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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh Ep 23 S3: Always Put Guns on Your Satellites

Ah, I’m finally back at my home computer after a little hiatus there. In case you are curious, I went to San Fransisco and then spent about 2 weeks trying to find a single parking spot. But, I’m back in my normal place now, where trash trucks aren’t driving around, breaking the speed barrier at 3 AM and where I don’t have to parallel park at a 45 degree incline. I got my fill of good food, chilling out, getting completely rained out by a freak storm in May, and walking about a mile vertically to go three feet horizontally, it’s time to sit back, relax, and talk about an anime that came out 20 years ago.

Y’all...what were even doing 2 weeks ago? It really does feel like three years.

If memory serves, we are currently in the midst of not one, but 3 Apocalypses. Lets just place em down in case you forgot

1.) The Millennium Item Apocalypse, where if one person gets all 7 (or was it 10?) of the items, the world freakin ends. This is briefly on hold because Bakura, our Millennium item enthusiast, hella died about 24 episodes ago and none of these people have brought it up or tried to contact any sort of governing authority even though Yugi and Tea both witnessed the murder about 7 hours ago (which, for Marik’s credit, did take place over international waters, touche). So, for now, Bakura’s spirit is kinda holed up in Pharaoh’s puzzle necklace so he’s just...chillaxing.

2.) The God Card Apocalypse, where if one person gets all 3 God Cards, the world freakin ends. Briefly on hold because everyone got stuck in a VR universe, and Marik felt like staying on the blimp instead because I dunno maybe he wanted to take a nap or something.

3.) The Matrix, where Seto’s Dad is going to launch a bunch of machines to trap the entire human race in this VR zone against their will and become a slave to the machine overlords. Somehow this is a thing that has been happening in the background this entire series but has only been revealed like...last episode.

Bro is reminding me that I forgot to mention that all these duel monsters are becoming slowly more and more real but like...eh.

There’s three concurrent Apocalypses right now. Don’t forget. There’s three of them.

Anyway, Seto Kaiba has decided it’s about time he deal with his Daddy issues/prevent the Matrix.

While Kaiba has decided to confront his Father, the rest of the people on this show have no freakin idea what to even do so they’re just arguing with eachother in Domino square and getting no where.

Also, I nearly forgot, Joey can’t even beat up Noah currently because Noah switched places with Mokuba, because this isn’t Yugioh unless we start switching brains like it’s as easy as turning your T-shirt inside out.

Of course, in this case, Mokuba didn’t exactly *switch* places with Noah--Moki’s brain is just...floating around this world somewhere. I don’t know if he got stuck in a Monkey or if he’s just...dead...but it just makes absolutely no sense to me how your soul can get sucked into a VR game and now lives tron-style in VR while someone else steers your body which isn’t any more connected to the machine itself, so I’ll just assume he’s dead. It’s just easier to say Moki died, it’s happened so many times to this kid at this point.

Basically, Mokuba is here, but in not-spirit. In every way but spirit.

And about those brain pods--does Yugi’s pod take up 2x the RAM because he’s got two people in that bean or has Noah seriously not noticed this like at all? because there's two dudes in one pod and Noah has just acted like that’s a completely normal thing that can happen.

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, the A team has sort of all turned into the B team because only Kaiba’s can really have any active involvement at this part of the arc, so Yugi decides to take a break and enter brain fort. Which, I assume he does just whenever he’s bored. It’s just kind of weird when he decides to do this, without warning, in front of a large group of other people.

Anyway, it’s Yugi, so he somehow turns what is so clearly Kaiba’s problem into this selfish need to carry the torch by himself for no reason.

Like, Yugi is the main character--I get that--he’s gotta be some sort of moral standard because this is a protagonist in a kid’s show, but it is such a stretch for him to still think that there’s any good left in Noah after all the events of this arc. It just comes off that every time Yugi tries to see good in Bakura, or Marik, or the Kaiba family even, he’s maybe doing it out of guilt.

Like Yugi isn’t naive at this point - he set a guy on fire once with Russian Whiskey in a freakin burger diner, and even if you don’t consider Season Zero canon, he also set PaniK on fire and left him to die in the woods (and that nut ABSOLUTELY died), so it just doesn’t make sense to me that he’d helplessly fall victim to a thousand evil assholes who pretended to be his friend. Instead, it’s sort of like Yugi’s trying to overcompensate for the amoral weirdo residing in about 98% of his brain right now.

Overall, TL;DR, Yugi is kind of a weird guy.

Love him, but he’s sort of a walking disaster with some very selfish motivations and I forget. Not about the walking disaster part of course, that part is like clearly very obvious, especially when we find out his grand masterplan.

Also, this happened,

Again, I would be absolutely fine if Tristan just remained like this, talking like the librarian out of Terry Pratchett, taking Serenity to prom just like this.

Anyway, these guys had absolutely nothing to do, so the show invented something on the fly.

If you could copy-paste any card, why not just copy-paste 24 Exodias? Like I get they don’t have God cards here but they have all the other ones, right?

Like I don’t understand the danger here, you can just keep playing cards infinitely because there’s no rules when you’re outside the game. Just keep slapping stuff on your duel disk like it’s that fanmade Yugioh game that they made for real life VR headsets. Youknow the one that was so bad that it became like a viral video, where everyone is a really low poly Yugioh character but they only have like 4 character models, and for some reason one of the four is Yugi but as a girl in a miniskirt? And they’re on the blimp for some reason, and none of them can stand up straight so they kind of duck walk everywhere? That one? The one with Joey saying “It does what it do!”

Like I feel like if even I saw that video show up on my twitter, everyone else has seen that video of just this really bad VR game and I don’t remember what it was called but feel free to google it, it’s a fun 10 minute ride.

Anyway, the mayhem of that viral video is kind of what this entire VR arc is turning into. More and more as we break reality and completely ignore the rules, to the point where now we’re just slapping whatever cards on our duel disk--cards we shouldn’t even freakin have because we identified at the beginning of this season that no one has a deck here.

But anyway, back to the only person who got out of the VR zone, lets see what Noah’s up to. Ah, the real world, where all we ever had to worry about was magic.

This password was so obtuse even Noah, who is literally a computer, forgot it. Wow.

So now that Noah has escaped the computer, he decides to walk down the hall to log onto yet another computer so he could use his hands instead of...however he was using computers in the digital zone.

He could have done this from within the Orb, right? Like this part didn’t really require him stealing Mokuba’s body? We know he’s already connected to Kaiba’s network so he could become ascended and open the Door of Truth, so I’m assuming it would also have the ability to just log onto this computer in his own ship?

Noah does seem to be just winging it through this entire arc, but he could have done this sequence, and THEN stolen Moki, and THEN hightailed it out of there. It would have saved him some problems later. But wtv, lets hack a satellite, that good ol Kaiba pastime.

Also, fun fact, Kaiba went through all that work to get rid of all the weapons and then forgot about his space stash?

Like was there just SO MANY weapons that he overlooked it, or is he just keeping this here, just to have? Just in case, youknow? Like why does Seto Kaiba have access to The Bomb? Why would we leave a horrible nuclear missile in the hands of a teenager who freaks every time he plays cards? This child who is so unstable, that he knows he was married to a paper card in a previous life but doesn’t feel like talking about it? That crazy kid?

Like usually we have a set of two keys for this type of thing and two different people turn the key at the same time, we don’t just leave them in the Seto Kaiba headquarters with the kid who turned all cards into guns. Are all of Seto’s handlers actually just spies from other countries trying to keep Seto from nuking the planet? Is that the real answer to who the hell Roland is? Is he just a nice spy that makes sure Seto plays enough cards to forget that he could blow up the world if he sneezed too much and pressed the wrong key loading up Duel Disk Myspace?

The implications.

Meanwhile, Kaiba is the only one on this show smart enough to just walk into Gozaburo’s office, where I assume this guy has just been hanging out the entire arc.

Yep, that’s right, they’re going to do a card duel with a chess champion because this show has to shoehorn in those cards. Just one more card fight. Just cuz. Just one more completely pointless card fight between these two people, to show...that Seto can beat his Dad? Seto’s beaten his Dad like every opportunity he’s had to beat his Dad I don’t...exactly know why this was necessary. Would’ve been a much bigger emotional beat for Seto to have just walked away, but that would have also been a much different Seto than the Seto we have.

So basically, if Seto loses, Gozaburo threatens to erase Seto’s mind entirely, which we’ve already pointed out has been so wiped at this point that it would be all of 700 KB and it would just be a single corrupted pixel picture of a dragon.

Anyways, Marik finally conquers his greatest enemy.

Oh. OK. This is a thing he can do now. Welcome back to the show, Marik.

Anyway, Marik has decided it’s high time for him to just go flippen spaz and start breaking stuff. For no reason. I don’t think he fully comprehends that he’s underwater and should not blow up the boat.

Or maybe he FULLY comprehends that? Either answer for him would feel correct.

Also, while I don’t cover cards here, Kaiba’s Dad has decided that the only way to beat his son was to pretend he’s Yugi Muto and reenact the pilot.

It was weird. It was sort of like watching someone audition for a role they don’t have.

Lets go back to Noah.

I knew this arc was going kinda long but how did they end up in freakin Guam???

Marik, who has no concept of technology because he grew up in a tomb and is currently possessed by an ancient force of evil, is still able to recognize a good countdown clock when he sees one. Before he bashes it to pieces because of course he can.

Marik almost saved everyone else’s ass, but unfortunately doesn’t understand that the monitor is not actually attached to the workings of the computer. Much like my Mother.

Bro brings up that this a very Metal Gear thing to only use helicopters to travel over the ocean and hot damn we got yet another Metal Gear reference in just before this arc closes. These weird war crime children.

Ps I like that they drew in the shadow of the bangs across Moki’s eyes as if that would somehow make Moki look sinister. lol.

But, much like the Grinch, Noah’s heart grew...well, it grew.

I wouldn’t go as far to say it grew even a full size, but youknow it...kinda made a weird little fart and bloated a little bit.

So like with Tristan turning into a monkey, it does seem a lot like Noah is just turning into Mokuba and that’s why he’s decided to save everyone. Least in my mind that’s what it looks like. Maybe if he really did take Yugi’s body, Noah would have lasted maybe 5 seconds before being doubled over with endless anxiety and guilt. Would’ve solved a lot of their problems.

I’ve been watching a cat while commuting 4 hours a day and this is actual footage of what my charger cable looked like after the cat went Marik on me and decided the cable deserved to die at 3AM after the freakin SF garbage truck went supersonic and woke up the entire neighborhood.

(the cat is fine, btw, we went and hid all the other cords, dumbass cat)

So what does Noah do? He decides...it’s time I fessed up. And he does it in the worst way, during a time when literally everyone else in the VR world is fighting multiple card enemies/their Dad.

Way to be, Noah, way to be. On the other side of town, Yugi was visibly sweating and had this facial of expression of like “Wow, maybe Noah is just a freakin psycopath?” Which, I dunno, kind of seems like the sort of thing we figured out 23 episodes ago, right at the same moment we met Noah.

Anyway, that’s all for this episode. Really seems like the only person who actually DID anything was Noah who just...decided to throw a bunch of missiles directly at himself because he can’t think things through. I guess Marik did some stuff too, but honestly, I have no idea if Marik thoroughly understood that he just guaranteed that he was absolutely going to be destroyed by rockets. That Loki.

Hey if Noah DOES manage to destroy everyone on this boat, he prevents 3 whole apocalypses and that would default him to hero status. He’ll kill off like 3 major villains and maybe even Shadi. And who doesn’t want Shadi to die (who I assume is already dead but wtv) I mean that’s not going to happen, but like...way to try and save the world Noah, you’re doing your best life.

Anyway, if you just got here, here’s a link to read these recaps from the very beginning, fair warning, there’s 2.5 seasons.

#Yugioh #episode recap #photo recap #yugioh recap #ygo #s3 ep23 #Noah Kaiba #Seto Kaiba #Yugi muto #Gozabura Kaiba #Tristan is now just fully a monkey but still a robot #so he's gone from robot monkey to monkey robot #Tea gardner #serenity wheeler #joey wheeler #duke devlin #So Kaiba just didn't feel like mentioning the huge ass rockets he has #and has had all of S1 and S2?#Marik Ishtar

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evilkitten3 · 7 years

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Ad Nihilum, Chapter Five: Reunions

AN: This story is getting attention! Yay! I even got a fic rec! I'm pretty psyched about that, as you can imagine. I'm so happy that people are enjoying this story, and I hope you continue to enjoy what's to come! Please let me know what you think, and have fun reading! Kitty out.

Warnings: Flashbacks, nightmares, death, various dark shit, disassociation, poor life choices, more existential nonsense, more dialogue than I'm used to writing, and possibly also a hug (Kaiba-style, so it's less of a hug and more a grunt of acknowledgement)

That night, Yuugi – and Marik too, most likely, even if he can't remember it clearly – dreams of knives and fire and cruel laughter. He wakes up sobbing, Atem rubbing his shoulders, and has to feel his face to make sure it's still intact. He wants to apologize to the Thief, but the look on the other's face when he comes in clogs up the words in his throat like hot molasses and he spends fifteen minutes in the bathroom hunched over the toilet (nothing comes out, which doesn't help alleviate the queasiness).

A few minutes after Yuugi leaves for school, Atem finds a drawing of some kind of insect, half-eaten and still twitching. He wonders if it's some form of an attempt at communication or just the Thief's way of flipping them off. Maybe it's both, he thinks, smirking a little. It's a bit amazing how he can find anything about this situation amusing, but his sense of humor is different than it was in Yuugi's body (Anzu says there's probably a scientific explanation – something about chemicals, maybe – but he doesn't know anyone science-y enough to figure it out).

Atem spends a few minutes staring at the drawing and picks up the phone.

The orange of the setting sun and the reddish brown of the desert bleed together, colors mixing as Nut and Geb's fingertips brush against each other for mere moments until they are separated once more.

"It really isn't fair," Aren says, and Bakura – three years old and too young to understand what it means to be in love – looks at him with the wide eyes of a child who doesn't know what you're saying but is curious enough to listen anyway. "It isn't fair," his elder brother says again. "To be separated like that. If you love someone, you should be allowed to be with that person."

Bakura continues to listen as his brother talks about the girl he saw when he went with their father to the market place in a bigger city – how she smiled at him and laughed at his jokes and showed him how to write his name in Hieroglyphics and how he thinks he might want to marry her.

"So marry her," he says, shrugging. "Like Ashiya and Elder Sister, right?"

But Aren just shakes his head and says that it's different, that there are too many reasons they can't be together. He doesn't elaborate. "I'll tell you when you're older," he assures him.

"How much older?"

"Hm… two years," Aren promises.

Two years later Aren is dead and Bakura is watching from behind the ruins of a cupboard as his brother's fingers twitch when a soldier yanks the stone axe out of the back of his head.

The pencil snaps in half and veers off the paper. The Thief stares down at it in disgust, half of the face he'd been drawing grinning at him. It felt like mockery – the squiggle left by the broken pencil, taunting him over– over–. He wasn't sure. He thinks he should feel bad about breaking the pencil, since he only has so many and he certainly isn't going to ask Anzu for more, but he can't muster up even the slightest bit of "oops".

Everything is broken here, he thinks to himself. Everything and everyone is broken here. He doesn't know where "here" is, so he snatches up the failed drawing and tears it in half, again and again and again, until the floor and bed are littered with tiny fragments of what was nothing more than just another failure.

He laughs, and it feels like dying.

Kaiba knows who it is before he picks up the phone.

"Yuugi," he says anyway.

"I have a name of my own, you know," the Pharaoh replies and Kaiba can see him smirking in his mind's eye.

"What do you want?" Cold, collected, professional. No room for emotions that could show weakness – no escape for the discomfort building within the both of them.

"I'm simply surprised you haven't asked me to Duel you," Atem says, and Kaiba scowls. Arrogant bastard, he thinks to himself. The irony doesn't escape him.

"Yuugi is the King of Games now," Kaiba reminds him. "Why would I aim for second best?" It's bullshit and they both know it.

"Yuugi says you haven't challenged him either."

"I've been busy."

"Not too busy to answer my call."

"What do you want, Atem?" The word feels strange on his tongue, almost like he's broken some sort of taboo. There's silence for a moment.

"So you do know my name," the Pharaoh is trying not to laugh, and Kaiba refuses to indulge him any further.

"I'm free at 2:30," he snaps.

"No, you're not," Atem tries to sound stern, but there's no point.

"I am now," Kaiba corrects him, and Isono wordlessly reschedules his 2:00 appointment.

"One would think that's bad for business," Atem notes, and Kaiba resists the urge to snort.

"2:30." He says again and hangs up. Four hours, twenty-seven minutes, and thirteen seconds, Kaiba thinks, looking at the clock.

And then he pushes the thoughts of Atem and Dueling out of his head and returns to work, because he is Seto Kaiba and 'Atem is back' isn't enough to keep him from getting some work done.

The Duel is private, because Kaiba really shouldn't be putting off work (or school) for this, but Isono's there with a camera recording everything anyway, just in case. Atem arrives exactly on time, and Kaiba can't help but be annoyed by his punctuality. Just had to time everything perfectly, didn't you, he thinks bitterly, like he's never done exactly that.

It goes about as expected, with both of them doing fairly well until Atem magically drew the exact card he needed to secure a victory. The only difference is that the Black Magician's smirk is much more meaningful now that he knows who Mahado is (or rather, was), and Kaiba has to resist the urge to flip him off when he does that annoying finger wag. All in all, it's a rather anti-climatic battle.

"I don't suppose you have an understanding of brain chemicals," Atem says, for lack of anything else to say. Kaiba rolls his eyes.

"I'm a computer scientist, not a neurochemist," he sneers. "That's not my area of expertise. Why are you even asking something like that?" Atem sighs and sits down and Kaiba wonders who the hell told him he could stay and chat.

"Just curiosity," he waves off the question. "But I do need your help with something." Of course he does. It stings, surprisingly enough, that Atem didn't just show up to Duel him.

"And that would be?"

"How do I communicate with an emotionally stunted asshole who's tried to kill me and my friends in the past but is now someone who doesn't seem to be able to function on his own?"

"I can 'function' just fine," Kaiba retorts, and Atem can't stop himself from laughing.

"For once, Kaiba, you aren't the emotionally stunted previously murderous asshole in question," he says, smirking. "Although I must admit, I find it amusing that you immediately assumed I was talking about you. Come to think of it, you do fit the description…"

"Listen, I–" Kaiba begins and then stops as curiosity overcomes the desire to make a witty comment. "Wait, how many 'emotionally stunted assholes that have tried to kill you and your friends in the past' do you know?" Atem thinks about it for a moment.

"Does Rishid count?" he asks.

"The guy who wasn't Marik?"

"The guy who–" Atem can't hide his grin. "Yes, Kaiba, the guy who wasn't Marik." He coughs, trying to push the conversation back to a more serious tone. "If you count him, then it's four. Otherwise, it's just you, Marik, and the Spirit of the Millennium Ring." Kaiba raises an eyebrow.

"He's back too?"

"You didn't know?"

"I… haven't exactly been at school much lately," Kaiba confesses. "I've had a lot of work to do."

"You've been avoiding Yuugi, you mean," Atem corrects, unimpressed. Kaiba doesn't bother to deny it.

"I assume you're talking about him, then?" He asks, and Atem nods. "What do you expect from me? I barely know the normal Bakura, much less his evil alter ego."

"I should've asked Mokuba," Atem says, shaking his head. Kaiba takes a minute to process that.

"Okay, well, screw you too," he mutters before he can stop himself. Atem rises.

"I should get going," he says. "And… Kaiba?"

"What?"

"Thank you."

During lunch, Yuugi tells his friends about the dream – less solid than the others, he says, which only made it scarier. Marik doesn't remember his dreams still, but apparently Rishid was worried about him (which might not mean anything, because when is Rishid not worried about Marik). Bakura hasn't come back to school yet, and Kaiba's still not there either, and the conversation eventually peters to silence.

"I dunno how much longer I can deal with this," Otogi says, sounding a bit hoarse. "I know that's– that's probably really selfish, but–"

"It's not," Anzu cuts him off sternly, frowning. "This isn't something any of us know how to deal with. We can't just play a game and solve the problem, and the fact is that that's what we've gotten used to. It's good to help your friends, Otogi, but you also need to take care of yourself – and, in your case, you have a job as well."

"I sorta thought you'd say 'friends have to stick together' or something," Jounouchi comments. Anzu gives him a funny look.

"Why would I say that?" she asks, brow furrowing. "Friends do have to stick together, sure, but part of that is understanding people's limits. On top of that, we still don't have a solid idea of what's going on. I can't expect Otogi to throw everything aside and devote his full attention to this situation. No one can do that, not even me. I learned that from you," she adds, looking at Yuugi, who nods.

"I wouldn't want you to do that anyway," he agrees. "Marik and I made a mistake; it's only fair that we're the ones who clean up the mess. We've dragged enough people into this as it is, really."

"That's what I keep telling Isis and Rishid," Marik wrinkles his nose, as though his sandwich had done something to personally offend him. "But you know how they are." He shrugs. "At least Isis stopped lecturing me for the moment."

"She'll use it against you," Honda warns. "Older sisters are like that. She will never let this go." Marik snorts.

"I have no doubt of that," he grumbles. "I once hid one of her earrings as a joke. It was nearly a year ago, but she's still mad."

"Little sisters are much better," Jounouchi laughs. "Shizuka wouldn't do that at all." He turns to glare at Otogi. "Speaking of Shizuka," he growls. "Why are you on a first-name basis with my sister?" Otogi shrugs innocently.

"I just wanted to make her feel more included," he winks, and Jounouchi lunges at him. Anzu yelps in surprise as the two boys begin to tussle, and prepares to break it up until she sees Yuugi laughing at the scene and decides to let it go for now.

"'Hiroto'," Honda mumbles dreamily. "Wonder if I could get her to use my name…" Jounouchi glares at him over his shoulder.

"You're next, Honda! Stay the hell away from my sister!"

Ryou Bakura's smile is a little too forced when Sugoroku lets him in.

"You should be in school," he reprimands quietly. Bakura nods in agreement.

"I need to talk to him," he says. "I'll go back soon, I promise, but–" Sugoroku puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him, and silently steps aside. "Thank you."

The Thief's room has little pieces of paper all over the floor, but the occupant is fully conscious.

"Why are you here?" he rasps, and Bakura crosses his arms.

"You better clean that up," he tells him. "I think you've made enough messes for one lifetime – or several," he adds, pointedly. The Thief scowls at him.

"What do you want?" he asks. Bakura leans down until their noses are almost touching. His eyes are narrow and the Thief takes that as a challenge, narrowing his own as well.

"Did he know how to read?" Bakura asks calmly. There's no question as to who "he" is, and the Thief shakes his head. "Who did?"

"A few people," the Thief says after a moment. "A couple of the elders, I think."

"The old woman?"

"She was blind."

"Her granddaughter, then?" Bakura knows he's hit the mark when the Thief breaks eye contact. "These aren't my memories," Bakura tries to keep his composure, but it's difficult to force down the anger.

"They aren't mine either," the Thief reminds him.

"Cut the connection," Bakura demands, and the Thief laughs.

"Even if I knew how, I wouldn't," he says. "It's not over until they're free. For either of us." Bakura's fist connects with the Thief's cheek, sending him flying off the bed. It's a bit concerning, since Bakura isn't really all that strong, but the Thief weighs almost nothing.

"This isn't my anger," Bakura repeat, trying to reassure himself. The Thief laughs again, blood running from his nose.

"It's your something," he grins, and Bakura storms from the room before he can hit him again, slamming the door shut behind him.

"It's not mine," he whispers as his fingernails dig into his palms. "Not mine," he says again hours later when he's eating dinner and rage comes from nowhere, bubbling up inside of him (it smells of tar, he thinks). "You're not mine either," he tells the enormous white creature hovering behind him.

Diabound doesn't reply.

AN: I feel like Otogi would be the least equipped to deal with all this nonsense, honestly. But anyway, there's a bit of humor in the middle of the story, just so it doesn't get too dark. Also because I feel like each chapter should at least reach ten pages so I don't end up slacking off or something. That said, it feels like the word count in each chapter just gets shorter and shorter… I should start wrapping things up, but I have a couple plot points that I need to have happen, and I've only mentioned three members of TKB's family (Ashiya, Bitya'a, and Aren), two of whom aren't even blood relatives. So… I'd like to know how many more people from the past the Thief should have flashbacks about, 'cause I'm definitely going to introduce his sister and parents, but that's probably gonna be it.

Speaking of the flashbacks, you might've noticed that this one was a little bit different from the last two. The reason for that is that I want each flashback to occur differently, because TKB would've had a different relationship with each of them, and trauma is really weird about the memory.

I do have to admit that the Diabound thing was a bit last minute – not the place that particular idea is going; that's been planned out from the beginning, but the bit about having Diabound being physically in the story didn't occur to me until fairly recently. That said, it'll all make sense fairly soon (well… as much sense as anything else in YGO makes). I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and please let me know what you thought! Kitty out.

#yu-gi-oh!#ygo fic #ad nihilum #ek3 writes stuff

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S2 Ep 46 Part 1: Young Marik Goes to a Craft Fair/Immediately Murders His Own Dad

Ah Yugioh, last episode got pretty weird, and this one, I’m pleased to say, is that much weirder.

We start with Mokuba, who either has a PHD in languages studies, or is just completely full of BS. And, when it comes to the Kaibas, we’ll just never know. It could go either way and I’d absolutely buy it.

Of course, none of this matters since Kaiba is cursed, in case you forgot. His curse is a lot easier than everyone else’s because all he does is vibe with a ancient relic he refuses to think is real and then hallucinate his dead wife he refuses to talk about.

I am still kind of reeling over the fact that Seto’s Previous-Life’s Dead Wife is Blue Eyes is canon. I’m sure they thought turning this card into a person would be simple and fun. It’s still fun, for me, for that room of writers that now has to untangle this mess they just created? Yeah good freakin luck with that.

Also, I forgot something last episode.

Much better. Seto’s catching up, slowly but surely, to Marik.

(read more under the cut)

And I mean...Seto is just low-key unaware that he’s vaguely obsessed with his Great^nth Grandma, right? Like that’s the canon? Nice. I mean there’s a 5000 year difference and she is like a card, so...legally it’s fine, whatever, it’s not like they can ever hook up.

But like...didn’t Seto tear a Blue Eyes completely in half in the first episode? That’s kind of messed up now! Granted, back in Episode 1 the writers probably didn’t know that 1 season later they’d all be sitting around a table and going like “so...what if they were married???”

Like...how weird is it now that Grandpa still has that torn up Blue Eyes?

(I say as if this is a big deal on a show where the canon flagship relationship of Yugi and Tea involves Yugi who is 3 people and Tea who is, as we find out at the end of this episode, also 3 people. Mind you, 2 of those people is just 2 Bakuras, but it’s still an awkward 5-way. Who would they even be kissing if they were kissing? ((JK we all know it would just be Bakura and Bakura)) )

Does Grandpa and Arthur even realize how freakin weird it is that their token of eternal friendship/marriage is literally the dead waifu of that random rich guy over there? That Arthur was like “remember my not-romantic love always, by wifing with this wife who is also my wife. Goodbyyyyyye.”

Was Episode 1 just Kaiba walking in on a three way with his predestined card-ex? Was that how he got so freakin pissed? It actually would make more sense than what actually happened. And like I’m pretty sure that particular Blue Eyes chose Grandpa over Seto so, what even is that? Is that like a divorce or something?

Also, and this is the most important thing about this entire situation, did Pegasus really try like a billion times to resurrect his dead wife unsuccessfully (I hope) but TOTALLY resurrected Kaiba’s dead wife in the process? Like, just by accident he resurrected not just any dead wife’s soul into a playing card but his sworn enemy that Pegasus super tried to murder and destroy that one time? Like damn, that’s some good irony right there.

...it’s a lot to process in a show where like 4 people are also body swapping at the same time.

Anyway, back to this episode, Seto can also read this Ra card. But, I assume he cannot marry it because he and three of the four sides of his Blue Eyes Wife have just changed their status from “It’s complicated” to “It’s still complicated” (the fourth version hanging out with Solomon Muto is still card divorced and living her best life)

Faced with definitive proof that all this is absolutely real, Kaiba never actually graduates from the Denial step to any of the other steps of acceptance.

Neither would I. Neither would I.

Never forget, that him actually accepting any of this makes him a widow to a freakin paper freakin card.

I will say, that my prediction that Kaiba’s relationships, if he ever got into one, wouldn’t last more than 2 minutes apiece came true in the weirdest way possible.

I’m glad we got this lore bomb that will disappear into the Yugioh’s forgotten plot-threads graveyard faster than you can say “and then Bakura put a piece of his soul into the Millennium Puzzle.”

Speaking of,

And so enters our exposition, who decided to actually leave her bedroom and see what else is on this blimp. Took her long enough. If she had come out, I dunno, before Joey dueled, then her brother, Odion would have never been struck by lightning since she could’ve been like “lol guy’s, that’s not Marik” but wtv. Nice to see you, Ishizu. You are late, as usual.

Also, the art team left us a breathtaking still life.

Meanwhile, holed up in this room staring at Mai Valentine for the last 30 minutes on this little aqua cube, Serenity has decided she is done with this BS they keep calling a card game. I guess her vow to be brave and suck it up lasted all of half an hour.

And it was during this complete 12yo meltdown that Ishizu was like “oh, that reminds me, I also have a brother who’s having a complete meltdown” As if this would somehow help Serenity feel any better about being trapped on a blimp with them.

So, Ishizu takes a very long sip of water and starts her very long story about When Marik Truly Went Evil But This Time The Flashback’s For Reals Last Time He Was Kind of Evil But This Time We’re For Serious Telling You Exactly The Moment He Went Cray.

Please admire the nonsense stairs and columns supporting nothing in this image. Nice.

Now before, I knew they lived underground but I kinda figured they left occasionally to get snacks and pick up babies from the side of the road. Apparently it’s only certain people who can do that, so not only has this kid been living underground but he has never seen sunlight.

But here’s my question um--what happened to all the other cultists? Like we’re assuming that we have 5000 years of an underground situation, and if their growth happens geometrically since human beings tend to have multiple children, then there should be like thousands of people down here. Like SO MANY people. Was there some sort of plague? Did all the cultists just keep killing each other as each one went completely mad down here? Like, what’s the story?

I have made so many jokes about Marik being a crafty bastard who knits hats but I kid you not he literally went to the flea market. He has only one hour in the real world and all he wants is to see the Handmade Industry.

Again, Marik would be the hero in any YA dystopian novel, guys. Any of them. Like I’m pretty sure I read three separate books by three separate people in the late 2000′s about underground mole people cults and Marik would have been the hero in every single one of them. Leave it to Yugioh.

Odion decided to stay behind as a lookout rather than go outside in the stinky sunlight, meaning that Marik got to feel a sunburn for the very first time ever as he looked directly into it’s surface.

So I can see the allusion that they wanted to make. That without light you can never see shadow--and that because he literally stepped out into the light, his shadow was finally able to fully manifest itself for the first time.

But...Marik was locked underground, how long could he have realistically lasted before losing his mind just like his Father already has?

And then Marik finds the one relic that truly drives him mad, a discarded magazine. But not that type of magazine. I’m actually not quite sure what type of magazine this would be, TBH. it’s got some REALLY good anime soda on the back, and then pets, and then autos? I don’t know.

This motorcycle had spooky music and everything. Truly the embodiment of evil, a mid-30′s gentleman driving to work with a sensible helmet.

He also saw a TV and confused the hell out of this vase salesman.

And then, no weird episode is truly weird enough without an abrupt visit from Shadi.

So they rush back home to the very obvious cellar door in the middle of the desert that no one except for this cult has ever found.

But, unfortunately, these kids are really, really dumb and so because Shadi told them to go the hell back home, Shadi set in motion the tools needed to send Marik completely off the deep end.

So Shadi is just really really bad at his job or he really wants to watch it burn, I’m thinking probably both.

We get a voice-over from Ishizu that Marik’s father was using the rod on Odion but we don’t actually see much. I think a bunch of this probably got edited out because obviously, abuse is something you can’t really show on kid’s daytime TV, although...they kinda did anyway.

OH.

I mean, he is possessed so like he would act real different but there was absolutely no fighting back on Marik’s part to kill his own Dad. He just straight up went for it. Complete 180 on this character in a matter of time it takes to look at a picture of a motorcycle.

And so, Evil Marik decides it’s time to kill Odion, much like he’s been trying to do in our current timeline, but seeing his older brother snaps Marik out of it, which would have been just real confusing for him. I mean Yugi’s snapped out of his Pharaoh blackouts in strange positions, sure, but this one in particular is like “wow I just killed my Dad.” If he even knows.

Bro was saying he actually didn’t know at this point. Of course my Bro has a lot of spicy Yugioh headcanons and he’s becoming less and less reliable the more we watch. (Bros editorial note: how does one remember what actually happens in this show?)

Why were you even here Shadi!? Just to be judgy and then peace out? Like back in Season Zero it felt like Shadi had a...job. Here he’s just like...watching the show with me. He’s just the most useless millennium item, I swear.

After this sad tale, at least we have Joey to remind us that Marik’s killed 100+ people since then.

So yeah, Marik killed his Dad because he saw a Motorcycle.

Literally killed his Dad because he saw a motorcycle and it awoke a desire in him to leave the nest, and then Odion got beat up because Ishizu was too dumb to ever notice that they had an alarm on the freakin front hole in the ground.

A Motorcycle.

And we can pretty much assume that his Dad’s been threatening to kick out Odion basically forever to get Marik to stay put, right? That this has definately happened before but this time...there was a motorcycle.

Truly evil, motorcycles.

In this show where one guy was literally dueling Yugi while tying him to a bandsaw--those motorcycles though. Pure satan.

Bro just asked me that if Pharaoh’s tomb had free wifi, Would people live there on purpose and I’m just going to leave that there.

Anyway, here’s a link to read these in order from S1 Ep1

#yugioh #yugioh recap #photo recap #s2 ep46 #marik isthar #ishizu isthar #tw abuse #yugi muto #joey wheeler #tristan taylor #seto kaiba #rip seto kaiba's very short and very serious relationship with a paper card #mokuba kaiba #mokuba #serenity wheeler #tea gardner

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S2 Ep 44-45: Kaiba Hallucinates a Dead Woman and Then no One Talked About it???

So, for the record, I am writing a little bit to the future here because I did make a little bit of buffer. And this episode had a Hella Random Thing in it and I just want y’all to know I try to create an authentic reading experience--although it’s not like a blind riffing, I clearly watched each episode twice to make the caps and write all this stuff--and I do it one episode at a time so you get a somewhat close to a realistic live cap experience, but like, believe me when I say I did not see this coming.

At all.

And if any of you were watching this at home and saw this happening then you are lying OR you have been writing a very creative fanfic and this fever dream was also shared by that one guy on this writing staff who really really really stans Seto Kaiba. Lets dive into it, shall we?

Things start out pretty normal, as we are yet tucking another hospitalized person into Kaiba’s floating coma ward.

I’m starting to notice that this room also has sheets which just means when they got to Bakura, they just didn’t feel like tucking that nasty boy in. They looked at him covered in blood and grime and whatever other sweaty layers are all over Bakura and were like “None of us like Kaiba, but we don’t want to do that to his linens.”

And then the episode starts with Joey literally saying this

Now in the actual line of the show, Serenity stayed behind because she wanted to be strong for Mai, a lady she looked up to so much for all of 3 hours. She also said that her brother’s strength inspired her to have the courage to stay well below deck and whatever the hell nonsense was going on up there.

I mean courage is a word you could use to describe it, I would just call it common sense.

Also, look at this Christmas miracle.

I like that someone on the animation team was like “How else are they going to know that Mai isn’t wearing the disk? Draw it on the table. We have to.” and then bam there it is. That is one super random detail.

(more under the cut)

At the top of the blimp, they’ve decided to give Marik a little bit more space.

The Yuge crew must’ve looked at this situation and been all “I can stand next to Marik, or I can appear to root for Kaiba.” And they made their choice.

Below deck we get to see one of my favorite things, that’s right, it’s fake UI for TV shows.

these look like windows you pull up in Maya when you’re trying to find the right vertex or something. Maybe that’s what inspired all this? I dunno, it’s very silly that he would need the same image of a card twice, and that he would need one flipped and in wireframe. Especially since all they're doing is translating a language.

Or maybe he’s just been dogging Kaiba for half an hour before this episode started? Who knows, but honestly, I kinda have to side with Kaiba on this one, moving Mai would be a bad choice since there’s doctors--right there--but like...they should land the blimp though. Like the blimp with a murderer on it maybe needs to land at some point?

But never mind that, there’s cards to be played.

Or...not played.

It takes Ishizu so long to show up that Roland almost cancelled the game and I was so ready to not have to watch a card duel. I was so ready for that to be the canonical end of Ishizu but of course that didn’t happen.

PS, Marik is permanently glowing now.

Kaiba still doesn’t believe in magic and this guy has a constant third eye. So did Yugi all of last duel and Kaiba was just like “I don’t get your weird fashion” and tbh that’s a fair assumption to make.

To be fair, they probably only have once source of not cursed jewelry living underground, and it’s probably why their so matchy-matchy. Like, we all have that one Aunt (I was that one Aunt for a little while) with an Etsy shop and way too much inventory that they just give away to family every birthday and holiday. Judging by how much jewelry these two are wearing, their one Aunt isn’t doing so hot selling her merch.

Anyway, Marik’s good side makes an attempt to reach out and it doesn’t get him very far.

Honestly, when you look at it, there’s more people here from Kaiba’s extremely close school class than there is from the Ishtar family. And they don’t even know that Odion is also related. Sort of calling the kettle black here.

Again, ancient Egyptian Samurai with Yugioh cards would have been one hell of a spinoff with so many problems, where is that anime?

So, the game begins, between a mostly-neutral-antagonist and a protagonist who has done nothing but lock herself in her room in the dark for about 1/4 of a season. I have literally no idea who I’m supposed to be rooting for. Neither does anyone on the show.

Things went about as well as you’d expect dueling a psychic, because Kaiba has learned absolutely nothing from dueling Pegasus.

*Mokuba still has the whistle*

Anyway, because Ishizu can read the future, she knew she’d be going up against a dude who relies on very big strong dragons, so she straight up removed every strong card from his deck, leaving only six cards.

It’s at this point that he only really has one option, to play a Blue Eyes White dragon, which he had in his hand still, or to play the God Card Obelisk which I think was still on field? Again I don’t pay too much attention to the duels but the big thing is that he’s gonna use Obelisk, so Ishizu cursed it so it would hella kill him.

Much like any of the God Cards have done thus far. The worst cards. These are the worst cards and at this point no one should want them anymore. But youknow, hubris.

This is all pretty run of the mill since every time Kaiba duels, he gets hella dunked on, but then...this happens out of absolutely no where.

WHAT?

SHOW.

The least dateable guy in Yugioh!? How is it Kaiba--a past version of him mind you--but a shirtless Kaiba who’s got some lady draped across his arms like he’s gotta model for the cover of a Harlequin romance novel for old ladies? Which...I can arrange that.

Why--out of all of these boys, was it this one that has something the most resembling a fully formed relationship? More so than Tristan, more so than Yugi, more so than whatever was going on with Joey last episode.

What!?

WHAT?

This came out of no where like a jump scare!

And like, here’s the thing, if Kaiba was your slice of pie from the weird ass hair dessert tray that is Yugioh’s selection of husbands, that’s fine. Ship away. But like, imagine with me here, you have a boyfriend--and if you don’t like boys that only adds to this experience--you have a boyfriend and he has the most normal hair of anyone you know, and that’s really great. But his voice ALWAYS sounds like he’s announcing an NBC cop drama. Like you’re eating dinner and he’s like “Can we watch the food channel?” like he’s solid snake.

You’d kill him. You’d kill him way before you end up dead draped across his arms in some weird flashback. You’d straight up kill him.

Sorry, I just made him a lot more attractive for half of you. Whatever, my plan backfired.

But, despite...how...he is, now Seto has one of the most tragic of all the relationships on this show, up there with Pegasus and his dead wife. And so like, I turned to my bro and was like “WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT WHAT JUST HAPPENED??”

Cuz this show that has very, very little dating in it. A show that has had no physical kissing unless you count that time Pegasus macked a ghost. A show where someone almost got married to someone they never dated in their life and they shrugged it off. A show that had Mai and Joey friendzoning the hell out of eachother rather than admit any sort of crush. A show where Tea and Yugi went on a date but then I guess forgot that happened 20 episodes ago and are now in permanent friend limbo. (Tea and Yugi so far having the most realistic dating experience tbh.)

This is just straight up here’s a picture of past Seto, and his dead wife is here too, no explanation! Have fun digesting that!

(wouldn’t have noticed they forgot to finish Yugi’s necklace if I hadn’t done the cap. hm. So fast I blinked and missed it until I wrote this copy.)

And like, I’m making it seem in these caps as if these characters talked about what I just witnessed in any degree and straight up they didn’t. Of course they didn’t. Kaiba didn’t want to discuss this crazy ass thing that happened. Just me. I am the only one that’s talking about this in 2019. Just me.

So I turn to my bro and was like “you have to tell me what just happened” and bro was like

“Sorry to disappoint you but...I’m pretty sure that dead girl never comes up again.” and then he kind of continued “I’m pretty sure Kaiba sacrificed his one true love in order to get his Blue Eyes.” and I realized “Bro, is this just a headcanon you made up? Are you telling me your spicy Seto Kaiba fanfic as if it’s true just like that one time you told me that Yugi’s Grandpa ate a guy in Egypt and I believed you for 30 episodes?” and bro was like “Mmmmmm It’s probably a headcanon. I’m pretty sure they dropped Kaiba’s dead girlfriend plotline completely off the face of the Earth. Like a LOT of plotlines from s2, Rach, don’t get attached.”

So, because Kaiba believes that his.......dragon.......told him to play a dragon, Kaiba sacrifices his Obelisk to play a dragon--thus removing the Obelisk curse.

So if it’s strongly suggested that Kaiba’s love for this dragon is youknow, an equivalent to the devotion you would have a for a dead wife you have cradled in your arms, then -- has Kaiba been dating this dragon the whole time? Is that what the show just seriously suggested to me with this juxtaposition? Because I am an illustrator and if I wanted to make someone look like they had an intense and complicated relationship with a playing card, that is how I would draw it. Just saying.

And like for serious, how is it that Yugioh keeps writing it’s own fanfic? Like, is this dragon infused with the spirit of his dead wife? Is that why his reincarnation has this weird fixation with the Blue Eyes White Dragon? OMG this is absolutely ridiculous, I can’t believe I’m considering that Kaiba was literally married to what is now his paper card of a dragon. Of which he has 3 of.

Clearly I am thinking way too much about this.

I mean to be fair, Kaiba did save Tea that one time. He also took out a helicopter and a crane at the same time but Tea was just fine.

Oh boy.

That was so freakin random. Well...I’m glad that Kaiba got back together with the dragon. They had sort of a breakup at the beginning of the season and now KaibaxDragon is back in full swing. Good for them.

This was the only guy smart enough not to play a God Card, PS. This guy. I guess if Seto fell in a plot coma the entire tourney would be essentially over, so...it had to happen this way.

But dead wife, amiright?

Here’s a link to read from S1 Ep1

And PS in case you don’t know about the Billionaires and Baby’s books that have--I swear to you, like 400 books in the series--please admire the billionaires and babies books. Never read them. But I like to spread the news of these completely insane and real book covers wherever I go.

#Yugioh #yugioh recap #photo recap #s2 ep44 #s2 ep45 #seto kaiba #seto kaiba's dead wife #yugi muto #did I mention that seto kaiba has a freakin dead wife #joey wheeler #how do you just glaze over seto kaiba's dead wife omg #serenity wheeler #ishizu ishtar #tristan taylor #duke devlin #mai valentine #marik ishtar

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