#kaiba no he does not want you to die for anyone please live for the people you love??????????!?!?!?!?

[chaoscheebs]

A thing I thought about at work:

You all know there are a million and one valid reasons Seto Kaiba constantly has his emotional guard up (Shitty Dad Issues(tm), other shitty relatives having only been interested in his and Mokuba’s money before dumping them in an orphanage, etc. etc.), but another reason I realized?

He’s probably fucking terrified by the depth of his own emotions.

Think about it.  Think about everything he went through to protect and/or save Mokuba.  Think about the fucking insane lengths he went to to chase after Atem.  Hell, even when we had the Atem/Yugi combo platter, he was Very Weird(tm) about chasing their shared body too.  He has no problem with dying and gets incredibly distraught when the people he’s come to care for in some regard and in danger/outright no longer in it.

He feels everything super intensely, and he loves so deeply he drowns in it, and that’s scary as hell to someone who’s been trained half his life to not trust anyone.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep33 S4 pt 1: Deus Ex US Military

Been a little distracted but was reminded--yo--I gotta finish S4 of Yugioh this year. I think I can do it. There’s like...what...two episodes left? Three? Like I don’t want to tempt 2020, but like...I think I can finish this thing.

That and a bunch of my Photoshop files corrupted, I don’t know why, I’m very scared for my hard drive, and I need to do a big ol defrag and hope that’s enough. Really hoping this is my bad and not my computer’s bad. I’m pretty hard on this computer when I paint digitally.

and I was immediately gifted by the anime gods because yo, it’s my favorite storyboarder! They're back to carry me through my election burn out, every episode they touch has so much style and no matter how freakin weird or confusing the plot is, this storyboarder/animation team doesn’t seem to care. They will this kids show about cards with this attention to detail. They just have a lot of enthusiasm and that’s a thing about anime that I really like to see. No matter how weird it is, you gotta go 150% without any shame. Love it. Love to see em back.

First off, that earthquake from last episode?

Just a little bigger of an earthquake than I originally thought, coincidentally, this is when Roland shows up, only to realize that he’s like...10 minutes to late.

Well, maybe a little longer than 10 minutes when you consider that Mai freakin died and Yugi almost died, and Joey is absolutely dead and being carried across Tristan’s back.

Anyway, Roland just walked into a whole lot and is just trying to process his life. Roland is all of us in October/November of 2020.

If Roland only knew how many times Seto and Mokuba have totally biffed it when he wasn’t looking.

Like for reals...how is Roland still alive? Like...I don’t think the guy has ever died. Not even once. Maybe that’s Roland’s superpower as the secret FourthKaiba, by just being the only one to stay very far away from the constant BS strewn at this family.

Roland is just...too inept to die. He’s always too far away, he comes after the big bad has already murdered a few people, he’s just...too bad at his job to ever be a target. Live long, Roland. The Kaiba who was the smartest of all by actually being the dumbest.

Also, look at him parking far enough away on the actual helicopter landing pad. He is the only ‘Kaiba’ that follows the law. This could also be the other reason for his secret to longevity.

(read more under the cut)

Faced with a stairwell between their freedom and this weird earthquake chasm that just opened on the top story of this building, Yami decides it’s his job to carry...................

...................Raphael.

(Never forget that we know the exactly weight of Yugi Muto.)

And like Yami is weirdly strong because of magic powers but like...maybe Yami should take Joey and then Tristan should pick up Raphael? I’d say Tea could also pick up Raphael, but I feel like she just wouldn’t want to.

TBQH maybe the reason that Yami is carrying Raphael is because literally no one else feels like it? Like no one likes this guy?

Just kinda feels like Yami is holding onto Raphael out of a sunk-cost fallacy. He’s already done so much work to this guy, can’t lose him now. Gotta save Raphael to make up for killing Gurimo, Weevil, and Yugi. Can’t fail a fourth time.

Anyway, you know what else this storyboarder is good at?

How did they even get reference for drawing this? They didn’t, right? They’re just so good at art that they were like “I can draw ANY person in ANY outfit straight up the crotch, I dare you.”

Seto decides to...not help out, much like virtually all of Yami’s other friends, who also just kinda...yelled and cried at this situation instead of...helping.

Which is fine, because the stairwell gave out and then Raphael decided to uhhhh throw this directly at me.

Just one more yeet for the road. Youknow this guy has yeeted the Pharaoh not once but twice in one season, and both times he just chucked him like he was made out of foam core. (Also, please admire the millennium puzzle in this shot going out at like a 90 degree angle. Just...A+, this storyboarder is hilarious)

At first, I really thought Yami was dabbing his way over that ledge.

In a moody shot with his hair and his jacket swaying in the breeze, almost designed for you to lift and stick into your Youtube AMVs, Seto looked onward and seemed...kind of bored because no one’s throwing any cards. And like who can blame him, he has been on the top of so many ledges and so many buildings that he’s seen Yami make this same speech of “DON’T DO THIS DAMN LEDGE THING I SWEAR TO GODS” like...so many times.

He just immediately accepts Yugi died and is like “Well I guess that makes me king of games.”

And Raphael, after like several minutes of begging Yami to just let him die, decides to let go of that ledge on his own, because this is Yugioh, and you gotta fit in that suicide within the first 10 minutes of the episode. Which, PS, is not the weirdest thing that happened this episode.

And because Roland is freakin late to everything, he showed he could have done this the entire time. Honestly I think Roland just didn’t want to deal with Raphael. We can blame this on Roland, right?

PS we never see this building again in this episode.

I don’t know........why they bothered showing this. If anything it makes the next plot twist more weird because it’s like...what was the point of the random ass earthquake and the random ass concept art building if we, in fact, aren’t coming back here???

I mean I guess it’s a nice shot for your Artstation portfolio, good on you, Yugioh background artist.

Unfortunately this chip contains Seto Kaiba’s greatest weakness. (SanDisk card? Jump drive? Which PS--if they had jump drives this whole time, why was Seto using floppies earlier in the season? Like what happened there?)

And then, with the hatch of their helicopter just wide open, no one in a seat belt, and walking away from the destruction of one of the largest buildings in San Fransisco, finally the cops showed up. Real cops this time, not possessed cops. Also, it’s the Marines.

Am I going to get my Monty Python ending? I mean...if cops can recognize these kids in this universe...I might get my Monty Python ending. :) :) :)

For some reason, back on the mean streets of San Fransisco with no people left alive in it, Rebecca just kinda started losing her mind. Maybe this was to make up for the 2 seasons I had to watch Duke Devlin flirt with a 12 yo? That now we have to suffer Duke saddled with this small crazy person?

This small crazy person who is painted as this intolerable person next to Duke Devlin, but is also a love interest for the main character? Like Yugi’s into some weird ass angry girls.

PS the orcs were no longer needed for the plot so they have turned into streams of light in order to join with the Leviathan mass. So now Rebecca and Duke Devlin will just have literally nothing to do for the rest of the season. I guess they can go to Ghiradelli square...someone’s gotta eat that ice cream before it melts.

Also this happened.

In case you were like “Wow Rach, you didn’t update the Death Count, how dare you”--it’s because I uh...completely forgot that the Oricalchos crew is immune to fall damage. Raphael’s just fine now. He fell down 50 stories...and then 50 stories fell on him...but don’t think about it.

Meanwhile, on the back of some aircraft carrier, far into international waters, the kids get recruited into the military of a foreign country and it’s just as weird as you think it is.

Hey guys.

So, Bandit Keith was weirdly in Hell this season for no reason, right? What if he died offscreen because, earlier in the season, the US military threw him at Dartz because they couldn’t get a hold of Yugi or Kaiba? What about that headcanon? What if that’s why his angry ghost wanted revenge?

Anyway, they join the ranks of Shadow T. Hedgehog, which makes sense because...these guys look like human OC’s of Shadow the hedgehog already.

Sorry I just had a moment because Shadow uses guns a lot despite not needing them at all so “people won’t get uncomfortable with how powerful he is” while in Yugioh they can’t even...show a gun. That really is...you ever think about how weird that is? That Shadow the Hedgehog, a strange remix of a 90′s sega mascot, has a million giant guns but Kaiba’s actual gun (which, apparently he does have in the Japanese version of this show) got edited out completely?

Sometimes it just dawns on me and I have a moment.

Now the US Military just hand delivering them to Dartz is so wild because their reason for the USA not doing anything on their own with their fleets and fleets of ships is:

Have you MET the US? I live here, and if we were like given the choice to shoot the ocean...or just die...we’d be like “wait...for reals? So no one gets hurt, we just shoot guns at the water? You mean we finally found our true calling? For REALS? I just shoot this water bucket!??? FOR REALS????” and it would become a national holiday. All pop songs would be devoted to it. Our ancestors would make movies about it.

I mean, our dumbass president considered nuking a hurricane in 2019...in case you forgot because damn, it’s been a STUPID 4 YEARS. (And you better have voted already because for reals do not make me go through 4 more years of this. I do not think this blog would survive it...or the hurricanes that will keep getting nuked.)

Also....the show actually threw the word “proof” out there. Seriously show? You OK?

I figured the mind control situation would be a better reason not to arrest Dartz other than “Dartz is just so good at covering up his tracks” when the TRACKS have a broken down Caltrain on one side of them, and the other side of the tracks have the rest of that same Caltrain at the bottom of a river.

Seto is not amused but he never is. He will take this Nobel Peace Prize and step up to the microphone at the UN and be like “I WANTED IT TO BE A CARDS PRIZE.”

PS--we HAVE a map already, right? Raphael died to give us this map--and then didn’t die, but it’s not like anyone else here knows that. So like...why did we need the US Military to show up at all? Why is this scene important? Other than to look cool, I guess? Like...

...why is the US military here we already have a Deus Ex Machina delivered by Raphael? At least that one was deserved--the whole point of that duel was to get this MAP.

A map that we are never going to use.

...There’s a good chance that two writers wrote this episode in two different buildings and just...glued the two halves together. Animation is wild. Weird ‘Cinema sins’ things like this happen...all the time. This one though, this one is kind of funny because it’s a ton of wasted effort on the very best storyboarder.

Anyway I broke this up into two segments because I’m tired, and also, while a lot of people like long posts, the smaller posts are kinda easier to read. More will be upcoming in like...I dunno it really depends on a lot of things right, now, I’ve been having a time, but at least Yugioh is always there to enjoy. Maybe I’ll need so much distraction you’ll get an update tomorrow? Good things can happen, and it’s not like I get to do anything else for Halloween.

Happy Halloween Y’all! Lets make the most of it!

(here’s a link to read these in chrono order)

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

[dxmichelle]

The 12 Days of Fic-Mas (Day 10): Sapphire Road Snippet

Ideally, the entire chapter would have gone up, but I simply ran out of both time and motivation to get it done by the end of this challenge.

Instead, I have the entire first section of Chapter 6!

Hermione reached up once again and pulled at the bars to the window, and like the other three times she had already tried this – they didn’t budge. She had woken in the tower facing off the cliffside of the castle overlooking nothing but a vast desert standing between the Witch’s fortress and a large mountain far in the distance.

She sighed, rubbing at her arms as she turned back around. The tower was cold. Whoever put her in here took her beaded bag, and with it, all of her supplies. Which made her pause – who pulled her from the flowers? They made her so tired when they were trying to cross. Was it the winged cat creatures that brought her here? Seto wasn’t in the room with her, so was he elsewhere in the castle? Or did they leave him, possibly injured or worse, back in the fields?

A stray flower petal was stuck to her shirt and she plucked it away. She didn’t seem to be hurt. At least not physically. There was something, a feeling that she couldn’t place, that something wasn’t quite right. At the least, she guessed it was from waking, disoriented, from a nap that was anything but restful.

How could it? She had succumbed to some sort of magical sleep, and woke on the floor of the tower room that was sparsely furnished. A small dais sat in the center of the rounded room, with a tall, hard armchair set up in front of a massive crystal ball that had to be at least ten times bigger than anything she had ever seen in Professor Trelawney’s classroom. Both the chair and the crystal ball were covered in a fair amount of dust. Clearly, no one had spent much time in here.

The door to the tower was large and felt incredibly heavy when she pounded on it before, and it was predictably locked. If anyone heard the knocking from the other side, they didn’t acknowledge it.

There had to be a way to get out of here. Hermione gave another glance about the room. A broken mirror hung near the barred window, a small table bare of any decoration stood along the opposite side. She didn’t see anything that could get the door open, or knock the bars off the window.

There had to be something around she could use. The last thing she wanted was to find out what the Witch had in store for her. She needed to get out and find Seto. They could regroup and come up with a plan.

She swallowed, anxious, as she peered as well as she could out the window and down the tower. It was a long way down. Getting out safely that way was out of the question.  She tilted her head to see around one of the window bars and felt something cool against her neck.

Hermione froze. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry. But when she moved to stand before the broken mirror along the wall, she saw herself wearing a strange, metal collar. It definitely hadn’t been there when she and Seto entered this world, or he would have said something. He was observant; there was no possible way he would have completely overlooked it. Someone must have placed it on her while she was unconscious.

But why?

Some sort of runic inscription wrapped around the center and around to the back but it was impossible to tell what it said and didn’t look like anything she had ever seen in her three years of studying various runes.

Hermione reached up to tug at it and immediately yanked her hands away the instant they touched it. It was hot. …But how was that possible, to be cold on one side and the complete opposite on the other? If she really tried to take it off, she was likely to burn her hands. Not an ideal scenario.

…Until she knew what it was for, it would just have to stay on.

The latch on the other side of the door clicked and it swung open. Two winged cat creatures leapt inside, followed by a rather short woman in a tall pointed hat and glittering red shoes that clashed horribly with her pink dress.

The Witch flashed Hermione a wide, sugary smile, one Hermione was all-too-familiar with, and like all the times she had seen it before, knew it couldn’t possibly be genuine.

In a world where everyone they had so far come across resembled people that Seto mainly knew from Domino City, it was quite a shock – yet surprisingly fitting – to see the spitting image of Dolores Umbridge standing in front of her

“Well,” said the Witch, her voice full of the false sweetness that Hermione remembered from those two years at Hogwarts, “Isn’t this lovely? It isn’t often I have visitors! How very nice of you to come and visit me in my loneliness.”

“I didn’t come here by choice,” Hermione said.

Umbridge raised her eyebrows innocently. “Oh? I thought I was doing the proper thing and rescuing you from my garden. The very one you and your friend were attempting to cross to reach my castle. Only a fool would make the journey through the flora without proper protection…and you just waltzed right in.”

So it was the flowers that did her in. Suspicions validated. “What have you done with Seto? Where is he?”

“Seto? You mean the boy who was with you?” Umbridge’s wide smile transitioned into something awful. “Nothing. By now, he’s probably dead.”

Hermione’s jaw dropped. “What?!”

The Witch stepped closer to the crystal ball in the center of the tower and raised her hand over it. “Come, see for yourself.”

Hermione eyed the Witch cautiously before stopping on the other side of the crystal ball in time for the grey smoke inside to start to swirl around and change colors. It finally cleared out showing the field of flowers , and Seto, sprawled out in the flowerbed alongside the edge of the hidden sapphire road. The faint bits of smoke still swirling inside the ball made parts hard to see, but she thought she saw bits of red along the side of his face, and she had to hope those were only broken flower petals resting on his skin and nothing else.

Knowing that the cat creatures had tried to attack them more than once though…the odds were not in her favor.

Umbridge circled around her. “I’m sure you’re aware by now of the natural sedative emitted by the flowers. Why, if one isn’t careful they could go down for a quick nap without anyone else the wiser. And naturally, the longer you breathe in their deceptively pleasant aroma, the more potent it is. And if there isn’t anyone to wake you, why, you could just sleep forever!”

Umbridge slyly grinned at her cat demons. “I had instructed my pets to collect you both, after all, but I’m afraid they didn’t feel safe. Not after he roasted one of their own.”

“But – he would have been asleep!” Hermione said, “There was no need to leave him there!” She turned back to the crystal ball, pressed her hands against the cool surface and looked down at Seto again. He appeared to be sleeping, but she could only see him from about the neck up. What if one of the creatures ran him through with his sword, and then just left him? He could be dying and they were so far through the field that no one would be able to safely get him out without succumbing to the flowers’ magic themselves.

“Please,” Hermione pleaded, starting forward towards the Witch. She must have gotten a step too close for one of the cat monsters swooped down, snarling at her, and she immediately froze. “Don’t leave him there, he could die!”

“Well, he could already be,” the Witch said with a dismissive laugh. “Bringing him into my castle would have been out of kindness. But he managed to severely hurt one of my little darlings. I don’t need that sort of danger in my home,” Her grin widened. “Besides. I don’t need him. Only you.”

What? “…Why?”

Both Umbridge and one of the creatures took a step forward, and Hermione took an equal step backwards, hit the armchair with the back of her leg, and fell into it.

“Why, because you have the gift, dearie.”

The what!?

The Witch tilted her head, studying Hermione carefully. There was a look aimed at her that she couldn’t quite place. They’ve never truly met before, yet there was some sort of angry recognition on the girl’s face. But to draw a blank look when speaking of something so obvious – did she really not understand?

“The gift,” said the Witch, “Magic. You are a crafter of spells, are you not?”

Hermione glanced back again, briefly, at Seto in the crystal ball and then back up at Umbridge. “Why does that matter?”

Umbridge laughed, and started circling around the chair like a vulture. “Oh, it matters a great deal. You came from Scarletton City, did you not? Surely those illustrious do-gooders told you all about me.”

She stepped up suddenly on the step before the chair and loomed in, smirking as Hermione shank back, startled. “So, tell me. What did old Mayor Kaiba send you off to do?”

Hermione avoided her gaze.

“Tut tut,” said Umbridge, tilting Hermione’s chin back towards her. She snapped her fingers with her free hand, and the picture in the crystal ball faded back, leaving the original murky smoke. “Eyes on me, dearie. Play nice, and maybe, I’ll send one of my pets to fetch your friend out of my garden.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes at her. “You don’t know? We can’t be the first people to come to your castle. There have been others who came from Scarletton City and were never seen again. What did you do to them?”

“Well now, it depends, doesn’t it,” said the Witch, looking fondly over at her two demon pets. “I’ve transformed a number of pesky intruders into soldiers for my bidding. But they didn’t have the gift that you do. Pesky troublemakers like you have to be treated a bit more…delicately.”

“Why does it matter if someone has magic or not?” said Hermione, “If you’re capturing them and transforming them into monsters, what harm can they possibly do to you? You’ve killed people, and ruined others’ lives…for what – a pair of shoes?”

Umbridge’s grin widened. “Aha, now we get to the heart of our little matter. You came for the Ruby Slippers. But why – what did the Mayor tell you about them?”

Hermione glared at her.

“Well, you’ll have to do better than that if you want me to go after your friend.”

Hermione scowled. “That’s it’s the most powerful artifact in the land…and that the Enchantress kept them in Scarletton City to keep peace across the realm.”

“Is that right?” the Witch laughed. “Is that what you were told?” She shook her head slightly and began circling around Hermione again. “The Ruby Slippers are indeed powerful, but they don’t belong on some pedestal in that glass prison back in Scarletton City. The Enchantress has no claim to them. I forged the shoes for my sister, known as the Witch of the East, and she was senselessly killed by the people and their lust for power. The shoes are rightfully mine and no number of traveling ‘heroes’ sent by the capital city are going to get me to give them up.”

She eyed Hermione, eyebrow raised. “What do you say about that, hm?”

“I have no reason to trust anything you say,” said Hermione, “For all I know, you’re lying to me.”

“And the Mayor of Scarletton City is any more trustworthy?” The Witch snorted. “You’ve known him just as long as you have me.”

“The people of Scarletton City aren’t the ones attacking anyone. You came and got your shoes back from the town, yet your minion still terrorize the towns,” Hermione snapped, “If it was just a matter of collecting a family heirloom, the attacks should have stopped. Face it – you’re benefitting too much from the power trip that the shoes give you and you use it to take pleasure in hurting innocent people! Perhaps the Ruby Slippers are better off locked up where they can’t be used to harm anyone!”

“And that’s not your decision to make,” said the Witch. “I will do whatever is necessary to protect what belongs to me. The little soldiers-for-hire that the cities send out – I don’t care about them. What’s another new pet to help maintain control over the land? But every now and then…”

She planted her hands along the sides of the crystal ball and loomed over it. “…Someone comes along with the gift.”

“Like us…”

“Oh yes. You are a problem that I soon will have eradicated.”

“I haven’t done anything to you,” said Hermione. “And clearly Seto and I aren’t powerful enough to touch you. We’re not a threat!”

“Mm, nice try, dear,” said Umbridge as one of the cat demons snarled. “Passing through the country on a nice little bounty quest? Of course you are a threat to me.”

She straightened back up. “But I needn’t worry for much longer. Your friend is going to die out in the garden. By now he’s probably breathed in enough of the poison that he won’t wake. And with the two of you having traveled so far into the thick of the field, there is no way anyone would be able to save him without succumbing themselves.”

Umbridge flashed a sugary triumphant smile. “And as for you…I think a change in scenery is in order.”

Hermione drew back. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t risk someone with magical gifts overcoming my transformation spells. It’s far too dangerous for me to keep you here. Which is why I have sent word to the Nome Kingdom. A courier will be here at dawn to transport you to the Nome King’s mountain, where you can join the rest of those so-called ‘heroes’ in mining for enchanted stones. And then I won’t have to worry about you ever again.”

“What’s to say I won’t escape and come back?” said Hermione. There was no way she was letting herself get shipped off like owl mail.

Umbridge let out a high-pitched cackle. “Oh, dearie. No one escapes from the Nome Kingdom. And even if you managed to do the impossible and get out of the caverns, you won’t be able to return to Šwt without magical means.”

Sensing the next question on the tip of Hermione’s tongue, Umbridge’s smile widened and she raised a hand to briefly pat at the base of her neck. “I’m sure by now you’ve noticed the gift that I gave you…”

She didn’t bother waiting for Hermione to acknowledge her. “That collar will suppress your magical ability, rendering it useless.”

The cat demons in the room swarmed around her as she moved towards the door. “I’d make yourself comfortable, dearie,” said Umbridge, barely turning her head to look back to Hermione, “Until the Wheeler’s arrive, this room is your new home. And I wouldn’t try anything funny about getting out. My protectors aren’t very fond of you and your friend. And without any magic to protect you….

She let her words sink in, and then smiled another one of her awful smiles. “Sweet dreams, hero.”

[pharaohsparklefists]

Episode 102, part 3: ice ice baby

While Yugi and Yami search for her, Anzu is very sensibly running away from Penguinfucker, and gets a weirdly far distance into the surrounding woodlands before...

... everything gets all frozen, in like a “Elsa can’t control her powers” kinda way.

BECAUSE YES

IT’S TIME TO D-D-D-D-DDDDDD-DEVolve into a fucking card game.

Anzu is like, “lol fuck I can’t duel” but Penguinfucker insists and tells her to choose a Duel Monster to be her Deck Master. And she chooses Dark Magician Girl, based on that trippy dream she had recently about that Broadway show she went to, and honestly, that’s not the worst reason so far for choosing a Deck Master. *meaningful look at Kuriboh*

And then THIS CREEP is all like...

... because now there are two young women to ogle and he’s the ACTUAL WORST you guys. As with Seamonkey Fashionmodel, he is already actually in the form of his own Desk Master, due to a lack of body to otherwise inhabit.

(Why can’t Noah just make digital replicas of their actual bodies, or digital shells for them to inhabit, as he has made literally every single other fucking thing in this virtual reality? card games that’s why)

I can see that. I would rather I couldn’t, but I can. This angle allows me to also see that your eyebrows GO AROUND THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD so, um. yikes.

... just ... just “Duel on Ice” would have worked. 

Anzu may not know how to duel, but she does know how to LOOK like you’re dueling:

AWKWARD DRAMATIC POSES WHERE YOUR FINGERS DO CREEPY THINGS

#nailedit

So they start and like, obviously, OBVIOUSLY, quote unquote “there’s something DIFFERENT about THIS duel” because there’s something DIFFERENT about EVERY duel and it’s always a slight variation on “a part of the player will be harmed in some way as their life points decrease” and given that this is an ice-themed duel I’m going to guess that--

oh my goodness golly gosh. what an absolute twist. truly there is something different about this duel.

So Anzu loses some lifepoints and her feet get encased in ice and they didn’t really bother giving any decent shots of it so I didn’t bother screencapping it because also my will to cheerfully screencap this shit is also being slowly frozen during this duel, but you can imagine it. 

And like, obviously, that causes her to be cold. er. 

I mean she MUST have been cold before, she’s wearing pretty much the bare minimum of clothes to be decent, and she’s standing on an ice floe in the digital Antarctic? But until her feet are literally encased in a block of ice, she doesn’t react to the cold at all. But now she does. And THIS FUCKER is like,

It is INAPPROPRIATE for you to comment on her clothes at all, perv, and rude in the extreme to do so in a judgmental way. Also, bit rich coming from a guy dressed in a tailcoat and no trousers over his penguin fursuit. #shameful

AND THEN

YOU DON’T HAVE UNDERWEAR YOU’RE NOT WEARING PANTS AT ALL

Seriously, though, it squicks me out that they went in this direction with “the girl duel”. They don’t even give Anzu very many “shut the fuck up” lines, even though she is the kind of person to yell back when someone’s being creepy. But like, it’s not necessary. He’s already an evil body-stealing corporate executive, we don’t ALSO have to make him say shit about teenage girls’ underwear. As an ex-teenage girl, this is just off-putting. I would have preferred if Anzu just got the same, normal amount of creepy that the boys get, because unless you go on to meaningfully deconstruct why it’s more harrowing for the girls than the boys due to the sexism in the culture in which they live, having this guy be extra-creepy just squicks female watchers out for no reason. Unless some watchers get off on the idea of Anzu being subjected to those comments, in which case, they can just go get in the sea.

AND they made him really sexist too, for some reason.

Like??? 

This guy just has WAY TOO MUCH GOING ON.

He says Dark Magician Girl is useless without Dark Magician, and Anzu’s like, uh, Dark Ma-who now?

she did not. sigh. I wanted to be annoyed with her for this -- has she even been WATCHING Yugi/Yami duel this whole time -- but then I realised I should be angry with the writers for writing this dumbness into her just so they can pat themselves on the back for their pseudofeminism later but THEN I realised that Penguinfucker just said THIS

and then I couldn’t be angry with anyone anymore because I had to figure out what the FUCK that means and it took me the rest of my life and I died.

But then luckily, Dark Magician Girl putting her hand over Anzu’s shaking hand to help Anzu draw a card brought me back to life...

Do you think this means she’s not only solid, but also warm??

You know who definitely is warm?

And I just screencapped her because I fucking love her outfit actually I literally dress like this myself so 

The Fire Sorcerer does exactly what she says on the tin

we don’t need no water let the motherfucker burn. burn motherfucker. burn.

Instead of burning to a lifeless, silent pile of misogynistic ashes, we instead get this ABSOLUTELY IRREDEEMABLE ASSHOLE’S fucking Tragic Anime Backstory(tm)

i don’t care. please continue to die in a fire.

cool story. pun intended. still doesn’t make me even slightly even a bit even at all sorry for you now that you’re a grown-ass adult who kidnaps actual children, skeeves on them, and tries to steal their bodies.

... honestly even if I was inclined to feel sorry for you, you’re drifting away from your one decent card here. “I was raised in a desperately unhappy home” is almost like a believable reason for being a child predator even if it’s not an excuse and you should still be in prison forever. “My boss didn’t like my random-ass theme park attraction pitch cause it had nothing whatso-fucking-ever to do with the theme park’s ... theme” is not winning you sympathy points from me. Or from Seto.

amazing example of a “was that supposed to be a burn?” quippy one-liner from the literally inimitable Seto Kaiba #thatisnotintendedtobeacomplimentbtw

Then, upon recounting such self-inflicted tragedy as consumes his being and sets him on the path to, again, kidnapping and attempted murder, he just ... freaks out.

why didn’t YOU learn DON’T FUCKING KIDNAP PEOPLE from the fucking penguins if they’re such valuable role models? seriously if there’s any decent argument for NOT exposing children to penguins, it’s You.

Anyway, he declaims that he will, indeed, follow through on his HIGHLY ILLEGAL AND EVIL plan, culminating in taking Anzu’s place in the world, bypassing KaibaLand completely and...

shiver me timbers! HOW is he HOLDING those CARDS???

help me reach my next patreon goal!

help me reach my next payday!

[deadboysduelbetter]

Beneath Our Bones (Noah&Seto, Noah/Mokuba)

Written for @ssjumi‘s prompt a while ago. 

Kaiba brothers centric, AU, Noah lives and is together with Mokuba, it’s also set a few years in the future. 

It mainly explores Noah’s mixed feelings towards Seto, because how they would get along when Noah dates Mokuba is endlessly interesting to me, but also gets into how Mokuba’s relationship to Seto might have changed over time a little.

Warning: allusions to eating disorders and suicidal behaviour - or at least highly self-destructive behaviour. (It’s Seto Kaiba we’re talking about, and he does not have great ways of coping with issues.)

Also on Ao3 :>

-

“You really overdid it this time.” 

There was admonition in his words, but Mokuba spoke them softly, probably knowing all too well they would fall on deaf ears, no matter how stern he was. His voice sounded strangely sober considering his precious big brother had fainted without warning and was now lying on his bed in his own cold sweat. Although it had really only been a matter of time, and probably everyone but Seto had seen this breakdown coming. 

Still, if Isono had not been there, ever the overzealously loyal assistant, Seto would still be lying on the floor in this godforsaken mansion without anyone there to notice. It was like Mokuba to feel guilty for things like these, no matter how many times Seto had expressed that he was bothered by unannounced visits and too busy to have any family meetings planned.

Seto mumbled something that might have been an apology, but Noah certainly knew better.

“You will stay in bed, while Isono packs your things for hospital”, Mokuba told him. As Seto was too weak to protest vehemently at the very notion of going to the hospital, he continued, “And Noah will call an ambulance.” His tone and the look he gave him left no room for discussion, and so Noah went out of the room to make the call.

When Noah came back, he saw Mokuba still sitting at the bedside, one hand on Seto’s stomach, as if to make sure he would stay. Seto’s head had rolled to the side, his eyes closed. Apparently he had fallen unconscious again from exhaustion. At last, his worsening condition had made it impossible for him to argue with reason.

“Asleep?”, Noah asked as he stepped next to his boyfriend, tentatively putting a hand on his shoulder. His brother’s self-destructive behaviour was still harsh on him, despite Mokuba’s determination to not get too caught up in Seto’s impossible way of living as long as the older Kaiba decidedly rejected his help.

Mokuba nodded, yet he didn’t look up from his brother’s sleeping face. It was a strange sight – Seto seemed almost relaxed, peaceful even, if it hadn’t been for the dark circles under his eyes and his sunken cheeks.

“Someone has to let them in”, Noah reminded him. The security of the Kaiba mansion was and had always been ridiculous. No one could simply drive through the gates without authorization. At least in terms of paranoia, Seto did resemble his father.

That made Mokuba finally pull himself away from his brother’s side, but he hardly even looked at Noah as he got up. “I’ll go. Please keep an eye on him for me”, he added, and his eyes met Noah’s for a moment, waiting for Noah’s reaffirming nod before he hurried out of the bedroom.

With a sigh, Noah took the now empty chair at the bedside. “Seto, Seto, Seto…”, he sighed chidingly, shaking his head as he looked at the tired, gaunt features of his adopted brother. “Have we forgotten again that coffee and pills are not a healthy nutritious breakfast?”

Mimicking Mokuba’s gesture, he put his hand on Seto’s torso. Even through the fabric of his black turtleneck he loved wearing so much, Noah could distinctly feel his ribs.

“You could at least do us all the favor and finally pull through with it.” Noah clucked his tongue.

“Actually, don’t do that”, he added as an afterthought when he brushed over the bones arching beneath his fingers. Did Seto eat at all, he wondered idly, or was he by now convinced that human needs such as sleep and nourishment were nuisances a perfect machine like him did not have to bother with? It would be very much like Seto to think that food was for the weak and he could run on willpower only. “Mokuba would never stop blaming himself. And I really don’t want to let you have the satisfaction of ruining our relationship, post-mortem.”

Seto did not answer, he did not even move. Pale as death, Noah thought, but he could feel the taught skin over his stomach moving ever so slightly, an indicator that he was indeed still breathing. It was oddly unexpected, like a contradiction. Noah carefully pressed his hand on the soft skin right below the ribs to catch it, to feel the faint rise and fall with each weak push of Setos lungs. It was so fleeting, unfit for a cold, unmoving face and especially for a wannabe human automaton.

He could not shake the thought that he would feel more at ease now if Seto just stopped breathing. Noah’s entire self-worth might not be hanging on inheriting all of Kaiba Corp anymore, at least not since he had been disillusioned about his father and had Mokuba to help him come to terms with it - but still. Old habits die hard, and he could not help thinking that this company eating him alive was exactly what Seto deserved.

“I know you’d love to have me gone, too”, Noah said, softly. He knew Seto did not only dislike him and distrust him, but that did hardly bother Noah. He enjoyed that his mere presence did rub Seto the wrong way. “But I’m here to stay.”

He would stay a part of their weird little family, he was very much determined to. Partly because he would not have Seto have his way with what was Noah’s birthright, at least not without annoying him about it. Partly because if Seto eventually decided to rid everyone else of his straining existence, Mokuba would be the one to inherit Kaiba Corp. And Noah knew Mokuba would share, not only because they were together, but because Mokuba did feel that Noah had equal rights to the firm as Seto.

Sometimes Noah wondered how he had managed to preserve so much basic decency, growing up a Kaiba. It did not exactly fit the family name.

But here was the actual problem. Mokuba was a nice, considerate person like that. He trusted Noah. Even with babysitting his precious, awful big brother. This was what made it impossible for Noah to not be fond of him. It also made it hard to wish for something that would devastate Mokuba completely.

While his breathing was slow and soft, the pulse under Noah’s fingers was oddly strong. It was a steady throbbing, stubborn and obstinate, unaware that Seto was fighting a lost fight against his own health and sanity.

But Noah knew, and it bugged him how well he knew, that this was not all there was to it. That Seto felt betrayed by Mokuba leaving him, even though Mokuba never actually had left. That he was envious of them, maybe, that he was alone and bitter and had only the work and games to cling to, because what else was there than working hard to stay on top, always?

The worst part was that Noah knew all too well how it was like to be left behind in utter loneliness. Only that his loneliness hadn’t been self-made, he reminded himself to quench any stirring feelings of sympathy.

He found himself feeling for the pulse, the slight movement of Seto’s breath, absent-mindedly monitoring their rhythm. “You need to get a grip on yourself”, he heard himself say, chiding Seto in earnest this time. “Or do you want to hand it all to me on a silver platter?”

Seto did not answer, of course, but Noah vaguely considered rubbing it under his nose again when he was recovering. If Mokuba was present, maybe, so he would see that Noah made an effort.

The loud steps on the stairs almost startled him, as if he was interrupted by something private, and without thinking, he pulled his hand away from Seto’s stomach where he had been checking Seto’s signs of life. Isono and Mokuba rushed in, accompanied by two paramedics. Noah quickly stepped aside to let them do their job.

As he stood by Mokuba’s side, the younger Kaiba sighed and awkwardly fiddled with his jacket that he had already folded in his arms, and Noah knew what was coming. “I’m going with him”, he declared, with this worried frown that would not leave his face whenever Seto was concerned. Mokuba was too soft for his own good, but Noah could not find it in him to berate him for it, especially not since Mokuba’s soft spot also included Noah himself.

“Thought so.” Noah shrugged. “I’ll go with you”, he said as casually as possible, “To make sure Seto has something to be mad at when he wakes up. It’ll be good for him, trust me.”

Mokuba smiled at that, and while Noah felt very satisfied with himself for managing to cheer him up, the look Mokuba gave him was a bit too knowing for his taste.

[xalmasyx]

Retail Hell - Chapter 6

Words: 1,758

Series: Yu-Gi-Oh!

Pairings: Seto Kaiba/OFC

Warnings: Just a few swears.

AO3 Link

Rose stared at the receipt in her hands impassively.

Surely they couldn’t be this stupid.

“What seems to be the problem?”

She stood corrected.

Adjust glasses to bridge of nose. Deep breath in, and then out. Okay, you got this Rose.

“Ma’am, this receipt is not from our store, it’s from the Armani store in Tokyo. And we don’t even stock this suit.”

The woman glared at her as if she insulted her first born child.

Oh, if only that were the case. The woman was most definitely using her husband’s credit card to fill her face with plastic. Their kids must be hideous.

“What is the problem with that? It’s an Armani, you sell those here!”

“Not that particular style. I can’t refund it.”

Rose could sense it, those eight words that usually rung true with every difficult housewife she encountered.

“I would like to speak to your manager.”

And there it was! Right on time.

“Sure thing. Just one moment.”

And with a passive aggressive smile she was able to free herself from another insufferable customer that could not fathom that you just cannot return goods to any store of your choosing.

It left her thinking what kind of suits Kaiba’s now fired stylist had made him wear during meetings and press conferences. Suits that were so bad that he disposed of them.

Did he actually dispose of them? Or donate them?

Maybe she could salvage them and make tacky dog suits for Gloria if the pattern designs were horrible enough.

Pfft, nah. That would be asking too much to ask Seto Kaiba to donate his shitty old suits to be made into dog clothes.

Loud barking echoed through the halls of Rose’s shared unit as Gloria actively lost her shit at the doorbell chiming ‘Au Calire De La Lune’ in its high pitched entirety and she was just about ready for her date.

‘I’ll be at your door at 7:30, be ready.’ Kaiba’s text message said, lighting her phone up ostentatiously at her vanity as she put on the finishing touches of her light makeup. The clock on the top right hand corner of the screen only said 7:15.

He was early.

Damnit.

She would have to entrust that Veronica held the common sense not to answer the door wearing what she was last seen in; a pair of tight fitting booty shorts and a tank top, completely braless and nipples free to do as they please whilst the air conditioner was going on full blast in their living room. The damn American just loved frigid temperatures inside the house and Rose could never understand why.

Sighing, she moved to her closet to pick out her dress. Whilst she had many formal outfits, many of them clashed with her deep purple locks; which she had meticulously styled in a bun, leaving her bangs to frame her face, so she chose to wear a lilac knee length, low cut maxi dress that she had sewn for one of her assessments earlier in the year. It accentuated her curves perfectly and would do even more so once she put on her white kitten heels at the front door, the chiffon and polyester draped over her body mirroring the A+ she had received for such a well designed and well fitted item.

It showed more of the Blue Eyes White Dragon tattoo on her breast than she would have liked, but it was better than nothing.

She clasped a dainty silver chain around her neck with a single teardrop diamond that sat at her clavicle before exiting her bedroom to face the music, suddenly becoming nervous about what Kaiba would think of her choice of outfit.

Surely he can’t be expecting brand names from a university student.

Her fears were short lived as she made her way into the living room. Kaiba had snapped up from the couch, mouth slightly agape as he took in her features. He scrubbed up quite nicely too in the navy blue Calvin Klein suit that she picked out for him earlier in the day.

And it looked like Gloria had made a new friend, the Corgi gazing up adoringly at Kaiba as he regarded Rose in an impressed silence.

Veronica was too engrossed in playing the Dante Must Die mode in Devil May Cry 4 to care.

“Uh, you look nice Kaiba.”

“Likewise.”

Oh yeah, this date was going to go swimmingly.

The first half of the limo ride was filled with an awkward silence. It left Rose wondering about the legality in the tinted windows that adorned the car, she could see the passing cityscape into the CBD of Downtown Domino, but she doubted that anyone could see in.

That alleviated her worries about her face being in photos, at least.

The only other problem was…

“Hey Kaiba.”

“What is it?” He seemed particularly unphased by her breaking the silence.

“Well… I don’t want my face in photos. You know- I uh. Well, I don’t want the whole world knowing that we’re dating just yet.” She began fiddling with her freshly manicured fingernails, her damn nervous habit of saying ‘well’ way too much rearing its ugly head.

Please be nice, please be nice, please be nice.

“Has this got something to do with the fact that none of your pictures on your online profiles lack your face?” Perceptive, as always.

“Uh yeah, I suppose.” She shifted her gaze to see his sapphire eyes watching her curiously. He had every right to question her; she wasn’t being particularly honest with her origins.

With time she would be. She hoped.

He looked like he was about to respond, until a familiar game’s victory theme chimed in the air, coming from Rose’s purse.

“Uh, do you mind if I answer that?” He shook his head no so she reached into her purse to find that her grandmother was calling her.

Such perfect timing Grandma.

It didn’t stop her face from lighting up though. It had been a long time since she last spoke to her grandparents.

“Hi Grandma.” Kaiba raised his eyebrow at her and she just smiled back.

‘An- Rose! How are you my dear?’

“Good, good. And how are you and Grandpa?”

‘Oh you know… we just keep on keeping on.’

“And the animals?”

‘Oh they’re fine as always. The hens are laying quite well considering the horrendous weather.’

“Ah that’s right, it snowed in Ballarat last month, didn’t it?”

‘Yes, quite interesting indeed. Your grandfather and I would have made snow angels but I’m afraid you would not be able to get us back up!’

Rose laughed, but she shouldn’t really ignore her date much longer. She looked to Kaiba with a mischievous glint in here eye which he returned with his own look of confusion.

“Hey Grandma…”

‘Yes Rose?’

“I’m actually on my way out to dinner with my new boyfriend.”

‘WHAT?!’

She was certain Kaiba heard that.

‘Who is he? How old is he? He better be well behaved! You are the only thing of your mother’s we have le-’

“Grandma. Stop.” Best to nip that in the bud quickly. “Why don’t you say hello? His English is quite good.”

He’s most certainly never met anyone like Rose Brikmore, otherwise he probably would have kicked her out of the car the very moment she suggested such a thing. Instead, he wordlessly reached out his hand to take her phone.

“Nuh uh, Grandma is a trouble maker. I’m putting her on speaker.”

He smirked at her, “At least I know where you get it from.”

“Oh ha, ha.”

‘Come on kids, English. My old ears can’t understand much else!’

“Oh alright, Grandma say hello to Seto Kaiba.”

‘Hello Seto Kaiba, you can call me Bernie, everybody around here does.’

“Understood, Bernie. Seto is fine by me.”

So her Grandma is allowed to call him by his first name?

Figures.

Still, his pronunciation was quite impressive. But he was the CEO of Kaiba Corp. She shouldn’t be surprised.

‘Hmm Seto. What do you do? You better not be some cheap delinquent!’ Was he really going to entertain that notion?

Oh no, he’s smirking. Was it time to abort?

Yeah let’s do that.

Let’s just-

“I’m afraid not. I’m actually the CEO of Japan’s biggest gaming technology company.”

Then there was silence.

“…Grandma?”

‘Bullshit.’

“Huh?”

‘How old are you?’ She didn’t believe him.

“Twenty.”

Silence, again.

‘…Bullshit.’

Oh Grandma.

“Grandma, do me a favour and get Grandpa to Google Kaiba.”

‘You best not be joking around young lady… TREVOR! Turn your hearing aid up! No I will not come over, turn that bloody thing up! Rose is asking you to Google Seto Kaiba. Why? He’s her boyfriend apparently. I don’t know I haven’t asked yet. Rose dear, how long have the two of you been together?’

“Just today, Grandma.”

‘Just today Trevor!’

Rose was hoping Kaiba wasn’t getting annoyed, but when she looked at him, he was actually amused.

This was so out of character from what she expected of him. Not once did she imagine that he would entertain the thought of speaking to her grandparents over the phone before they commenced their second date.

But here they were.

‘Oh… not bullshit.’

“No Bernie, it’s not.”

‘You’re quite handsome, for a Japanese bloke.’

“You flatter me.”

‘Are my great gandbabies going to look like you?’

“GRANDMA!” Rose nearly dropped her phone in shock and she heard her grandmother laugh. Even Kaiba looked shocked at her forwardness.

That sly old woman.

‘I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I suppose I should leave you two to your date.’

Coincidentally, at that very moment the driver announced that they had arrived at their destination. It was a place that the affluent frequented, Rose could immediately tell by the amount of flashes pointed at the limo. The paparazzi were everywhere.

“Yeah, thanks Grandma. I’ll speak to you later.”

‘Goodbye Seto, look after my little girl for me will you?’

“Of course I will Bernie, goodbye.”

Rose didn’t notice Kaiba slip off his jacket. She was too busy looking out at all the cameras flashing at the car. How the hell was she supposed to get past that?

“Rose,” She turned around for him to drape the jacket over her head. “It’s not perfect, but they won’t see your face. Just stay close to me.”

Somehow, through practiced precision, Kaiba was able to get her through the sea of reporters and photographers without showing her face once.

Just another thing to thank him for, she guessed.

[ayma-nidiot]

In the White Light - Prideshipping fanfic Chapter 23

Also on AO3.

Chapter 23 – Awakening

“Ugh… Too dark,” was Kaiba’s initial reaction to the ethereal space in which he floated. “So all my enemies were right. I did end up in hell after all.”

“That’s a little mean, Kaiba,” spoke a voice Kaiba had only heard once or twice. “I don’t think Atem would be happy to hear you call his bedchamber ‘hell.’”

“You are-” Kaiba awakened, and suddenly his surroundings changed to the royal bedchamber. To his sides were Mahad and some elderly man. At the foot of the bed stood a man who looked like Kaiba, except his chestnut locks flowed down his chest, and he had darker skin. “Mahad. And…” Kaiba tried to make out the other two men, but in his sleepy daze, he had a hard time doing so. “I think I remember you guys from the vision quest… Wait! You’re Atem’s father, Aknamkanon, aren’t you?”

“It feels nice to be remembered,” replied Aknamkanon with a warm smile.

Kaiba gave his doppelganger a sidelong look. “Okay, this is weird… You’re… um…”

“Seto. My name is Seto – just like yours.”

“Well, nice to meet you all.” Kaiba pulled the covers over him, leaving only the upper half of his head exposed. “Now, if you would be so kind as to let me have some sleep. In fact, I feel no shame in telling you that I plan to spend the rest of the day sleeping.”

“…Is that really what you want, Kaiba?” Aknamkanon asked. “Wouldn’t you rather go see my son, instead of spending the rest of your life with three people you hardly know?”

“…” Kaiba remained speechless for a spell as he slowly peeled the covers off. “…Am I dead?”

“Yes and no,” Mahad answered. “Right now, you are teetering on the edge of death. Even as we speak, your allies are calling to you.”

“My… allies?” Kaiba fully sat up and listened for voices beyond.

“Hahahaha!” sounded Zorc’s voice. “So much for the ‘power of Horakhty!’ Now… After I kill you, pharaoh, the royal bloodline will be no more!”

“Eyaaaaaah!” screamed Atem’s voice. “Unhand me, dark one! … Raaaah!”

“Ah, you’re just like a fish, struggling right before it gets gutted. You won’t be free for long!”

“You’re wrong…” spoke Rex. “Come on, Kaiba, don’t go extinct now! Not after I was just considering you a friend!”

“Hah! I don’t recall giving the so-called ‘ultimate’ rival of the pharaoh permission to die!” exclaimed Weevil.

“Sniff… Sniff…” Mokuba cried. “Big bro… You’re my only family. You’re all I got left! Don’t die…”

“If you die, I’m gonna kill you!”

Tristan’s words were answered with what sounded like a slap – and a scolding from Joey. “Tristan, come on! Kaiba, don’t listen to him! If I, the person you hate most, want you to live, then damn straight you better live!”

“You saved me from being killed by that Rare Hunter! Please, let me return the favour!” shouted Téa. “I know you don’t like the concept of friendship, but can you believe in it just this once?”

“Blue-Eyes White Dragon… Lend Kaiba your strength…” Kisara appeared to be praying with Isis and Mana.

“I know you and the pharaoh beat me handily during Battle City, but that’s in the past now,” added Marik. “Right now, I – and all of my home country of Egypt – need you.”

“My other self.” Seto spoke to his future incarnate sternly. “I can no longer return to the world of the living. But you can. Go be with Atem again and be his hero. And if you see my father, tell him I wish things didn’t have to end up like this.”

“Can you tell my brother that I wish the same?” Aknamkanon requested. “That if I had known how hurt he was this whole time, that I would have done something about it?”

“Seto…” Kaiba wiped a tear from Seto’s face. In so doing, the priest – along with Mahad and Aknamkanon – faded, and imbued their ba into Kaiba. After a moment of contemplation, Kaiba leapt out of the bed. “Everyone… Thank you. But this will be the last time I do something generous for you all!”

_________

“I… I…” All this time, Atem could not think of a proper thing to say to Kaiba – until now. “No. I refuse to believe the man I love is dead.”

“Well, pharaoh, as you say in the modern world, ‘the proof is in the pudding!’ The only thing better than watching Kaiba die is watching you-” Zorc’s good mood dropped in an instant. “No… No, it can’t be!”

“Ah… My love?” Atem watched as Kaiba arose from the ground in half-shifted form, bathing the surroundings in a warm light. “He’s… Kaiba has revived!”

“HAHA!” Zorc cackled. “I can just as easily send him back from whence he came!”

“…” Kaiba, enveloped in a magical barrier, easily repelled the attack Zorc launched at him – as well as the many more after that.

“Impossible! How can none of my attacks harm you?”

“Because I have the support of my friends, as well as some… help from beyond.”

“Father… Mahad…” Atem shed a happy tear.

“I’ll not let history repeat itself…” Without fully transforming, the sapphires across Kaiba’s body glowed to generate a Shining Neutron Blast. “Not on this day.”

“Gaaah!”

Zorc relentlessly sent out a flurry of attacks at Kaiba, but all were in vain as the Shining Neutron Blast consumed him. “These wounds… No! I refuse to accept death! I refu-”

Rex waited a while to speak, almost as if to make sure Zorc was really dead. “Huhuhu. We won’t be seeing him again.”

“Yeah. Hehehe. That fartknocker’s history. Hehehe.” Weevil laughed – that is, until Kaiba suddenly fell on top of him. “Y-Yeowch!”

“Now you know how it feels…” Joey remembered well the first time he learned of Kaiba’s shapeshifting powers. “Bet he’s even heavier than back then.”

“I can still hear you, Wheeler,” Kaiba responded while still laying supine.

“So. Is he really gone?”

“Yes, Wheeler, Zorc is really gone.”

“Then…” Yugi turned to Atem with a sorrowful look. At this point, the pharaoh picked Kaiba up princess-style and led everyone back to the palace. “Now that ancient Egypt is at peace, we have to go now, don’t we? Back to our own time?”

“Aww, man, I wish I could have at least stayed for some more free food!” Mokuba whined.

“And maybe for a few cute girls, too…” Tristan thought aloud.

“Actually… It’s not time for you to go just yet.” Atem’s words quieted everyone down. “There’s one thing left for me to do before you all leave.”

“Ooh, do we get some souvenirs for the ride home?” Rex asked excitedly. “Like food?”

“And rare cards? Er, I mean, artifacts?” Weevil hoped.

“I’ll see to that before you go, but I had something else in mind.” Atem turned back to Yugi. “Yugi, I am not entirely confident that you can fare out in the world without me. Not after we’ve been together for so long.”

“What? But you saw me in that fight against Zorc’s army! And I’ve dueled plenty of times without your help! Doesn’t that duel with Bandit Keith ring a bell?””

“If you are that confident, then…” After laying a barely awake Kaiba on the throne, Atem picked up his DiaDhank from the table nearby. “Duel me, right now, in this sacred throne room.”

“What? Pharaoh, that’s crazy!” Joey would have none of it. “Don’t you think we should rest first? We kinda just fought a climactic battle against-”

“Very well.” Yugi took his deck out of his pocket and attached it to his Duel Disk. “I accept this challenge, pharaoh!”

“Yug, are you sure about this? You’re not tired? Not even a little?”

Yugi tried to hide the fact that, indeed, he was so tired he wanted to take a nap right there on the ground. He could tell from the look in his eyes that Atem felt the same; he had to be, after singing the Pharaoh’s Incantation for so long. “No, I’m fine. Just because I’m barely 150 centimeters and 40 kilograms doesn’t mean I can’t handle a bit of rough work.”

 “It will not be a Shadow Game,” Atem spoke. “Nevertheless, you should know that I expect nothing less than your best strategies.”

“Oh man…” Rex watched curiously as the duelists readied their dueling devices. He perked up his rabbit ears to hear the words they exchanged. “Watching two Yugis dueling is a bit… uh, weird.”

“We’ve seen a guy with a dragon head for a dick, and you’re calling this weird?” Weevil poked Rex with a spider leg.

“Now, Yugi, hit me with what you’ve got!”

Yugi assumed from Atem’s valiant declaration that he would have the first move. He had a mediocre first hand, but believed in the heart of the cards anyway. “I summon Celtic Guardian in attack mode! I’ll set a card face down. That’s about it.”

“Oh, Yugi.” Kaiba groaned from the throne. “I know that Celtic Guardian is one of your symbolic monsters, but that’s all it is: symbolic.”

Unlike his boyfriend, Atem knew better than to underestimate Yugi. “I activate the magic card Double Summon so that I may Normal Summon twice this turn. I call forth Light Effigy and Flamvell Magician!”

“It doesn’t make sense… Why would Atem have a Light Effigy in his deck when most of his monsters are of Dark attribute?” Joey commented.

Atem continued, “If the levels of my monsters are the exact level of the monster I want to summon, and the materials are correct, then I can Special Summon a Synchro Monster from my deck.” He looked to Rex. “I’m sure that you of all people know what a Synchro Summon is.”

“Huhu. Thank you, thank you.” Rex did a mocking bow, then sat back down.

“Using Light Effigy and the Tuner Monster Flamvell Magician, I Synchro Summon this monster! Avenging Knight Parshath!”

“It’s beautiful!” Téa said of the armoured fairy that appeared in the arena.

“Avenging Knight Parshath! Attack the Celtic Guardian!”

“Not if I can help it! Here’s a card that has helped me – us – time and time again!” Yugi revealed his face-down card. “Swords of Revealing Light! I don’t think I need to remind anyone here what it does.”

“…Go ahead with your turn, then.”

This will help! Yugi drew Silent Sword Slash. But even if I equip Silent Swordsman with this card, he’s still no match for Avenging Knight Parshath. I just hope I can last as long as the Swords of Revealing Light does. “I tribute Celtic Guardian so that I can Special Summon Silent Swordsman in attack mode!”

I remember that card, Atem thought as he drew Thousand Knives. His special ability allows his attack to go up by 500 points during each of Yugi’s standby phases. If I can summon Dark Magician before his attack gets too high… then I can use my Thousand Knives spell. “I summon Berry Magician Girl in attack mode! Turn end.”

It’s tempting to use this card, Yugi spoke of his newly drawn Change of Heart. But if I gain control of Avenging Knight Parshath and attack Berry Magician Girl, Atem will just summon a Dark Magician. “I’ll just end my turn, then, while my Silent Swordsman’s attack goes up to 1500.”

“Oh my gods, the tension is killing me!” Rex whined. “Come on, where’s the action?”

“Watch it,” Joey warned. “Many of these guys’ duels are like this, Rex. Just be patient, and the action will come.”

“Hmm…”

Yugi had to squint, but he could see a hint of a smile in Atem’s face as he set a card face-down. It was now his turn again. Cost Down isn’t going to help me right now… But at least my Silent Swordsman can defeat the Avenging Knight Parshath now! “I equip my Silent Swordsman with Silent Sword Slash, giving him an attack boost of 1500 points! Then… There goes your Avenging Knight Parshath!”

“And there goes your Swords of Revealing Light! Oh!”

“Pharaoh? You okay?” Yugi asked with concern, as Atem stared at that card with wide-eyes for a good two minutes.

“…I reveal my trap Magician Navigation! I can Summon Dark Magician from my deck, as well as this card… Say hello to Palladium Oracle Mahad!”

“Goodness…” spoke Yugi. Golden armour covered most of Mahad’s body, and only a hint of the High Priest’s original beige robes could be seen.

“My friend… You live again.” Atem knew it wasn’t necessarily true, but he didn’t care. “Now that I have a Dark Magician in play, I can use my Thousand Knives spell to destroy your only monster on the field – the Silent Swordsman!”

“Yeah, go ahead and do that. Because you’ve just activated my Silent Swordsman’s special ability! If he’s destroyed, I Special Summon any Silent Swordsman card from my deck, and I choose Silent Swordsman Lv. 7!”

“Very clever, Yugi, very clever. You could have easily used Silent Swordsman’s ability to negate the spell altogether, but you were wise enough not to.”

Yugi smiled at this praise, then summoned Silent Paladin in defense mode, and could thus add Silent Swordsman Lv. 3 to his hand from his deck. “Pharaoh, forgive me for this, but… My Silent Swordsman Lv. 7 will attack your Palladium Oracle Mahad!”

“…You are forgiven. Especially since I can Special Summon another Dark Magician from my deck, thanks to Palladium Oracle Mahad’s special ability.” Atem spoke no more as he simply set a trap face-down, then turned it over to Yugi.

This duel is going in my favour, but knowing Atem… I’m sure that he’s got a card in his deck far more powerful than Dark Magician. “I will now attack the Dark Magician you just Special Summoned!”

“That was not smart, Yugi. Reveal Trap Card, Shield Spear! My Dark Magician’s attack power is raised by 400 points for a turn! You can’t take back your attack once you’ve declared it, which means that your Silent Swordsman Lv. 7 is destroyed.”

“I’m… I’m fine…” So Yugi said, but in his mind, he knew he wasn’t. Silent Paladin was his only monster defending his Life Points now, and she didn’t have very good defense.

Atem sighed upon seeing the card he drew. “Well, you won’t be… after I summon Skilled Blue Magician and activate the spell Magicalized Fusion! With this card, I can even use monsters from my Graveyard – namely my Flamvell Magician and Palladium Oracle Mahad – for a Fusion Summon! Dark Magician may be one of my strongest monsters, but I have one that is mightier still…”

“Oh my gods… What is that?” Tristan spoke of this new spellcaster monster, with four arms that generated four magical circles.

“This is the greatest of all spellcasters… Quintet Magician!”

Weevil rubbed his eyes. “Am I reading that attack counter correctly? That thing’s got 4500 attack points? It could squish my Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth in an instant!”

“My new monster’s special ability is even more fearsome, Weevil. You see, I used five different magicians for its Fusion Summon – Berry Magician Girl, Dark Magician, Flamvell Magician, Skilled Blue Magician, and Palladium Oracle Mahad. With his four arms, Quintet Magician destroys all of your cards, Yugi!”

“All… of them?” Yugi finally gave in to his weak knees.

“Since all of your cards are destroyed, I can attack you directly and end this at last!”

“…No. You will do no such thing.” Yugi fumbled with the card he set on his Duel Disk. “Not yet… Thanks to our good friend Kuriboh.”

“Hehehe…” Kaiba couldn’t help but chuckle at this surprisingly weak but useful monster. “After all this time, you still keep that puffball in your deck. You’ve got more cojones than I thought, Yugi. But can you get yourself out of this mess? You got more Kuribohs in that deck of yours?”

“No.” And I don’t have a single card in my deck that can overpower that Quintet Magician…

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 18 pt 2: Yami Visits Yugi in Hell, California

So, last we left the team, we were running straight into Hell, which is located about where the IRL Costco is.

Everyone except Tea, who is apparently way too scary of a person to run into Hell.

So the rules of the spirit realm are that if you have more than one person too many vengeful spirits will be present, but like...how many vengeful dead spirits does Tea have??? The implications of Tea’s former life here are kind of a lot. Anyway, no Tea’s allowed.

TBH, Yugi saw Tea running after him into Hell to pull out his soul he would probably be too scared of the implied commitment to come out.

So, lets get a rollcall of vengeful spirits going, remember Season One?

holy crap, that’s right, it’s PaniK.

(more dead guys under the cut)

Then we have the twins who only spoke in rhyme and...I checked the notes here..they didn’t die. They were absolutely fine the last time we met them. But I dunno...maybe Pegasus got bored and sacrificed them to the crypt during Season 2.

Then we come across this guy.

So according to Bro, Bandit Keith burned alive in the manga or something, while in the show he got away scott free from that warehouse that was on fire in the beginning of S2. My brother has a lot of spicy headcanons but like...

(bro note: I can’t find any reference on the internet easily so it didn’t happen. I just heard it somewhere. Maybe Pharaoh regrets not mind wiping Keith.)

...I feel like even if he’s dead in the Manga you can’t just have him dead here without me lifting my own Stars and Stripes colored eyebrows in doubt. If this guy were to die, it would have to be by very excessive fireworks, and other than that burning warehouse, we’ve had no other opportunities to do it.

Ah...it’s...this guy. Who never had a name, ever.

Why would you even put him in this montage?

And then we get two people that I know for certain can’t be kicking it.

So it seems to me that everything happening here is probably not real. This is all Yami’s head, Yami’s thoughts, and Yami’s guilt. And Yami is already really, really hard on himself. He lives with a lot of demons basically all the time. So he kind of walks through here and is like “whaddup, demons.” because this is a very been there, done that situation.

Can’t believe that Noah and Gozaburo made so little an impact on Yami, as well as all the Big 5 who we’ve killed at least twice, but I guess Yami was kind of sleeping most of that arc.

Other people Yami has dueled in the past that coulllllllllld be offscreen dead that didn’t make the list: 

-The Rare Hunter twins who did a terrorism and fell into a skyscraper

-Alt-rock Kingdom Hearts Mime

-Bonez (who was Bakura’d so like...he might cease to exist on any timeline or anyone’s memories now)

-Pegasus

-BAKURA (Any version of Bakura, honestly. Where is Bakura?)

Anyway, eventually we get to the middle of California Stonehenge, which is where Yugi is currently hanging out like a Star Trek holo deck.

Speaking of hologram--Yugi’s a card right? Yami could have just played Yugi and been like “hey! Can I tell you something?” (and then Seto Kaiba somewhere would notice on his dueling disk facebook that Yugi just plated Yugi Muto’s soul and would be like “Mokuba, we need to ban Yugi’s account, half of his deck is not even tourney legal.”)

And then Yami spends this precious time to talk mostly about himself. Like honestly, he just went halfway to hell (or Millbrea, or whatever this is) just to vent what he basically already knows.

And what makes this conversation kind of strange is that Yami starts going off about how Yugi’s the “pure” side of him, the “light” side of him, if you will. I’ve already touched on how much I disagree with this since Yugi is a freakin madman all on his own. And, this episode goes out of it’s way to do the same.

Because it’s about this point that Yugi starts getting real uncharacteristically mad. It’s lowkey kind of hilarious because it’s like:

And yes, it’s about time that Yugi went off, but it does make you wonder--so is this what Yugi would be like all the time if Pharaoh wasn’t in there, or does Pharaoh assume that Yugi is mad at him, and so his SpiritJourney!Yugi reflect Pharaoh’s own insecurities?

Like, is this even Yugi?

This might not be Yugi at all, this might be just Yami screaming at himself in a desert, which is also very on key for Yami and has been Yami’s whole deal for about (checks watch)...this entire season.

Either way, Yugi’s REALLY pissed off and tired of Pharaohs 49ersfit.

And so, to take this a step further than just screaming at most likely a hallucination of yourself, Yugi pulls out a duel disk and the two decide to play cards because...

...It just always comes back to cards. Can’t have a heart to heart without doing life threatening card games first.

And so they decide to have a card match. It goes just about as smoothly as a card match would go when you consider that this is Yami hallucinating/possibly dueling a ghost of himself/just crawled out of a train crash/just murdered the hell out of Weevil Underwood.

Basically this duel has a very silly gimmick.

Other than playing a lot of the same cards as during the Raphael fight, Yugi spends most of his time just tearing into Yami, which again...justified.

And for just a little blip of an eye, a little tiny moment--he’s almost a Season Zero Yuugi. Just a nice dark magic Yugi with no ghost, just a real bastard underneath those glowing eyes.

But anyway, much like the duel where Yami lost his mind and went evil, it didn’t last more than a few minutes before the duel was over and Yugi was just instantly better. Of all the duels this season--this is the one I would have liked to have 3 episodes of. Just saying.

Yugi’s whole explanation for why he’s done this--and this is a stretch, but I guess it still follows card logic--Yugi decided to use the Oricalchos so that he would become the darkness inside of Pharaoh’s mind (since they are the same person), and so when he lost the game, that darkness inside of himself was taken by the Orichalcos, leaving Pharaoh now darkness-free

...It’s a stretch. They’re both still ripe with dark magic so I don’t think it did what they think it did, lore wise. But yeah, it did make Pharaoh physically fight all his insecurities until he killed them (who was also Yugi, don’t think about it). It was also very manipulative, and I just want to throw out there you should not do this to your best friends.

How many fireballs now has Tea watched Yugi take straight to the chest? At least 3, right? 5?

Anyway, Yami gets reaaaally upset that he killed his fake dead boy who just used fake (but maybe real?) Orichalcos.

Yami just can’t keep any version of Yugi alive.

And just like that, Yugi leaves the series, again.

Kind of.

Again, this Yugi was...probably not even Yugi. This was probably a grief-onset hallucination.

Sure am glad that Pharaoh can talk to this barely-even-Yugi to work out his insecurities instead of the--youknow--the GIRL he’s been kind of dating for the past 4 seasons. Really glad Tea kind of stood on a ledge and was like “Do you need to talk about it!?” While Yami was like “Not Necessary!” while he sort of dueled the ghosts in his head.

Kind of a marvel that the only person Yami knows how to talk to is Yugi (who as we found out this episode might be a crazy person) and...kind of Seto Kaiba (who is definitely a crazy person). That’s about it.

Yami’s had a hard time, but hopefully now he can talk to Joey without getting punched directly in the face. I guess we’ll find out next episode.

And if you just got here, this is a link to read these from the beginning.

Hope y’all are staying safe and inside. Us personally, are stuck inside until at least May 1st. Please pray for my patience.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 46-47: We Have an Extra Episode, Just Blow Up the Island, I Dunno

Yo can you even believe this season is over?

It was honestly a two-season season, when you think about it. This tournament that was only like a week in showtime but two years in watch time if it was 2001 and I was tuning in every week. Kinda nuts when you think about it.

Anyways, it’s over, and not even the Kaibas are willing to really let it end. They’re camping out in their bunker they just set to explode, just watching everyone run around like ants while the sirens wail across the island (do you NEED emergency sirens if no one else lives on this island?)

And we get one more time for the writers of this show to flip over the Kaiba timeline like pancakes and I just...

I can’t believe they did this to me, but at the same time I can totally see how they just let this one fly under the radar, just wait for it, it’s coming.

(read more under the cut)

So this sort of explains a little bit more of why Kaiba insists on building Kaibaland when it already exists, as apparently the Japanese Kaibaland was just the first of a franchise. Like seriously what child dreams of Franchising? He has Kaibaland but is like “I won’t be truly happy at all and I will try to cut people up with card games until there are more Kaibalands. That will surely make me happy. More Kaibalands.”

But then, sitting in the middle of the orphanage, he stands up in his 70′s ass sweatervest and proudly proclaims:

This borked timeline.

Back in the present Joey is feeling stressed out so he’s turned to his only coping mechanism, that’s right, he’s hassling people.

Duke, who has a million motivations to want to kill Kaiba, since he works for Pegasus, brings up the bright idea of “or I dunno, we could leave them? Like they very much caused every event of the last week to happen outside of the random ass cultists.”

And so, now that Joey has exhausted things to hassle, let them be Roland or the massive engines on the blimp-plane, he decides to board the helicopter. I kid you not, Tea turns to Joey as they’re boarding the copter and says basically along the lines of this:

WTF, show. Like what? Like whaaaat? Anyway, don’t think about how big a helicopter is on the inside, because we’re just gonna shove everyone in here like it’s a mosh pit. Good thing that no one actually packed any luggage or pajamas, so at least that will keep the weight down.

Please admire the height of Yugi compared to Roland.

What followed was an explosion that the show did for...some reason. This didn’t need to happen. This was needless anxiety and it’s like..the season’s over why are we doing this???

So this is just a very Yugioh moment where...they didn’t really HAVE to blow up the island at the last minute. They didn’t HAVE to break the engines on the blimp-plane and they absolutely didn’t HAVE to put Seto Kaiba in a jet in the same very un-aerodynamic shape of a blue eyes white wife.

But they did.

If I’ve learned anything from watching Yugioh is that you must always, at every moment, be going 400%.

Seto just wanted to make a simple visual statement of “I want to move on from the past” so he decided to uh...do a very theatrical statement that was so theatrical that everyone thought that not only he and Mokuba had died, but that they, themselves, were about to die (and they were, they absolutely were)

Please admire the way they drew Seto from the side in this scene.

Anyway, now that the completely unnecessary “lets blow up the island and destroy the ecosystem” drama is over, and Kaiba’s off to encourage Global Warming in some other part of the globe, it’s time to send Marik off on his boat. It’s time for him to go have Marik Boat Time and never ever become a spinoff series although you know I would absolutely watch the hell out of that.

So, they choose the most idyllic landscape to do it, here in the abandoned warehouse district, surrounded by shipping cranes and strangely empty cruise liners. Ah, that twilight hour sunset. The way the sunlight kisses the corners of the abandoned warehouse’s windows.

I am absolutely shocked our background artist didn't use the chance to paint it neon orange. They love neon orange so much but I guess they save the neon for dramatic scenes. This one they left a more natural Instagram creamy color palate.

(PS at this point I guess Bakura decided to go home or go to the hospital. Whichever reason he decided to bounce, he bounced without saying goodbye to anyone apparently. That or the show just decided that no one cares about Bakura so he was the only one we didn’t say a farewell too, which is hilarious since he’s one of the most popular characters on this show.

Bro broke it to me, this whole story line of the puzzle and the tablet and all that--nah. By the time we get to it I’ll have forgotten all of the lore, pretty sure. Bro did ask me if we could skip S4 and I said no we are here for the worst parts first, Bro. When it gets horrible is when we’re finally getting to the good stuff.

Then, Duke suddenly remembered that before this tournament, he was only going on a walk between laundry loads but ended up abducted twice over, stranded on a submarine, an island, and nearly exploded. That and he had to sleep on one of Kaiba’s weird cube couches and that probably sucked. But it’s time for him to pull out his colors and add some bounce sheets to his whites for the dryer.

Can you believe they had Duke Devlin for two seasons but he only dueled once? Lol.

I can’t believe there was never a purpose for Duke Devlin other than to be eye-candy. I’ve only ever really seen this trope done to girls.

Mai also suddenly remembers that she doesn’t live here.

TBH, if Mai wasn’t put in a coma, I think she would have just left the tournament after she lost. She’d have pulled out a hang-glider from her pack and just sailed away rather than spend another minute with people she isn’t absolutely required to hang out with. That seems more her jam.

And then they had to frame up this Joey/Mai ship and...it’s just so funny when you remember that Mai is like waaay to old for Joey. She’s like 24 and he’s a baby but he’s pretty sure that he’s disappointing her so much by not telling her all about how he’s crushing. He’s pretty sure she just has no idea when it’s like, no, she does, and she does not want you to acknowledge it.

As she goes off, Tea for some reason decides to make it her responsibility for Joey to go out there and I guess...mortally embarrass himself in front of his much older crush? I mean you don’t really have to admit to your teachercrush that...you like her? Like, Mai is just a teachercrush right? Like he respects and admires her, she’s pretty, and there’s no other girls but Tea and Miho? Like that’s it?

This weird ass couple. And I mean it’s a weird pairing just because it can never happen on screen, but as some of you have pointed out--it is probably the healthiest couple in Yugioh. Mostly because we know that it will never happen. Unlike everyone else where it’s like, Joey better go eat both those pieces of paper with those phone numbers on it because holy hell a 16 yo dating a 12 yo is pretty freakin wild. What are those boys even going to talk about with Serenity? How wild fractions are? How to make a replica of a cell out of Jello for the science fair? Because that’s the level she’s at.

I was an architecture student once (I know. Ya’ll who’ve read many of these have probably noticed I attempted to major in nearly every art alignment so it’s probably very confusing to figure out wtf I actually ended up finishing in school (it was Illustration) ) so I just can’t with Yugi’s house. We have seen several rooms inside this house and none of them, absolutely none, line up with the outside of Yugi’s house (which is smack dab in the middle of the inner city for some reason??? Like does Yugi have PARKING? This is the most expensive two story house in Japan, it comes with free parking.

And like...I have tried to lay it out but it doesn’t make sense. The stairs of the shop go directly into the front door. The second floor would be half a staircase, so where is this living room? And assuming that Yugi is on the top floor with the slanted roof window...how? Is it the entire floor? what is going on here?

It’s a cartoon, I shouldn’t think about it, but this house is a Dr. Who police box. Anyways, Yugi decides to sneak out of the house by going down the stairs that are again, right in front of the front door. You cannot go through the front door of this house because these damn stairs are directly in the way.

Hey check out who’s alive, it’s Grandpa. I guess he’s...fine? I guess he just woke up on the floor of Bakura’s hospital room and was like “Screw that, I’m going home.” and then just peaced out here until Yugi came back.

I respect his moon pj’s to go with Yugi’s star pj’s.

I can’t imagine being in Grandpa’s position and seeing your boy go out there and get nearly killed by crazy ass cultists again and Seto Kaiba (who put him in a coma), and then catching him Sneaking Out. Like if I were Grandpa I’d just set up camp right outside of the front door because holy hell Yugi is so attracted to danger he’s just gonna waltz around the city in the middle of the night to play cards.

++++++++++RANT ABOUT TACO BELL, FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS IS JUST ME TALKING ABOUT THE TACO BELL MENU+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Also I looked up Taco Bell in Japan thinking that this wouldn’t be a thing (from what I’ve heard, the only food Japan cannot do is Mexican) but not only does Taco Bell in Japan completely exist, guess what the menu is like? Just go ahead and guess in your head, I’m gonna go over the menu right now because this is very important.

I was expecting it to be pretty wild with a black taco shell made out of squid ink or something but surprisingly, it’s mostly the freakin same but different meats. Like they have a few more pork options (I guess instead of chicken?) and they have a shrimp taco--which I feel like we’ve done in the States before but everyone didn’t like that. Also, you can apparently get a crunchwrap, but it’s in a triangle shape instead of an octagon. They just changed the shape and called it a “stuffed grilled giant nacho”.

Obviously, they do not have a Ranch Doritos taco since America is the only place that is fully obsessed with Ranch. I have heard from so many people from Asia that “can we just not have Ranch today? Can we have a single spread without this weird garlic sauce? And...are you dipping your pizza with it? Is there one thing you haven’t coated with Ranch Dressing?” and it’s like no. There isn’t. Would you like to try our taco bell taco that is frosted in messy Ranch dust?

Like it really feels like this is the one fast food joint where everyone else has the normal Taco bell, and weirdly WE are are the people with the weird ass version of Taco Bell. Even Japan was like “you guys do you over there with your pink Starburst flavored frozen icee and your Quesarito...we’re just gonna put some extra cheese on a taco and call it ‘double cheese.’”

But here’s the craziest thing on the menu--the Taco Bell in Japan has FRIES.

I KNOW.

WHAT????

What would Taco Bell fries even taste like? Would they taste...tacoey? I mean I know that nacho fries are a thing that kinda comes and goes but I’ve never had them actually. Its never the right moment for nacho fries when Nacho fries are still on the menu.

but, I will say they do have one kind of weird thing on the menu I see online. I say “kind of” because it’s...just weird, it’s not actually all that out there as compared to our weird things in Taco bell. They got something called the “honey cheese pocket” which was a small plain flour tortilla filled with melted Monterey Jack cheese rolled into a cigar that you dip into honey.

...I mean...it probably tastes good, but if you released a honey cheese pocket in the States and pretended that’s Mexican food, I’m pretty sure every state touching the south border would cry a single Zesty-ranch-doritos-taco-shaped-tear. I know I would, at the same rate I’m stuffing honey cheese pockets directly into my mouth.

AND...apparently you can just serve alcohol in a Japanese Taco Bell. Which is interesting, because we had that episode of Season Zero where Yugi had to find alcohol in a burger joint, which seemed really odd to me at the time, but I guess you can just serve alcohol in whatever restaurant? Anyways, Taco bell has alcohol so now Yugi can light people on fire in a Taco Bell, if he really felt like it. Go ahead and append your fanfictions accordingly.

+++++++++END OF TACO BELL RANT, BACK TO CARDS ++++++++++++

So, can you imagine having a friend who forces you to wake up at o-dark hundred in order to play cards when you already attend all of the same classes and see eachother every minute of the day otherwise? Can you imagine having a friend like this?

Then again I’m not 100% on whether Pharaoh needs to sleep. It’s pretty clear that Bakura’s ghost doesn’t sleep much (or apparently eat much) so maybe it goes the same for Pharaoh as well that he needs Yugi to remind him how to be human.

Then there was this weird review episode they slapped on at the end. I...don’t know why they put it there, it was really more of an afterthought since nothing really got added or taken away from the finale. It was just a review episode of “in case you didn’t watch this season, here’s what happened this season” But the episode wasn’t over before Tea angsted the hell out about this kid that I guess she’s...

Tea thinks in her head about Yugi more than she talks directly to Yugi. That’s really my biggest issue with this couple. Tea can be so lukewarm towards Yugi and visa versa and then occasionally Tea will just snap and obsesses over this boy, but never tells him about it directly. Except for that one time in the blimp, which was more about “please don’t die”. But have they talked about how freakin anxious she is about how he’ll die? Nah.

It just feels like the writing team had one person who really liked Tea/Yugi, and then the rest who were like “fine, wtv” and so we get a real inconsistent narrative of this pair, that only seems to come up for drama, but then goes right back to being invisible moments later. Like sightings of a giant squid.

Ah, back where they started, on a date with a ghost. I think. This might be a date? It started at 2 PM so I don’t know that counts as a date yet.

These two are a lot.

And honestly...If it was going to happen it should have happened at some point in the end of this arc. She made such a big deal about him going off to card war, and now he’s back and she’s like...ok, cool.

They’re not gonna even talk about it? Or like...maybe high five it out? High five out those feelings? Man I feel so bad for anyone that shipped these two.

But anyway,

I’d add it to the Yugioh Death Count but that’s assuming that I don’t find an excuse to use this font again.

So yeah, that’s it for Season 3 (I wrote in Season 4 just now and had to really think about it because like...it really does feel like I went through 4 seasons, at least, of this show since every season is like 50 episodes)

Originally, when I started this, I thought there were only 3 seasons of Yugioh total. This was the end goal.

But I guess I’m committed now, so we’ll start up Season 4, which bro tells me is “completely different and not what you expected” but I probably won’t post until 2 weeks from now because this is a side hobby and I don’t need to wax long about my main-life stress, but youknow how it is: the more stuff I add the more stuff adds up. However, I do cope with stress by typing, so maybe I’ll just make sooo many updates to combat it? I dunno. But the blog will be back for S4. Eventually. When I get to it.

Many thanks to all y’all who’ve left many kind comments, I’ve been kind of tasked for time lately, so I haven’t really responded to many, but know that I see them and I’m thankful for them and I tell bro about them and he finds many of them amusing and y’all are just very, very nice. Wish Tumblr had an actual comments system since the only way to reply is like...it’s weird. If I reblog my own post I run the risk of it then being out of chronological order for people wanting to read that link I put at the base of each post so...I have to either make a new post to reply or reply within the post and I dunno if y’all can even see that type of reply...it’s tumblr problems.

Anyway, I’ll have a Graveyard for next weekend, maybe an art post, I dunno. But, I’m not dead, just watching how weird the next season is and making a buffer.

And here’s that link to read all these recaps in chrono order from the beginning

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 36 Part 2: Pegasus Lives Every Artist’s Worst Reocurring Nightmare

Normally I don’t do more than two posts on a weekend but considering the last post was just overflow on color theory and sort of a mini post (which I was pleasantly surprised so many people liked, thanks for the kind comments on that random color theory aside), and also considering that I try not to do work on the weekend and I’m just kinda bored, here’s the second part of Ep 36.

Lets do a series recap shall we?

-Yugi Muto is three people (this is including a chunk of Bakura which just...lives there but doesn’t do anything)

-Odion is pretending to be Marik

-Marik is pretending to be Namu

-Tea is possessed by Bakura’s ghost

-Ryou Bakura is no longer possessed, but got hella shanked and passed out on Kaiba’s blimp, so we don’t know yet if he was actually British or if that was just a ghost thing.

-Serenity is Joey’s Sister and she Actually Truly Exists although I have kept close track and no one has yet to tell Kaiba who’s sister she is.

-Duke Devlin is just permanently here now, taking the place of Tea Gardner for “Character the writers have no freakin idea what to do with”

-Grandpa passed out a few episodes ago but I think the show forgot.

-Ishizu is here and is hiding from Marik for her dear life despite the fact she still thinks he’s a good boy.

-Shadi showed up to save Tristan and Duke although Shadi has never spoken a word to either of them and has no idea who they are at all.

There we go. A cliff notes-version all in one place. It’s a lot to remember.

Now we’re ready for another round of exciting duel prep.

That’s right, Shadi’s here, and he’s ready to dump a lot of plot on us. Which is why I felt like it would be nice to get a summary up to now because now we’re going to get even more nonsense we have to remember in this kid’s show that I had no idea would be this complicated when I started capping it.

(read more under the cut)

Can we talk about the knot Shadi is using here on that Ankh?

What is that?

OK, I just wanted everyone to look at that and then just...wonder with me, 

Anyway, if you were looking for some explanation this episode, this is not that episode, because Shadi is here, and he just...never feels like fully explaining anything. He only ever feels like adding more and more to our bucket of Lore like it’s the 5th book of Harry Potter.

That’s right, this episode is a return to Pegasus, who I do miss. I mean Marik is fine, all in all, but I do miss how Pegasus knew what he was actually doing. I kinda miss my villain who was also a functioning adult.

Anyway, while Pegasus was searching the dunes of Egypt for Egyptian art to make OC’s of and add to his collection, Shadi and he had a very awkward reunion. Bear in mind these two haven’t spoken since Shadi fused Pegasus’ face with a haunted table weight.

And like, here’s the thing about Pegasus--he has the most reason of anyone on this show to not trust Shadi. Yet, now he’s going to follow Shadi into a hole. Literally follow Shadi into a dark and scary hole where no one would find his body.

Thing I wasn’t expecting from this show: Marik’s family is mole people????

OK…

I mean...I guess we’ll just gloss over that.

I mean...I guess I’ve never really thought about it but like...yeah they have to take care of a tomb and the tomb is underground so they just...hang out down here most of the time. Guess that explains how Marik ended up kind of albino-blonde.

Anyway, it’s here that we see a familiar relief sculpture—Apparently Ishizu just excavated her own sacred tomb and was like “lets ship this to Japan to screw with Seto Kaiba.” Not like I blame her, Seto is very easy to screw with.

But here she is being like “I’m this incredible Egyptologist give me your money!” when all she did was loot herself. Well...loot the Pharaoh, I guess, but he’s dead so wtv.

And so, after running around an ancient tomb collecting curses like fleas, he boards a business class, awkwardly shares an armrest with his photographer who equally refuses to give up the armrest (like what the hell is this armrest situation?) and has to endure our colorist’s favorite shade of chartreuse.

Purple/chartreuse is a pretty solid color combo, not gonna lie, but it is the last thing I ever want to see in a plane.

Also, Croquet is back. I guess this was before Pegasus bought an island, and it’s this episode we start to see why he might have wanted to flee the States.

Sometimes I forget this show is based on a horror anime, and this was an episode that brought us back to basics. Like, this is something I would absolutely expect to happen in Season Zero.

I cannot believe that this children’s show had a darkroom murder scene. The audacity. And not just a darkroom murder we also get this type of murder shortly after,

How do you go from the darkroom to this!?

The older I get, the more I would gladly welcome a Huge Sky Dragon over the actual drama I have to deal with on the reg. Please, please let me put Huge Sky Dragon on the ballot. We will let him have Salesforce Tower, he clearly comes with electricity and rain clouds and California desperately needs both those things. 

Downside to Huge Sky Dragon unfortunately, is that he kills you.

So, in the classic horror protagonist archetype, Pegasus puts on his favorite shades of beige, he goes into an isolated room where no one can save him, and he reaches for that good ol hubris. Since, in his mind, he has a millennium eye, he’s the all powerful Pegasus, what could hurt him?

You gotta love that he’s such a purist that he paints an itty bitty card on a 6000% bigger canvas. Love that classic illustration nod right there. (and not gonna lie, I would kill for Pegasus’ studio. Damn. Look at it.)

Also look at this in the next cap! He can paint something that’s not a monster or his dead wife--is that a completely normal still life of some random purple flowers back there behind him? What’s he doing painting those??? He’s off killing 1 or 2 people a day in his human sacrifice chamber why’s he painting lilies in pots like everyone’s Mom during Wine ‘n Paint night?

Dude, does Pegasus go to Wine ‘n Paint night? I mean he would, right? Like he would be the first there with a huge ass bottle of wine/juice and be like “I am ready to sip, paint, and gossip about everybody’s husband.” Yo, he’d be killer at Wine ‘n Paint night. Like, I would never be Pegasus’ friend but I would absolutely paint some dumbass flowers in the same room as him as he gets tipsy on margaritas and starts going off about the Great British Bake Off.

And, much like I do when I finish most of my art at 2 AM, he passes out directly after and has anxiety laden dreams about what he just painted for the rest of the evening.

So lets get this straight, if you reproduce this image in any way, let it be traditional, digital, camera, or whatever—you will arouse the God Card ghosts and be straight up The Ring murdered. Unless, you tattoo it to a person’s back, then apparently you’re cool. Also, what the hell was Ishizu doing bringing this thing to a museum? Like yeah it’s in a restricted section but they had like no security on those doors so it’s like, girl—anyone who takes a selfie here will be dead. What else are museums for except avenues for selfies? Way to curate a museum, Ishizu. You had one job.

Also does that mean that if Marik photobombs people without his shirt on that they super die? That kinda sucks a lot, no wonder he wants to get rid of Pharaoh. Marik just wants to go to the beach without having to wear a hoodie and getting a weird tan.

Oi, hashtag relatable, amiright?

Anyway, Pegasus realizes he can’t post this art on main, so he decides to give it to Ishizu to bury it for him. Essentially, he put on his brother’s tumblr because he’s trying to be a professional here but like, who are we joking, the guy draws kids art for dollars. His friends, much like my friends, are full aware of what our sketchbook looks like.

After hearing this weird story, Pharaoh decides to take over and give some closing remarks.

Yugi got TWO huge bottles of mystery purple moisturizer??? Maybe one is just full of hair gel.

Man, Seto had him double covered, he knew--he knew Yugi was nuts for products.

I wonder if it’s full of LA Looks.

I appreciated that Pharaoh might have a physical body but he still enjoys spooking people like a ghost should.

Well, I mean.

So many questions here, but I assume we’re going to learn more about it later? Like why the hell Marik is...in a tomb? As a baby? With a...flower wreath?

What even is this show. Don’t put babies in tombs!

I don’t even know why Shadi even bothered showing up here. Like Ishizu already knows “it’s happening,” she has a future necklace.

Did Shadi show up to every single person on in this ship, Roland and Kaiba included, before actually going to the one place he needed to go?

Man. Phallic necklace. Did they not know about goatse in the early 00’s? Please don’t look that up if you don’t know what it is. I just.

Phallic necklace, please. You’re killing me.

Anyway, Shadi sees a chance to make a change and fix some things with the one person on this ship who desperately needs fixing, and while he’ll save Tristan and Duke and tell Yugi all about his history and etc—actually confronting Bakura? No thanks. Shadi will stay in his safe keyblade power place where no one can see or hear him, not even Bakura.

Not sure why any of the doctors haven’t picked up on Tea being weird as hell yet, but like...compared to the Kaibas and everyone else, I guess possessed Tea is the most normal person on this flying boat.

But that’s all for now, next week we see if they actually start dueling or if instead, even more people from S1 show up on this boat.

If you just got here, we’re like over halfway through S2, so here’s a link to read everything in chrono order from S1 Ep1, have fun.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 42 : Hello, Darkness, my Old and Also Relatively New Teenage Shadow Magic Friend

Recently, on Yugioh, we asked ourselves, (well, I asked myself since I assume most of you have seen this show before) how does it matter at all if you lose your memories of someone for like, ten minutes, when you will obviously have to run into them again once the duel is over? And if you have lost the memories that they ever existed then what would it matter since you would not know that you had known them?

This is how - They become shadow people and you literally can’t see them anymore for what I assume is the rest of your life. I don’t know how that works since they can still like write things down on pieces of paper or I dunno, communicate entirely through texting like most kids do who haven’t been cursed with eternal invisibility.

But don’t think too much about the logic, because people can now be erased from your life via cards, AKA Yugioh is gonna throw us another heavy handed take on depression, get ready. And honestly, it’s not a bad take. Good on Yugioh for this fairly accurate metaphor of what sadness can feel like. Like, sometimes people feel like their friends don't like them anymore, although they may be surrounded by people the entire time who are rooting for them and want to help them, but they just can’t see them. I think every person in the world has been through that at some point. You don’t often see it addressed in a kid’s show, although it really should be, because it happens so often.

Probably shouldn’t have started out with Tea for this example though. Like for reals, when have Mai and Tea ever hung out? That one time Mai told Tea to take a shower because she smelled like a boy? Or...

...That’s it. That’s the last conversation I remember these two having one-on-one. Most of the time Mai has been on screen is with Yugi and Joey instead. Mai and Tea shared a tent once. That’s it.

Lolmao I can’t believe Mime came back.

So now, canonically, BDSM Mime got stranded somewhere in Japan and now Marik doesn’t have any memories to even go and pick him up. He’s just forever trapped in this country now like Shenmue.

(read more)

Mai seems to remember that she used to know someone, so it’s more of like you get the feeling of losing a friend. Like basically every time you lose a monster you feel like you broke up with someone, but you can’t remember who. I can’t really relate to that feeling, but I’m sure this has happened to Mai at least once or twice for reals before this tournament. This is the girl who forgot she set herself up to get engaged.

Again, if you just thought it through for like 3 seconds, you’d have enough evidence to say “Yeah but this is all in my mind, I am standing in weird ass purple fog” but that’s the Shadow Realm.

After Tea’s memory is dissolved, next comes the threat of losing the memories of Joey Wheeler, AKA the vague love interest that she was very mad at up until about 5 seconds ago.

Also please admire how far the storyboarder went out of their way to avoid looking up Mai’s skirt. Straight up, they did not even bother to try and cover up those panty upskirts in Sailor Moon, but the storyboarder for Yugioh was so extra that they said “Hell with it, I’m gonna try” and so Mai’s legs are like double jointed and sprawled in the weirdest ways sometimes to cover that crack.

I mean, it’s still a pinup--there’s no way around this character design--but I really think they were trying to not go too far, but then ended up making it kind of worse sometimes. It’s just what happens when you have a love affair a lot of extreme low angle shots but none of your girls wear pants because it’s 2001 and everyone’s wearing tube tops and minis.

Which was a thing. I’ll admit it, I lived through it, 2001 was kind of a slutty time, it was the era of the glittery backless diamond shaped halter top. Which, while time has tried to forget, I will never forget the 20 minutes I spent in a dressing room trying to figure out how to put on a backless diamond shaped halter top only to realize that I was putting it on sideways.

Now, stepping away from confusing 00′s fashion and back to the show. Mai losing these pile of kids might mean more to me if Mai had been hanging out with them this whole time, but it really does feel like they’re closer to Duke Devlin than they are to Mai Valentine, because Duke at least shared a school with them so I can assume that in the past they’ve passed each other in the hallway or talked on occasion. But, Mai is an adult who never comes in contact outside of cards, and when she does, she only ever pushes them away.

It’s especially that-Yugioh-brand-of-tragic because in the mind of all of the characters on this show, we’ve just kind of assumed Mai has had a life and friendships outside of these couple of kids. But this episode we realize there’s just...no one else but the people she sees at these rare tourneys. As we see here in this flashback to her childhood, in the most anime PJ’s ever drawn.

Why does every flashback look like everyone's straight out the American Girl Doll collection? Like Pegasus and Cecilia were in turn of the century clothes. the Kaibas were dressed like little newsies when they were orphans, little Mai looks like she owns a horse in matching ribbons.

And as it turns out, do you know the reason why Mai hates friendship? You’ll never guess--her Parents. Ah, Neglectful Parents, strikes again, that old Yugioh chestnut. It’s like I’m watching Once Upon a Time again. At least these neglectful parents didn’t lock her up underground and tattoo her eyes. Instead, these ones just worked a lot and she got kinda lonely.

Are there any good parents on this show? I assume if anyone’s parents are good we just never see them, right? Is that why we never see Mr Muto?

Anyway, Mai moved around a lot, her parents were always busy, and it rained like constantly--so Mai decided to get a job on a cruise line, where she became a card shark. And also where she randomly got engaged and then forgot.

I don't remember her tent looking like that but I’ll allow it.

You could have chosen any friends out there Mai, traveling the world on a cruise line, doing cards all over the planet, and you chose these guys? The ones with multiple curses? Like you nabbed both Yugi and Bakura in one go? Congrats!

Anyway she very quickly forgets Joey so Rip MaixJoey that was a good one and half episodes, surely the longest relationship on Yugioh!

So, Yugi decides to activate the millennium item chatroom, where apparently he could just butt into whoever is getting cursed at the moment. And mind you, he could just solve the duel but like, there is a card game going on, and although it’s super duper cursed, we gotta make it fair. Yugi’s just here to give some good advice and then bounce.

No laser fights today. He still isn’t aware he can do that.

freakin love this blue yellow color combo PS.

So something that I do like about this, is that the real threat here in these Shadow Duels is not the duel really--it’s to Mai’s relationships more than injury Mai herself. Yes, she does die if she loses, but the more she loses, the more she loses people in her life, even if she wins. The loss of the people is more scary to her more than the fear of dying.

And this hearkens back to the first time we dealt with the Shadow Realm with Yugi and his Grandfather. Yugi was over that duel in about 15 minutes or whatever the time limit was, and after the initial shock he brushed himself off and may have appeared fully recovered, but it took him almost an entire season to get his Grandpa back in his life.

So if you look at these curses as akin to getting an illness, when you lose a relationship because of illness, that can be a pretty terrible symptom that you don’t really see coming. Happens a whole lot though. In Mai’s case, if she does lose, she also loses the opportunity to repair what she’s lost, which is probably the greatest fear of someone who may be going through A Time.

Like honestly, the Mai duel is *kind of a downer* and I was just talking to my Bro about how of all the shadow duels so far, this is the one that is most clearly “I’m just going to fight you with straight up depression” and how apparently Marik is just so far into his own downward spiral that he no longer cares about who he drags down with him. He’s just given up trying to be better at this point. Like his only ‘friend’ left is BDSM Mime clown. That’s a pretty intense rock bottom, honestly.

But on a positive note, what Yugi points out to Mai is “You’re in this now, but we will get you out of it, no matter what he curses you to believe.” and of anyone here, Yugi’s the only one that can actually reach out and speak to her because he’s the only one who has been through it before and thus knows how it works.

Being cursed with heavy handed illness imagery AKA Shadow Magic does have that perk. You can help out the similarly cursed. Even though he could have probably launched at least a couple fireballs at the problem to help her out also.

Holy hell they actually edited out all the little details on this duel disk here. Good on you, animators. Good on you. I’m glad someone did it. Hope that saved at least one of you from carpal tunnel, you poor overworked animators that had to draw every line on these crazy complicated character designs.

So Mai, spurned onward by the ghostly voices of her forgotten friends figures out how to steal Marik’s God Card.

Again, everyone on this show is obsessed with these awful cards and they feel like they must play them to win when honestly--look how much this card sucks.

If this God Card ends up killing her it’ll only prove my point that all these cards are just fundamentally hella bad.

Same with Odion, he could’ve won just fine without playing a God Card but leave it to these dummies to just go crazy with the one of three cards that has been prophecies to kill them. Like, when Odysseus gives you a bag of wind, just don’t open the bag. That easy.

Anyway, tune in next week to see if Mai ends up blown overboard like the servants of Odysseus, or if she ends up devoured by a giant creature also like the servants of Odysseus. Or if she ends up dating Joey Wheeler. That part didn’t happen in the Odyssey, but I’ve read enough people comparing fanfic to Homer that I guess you could make it happen if you really wanted to.

Link to read these recaps from S1 Ep1

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 6: Blind Sister Saga Continues

It’s tourney season, and wisely, Kaiba decided that just one human catastrophe from the Yugi crew would be plenty enough for gambling the lives of everyone on Earth with. Long story short, Joey awoke that morning and saw no invite on his doorstep.

Really wish we got to see what those invites looked like. Did Kaiba write them on creative stationary that folds into a weird shape? Did he have little stickers? Did he employ Jelly pens? Were they the type of jelly pen where you have to erase it to make a two-toned silver/purple ink pattern? Confetti? He’s definitely the type of Chaotic Neutral that would mail confetti.

There’s some timeline issues here--Mai and everyone else was there for the announcement in Domino’s Time Square because they got an invite to this tourney, but Yugi didn’t have one yet? Yugi, the only person Kaiba truly wants to compete with? Yugi learned about this tourney from a psychic who just spends her day spooking people who visit her museum?

Maybe Grandpa just forgot to check the mail that day? Or maybe...just maybe Grandpa is a little freaked out by mail these days and just never checks it at all?

Seeing that Yugi’s going to throw himself at the wolves again, Joey decides to enlist anyway, since Yugi will actually very seriously surely die without his friend’s constant attention.

So, they march down to the nearest “I Swear This is Not a Weapon” card-rig dispensary to get their paperwork filled out. Considering how quickly and how forcefully these things just shoot out holographic cameras at head-height, you’d think you’d need to register for it and get a special license like you would a sidearm.

(read more under the cut)

They talk so casually about this and it’s like...ok are we going somewhere?

Nope. Whenever the slightest guise of romance enters the scene, cards are here to slap that right off that plate that we never actually ordered. Even cards are there to cock block this 3 way the writers just have no idea what to do with.

Anyway, this outfit lives here.

Turns out that in the week or so that Kaiba spent putting this all together, he did some digging and made profiles for everyone already. Kinda what happened to me with Myspace, just being honest. I was just trying to get Boba one day when this one girl I distantly knew from High School was like “Why aren’t we friends on Myspace.” and I told her “because I have Facebook” and then before, my drink even got into my hands I had a profile. I only became friends with Tom, her, and this one guy from college I was in love with who’s Myspace played the anchorman version of “Afternoon delight” really loudly and you could not turn it off because it was hidden somewhere on the page. I look back on it now and realized just him having a Myspace years after Facebook existed was a red flag in itself, but hindsight’s 20/20. Anyway, back to Yugioh:

And so, bam, They toss a box at Yugi that is about 3/4 the size of Yugi himself. Kaiba didn’t make an XS version for the only person in this tourney he actually wants to fight?

Kaiba decides, when making Joey’s profile, to give him a 1-star rating, which kicked him out of the competition. But, this guy in the butcher outfit, the glasses, and the...bandana...sees Joey’s red-black dragon or whatever it’s called and decides it’s rare enough to Rare Hunt.

They legit say “My hard drive malfunctioned” PS. Lol what???

Why does he need to duel Joey? I mean I guess Joey is kinda strong and hard to take 1-on-1? Anyways, so despite Kaiba’s good intentions to get Joey out of this competition so Joey can spend some much needed time with his sister he hasn’t seen in 7 years, Joey gets in anyway.

I forget sometimes that Joey has this long sprawling teen soap opera story that just clashes so much with the magical altered history apocalypse story, it’s hard to believe it’s in the same show--and not just that--but that it’s a side-story in the same show that we hear about but don’t actually get to see.

This was just so funny to me, that he’s like “I will be there for my sister’s surgery!” and then--immediately--out of no where these three guys in robes pop out and it’s like lol, why would you need 3 grown men on one kid!? This ridiculous show.

And not just that, but they beat him with the card that Yugi used in Episode 1 that was so OP that Weevil tossed it into the ocean. And not just that but this guy has like 3 versions of it. Freakin Exodia is more than half of his deck.

I mean Episode 1 was a long time ago but Kaiba sure made a big fuss about how no one has ever played an Exodia ever in the history of mankind but here we are.

Anyway, the soap continues and we actually get to see Serenity. Y’all I was serious when I said I didn’t think this girl was real but, man--she exists and also is...kind of weird. Because her brother doesn’t show, she’s locked herself in a hospital room--a hospital that has locks on the rooms? I mean, girl your brother paid for this 3 million dollar surgery, what are you on about him not being there for you?

First off--Nice job forgetting she’s not a Wheeler anymore, Yugi, it’s not like she’s had a very rocky divorce of the past 7 years or anything.

Second off--Does anyone in this universe call the police!?

TRISTAN CAN DRIVE!?

So I guess these kids are 16 now?

I’m not even joking--it was at the abandoned warehouses, that Tristan drives by going “I FOUND HIM” and then drags Joey to the hospital looking like this.

This story line is so Daytime Kid’s TV One Tree Hill I’m expecting a golden retriever to run up and just devour one of Serenity’s eye transplants.

Anyway, so Serenity is so mad at her brother she won’t come out until he makes this big old speech for her--and it’s a fine speech and all--but like...girl he was left out to die last night??? Can a doctor please get his hands on Joey.

Ah, it’s been a full season, but it looks like Serenity is finally going to get those eyes.

I think. Maybe the rest of this season will be side-plots of Serenity just postponing her surgery over and over again.

Anyway, Next week, on Yugioh:

So does Tristan just bring that motorcycle with him everywhere now? Will we ever see Joey’s Mom ever again? (I’m guessing no because that hair is too normal) And does this dueling disk even fit Yugi or does he have to put it on his leg?

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S1 Ep 46: Creating All of Your Own Problems

This season is almost over, but I guess the showmakers had one last thing to bring in last second--one last character--one last toy product that hits the shelves. But, the big problem I can see they had to work around was how do you introduce a character who has nothing to do with this season? Just plop him on at the end in his own self-contained arc, I guess.

So we begin by running into Yugi at home/store he lives in, where Grandpa’s sweeping the stoop although shouldn’t he be inside running the shop? Maybe he’s just keeping an eye on Yugi, making sure he doesn’t run off to an island again. Maybe Tea and Grandpa have an arrangement that Yugi doesn’t get to go anywhere by himself unsupervised because he keeps getting horribly distracted and risking his entire life every time he does. Maybe that’s why she meets him here at his house to walk to school instead of at school?

Grandpa didn’t even bring up getting his ass kicked by Kaiba because apparently Grandpa has had a new life threatening event every couple of months for just his entire life.

I feel like Grandpa runs the itty bitty bodega of game shops.

(read more under the cut)

Isn’t the entire point of a game shop to sell fads, what is he talking about? Like, even if you’re a game shop that sells handmade toys that have no lights or automated parts that’s...still a hippie fad thing. That’s still a fad. Maybe it’s just my capitalist mindset, but maybe Grandpa should stock some Nintendo?

But honestly, their family had nothing to worry about because look at this terrifying storefront.

No child with eyes would enter here.

Kinda surprised her threatening him with homework was actually in the show, because her telling him that he’d have to do her homework for a week sounds like more of a punishment for her than the other way around. Like, may as well have a cat with a pen tied to their tail do your homework.

So this pirate here owns the shop and goes by the name Duke Devlin. He’s got a lot of stuff on his face. Kinda looks like he wants to go full Nomura but hasn’t discovered belts yet.

I’m not sure how his headband works, as some of the hair is under the headband and going into his face (thus ruining the point of a headband) and the rest is going over the headband and into his face (thus ruining the point of a ponytail). There’s a lot going on here, and I...I just don’t know exactly how this hair anatomy works.

This weird line on his face disappears and reappears constantly throughout the show. Man this show and it’s love of eyeliner. The eyeliner that few women wear outside of like...Mai. I’ve never seen such devotion to guyliner in my life.

Anyways, then they had the biggest twist so far in all of Yugioh.

Her eyes will cost as much as an entire house by the time she gets this surgery. Anyways, across the hall and in the other room, Duke is showing off his weird dice tricks to a bunch of girls who have extremely low standards. Because when I was in school, the boys fidgeting with dice and cubes and lighters or whatever were actually pretty damn annoying.

Also dice were illegal at my school but my school had a huge gambling problem since like Elementary school, starting at when Pogs were outlawed. Pogs. I was in like 2nd grade, with my fistful of holographic Garfield Pogs and my teachers were like “absolutely not, those Pogs will send you straight to drugs” and I was very, very confused.

Duke, overhearing Joey talk big about his incredible dueling skills, sees an opportunity to get Yugi to fight him. I guess he assumed that Yugi wouldn’t duel him for any other reason, although I’m pretty sure he could have been all “want to duel sometime?” and Yugi would have answered “ABSOLUTELY, LETS GO TO THE ROOF AT MIDNIGHT, SHIRTLESS, DURING A THUNDERSTORM.”

(the liner got shy here, but came back later)

And like he goes off about this dice but does he actually duel with dice this episode? If he did, I did not catch it as I was scrubbing through the duels. I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Not totally positive.

But bro mentioned that Duke was the mascot for a game that exists IRL that they were trying to sell--and I looked it up, it’s called Dungeon Dice Monsters and it looks so freakin complicated and unfun. Apparently it did not sell well, although they planned all these characters and expansions for it. Also, weirdly it came out in 1996 which means this guy is from Season Zero so...I guess I’ll be watching that later.

Nowadays these pieces of this failed game with 10000 pieces sells for a pretty penny on Ebay, but youknow that’s assuming anyone on Ebay is buying?

But, if you have table top simulator on Steam, some saint has added this game as a mod so you can like...play it for the price of table top simulator instead of spending like 800 dollars. That’s nice. I’m not going to play it myself, but that’s nice.

It was also converted into a complicated GBA game, which is probably more of the reason that he’s in this version of the show--since GBA was around the same time as Yugioh, although I could be wrong.

But, back to the show, Duke decides to do some magic because he has no idea who he goes to school with. This was extremely dangerous and stupid and he didn’t even know.

And Yugi just complete loses his mind for like a few seconds. Which makes you think great, everyone in this room is going to die, because this is Yugioh, and that is a thing that can surely happen. But then...

I feel like this is the point where most people would have been like “eff this” and just turned around, since both Yugi and Joey were in an actual tourney and shouldn’t waste their time but Joey really hates this guy for no reason other than being popular. Joey just has so much rage for people he’s never met before--like really, he’s absolutely terrible at making friends which blows my mind since his best friend is the friendliest person who exists in this show.

So I’m throwing the word draft out there because that’s something card people are familiar with but for those that don’t know, drafts are pretty normal. It’s a randomized deck, so there is the possibility you can get super screwed over in a draft. You can get a whole bunch of like whatever the Yugioh version of that Goldfish from Pokemon is and well, that’s just your deck now. You don’t put a lot of high risk stakes on drafts. They’re just for kicks.

But Joey thinks he’s immortal because he survived that island, so like sure, why not? Lets get rid of the only deck advantage we have and trust this guy, who has done nothing but trick people since we walked into the room.

Damn, Joey! That escalated quickly!

Then, a reallllly weird thing happens that made me super uncomfortable--Yugi changed his clothes. I don’t like this palate swap.

This whole time. That whole time on the island--he had normal clothes.

ooof I owned this outfit in middle school. Exactly this outfit. I had a phase--I call it “gray goth” where I got helllllla emo and only wore gray and jeans for 2 years. The 00′s were a time. We were all very chilly and needed at least two insufficient layers on at all times.

So they draft, but they do it wrong. I mean I guess there’s no “wrong” way but the way I’ve seen it, you selectively make your deck from the cards on the table you don’t just shove every card in there without a strategy. This whole duel is just kinda weird. Not like I really talk about cards at all on here but like...this seems like just the worst way to play draft.

So, because there’s absolutely no way you can possibly have a good time playing this version of the game, Joey struggles.

And then we get a celebrity cameo.

I will never catch another one. I was a one console family and we chose Nintendo. But, I do know my Gradius because this game was on every console ever made and basically resold over and over again up until Konami became a pachinko company.

And so we have a return to dog outfit. Because Joey can’t get away from this weird type of torture. Did Duke Devlin get a tip from Kaiba about Things Joey Wheeler Hates or did two completely different bullies come up with this dog obsession all on their own?

Why is Joey being destroyed by dice? Joey beat up like 12 people in a warehouse once. Anyway, Duke decides to throw dice at Joey and humiliate him into goading Pharaoh into a duel. Again, why would it take this much to goad on Yugi? He freakin loves dueling.

And so, in order to save Joey’s dignity, Pharaoh shows up and is pissed. Back on the island there was like life and death reasons to be pissed--just a while ago, Pharaoh saw Joey and Mai die in front of him and got rightfully upset, but apparently Joey dressing like a dog is like equal in terms of getting this guy super indignant.

Like I’m not sure if Pharaoh realizes that this dog servitude is only as long as it takes for Duke to get bored, which will be about five minutes. Or maybe Pharaoh slept through the fact that Joey brought this on himself entirely by himself and ignored every single time his friends were like “Joey please walk away it’s not worth it.” But like consequences shmonsequences.

This could solve so many of Yugi’s problems if he’d just lose this game. I just feel like carrying around this title doesn’t really do much for your income and yet everyone keeps trying to duel you all the time when honestly, should have probably been just attending class.

Tristan and Tea seem to realize that uh, Pharaoh freaking the hell out is the last thing they need on national TV but I mean, Joey’s a dog so he’s gotta do it. Pharaoh can’t really step down from a fight, no matter how stupid it is, and maybe that’s where Joey got it from.

Or Pharaoh could have just covered Joey this week and caught all of those dice. After a while even Duke Devlin would run out of dice. And it’s not like it said anywhere everyone else can’t beat Duke up because Duke has lost his mind. I just really feel like they should have a way out of this that isn’t boys being proud boys and gambling your dignity left and right but whatever. We gotta sell toys.

Anyway, next week, on Yugioh

Will I even have content to cover? Will Joey have to wear two dog suits --a dog within a dog-- as punishment? Will they just give up and kick this guy’s ass on national TV?