yugioh and sanrio collab would have went soo hard if they didn't add that uggo mcdonalds to the mix ToT

S5 Ep 3: Apdnarg is Really Hard to Spell

 Yo guys, people are getting vaccinated, the sun is parting through the clouds, and I felt so nice that I even stopped listening to quite so many throwback 00′s BTS mashups (and yet I keep clicking on these dissonant catastrophes thinking “this time it’s got to be better. This time they’ll figure it out.” and like, no. Turns out you can’t match Brittany’s Toxic with BTS’ Black Swan. You can’t do that.)

This must be a sign that things are getting better. If anything, it means my personal tastes are improving. I mean I only clicked on like 3 “Dark Academia” Playlists where I could pretend I’m some sort of spooky witch in an abandoned library with a bad music player and basic taste in classical music (like can we ban Satie from Youtube for a little while?). Hell, I might even do a prompt update to this blog!

Yeah, you heard me, I’m actually going to stay ahead of the update schedule for Yugioh Abridged (maybe. I haven’t actually watched cuz of spoilers, I just noticed the thumbnail pop up on Youtube and was like “Damn it, they came out of hiatus??? I got hurry UP.”)

Anyway, speaking of the sky parting.

I’ll have you know my bro said this is actually more like a circumcision and it was one of the worst thing I have ever heard.

We get a chance to take in this lineup of confusing and varied character designs, and Joey. who is...still Joey.

The animators probably had to hold a strike in order for them to put Yugi in the audience, lets be real. There are TOO MANY PEOPLE in this shot and one is wearing a turban where you draw every single wrap. I hope those artists charged by the line.

Tea has a subplot where she’s just very frustrated with everyone she knows. They have been traveling together for like many weeks and got trapped in a foreign country so I get it. But at the same time, it’s kind of hard to picture Tea with female friends.

Because right now you got this 12 year old child, the other duelist who does not care about anything besides cards, and Kaiba’s 3 dragon cards that we’ve all collectively decided are female.

Hell it’s almost like the writers are asking themselves why Tea is here. Maybe they forgot. There’s no more ghosts to bus, no more people to knock out with her ass with random Olympic feats. Tea’s just sidelining.

(read more under the cut)

Mokuba is a itty bit bit taller this season, and so I guess that means he can legally climb on top of the cherry picker in order to give a riveting speech.

Really says a lot about Mokuba that he is so unphased about talking to, I dunno...an entire planet of people. Kind of a shame we never see this courage from Mokuba used for anything other than talking really, really big and giving everyone around him a really hard time.

Mokuba takes a moment to dunk on Yugi Muto, as is Kaiba tradition.

And then introduce the first pair of duelists, which obviously must be between the few people in this tournament that we actually know and care about.

Thankfully, in between last episode and this episode, Yugi has figured out who his own Grandpa is. This is a relief, because Yugi is such a mess, that I was fully convinced it would take over half a season for him to recognize it. I mean how long did it take him to figure out he shares a body with a ghost? Like half a season?

Instead Yugi recovered gracefully from not recognizing his grandpa, but it’s not like he bothered to tell anyone else, so the rest of our cast is just gonna be like “Is he my hairdresser? The guy who delivers my mail? Who is this guy who made absolutely no significant changes to his outfit or voice?”

Like sometimes this show goes full Spongebob silly kid’s show and you never know when to take it seriously or not. They might be sacrificing the entire cast next episode. I really don’t know. But for now their big concern is who is grandpa??? Like an innocent card version of “Are you my Mother?”

Faced with public speaking, Yugi decides to have a melt down.

We have seen him face monsters, we’ve seen him on TV dozens of times, he’s been in multiple competitions...but give a speech? Of course he can’t do that. The kid doesn’t attend enough school to know how to do that. Them’s learning skills.

And that was when a newly assembled wife-jet spliced through the sky like a souped up razer scooter and deposited 1 fully equipped Seto Kaiba in a Buzz Lightyear jetsuit.

THE RECOVERY.

Seto always watching over his Brother, ready to save this awkward party if it kills him (and it really should, that suit is held together by two seat-belts), making sure to get on that platform before Yugi starts going off about how he’s half an Ancient Egyptian. (Ah, life before social media. You could just be hella famous and also half a dead dude and people would just not know. I kinda miss the time before I knew literally everything about everyone.)

Please admire how close those flames are to setting Mokuba’s heavily hairsprayed mane completely alight. It would be an unforgettable spectacle.

These were absolutely just random ass jet packs that Gozaburo Kaiba made to kill hell tons of people, right? Like Seto found it in the family cabin, clutched to the heart of some crispy fried corpse and was like “neat! Mokuba! I found a cool toy!” and just plucked that thing out of that skeleton’s clutches and has been flying around for months?

Like this is Seto Kaiba’s Butter Glider, right?

Seriously what type of vehicle license do you need for one of these things? RIP My ‘Seto only has a scooter license’ headcanon.

Which I’m only even thinking about because I’ve had to try and make an appt with the DMV for days to get a freakin REAL ID. I went to sleep in 2019 and I could fly on a plane. I woke up in 2021 and it’s like “Want one last screw you?” and just...can 2020 please stop screwing me over? It’s March.

Anyway, the Jet is removed soon after, so no, this is not part of his new outfit. He goes right back to his Post-S4-Trauma-Normcore.

After wrestling this competition out of his brother’s hands and confusing everyone in the audience, Roland must have gotten the memo to cut the microphone before Seto got too excited and we were quickly ushered on to the next stage of the tournament.

One sec...the BTS Mashup playlist I just clicked on did a Black Swan X 7 rings mashup and it’s the worst thing my ears have ever heard.

Holy crap. I had to actually turn down my volume. Like...Ariana Grande already has music that has way too many overlapping singing parts on it--and then lets just stick a 52-person boy band on top? That’ll fix it. Yeah. Go ahead.

Wow. Even I had to change the song and you know how much I enjoy pop culture mistakes.

Spot the Mickey but like a million times easier because it’s a Massive Dick Shaped Dragon.

Yep. That’s my grocery shopping outfit. Except maybe not a lab coat and a duel disk. Wish I had a duel disk, that would make social distancing just a hell ton earlier. Just a “Yo, only one person in checkout, please” and then bap them on the head with a propelled discuss/hologram.

Anyway, Grocery shopping/Doctor man dueled the Purple Hair Boy, and considering that Purple Hair got screen time and shook Yugi’s hand once--I think that Doctor man doesn’t stand a freakin chance.

Good. I hate him.

Also, every time he breathes he’s gonna fog up his glasses. I have experience in this area. He can’t read his own cards in the same way I can’t read my phone if I’m in the refrigerated aisle.

So the way this tournament works, is everyone has to sit in the stadium to watch the show. Kinda like showing up to a football stadium just to watch a recorded TV monitor...but then again...that is how it feels to watch a football game at a football stadium when it’s live (at least with the tickets I usually get.)

And as we watch Grandpa waiting for his competitor, we find out that his competitor (Joey) is too busy eating snacks to give him the time of day.

Why do cartoon hot dogs always have lettuce? Is that seriously supposed to be relish? Or is there a place in the world where you put lettuce on your hot dog?

Sorry, bro has just informed of his favorite hot dog order, which is absolutely terrible so I will share it with you: a Five Guys hot dog with ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, onions, mushrooms, pickled peppers, and you guessed it--topped with freakin lettuce.

My own kin. How am I over 30 and just finding out that my baby brother thinks it’s normal to walk into a restaurant with normal god-fearing law-abiding people and order lettuce and mushrooms on a hot dog?

I have fully failed him.

The rest of this episode is watching both Joey Wheeler and Mokuba have a shared panic attack while Seto does freakin nothing.

Please remember that Seto has both a jetpack and a dragon wife plane and could have easily solved this problem. But nah.

Then again, Seto Kaiba has given this crew so MANY rides, that maybe he’s tired of being the Soccer Mom for the team?

Like they don’t actually say this episode, but Seto was the one in charge of like...this entire place, do you think he made the 2 for 1 special just to get Joey where it hurts the most? Or does it actually not take any subterfuge to screw Joey Wheeler because he’s just naturally this way?

Like Mokuba wasn’t there when Joey was told “stay right here, and then we will all go together to fight Dartz” and Joey was like “I’mma save Mai from herself although she told me not to!” and then he Hella Died. But, Mokuba did see the result, AKA, Joey’s dead body being carried on the back of Tristan. Maybe Mokuba never realized that Joey died because he went out of his way to be late?

Lets do a tally of every time I can recall with my dodgy memory that Joey was threatened to be DQ’d/pretty much was DQ’d either by his own fault or no fault of his own

-When he wasn’t allowed to go on the boat to Murder Island because he was a stupid nobody kid who did not have a dueling glove

-When he wasn’t actually supposed to be in Pegasus’ tourney and was, in fact, secretly using half of Yugi’s entrance ticket the entire time

-when Bandit Keith stole the ticket that Joey got from Yugi so then Joey had to borrow Mai’s ticket although she had just used it so it really shouldn't have counted. Because, really anyone could have just piggy backed off of each other’s ticket until the whole boat went through that castle.

-When his account was hacked to get entered into Kaiba’s tourney when Kaiba very clearly told him he could not apply solely because he was Joey Wheeler.

-When he was late to his sister’s eye surgery because he got mugged by Marik’s Rare Hunters, so she almost refused to do the surgery.

-When Joey got possessed by Marik, and as Marik, threatened to murder everyone else in the tournament including both of the Kaiba brother’s who’s tournament it was, and then chained himself to Yugi Muto to throw both of them to the bottom of the ocean.

-I think there was a point when he threatened to attack Kaiba in Kaiba’s own tourney while not possessed? Like several times?

-when he got struck by Lightning and almost did not stand up fast enough after being struck by lightning, which is apparently a type of DQ in Duel Monsters.

-When he tried to save Mai from getting hit by a fireball, but then Yugi did it instead, and then so many people were standing on the dueling platform that Kaiba couldn’t possibly DQ them all.

-When he entered the restricted area of the blimp in order to hassle Kaiba into landing the Blimp, which Kaiba did not do.

-When Marik killed Joey before Joey could press the “go” button on his duel disk to play the card that should have won Joey the match.

-When he was dueling a lawyer in a digital universe but then the dice was like...weighted? So Noah had to walk over and be like “The hell is this weighted dice? This is my perfect digital world? How did you even do that?” and then Joey won because the match was no longer legit.

-When Joey yelled at Noah too much and so Noah turned Joey to stone for being a rude ass spectator

-When Mai was like “Wheeler and Valon, listen closely: do NOT murder each other” and then Joey did a murder on Valon so she was like “I guess I have no choice, I was very clear” and killed Joey straight up.

-When Joey decided to block Seto’s fireballs while Joey Wheeler WAS a playing card, somehow disrespecting both Dartz and Seto Kaiba at the same time.

-When Joey was playing cards but then got absorbed into a giant Leviathan and basically couldn’t play anymore after that.

-There’s probably hell ton of S0 stuff I just haven’t seen yet.

-This episode

And Joey runs fast for a montage of wacky things that really have no business being in a theme park. Things like this:

(remember when Bakura almost died from a rock that ended up being a balloon? It comes full circle.)

The stuff that the Kaiba brother’s think is normal and fun.

Anyway Joey fights off a bunch of hologram snakes and bats and everyone is like “Should we tell him it’s just holograms???” And it’s like wow, guys, how many times have these ‘holograms’ straight up murdered Joey Wheeler and everyone else on this cast? Too many? Because I have a google doc with so many deaths on it. 7,805,844,048, to be exact.

Anyway, he gets there with five seconds to spare and Mokuba’s like “well at least you were still entertaining while we filmed you in front of a live audience being a total spaz for 15 minutes straight, so I’ll let you go.”

Grandpa and Joey start playing, Joey completely oblivious that this is just an older Muto, while Hawkins walks up awkwardly and is like “hey guys. I’m so sorry about this.”

(welcome to my font choices, for those new here, I have to make weird font color choices to make sure it’s legible for the colorblind and also for the non-colorblind. This one is not much contrast, so I may change it up in the future, but for now, this is Grandpa Muto’s new font. I apologize to every graphic designer reading this. Please don’t tell anyone who has ever hired me for graphic design about this blog.)

What’s funny about this exchange is that after they find out that Yugi’s Grandpa is Apdnarg (HOLY my brain cannot get around the spelling for that, and I will not change it in the caps. I cannot do a ‘pdn’ ever again), they don’t stand on his side of the field or anything. Hawkins is legit Solomon Muto’s only fan during this exchange and like...damn. Way not to back your Grandpa, Yugi.

Yugi immediately strides up to Mokuba to non-confrontation-ally inform him that he has stepped over a line and Mokuba is like “what are these things you say called ‘lines?’”

According to Mokuba, Solomon Muto begged him to be in the competition so he could relive his glory days (glory days making no sense here, because the game has only been released for the past 15 years, so glory days is like...the before times that can only be referring to disgraced archeologists and Pegasus ((who is, in his own way...a disgraced archeologist, too))) and Mokuba was like

“You trained Yugi Muto, right? Hey that’s good enough for me. This drama is gold. People will eat it up. Hell yes. Don’t be afraid to abduct him a little bit. Maybe trap a couple people in a digital hellscape for a little while? Now we go by Pegasus house rules here, so fire as many lasers as you want, but just make sure not to hit anyone in the face. Oh man, we are going to be swimming in cash. Love it, Muto Sr, love it.”

But I dunno, I feel like Grandpa won’t make it past next episode. It is Joey. We kinda need him to make it past Ep 4 of the arc. If Grandpa Muto becomes the new Joey Wheeler, that will be a weird transition for this show to make.

But that’s all for today, as always, here is the link to read these in chrono order becuase there’s SO MANY that you don’t need to read backwards--don’t do it--just use the chrono tag (and I don’t know if you can add compound tags, but I did separate the Season from the Episode, so if you write S4, it should only pop up stuff from S4. I didn't’ do that to seasons 1-3 though because I just...didn’t.)

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

And because I brought it up: here it is, the best BTS Mashup that I found on my deep dive. Like legit--this one isn’t a mess:

Most of other ones are horrible in a fascinating way. Like I’m not even a BTS fan, I think I sort of age out of that metric, I’m just bored and quarantined. And lets be real, we all appreciate a good bop when we hear it.

I started rambling about my experience with kh and then it turned into khux and then it just turned into me rambling about Ryou and my art journey????? enjoy I guess,

it’s very long but there’s art in there :)

It’s funny to think about my kh journey as a whole tbh, I grew up watching my mom play video games, which included kh1 and 2. I wasn’t allowed to play the playstation2 we owned BUT I did have a gameboy so the first game I played was CoM (after my mom finished it ofc,) so I guess you could say I’ve always been passionate about kh “””side games””” lmao but I did fall off of kh very quickly bc again, I wasn’t allowed to play our PS2 and also I Am A Terrible Gamer I’ve Never Finished CoM I’m sorry you all had to find out like this, but then 358/2 came out when I was in middle school and!!! I didn’t care and I didn’t play idk why lol

Anyway, fast forward to high school I’m like 15 and my older sister, who HAS been keeping up with kh, has a wallpaper on her phone of roxas and ventus. And bc I haven’t kept up I say “nice roxas wallpaper” and she says “thanks but it’s roxas and ventus” and I proceeded to get so mad that I was determined to prove to her that her wallpaper was just roxas twice and then I fell down the BBS rabbit hole and suddenly I was reading about vanitas and then I’m reading the fan translations of the BBS novel and I’m crying??? I am sobbing???? and that’s how I actually got into kh for real lol we are vanitas stans before we are people,

It’s so funny how I thought I was some kh super fan, knowing all this stuff that I spent so long reading and rewatching cutscene movies, but I never once, SOMEHOW NEVER ever came across khx. It’s so absurd and bizarre I seriously have no idea how I never once encountered khx prior to khux. I suppose that has to do with the fact I wasn’t involved in the fandom? In early high school I had stepped away from fandoms as a whole and I didn’t have any interest in really posting content or interacting with fans anymore bc of how burnt out I was from a previous fandom,

but khux released! and I was so hype and excited for it! on launch day I was a senior in high school, I had ran around to every “nerd” and weeb I could find in school to ask them to join my party and fun fact about me is I have crippling social anxiety I literally refuse to start conversations irl so holy shit I was OUT HERE doing the MOST

My player just originally had my name (Matt) but everyone in my party had fun names so Ryou was born! High school was one big yugioh phase for me and ryou bakura is one of my favorite characters ever so it was just the logical name choice lol I quickly started creating Ryou, the character, as well. I was also leaving my homestuck phase and that + vanitas obsession made This character design (art circa 2016)

If y’all are familiar with my kh oc’s you might notice that keyblade now belongs to my kid Monty LOL

Anyway that got scrapped quickly for the chip and dale outfit (which is where Ryou’s trademark goggles are from <3) Goggles have been a staple of my character designs for a LONG TIME so like, it had to be done, (that’s a separate ramble about a separate oc tho)

OG Ryou was an interesting guy; he was a young party leader with this overwhelming responsibility on his shoulders bc of his status as a party leader. In his original story, he also struggled heavily with darkness, much like Terra but for Ryou it was more that the darkness was controlling him and not like a source of power like it was for Terra

A big part of early Ryou I kept, however, was the crushing awareness of loss. One of my party members (the strongest one at the time,) had left without saying a word and I was very confused and hurt. This was around the time the ephemera plot was happening so I decided to incorporate it into Ryou’s story; having him experience losing a friend to darkness since it’s so normal for wielders in Daybreak Town to just disappear, and this would unintentionally become a theme for both me and Ryou as khux friends would just randomly disappear.

I was desperate for khux at this point and I decided to watch the fan translations for khx and GOD, god, was I obsessed. I couldn’t stop thinking about the foretellers. And I’m not going off about that here bc I already did that, but I actually started entering fandom again! I did it slowly, I started on tumblr before this blog was made altho it was me sending anons to the few khux related blogs I could have lol a friend convinced me to get twitter where I got involved with the ffxv fandom, which led me to the kh fandom and eventually the khux fandom there which is what REALLY got me going on khux.

I joined discord servers, most of the servers I’m in are khux related, and from there I joined the khux oc rp (shout out to anyone there who might be reading this lol here’s some art from the beginning of the rp,)

It’s SO FUNNY how the RP influenced me so heavily. I hadn’t RP’d in YEARS, I used to have a strict no oc rp policy, but here I was? And the funny part is, I had barely developed Ryou. I had scrapped his original story and all I had was POST WAR Ryou so I literally had to reverse write him; I had only ever written him as a depressed, guilt ridden adult, but it was a fucking blast and I have such fond memories of this rp when it was active,

But anyway, this encouraged me to get more serious about art! I started drawing, writing, cosplaying, and roleplaying when I hadn’t done any of that stuff in a very long time. The first time I ever drew a background was for a deviant art khux competition actually LOL

also! I always think extremely fondly of the drawing I did of Aced in the keyblade war. It was also one of the first backgrounds I ever drew and it felt like my real starting point in the khux fandom. It got a ton of notes on here and someone wrote a tiny fic in a reblog which just made me SO HAPPY like it really felt like people were noticing me :) I was going to draw a matching Ira but!! I just never did!! One day tho, it’s on my art bucket list to redraw this along with Ira,

Aside from my personal growth, khux was great for my social life ngl, I made SO MANY friends online and got to meet a ton of people irl over the years! It’s crazy to think about all the people I now know and talk to? It honestly makes me really emotional. I’ll never forget taking the train into NYC and meeting up with discord friends. Going to conventions and talking with people about the latest khux update? Absolutely insane and those were some GOOD TIMES, if I thanked every khux friend or even just person who made an impact on me then we’d be here for a LONG TIME,

Fun fact, for my Lauriam cosplay all I needed to buy was the wig I just owned his outfit LOL also? Probably retiring that cosplay ngl people treated me like absolute garbage when I wore him and it led to a lot of confidence issues for awhile ngl. That’s probably one of the only memorable negative experiences I have with khux; it was great when khux people recognized me but for kh fans that weren’t in khux? They were FUCKING MEAN??? fuck kh fandom at large, I only care about khux fandom,

This leads me to another huge part of my experience in khux fandom: THEORIES!! I used to write SO MANY and oh my god my brain was so full all the time. It was a huge appeal for me in the fandom; I had been previously writing theory posts in the RWBY fandom and it just migrated over to khux for me lol I had done a ton of theorizing around Lauriam tbh, it was really the only reason I liked his character at all bc initially I did not care about the dandelions, anyone who wasn’t Skuld I was like “please leave Now thanks”

A funny part of khux fandom I never intended to be apart of is the MEMES, I really only started doing memes as stress relief bc college had me so busy all I had time/energy for was these quick little shit post drawings.

The first meme I made, file name “invi despair” LOL we need to get her a girlfriend smh anyway, I think in my senior year of college I did a bunch of rapid fire memes all in one month bc the stress of finals was getting so bad afdgfhdgf as far as I know my impact on this fandom will be my memes bc all I do now is enter a kh/khux server and introduce myself and I go “yeah I draw art. here’s a meme” and everyone goes OH YOU, honestly I am nothing if not a clown

I’ve talked so much idk where I’m going with this. Khux is just a good game even if the gameplay actually kind of really sucks yknow lol but it was the first game I played where I like, REALLY got into the meta and the mechanics. I used to read so much on the mechanics and watch youtube videos on which medals were worth pulling for. I was never a whale or a top player exactly, but I could rank well if I tried lol I’ve made it to the top 100 for solo rankings, my party has made it to top 10, and in pvp I’ve made top 300. I’m not the highest level in my party but FUCK do I know how to manipulate this game LOL

And with all that hard work, the strategies, the theorizing, the content I’ve made-- it’s been my life for 5 years. I’ve logged into khux almost every single day. At the end, I have logged 1820 days in khux out of 1910 days. Kinda crazy. Crazier I’ve never spent money on khux either lol the only “money” gone into it was one time my mom gave me a google play store gift card and I used it on my birthday for a VIP xemnas medal which eventually made it to regular pulls anyway but it was nice and a little treat :)

I’m not a gacha fan, I don’t care for it, so I don’t think I’ll be touching another gacha again. But for kh? This was pretty fucking awesome, even if it sucked a lot sometimes LOL It was worth it for the people I’ve met most of all I think. I would honestly be a completely different person without khux and that’s REALLY insane to think about.

Alright I’ve kept meaning to do sort of an infodump on my projects because I’ve been really slipping lately.  I dunno how obvious it is?  Probably kind of obvious.  I’ve also been really bad about checking messages and responding to people.  So I figure I can write up a status report and then point to it when I’ve been inadequate about communication.

My IRL job has been wiping me out.  I’ve been getting short, labor-intensive shifts in the evenings, and then random surprise morning shifts shortly after, which has been really hard to manage my time around.  My sleep schedule has been extremely broken and it’s affected my productivity a LOT.  Leadership in my department is about to shuffle around and I’ve been interviewed for the manager position.  If I get it I’ll be working an entirely different schedule, which could potentially be good for my sleepy brain but will definitely leave me with less art time overall.  I’ve also been enduring some back/shoulder issues over the past few months.  Nothing urgent, but it’s limiting how much I can draw each day.  I think replacing my desk chair is going to be a big factor but it’s not the only factor.  I just need to be a smart human and take care of my joints and not hunch over so much.  Working on it.

Here’s the current status of my various art projects:

Laserwing

I ended chapter 5 in June and said I would finish up some other side projects before I start concept work for chapter 6.  One of the projects I needed to finish was the Popkas Yugioh season 4 special, which I finished.  The other big one was my Neonmob card set, which is most of what I’ve been posting lately.  Once that’s out of the way (see below) I need to do concept art.  Chapter 6 will put all the Laserwing characters in new outfits which will need reference sheets.  I’ll need background sketches and layout diagrams so I don’t have furniture shuffle randomly around between scenes.  I also need to sketch out the chapter 6 draft page by page.  I’ve made Laserwing in GIMP up until this point and am going to try switching to Krita for chapter 6.  I might need to do a test page to make sure my process transfers over well into a slightly different system.  Once I’m ready to make real pages, those take a while.  Chapter 5 pages were going up maybe every 2-3 weeks.  I don’t know how many pages are going to be in chapter 6, nor can I say for sure how many chapters are in Laserwing.  An old outline had maybe 40 chapters.  It’s a story with a defined end point, I can say that for certain, but it’s intended to be long.

Popkas

I’ve had issues with Popkas for a while.  I keep picking new themes for dailies, thinking they’re going to be quick and easy, but then end up making them hard for myself.  It’s been to my benefit, I’ve forced myself into learning new art programs and techniques through Popkas.  But it’s hard to keep up the daily schedule.  Currently I’m doing the Paper Mario: TTYD bestiary, which has 124 enemies.  At a rate of one per day, by the time I’ve finished them, Pokemon Sword and Shield should be released and we’ll have all the info about the new Pokemon.  Those will be drawn in ‘Popka classic’ style (scribbly shitposts).  After those are finished, unless my IRL work situation dramatically changes, I’m considering putting Popkas on pause.  In order to do any other monster dexes I’d have to do a lot more research (for example, people have suggested Yokai Watch but I’ve never played one) in order to have anything meaningful to post.  Same deal with Popka Specials (the anime writeup things), those take prep time and anime-watching time that I might not have.  I don’t ever want to end Popkas, but a hiatus might be necessary.

Angelfire Hime

Did anyone even know about Angelfire Hime?  Well I want to post more but that involves finding, scanning, retouching, and transcribing my old high school scribble comics.  It takes as long as any other project but is also low priority because it’s all old content.  Nobody is waiting for the latest update because nobody but me actually knows what that content is, and possibly nobody but me can even read it.  It’s more a personal journey of self-reflection than anything.  I want to return to it but not at the expense of better work.

MeganFantastic dot com

I had a domain name linked to a tumblr that was supposed to be my news blog/front page and I barely use it.  Also, I let the domain registration drop.  Also, I had let a typo in my banner graphic go unnoticed for YEARS and still haven’t fixed it.  Even now, I’m writing this big post to my personal blog instead of the one for news.  The idea was to eventually buy some real hosting and make MeganFantastic a whole site of its own, but that’s a lot of work.  I’ve got a generally good idea of HOW I’d do it (probably wordpress) but I’m not a coder, it would take a lot of trial and error.  This would be a huge undertaking and eventually Laserwing, Popkas, and all my other junk would be contained on one big non-tumblr website.  But it’s uhhhhh not happening yet.

Hundera Youtube

My contribution to our LP channel is to show up, talk about video games, and then draw title cards.  All recording, editing, and channel management is maintained by Josh, and I can’t speak on his behalf about our update schedule.  I will say there are a lot of half-finished games we want to return to.  I will also say that when the new Pokemon comes out Josh is dead set on recording it.  I don’t know if he intends that to be a stream or a regular LP.  In the meantime he streams Minecraft with his friends every Sunday and we fit in our own streams and recordings when we can.

Commissions/Patron Art/etc

I’ve not been very good about this lately and I’m truly sorry!  I have a few things I’m working on, a few things I’ve promised to start working on, and a few things I’ve told people I can do once my workload lightens up, which hasn’t been happening yet.  I really don’t have an answer.  I almost never delete anything so if I’ve been sent a message in any form I should still have it, and I’ll be sure not to forget anyone.  And if I do forget someone feel free to throw rocks at me!

Rane Story 2

What the heck is Rane Story 2?  Well I guess I have to explain Neonmob.  Imagine if ChickenSmoothie and DeviantART had a baby.  It’s a virtual trading card site, which is fun and cute, and I’m drawing out a card series to release on there.  I’ve been using it as practice for painting backgrounds and to fill out some backstory for some 4th-string Laserwing support characters.  Before Mistaire came to Earth, she went to space high school, and that’s where Rane Story takes place.  You can preview the series, and when it’s finished I’ll post about it.  I’ll also repost all the art to DA.  If you scroll through the last several pages of this blog you’ll see some of the art.  I’ve put a lot of my brain energy into getting this done in spite of my work/sleep issues because I don’t want to resume Laserwing until I’ve finished it.  This is what’s stolen my life, guys.  Right now I have 6 more cards to make, and then I have to write and finalize all the text.  I should be done SOON.

Pokemon Nonsense

When my back and shoulder get too hurty and I have to take a break from drawing, one of the easy things to do is whip out a DS and play Pokemon.  I’ve done a lot of twitter shitposting about it lately.  I’ve also drawn up a bunch of gijinkas for my Pokemon.  I’m talking about it now because I also intend to draw up gijinkas for Pokemon to trade away.  I’ve already done a few.  However, I don’t know for sure how I’m going to distribute them.  The idea is people can trade actual Pokemon with me (in either X or Let’s Go Eevee) and the Pokemon they get will come with a character design for you to keep.  I was thinking I might do a discord server for organizing trades and such, but I haven’t yet.  Mostly because it’s low priority and I have SO many other things going on.  But actually playing Pokemon can happen when I’m too fatigued for real work, so the horde keeps growing.  Hopefully my posts and scribbles about it are entertaining.

I feel like there’s other projects on hold that I wanted to discuss, but right now I’m too braintired to remember, and some of my ‘projects’ never actually got talked about online so nobody’s waiting for an update.  My greatest problem seems to be that I try to juggle too many pointless side projects and then drop them all over the place.  Sometimes I’ll shitpost about an idea and even I won’t be sure if I was serious or not.  How do I end this post?  I don’t know.

tl;dr Megan is SLEEPY and dropped her spaghetti everywhere but somehow still has time to play POKEMON and WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

Anonymous Butterfly Soup asks, batch 6

IT’S RIGHT NEXT TO THE BIG TOBLERONE I’M ALIVE

Being covered by a big gaming news site was one of my fantasies, so I’m elated this happened. The article is here, for anyone curious! 

More asks under the cut!! 

A note before I start -- if you submitted a bug, I saw it!! Thank you for reporting them!

Yes, she did! Her Facebook profile pic is her posing in front of a store at the mall, and you can see Jun’s reflection taking the pic in the store window

Akarsha didn’t realize, but Noelle totally heard it. Noelle kind of had a sense of what was up already, but actually hearing it worried her. She was debating whether or not to intervene when Min showed up. 

On a small note, Min trying to cheer Akarsha up slightly improved Noelle’s opinion of Min (even though Min and Akarsha almost end up fist fighting again afterward).  

Min plays video games too, imagine them playing Team Fortress 2 and later Overwatch together... Diya, Min, and Noelle have all seen some basic anime like Pokemon, Digimon, and Yugioh, but Akarsha’s the only real hardcore anime fan. I’m glad she met “Sakura”, “Yuki”, and Ester through the baseball club, because now she has weeb friends to talk about that stuff too. 

(Ester is less obvious about liking anime than “Sakura” and “Yuki”, but you can still tell by her outfit’s style. Lowkey but not lowkey enough)

I can totally relate to all of them, but I’d say Diya!

Yes, they grow close over the course of the year and Noelle has to try really hard not to cry LMAO They still keep in touch afterward. 

Yep, they both feel this huge gulf between themselves and their parents due to cultural differences. Many Asian immigrant parents are extremely conservative so it feels like they’re on a completely different wavelength from you, and at the same time they have complete power over you. It’s kind of a bad feeling.  

...Also, shadowing their faces saved me the work of drawing their different facial expressions. 

Min was actually out of town when the fire happened, so Diya had to call her and tell her what happened :( Diya (and eventually Min) sleeps on Noelle’s couch for a bit. Noelle and Akarsha aren’t living together at the time and Noelle has the nicer/cleaner apartment  

It sounds really miserable, but they’re ok in the end

Noelle's passion is math and science, so she definitely ends up doing something in STEM that she likes, just not what her parents were expecting. Akarsha is similar and becomes a software engineer -- They’re actually both naturally interested in those subjects, which says a lot about how bad the parental pressure really is.  

I like to think Diya and Min actually manage to break into minor league baseball and eventually MLB

Most of my outfit inspiration comes from my tumblr/twitter feeds. I wish I could recommend you fashion blogs, but I’m not following any?! They’re all just fandom mutuals who randomly reblog cool clothes sometimes. 

I used to have trouble deciding what clothes characters should wear, so every time I see an image of a cool outfit I save it for reference. After doing this since high school I now have...uh...

And those are just the unorganized ones, the ones i have in folders are like...

Now if I’m stumped for what a character should wear, I just browse these massive folders for inspiration. I can actually pinpoint the omocat jacket that gave me the idea for Min’s:

I thought, “it should be a warning: high voltage sign on the back!”, and then I just went on Google images and looked them up. 

Sorry if this isn’t helpful! 

I don’t think Min really minds, but The Squad is even better! Deke squad

Yeah, Akarsha’s parents wouldn’t approve either. Out of the main four, Diya is actually the only one whose parents are fine with it 

Ooh thank you this is an awesome compliment to receive!! 

I REALLY want to make merch some day! I’ve never made physical merch before and I’m a bit intimidated not knowing where to start/how to handle shipping, so it may take a while, though :( 

I didn’t give anyone last names and I doubt I ever will, sorry! Feel free to give them your own if you want 

This was intentional, but at the same time I can’t believe everyone IMMEDIATELY noticed. You guys are so in tune with 4/20

Diya and Akarsha are Indian, Min-seo is Korean, Noelle is Taiwanese, Chryssa is black, Liz is…mostly Irish, I think? “Sakura” is Pakistani, “Yuki” is Filipino. I’ve heard a lot of guesses for Ester, but she’s half black and half Chinese!

i got u son!!

Thank you, I really love hearing this because the feeling that this narrative was missing was what made me want to make this game in the first place! 

you might feel a bit more sympathetic to min when you reach her part of the story! Your mileage may vary, though

If you want to make a game like Butterfly Soup, try the program Renpy! It doesn’t require programming experience to use and there’s a lot of guides online on how to use it.  My NUMBER ONE BIG ADVICE IS MAKE A REALLY, REALLY SMALL GAME FIRST. My first game, Pom Gets Wi-Fi, was only 30-45 minutes long. If you make it any bigger than that, you almost guaranteed will never finish it. The dream game that you want to make is probably longer than that, so don’t make your dream game first! That’s kind of why I was so alarmed when Pom Gets Wi-Fi took off -- I’m very proud of that game and still love it, but it was like my test for the games I dreamed of making like Butterfly Soup. (Also, 17 is a great age to start making games, good for you!) Other stuff I’ve learned:  Programming: I mostly learned super specific things that can’t be easily applied to other situations. If you want to know how I did a specific thing in Renpy, message me! 

Writing: If you’re struggling to write something, it might be for a good reason. Maybe the scene is unnecessary or boring, your mental image of the scene doesn’t translate well to the format of your work, or the character motivations aren’t convincing enough. Deleting a scene altogether isn’t defeat, sometimes it’s the best path forward! Give up more! 

Artwise: Drawing for non-pixel art games takes FOREVER. The sheer amount of time it’d take to draw all the characters and backgrounds was so demoralizing that I found myself procrastinating because I didn’t want to tackle it. Not only did I have a large cast of characters (9 in the baseball club alone), but because of flashbacks, I had to draw half of them again as kids!

To anyone thinking about making a game by themselves, SERIOUSLY consider making it a pixel art game. If you’re that set on making a non-pixel art game, SEVERELY limit the number of characters and backgrounds you have to draw!! I’m begging u...learn from my mistakes... 

You’re welcome!!! :> 

I loved USC! The Interactive Media major was cool and fun -- I met a lot of good friends through the program! It was probably the best few years of my life. 

Unfortunately...I felt like it did nothing to prepare me for finding a job. There are very few classes for aspiring game artists and game writers. There wasn’t a single professor who worked as an artist at a triple A studio while I was there, and only one who was a major writer. I get that you gotta be self motivated, but I wish I had someone in the faculty I felt comfortable discussing my career path with. Some of the professors had clear favorite students and if you weren’t one of them, they’d make very little effort to reach out to you or interact with you. I know I'm introverted, but I never got this feeling with my general elective classes -- I had plenty of chances to talk to my writing professor, architecture lab professor, art teacher, etc., yet I came out of a lot of my Interactive Media classes wondering if my professors even remembered me.  

If you want to be a game designer or maybe a writer, and are really focused/outgoing with your professors, it could be the major for you, but if you want to be a game artist I’m not sure it’s the best place to be. 

I was actually crazy stressed out when it came out, so nope! It’s happening this weekend  

I was super nervous right after it came out because I was worried people wouldn’t like it! I put a lot into it, and actually teared up writing parts of it, so it was a ridiculous relief to see that people were touched by it. I’m really happy now and really want to make a sequel.  Also, I’m beyond grateful to my friends/mutuals/fans spreading the word and tweeting/posting about the game and making fancontent ;~; I really owe everything to them!  A few people wondered about how I was holding up attention-wise, and actually...as a fanartist I sort of thrive on this, haha. Also, this is much less intense than when I released Pom Gets Wi-Fi. For perspective, it took Butterfly Soup a week to reach the number of downloads Pom got in one day. 

Good!!! You’re welcome! 

you’re welcome!!! 

Hello all of you lovelies! ^^

For the second year Zexal Month will be hosted by only myself ( @wendymoto ). @yaminoamber has a big big work commitment IN FRANCE CAN YOU BELIEVE IT. Our lovely Amber will be ascended into French territory and won’t be back until December. She’ll have bits and pieces of internet, but work comes first! So please send Amber your wishes and luck. <3

Before I start the information, I would just like to mention that with each week, I will be holding a ‘Content Creator’s Showcase’. Information on how this works and how to ‘enter’ will be posted  separately from this information post.  Stay tuned!

For the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the ZEXAL MONTH INFORMATION. 

This year I wanted to do things a bit differently to allow a lot more creative subjects. and because of this, weeks might look messy. Nevertheless I will learn from it if things don’t go as planned or if anyone has any concerns or ideas for next year, feel free to message me. 

How you choose to contribute is entirely up to you.

For example, you could gif, draw, write, edit etc. The options are endless. Participating every day is not required! 

Rules:

DO NOT REPOST ART FROM OTHER SITES WITHOUT PERMISSION. This includes artists on tumblr. Do not take their work without permission. These include sites that most reposted art are found. (E.g Paintbucket and sites like it, pinterest, instagram etc.) 

Respect everyone’s work, headcanon etc. 

Please respect any OC’s, fan characters, self inserts etc. Even if you don’t like them, they would mean the world to the creators. I’ll be tagging as ‘zexal oc’s’ if you would like to blacklist that. 

Please tag ‘nsfw’ things as they are. Or triggers if you feel the need too.

ALL INFORMATION UNDER THE CUT

Tuesday 1st - Sunday 6th

Tuesday:  

Design a new outfit DAY! 

This is self explanatory. Pick characters and draw any and all outfits you like. Put them in some of your clothes if you want!  Be as fashionable or as ridiculous as you like (This day was inspired by Yuuma in episode 9!)

Wednesday:  

Different Characters who were not Barians or Astral beings as Barians or Astral beings  E.g.  Draw/write their past or a scene with other Barians/Astral beings.

Anyone who has thought of other characters as the Barian/Astral race, it’s your time to shine! You can use your imagination to experiment with design ideas, backstories, duels, scenes, headcanons and more. 

Thursday: 

ZEXAL imagines. (From the tumblr blogs) 

Pick one of the examples from the 100+ imagines blogs and go with it. You don’t have to use these blogs, they are just examples. Please link to the post from the imagines that you choose.      

http://alloftheimaginesblog.tumblr.com/ http://thefandomimagine.tumblr.com/        http://imagines-come-true.tumblr.com/ http://masterofimagines.tumblr.com/

Friday: 

Alternate Death Day:

As we know, many characters died in the last arc of Zexal.  Today is a day to re-do their deaths in perhaps a more meaningful/impactful/traumatic way.  Or if you prefer, plan the death of a character who didn’t actually die at all.  How would that go?  Let us know on Death Day!

Sat/Sun: Catch up/Preparing weekend.

Monday 7th - Sunday 13th

Monday:  

YGO/YGO ZEXAL crossover Day! (Any Yu-Gi-Oh! series crossed with ZEXAL.)

This one is as simple as anything. Only rule is you’re combining Yugioh and Yugioh: whether it’s one of the other series, from Season 0 to VRAINS, or with one of the many YGO movies, anything goes!

Tuesday:  

Card game crossovers Day. E.g. Vanguard, Magic of the Gather or even UNO. 

Any other card game crossovers with ZEXAL that you would love to show off. This day is for you!

For extra convenience, I have found a Magical Card Anime and Manga list and a mass list of Card Games. 

Wednesday:  

 Take your new/current fandom and ZEXAL and squish ‘em together! 

FANDOM’S EVERYWHERE. Fandom’s that you’re in now crossed with ZEXAL. Squish ‘em together in one huge pile  and display it for the world!  Due to the fact that we already had days for them, other YGOs and Card Game Anime are excluded: pick another fandom for this day!

Thursday:  

Question time! Any ZEXAL mysteries that weren’t solved that you wished were solved? 

List, describe or show your headcanons for those mysteries if you have any. 

Friday:

Free Crossover Day.

Any crossover with ZEXAL that you would like to make, plop them into a post and post it today!

Sat/Sun:  Catch up/Preparing weekend.

Monday 14th - Sunday 20th

Monday:

OC/Fan Character Day! 

Feel free to do anything with your OCs on this day! Show and explain them. Draw them in an outfit, tell us what they do, what decks they use or if they do not duel. Anything goes with OC’s today!

Tuesday: 

Self Insert Day. 

This day is mostly an experiment for Zexal Month. I’ve recently seen plenty of fandom’s do these kind of things, so if you like the idea of this day, post as much as you like. Make it successful and I shall bring it back in coming years 

If you’re looking for examples, you could write yourself talking to your favourite character about a certain thing. Maybe about another show/anime. Maybe yourself geeking out with Astral over Esper Robin/The Sparrow. Or just a drawing of yourself with your fav character. 

Wednesday: 

Different Protag Day. What do you think would have happened if somehow Yuma’s protag status was switched to someone else?

Any minor characters you think would be great as a Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonist. Writing, drawing, gifs, headcanons, etc. 

Thursday:

Since it is Tasuku Hatanaka’s birthday today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TASUKU HATANAKA.), on this lovely Thursday will be a tribute to anything and everything Yuuma. 

Possibilities are endless with this one. Yuuma is in everything, shipping, AUs etc. Go for it. Favourite moments, things Yuuma inspired you about, Yuuma videos, fanfics, art and AU’s. Or if you would like to share any in real life Kattobingu life moments. Nows your chance! 

Also, here is the link to his twitter if any of you would like to give him a message or shower him with love. 

Friday: 

Wishes that you wanted to happen. 

Things that you wish had happened that you would have loved that would have been great in canon. 

A challenge is waiting for you all. I challenge you to not think about shipping and ships with this one. As much as the majority of you ship just about anything and the kitchen sink in ZEXAL, what things would be great in canon that doesn’t include shipping. For example, Yuuma’s parents being able to go back home and be with their family again. 

Sat/Sun:  Catch up/Preparing weekend.

Monday 21st - Sunday 27th

Monday:

One True Pairing (OTP) Day.  

SPREAD YOUR OTPS ALL OVER THE PLACE. SHOW THE WORLD YOUR LOVE FOR PAIRINGS IN ZEXAL. SPREAD THEIR LEGS. (Stupid joke Wendy, stupid joke. But yet I still laughed at myself.)

Tuesday:

If a ship was canon, how would it go? 

Create all of your headcanons, imaginations, feels, into posts for the fandom to see!

Disclaimer: Dub and Sub day are experimental days. If you like them, make them successful.

Wednesday:

ZEXAL DUB DAY (All dubs, English, German, Italian etc.)  

For anyone who loves these dubs, feel free to gif or write anything to do with these dubs. I myself have posted some English dub gifs in the past. 

Here is also Eli Jay’s twitter if you would like to send him a nice message about the English dub.

A challenge to anyone who doesn’t really like it, to write ONE or more things that they do like about it. Whether it be a certain voice, a few lines or the fact that they kept Yuuma’s full name.

Thursday:  

SUB DAY: (Anything subtitled related.) 

Today is more like an appreciation for the original ZEXAL subtitled. E.g. Redrawing a scene/cap into your style. 

If you did not participate last year, or you don’t really know what to do for today, you can use the information from Week 1 last year and put them all in a post. 

Friday: 

Palette day’s. Today and Monday. 

Use this palette I created to create any artwork that you would like to do. If you want, you can mix any of the days up with this palette, such as, using the sub day to create art of your favourite characters using the palette here. Or mix it up with the next day as well. I hope you guys like the colours I chose too. Also I would like to thank @metalgeartachyon for helping me with good palette colours. Love you miz miz. :)

Sat/Sun: Catch up/Preparing weekend. 

Monday 28th - Thursday 31st

Monday: 

Palette continued. 

Tuesday and Wednesday:

Words Day’s. 

Use any of these words to create any content that you wish. If you want, you can mix any of the days up with this as well. The choice is yours!

Thursday: 

Fan’s day!

Send ZEXAL fans that you know and enjoy content from, send them a nice message. Or if you would like to list the content creators that you enjoyed from this month into a post, feel free to do that also. Send them some love. :)

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me on this blog or even on my personal blog at @wendymoto.

We encourage anyone and everyone in the Zexal fandom to try and contribute or reblog others posts.

Let’s continue to enjoy and love ZEXAL for everything that it is and isn’t.

If you would like me to see them, please tag them with #ZexalMonth, #Zexal Month, #wendymoto. We will surely see and enjoy your posts as well. Amber will pop in from time to time to enjoy content. 

I’ll look forward to seeing the posts you guys make. 

Thank you everyone. <3

With ‘zeal’ Wendy and Amber . <3

I wish I could hug y'all!

In fact I think I will make it A LIFE GOAL I really really wanna someday be able to visit all my friends who live in different countries! Its something good to save up for, even if it'll probably take years. So.. lets randomly ramble in a journal about Plans!! IDEA THE FIRST TRIP THE FIRST FIRST THE FIRST: THE SEQUEL I think it'd probably make sense to go to america first, since i have a lot of close friends living there and I don't need to learn another language. (I am notoriously dumb...) But then afterwards I could set another goal to save up and visit another friend in another country! IT WILL NEVER ENDDDDD, THATS WHY ITS CALLED FRIENNNNDDDDD So far all I have confirmed is that two of my friends would be happy to see me if I was able to visit america, @darkeiya and @summon-daze But its not like I've exactly asked everyone else, so I dunno really how many people I might be able to visit. And it depends on time constraints too, i might only be able to spend a full day or two with the closest friends and maybe then if there's more than three of us we could all meet up together and hang out en masse? Depends on how tricky it'd be for everyone to get to the same place! SO! PLANS AND THINGS I NEED TO PREPARE! workin to figure out a precise money goal im gonna save for * Become Fab * no but srsly i wanna look my best if im meeting friends in person for the first ever time. need to acquire Cool T-Shirts * figure out what exactly you can and cannot take on an aeroplane, and how to deal with anxiety if i cant take electronics. Nothing's as distracting as videogames when you're freakin out! * DO NOT SCHEDULE ANYTHING ON THE 11th-14th OF THE MONTH. i have a bad history of my period landing on these days ONLY when i have to do something important. Or when its my birthday :P I dont need even more reason to feel nauseous on a plane! * figure out how many days the stay will be, and how many clothes etc I need to bring. probably a basic thing, but this is my first time going on a holiday alone so i need to write stuff down to make sure i remember! * figure out how long exactly I want to spend with each friend, and how long I can afford in hotel fees. And does a plane ticket cos more if you're staying for longer? * find out what kind of luggages are easiest to carry and how to carry three luggages when i have two hands. Can you tie them together and make a luggages train??? * Find some sort of secure way to carry large amounts of money. I'm gonna have to do that since I need to get all my currency converted before I go. I was thinking maybe a little matchbox tin chained to the inside of my coat or around my neck? Something where you couldnt get it without roughhousing with me, and it'd still be hard to pull it off the chain. Gives me a precious few extra minutes to yell for help/possibly bludgeon a guy with a suitcase * Figure out hotel(s) in different areas of america, depending on how far I'll have to travel. And figure out affordable ways to travel the difference if its not a situation where the friend can pick me up. And make sure they are cool hotels, not just the absolute minimum! i wanna make a fun tourist experience of the hotels!! I havent been in a hotel since I was a kid! * Possibly schedule it like a 'safehouse' thing? Returning to home base! I need to make sure I schedule around the potential anxiety of doing so much travel in a new place. So maybe schedule it out so I have a period of me-time in between visiting each friend? Itd probably cost too much to rent a hotel room for an entire day in between so maybe just schedule it out so I have half a day at least. I dunno if hotels allow you to sleep in all day tho, are there rules about what time you need to be up and out? * I'm kinda looking forward to using hotel beds and showers cos theyre like luxury compared to my house XD man, I wonder if I could get a place with a hot tub?? or the fabled mini-bar?? (which i would drink nothing of, but it would be fun to take photos!) And it'd be so cool to see what american breakfasts are like! And lol all my friends have just been like 'YOU NEED TO SEE OUR LOCAL RESTAURANTS' and im like... dude, i dont need to get fatter XD lets limit it to ONE! * I dunno if my friends would just wanna hang out in their local mall or something, or if I could visit their house and say hi to their family? that might be going too far. i'll still bring gifts they can give to their family tho, i wanna show my appreciation to everyone!! * are you allowed to bring extra empty suitcases onto the plane with you? I'm anticipating that knowing myself im probably gonna buy enough souveniers to need one. I'm planning to basically have half the money be for travel and then half again is just for buying NOVELTY HATS! * need to make sure to finally get a passport, and also consult heavily with my support worker and friends to make sure i have every form of travel documentation in order. I know stuff is... not good, in america right now. Thats probably why it'd be good that it'd take me years to save up for a visit, hopefully i'd be there after the next election. But I need to prepare anyway, in case border control is even more stringent. * Prepare the 'ol misgendering, because getting strip searched and treated as a suspicious threat is a very big reality for trans people. Having the wrong gender marker on your birth certificate is treated as 'this passport must be a forgery' rather than.. yknow.. transgender people exist. And then you need to be invasively handled by the guards to make sure you aren't packing explosives down your goddamn pants, they have to inspect the parts of you that you're most self concious about. *shudder* I've heard a lot of horror stories. I dunno if america is any better about it. But yeah I'm probably gonna have to just pass as female during boarding and hotels and stuff, and not wear my binder til i get to meet my friends. Saves trouble... Man, I might have to even go buy some more cliche feminine outfits or something, to make sure. Itd be fun burning them afterwards, I guess... * BRING GIFTS FOR FRIENDS N FAMILY! Figure out what is and isnt allowed to be transferred between countries. As far as I know I cant bring any form of food or drink right? I'm only allowed to eat the in-flight meals? Thats a shame cos I wanted to bring welsh cakes, theyre the only one of our local delicacies that's not a super acquired taste. (I tried bara bryth for the first time and DIED) And I dunno if anyone would be interested in silly souveniers of my country but I could get a pile of em if you are! Want an eight foot tall lovespoon? Want a giant inflatable daffodil? Want a bazillion ceramic dragons? * I am determined to bring at least one personalized super awesome gift for each person! It might just be an expensive merchandise of their fave show, it might be some form of handmade handicraft of one of their ocs! whatever I'm able to do! ^_^ * BRING SKETCHBOOKS SO WE CAN DRAW TOGETHER. LEARN THE WAYS OF THE AMERICAN MASTERS. * hey does anyone wanna trade trading cards yo. They'd be like the single easiest thing to bring with me, but I only have a handful of pokemon ones and i only really have one friend that I know likes yugioh. (And she's in england) * WE CAN FOOL AROUND LIKE DOOFS. God willing, if anyone wants to join me I will play water balloon tennis or jalapeno roulette or any sort of insane friend activity you can think of!! Gotta make up for the fact im a boring teetotaler. Tho lol I probably already act more drunk than the real drunks at a party XD * TAKE A LOT OF PHOTOS!! And possibly try and acquire a portable video camera? I'd only photo/video anyone if they gave me permission, and I wouldnt post it online unless I also had permission for that. I just wanna make a lot of memories and record them forever! Whenever I feel down, I can remember this amazing trip!!! * remember to get one of those plug adaptor thingies cos american plugs have one less prong. Gotta trade the pokeymons!! I know I can already do that easily online but BATTLING IN PERSON WOULD BE EPIC * ...bring an Ash cosplay? XD * no but seriously if i could schedule this right to coincide with an american convention or something that'd be awesome! EVEN MORE SOUVENIERS! And I could actually try cosplaying!! I'd have to find a character that suits me tho, I dont wanna get laughed at like everyone always does with fat people cosplaying thin characters. (Like... almost every character is thin, yo. let people do what they want) * possible idea: magma admin tabitha from pokemon? he's like the only fave I have who's chubby but not like... inherantly a comic relief ugly guy or a seventy year old grandpa. I wanted to do quina quen from final fantasy 9 but I dont think I have the charisma to pull it off. I'd get paranoid if people just treated the character how they treat the character, my brain would twist everything into an insult on my costume or myself XD also I kinda already look like tabitha, tho I'd either have to go without hairdye or like... wear a wig in my natural hair colour. Also his costume is super heavy and sweaty in a convention setting, according to what I;ve heard from other team magma cosplayers. (Makes you wonder how on earth they all wore it on a volcano!) * WHAT IS AN AMERICAN BISCUIT. They look like savoury welshcakes??? Learn about all the language differences! Man I wish I could bring food souveniers back with me, I'd never be able to try every single different foodstuff in america in one day without DYING. AND DYING AGAIN. * Collect product wrappers and advertisements! Its always really interesting to me to see the differences between countries! A friend mailed me an american cola once and the bottle was a whole different shape??? (he also mailed me a bunch of spent shotgun shells, which was kinda terrifying cos I was currently in a christian homeless shelter and I didnt exactly wanna cause trouble XD Apparantly it is totally legal to own unuseable bullets tho, as long as you dont have a gun.) * I dunno if any of my friends would be equally interested in similar things? i could take requests for weird british stuff to bring with me! * for summon-daze specifically: since we are both cuddly honest goofballs of childlike joy, maybe bring some of my plushie collection to show her? I'd usually just bring one as an emergency anti-anxiety measure. Tho the embarassment from having a full on meltdown in public and having to be seen hugging a plush toy to keep from crying means its not 100% effective. Only works good when I'm with people who arent judgmental. Secret pocket gengar plush is good for other times! (I've been squeezing that thing during doctors appointments and nobody noticed!) * extra reason why I'd love to visit my friends: visiting my friends's pets. I have been absolutely blessed by images of dazy's pet cat Pam, and apparantly her family has a few other cats and a dog! O_O WHAT AN AMAZING LIFE YOU LIVE. I always tell her to give pam a hug from me, and I know pam probably wouldnt like me very much when we first meet cos she's shy, but still I'd love to at least see her. I wish cats could somehow know that they give joy to people through the internet! * ...are you allowed to bring medications across the border? is there a procedure I need to go through to be allowed to bring my antidepressants? Would painkillers be allowed too? If not, is there anywhere I could buy plane-bring-onnable headache meds in the lobby or something? Just anticipating that I might get a stress migraine on the plane, cos it'd be my first time ever flying. * are you allowed to take photos out the plane window, if you use a non electronic camera? i know you cant really see anything but panning landscapes but it still sounds awesome!

Yugioh Ep 34 S4: The Boys (and Mai) are Back in Town

OK, back to the writing table! It’s been a while! So I made the mistake of like...scrolling down on the playlist when I realized...

This duel is like 6 episodes long (7 even? It’s a lot) and like...yo I have no idea if we’ll finish this season in 2020! Damn you 2020. Damn you.

But wtv, what I like about this side project of mine is that I don’t have to rush things, and I can really spend the time with each episode and just...enjoy the moment. So often I watch a whole series in like half a week and then it’s like...I don’t get to enjoy it. This series I’ve enjoyed for years now. That’s kinda neat. So...we’re gonna be slow...but lets just enjoy this weird ass anime moment together. 2020 deadlines are all fake anyway. I’m not even sure if 2020 was a real thing that happened or like...an alternate universe opening a door and letting through just so many terrible ghosts. We might never know.

Last we left off, everyone has decided to hallucinate Dartz’ terrible backstory.

Unfortunately we have NO darts in the past. Was really hoping to see at least one darts reference in this entire season, just one darts board on his wall. But alas, we will not have a Season Zero death darts match with Dartz. (Man I need to get back to Season Zero. And FMA. And a lot of things)

I feel like if I watched the original version there would have been some things different. First off...what ocean? Second off...well, we’ll get to that. There’s some things I think were changed for English TV.

Including censoring the nude people like it’s James Cameron’s Avatar.

Fun fact did you know that James Cameron’s Avatar was supposed to be ass naked and that they were supposed to have like 8 cat nipples? Yeah.

Man, that movie was a mistake. I’m so glad we all decided to collectively forget James Cameron’s Avatar.

(read more under the cut)

The actual locations of anything in Atlantis does not match up with it when it’s zoomed out. We have giant cities, we have sprawling wheat fields, and we have...THIS situation. This active volcano next to...pine trees?

I feel like they wanted it to feel vaguely Pompeii, since I know people like to put Atlantis in the Mediterranean. Maybe? Maybe that’s what they were going for here?

One of my top ten favorite Yugioh plot twists ever was finding out this episode that this snake who has no limbs somehow created these...rocks...that all of our main characters have been wearing and obsessing over this entire time.

And so this is my theory, this is the thesis of my Yugioh college paper. These rocks are turds. There’s no way these rocks aren’t turds. There’s no way this snake didn’t poop out a bunch of glowy magic stones and then stuff them into a volcano.

THE ROCKS WERE TURDS THE WHOLE TIME.

God bless, Yugioh.

Seto spends this entire episode groveling that he isn’t playing cards that will absolutely kill him. Like Mokuba, Seto isn’t happy until he’s cheating death.

(I really wish we got more super past future tech. I love that type of concept art. Instead, we just got a lot of flying boats--the same boat that I think the team flew on in S1 when they went to Seto’s video game universe.

So those boats are 10,000 years old? They existed in the 10,000 year old Pangea, huh?

Neat.)

Anyway, lets take a gander at Princess Zelda circa Ocarina of Time.

SUPER princess Zelda, and I know it’s not 1:1 but damn it feels so much like a late 90′s Princess Zelda outfit to me. Check out that PURPLE. That low poly circlet. The random ass sword. The thick ass belt. 

Also check out this super dead family.

Yo so this is a 00′s thing, a period of time where we liked to tell stories like LOST, with just a bunch of random ass plot twists in flashbacks instead of just...telling a story from start to finish. And can be a great and fun way to do it--but at the sacrifice of actually making me care about these characters while they were still alive.

Like I would have maybe cared about Chris and Ironheart dying if I had known that Dartz was killing his whole family? With...lightning strikes? But alas, these dumbasses decided NOT to tell us they were royal. It’s so strange both from a logical perspective and a storytelling perspective.

Man...missed opportunity, IMO, but I can see why they did it. The wanted the ‘Gotcha!’ I feel ambivalent about it, honestly.

And who am I kidding, people are still doing unpredictable plot twists this. It’s a way to tell a story. Is it the most impactful way? No. It’s...it’s a gotcha!

It’s at this point in the story that things start ramping up, but it’s not clear if it takes place over years or just a couple hours. People just start going a little cray and turning into Monsters.

Straight up, though--did they turn into monsters that already existed and are modern Duel Monster cards, or are the monsters from modern Duel Monsters cards actually descendants of Atlantis who were once human?

They don’t say, actually. Maybe...maybe every card was a human once. That would be a freakin weird Yugioh twist if Kuriboh was like a 45 year old dude.

PS Dartz was married...soak that in.

ROMANCE ON YUGIOH ALERT.

Love it every time. She was there for like...half a second, and Dartz was like throwing so much shade about how “only the people with evil in their hearts were turned” and it’s like...

...dude that’s your wife? OK then. I can see you guys got along real well.

Anyway, so long to the ship of IonaxDartz, you were here for even less than the amount of time that Seto dated Blue Eyes White Dragon in a hallucination, which kind of sets a new record for us.

This might be the shortest-lived ship in all of Yugioh and they have a 12 year old daughter and what I assume was a 12 year marriage for that entire time.

that is if they...HAD the concept of marriage 10,000 years ago on Atlantis Pangea island. Maybe?

I mean they might have not had the concept of dating and marriage yet because he gets over this like immediately. The show will never hover back to that time Dartz watched his own wife turn into a creature. We have no idea if he was like “OK honey lets uh...let just get you a haircut and maybe no one will notice?” We have no idea how long he was desperately trying to remain married to the beast that was no longer human and was also trying to eat everyone else in his court. We just don’t know.

Dartz just had a lot of other things to think about. He’s been King for like...a year...he’s only 21...he’s just doing a bad job at everything.

(Biden opens Pres Trumps bedroom in the White House come January and it’s juts full of glowing green evil golf balls) (OK that was my last 2020 joke I swear to you) 

Anyway, Dad is here, but it’s a little too late to really do anything with the situation. Everyone is worshiping little snake turds. What can you really do about that?

One eye golden, the other eye, the color of a glistening Leviathan turd.

After the rest of the surviving royal family was chased out of the castle, Dartz decides to just wave his hands around a lot.

I’m not entirely sure what Kings do...never really had one...but I think they’re supposed to do more than wave their hands at a crowd like the Pope. Like...everyone’s dead right? Like everyone?

Who’s he talking to?

Meanwhile, Chris and Ironheart decide to revive some monster tablets to get some real actual duel monsters to do their bidding.

So apparently some monsters are in the tablets, and other’s have just always been here...and...

They didn’t know violence but they did have the cards?

There’s a lot of vague stuff they didn’t feel like ever writing, because it would have probably been boring to write about. I guess we’ll just let our imagination fill in the rest and ignore all the inconsistencies. It’s a kid’s anime. well........kind of a kid’s anime. A lot of people have died this episode and I don’t even know how to add it to the death count.

How many people live in Atlantis? I dunno.

Are the inhabitants of Atlantis even dead, or are they just turned into Monster cards? I dunno. Clearly the Great Leviathan wasn’t awoken this first battle so...did all those souls get returned? I dunno.

Either way I’m not gonna bother the death count about it because I just do not know if they died, and since it was neither an implied death or an on screen death...I dunno.

Just feels like a bit of a translation snafu--where maybe they couldn’t kill that many people on English TV, so they were like “AND IT’S A DRAW!” but also...it could be canon to both versions. The leviathan didn’t work the first time, maybe no one died? I dunno.

In this shot, PS, Raphael just gently backs up out of this flying plane, and it looked really funny to me. I probs won’t cap it because it’s split between two other cuts, but just...they just kind of moved that sprite to the right really slowly, no animation, it was great.

Dartz decides to end the backstory hallucination, and we get introduced to a new twist--a better twist than that last one, that’s right, all our boys are cards!

Including this asshole!

Been a while since our boys have been cards! Man, I miss Bakura!

Yes, I looked back to earlier episodes this season to see what was going on with Pegasus’ new look. I think what happened is that it’s always been this shade of gray purple--but when you put purple next to it’s opposing color (which is yellow colors) it looks even MORE purple. It’s just how color works. Love color theory. mm. Good stuff. Good purple hair.

I can’t wait until Yami kills Yugi for the 3rd time in one season.

Anyway, that’s all for now, and like always, here’s a link to read these in chrono order.

Yugioh S4 Ep 18 pt 1: California Public Transit can Take you to Hell, but it Can’t Take You to the Freakin Mall

Apparently Tumblr did an update, joining the throng of techie websites that chose a godawful very open and round sans fontface that creates a hell ton of white-space.

Aaaaaa

Not quite sure why every website feels like they must make all websites look like a mobile site. I do enjoy having a dark mode now and that’s nice, but man...I miss the bold font we used to have for titles on text files. Really told you “this is a title.”

Not like it matters since y’all are reading this on my own blog where I have control of how it looks, but man...that awful typeface where there kerning is nice for short stuff but just...too wide for serious reading. It’s everywhere I go.

And speaking of bad kerning, like I saw this ad for a gym that was called “49ERSFIT” (because that’s our football team, in case you don’t know) but the kerning was reallllllly narrow so I looked at it and all I could see was “49ERSHIT” and like...I can’t unsee it. I can never unsee that.

Anyways, enough about how I’m haunted by font, lets talk about Yugi, who used to be haunted by Yami, up until he died this morning. So now Yami is just kicking it all on his own for a total of....maybe a few hours now, and has already destroyed an entire Caltrain, and whatever ecosystem was in this lake.

Seto Kaiba would be so proud.

Somewhere in the Ocean, or over the ocean, or...wherever the hell Atlantis is, Darts has decided that Pharaoh is NOT dead after all, and sends Rafael to finish the job, because youknow--Darts won’t move his lazy ass until all of his lackeys are fully dead. It’s an anime.

And then we have a jump cut to this tent scene. I don’t know how much time has passed. It’s suggested it’s enough time to fully sleep. So...a full day?

And Yugioh pulls the most unexpected plot turn out of their pocket because why not, it’s Season 4. This season is just about “how many strings can I pull and get away with” (I mean have you SEEN the Death Count lately?)

........

there’s a lot of things I expected out of this kids show.

This was never one of those things I thought I would see with my eyes--one of those things I could cap with my prt scr button, and one of those things I could paste into Photoshop and be like “wow this is really a thing that was made canon.”

Like for how long I had to cap this photo of Yami and Tea sharing a bed together, the people who made this show, spent THAT much longer having to animate it. What is just mindboggling about Yugioh, is that no one on the entire team was like “oh did we just...” and this set-up happens--and they treat it like NOTHING is happening.

Like, how is that humanly possible to write your flagship pairing into the same bed and then just not even recognize it? Like I get how it’s physically possible, I just watched it, but as a writer, as an artist, as someone who tells stories, how is it possible to resist poking fun at this?

Like the RESTRAINT on the Yugioh team, y’all.

(read more under the cut)

I hope you enjoyed this trope that flashed on the screen for all of like...a minute. Lets throw a giant dog at it.

So fun fact, the Egyptian god that is shaped like a wolf is Wepwawet. He’s best known for guiding people through the underworld, which fits nicely into this episode. But, did the writers know that? Is that why Skye is here? To be a reference to Wepwawet? I have no idea. But this dog is here, and every time his eyes look directly into the camera they are drawn--a little bit wrong. Not as bad as when they drew horses, but wow they did not really enjoy drawing this dog’s eyes when it’s straight on.

As for Chris and old man in this episode, I don’t know where they got this outfit style from. It sure ain’t traditional Ohlone. It’s...I mean it’s what happens when you don’t do your research, honestly. And I get the sense that these two aren’t supposed to be any Native American tribe as recent as Ohlone, and might be Atlantean from things they say later in this episode, in regards to cards and the spirit realm or whatever--but uh...

...where did these outfits...come from? I just want to know their research. Chris has a 1920′s hat for some reason. The old man has a staff with poofy bits on it. He dresses more like a 1960′s hippie than he does an indigenous person. Questions. I have questions.

Chris leads us outside to where this old biblical-looking character is collecting all of Yugi’s dropped cards. No idea where Weevil’s went, including the card of his that currently contains his soul. Probably underneath that Caltrain somewhere.

What does Kaiba make these cards OUT OF?

Yami has decided, after this card shunned him once, that maybe it’s time to remove it from his deck.

(Pretty sure he did not decide to remove the Orichalcos, however, which is still in there, as we see later. Thing is, I just realized that Oricalchos would basically be Yugi’s soul, right? So maybe he just keeps it around for company? Takes it out occasionally and waves at it?)

Iron Heart kind of seems like that type of old guy who used to be a hippie and now teaches Physics to High Schoolers. I say this because I’ve had a couple of teachers a lot like Iron Heart where like you’d look at them and it’d be like “Yo you have to be like 600 years old, but like, all you talk about is all the drugs you did during the Hippie Era, how are you even still ALIVE?”

Speaking of people that shouldn’t be alive (although unlike my physics teacher, this guy is deffo dead...)

And then just completely out of no where Yami demands a Spirit Journey.

Like what the hell, Yami? That’s like...a crazy blunt assumption to make. Mind you, if I had asked my High School Physics teacher for a spirit journey, he would have had a lot of stories for me. He regularly told us that he could kick the ceiling (but couldn’t do it right now because he had to go to his special chiropractor first and get the right medication for that.)

Sorry my bro also had this Phsyics teacher and he just told me that he witnessed this 70+ year old man kick the ceiling and like...I don’t know if he’s lying. Either way, that is an incredible chiropractor.

And then, adjust your seat belts folks, because then this happens,

WOW!

WOW THAT’S A LOT OF LORE!

WOW HELL IS MY BACKYARD!

LITERALLY HELL BACK THERE!

Wow. Maybe that’s why California is on fire so often, amiright?

Man. In the Yugioh Universe 1.) The Loma Prieta Earthquake never happened so the Embarcadero is still multilevel 2.) The Bay Area industry got completely wiped out by Pegasus/Darts/Kaiba and is a literal wasteland 3.) The Caltrain actually goes fast 4.) Hell/Spirit Purgatory is located somewhere between the bedroom communities of San Jose and Millbrea.

The Yugioh Alternate California Universe is kind of awesome.

Ah, welcome to Yosemite, now conveniently placed in South Bay.

It also has Hell for some reason.

And then Yugioh decided to use a background from some other anime to save costs.

Speechless, I’m absolutely speechless.

This is a good season, I don’t know what some of y’all were complaining about.

Anyway, I split this one into two because it felt like...too long for one update, but the other one will be hopefully up this weekend, that’s right--I’m getting back in to the swing of things. Sort of. Kind of.

but anyways, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in chrono order from the beginning.

Yugioh S3 Ep 35: Seto and Yugi’s Excellent Adventure

Ah, I’m back from a long trip--I will actually leave on another trip (shorter this time) next week so don’t think this update will mean the timely updates are back haha, they ain’t. But, on this excursions (not really a vacation at all--vacation is next week) I had a hell ton of Netfix and Hulu on in the background and you know what? Lets watch some more. I’m tired as hell. I just want to do something that requires little thought and has nothing to do with anything, but feels like progress for some reason, and that’s what watching a TV series is. So satisfying to click “next.”

Now last we left off, because it’s been kind of a while, we were on somewhat a cliffhanger. I say “somewhat” only because it’s during a card game and it only involves either or Yugi or Kaiba winning and I......don’t think it’s going to be Kaiba. But, if it were, it would honestly not change the outcome of Marik getting roasted. Marik who only wins by putting people in comas and like...electrocuting them or setting them on fire. I feel like Seto is immune to all of those things, especially since the shoulder pads on that coat have to be an insulator from both electricity and fire.

That and like...what’s Marik going to do, use the rod on Kaiba? Like Kaiba kind of owns that thing so would it even work? It can’t work on Kaiba, right? Kaiba’s kind of a shoe-in for beating Marik but I just...I don’t think the show will go that direction since they really want us to side with Yugi in this fight. Or, if it does, it would only do it during the last second. I guess we will see.

During this time, Seto admits for the first and probably last time that he maybe did not do enough playtesting of this card game.

Since these two God Cards decided to arm wrestle, it for some reason triggered a...weird response. Because once, Like Godzilla and Ghidora, a long time ago, these two had a heated arm wrestle battle and destroyed a hell ton of stuff. This time they do an arm wrestle and...it just kinda makes people trip out for a little while. They’ve grown more gentle over time.

(read more under the cut)

So Marik says that Seto is triggering the Millennium rod...which he has done completely by accident once before, but he doesn’t really say why. Like yes, Seto is a reincarnation of the earlier dude that owned this rod and killed the Pharaoh but...what is currently causing this rod to trigger?

Both times this rod was triggered was during a duel, but both times were at a point where Seto was only in danger of playing cards in a match where there are really no stakes for him. Maybe he perceives stakes but like...what’s the worst that Yugi’s going to do? Seto is fine.

But, maybe it just has to do with the vicinity of Seto to this weird rod? That maybe if he plays cards at any point within 100 ft of this thing, he will absolutely hallucinate? I mean, earlier in the season, he was playing cards in a VR realm which had no rod around.

Which...the VR world somehow had less hallucinating than when playing cards in the real world when it comes to Seto Kaiba. Wild.

But just go with it, Seto can occasionally sync with this thing. I don’t know why he does it, he doesn’t know why he does it, he just does it, and whenever he does, he hallucinates weird experiences of his past self, a dude that Seto refuses to accept is himself and hoo boy--I don’t blame him, that guys is the only mess in history who is more of a mess than the current day Seto. (and I only say that because I haven’t yet learned of whatever the hell was going on with Bakura)

This whole hallucination problem Seto has is kind of funny, since the Millennium Puzzle syncs with Yugi all the time and they have had absolutely no hallucinations of Pharaoh’s past life. Not once. Although that would have been super helpful. In fact, this is the first time in my memory that Yugi’s going to get to see the past, and it’s because he’s accidentally piggy-backing off of one of Seto’s acid trips. Like a secondhand high but with exposition.

I’ll give them credit, this was a really sweet level in Mario Odyssey.

They use all 10 of their remaining brain cells left over after 3-4 straight days of card trauma and very, very, very, very slowly start putting it all together.

And so we finally get a glimpse of Pharaoh’s realm, which is...kinda small? But I mean it was the past, there weren’t many people alive yet and it takes a long time to draw buildings so we’ll just...kind of assume there’s a lot of orchards off screen maybe? Maybe people just kind of commuted into the capital but didn’t really live there, like Sacramento.

I also get the vibe that this whole city now exists on some other plane, like maybe the whole city got shadow realmed and it murdered everyone who was originally here? Because there’s no people in this town. Maybe they all got offscreen murdered before Seto and Yugi showed up, but, I have a weird feeling that this won’t...reallllllly ever get addressed. I don’t know how 4kids would handle about 10,000 deaths. Although my Yugioh Death Count tracker would absolutely love that.

But hey, we can fly now. We can fly and make random observations to solve this riddle of “where are we? With the pyramids and sand and stuff?”

And that’s when I get to fully see what past Seto looked like and y’all.

This is a LOOK.

Like, there’s a lot of really bad looks in Yugioh, but this is...a LOOK.

Maybe worst look so far, even worse than Yugi’s emo jumpsuit date outfit that had 6 clashing chunky bangles. I love it.

Oh boy I take like a month break and come back to just a REAL look.

Also, it’s a look so truly bad that that he forced his entire four-person army to also don the dark magician shaped gnome hat. The dedication to purple gnome hats. I can’t believe that the Seto fashion we have now is the upgraded version, I can’t believe this was Seto Beta.

Also...kind of weird that his hat shape is a reference to dark magician. I thought that was Yugi’s thing. But youknow...that’s he hat he chose. This is the hat.

Meanwhile, past Seto and past Pharaoh are fighting some mehhhh DnD campaign. It has a Dark One in it although they kinda forgot about him in the same scene they bring him up. Much like any show that has a villain named Dark One in it. It kind of feels like a placeholder villain name that writers forget to remove.

I would pay more attention to all of that if it weren’t for the just...insane outfits these two are wearing.

And so, just before we found out what the hell ever happened to Pharaoh’s body and like...any of that nonsense, Seto has decided for once in his life that it is time he stopped hallucinating and return to the real world.

Bear in mind, that they have no idea that every TV this was broadcasted on exploded, and so, for all they know, their trip-out is being broadcasted on every TV in Domino. Yugi screaming to Kaiba that he killed him, was something Yugi was pretty sure all of Domino got to see.

And for some reason the God Cards are no longer active. No reason. Don’t think about it. Mokuba noticed, but no one pays much attention to Mokuba unless he’s abducted.

Reminder that we just saw that the last time those God cards were activated against eachother, an entire city was swept into the Shadow Realm and everyone totally died...but this time they just kinda cancelled eachother out? Eh...it’s a kid’s show.

Bro brings up that maybe the God cards looked around at this deserted island and were like “We don’t really want these four guys and Joey Wheeler’s Soul, peace.” and freaking left.

Oh Marik, the only one on this show who would be threatened if Seto found out that Seto is a wizard. I don’t think it would really phase anyone else here if Seto was just suddenly magic. Yugi wouldn’t even blink. Joey probably assumes everyone but Joey is a wizard at this point.

And so Kaiba decides to just ignore everyone and finish his job so he can finally go home, I guess.

Bro brings up that he loves how when Yugi talks, this tablet comes back into fame, but when Seto talks, it kind of just goes away.

And here’s the kicker. Here’s the thing that actually surprised me.

This duel still isn’t over yet???

OK I guess???

So uh...I’m going to leave you on yet...another cliffhanger haha, unless I finish another of these before next weekend, which...I might, I might not.

Anyway, if you just got here, you can start here on Ep 1 S1 and watch my whole journey of watching the entirety of Original Yugioh knowing basically nothing about OG Yugioh. And Season Zero as well, I guess.

Yugioh S3 Ep 36-37: Local Mom-Friend’s Weird Trick, Doctors Hate Him

Hey y’all it’s a surprise midweek post because I’m in Canada this weekend woo. Surprised I even got this post done, TBH, I finally get some time where I’m not commuting around to and from San Francisco or corralling small children and I can just sit at my computer and focus and have some peace and quiet and I got--a mysterious sickness from all those kids! *yay* So, since I can’t really focus on anything, I’ll type in here and see if any of my words make any sense at all and hopefully I won’t go on some weird ass tangent like I tend to do like every other post.

So Yugi is still dueling Kaiba, much like he has for the past like...it feels like 4 years. I know I’ve only seen 3 seasons but this is...this is a really long duel. Maybe because there was a month-long break for me in the middle, (during which I watched the entirety of Evangelion, 2 Seasons of Gotham, Stranger Things S3, and the disappointing season of One Punch Man so like...I’ve had some time away from Yugioh) or maybe...maybe it’s because they’re actually playing card mechanics that go more in depth...

But yeah, despite everything, they’re still dueling.

And honestly, I’m looking at that episode number above me and it’s like...so there’s this Kaiba and Yugi Duel and then...only one more duel, right? Is it going to be a ten episode duel? Like unless Rebecca comes back for a weird cameo like...how...?

Whatever, we’ll get there when we get there.

Anyways, everyone who’s been avoiding this duel like the plague is down with the plague victims in the hospital. That’s where Tristan gets a bright idea and it’s one of his dumber ones, believe it or not.

Man, I forgot that comatose Joey Wheeler is still wearing that duel disk Pharaoh slapped on him during all this too, haha.

Also, why does he have to have all these pectoral suction cups while they just kinda...gave up on Mai? I mean I know they can’t show boobies on a Y7 show but like...it really feels like the doctor just kinda shrugged at Mai and was like “I only have one set of boob suction cups, I really didn’t think I’d need more than that, if at all.”

(read more under the cut)

And so Tristan decides that if Joey is at the window which is like...600 ft below Yugi Muto’s duel, a duel you can’t...really see from the ground...then Joey Wheeler will arise.

I mean, it’s gonna work, it’s just also kind of laughable that Joey wasn’t able to hear any of this nonsense from the bed that is two feet away from the window.

But wtv, it’s very dramatic and Tristan gets to cry some more and feel useful I guess.

The haunted underwear mannequin plot-thread was dumped between that episode and this one, and I’m kinda bummed out that more things haven’t turned into haunted underwear mannequins.

Instead of horrific underwear mannequins, Joey’s dream has gone back to the standard fare of Joey picking on middle schoolers and wearing a much better outfit than he has for most of this show.

I will super miss Joey in a fitted suit. Like, soak it allll in horny preteens, because pretty soon, Joey Wheeler will be back in that scruffy oversized T-shirt just like...well, just like how a teenager would be. I mean there’s some REASONS Mai can’t date Joey, but the fact he has a fitted suit he refuses to ever wear is one of the top reasons right under, youknow, the fact he’d need a fake ID to ever go out with her.

It’s kind of amazing actually, how my whole life I kinda just figured this was a show of insane character designs, only to find out when I actually watch the show that there is like a ... REALLY horny line just going all the way through it.

Honestly, me trying to figure out how and when this kid’s show got so damn horny has been a very big mystery I’ve been trying to solve in the background this entire time. Like, I was told “yeah the Yugioh boys get very attractive.” and I was like “ehhhhhhhh I don’t even know what you’re talking about” but, little by little over the past 3 seasons, these animators are starting to draw these boys just waaaaaaay older than these kids actually are. I’m starting to see what people are saying. It’s still not my thing, personally, but uh yeah I can see how this spawned all that fanart now.

Anyways, speaking of, the other day a friend of mine’s sister was talking about how she, as a millennial, has been wired to love very tall skinny boys in skinny pants and very long coats with popped collars and I immediately was like “Lol are you admitting to Seto Kaiba?”

And she meant Cumberbatch Sherlock, LOLOLOLOL.

And so, back on the duel field we got Seto Kaiba, who’s a lot like Sherlock except a Sherlock who is suffering from both short term and long term memory loss. And, who does cards instead of heroin.

They probably both play violin.

Kaiba, despite having arc after arc where his little brother is his main motivation, has decided to just ditch Mokuba and it’s like...either he’s psyching Yugi out or Seto Kaiba forgot he had a brother for a little bit. He might...he might have forgotten. Mokuba is standing behind him, after all.

And so, because Joey is facing Yugi at just the right moment and at just the right time, somehow he can do his little force ability again and just do this:

Thanks, hallucination!Joey.

And out he goes, drawn like a romance anime character lol.

Anyways, he’s back to being a slob so...welcome back, wrinkle shirt, it’s been a while.

And then Joey looks around and actually said this:

“Did someone get hurt?” He asks, after being burned, electrocuted AND drowned just yesterday.

I was kinda very much hoping Tristan would deck him out.

Glad that, as predicted, the moment Mai doesn’t need to be Joey’s main motivation anymore, the moment he puts the cards away, she may as well not even exist. This show and the way they write straight romances.

Please admire the matching lace up boots on the Kaiba Corp’s Emergency Squad. This would be the most obscure Cosplay on earth but maybe the most wearable Yugioh cosplay outside of Bandit Keith because you wouldn’t need a 400 dollar wig.

And then for some reason Tea just loses her mind and has a complete breakdown. She’s been kind of a mess since Yugi walked out like 2 episodes ago, which seems kind of...I dunno, both out of character but very much in character at the same time. I mean we’re assuming they “have” a relationship it’s just never actually say that they do, so her acting like her man is dead is kinda like...it still feels like it comes out of freakin nowhere.

Anyways, Tea who is strong enough to lift this entire plane and who is, in fact, possessed by at least 2 powerful ghosts (remember Shadi did spends some time there and he did NOT like it), is now a seeping crying mess that refuses to lose any more of her hospital-prone boys.

I mean they were going to go anyway, but they let Tea pretend she had any control over that and kind of glazed over this.

Back in this game that no one else is really watching anymore, Seto Kaiba is still monologuing about his entire life story that he’s never gotten any therapy for, except for that time his evil step brother accidentally gave him therapy.

Quite upset we never see the color of Mokuba’s little tuxedo.

Course...didn’t...Noah wear a little tuxedo in that same exact shape? I mean it’s a silly headcanon but youknow...it could be a yellow tuxedo they just happened to find in the back of the closet.

And it’s at this point that Mokuba just lost his lid. I’m so used to Mokuba unconditionally supporting his crazy brother that this would have been the biggest anime betrayal of the whole series, if Mokuba had said any of this outloud (which he wisely did not).

It was like...damn Mokuba. He actually said something along the lines of “I liked you better when you were poor” and it was like. Holy cow, Mokuba. Damn.

Anyway, a bunch of card stuff happens, and Pharaoh has decided that Seto has too much anger in his heart, and that’s why he will lose. Then, Pharaoh played the card proof for how angry Seto is, and if I actually payed any attention to cards, it would have been very meaningful.

But anyways, kudos to Pharaoh on not mind-wiping Seto Kaiba this time or launching him directly off this very tall tower like he attempted to do last time. They actually played a game start to finish with eachother and nothing exploded except for every television in Domino. Progress.

and then Mokuba started crying and initially I thought...wouldn’t he have WANTED his brother to lose but then I kind of remembered oh yeah now Mokuba has to deal with this oncoming aftermath.

RIP Mokuba, I guess.

Anyway, I’m out of town for the rest of the weekend, escaping to the far North to get away from the weather. I should be back next weekend, but if I’m not, I was probably eaten by a bear. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to my Yugioh recaps in Chrono order from the beginning.

Yugioh S3 Ep 19: Seto and Mokuba are Turned Into Inanimate Objects...Again

Last we left off on the world’s most awkward family reunion, Moki was being used to take advantage of Seto again, which happens at least 2 times a season.

What’s kind of wild about this, is that everyone jumps to the conclusion that Seto is absolutely going to murder his little brother. Seto. The guy who 2 seasons ago was willing to absolutely jump off a ledge for his little brother.

And then suddenly, Duke makes his feelings known about just life in general at this point.

Duke in the background just spiraling deeper and deeper into his IDGAF apathy. And to be honest, Duke might not be fully aware of who Mokuba even is. It’s not like they’ve ever had a conversation, other than maybe “ah, you work for Pegasus, he locked me in a tower for weeks and then killed me by turning me into a little paper card and then tried to seize control of my company. Nice. Nice that he isn’t in jail.”

In fact, since Duke does work with Pegasus who probably is still doing his best to compete with/work with the Kaiba business...Duke actually has a lot to gain, business wise, by killing Mokuba. Like, I’m pretty sure Duke isn’t a mole but he could be. He has...a lot of motive, actually.

If bro hadn’t straight up told me that Duke isn’t a mole like I suspected, than I’d still be waiting for that other shoe to drop. But it won’t. A shame.

Anyways this shows up:

All I’m saying is that a black hole is an astronomical region in space and a dark hole is very often a butthole, but youknow...maybe that’s just a very particular English language thing that no one will ever teach you from a textbook and it just didn’t quite get translated over correctly. But yeah, in my eye, Noah's just up there holding up a sphincter. It’s very fitting, he is an asshole. Congrats, Noah Kaiba, you’ve found your card.

Meanwhile, Yugi is doing his very best to try and backseat, even if Kaiba instinctively slaps it out of his hands at every opportunity.

So I figured that he’d mention that both of these boys carry these card lockets around their necks with a little picture of the other brother inside--a little thing they carry for no other reason than to remember eachother. Which makes sense, because Kaiba forgets things SO OFTEN. The necklace around their necks is almost like those bracelets you wear to let police and medics know if you’re prone to narcolepsy--it even has a nice picture inside to indicate “please return this boy to this pictured person in case you find him wandering about completely lost.”

I kinda figured that necklace would be used at some point but nah, we’re gonna talk about cards. Which is fine, because we get to see this good drawing Mokuba made once.

Which, PS, it was sort of hard to pick up on the first time Kaiba talked about this period of his life, but this time when he talked about this incident it like...left quite a bit highly implied there by what Seto meant when he said Mokuba “saved me.” It’s some pretty heavy stuff that kind of gets blown over by the massive magic dragon that shows up in the next scene and then just flies Mokuba, who is wearing very cute fuzzy socks, up into the sky and into the moon like ET.

Nowadays they do this by hanging off of Helicopters, but flying on dangerous things to escape their horrible childhood has been their Fantasy for a very long time. These kids and their obsession with heights and dangerous ledges.

And apparently it was this moment in his youth that Seto decided he wanted to be “worthy enough to hold a Blue Eyes.” And like...I remember S1 Seto. That was the worthy Seto?

I guess “worthy enough” doesn’t really imply any sort of moral code, just if you have enough money and can like play cards pretty OK.

Anyways, it was a lot of new stuff applied to this card that I just only recently accepted as a GF and so it was like “All right show, I see what you’re doing, I guess we’re going to walk slowly out of the paper romance realm and into...some sort of card-honor brother realm.”

So, using the Blue Eyes, Kaiba destroys a bunch of Gradius ships, which Noah was like “These Gradius ships represent our Father’s company!” in case you’re a child and didn’t see the symbolism. And, along the way, he destroys what he thinks is Noah’s Game Master card but like...it’s this show, so apparently inside the Boat was another dude and the game is going to keep on going, fml.

Ah buckle up this...this is going to be a long one. This is going to be a lot more cards, huh?

Anyway, when I saw this card that is clearly based on a couple of Gods I was like “so um...isn’t that a...God card?” so I looked it up, also because it was BS and I was frustrated that it was even here after the boat thing ended, and this card is a...get this...a Fairy card.

Cuz it has wings? Like a Seraphim? Everything about this looks like a conglomeration of different Gods but--I guess since God Cards can only have the 4 God Cards, this is a...Fairy card. Interesting. That is a huge ass Fairy. Yugioh biology really eludes me.

Anyway, First thing Noah does as a fairy is destroy his younger brother who is also older than him, don’tthinkaboutit. He’s again sporting the poorly photoshopped glowing romper that the dub gave us in order to spare us.

Hey!

Question!

So when Noah’s wearing the game Master outfit, he’s ass naked underneath--but the Big 5 weren’t? Like wouldn’t the Big 5 have had the same issue of Noah here where they have no body, so whatever they’re wearing is just whatever they’re in?

Meaning that when they were all shoved in Tristan’s body wouldn’t they have just been 5 naked fat old guys hanging out like a European sauna? 

Or is this just Noah’s preference? To be ass naked when no one’s looking? Because he’s been here all alone for 6 years, so why the hell not? Like, no one cares. No one’s looking. You can’t get splinters or whatever. Just let it all hang loose, man, it’s not even a real body. 

Like, if you look closely, Noah only has ... one outfit he’s had here for 6 years. I’ve noticed this maybe more than most because...it’s not a great outfit. He had that same suit and shorts combo right after he woke up and got out of his jammies from the accident all those years ago. He also wore a space suit once, but that was a Birthday present from Dad and I haven't seen the suit since.

Did Noah recognize that People Are Coming and was like “oh dammit, dammit, I have to cover the goods” and just throw on literally the only thing in his closet? The office shorts combo from 6 years ago? Is that why? Is that the big secret of the baby boy suit shorts? That he, in reality, never really wears them?

Questions about nudity aside, out of freakin no where Noah just turns the Kaibas into this:

Noah spent like 20 episodes saying no one is ever allowed to cheat and then just flippin does this and is like “What? It’s almost legal enough.”

I mean, it’s not like there’s any official rules for Duel Monsters anyway but apparently you can just turn each other into statuary and it’s like...fine. That’s fine.

Also, fun fact, about Yugioh statues, they come with eyeliner built in.

So much dedication to the guyliner in this show, mad respect.

And yes, I have sort of thought that Moki’s been sporting a teeny tiny Adam Lambert line this whole time. Like most our cast, honestly. But not Joey. I feel like Joey would never have the patience to learn how to waterline.

I mean the Kaiba’s are essentially brain dead, yes? Their brain functions have been removed and uploaded to the cloud to never be downloaded back into their vegetable bodies? That counts enough for me.

Seto Kaiba just 2 corpses away from 169ing the Hell out of that death scene. A shame.

Bro was like “well at least this crying statue stuff is more like something that normally happens in a kid’s show.” and I was like “THIS? So this ever happened in Pokemon?” and bro was like “It did actually, Ash Ketchum was turned into stone and then cried as a rock statue, and then Pikachu hugged him to make him all better” And as you may be aware my bro is full of spicy headcanons so I’m not sure if that’s actually true but it was like

“Bro, was Ash Ketchum ever turned to stone because his abusive Father’s secret son, who has been turned into an evil computer, wants to kill his brother and then take over his body to run the Patriots from Metal Gear? That happened on Pokemon?” And Bro admitted “Ok, maybe not so much.”

Anyway, Pharaoh awakens to put a stop to this nonsense by bringing up the long list of things that Noah did just now that is absolutely cheating.

Anyway, this is Noah now.

He’s just this...huge 100 story tall person with very bored judgy eyes just floating in the sky with vaguely religious iconography going on and bunch of wings like that one character design that we all have in our portfolio. Yeah, you know the one. It’s this guy. We’ve all drawn this guy. Anyway, it’s going to be very hard to take him seriously when this guy has Noah’s voice.

Again, he is not, he is ass naked in there, though the dub did try and cover it up.

Anyway, next episode we get to basically start this entire duel over.

That’s nice. That’s nice of them to do to me. At least these kids finally got a chance to do some duel prep for the actual tourney they’re supposed to be doing later this season. Yeah. Remember that apocalypse? That’s still going on somehow. Maybe by the time they’ll get to it, most of the competitors will be dead?

Here’s a link to read the recaps in order from S1 Ep1

Yugioh S3 Ep 13 pt 1: Mokuba Finally Gets Stockholm Syndrome

So, I have today off work so lunchtime on a Thursday feels like a better time than ever to chime in on a 20 year old anime and say, uh this episode is nuts?

Like this whole arc has been somewhat tame compared to a lot of the stuff we’ve been dealing with in regards to Yugioh. Yeah, Tristan died, but like...Marik hasn’t murdered a hundred people lately so it’s been a pretty pleasant ride. And this was alllll part of Yugioh’s greater plan, Yugioh likes to do this, where it’s been overall a monster of the week Sat Morning cartoon type of affair, giving you a false sense of “I think I know what’s going on. I think I understand the logic of this show” before they start ripping the rugs out from under your feet with no other reason than to utterly confuse you.

And it’s like you just...you don’t expect this from a kid’s show.

And like don’t tell me you predicted this episode, guys, because it makes no freakin sense. I had to binge to the next episode just because I was like holding up all my paperwork of Seto Kaiba’s timeline and motioning at my brother “SHOW ME THE RECEIPTS!!” Because y’all this did not...

This just did not.

And like I’m very calm as I write these posts, but as I was watching this episode, I kept pausing it, turning to Steve-O and saying “NO.” Of course all of that drama goes on in the second part of this episode. The first half is still that somewhat tame area where it’s definitely very weird but it’s not...it’s not unpredictably weird yet, youknow?

So, to start out, Noah has given up on trying to persuade any of the Kaibas to change. It is not a thing Kaibas do.

He decides to show off his skills as a master manipulator, by manipulating one of the most manipulated boys on this entire show. The only person more manipulated is Yugi, who is has an actual brain parasite (and people might like the brain parasite more than him even so it’s like...it’s a situation up there).

Everything from here on concerning Mokuba is bizarre and kind of frustrating. Starting with the clone entering in from the black void.

(read more under the cut)

I like that we know this is Seto because of the 6 inch hip spike on his jacket. Yo if they ever did a Netflix Live Action Yugioh first off of all, they cannot do half of the hair on this show, second of all, this jacket. It can’t be possible. And like I’ve seen some pretty good high effort Seto Cosplay but the jacket spikes are like...that’s pretty rough youknow? First off, this custom jacket would take you like 8 months to sew, it’d be insanely expensive with the custom lining and the poofy everything, and then those spikes? Like what do you even do? I can’t even imagine.

One off screen slap by the clone, and then Mokuba decided his brother is now Darth Vader. Can’t believe it was that easy.

And then, to top off my frustration with how quickly Mokuba’s Stockholm Syndrome set in--Noah could do this the entire time.

Y’all I was so mad. It’s Episode 13 and he pulls this out now, are you kidding me? The entire time. The entire freakin time. This is like “and Bakura can just shoot lasers whenever but won’t be bothered.”

I still love this storyboarder but maybe they just don’t like drawing hugs? I mean, it’s supposed to be a spooky hug, but like...it’s more like a wrestling move that Mokuba has just decided to give up and lean into.

And you know what? I get it. Drawing affection freakin sucks. Hard to explain why but trust me--it’s freakin cursed. It’s worse than drawing cars. I’d rather draw like 3 cars. (And exactly 3 because it would take a hell of a lot of money to ever make me draw 4.)

Seto decides to run ahead although, and I just want to point this out--this bridge joins in the next scene so they can all reunite and there is a car right behind him.

There is a car and he uses his damn legs.

Smartest boy in Domino.

And off he goes, his wedding dress coat elegantly flapping in the wind as he...

runs...

...down a tunnel that is clearly marked with lane lines for cars.

Because Noah gave them a car.

Meanwhile, back at the car, Joey is Done and has found a great way to win the Battle City Tournament.

They did not. It was so weird. They took out most of the the slaps, but left in this monkey burrowing into Serenity’s chest for like 20 weird seconds. It made squeaky noises.

Serenity doesn’t seem to care by the way, it’s very, very 90′s.

Anyway, Tea’s decided she’s now done hanging out with these guys and the pervert monkey, so off these two go. Off to follow the plot. On foot.

The tunnel vanishes, and these four are left outside to continue...just doing nothing guess. Duke always ends up on the lowest effort team, youknow? I dump on Duke a lot but I’ve been kinda feeling bad for him.

Anyway, inside this tunnel, Noah is catfishing Seto as Mokuba and I gotta say, it’s way better than the shorts. Just put Noah in this outfit all the time.

And our heroes have decided to save the day by going the wrong way at the fork and completely missing Seto Kaiba’s loud booming voice. How do they get lost when Kaiba is being exploded just off camera?

Like it says a lot about these kids that they got lost down a tunnel with only 1 fork.

I had to look this up, and unfortunately this is not the same house as Kaiba’s Season Zero house. Would have been a neat touch but nah, it’s just a generic university style house that no one would ever want to actually live in.

ENTER MARIK. Thank all those gods, including himself, he’s finally here. To...not do anything. Especially since this is a 2-parter. He’ll do a little more next update. Still not much, but oh man, am I glad to see Marik. Am I glad to see that third eye is absolutely still glowing on his forehead. Can’t imagine how hard it is to sleep with that thing buzzing all day.

Back in VR land, I have been hit in the face with Seto’s design and it’s like the first time I’ve ever seen it.

Every single season of Yugioh spices up the character designs a tad and it takes a little while to get used to. I think Seto may have been slightly exaggerated in this scene but...he still seems way taller now. Like he’s basically Yugioh Pumpkin King at this point. Peak 00′s.

Anyway, was this why Noah said “Look down” ? Because like...that’s not really a hint if you throw him down a hole.

Seto’s reaction to this was “I’m just really tired of everything that’s happened today and I’m going home.” and he grabbed Mokuba by the hand to leave but, apparently Mokuba is too slippery to be abducted twice?

Weird that the only person who physically cannot abduct Mokuba is Seto Kaiba. The only person.

And just like that, Mokuba is now on team Noah and Seto is just...standing there. Noah is sort of a god person in this universe since he can code whatever he wants around him but like...

...still feels a little weird to see Seto go from “I’ll punch whatever I need to get Moki back” in S1 to “I guess Moki hates me so I’ll let him stay here now” when Mokuba is clearly possessed.

Anyways, this all gets much weirder next episode, but it was very, very long so I split it in two. Like I dunno how many of you want to read tumblr posts that rival Livejournal posts in length so...we’ll save that for next time. (in fact I was just telling bro that if Tumblr does go down, I don’t even know if there’s long-form blogging platforms left other than like webcomic sites and fanfic sites. We’ll cross our fingers that I never have to move this blog over to like...Tapas ((I would never do that ps, Tapas is a nightmare to upload to even if you just want to do comics and that is a whole story in and of itself)))

But ya. Noah could just mind control whoever.

Like whoever.

Y’all the past 12 episodes were kind of like Bakura level of “I could do something, if I felt like it, and it would take like 2 seconds max and nobody would stop me, but then I’d have to get off my ass, and I’m too busy watching the world burn to bother.”

Which is very much every villain in Yugioh, being real.

If you just found my blog, here’s a place to find all the episodes in chrono order from S1 Ep1, I apologize now that I never separated them into seasons, turns out a Yugioh season is just unapologetically long oops my bad.

Yugioh S2 Ep4: How to Go on a Date Without Actually Going on a Date

Ah, summertime! Love is in the air, can’t you feel it?

Well uh...thunderclouds. I guess. It’s ominously pouring rain. It’s as if the show has turned in it’s squeaky swivel chair said to us “look, we’re giving you a date episode...but don’t you be gettin’ any ideas!” and then swiveled right back around to face a blank wall.

I’m sure that they will put in some sort of cute backdrop...eventually.

While mopping the gross purple floor and talking about Joey’s nuts soap opera family.

Y’all did they get reference for this shot? I sure hope so. I sure hope that in some animation studio in Japan, two dudes fumbled together to assemble this particular formation, and then a third dude was like “Perrrrfect, now can you hold that for five minutes for me so I can draw it out?”

(read more under the cut)

So here and now, suddenly inspired by the very romantic tableau of threatening rain and thunder, Yugi sees an opportunity to fill out that bucket list, as it is the end of the world and all. So, he cracks his knuckles, remembers the advice from his Grandfather, wisely decides to forget that advice, and stumbles through the absolute weirdest way to officially ask out the girl you’ve been unofficially dating since you were like 10:

...

Start over.

So...he goes up to Tea...starts asking her out--but then makes it into a blind date with the ghost in his body? Because he’s...concerned about Pharaoh?

OK kid.

It’s just very Muto in that not only does he ask this girl out in the pouring rain, probably hoping for a lightning cue that thankfully never came, but this date can only be done through the medium of a very sad dead guy.

And even Tea wonders “I talk to Pharaoh kind of a lot, what the hell are you going on about?”

But what do you do, girl? Looks like you got stuck on a date trap with a dead dude! At least he has the better butt!

Now, you might say “Rach, he didn’t use the word “date” so this isn’t a date.” but y’all must’ve had a very different high school experience than I, because, unless forced to go to a socially obligatory dance, High Schoolers generally never say “lets go on a date,” they make sneaky date traps.

This is universal, the classic “I REALLY need your help with something I can easily accomplish myself. Meet me at the mall, although we could do this probably right now at school. Don’t bring Joey.”

So, Yugi either has a lot of trust in Pharaoh, or he’s seeing this as a clever way to avoid the actual dating part of dating Tea.

Dude...he’s on to something here. This is an ascended level of friend-zoning. Here I was thinking Yugi was pretty worthless with that puzzle, and then he just BAM unlocks it’s actual, true potential with the ultimate dating dodge. Like, Tea can’t even be mad. He’s on the date even. But also--*not on the date*--gets to enjoy the fun stupid stuff-- *doesn’t have to do any boring stuff*--Goes on a date--*but can’t call it a relationship if it wasn’t hypothetically with yourself* like this actually a pretty great set up and at first I was like wow, what an idiot, and now I’m like 5 paragraphs later and low key jealous I can’t do this Schrödinger's Date nonsense myself.

Anyway, despite how awkward he made it, Yugi is SUPER excited about this date. It’s ALMOST as if he’s going on it himself--which again, he is not. He’s just fretting in a mirror going all “Pharaoh’s gonna freakin love this. I love setting up my friends! Especially when they share the same body as me! Hahaha don’t think about it!”

But apparently Pharaoh was totally sleeping when Yugi was talking to Tea (and probably is whenever Tea shows up, lets be real) because he has no idea that Yugi has done this.

First off--Yugi’s art on the wall.

Ok, glad we all saw it together.

Second off, I love the motif of “kid is going on a date, so he throws everything he owns onto his bed and throws on the other half his closet to make the most ridiculous joke combo” because here it means Pharaoh has to wear the same weird ass outfit.

Y’all I cannot believe this anime is doing this three-way I just cannot. It’s been like a full season building up to it but it still feels VERY sudden.

And, as you know, I have a superpower that makes me immune to shipping, I dunno...maybe it’s because I grew up with the nuts Harry Potter era of ships (freakin Snape/Lily)? Or maybe that I come from the era of Kingdom Hearts-style romance twists (whooo will he eat ice cream with)? I feel like I can’t throw too many rocks at this ship because I know when my house is glass. Especially since I enjoy shows that are bonkers, I’ve seen some weird ass dating stuff that didn’t make me bat an eyelash. I watched Season 2 of Seaquest where at least 2 people accidentally ask out their own Mother. I would double check, but it was so awful Netflix pulled it (or trust me I’d be recapping that show, too)

Personally, I have never wanted to date a ghost but I guarantee other people have thought about it. And, youknow, if it’ll make the 2002-era tweens that were super excited about this ship happy, lets get these kids on a date and get this over with. With the Pharaoh that died at hell knows what age, was reborn so hypothetically you could also argue he’s only like a couple years old, and was mind wiping up until basically a couple weeks ago. Whatever, it’s a new season, he’s a new boy, just, don’t think about it, sit back and enjoy it for what it -- HOLY CRAP

What fake-goth funeral date are you going to here!? Wow. This is...This is a bad choice of clothes! It’s the middle of the day! Other people are in shorts. He is wearing so many chains from his neck, to his bracelets...also he still has that massive bike lock chain on - the one that went through a FIRE.

And does his shoes have freakin studs?

At least neck belt is still here.

I’d say he doubles as a stage tech but with those 7 bangles he’s got on, he would make too much noise. He’d sound like a freakin wind chime.

Anyways, Yugi switches places and Pharaoh freaks the Hell out like he’s been pranked. I wish it were a prank, y’all, I wish it were. But this is actually happening on this television show where the only other legit romance we saw was Pegasus macking a ghost.

MAN ghosts gets a lot of action in this show.

Now, this anime gets a lot of flack, but it does do one thing, and that’s make me appreciate something I forget a lot of the time when I see character designs in pictures rather than in motion. And it’s that that character design’s aesthetic includes physics. Sometimes--like very often in Yugioh--the aesthetic is mostly about those physics and what all these separate pieces do when they move.

In Yugioh, the designs are a hot mess. I can’t say they aren’t. But, there is a reason why he has all those moving bangles--it’s because he holds cards a lot and that’s where is camera is. I guarantee, when jacket comes back it’ll be flowing in the wind 100% of the time. Every single one of Yugi’s weird bangs can sway around like a weather vane.

So, while this looks not great from the get go, by the time you’ve watched Yugioh for a while, it all comes back together somehow. That’s the thing--that’s what Yugioh proves, it’s that no matter how freakin weird and abstract your design is, if it has the right physics, you’ll have a good time, and that’s an aesthetic all in itself that can’t be described in photo caps.

BUT

but

but, it’s still hella fun to roast Yugi for it because like--look what he’s wearing.

First stop on their date: a diner of lies that gave us no anime food. Just some nondescript milkshake. Every time we see a diner and I don’t get to see anime food my heart shrivels a little smaller like the Grinch.

Yo I assumed the neck belt was attached to the belt-shirt before--but I guess not. Oh man was belt shirt a turtleneck the whole time??? A belt TURTLENECK?

Tea decides to pull out her idea. The idea that Yugi asked her to give Pharaoh--that she could have just...given...straight to Yugi...but here it is. Here’s the big Tea idea.

Tea suggests “Listen, you don’t know who you’re going to be, but that’s true of everyone” which kind of ignores destiny and prophecies and the end of the world, but she’s gonna be a dancer, OK? And because Pharaoh hasn’t seen very much of the world, and is as impressionable as a newborn lamb, he just soaks it right up.

And so they decide not to go to the Museum because Pharaoh’s not feeling it. Probably also has a sixth sense that the museum is currently staffed by the most boring Millennium Item.

FYI this is exactly what my local Dave & Busters looks like floor to ceiling. It’s a real disappointment. It has only 1 DDR machine and one off brand DDR machine, unlike this place.

Yugioh has more diversity than most Anime I’ve seen, but it’s still a work in progress. Also, it’s hard to spot but keep an eye out for this guy’s fringe moccasins.

...Someone brought their briefcase to the arcade? Wh...why?

This whole episode is a whole lot of why.

WHAT?

Everyone just kinda watched this go down?

Again, I’ve never actually played DDR at an arcade because it’s always taken by two sweaty high schoolers who are sweating like ALL OVER the handlebars, and I’m just like...I could ask them to move or...I could not touch their sweat? So, long story short, if DDR involves elbowing each other in the face, this is news to me, and I have been missing out.

Long story short, she wins. We actually get to see Tea use her one and only useful skill--dance fighting. We’ll probably never see it again. Glad they gave us a very long narcissistic Tea dancing montage while they were there. Wish it was done to ska, but you can’t have everything.

And right when this settles into a romantic sunset I start to worry because we’re getting VERY close to a non-vague situation. The show senses this too and just, out of no where, pulls any distraction to get them away from said sunset.

Y’all how do you even manage to draw a spike mullet with dreads?

And here we all thought we’d get through this episode without cards!

JK, you were absolutely right for thinking that.

In her defense, he did try to elbow jab her in the head.

Anyways, after seeing Tea tear through Johnny Steps, Pharaoh feels like maybe he can handle whatever crazy thing happened to him 5000 years ago. He decides “Lets go recklessly open that Pandora’s box!”

I just noticed his second belt has a fanny pack on the butt for his cards.

Well, that was...still vague somehow. Good. Got me worried there for a second.

Next week, on Yugioh:

Bets on how long it takes for the show to never mention this date again and immediately forget these two were an item, I’m betting at the very beginning of the next episode? Are we going to get the same exposition but for the second time--will I even have anything to recap? In the dark is Yugi just a pair of swinging arms?