month. Mind you, I don't want to pirate or get shady ass viruses from weird websites, is it around crunchyroll or does it have like a youtube presence?

Cuz like the timing on that maaaaassive price increase? Damn, I might not finish doing the recaps of S5 after all lmao. I may be able to find DVDs at the library, but can those play on my computer in like this old ass CD drive I somehow still have? No idea. It's like, huh. a new puzzle for me.

[steve0discusses]

Maybe it's just me, but Tea's intense judging glare really got me good with how the music overlapped Joey's terrible pun in this sequence haha.

[steve0discusses]

Ep 46 Pt 2: Seto is Sad Now

I just want to take the time to fully appreciate Seto and Yami on the back of this horse.

You can’t tell me that the image alone of them on horse back where Seto is just on the back like it’s a motorcycle or something? Two cousins trying not to be weird about this mode of transportation while the tall one sits in the tiny seat?

 (which by the way, I didn’t realize it at the time, but uh my condolences to the shippers of Yami and Seto, they are...damn! They sure are cousins, aren’t they? Like a reverse Sailor Uranus/Sailor Neptune situation right here. Well, you still got modern Seto, but...sooo many lost fanfics out there, I’m sure, who were...probably not happy with this revelation.)

So I had to look this up because I’m not a horse girl, regrettably, I do not know enough about horses to know if two grown men can fit on the back of a horse without busting that horse’s spine in half. But, what I found out is: you don’t do this to a horse. I mean you can, but you shouldn’t.

Thing is...Yami is technically a kid in size, if memory serves, Yugi is still less than 100 lbs.

Maybe this horse is OK? this horse they occasionally use to skate down mountainsides? It’s not a real horse anyway, and honestly, this whole idea of the two on a horse is very funny to me so who cares.

(read more under the cut)

Also speaking of scientifically incorrect things in Yugioh, this was also very funny,

FAR BE IT FROM ME to get all technical and make some weird youtube video about all the historical inaccuracies in TV shows (which damn, I sure do hate those videos) but I can still laugh at it when it happens.

Bro just told me “bold of you to trust Google” and he’s correct. For all we know some AI just lied to me just now, so if you know some deep lore about trebuchets don’t be afraid to speak up.

Their horse pulls up to the line of out of touch trebuchets and warriors flanking the city, where we reunite as a cast minus Karim.

Yami then dumps this on me and it was so outlandish I could not tell if this was canon to the manga/original translation or if the dub decided this would be OK to do.

Just let the man die! He divorced his wife on horseback and then did not raise Seto, he abandoned this boy to kill thousands of people, just let Aknadin freakin die. Please, Yami, this is not up for debate, Yami. Let Aknadin freakin die he hella deserves it.

Agh, Dartz all over again, I swear this show didn’t used to feel the need to redeem it’s villains, youknow? Or maybe it was always like this but I forgot because of freakin long covid wiping a year of my life, I don’t freaking know. But if/when Aknadin comes back I genuinely can’t see how he and Seto could ever fix their relationship on this planet Earth.

Anyway, speaking of being tired beyond your ability, Yami remembers just how many fireballs he took to the chest today and decides to just keel over. Good thing he didn’t do this on the back of the horse.

Relatable, honestly, this is what I do nowadays when I have to stand too long because I decided to cook 2 things instead of 1. Yami just has long covid, he’ll be fine. Just find a couch and do a big sittie, Yami.

Like damn, Yami, maybe should’ve let Seto at least drive the horse?

And so the trebuchets fire off with all this animation that a bunch of people looked at, and after them, these scenes passed over like 100 more people’s hands, and no one at any point said “yo they used sleds instead of wheels in Egyptian sands, right?” and they were...like they were from the wrong anime really, but please admire the wings on these “trebuchets”

freakin nerf guns made out of logs hahaha.

Anyway, Bakura noticed.

Sad Seto starts botching it so poorly that it, in fact, triggers the end of the world.

Could’ve been Isis commanding the troops. Or Grandpa. Or Shad- no wait, no actually...

...probably shouldn’t be Shada.

But I think that Isis would not have needed that necklace to know throwing logs at the enemy would not work. Especially since this particular enemy is like...all log.

Thanks for the America shout-out Yugioh, my warm and fuzzy patriotic vibes go off in my heart every time I see lady liberty in an apocalyptic setting, not gonna lie.

I make fun, but it really did take Yami a while to figure out what the hell Bakura was implying here.

Lets admire the guy in the very back who looks like he just lost his glasses so he’s just gonna sit it out directly on the ground.

I will not revise the death count. They died. They died right in front of me. This is clearly a ghost.

They’re just back now. They’ve done this before where they magically come back to life, it’s never explained, and I’m used to it. Rex and Weevil are god tier and it’s never ever explained. I’m ready for them to die again every time I see them on this show. But this show will never let go of these bastards because like...well I don’t know, really, but it feels like the show runners REALLY like these two and I’ll let them have their comfort OCs.

LISTEN.

So I know I was going to put a towel on this boy’s enormous smiling dong, but it would, in fact, make it more obscene to put the towel on him in this particular scene than to go without the towel.

And yes, it did grow larger than the last time we saw it, and no... I don’t think we should analyze that.

Meanwhile we have run out of useless logs and their out of place trebuchets.

Blue Eyes just sitting on the bleachers being like “no dawg, it’s fine! I’m fine, we’re all fine!”

And then we uh, killed Shadi.

It happened so quickly I think the dub actually removed a scene where he gets hit. Like suddenly Yami’s in danger, then it cuts away, and then Shadi is just on the ground like “you get em buddy” and he kicks it.

What an unceremonious way for this creep to die.

And of all the times! He has been threatening to die this entire season! And I guess it’s better than getting bricked in the head by Aknadin, but still...a lightning bolt huh?

And in case you were like “so why is he this weird ghost that haunts us 5000 years later?” That’s apparently answered in like the movie, from what bro tells me. I forget which. I want to say it’s Dark Side of Dimensions, that movie I keep threatening to watch. He hasn’t seen it either, he doesn’t know.

Anyway, we made it through another episode, and yes, it was Shadi who died.

I cannot believe how long Grandpa has held out this season, can you? I can’t believe it at all.

We’ll catch up again next episode, where...it feels like this is the finale guys. Wow. We’ve come so far. And again, I wish I was in a better state to write, because I feel like I used to be a lot more in depth and just...more analytical. 

But really, this season is just pretty freaking weird. Like there is stuff to analyze here. There are things to get out of it. But I spend so long being like “and then this weird thing happened, and that weird thing happened” that I’m still just stringing together the nonsense and I’m not really appreciating the forest for the trees.

But I’m sure those things will come to me in time, if they really are that important to glean from this season, even if it may be in some later episode or some sort of post-season essay I feel like writing (I probably won’t). But until then, we’ll just admire the dickface they convinced 4kids to put on TV.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[steve0discusses]

Ep 46 Pt 1: Zorc’s Massive Low Hanging Fruit

We are getting very close! I don’t actually...remember how many episodes there were in this season but listen, It can’t possibly be more than 50 right?

Right?

Anyway, we’re starting off in the battle basement in Yami’s tomb. Who, of course has a battle basement installed right outside of his final resting place, just like how he would have wanted.

And it’s here that the form of Bakura that the dub is telling me is Ryou wants to kill his own classmate. Which, I’ll just point it out since a couple people mentioned it, apparently the manga did not do this nor did the original Japanese version. The dub just made this Ryou for giggles. We already know Bakura can split into evil pieces, this was not necessary. We also know that Ryou is sleeping on those painful steppies, so this doesn’t make much logical sense.

But like we’re watching the dub right now, so sorry, everybody, this is Ryou. Ryou on a bad day, I guess. Dark Ryou. Not to be confused with Shadow Ryou, who is...that other freaking guy.

Yugi just upset that he forgot to bring his dueling disk to a dream universe in the past or whatever. Must feel naked without that thing stinking up his left arm and making that school blazer all wrinkly. Bro is telling me that Yugi should have one really big arm, kind of like trogdor.

(read more under the cut)

the one thing that does make sense with making this Ryou is a little bit of symbolic imagery. Ryou talks about how he doesn’t have friends anymore in the beginning of this arc, and we can assume it’s because he’s decided to step away from other people because of the ghost in his bean. In contrast, Yugi has all these friends he cursed to like him (woops), and for whom he just risked his whole life for, and for whom he didn’t learn the Pharaoh’s name that he needed in order to save all of mankind.

Which, for reals, Tea and Joey are such good buds, that he really did just end the world to save their ass, and that is pretty anime of him.

But Tea gets very nervous over whether or not Yugi was going to perma-die. It would be very awkward if he died, since he’s also the host of this puzzle which is she is currently stuck inside of. Though I’m not 100% on if it’s even possible for him to die here. Little bit of a chicken or the egg situation, which I may have brought up before.

But still, she’s worried about it.

Which is when Joey does a quick head count and go “WAIT WAIT"

(the show does not show us where Tristan is)

Back at Kul Elna, everything is very quickly falling apart. Rocks are falling from the sky, Pharaoh is back at the capital with Seto and the other Seto, and Karim helllllllllllllla died last episode (or 2 episodes ago? I have such bad memory nowadays) so we’re just gonna leave his corpse in the barn and go.

sorry I just took in the incredible abs on this oversized chess piece that is Hassad. 

Why bother? Like for reals why bother?

I have so many questions about this random guy and his character design and they will not get answered. Apparently Dark Side of Dimensions dives into it as well as other unresolved issues from this season but like, that’s for another time. We will be watching that later, and at my rate it’ll be like 5 years from now but I swear...unless I caught covid a second (third?) time we will eventually get there and find out the deal of this...this freakin guy.

Meanwhile, our story boarders are not finished flexing. I think they really enjoyed this particular episode, with this really fun composition around Bakura here. They LOVE to shred scenery with Bakura on this carving, and there are so many good shots where it’s like a comic cover. I mean, look at this:

Damn that’s a good idea. This composition is fun. You got the curves from this...pokemon that I forgot the name of... you got him dead center all strong and rigid to contrast the curves. You got purple and green clouds. It’s fun. If y’all ever want to do the “draw this anime still but in your style” this is a good still. Good stuff.

And then Bakura peaces off--no idea where, and it doesn’t really matter since we have like so many Bakura’s at this point. Lets just assume he’s everywhere.

And with that, the ground gives way to the ZORC within.

This ultimate being, Zorc, who we’ve been talking up for so many episodes.

And that’s when we find out Isis also left out another crucial detail about Zorc:

So listen. We can say that the...neck...of the snake is coming out of his lower stomach. But also, they left it in shadow for a reason. 

The reason is, this episode is getting me flagged.

It occurred to me I don’t have to go for the low hanging fruit. I don’t have to. I can find a way around this. And I struggled. And I did whatever I, a full grown adult, could think to do. I thought to myself, I am a creative person, and I am inventive and I can write comedy well enough so it’s not just about poops and butts and dicks.

And then I gave up because of the number of times this thing is dead center on screen. And really, truly, I make a lot of low hanging jokes on this blog anyway so we’re just going to embrace Zorc for who he really is, both inside and outside.

And he is a slowly growing talking dragon shaped penis with legs.

Covered up by my joke towel in this scene I want you to know the snake just had it’s maws wide open to shout them down. It literally does only talk out of the dragon head on the bottom part of him.

Anyway, then Hassan jumps in front of the missiles zorc shoots from his crotch and well...he dies that way.

Death by firecrotch. This is like an immortal God meant to be the protector of the Pharaohs but you can kill him and the way how is disgusting.

There they go, back to the palace, which like, I guess is VERY close to Kul Elna, since Yami and Seto are currently vibing there right now.

Back at fight club, these two are still at it.

and then back at the funeral of the most romantic anime death of all time, Seto is still at it.

Seto, despite probably having to throw just SO MANY funerals for his tragic backstory is not very good at them. So right now he’s just distancing himself emotionally from literally everything going on around him by convincing himself this is all a very vivid hallucination.

Which it is. For once he is correct, this entire arc is a hallucination, but a hallucination with consequences. Which he is not used to. Hell he doesn’t see consequences when he’s not in a hallucination half the time. He’s like super rich.

Yami decides he did what he can, but he’s done with this freakin guy. I guess trying to reach through to Seto is a skill that only Yugi possesses, cuz Yami is just clear out of patience for this sociopath. Which is a shame, he usually loves this sociopath.

I laughed out loud at this cut to this horse’s ass and Seto’s reaction to being left behind from getting a ride the one time he was the one who needed a ride.

LMAO at the dub for adding that suspicious soil clump where a dead girlfriend probably was laying before.

but being real, this is another very nice shot, I didn’t cap it for vibes, and I really should have. Again, if you’re looking for a “draw this in your style” anime still challenge, this is another fun one. You got a juxtaposition of old and new. You got the storytelling of the dead girlfriend and trying to understand feelings you don’t understand because you were taught to never love. You got lovely ancient pillars. You got a clump of dirt that used to be a girl...

Like we may have dragged Seto’s ass back here, just to make him look cool and out of place in that coat as the wind sweeps by him. And that’s fine, I’ll accept that Seto this season may only be here for some vibes.

As he admires her slowly breathing (yes, breathing, thanks dub) he flashes back to that only time he every had a single conversation with this woman (a conversation they had, only because she thought he was someone else)

And off he goes, to look cool and probably do little else.

And as always, here is the link to read these from the beginning in chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[steve0discusses]

Ep 45 Part 2: I, Again, Did Not Expect Ryou

The revolving door of characters wandering into this boss arena continues, and this time it’s Pharaoh who is trying to catch up to the plot with the dead woman on the ground, the giant tablet to the side, and Seto who is cackling to himself in a corner.

And Seto does a big ol laugh and it’s been a while since we got a villainous laugh out of Seto. Been a LONG TIME. Probably felt great for this voice actor to go back to his roots.

(read more under the cut)

Y’all.

It’s been a while I’ve been doing this blog, right? And I take it slow, especially right now with chronic fatigue stuff, but MAN I really thought we’d be dueling SETO. Not Aknadin in a Seto Bean! That’s a different guy!

Yugioh! That’s a completely different guy!

And there’s time for the big showdown between Pharaoh and Seto to actually happen. But trying to write it so we no longer develop this rivalry between Seto and Pharaoh feels like...they had to do that because Seto became a friend maybe kind of unintentionally.

It still works, they haven’t lied to us, I just...I have mixed feelings about it.

Mimicking Blue Eyes in Season 1 and Season Zero, this dragon will not work for you if you are not Seto Kaiba. Or Yugi. She’ll sometimes allow Yugi to play her in his deck. But definately not Seto Imposters. And like that, Aknadin is dead by his own hubris.

Hubris be killing a lot of billionaires lately, amiright? Yugioh just leaning into my love of killing billionaire gentry with hubris.

This romantic moment somewhat ruined by the animation team refusing to draw fingers and always keeping everyone’s hands clenched like they’re gonna furiously poop.

Yami watches as Seto recreates the vision that Kaiba had seen several years prior on the blimp. And Yami I’m sure felt entirely 3rd wheel. But he’s used that. He lives in Yugi’s bean. He probably thinks 3rd wheel is normal and how everyone feels all the time.

And then THIS HAPPENS.

Seto decides he’s had enough of watching behind a pillar, and now that everyone is dead and sobbing he should go out and harass Yugi. Youknow, at this funeral. The funeral of his beloved from like a previous life or whatever. Seto is kind over it and for once he is the one that needs a ride home.

And he’s like “hey so...I noticed that guy looks like me”

And then, when you think “well I guess Seto joins the party?” they just start screaming at eachother, within earshot of Seto, within earshot of the dead dragon card, within the earshot of like the entire world.

Remember that no one can actually see Seto but Pharaoh, which makes it even more funny.

Bakura segue’s us back to Yugi and his cursed friends, where he’s trying his best to explain the logic of cursing your classmates with dark magic so you can go on playdates.

The idea that you go through all the trouble to curse people into liking you, but the puzzle itself is made of dark magic, so it finds the most terrifying people to make your friend, is funny to me although it is completely my headcanon.

Anyway, get ready for the still my computer caught for this next one.

(it’s “surprise” but eh I don’t feel like fixing it at this point.)

It DOES look like Tristan is doing a weird cross punch, he’s actually tossing both of them and his hands over extended to the other side, which is a thing we do in animation, we go past the point you intend to go so it looks more fluid--but it does make the tweens funny.

The floor gives way and creates scales made out of the eyes.

Will Yugi leap from his scale and send his friends to purple doom, or will he find Pharaoh’s name and save the world?

which like, wouldn’t be a good episode of Yugioh unless multiple people were asking to die, and Joey nailed it in the most Brooklyn way this Japanese boy knows how.

And so Bakura was like “never mind.” which I guess was an option in the footnotes that only he could read.

Not shown is a hard to cap animation where Yugi leapt from his edge of the scales and just clung to Joey’s waist and Joey was like “gotta hang on to your friends, right Yuge?” And Yugi was like “Does that mean you forgive me already? Or are you being sarcastic right now?”

Inside of the room is this.

I LOVE the outline tool in photoshop. Good stuff. I LOVE it. and so does this animation team. Outlined the HELL out of those birds.

They leave the name zone room, with no idea at all how to say Pharaoh’s name. Where, they ran straight into Tristan and decided enough was enough, it’s time to have a chat. Because no, they haven’t figured it out.

You may be asking “so where did Tristan go?”

I DON’T KNOW.

He’s probably not fine. But um. No idea where Tristan went.

Also, guess who we haven’t seen in like 20 episodes since Seto stepped over his prone body on the steps?

Ryou! Little Ryou is back!

This guy who we...thought was a good guy? Anyway he’s off to literally kill Yugi, just like he’s want to do.

Straight up...I can’t fully predict Ryou, mostly because we rarely ever see the kid, but damn, he sure did wake up just ready to do a murder today, didn’t he?

And yes, this does mean that Ryou was pretending to be Bakura pretending to be Tristan, just so we the audience could get a fun triple reveal in this episode.

For some damn reason Ryou brought a duel disk to ancient Egypt. So we WILL get actual proper cards. And by proper cards, I mean Yugioh TV show cards, which line up not at all with the actual card game. Can’t wait to spell FINAL and then die.

Anyway, here’s the link to read these in chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

We are quickly running out of people in this season to kill, but we still got a few of Pharoah’s ancient friends left, and as for who dies next episode? My bet is on...Isis. Sorry Isis, I know you got a cool hat and you’re the token girl but, she’s super dead next right?

[steve0discusses]

Ep 45 Part 1: Wife Gone, Miss Wife

Hey y’all, been a while! I fully blame this last unexpected haitus on Tears of the Kingdom. Also a billion other life things I won’t go into because 👏 I 👏 Want 👏 To 👏 Talk 👏 About 👏 Dead 👏 Wife 👏 !

Like damn, we’re coming back for just...a wild episode. Remember how a few episodes ago we finally united Seto with his long lost wife card? (and I had to check my notes and um...it was actually last episode if you count Kaiba, and only Ep 39 if you count Egyptian Seto. So uh...6 episodes.)

Remember that moment? Anyway, she dies this episode.

Yeah. Like. Damn. That quick huh? Knowing Yugioh’s track record with wifeys we’re pretty lucky she’s been on screen even that long before she went the Valon route and just full on died from one brush of cards with Joey.

Speaking of Joey, we last left the gang fumbling through a series of puzzles to unlock the pharaoh’s name. Bakura, disguised as Tristan, ran head first in there and threw off any semblance of a disguise and y’all, lets see how long it takes the guys to realize this isn’t Tristan.

Inside of this glowing door is a room with absolutely no light in it, which, don’t worry about it. That’s just a thing we do in art when we don’t want to draw a background--blow it out with light.

(Read more under the cut)

MAN I have questions about the support bricks on the wall, but for now we’ll ignore that and look at the even more confounding giant bricks on the ground.

faced with a wall of Egyptian text on this pair of ancient Egyptian sunglasses they drew on the floor, it is lucky that Bakura cursed Tristan’s bean or else they would have never gotten past this room.

They’re zooming right by the fact that their friend is reading ancient Egyptian. A friend who is best known for 1.) Being a student janitor because he failed to become class president, 2.) being head of a “melons” club, and 3.) punching god-strengthed villains in the face when he should know better. A god which definitely didn’t get pissed as hell and immediately possess his bean earlier today.

So he levels with Yugi, using the biggest most simple baby words that Bakura knows, and they still talk right completely round each other.

Hey remember in Season Zero when that effed up thing happened and we all assumed it would never show up in this remake? (and by we I mean me)

It freakin showed up. My audible gasp when this show remembered that Yugi cursed um ALL of his friends. Like and he just straight up told them? Just like this?

Like at the start of this arc he and Pharaoh did have a chat about how Yugi didn’t have friends before he came along, but I thought they were gonna glaze over it! But nah, he just laid it out there that the past few years were all because Yugi got bored between class and wanted a buddy.

The implications of “hey we would not be friends if I didn’t curse your ass” is already pretty deep. But doing it within a brain puzzle that you followed your friend into, despite the fact you could literally die doing this, and realizing...the only reason you’re in this puzzle to begin with is because you were cursed 2-3 years ago...

...this is the Yugioh I never thought would come back. This season, man! This season goes so freakin fast and so freakin hard through things that like...this could be a whole episode in another show.

But, this is Yugioh, so we’re gonna put a pin in that.

Because it’s time to go back to Seto Kaiba’s past life and his nearly dead stranger friend that we have collectively decided is his wife, and by “we” I mean literally everyone on this show but Aknadin.

Aknadin sure doesn’t know what a “wife” is, but he sure as hell knows what it ain’t.

Kissara runs towards Seto in this huge, empty boss arena that I would avoid like the plague in any video game.

And speaking of based, Seto Kaiba shows up. Because this episode wasn’t unhinged enough yet. Seto Kaiba is here to be the greek chorus of his own wife’s death.

He’s noticed. He’s noticed this is weird.

It’s a different storyboarder this season, but this storyboarder is still dropping some great frames. Look at this Seto they gave us, just snooping behind a pillar. New PFP just dropped (that is if anyone was even still using twitter which like, my life has been extremely blessed ever since I left it, we should all leave it together.)

So anyway she farts out a Blue Eyes on turn one, and Seto just kind of seethes from behind a pillar while trying to parse just anything that is going on.

Aknadin decides to shove her (well, her dragon...spirit...thing) into the rock tablet during the card shenanigans that followed. I, at first thought it was with an Orichalcos, and I got very excited about how complicated this season was going to get before I realized it wasn’t lime green.

I do not fully understand the card shenanigans at play here, it was not covered in my education playing through Yugioh Duel Masters (Master Duel) but it doesn’t matter because of the power of...love? or whatever the hell vibes are going on between these two goobers. They, with their vague as hell energy, will stand together against whatever life throws at them.

And by that, I mean literally dying 5 seconds afterwards

Seto Kaiba behind a pillar watched this go down, confused by whether he should feel anything at all by this random series of events between a girl he had half a conversation with, and a guy who looks like him except with guns the size of barrels.

Seto, filled with the pure anger of his wifey’s revenge, also immediately biffed it in solidarity.

Seto still remained behind the pillar, because why interrupt this? I mean yeah he looks like yourself and that girl absolutely died but eh...he’s gonna stay behind the pillar. Maybe if he had a duel disk he’d have thrown a couple cards and done some property damage. but as you can see, there are not helicopters or cranes to do property damage with.

So instead he remains behind the pillar, which they didn’t draw here in this next frame.

And on the back of a horse, in gallops Pharaoh.

I live for these popcorn moments in TV, where we’re like “hey, what if we just threw these characters in a weird blender and see how they reacted?” and this episode is just--everyone ends up in this one random spot and they all collectively are like like “what? The hell is happening?”

And we will see more of that next update.

As usual, here is the link to read these in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

Next post will go up like tomorrow probably, but, may my post after that not take 2 months to make, lmao, I swear guys we are going to finish Season 5!

[steve0discusses]

Ep 44 Pt 2: Name Hunt

We start this half of the episode at the card game that is currently just kinda stalled. It’s more like a D+D session at this point, where everyone is separated, random enemies are appearing in random rooms, and their biggest issue is that they were balanced to work as a team, and as a solo fight they’re gonna freakin die.

Or Bjork will come back in the time it takes for the team to reassemble.

Sorry his name isn’t Bjork, it’s Korn. Or...well it’s something from the 90′s. Zork. It was Zork. But with a c. Bjorc Necrophades.

So as Yami dumps on Bakura about how boring this game is for him, Bakura reminds him that because Pharaoh shoved his memory in a puzzle piece, Pharaoh is dumb as a sack of bricks. Which like, relatable.

I STILL don’t quite get it.

I know that Seto kills Yami in the OG timeline, they have been saying that for 4 seasons. But if Yami had to put himself in that puzzle to put back Zorc...does this imply that the fight with Seto was to resurrect Zorc? that Seto was a pawn of Bakura even in the original timeline?

Wait is that it?

(read more under the cut)

Have I finally figured out the paradox that’s been bothering me all season, where before it looked like Yami died 2 separate ways in two separate timelines? I mean, while I am much better (not fully, hence the slow update schedule but am getting much better) Long covid for like an entire year removed so much of my memory, that I was able to play Undertale again like it was the first time. Which is incredible because it’s the most memed game and y’all, I forgot nearly every line that Sans said. Which I’m not gonna lie, kind of rocks. But also kind of difficult when I’m trying to remember the plot of this show.

Bro did offer to write the blog in my stead, but when he attempted to use Photoshop he could not figure out how to leave the text editor. Making these caps will one hundred percent crash my computer if he’s doing the driving. Photoshop crashes my computer about 4 times on a normal day, if you don’t know what you’re doing, Photoshop will seal you in a demon dimension before crashing your computer, and yet, still charge you 12 dollars a month. You cannot turn your back on photoshop, just like Zorc.

Anyway, back to the show:

I mean that’s my personal gamble. I will always gamble Tristan on who’s gonna die. And him being Bakura right now is just...ooo ripe to die this season, yeah?

Bakura took a moment to try and remind Yami that this is all a simulation and all of these pieces on the board were in fact not real people, to which Yami reminded Bakura that he himself is a ghost in a box and is only loosely defined as a “real person” himself.

👁👄👁

And then Karim, who’s name I had completely forgotten, so I’m glad the show reminded me, was like “Oh no! I’m dying!” PS he’s been “dying” for like 3 episodes, so I was very surprised he actually fully died.

Like Egypt Grandpa is going to outlast this stack of bricks down there, and that’s like a lot to take in. Modern Grandpa breaks his butt like constantly but Egyptian Grandpa is built like a truck.

Isis was very upset by this, and like I don’t blame her, look at the FEATURES on that man. True tragedy right there to lose that block of cheese right there and just be left with freakin Shada. Who, in case you forgot, has a motorcycle tattoo on his entire forehead. I too would be crying my eyes out, Isis, this is looking grim for you.

It only just now as I was writing this cap realized that when Bakura was like “who would you bet is going to die first?” he wasn’t talking about Yami’s high school friends, but was in fact foreshadowing the truly tragic death of Karim, who I totally remembered the name of.

Anyway, it’s still gonna be Tristan because for real, Karim doesn’t count.

Bit of a baby manger vibe to this shot, not gonna lie. Nice nativity we got going there. Baby jesus, Mary and Joseph, a shepherd, a wise man, and uh...Shadi. Shadi could be an Angel I guess, he isn’t technically alive. There. Print this out and put it above your grandma’s Christmas tree, instant nativity.

Speaking of the kids, Joey was really testing my gamble by walking headfirst into a trap that spits daggers into your feet.

Inside of this maze is step by step the same as the story of the tomb we saw with the hot version of grandpa that opened this arc.

Including this room, where Grandpa got betrayed by a very silly slingshot.

This was the show spoon feeding us Yugi’s character growth, since he was just a barrel of nerves and sinew when we first met this boy. He is braver this season, I will give him that, but it feels like it’s more that he’s the only person who’s fully aware that none of this is real. Yugi is inside of his own mind puzzle. It’s literally the only place he’s got full control (ish).

At the end of this little walk across the fear pit that literally no one here had any problems with (like Tea walked across this narrow fear pit in 5 inch heels!) The little box that carried Pharaoh’s puzzle isn’t here, instead it’s a bunch of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Reminder that even Season Zero Yugi, who is the most pile of nerves Yugi, would have kicked your ass even without the puzzle. Like this is mostly my own interpretation, but without the puzzle......Yugi would have straight up stabbed that guy, right? Like straight up? Yugi is a menace to society. Sure, he was nervous about having to defend himself, but Yami wasn’t a Pharaoh yet, he was Yugi’s dark side, who was backed into corners so hard by people with literal whips and people with yoyo’s with spikes on the end, he pretty much always had to choose violence in order to survive Freshman year.

Like yes he walked across a bridge without fear. Makes sense, the bridge doesn’t have spike yoyo’s, fire shooting out, a guy holding your girlfriend hostage with a gun at a burger restaurant, and whatever capitalist nightmare Seto has come up with that month. But we can still call this bridge character development, as a treat.

After Joey tricked the switch that opened the garage door to Yami’s secret name, the episode ended.

can’t wait to see Tristan hold up some fingers and have the show convince me it’s a gun.

Anyway, here’s a link to read these from the start, which I keep giving you although I need to reread my own blog myself, haha.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[steve0discusses]

Ep 44 Pt 1: It Took 3 Damn Seasons For These Two to Meet

I’m not dead! (though my schedule and my long covid fatigue would imply otherwise) So lets procrastinate my other responsibilities and talk about Yugioh.

Seto is still stalled out like my car in the winter.

And the show decided just out of the blue that Seto has right to the throne although he’s the cousin to the Pharaoh...he’s not Yami’s older brother. That’s not really how the birthright of Kings work, last I checked. Now if Seto had married Yami’s Mother? That I know is a clear birthright steal. But uh, last I checked BEWD was not Yami’s Mom, although I would accept that headcanon.

Blue Eyes White Dragon is often shortened to BEWD and it sounds very funny to me so I apologize if I use BEWD too much. But I mean...

(read more under the cut)

But like, Seto has a girlfriend, so he’s allowed to sit at the adult table at Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, Yami’s gonna have to be stuck babysitting because it’s not like he’s gonna be official with either of the two powerful women that he’s inferred to be dating. Like either the Dark Magician girl, or Tea, make your pic, both are godlike.

Or Rebecca, we can count her, too, she’s like a PHD graduate at like 12 and weirdly powerful for no reason. Also, knowing this show, she may have dated several of these people without them knowing so she’d be down.

Anyway, point is, neither Seto or Yami are the Blue Eyes White Dragon so who cares if they are connected to her? If Kissara needs to inherit the throne, she’s right over there, don’t even bother going through Seto. And youknow that’s just the show making a poor analogy for playing cards. Did they intend for it to come out that way? Probably not, but also Kissara isn’t a paper card here, she’s like a real ass woman, despite the zero personality they gave her so far this season.

So Aknadin shakes his head and was like “This isn’t how you treat your not-a-girlfriend, guys” and in one motion decided pull a Mokuba. But, instead of stealing those little star chips from season one in the middle of a card game, he just straight up stole Seto and it was very funny.

Like look at seto’s little feet in that image there haha. Seto’s just been tossed around this season place to place like a ping pong ball.

And then Bakura was like “I’m not done yet, I can do THIS!” and they watched this thing mozy down a hole at like a snail’s pace.

They just watched it slowly descend and were like “... huh. Why didn’t I think of that?”

So Yami whips off his VR headset (well, metaphorically) in order to share his grievances back at the game table. Mostly to dump on Bakura that this game isn’t any fun.

Which is shockingly low standards, we are talking about Yami.

And before I ever had to update the Death count, turns out Seto Kaiba is just fine.

I have no idea why he’s back in the city, don’t think about it, I don’t think it will ever be explained. So he wanders around lost, like he does about 80% of the time on a normal day. Just kinda wanders hoping Roland picks him up at some point.

And when a kid runs directly through his own body he starts to connect the dots about the ancient Egyptian clothing, housing, and general lack of electricity and wheels.

Which is when we finally have them meet.

That’s right, it’s been a while.

Seasons, so many seasons ago, Seto had a dream about the perfect woman, who was also coincidentally dead in his arms, and for so many years we assumed (ok I was the only one who assumed this) that Yugioh’s creators knew that they could in no way ever put these two people in the same exact room.

And then they did. Because Yugioh will never let you write fanfiction, they already do it for you. That’s right, modern Seto Kaiba ran into past Kissara in an alleyway and so lets get a gist of their true love conversation.

And no, that isn’t just me making a joke in the cap, Seto immediately says to this stranger “Girl, I saw you die. In my arms.” and she was like “lol”

And uh that was it. Again, a HUGE leap of romance for Seto Kaiba. This is truly the most romantic he’s been on this show so I can’t dock it too much. But I will dock it somewhat because it’s been so many seasons of leadup, hahaha!

I’ll have you know my bro was like “wow you stan Kissara so much” and I was like “mmm pretty sure I don’t” and he was like “uh you gave her so much more dialogue than in the actual show” and he’s not wrong. Maybe I do stan Kissara. If anything, I stan her being the true Pharaoh of Egypt.

So she’s gonna run off to find the correct Seto. But yes, she did look future Seto Kaiba directly in the eyes when he said “why should I believe you?” and say “I don’t care.”

so that’s about it for this half of this episode that took me........what 7 years to write? I’ve been having fatigue problems, long covid’s a beast, so updates will be whenever they are, but as always, thanks for y’alls patience about it.

And uh, have a little teaser for the next half:

Ohhh yeah that’s right, we gonna do a maze!

And as always here’s a link to read these in chrono order from the beginning if you just got here, and want to see exactly how many posts are in between when Seto hallucinated Kissara and actually met Kissara.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 43: Don’t Worry About Ryou, I’m Sure He’s Fine.

I was missing pants with reasonable waist lines where I could sit down and eat at the same time, and I as like “wow, I do not even have time to write the Yugioh blog but I really want to write the Yugioh blog to remember a time when pants were normal.”

And so here we are.

When I was reminded that, in fact, no one’s wearing pants in the flashbacks anyway. But it’s fine, I guess.

Last we left off Seto and Aknadin were having a heart to heart where Aknadin was trying to pull a Darth Vadar and Seto was not having it.

It’s like if Luke Skywalker was already an imperial officer the entire time. It’s like Darth chopped off Lukes hand and Luke’s like. “Damn it, Dad! I’m on the Dark Side already. I work for Palpatine. He’s right there. We both say Hi to Palpatine as we walk into work every single damn day of our lives.”

(read more under the cut)

And then Seto just kinda stewed in denial for a bit about every Dad substitute he has ever had.

Like I would say Roland is the closest thing Seto has to a functional Father, and even I, a true Roland stan, would admit that Roland would ABSOLUTELY end the world (though, he would do it wholly unintentionally.)

I had honestly forgotten that Hassad was a character now, and the idea that Seto, who generally doesn’t want his family grievances aired out in public, also has to have the peanut gallery from this random Egyptian god-like character is very funny to me. Like getting unsolicited life advice from the robotic Discord mod.

Anyway, was anyone thinking about Ryou? because I sure wasn’t prepared!

He’s still there!

He’s still there just passed out on the steppies! The steppies that are from like 5000 years ago and covered in spiders. Seto just casually walking over him and not even bothering to like...move his body.

Maybe give him like a pillow or something? Drape your massive coat over his coat? try to wake him up a little bit? No?

We’re just going to leave Ryou like this?

Can’t imagine why Ryou would want to kill his entire class and the entire world considering how freakin nice everyone is to Ryou’s near-corpse right now.

And speaking of near-corpses

It was at this point, where most people would be like freaking out, even just a little bit, that the golden disembodied eyeball started glowing in Seto’s pocket.

Just youknow, the golden disembodied eyeball of Seto’s previous co-worker/Dad stand-in/Guy that Tried to Kill Him and Mokuba and Steal His Company. Yes, that thing is still in his coat pocket, and it’s been I want to say like 6 or 7 episodes of this gross thing rolling around next to his wifejet keys, his loose change, and a couple gum wrappers.

Like Seto is just so over it at this point. I feel like S1 Seto would be mad freaking out right now, screaming for Mokuba and getting on his little helicopter to blow up this tomb by dropping a satellite from space on it.

But this Seto is like “That’s a lot of bodies. Anyway, lets go fall into a vision from this cryptic eyeball from hell.”

And it was weird!

We get to see Aknadin’s explanation for why he’s feeling cray, and it’s because he’s jealous of his brother.

Don’t ask me what Seto from the future was thinking when he saw a flashback contained within a vision of the distant past. Seto again, is just kind of over it, and will take anything that this world throws at him.

After hearing this explanation, Shimon was like “This is why we hate wizards.”

Seto was feeling conflicted, because he received a lot of one-on-one tutoring from Aknadin about how to properly do sales taxes, and once had a sword fight with him, which I guess is Dad stuff, if it’s 5000 BC.

But yousee, none of this matters because Aknadin knows the secret password to get Seto to do anything you want, and for once, the password is not “Pegasus.” It’s the other password.

Shout out to the story boarder for mirroring both Seto in the present and the past with this same clenched fist position. Just to REALLY hammer in how much Seto both thinks that past!Seto is an idiot, but is also exactly that idiot at the same time.

Which is when Kissara wakes up and is like “brah knock it off I’m trying to sleep.”

Back at the palace, Kissara decides to book it towards her True Love She Just Met, and Bakura kind of watches this go down and is like “Nice.” And by Bakura, I mean Tristan.

Because Tristan is still, in fact, possessed, and no one else has noticed, much like how I didn’t notice he was possessed for like 3 entire episodes.

So they decide to take a break from trying to find Yami’s name to instead get Barbossa to stop crying and give him a snack. This entire time they were also equally famished, but as we’ve noticed with Ryou, getting very hungry is just Shadow World things.

TEA. We JUST went over how the entire city of graverobbers got turned into a haunted tea set can you NOT???

Pharaoh is RIGHT THERE, don’t eat his family!

So in a weird animated sequence, the gang flies across Egypt on the back of Barbossa, who as I mentioned before, has a face that goes into a bucket we will call “Reasons why American children in the 00′s hid their anime interests from their friends.”

But it’s OK, because he’s canonically dead! 🎊🥂🎉

I would add him to the death count, but 1. He sucks and 2. He never actually existed in the first place, Yami apparently just shoved him into the past as a cheat so his friends could get a ride.

Which was super necessary, this kids are completely unable to travel if Kaiba isn’t there to drive them.

Tristan has been so many weird ass men in this show.

Is this payback for that time Tristan refused to let Bakura take over Mokuba’s body in S1? Maybe. But also it was just really convenient because Tristan is such a mix of weird characteristics from obsessing over literal melons, obsessing over janitor stuff, and being horny af, that him being possessed is just camouflage.

Bakura remembers how Yugi ran to Yami’s side at their last confrontation, and how after one pep talk, Yami was able to completely recover from being indirectly hit in the balls when Aknadin threw a sword at the nads of Slither the Sky dragon. Bakura was like “yes. This is what I will do as well. This is the power I need. The power of friendship from the one who knows me better than anyone else!”

Bakura then realized who was right outside that tomb, whom he went out of his way to lure right there at it’s entrance. The soul he needed this entire time that was always there, but he just never really appreciated.

And then he let Ryou bleed out on the steppies.

That’s right he let his own Ryou passed out on the sharpest most brutal steppies known to man, in order to steal away SETO KAIBA, the least supportive friend in the Yugioh Universe, in order to save Bakura’s soul.

Seto Kaiba. Was used to save. Bakura’s. Soul.

Bakura gave Seto Kaiba a haunted eyeball, so that way Seto would come to this tomb, and then Bakura could use him as an extra life mushroom.

Seto Kaiba, who doesn’t even know what continent he is on.

YOU LANDED IN EGYPT FIVE MINUTES AGO.

Y’all my long Covid is a lot, and flu season has been absolutely killing me this year becuase flu with long covid is just...well it’s a bad time. But when Seto Kaiba landed in Egypt, looked up at Cairo, and in the dialogue of the show was like “this place sure looks familiar” I was like...his brain.

He was just at the museum. He was just talking to Ishizu. he’s in the valley of the kings! There’s just no saving Seto Kaiba, his poor borked brain.

And I get it, he once had a hallucination about past Egypt, in particular...

BUT YOU IN EGYPT, KAIBA.

Which is fine because he will not be using said brain.

RIP Seto Kaiba, it was nice knowing you.

We’ll wait until I see the explanation for whatever the hell just happened next episode before I add him to the deathcount. But welcome back, Bakura.

Back to play another round of cards. Bless this show and their obsession with card games that refuse to end.

I’m glad it got back to cards eventually, but they took me on a little ride this episode, I really don’t know where it’s going anymore, and that’s not just my brain fog talking. Seto is possessed, the other Seto is...Bakura...Bakura is also Tristan, and the puzzle necklace is not actually on Yami currently. Like it wasn’t really covered here, but Yami might be able to die now? Maybe?

Anyway, a lot to unpack, but a good time overall. This show is freakin bonkers man, I forget when I’m updating regularly, but then I step away for a little while and it’s like “yes. This is why I’m recapping this goldmine. It is a miracle that this show exists because of how weird it is, but I’m here for it.”

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono