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bluewavesofchange · 9 months ago

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The guardians of the Pharaoh.

I don't own Yugioh or it's characters.

Chapter 1

Many have lived their lives with the obvious delusion that life is a spectacular and mesmerising thing to wonder through. Brought into this world as a small, fragile, yet beautiful infant who has a warm hearted, loving and beyond beautiful mother. Whose eyes are bejewelled with a light that scare away any evil in your precious little heart. And don't forget her humble smile, her lips curved into a perfect crescent moon that gives passage to softly spoken words such as 'I love you' in a voice that's calm and subtle, like the gentle breeze of an Autumn morning. And beside her is a father. A powerful yet meek man whose firm yet welcoming grip brought you up over the many years, a man who guided you over the unpredictable, treacherous and hard road of life. Always there to catch you when you stumble and break down. His unforgettable words, spoken in a humble tone but still coated in love...if only that were true for me...

I had the misfortune of being brought into the cruel, withering and cold piece of hell screaming, alone and afraid. The woman, who sadly carried me in her doomed body for 9 long months, was released from her mortal existence mere moments before I was pulled out of the warm, protective womb where I was created, into the hell that is called the world. The man, who was supposedly married to the now empty and lifeless woman, a man whom I was supposed to call father, a coward who left behind a small, vulnerable baby girl...he left her lying in the incubator...alone...nameless...unwanted...afraid...a nothing with no one to hold her as her terrified and glass shattering broken screams and cries echoed throughout the chilling white halls of the hospital that stood short amongst the square giants that formed the brightly lit city. Its crowded streets and busy roads, the load hooting of taxi's, the busy and singled minded people shouting their lungs out, dulled out the heart broken cries of the abandoned and neglected little girl...the broken cries of a confused and trembling little me...

...learning at only an hour old...

...what loneliness and brokenness really was...

The doctors said I was born a tiny baby, small enough to fit into a handbag like those barking rats the celebrities prance around with. I was born with skin whiter than the first snowflake of winter and smoother than a porcelain doll. Dark wavy curls covered my scalp, each gentle curl facing a different direction like a bunch of waddling penguins. Born with a small mouth, it was hard to believe that something so tiny could produce such an ear bursting sound. And the eyes...the kind, small and skinny nurse who had taken care of me, said she had never seen such eyes before...a deep blue shade that could have been mistaken for sapphires. These two orbs of beauty that held such innocence and purity...also held so much hurt and agony at such a tender age...already knowing that the world was a cruel place...that the spiked claws of darkness and despair would always try to snuff out the light of happiness and goodness...dragging away everything you have...until you are completely alone...like me...

I was left at an orphanage a week after I was born and given the name Lillian. The place was cold like everything else on this retched planet. The walls were covered in scarlet red wallpaper that was already peeling from years of clinging to the hollow wooden walls. The floors were puzzled over by brown and grey tiles, several being missing or cracked or shattered. The ceiling had more mold and stains on it than an ancient tree in the rain forest. The smell was terrible due to the other orphans never cleaning properly and the smell of rotten eggs and urine was always around us. We were stuffed into any room that had even a crumb of space, sleeping on rotten old mattresses that were donated who knows when, some not even fitting on the rusted metal bed frames that cradled them...but that's not even the worst part...

The worst part was the other kids I had to stay with. I don't think some of them had a single good bone in their bodies. The oldest kid was always the one in charge. And that was Markiato. He was 13, never was considered for adoption, not once because of what a jerk he was to everyone. He had filthy blond hair that I don't think was ever washed. He carried around an old baseball bat that he used to install fear in everyone. He was tanned or should I rather say he was sun burned with dark brown eyes that dug out your soul and filled you with terror whenever he glared at you. Not to mention he was basically a giant, tallest kid in the orphanage and leader of the "B.O.B", that stood for "Bad Orphan Boys". Creative, I know. They were a group of boys that followed him around like he was a fricking king. They did whatever he said and beat up anyone they didn't like. I guess they must have really hated me, because ever since I got there, I had been their punching bag. And you would have thought that the caretakers of the orphanage would have done something about this. Maybe they could have stopped the older kids from beating the crap out of us but no. Whenever someone went to go complain about getting hurt or their stuff being taken away, the care takers would just shove them away and told them to go play or that it was just part of growing up. Yeah, it’s part of growing up to have someone hit you in the stomach with a bat and then beat you as you fall to the ground...

...the only time we were somewhat safe was when they sent us to school...

...but even that place had its list of problems and horrors...

...if it wasn't the kids at the orphanage beating us up...

...it would be the kids at school...

But there was a time when my life at that hell hole was actually good. I was 9 years old when I first really experienced happiness. The day was like any other day, winter was coming to an end, the snow had started to melt some time ago and the weather was still extremely cold. The paper thin blankets that had more holes than Swiss cheese and smelled worse than a public bathroom at a train station was the only source of warmth we got.

I was sitting on the bench by the window between two bare and leafless bushes, starring down at the dead and dusty ground, hugging my faded lavender sweater tightly to keep warm. It's not that I ever minded the cold, but it helped me feel less lonely somehow. The sound of the creaking gate that stood at the front of the orphanage was heard and the other kids rushed towards it. This could only mean one of two things...new arrivals had come or someone was coming to adopt. It wasn't odd that we got new kids arriving a few times a week; it was the fact that there were so little of us leaving this horrible place. I guessed nobody really wanted kids these days. Sighing, I got up from my seat and headed to the gate with the others to see what was going on. I had already given up hope of getting adopted. Too many times had families come looking for a child and they would just look me over. Maybe there was something wrong with me...I really was unwanted...even around the orphanage everyone called me "Lonely Lilly"...cause nobody wanted to come near me and I was always seen sitting by myself...

As I reached the gate, the other kids had started heading back to the playground already, clearly disappointed. I guess that meant that no one was here to adopt. I saw the two boys that had arrived. The tall one had brown chestnut hair and sweet blue eyes. He wore a yellow button-up shirt with a blue pullover, plain black jeans and a pair of white sneakers. The smaller boy that stood beside him had raven black long messy hair and soft grey eyes. He wore a green button-up shirt, grey shorts and a pair of purple trainers with knee high socks. They didn't talk to anyone as one of the caretakers led them into the building to show them around and assign them a room. I headed back to the lonely little bench by the window, thinking of the two boys that had arrived. They were most likely brothers considering they both arrived at together and looked, well a little alike I guess. Were they abandoned like me or did their parents pass away? Or did their parents do something bad and now they have to stay here? Why did I even care? Not like it really mattered to me what the story was with each kid that came and went from this place. Most of the time, the others left me alone and that was just fine with me. I didn't need anyone and didn't want anyone...I was fine with being alone...because that's all I would ever be.

A few hours passed and I was still sitting in my usually place when Markiato and his gang of mindless idiots came to pester me. Markiato stood in front of the others, holding that stupid bat under his right arm as he sneered down at me, making me shudder.

"Well, well...if it isn't little lonely Lilly."

He said with a chuckle, I hugged myself defensively, not wanting to aggravate him in case he tried to smash my skull in with his wooded beating stick.

"What do you want Markiato?"

I stuttered as I stared down at the ground, not wanting to make eye contact with the mammoth in front of me.

"Just wanted to spend a little time with my favourite little loser..."

He kept grinning as he reached out to lift my chin, making me look right into those horrible eyes. I quickly hit his hand away and got up keeping my gaze away from the rest of the boys.

"Just go away Markiato..."

I spoke softly as I turned to quickly leave but found myself surrounded by the rest of his menacing gang. Looking around as fear started to build inside me as I could find no way out of the circle of boys surrounding me. Each one having a nasty smile on their unwashed faces. Markiato slowly approached me again, grabbing hold of my jersey collar and pulled me towards him. The smell of onion rings and fish leaked from his mouth as he smirked at me, his yellow teeth fitting precisely in the frame of his lips. Instantly I began to feel sick.

"Now why would I go away? We're just having some fun right? Besides you seemed so lonely sitting here all by yourself."

Snickering as he spoke, I tried to pull free from his iron grip but it was no use. He saw me struggle and the impending fear that was growing within me as I began to tremble. Shoving me hard onto the cold hard ground and dirtying my jersey in the process. My eyes filled with tears of pain and fear as I lifted myself up with my arms, shaking as I stared at the ground watching the shadows of the boys around me. Twirling the bat in his hand, I could see him looking around at the other boys...

"You know fellas...maybe we should put her out of her misery? Send her back to where she came from..."

He slowly circled me, still twirling the bat mockingly before reaching down, his empty crusty hand grabbing my hair and pulling me up. Letting out a cry of pain, I grabbed his wrist, trying to ease the sudden burst of pain on my scalp.

"Pl-please st-stop!"

I yelled at him before he threw me to the ground again, landing face first in the dirt and scrapping my cheek. I weakly tried to hold myself up again, my hair falling over my face as a tear ran down my cheek, listening to the other kids laughing and mock me...I wanted to die right there and then...I just couldn't take it anymore...I wanted it all to stop...I wanted it all to just...go...away...

Just as Markiato raised the bat over his head to strike me, I knew nobody would come help me...nobody cared about me...I closed my eyes...waiting for the pain to come...when...

..."Leave her alone!"...

I heard someone calling from a distance followed by the sound of someone running towards us. Slowly I opened my eyes, glancing up ever so slightly at who was coming. And I was astounded to see that the boy who had arrived a few hours ago, sprinting towards me with his brother not far behind him. Markiato and the other boys turned towards him as he stopped just a few feet in front of the circle of boys. The blond beast started chuckling,

"Well, well, what do we have here? Prince charming coming to save his pathetic excuse of a princess?"

The boys began to laugh as I just looked back down at the ground.

"I said leave her alone. Go back to playing king of the idiots you freak."

The yellow shirted boy said as he took another step forward, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The others went silent, their expressions becoming shocked. What was he doing? Did he want to get himself killed? Markiato tightened the grip on his bat.

"What did you just call me runt?" he growled through his teeth.

The kid didn't even flinch or look scared of the towering bully in front of him.

"I called you a big fat freak..."

…and with that said, he slammed his fist into Markiato's stomach, causing the taller boy to fall over like an old oak tree being cut down. And dropping the baseball bat that he held in the process. The boys standing around me looked at the kid slightly frighten as he had just taken down their so called mighty leader. Quickly they ran away like a flock of pigeons flying away after being chase by a small child, leaving behind their fallen comrade.

The boy slowly approached me; I kept my gaze down, not really knowing what to do...

..."Hey are you ok?"...

...I looked up to see him kneeling in front of me, with his hand stretched out to me, offering to help me up. Still scared, I took his hand, not really knowing why I trusted this kid. He got up helping me up as I muttered softly, "I-I'm fine..." He noticed the scrape on my cheek, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped away the dirt surrounding the wound. I whimpered softly, pulling back slightly at the contact of the fabric on my raw skin.

"Hey, it's ok. I'm not going to hurt you."

He said in a soft spoken voice as he smiled at me. He reached out a second time and this time I didn't pull away, letting him clean my cheek...

"Th-thank you...for saving me...even though you didn't have to..." I spoke shyly as I kept my gaze away from his.

"It's ok. I just don't like seeing people pick on those weaker than themselves."

He said with a smile. Blushing at the comment, I looked up, glaring at him slightly, "Are you saying I'm weak?"

He chuckled and kept smiling that stupid smile,

"No. I'm just saying I don't like seeing people getting bullied. Especially if it's a cute girl."

I could have sworn I saw him blush too, making me giggle for a bit before going silent again, realizing his hand was still on my cheek. He must have noticed this too as he quickly retracted his hand away from my face. It felt weird...to have someone care about you...it felt good...almost enough to make me smile...

..."So what's your name?" he asked...

...not many of the other kids in the orphanage really knew my name...besides those who picked on me...

..."Um...I'm L-Lillian..." I answered shyly...

"Lillian? That's a pretty name."

The small boy that stood behind his brother answered with a sweet smile,

"I'm Mokuba and this is my big brother Seto. Hey wanna be friends with us? My big brother can keep you safe from the kids who bully you..."

...friends...

...nobody had ever wanted to be friends with me...let alone wants be around me...

Before I could even answer him, Mokuba grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the red and yellow swing set, Seto following close behind us. We spent the afternoon playing together and many days after that. We became close, Seto taught me how to play chess, while Mokuba taught me how to be a kid. I was never kid actually. I mostly spent my days lost in thought instead of playing. I had friends for the first time in my petty little life and for the first time I could actually truly smile and laugh. They had welcomed me into their lives without a second thought and they accepted me for who I was and they cared about me, and soon I came to care about them just the same.

For the first time in a very long time I felt something warm with in my heart...I felt...happy in some way...I felt like maybe...just maybe there was hope for me. That maybe I wasn't meant to be alone forever. Mokuba and Seto had given me something much more than just their friendship...they had given me hope, hope that I had long since been forgotten. Hope that my life would become better; a hope that someday I would get adopted and would find a family that loved me and that would take care of me.

#yugioh #yugi mutou #yami yugi #seto kaiba #mokuba kaiba #ocs #fantasy

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prodigal-ezreal · 6 years ago

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In a different timeline:

With that post out of the way, I like to think that in an alternate timeline where Ezreal was the nerd Beta!Ez destined him to be, instead of Archeology he is more interested in Techmaturgy. His story wouldn’t change much, if anything his personality is a bit more cocky in a true way instead of being a cover up, but that’s still a big part of the ecuation, along with his ego.

While still in possesion of the gauntlet, instead of making a name for himself through daring adventures and heroic tales this Ezreal has decided to make it big on the city and let his talent carry his name overseas. His biggest private obsession is being the first to complete/make Zindelo’s Incognium work since it has a fame of being impossible to decipher. The family has given him whatever notes survived Valentina’s mysterious death in the outmost secrecy, they warned him of the powers that would rather keep the Incognium inoperable, but also saw in Ezreal a fellow mourner of a family member gone too soon and a prodigious boy with the abilities to decipher it. He insisted it was for the challenge, but the Zindelo’s did not believe him. No one knows of his secret project, aside from maybe Caitlyn because she knows everything that happens in the city.

Beta!Ez often takes comissions, and he’s made quite a name for himself for his... unorthodox methods that work fantastically, to everyone’s surprise. He is always playing with the crystal’s inestability, edging too close to the singularity in the name of shortcuts and efficiency. Some have called his methods reckless, but Ezreal works under the golden rule of ‘If it works, it works’. What he doesn’t know is that his natural magic helps stabilize the crystal’s song, that way, if a process needs ten steps, he tries to/may make it in five. He isn’t cheap, but if you want something unique, powerful and innovative, he’s your man. He’s rather enamoured with Zaun’s ingenuity too, so he doesn’t turn up his nose at them.

#if this is beta ez then does that make the new ez the alpha. the chad #soyboy ezreal au?? lol #idk #nerd au tbt #headcanons #Never forget the yugioh coat...

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roseprincesskristina · 2 years ago

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My Midnight Rose ((Vamp!Yami x Reader Part 1))

((Whaddup, dudes and chicks. Since last Halloween, I’ve decided to create my very first YuGiOh fan fiction X Reader for the fans out there as well as across the globe. But with the handsome Yami Yugi as a sexy vampire for the fangirls. ;) Took my time to write anything like this without rushing myself whatsoever, tho. Plus, I was gonna do a full fan novel, yet I had to divide into two parts instead because I’m lazy. Sorry XD. Alright had the first one done last month, so I’ll might do the second next soon. Tried my best to create the fictional story even though I sucked. XD It was still fun nonetheless. Anywho, without further ado, please enjoy this steamy story before your peepers! :D))

It was an utterly pleasant mid morning evening onto this first day of autumn where several other leaf bearing trees especially bushes all around the area have began to merge into five colorful shades that will not only make the entire vegetation themselves look more pretty, yet so can the lively twilight atmosphere/mood as well for every generation or few to fully indulge the seasonal beauty right before their outstanding plus awe inspiring eyes.

Regardless about how unlikely chilly the weather degrees could truly be according to the television forecast, it's still blissfully sunny outside for local individuals besiding with civilians to gain extra fun underneath the friendly orb of daylight granting them a brightening smile upon its face followed by a warm loving embrace that'll surely keep them cozy from a slight cold season than a late winter.

Not to mention, of course, that upon this monthly event of October arriving onto the bone chilling rise of a bootiful nightfall for plentiful frights, thrillers, screams, petrification, horror, even some harmless tricks as well as tasty treats, is the upcoming spooktacular holiday known as Halloween revealing itself into an unexpected preparation or simply thrilled to spread out multiple scares everywhere without a rest to require until a single shrill has been blown from anyone's mouth instantly when it comes to frightful haunts casting a roaring fear into everyone's hearts which shall force their bodies to rock a terrified shiver downward the spines.

Although it wouldn't be a scarerrific blast of a celebrational enjoyment without a few dozen laughs, happiness, and let's not forget, a joyful get together activity to make any holiday a lot more smashing, especially through good as well as bad times in life no matter the odds nor difficulty if necessarily.

Returning home by a comfortable stroll throughout the neighborhood after a wonderful day in high school holding less books into your hands to study for homework, you, a beautiful yet also sweethearted young woman as well as honorable grade A student who hardly fails at anything, would also appreciate a rather decent environment of a season heretofore your graceful gaze including everybody else there is in the faultless suburban locality.

Witnessing deeply on how entirely breathtaking this Fall themed scenery before you really is since your early childhood, a gentle sigh from your thinly maw had escaped within a form of a puffy mist while remembering your first experience of this calming season as an innocent toddler observing the emerald coated leaves at the window transforming slowly from a normal color into several opposite, but wonderful hues of any kind such as red, brown, yellow, brown, as well as orange. Greatly astonished by their fascinated changes, it properly fills your heart with absolute delight siding by a rapid clap of your hands, marking as your far most favorite season to easily enjoy in absolute history.

Right now, as a youthful late adolescent, your love for hue changing plants next to spring blooming flowers will hardly cease to appease the living heck out of you for one minute, and nothing shall effortlessly rearrange your mind. Never now, nor ever for your whole ordinary young adult life.

Approaching toward the closed door of your household taking out the key from your pocket then placing it into the knobhole turning carefully to hear a click meaning that it's clearly opened, you entered inside. Home sweet home, as some or more people would always say when they can relax their energy from work as well as school at last. You, on the other hand, have plenty more in your system to spare for your daily chores across the living room, upstairs, and backyard before starting your homework about the origin of mythical monsters later tonight.

Placing down your homework books carefully upon the coffee table, you begin to stretch your arms all the way up high non tightly, cracking both knuckles especially the neck left and right following with a self indoor inhales then exhales various times to prevent a stressful pressure on yourself during an inauguration of your quotidian home cleansing. Rolling your inexisted long sleeves in ascendance mid high since they are mediumly short lacking any further ado just to stand around goofing off by doing plural stretching exercises, the task for tidying this normal abode into a standard non rushing pace than hasting oneself nevertheless, will now commence.

Meanwhile, into the distant location of an hollowed yet quiet park fields atop the half risen moonlight darkness, leaving only a couple of few benches sided along with empty swing sets instead of guiltless denizens who are now at home, a mysterious creature known as the bat flutters forwardly into the world soaring within the tranquil breeze like a free bird, but thrice dark.

Gliding its way over to the branch of the tree for a safe hover/land above it after a pleasing hobby of an enjoyable saunter in a blackened flight observing the gorgeously white diamond sphere centering into the dim blue navy skies at ease, until surprisingly, the half large devil winged beast have finally started to morphed itself from an airborne animal into an incredibly suavish human like form whose superior beauty will instantaneously outclass all handsome men that are unequally bested from someone more dashingly masculine such as he.

Fully revealing himself than just his godly attractive muscled slim feature alone, but secondly the slightly paled yet smooth looking skin, ravishingly amethyst pupils of his unbeatable manly eyes, four brassly shaded bangs that flow majestically through the singing wind considering the three pointed strands as well as the tri colored spiked hair dough, donning into a sleeveless obsidian shirt same for the leather pants, visibly showing off his kinky abs of a crop topped midriff designed with a navel pierced jewelry curved within the shape of an ancient object called the Millennium Puzzle, although basically in a small size unlike the original one he adorned across his neck and buckled choker. Cloaked with the extended indigo jacket worn onto his shoulders posing as a cape to act seriously cool than solely for show.

Slowly writing a fanged smirk within his luscious face as he seated onto a branching tree crossing his thin legs lounging properly to peer upward the delightful moon endlessly for awhile heretofore proceeding onward, the well mature shadowed person that goes by the name of Yami Yugi began to speak with a sexually deep voice.

"Hmm.... What a magnificent sight to behold indeed.... Yet also very beautiful to observe so closely...." He said calmly, having his golden bangs besiding with multi color mane softly brushed by the peaceful chill of the midnight gale. Unlike his faraway kingdom, he enjoys a great deal of close up observation seating on the front row branch, which it better than a balcony.

"Nothing shall be far more satisfying than the first glimpse of the graceful full moonlight of this fascinating night..... It truly does steal away my very breath and soul quite quickly.... Ahhhh.... How I adore such a lovely environment...."

As the mythical book obviously indicates, is that these night dwelling monsters known as vampires are famously realized for their possessive immortality beside in shimmering daylight when it comes to seeking as well as preying upon aidless flesh by their necks for refreshing blood to survive without the urge for harshful starvation whatsoever.

Unfortunately for this mysterious gentlemanly figure of a pharaoh before all, he is exceedingly beyond deathless compared to those that are foolishly ordinary and weak against him in every way indefinitely. In fact, no one else around the universe would even dare attempt to increase their worthless level up to his for something that barely matters to him at all.

His unsurpassable speed, strength, suave, even power comprehends no measley equality undoubted according to his inexplainable origin that remains a difficult mystery for all scientists, librarians, intellectuals, teachers, the whole rest to easily specify. Meaning that nothing or nobody will eagerly find out about who, what, or where he actually existed from, or their demise shall be crucially met by his punishable wrath.

This supremely charming vampiric male, additionally a sovereign prince, is also symbolized as the most powerful being in the world partially above all complete mortals alike, possessing such a dreamily unblemished complexation body as well as everything which can simply conquer the hearts of every beautiful helpless mortal women in the planet.

Speaking of that, he also inherits a bewitching type of spell, or more, so inescapable that their trained resistance would scarcely avail them from his dazzling stare or possibly an alluring belly dancing hex once their will has been dominated permanently, stealing away their attention from what they focused on within life by sensually beckoning his prey to come toward him.

Before the comforting initiation of inserting his pearly white fangs into their soothing colled skin quite deeply, he would sexually seduces his compelled victims without a practice to abstain himself from doing whatever he wishes to do, whether they appreciate it or not. As an example, requiring the desired taste for their delectably fresh anatomies to place his tongue onto than only the neck alone itself, slithering it very slow as well as steady with ascend and descend by pleasant force as possible.

For now, on his unrestrained well earned free time at lonesome, all that he has to do is rest soundly to the serene nighting scenery before him lying half way onto a branch sideways to obtain a clearer view of a nightfall entertainment. Magically snapping his gothic nailed painted fingers to create a formal glass of crimson wine, raising a glass mid up in a toast for a marvelous evening without an end.

"Here's to the most ravishing mistress of the eternal nightfall who has established such rare beatification for my utmost enjoyment...." The vampiric blonde smiled, complementing toward the gracious viewing of a noiseless darkness as well as the shining moon rising his glassed beverage once more then offers himself a nice mannered sip on a sweet red refreshment from a pure stainless wine glass that touched his dangerously mild lips.

Whistling both a soft satisfied sigh as well as deep chuckle exiting from his mouth, his tongue performs the honors by circling across the non salivated lips numerous times with a decent leisure, resuming his silent indulgement relishing the ageless outlook of the youthful night pleasing his needs.

"Ahhhhh..... It is so good to be greatly free within the gifted sea of midnight than to rest upon the throne with the lack of excitement that will entertain my interest...." Yami sighed in complete relaxation, hidden his arms behind the head while his legs are still firmly crossed wallowing into the comforting palms of the night goddess that is nighttime.

Until suddenly, appearing from afar or out of nowhere have came an unknown sweet aroma traveling through the personless park into a formless mist like an unseen fog guiding its path toward the tree where the crowned man is sitting, circling his surroundings just to gain his attention from the nightly daydream.

"Hmm? What is this?" He questioned, seeing this curious mist that emerge his presence with one of his eyes opened. Having no clue of what this strange odor could be, he would decide to take a careful whiff of it to make sure it's hardly gas, poison, or the putrid stench of a disgustingly raw onion smell that most vampires strongly despise. Then, an opposite sort of a aroma that's very harmonic had simmered his curiosity down to a minimum.

"By the Egyptian gods.... What is that lovely aroma that I have smelt? And where might it come from?"

Howbeit, toward his shocking discovery, it is neither one nor three of those rough stentches that he suspiciously detects at all, but a different type of fragrance to which surprises his keen sense of smell ever so quickly than several more boorish odors would ridiculously hope to impress his strong whiffing ability.

Above several kinds of foul stenches, this strange yet ultimately sweetened aroma emitting from farther beyond known as perfume has intrigued him so quickly he continued to sniff it non stop once it enters his nostrils. Purring in interested, the starfish haired prince was delightfully moved by this freshly scented fog like mist than multiple reeking odors at best.

"Mmmm.... Such a delicate scent... So sweet and pleasant..... It has lifted my very soul so vastly than anything else in the world...." He had almost swooned by the incredibly unique fragrance used by millions of ladies in different ages to kill off the repugnant stink from their bodies to smell real nice for any occasion or place to go.

Still totally phased by its angelic fragrance embracing his anatomy so closely refusing to let go, he had decided to pay a certain person, or to his case a kind young lady, a pleasant little visit while risen himself up from the seated branch after a wonderfully hobby of nightseeing, flipping his bangs slightly by the hand writing a seductive smirk into the handsome facial expression.

"Hmm. It would seem that I will have to investigate this ravishing smell before me in order to obtain my answer... And when I do, it will be quite a pleasure to sink my teeth into something, or otherwise, someone so beautiful and innocent.... He he he he he....."

With that, he began to sets off to locate a compassionate girl by following the fairly scent in front of him using teleporting to move himself toward the mellow neighborhood via swarming bats that transport him to any destination, making it more simpler to just beat the snot out of walking.

Back at the mellow suburbian area into the centering start of Halloween where children, teens, as well as adults cladded into their costumes all at once stroll across the district collecting loads of delicious candies offered from many houses that gave them all out, having tons of fun as safely necessary as the streetlights are on, while you are upstairs into the bedroom spraying your favorite rose scented perfume across yourself from a nice long shower you had after sanitizing the whole household living room and all before doing your homework.

Wearing a water absorbed bathrobe on your somewhat drenched body as you dry off your hair with a towel sitting on the bed folding your legs firmly, you would gaze the direction of the exquisite nightrise from the window viewing it on about how breathtakingly graceful this dark navy skied background properly is to you than only the love for autumn at solo. Grinning peacefully at its timeless beautification due to the middle of desiccating yourself, you decided to seat by the casement to side watch for a few minutes.

Outside reappearing into the neighborhooded location done by teleportation, the handsomely divine pharaoh looks around the area left, right, top to bottom feeling mildly impressed by such a remarkably normal suburbs that humans live here without a sign of violence whatsoever.

"My. This is such a rather peaceful community when I first laid my eyes upon it. Very non threatening indeed." He said admirably. "But I cannot fool around for much longer. I must locate the elegant scent immediately."

Refocusing on the top priority at hand self preventing himself not to stand oddly by or come here just to tour throughout the neighboring fields before him, he teleports yet again. But this time, his next stop: your place.

Fully clothed into your collared pajama gown at last, but deciding to let your temporarily locks out to blow dry as well as brush at the similar time while sitting onto the mattress at still, you grabbed both of them from the dresser next to you, plugging up the dryer first then setting it to high making it easier to dehydrate your hair thrice faster.

Elsewhere outside your humble abode appearing once again standing atop of the tree branch next to the window, Yami is still on the endless search to seek the mysterious aroma that increases his desires up to maximum. Finding out that either one of the houses he investigated do not have the succulent scent he whiffed back at the park.

"I have investigated every single household around this stationary neighborhood, but no sign of that sweet scent." He quietly growled, almost giving up on the lonesome search party until checking on the last house for tonight.

Sighing underneath his breath to get this wasteful reconnaissance over with, the dashing heir would ascend forwardly by staring into the window in a slight distance. Scrutinizing closely with the assistance of his transparent vision changing his eyes from purple into black, he can now research what's inside the building carefully.

Examining the entire bedroom non stop to capture this secret source of the delectable scent, his pupils would slowly direct their attention toward a special someone whose magnificent innocence than only beauty alone brings out a trillion smiles upon all faces unconditionally throughout the worst times in the world: You.

Silently gasping both in total awe as well as flabbergasted at your pure radiance before his violet peepers, he has never seen anyone this outrageously gorgeous heretofore in his immortal life until right now, causing his heart to skip a non rushing beat including eyes to half widen.

"My gods..... To who might be this....beautiful creature that stood before me? For I have never seen such rare elegance within my eternal life..."

Observing your flawless feature from head to toe with instant fascination by the window until a familar aroma had made its returning arrival yet again to surround His Royal Hotness by giving him a reminder about the real source that will surely answers his desperate question.

"There's that heavenly scent again.... And it's very close to this house... Could this mean....?"

Placing all of the pieces of the solving puzzle together into his mind during the temporary trek, the true answer lies toward this household directly before him through that bedroom window for you are sitting next to. Which can also mean that the marvelous fragrance he had been shortly trailing at the start, definitely comes from you all along.

You are the rare source of this gifted redolence that called onto the fanged pharaoh from the beginning because your window was slightly opened to air out the room since you covered your body with a scented Spring Rose perfume too much. Toward his liking, he always loved the smell of the crimson blooms so much when he was only a young prince.

Finally, the soughtful task of seeking the memorable scent from his childhood has offically become concluded to a close now that he possesses the answer into his palm. As a victorious celebration for his hard work, the greatest reward of all is clearly right in front of him, ripe for the taking.

"At long last..... I have found the source of the remarkable fragrance that I truly long for...." He grinned thankfully, redirecting his observation toward you in the resting room window brushing your lovely mane into a slow careful paste. "And I must admit, for an innocent young mortal such as her, she has a delightful scent of a beautiful rose...."

Proceeding once more to enjoy your richly blessed innocence spending most of your time on your own getting yourself together to start working on your homework before a gentle knock on your window glass, the mild mannered brassed vampire prince shall now perform on what he'll do best: paying a kind visit to your room and to have himself a permanent fun with you, including your scarless body, when you're unexpecting something or not looking, which is simply easy for him.

Only when the time comes, of course, but very soon you will become his favorable little rose to harmlessly play as well as seduce with all night long. Depending on how long the private romance between a human and vampire could sometimes take.

The blessful night remains within its youthful stratosphere caressing the calmly matured pharaoh's shoulder to ease his non stressful nerves, a beautiful full moonlight pours out its glimmering light upon the world featuring him himself, and lastingly, the sounding cry of the howling wolf echoes around the celestial sphere being the comforting music toward his ears. Now, without any further ado, a pleasurable evening, shall be formally introduced at last.

"Enjoy your most precious moment of your sweet young life, my darling little rose~ For it can be the only matter of time....until you, your body, and the elegant taste of your warm marvelous blood, will belong to me~..... He he he he he he~....."

((To Be Continued))

#yugioh #duel monsters #yami yugi #pharaoh atem #king of games #vampire atem #x reader #pov #halloween 2022 #vampire #steamy

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thebibliomancer · 5 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #207: Beyond a Shadow...

May, 1981

“After countless centuries HE LIVES AGAIN! THE SHADOW LORD COMETH!”

He cometh riding upon a tornado like its a mighty sand worm. What a guy, this Shadow Lord.

Honestly seeing the Avengers tumbling about in a tornado cracks me up every time. Especially Wonder Man who looks nonchalant about it aside from being ass over head.

So I don’t think we’ve really talked about it but this period of Avengers is kind of between main writers.

Since issue 200 and its four writers, we’ve had David Michelinie and Roger Stern on the two-part adaptation of that Ultron novel, David Michelinie for that weird story with the Crawlers in the sewers; Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, and Bob Budiansky for the Yellow Claw two-parter, Bill Mantlo for the everything is on fire story and now Bob Budiansky and Danny Fingeroth for this issue and the next. We start getting a consistent writer again starting in #211.

I wonder what was going on behind the scenes around this time.

Anyway, onward.

So we start the issue with who I assume is the Shadow Lord. But he’s not riding a tornado, like Pecos Bill. He’s standing on an invisible ocean structure of some kind. Apparently a mysterious invisible ocean structure of some kind that hasn’t been seen for almost two millennia.

And yet, someone has kindly painted the title of the issue in English on the mysterious invisible ocean structure of some kind.

Some guy, maybe the Shadow Lord: “The dreaded time has at last arrived, the moment I prayed would never come... the moment I knew would surely come. He is soon to return, and only the power entrusted to me is capable of stopping him. And even that power may not prove sufficient.”

“With every passing second, my city and myself pass ever more fully into the Earth’s plane of existence. Would that the cause of my return here from the barren vastnesses of the Shadow World was as joyous as the glow of this new day’s sun.”

“But the grim responsibility of an entire race is my unwelcome inheritance. It is a duty I cannot shirk. Alas, I must take what comfort I can in knowing that no matter what the result of the coming debacle, I will at least be free to rejoin Ayshera, she whom my heart holds most dear... though whether our reunion will be in celebration of victory -- or in darkest mourning for the ashes of this planet -- none willy truly know until the final battle.”

Some Guy sure is helpfully monologuing his entire life story here. And even so he manages to be vague, inside his own mind, about the nature of the threat he faces. Way to preserve the mystery, Guy.

Also, he’s from the Shadow World so he may be a Yugioh.

Anyway, as one might expect, a city appearing in the middle of the ocean out of nowhere is of alarm so US aircraft carrier Poseidon shows up and starts yelling at Some Guy.

Some Guy decides that they sound mad but he doesn’t have time for lengthy explanations so instead he gestures and the winds and waves start whipping up.

Welp! Seems like the US Poseidon is going on an Adventure!

Meanwhile, Mt. Vesuvius!

Yup. Its that kind of story, the kind partially set at Vesuvius.

Some archeologists are digging in the foothills of the mountain in what has been a fruitless several weeks of archeology but one of the archeologists finds a hand shaped object which may be a hand.

They mistake it for a statue at first but realize its actually a perfectly preserved lava mummified corpse.

And while they’re busy congratulating each other about how wealthy and famous this discovery will make them, they fail to notice the hand moving its finger shaped fingers.

And elsewhere again, the best damn thing.

A cowboy shouts “SLAP LEATHER, YA GALOOT!” and then gets shot by a cannon.

This isn’t the Wild West of the America, this is a spaghetti western film set and the director is very upset at Black Bart’s shitty death acting. How hard is it to get hit by a cannon and then to fall down and pretend to die like you just got hit by a cannon?

You wouldn’t think there’s a wrong way to get shot by a cannon but you’d be wrong.

Simon Williams, Wonder Man: “I’m sorry, Mr. Bertolini. It’s just that, being Wonder Man, it’s hard for me to pretend those cannonballs are hurting me when I can hardly feel them.”

Mr. Bertolini: “True, signore Wonder Man, but I hired you because I thought you could-a act!”

Oh yeah, Mr. Bertolini talks like Mario. So that’s another tally for Marvel’s respect of other countries and cultures.

Aside from this being the seventh take on a ‘guy gets hit by a cannonball, beefs it’ scene, cannonballs are expensive. The cannonball that bounced off Wonder Man’s midsection looks fine but maybe you can’t just reuse them.

The filming breaks for lunch and Wonder Man wanders over to where his moral support is.

His moral support, of course, being Beast.

And he is moral supporting but he’s also multitasking with some women because even in Italy, women are just fascinated by blue fur. Furries are universal.

Wonder Man doesn’t feel supported though and this lousy spaghetti western film is a good opportunity for him.

If you remember, the last project we saw him get was as a cheetah print leotard wearing muscle man on a kids show and he got fired for making the host Uncle Elmer look ridiculous.

(Revealed to Simon’s chagrin in #194, lost to mishap in #201)

Being in an actual movie, even a spaghetti western, is the boost his career needs.

(I think we need to confront the actual possibility that Wonder Man is not a very good actor. But he might be a good stunt man if he can learn to act like things hurt)

Wonder Man’s publicist Rachel Palmer shows up as well and wow. Rachel has never appeared before and given the fillery nature of these chaotic no consistent writer times may not appear beyond this story. But you instantly get the sense of their working relationship.

And they have good banter too.

Wonder Man: “Wait. There she is -- Rachel Palmer -- the apple of my eye, the light of my life, the bane of my existence!”

Rachel: “If you delivered your lines that well in front of the cameras, Simon, you might actually keep this job -- which’ll make it just a little easier to hype you as a star back in the States.”

Wonder Man: “Your encouraging words are a constant source of inspiration, Rachel. But I’d appreciate it if you’d confine them to your press releases.”

Rachel: “You’ve got me all wrong, Simon. I hope this whole thing turns out well for you. Really.”

Wonder Man: “And for yourself. After all, if you make me a big name, you can ride along on my coat-tails and become a media hotshot -- instead of being stuck as a flak for Grade D Westerns.”

Rachel: “No, Simon. I--”

Wonder Man: “Forget it, lady. I’m a big boy. I know that all’s fair in love -- and show biz.”

And then he walks off towards his trailer, satisfied at getting the last word with someone whose job it is to make him look good. Beast says that he thinks Wonder Man was too hard on her and that Rachel probably digs Wonder Man.

Wonder Man: “Maybe you’re right. But I still can’t get over feeling that Rachel’s motivated by sheer self-interest and everything else places a distant second.”

(I’m pretty sure she does dig Wonder Man because unbeknowst to Wonder Man and Beast, she follows them to the trailer, wanting to convince Wonder Man that she’s not as self-serving as he thinks and also to invite him to a romantic dinner)

Anyway, Wonder Man’s social life isn’t important. At all. And not right now. Because when he and Beast go into Wonder Man’s trailer and discover the Avengers’ emergency signal briefcase is BEEP BEEPing.

It’s Cap and there’s an emergency situation that demands immediate investigation.

A brand new island city has just popped up in the middle of the Mediterranean slash off the coast of Majorca from out of nowhere and the government wants the Avengers to investigate.

Presumably the US government.

Because if I know anything about mysterious island cities appearing from nowhere - and I know exactly one thing - by jingo, they start wars!

Beast is enjoying his vacation so asks why the US Sixth Fleet doesn’t handle it instead. They’re actually paid to do things while on an ocean. But Iron Man just says that the fleet has had problems.

And with a little reading comprehension we can guess what problems. Because we’ve seen it. Its not a mystery.

Iron Man has a Stark plane sent to pick Beast and Wonder Man up and fly them to Majorca. Or somewhere thereabouts. I don’t know if Majorca has or had an airport.

Wonder Man bemoans that he’ll never be a movie star if he keeps leaving the set to go have exciting comic book superhero adventures.

Which is a little like complaining about being too handsome. Ya jerk.

And remember how Rachel Palmer was peeping on them? No? Scroll up a little and look at the above panels again. Back? And remember how Rachel Palmer was peeping on them?

Her media senses are tingling and telling her that she should definitely go check out the city that appeared in the middle of the ocean. She’s much intrepid for not a reporter.

Meanwhile, some slice of life filler fluff that doesn’t matter but that I find delightful.

And if this liveblog isn’t about sharing things that I find delightful then what is it about? Exhaustively recounting plots to comic books from decades ago? That’s just a side benefit!

The call to action back at Avengers Mansion comes right when Wanda is having Vision move a couch.

Vision: “Wanda, while it may be true that I am capable of moving this couch about all day, it seems a gross misuse of my android abilities to do so.”

Wanda: “Maybe if we just move those shelves then you just put it down there. We’re Avengers, not interior decorators.

This is the content I eagerly crave.

So back in not America, Beast and Wonder Man complain about the plane ride but passing over the ocean they see what trouble the Sixth Fleet was having.

Some Guy, Possibly Shadow Lord managed to strand the Poseidon aircraft carrier fully on a deserted island.

And I was wrong about the plane taking them to Majorca. Its apparently taking them to Poseidon because it lands on the ship’s airstrip so the two Avengers can consult the stranded sailors about what the heck is going on.

Captain Paul Garrison tells them that they were investigating the mysterious new island/city (not mentioning that they were also yelling at it) when a tidal wave suddenly swelled up and carried the Poseidon several miles and left it on this island.

And apparently the same thing happened to any other plane and ship that attempted to approach the island. Thwarted by winds and waves.

Damn you, nature!

Anyway, its all rather mysterious but Wonder Man figures

“Well, we were sent here to investigate. So... let’s investigate.”

And Wonder Man rockets off to investigate the city. While giving Beast a piggyback ride.

Which. Amazing image. Bless this issue for its bounty of amazing images.

Bear in mind that the captain said that the aircraft carrier was carried several miles. Wonder Man’s belt rockets have impressive duration considering he can’t be carrying much fuel on his person.

When they reach the city, they find a localized hurricane hovering right above it. But Wonder Man just flies down through the eye of the storm to get to the city.

Some Guy Shadow Lord is surprised because he had been expecting big boats and planes. Not a guy with rocket pants and a blue gorilla riding on his back.

But he’s able to shoo them away just as easily as any big thing, with a wave of his hand summoning a wind that carries Wonder Man and passenger Beast away from the city.

Meanwhile, Rachel Palmer is also here. She spent all her money renting a plane and then a boat but she’s going to get to that mysterious city and get an exclusive inside story!

So is she a journalist? Or what? She’s Lois Laneing but as far as we’ve heard her job is to convince people they want to see Wonder Man do stuff in movies.

Wonder Man spots her and tries to fly to her rescue but two water spouts spurt up to ruin this rescue plan.

The first one launches Rachel’s boat into the air and smashes it to pieces. The second blasts Wonder Man out of the sky preventing him from saving Rachel from falling to her death.

But unseen by either of the Avengers, a strong breeze safely lowers Rachel to the ground of the city.

Because what is an Avengers comic without men developing weird and intense feelings for a nearby woman.

Some Guy: “How beautiful she is, how like my own Ayshera. And, also like Ayshera, she is courageous... and more than a little headstrong.”

Cool. I hope this doesn’t get weird. Or that we’re not asked to sympathize with a guy whose only ‘sympathetic’ trait is a possessive attraction to a woman. Looking at you, Living Laser. And, I guess, Graviton.

Anyway, Wonder Man doesn’t see Rachel getting rescued by an airbender so he works himself into a lather.

Wonder Man: “That sinks it! It’s one thing to attack naval ships and planes... one thing to attack Avengers... But when he kills an innocent woman who could do him no harm -- that guy’s gonna answer to WONDER MAN!”

Honestly, I think you’re selling Rachel short. I’m sure she could do harm if she put her mind to it. Like, what if she covered him in bees. That would suck.

Anyway, Wonder Man rages through the city’s protective winds and then gets SAFUUSH!’d between two walls of solid water.

He’s left sputtering and disoriented in the ocean. At least until some hooks hook down from the Quinjet, hook Wonder Man, and then hook him up into the ship.

I didn’t know that the Quinjet had hooks for grabbing people out of the ocean but I am thrilled.

Ideally, the Avengers would use their newfound ability to vaudeville hook people into orbit more often. I can think of so many instances where it would be useful, or at least hilarious.

Anyway, Wonder Man apprises the other Avengers into the situation.

Meanwhile, not dead Rachel Palmer wakes up and finds the Shadow Lord brood slouching in a chair and watching her while she was unconscious.

She is alarmed that he’s just sitting there staring but he basically goes ‘DON’T WORRY I READ YOUR MIND TO LEARN YOUR NAME AND LANGUAGE’ and then decides to explain his entire backstory.

Shadow Lord: “The city in which we stand is the Shadow Realm and I... I am called the Shadow Lord!”

DAMMIT I KNEW HE WAS A YUGIOH!

Anyway.

THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO! Give or take! An ancient tribe decided to move to an island to isolate themselves from “primitive, superstitious neighbors who feared [their] more advanced society.”

Off to a good start with this guy.

Free of the mundane concerns of living in a world that hated and feared them, they were able to peacefully ALL BECOME WIZARDS WHO COULD CONTROL THE FORCES OF NATURE.

Maybe the X-Men are onto something.

So the Shadow Lord’s people learned to control, winds, waves, earth, and maybe fire so what I’m saying is that it was an entire island of Avatars.

Boom, sequel idea. Give me millions of dollars, Nickelodeon.

“Though veiled in mystery, rumors of our existence spread throughout the world. We were feared and shunned by the other peoples of the Earth -- which allowed us to continue our studies undisturbed.”

“Those who mistrusted anything they could not comprehend... they called us witches and sorcerers. Those who knew and understood us called us... the Earth Lords!”

“For centuries our sole purposes were to augment our knowledge of the Earth’s forces and to maintain the natural balance between these forces. Otherwise, we had no interest in the day-to-day affairs of the outside world.”

Maybe I was wrong about them being Yugioh. Maybe they’re the Time Lords from the Doctor Who.

Anyway, the Earth Lords were happy sitting on their island being Avatars but over the eons they sensed a disturbance in the Force, for I must reference all the things.

"Over the eons, we became aware of a seemingly immortal, human force of awesome destruction, one who could potentially plunge mankind into an irreversible slide to its doom.”

“Singlehandedly he could destroy towns. With an army beside him -- countries. Time and again, he did. It was when he finally joined the legions of Rome at the peak of the Empire’s power... that we first feared the balance of nature was in danger of being destroyed. Rome could forever take over the world.”

The Earth Lords tried on several occasions to destroy this menace. We don’t get to know what constituted these efforts and that’s disappointing because of what the final successful attempt was.

By 79 AD, they knew he was on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius so they caused it to erupt, just to bury this one guy under hundreds of tons of rock and ash and lava.

Mission accomplished.

Except for the little thing where the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius also wiped out Pompeii and Herculaneum and other cities people know significantly less about, killing over 20,000 people.

As things go, that’s pretty dire amount of incidental deaths to kill one person. And the Earth Lords realize that this was a pretty major fuck up.

So they decided that they couldn’t be trusted with their powers and that they would disperse into the outside world to live and die as people do and have their powers dissipate over the years.

But before they did that, they discovered that the seemingly immortal guy they hit in the face with a volcano was somehow still alive somehow. Just trapped. Under hundreds of tons of rock and ash and lava that cooled into rock.

They killed thousands and didn’t even permanently kill the dude they were trying to kill? That’s pretty incompetent. They really can’t be trusted with their power.

Since he eventually might get out and resume being a dick, the Earth Lords drew lots and chose one of their number, the Some Guy later known as the Shadow Lord from the Shadow Realm, to forever watch over the city alone and await the day that the immortal guy would again walk the land.

And to help him solo the dude that took an entire city of people and a volcano to deal with, the Earth Lords concentrated all of their powers into this one Shadow Lord guy and taught him how to send himself and the city into a twilight plane of nothingness which is back to being called the Shadow World.

So this might also be Twilight Princess.

For two thousand years the Shadow Lord in the Shadow Realm in the Shadow World observed Earth and waited. And now, it seems that the seemingly immortal dude is back.

Rachel: “But I don’t understand. How can one man threaten a whole world -- and live for thousands of years in solid rock?”

Shadow Lord: “This is no mere man, my dear... this is the Berserker!”

And speak of the devil and we scene transition to him because we scene transition to Pompeii.

The lava mummified human figure that seemed to move before has stopped beating about with finger twitches and has gotten up to rampage around and backhand archeologists.

Don’t feel bad though. They were in it for the money and fame, those fiends.

Back at the city of Shadow Realm, the Avengers suddenly show up as a full team and basically enter swinging. Iron Man even blasts a wall for no reason.

Rachel tries to tell the Avengers that Shadow Lord means no harm but the Avengers can’t hear her over the sounds of Wonder Man loudly reassuring Rachel that they’re here to rescue her.

Iron Man exploding a wall for no reason probably also didn’t help.

So Rachel instead tries to tell Shadow Lord that the Avengers are a force for good. While he can hear her, he chooses to ignore her.

Using his powers of being the Avatar, he tries to pull a rocks fall but nobody dies. Rocks falling is something the Avengers deal with panache and also lasers and punches.

Some panache. Beast’s skycycle gets hit by a rock and he ends up leaping onto one of the spires of the city to avoid crash. And then, like a cat who climbs a tree except its a building in this context, Beast has a hard time figuring out how to get down from there.

While the larger Avengers punch and laser boulders and jump onto spires, Wasp just flies right in and shoots Shadow Lord in the eyebrow.

Amazing. Another good use of Wasp powers, being able to get in close while the opponent thinks the team is distracted at a distance.

Shadow Lord is none too pleased to be shot in the eyebrow by a tiny insect-sized flying woman and decides that a particularly karmic punishment is required.

Shadow Lord: “An insect-sized flyling woman! What sorcery is this? But if an insect you be, then it is only fitting I ensnare you in a cocoon of living wind... a cocoon which will grow and envelop your so-called fellow Avengers!”

And as Rachel still pleads with Shadow Lord to knock it off, he summons a giant tornado that suck in all of the Avengers (save Beast stuck up on his spire).

Shadow Lord even has the tornado carry him along, the better to continue mocking the Avengers as he carries them to their doom.

Shadow Lord: “You hopeless children! Did you actually think to defeat me, to deter me from my purpose? I who who command the earth and wind themselves to do my bidding?”

Yeah, dude. Definitely not sounding like a supervillain now. Cannot fathom why the Avengers are assuming you are one.

Iron Man manages to escape the tornado by firing his boot-jets at maximum, sending him flying free with a SHA-BOOSH! but also carrying him far away because momentum.

Shadow Lord then creates a whirlpool in the ocean and has his tornado carry the Avengers towards it. The whirlpool goes to the bottom of the ocean. Which then cracks open to reveal bubbling magma.

That’s right. The Shadow Lord is going to shoot them out of a tornado, into a whirlpool and into magma beneath the ocean floor.

Its. At least more precise than hitting them with a volcano, I’ll give him that. Definitely feels like overkill to go from rocks to tornado-whirlpool-magma execution but its definitely more precise.

Somewhat more precise.

Because when Iron Man manages to slow himself down to turn back he notices that a yacht is being swamped by the waves Shadow Lord is churning up.

And because of heroism, he takes the time to scoop the yacht out of the ocean and rest it safely on an island.

Geez. There’s a lot of boats being beached in this story.

Shadow Lord actually sees this. And a thought starts penetrating his thick skull that maybe he should have listened to Rachel.

Shadow Lord: “The armored one paused in his attack on me to save those people -- innocent people... which is more than we were able to do 2,000 years ago. Perhaps, as Rachel says, they are not agents of evil...”

He decides that he’ll stop throwing them out of a tornado into a whirlpool into magma but he doesn’t get the chance to put that train of thought on the tracks.

Beast waves Iron Man over. From his perch on the spire he’s noticed that the building he’s on is cracking from the strain of all the power Shadow Lord is throwing around even though he’s not been throwing it at that building.

So Beast deduces that the city is key to Shadow Lord’s power in some way and should have the shit beaten out of it.

And as Iron Man starts punching some wall, Shadow Lord doubles over in pain and the tornado he was about to dissipate dissipates.

The other Avengers get free and decide hey, follow the leader.

Jocasta: “The battle has truly just begun. Malevolent power such as this must not be allowed to exist. We must follow Iron Man’s lead and destroy the city -- totally!”

So unnoticed by the Avengers as they level the city into a pile of rubble, Shadow Lord staggers and swoons at Rachel’s feet.

But even dying, he still has some exposition bottled up.

To be fair, he’s been isolated for 2,000 years with no one to talk to.

He explains that the powers of an entire population of Avatars was way too great to be contained in one squishy mortal body so the powers were instead imbued in the city itself.

And with the city destroyed, it can no longer serve as a source of power and also can’t keep him alive anymore.

He’s honestly not too broken up over it. Since the Avengers are valiant and worthy, they can pick up his unfinished business while he goes and dies and gets to reunite with his girlfriend who died sometime during those 2,000 years.

Shadow Lord: “But please understand... I am as much to blame for today’s events as anyone... I bear you no malice... we misjudged each other. I have done my best... no more can be expected of a man... perhaps you will succeed... where I have failed. So do not mourn my passing... for me, death is but the long-awaited door that opens to my beloved... Ayshera.”

And the Avengers realize belatedly ‘we done goofed.’

“A sad -- and confused -- group of heroes grimly watches the passing of the Shadow Lord... and only then does the cruel truth reveal itself to them: what they had thought to be one of their greatest triumphs is instead... one of their most bitter defeats.”

Oh, and as I expect they’ll soon find out, the Berserker has been kicking the Italian army’s ass near Pompeii so that’s probably escalating into a bit of a situation and they just accidentally killed the guy who could have helped with that. Although in fairness, he deliberately ignored Rachel when she told him that the Avengers were heroes.

Like he said, he fucked up too.

Still, while its a bit of a Marvel tradition to have mighty misunderstanding fights, I don’t think they tend to result in people dying. One for the history books.

Next time: the Berserker.

Follow @essential-avengers. Also like and reblog. And send me Avengers triumphs that are way more impressive than beating up a city.

#Avengers #Essential Avengers #Wonder Man #Beast #SHADOW LORD #essential marvel liveblogging #Iron Man #Wasp #Captain America #Jocasta #Vision #Scarlet Witch #huh its been a while since they've gotten to do much #from the volcano thing and the tornado whirlpool depths of the earth thing #i think that the Earth Lords just had no grasp on subtlety at all #go big or go big

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inversekaon · 6 years ago

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[fic] Like Ships in the Night (2)

Fandom: Yugioh Zexal Paring: V/Gauche, background Mizael/Kaito Rating: T Wordcount: 5500+ dreamwidth link AO3 link

Soulmates AU. Fate would always ensure that soulmates found each other. Even if it had to try again…and again…and again…and again…

~*~*~*~*~

Like Ships in the Night Part 2 // Hailing

The writing on his arm seemed to tingle when he woke up again, standing on the dam where he had disappeared. So did everything else, in a way, so Chris didn't pay it much mind. He often forgot those words were even there, anyway.

"Let's go find Yuma," he suggested once he felt like his body was as solid as it was going to get. He held a hand out to Michael, who took it with a short, determined nod, and together they began walking back to the car.

The docks had been where the energy uniting the two worlds had originated, so it seemed prudent to check there first. They weren't the only ones who had thought so, either; on the way, they picked up Thomas and a few of the other duelists who had helped Yuma, and once they reached the docks, the rest were waiting for them, along with Yuma himself.

With one notable exception. Chris's heart sank as he looked around and found that Kaito was not among the other duelists. For a brief moment, he convinced himself that it was because it was more difficult to return from the surface of the moon than to be magically restored where they had fallen, until Yuma walked over to him, unusually downcast and fidgety.

"V," he said hesitantly, "I'm sorry. Kaito was...Kaito, he..."

Chris reached out to squeeze Yuma's shoulder. His fingers dug in harder than he meant them to, but Yuma didn't even flinch.

"I understand," Chris said softly. "Thank you, Yuma. For...trying to tell me."

Yuma smiled weakly and turned away to talk with someone else. Standing behind him had been Haruto, who stared up at him with unsure, shiny eyes once Yuma was no longer in the way.

Chris looked down at him just as hesitantly. He would never forget the part he had played in betraying and hurting the child in front of him for the rest of his life, nor was he unaware of how hesitant Kaito was to allow Chris anywhere near Haruto again, even if the two of them had mostly made up. But Kaito was no longer here, and Chris was probably the next best thing Haruto had right now.

It took a moment, but eventually Chris slowly lowered himself to his knees and held his arms out. Haruto didn't quite dash at him, but it had probably looked that way from the outside as he threw himself at Chris's chest. Chris wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tightly, and he politely said nothing about the wet spot slowly coming into being on his shoulder.

Haruto was fast asleep, cradled in his arms and his lap, long before anyone else tried to approach him. When a shadow fell over him and then sat next to him, he wasn't all that surprised to see that it was Gauche sitting there, his chin in his hand and expression surly. He didn't have the impression that Gauche liked him much, but the man had spent enough time in Heartland Tower that he probably was fond of Haruto.

"So, you're supposed to be a good guy now, huh?" Gauche said after a moment of glancing between him and Haruto.

Chris shrugged his free shoulder. "I'm not really any sort of guy."

Gauche made a very skeptical sounding grunt in the back of his throat and went on frowning at him. Chris very calmly stared right back, hoping that was a good enough answer and also offhandedly wondering why it being good enough was suddenly so important to him. They were hardly more than strangers, after all. Despite working in the same building for a year, Chris only vaguely remembered running into Gauche once, for approximately as long as it took him to walk past him. It shouldn't matter at all to him what Gauche thought.

He supposed that if Gauche really wanted to take issue with him looking after Haruto for a few minutes and tried to argue about it, it would disturb Haruto, and he didn't want that. That was probably enough reason.

"Well, I guess if he doesn't hate you after what you did to him, it's fine," Gauche finally said, glancing toward Haruto. Chris unconsciously hugged Haruto a little tighter. He quickly relaxed his grip again as soon as Haruto made a noise.

Gauche didn't seem to have anything else to say, but he didn't seem very inclined to leave either. The two of them just sat there for a while, silently watching Yuma and his friends chatter away. Chris might have finally thought about leaving, except that the group around Yuma included Michael, and it was too nice to see his brother so enthusiastically accepted into the group for Chris to want to ruin it. Even if his other brother was standing around the edges, looking thoroughly annoyed they were still there.

It was surprisingly comfortable sitting there next to Gauche with Haruto asleep on his shoulder. At least, it was for Chris. Gauche seemed unable to sit still after the first couple minutes, his fidgeting steadily growing more obvious, until it seemed he would surely get up and leave any second. Then he turned toward Chris again, and Chris wondered why, if he actually did have something else to say, he hadn't just said it to begin with.

"You owe me a duel," Gauche said, finally.

"Haven't we already dueled?"

"No, I mean a real duel," Gauche said, poking him in the shoulder. "I'd like to see you get away with all those cheap tricks of yours in a real duel."

Chris glanced at the finger jabbing at his shoulder, and then looked back at Yuma and his friends. He wasn't sure he could keep his eagerness off his face if he let himself look at Gauche. In truth, he wanted to set Haruto down and offer to duel right then and there. He couldn't remember the last time someone other than his brothers or Kaito had asked him to duel—had actually wanted to duel him and sought him out rather than the other way around. And Gauche wasn't brilliant, but he was enough of a challenge to make it appealing.

Chris snuck a glance at Gauche out of the corner of his eye. The man was leaning over with the most serious look on his (actually rather handsome) face, like he might drag Chris off to duel whether Chris said yes or not.

"Give me your phone," Chris said finally, holding out his hand.

Gauche looked utterly confused, but he dipped a hand into his fluffy coat and set his cell phone in Chris's hand. Chris deftly hit the appropriate buttons and held it back out to him in almost no time at all.

"Call me," he said as Gauche took his phone back. "I'll duel you any time you want."

Gauche stared at his phone, dumbfounded, for several long moments before he grinned up at Chris. "Really? Any time?"

Chris started to nod, but quickly added before Gauche got too carried away, "Just give me a little time to adjust my deck first."

He probably should have done that the first time he'd lost hold of Numbers 9. It was his ace, after all, and while his deck could work without it, that was far from ideal. It had turned out to be lucky that he hadn't gotten around to adjusting his deck, but from now on, he was fairly certain it would never be in his hands again. Not to mention, much of his deck was still tailored toward countering Kaito or the Barians specifically, even if it would work well enough against others.

He was looking forward to coming up with something new. He already had a few possibilities sitting half-built in a drawer.

"Oh yeah?" Gauche said with a grin. "Our last duel actually made you nervous?"

Chris snorted lightly and turned away. "Hardly. It simply wouldn't be fair to you to overpower you so thoroughly again."

Gauche jerked next to him, but whatever he had been about to retort was lost to his own imagination as footsteps approached, and then stopped, behind them.

"Christopher..."

Chris tensed up, his back suddenly straight as a board. Gauche was already scrambling to his feet—no doubt out of habit than any real respect for the man.

"...Dr. Faker."

For a moment, Chris had to close his eyes and take a long, slow breath. His father had forgiven Faker, so Chris had also given up on his quest for revenge—as well as any misplaced anger toward the man's sons—but Chris was not his father and he had not quite been able to forgive the man himself yet. He might have tried for Kaito's sake...but Kaito wasn't here. He supposed he could try for Haruto's sake as well, though.

When he opened his eyes, Gauche was holding a hand down to him. Chris took it with some relief and let Gauche help him back to his feet without jostling Haruto too much. His hand was pleasantly warm and dry, and the grip his other hand had higher up Chris's arm was firm yet surprisingly gentle. Chris nearly stumbled into him once he was one his feet, but Gauche just guided him back upright and held him there, until most of the tingling had gone from his legs and he could move away on his own.

"Haruto, your father is here," Chris murmured as he gently shook Haruto's shoulder. Haruto woke up enough to help move himself as Chris passed him over to Faker, and then as soon as he was cradled in his father's arms instead, he fell right back asleep against Faker's shoulder.

Chris regarded the man silently for a moment. Thankfully, Faker seemed to be waiting to see what he had to say before he actually opened his own mouth again.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Chris said flatly. The same words Faker had said to him those years ago. Chris, at least, had the decency to not lie straight to the man's face.

Then he turned and walked away, brushing past Gauche without another glance back. It seemed it was time to finally collect his brothers and leave.

~*~*~*~*~

That evening, they gathered to watch Yuma's last duel with Astral. It seemed like it was only Yuma's close friends and himself and Droite, until Gauche happened to glance up and saw a trio of figures standing on a nearby rooftop.

"Those guys," Gauche grumbled, rolling his eyes, "they're always so dramatic. What can they even see all the way up there?"

Still, he could helped grinning a bit as well and he thrust his hand into the air to wave at them. After several excruciatingly long, undoubtedly embarrassing for Droite seconds, the tallest figure on the roof also raised his hand halfheartedly.

But they didn't come down to watch with the rest of them, and by the time the duel was over and Gauche could glance back up again, the three figures were gone.

~*~*~*~*~

"Oh? Chris, your mark is lighter?"

Chris paused in dumping vegetables into a pot to turn his arm over in surprise. Tron eagerly leaned across the counter for a closer look.

It was rare that Chris had his sleeves rolled up enough to clearly see the characters on his arm, rarer still that it was while someone else was around. For that someone to be Tron was—perhaps—a stroke of luck, as he undoubtedly remembered what those characters used to look like better than Chris did and was just eager enough to reintegrate himself into his sons' lives to be very nosy about it.

Admittedly, Chris had not given those characters much thought in years, and Tron was also the reason for that. In the face of his burning, all-consuming need for revenge against Dr. Faker, everything else had seemed laughably inconsequential, especially some soulmate he might or might not ever meet. He wore long sleeves so often that he rarely saw them anyway.

When he was younger, he'd actually given them quite a lot of thought. He'd painstakingly translated the characters until he thought he had a reasonable understanding of what they said. He'd practiced again and again what they should sound like, so he would be sure to know them when he heard them. Even now, years after he'd bothered to glance at them, it was probably the one bit of Japanese he could write by hand without having to look any of it up.

And he'd certainly spent some time contemplating their meaning and what they hinted at how he might meet his soulmate. There you are! Someone who had been looking for him. We got a nice mood going on here! Someone who might even be very excited to find him. I challenge you! Someone who was a duelist.

Someone who had been looking for him specifically to duel him, maybe.

(He'd hoped so. Very much)

And it was someone who spoke Japanese. But none of that told him much at all, really. And then he had stopped caring.

Glancing down at those words now, Chris thought they did sound familiar, and not because he'd repeated them to himself so often when he was small. He could almost hear they way they had been spoken in his mind, could almost place where it had been and why, but every time he reached for the answer, it darted out of his grasp. It would undoubtedly come to him some time when he wasn't thinking about it at all, but for now, it seemed useless to keep trying.

"I think you're right," Chris said eventually. "They are lighter."

Tron smiled and sat back in his chair, his chin cupped in his hands. Chris could hear faint thuds under the counter where he must have been kicking his feet.

"So, do you know who it is? You shouldn't keep such big secrets from your father, Chris."

Chris frowned down at his arm for a few moments more. "...No, I don't."

Tron hummed, utterly unconcerned. "Well, you'll meet them again. It took me and your mother years to figure it out."

~*~*~*~*~

"All right, Kaito, I think we're done. You can get dressed now."

Chris turned away to look over the last of the data collected about Kaito's condition, while Kaito sat up on the examination table and grabbed for his shirt. Ever since Kaito had miraculously reappeared along with the Barians after Yuma had won his duel against Astral a few weeks ago, Chris had insisted on regular check-ups to make sure Kaito was recovering well. Between Photon Mode slowly killing him, the way Heartland had tortured him, and the stress of dueling Mizael and then suffocating to death on the moon, Chris was somewhat concerned that even the Numeron Code couldn't bring Kaito back at full health.

He had also insisted that he be the one performing said check-ups, because he knew that Kaito didn't care enough about his health to bother on his own.

Luckily, it seemed that the Numeron Code had been able to restore him to full health after all, and Photon Mode didn't seem to be putting as much strain on his body as it had been either. Chris still didn't like the readings he got after Kaito had been using it, but Kaito also had much less reason to use it now, so he could almost recover completely before using it again.

The readings today were much better than they had been a couple days ago. But there was actually something else he had noticed while Kaito had his shirt off, and now that he was done looking over all the data, he could finally turn his attention to more trivial matters.

Chris turned back to Kaito just in time to catch his wrist before he could hide his arm inside his coat again. He spent a moment inspecting Kaito's arm, and then smiled up at him when he was sure he wasn't mistaken.

"Your mark is lighter."

"So what," Kaito said. He jerked his hand free and jammed his arm through the sleeve of his coat.

Now, Kaito had never been overly enamored with the idea of finding his soulmate—at least, once he'd realized Chris wasn't it—but he'd never been quite this hostile about it. Chris tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"Do you know who it is?"

Kaito didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. The way he crossed his arms and frowned at one of the screens—that was conveniently not on Chris's side of the room—was answer enough. And so was the faint blush on his cheeks.

"Is it Mizael?"

Kaito tensed up so fast he nearly jumped and whipped his head around. "How did you know that?"

"Please, isn't it obvious?" Chris said with a smirk. Not that he'd been one hundred percent sure, but between their twin dragons and their personalities, he would have been extremely surprised to learn it was anyone else.

Kaito scowled at him even more, though disappointingly, that faint bit of pink left his cheeks.

"And what about you?" Kaito demanded after a moment with an irritated jerk of his head.

Oh. Chris was quite happy to tease Kaito about this, but he did not particularly want to talk about himself. He turned away to do...something on one of the screens that would give the appearance of suddenly remembering something he needed to do.

"I've met mine as well."

"Oh?" Chris could practically hear the grin Kaito would be doing his best to suppress. "Sounds like we're both pretty lucky. Are you going to make me guess, too?"

"You can try, but I don't know who it is either."

"You don't?" Kaito said, surprised. "It's been a while since I've seen it...was it that generic?"

In an instant, Kaito had crossed the room to grab Chris's wrist. Chris sighed and let him tug his arm close and push up his sleeve to reveal the characters there. There was no denying it now, the way he maybe could have when Tron had noticed; those characters were absolutely more faded than they had been. They were more faded than Kaito's too, for that matter.

Kaito spent a long moment inspecting the words on Chris's arm. When he finally looked up again, it was with an odd look on his face.

"Chris, this sounds like—"

"I know who it sounds like," Chris said shortly. He jerked his arm away and pushed his sleeve back down.

He had been racking his brain since Tron had brought it up, trying to remember when he might have heard it, trying to put a face or a name to the voice he heard when he read over those lines again and again. He thought he might have finally figured it out, too, except that he had a hard time believing it could be that guy. He was attractive, anyone would think so, but...they had spoken to each other exactly twice, and he didn't have the impression of being very liked either time. Other than dueling, did they even have anything in common? Was there even any other reason for them to cross paths again?

Chris's pocket began to buzz. He fished out his phone before Kaito could say anything else, glad for the excuse to stop talking about this. As he read over the message and who it was from, his eyes widened a bit. Speak of the devil and he shall appear...

Your deck ready yet? I'll be waiting.

Chris spent a moment studying the attached map to make sure he knew where he was going. Then he dashed off a reply and stuffed his phone back in his pocket to begin shutting things down so he could leave as soon as possible. Finally. He'd been beginning to think the man had forgotten about wanting to duel him.

"Who was that?" Kaito asked. Chris started a little. He'd almost forgotten Kaito was there.

He also wasn't sure he wanted to respond, given the previous subject, but eventually he said, "Gauche."

"....You gave him your phone number...?"

"He wanted to duel me," Chris said. He paused to look over the room and make sure everything was taken care of.

"Chris..."

Chris glanced over. Kaito had another odd look on his face. But instead of saying anything on that subject they both wanted to avoid, Kaito shook his head and said with a slight smirk, "You're going to destroy him."

Chris smirked right back. "Yes, I know."

~*~*~*~*~

Gauche scowled up at the sky from the flat of his back. That V....he'd been hoping that if it was a real duel, V would drop his cheap tricks and duel properly, but that was all he seemed to know how to do. That wasn't satisfying at all!

But the most frustrating bit was that it worked. This was far from the first time Gauche had ended up on his back this week. It didn't seem to matter how much he adjusted his own strategies either; V was utterly unmoved by most of it, and for those hits that actually landed, he found a way to counter them by the next duel.

(Gauche was reluctant to admit it, but he could see how Kaito had gotten so good with this immovable wall as his teacher.)

But that didn't mean he was going to give up. Far from it. Gauche pushed himself to his feet and demanded they start again. He was not going to let someone with such an annoying style of dueling get the better of him forever.

~*~*~*~*~

Gauche frowned up at the sky from the flat of his back. That V...it seemed he could use other strategies after all, and he was just as annoyingly competent at them as the Burn and Negation effects he preferred. And thankfully, he'd started swapping out right as Gauche was starting to get bored of how he had been fighting.

It was still frustrating, regularly finding himself on the ground like this. And it just made him want to see V on the ground instead even more.

Just...maybe in a minute. Gauche shifted on the ground and let out a small groan at the bruises threatening to form on his back. It wasn't very comfortable, lying here, but it was tempting to keep lying here anyway. He finally pushed himself up on his elbows instead. He should probably make it clear he was going to get up, eventually, but they'd been dueling for a while now and he could actually use a break.

He glanced up when he heard a faint sound come from V's direction. V had taken a few steps in his direction but stopped, and he was now staring down at him with wide eyes and an otherwise very blank look on his face. Gauche arched a brow as he stared back up at him, which only seemed to make V's face tighten up even more. What was his problem? Was he worried? Was he mad? Did Gauche offend him somehow by not getting right back up?

After a moment, V's brows knitted together and he looked away, frowning at the ground next to Gauche instead. Then he turned on his heel with a whirl of his curtain of silver hair and walked back to where he had been standing. There, he spun around again and sank gracefully to the ground, pulled out his deck, and started calmly shuffling through it in his lap. He didn't glance back up at Gauche again. Gauche had the distinct impression he was refusing to.

He was probably mad. But if he was going along with Gauche's desire for a break, then that was fine. Gauche sat up the rest of the way and pulled out his own deck. Taking the opportunity to make a few adjustments wasn't a bad idea either.

~*~*~*~*~

Gauche grinned up at the sky from the flat of his back and let out a bark of laughter. Finally. It had taken V switching to a strategy that involved a lot of swarming and straightforward attacks—the way Gauche had been hoping he would fight from the beginning—but Gauche had finally managed...a tie.

Just a tie. But so what if it was just a tie? Normally, he might have been irritated by that kind of result, but against V, it felt like progress. And anyway, it had been fun. Not that dueling V hadn't become its own kind of fun, but there was just something different about exchanging blows directly. There was something different about V, who was normally so composed behind his Trap cards and monster effects, passionately fighting him head on like that.

In some ways, he felt like maybe he'd finally seen V's real fighting spirit, after only seeing glimpses of it for so long. He knew that wasn't quite the case—he'd never felt like V wasn't fully engaged with their duels, or he would have walked away long before now—but it still felt that way. And it was something he already, very badly, wanted to see again.

"You got me."

Gauche turned his head to find V standing over him, his hand outstretched and a smile on his lips. The light of the sun setting behind him illuminated the edges of his hair, so he almost seemed to glow, but it was nothing compared to the way that smile softened his face.

Gauche stared up at him for a long time, momentarily struck dumb by how breathtakingly handsome this man was when he smiled like that.

Until that smile faded and V was looking at him with concern instead. "Gauche?"

Gauche sat up and took his hand, chuckling awkwardly as V helped him stand up. "I haven't gotten you yet," he said, very keen to avoid any questions about his momentary lapse of reason. "But you'd better be ready for when I do."

V smiled again, sending his heart fluttering up his throat. "I'll treat you anyway."

~*~*~*~*~

"Dr. Faker is planning to hold another tournament," V said, handing him an ice cream. As V sat next to him, Gauche couldn't help but eye the ice cream he was holding—or rather, the amount of stuff he'd asked for on it.

"Already? Wait, who're they even going have host it? With Heartland gone and the deputy mayor's a bore..."

V's mouth tightened in disdain as he dug at his ice cream with a tiny spoon. He seemed to have been able to put aside his uncharitable feelings for Dr. Faker during the past few months, but that didn't seem to be the case for Heartland. Not that Gauche could blame him much for that.

"We've been talking to someone named Smiley...I was worried he might be cut from the same cloth as Heartland, but he seems alright. You'll see what I mean when you meet him." He stuck a chunk of ice cream, chocolate, and cookie in his mouth and fell quiet until it was gone. "Dr. Faker is planning on making the WDC an annual tournament, but he's going to have another one before that to get everyone excited for it. Invite only."

"Oh yeah? Since you're telling me, I guess I'm invited?" Gauche said with a grin. He reached over with his own spoon and snagged a bit of V's ice cream. V's eyes followed it all the way to his mouth.

"That's right. Those of us who made it to the last eight in the last WDC, the Barians, a few of Yuma's other friends...we'll be using the Duel Coasters so we needed enough people." V absently tucked his hair behind his ear. "It's going to be publicized as a precursor to the WDC, but it's really more of a gift to all of us and Yuma..."

That seemed...surprisingly generous of Dr. Faker. Particularly when he had only thrown the first WDC as an attempt to collect the Numbers, and he'd never seemed all that enamored with dueling itself. Gauche had a suspicion this wasn't actually his idea, or a lot of it wasn't. But more importantly—

"We're using the Duel Coasters again?"

V casually reached over with his spoon and snagged a bit of his ice cream. "My idea."

Frankly, Gauche couldn't care less whose idea it was. He jumped up with a wild grin, nearly crushing his ice cream in his fist in his excitement. "That's the best idea! I can't wait to be part of that again!"

~*~*~*~*~

As the tournament approached, holoscreens began appearing around the city to advertise for it with what little footage there was from the last tournament.

And Gauche finally had the satisfaction of sending V flying to the ground.

For the first few moments, he almost couldn't believe what he'd just seen. His monster's attack connecting, V's monster getting blown away and V along with it, V's lifepoints finally ticking all the way down to zero...

Then the reality of V's prone form on the ground finally sank in and he threw his fists in the air and let out a whoop of delight. And then ran forward to give V a hand in getting up and maybe gloat a little to his face rather than several feet away.

V was already sitting up by the time Gauche reached him, his pretty hair strewn haphazardly about his shoulders. The look on his face quashed most of Gauche's thoughts of gloating. He actually looked pretty peeved under all that hair, although he also wasn't looking at Gauche, so it was hard to say whether that was directed at him.

Then V glanced up at him and most of that dark look disappeared. He sighed and reached up to take Gauche's hand, his eyes glittering with a challenge.

"Good job. That won't be happening again."

Gauche grinned and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the holoscreen above them blared to life—with his own face, too, so he kind of wanted to see what part of the WDC they'd picked for this one. Something from the underground part of the Duel Coaster track, it looked like.

"There you are! We got a nice mood going on here! V, I challenge you!"

"...Hmph, you plan to fight me?"

V's hand was still clasped in his own, so he felt it when the man went suddenly went very still. Gauche was too busy frowning up at the screen to look at him. Why did that sound so familiar? Like something he had been trying to remember for months had just been dropped in his lap?

"So it is you..."

Gauche's gaze darted back down to his face. V was staring at him with a surprisingly vulnerable look, like he'd never really seen him before. Gauche stared back at him, bewildered, until his face and his words and his words finally all clicked into place.

"It's you?!" he blurted. He yanked V's arm forward and shoved up his sleeve. Sure enough, it was his own words that were inscribed there, and they had faded as much as the short phrase on his own arm. A phrase which he had very clearly heard just seconds ago from that screen.

His fingers brushed over the words, checking them over again just to make sure. V's muscles tensed under his fingers and his hand twitched in Gauche's grip.

"So it would seem," he murmured, his voice tight.

Gauche glanced back up at him. He still looked a bit unsure and lost, which was pretty much how Gauche felt about this too. This wasn't at all how he thought meeting his soulmate would go. Even after he'd discovered they'd already met, he'd been imagining something...else when they found each other again. He hadn't imagined it would feel like the world had suddenly turned upside down. And he definitely hadn't imagined it being V.

Then something else clicked, and Gauche frowned suspiciously at him. "Did you already know?"

V pressed his lips together and glanced down at where Gauche's hand was still resting on his arm. "I suspected."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Gauche demanded.

V didn't answer that right away, giving Gauche plenty of time to come up with his own reasons. V didn't like him. V already liked someone else. V didn't want to be with someone who couldn't beat him. V didn't want to be with someone who could beat him. V thought he liked someone else and didn't want to get in the way. V was actually secretly dying from some unknown malady—

"Because," V said finally, meeting his eyes again, "even if this is meant to be, I didn't want to fall for you because I felt like I had to. And I didn't want you to feel obligated to like me either. That's not the kind of relationship I want to have. With anyone."

That wasn't in his list of reasons.

Gauche's heart felt like it was in his throat again.

"That's the relationship I thought I wanted. When I was a kid," Gauche admitted sheepishly. It sure as hell wasn't what he wanted now, though. As of approximately five seconds ago.

"Well, so did I," V said with a faint smile. "When I was a kid."

Gauche nodded jerkily. There was something else he wanted to ask, but...well, it was kind of embarrassing just asking it. So it was another few seconds of opening and closing his mouth before he could manage it, and his cheeks felt warm when he finally did.

"Do you like me?"

V looked away and chewed on the inside of his lower lip. "More than I thought I would," he admitted after a moment.

Gauche's hand tightened around the one he was holding. That probably should have been insulting in some way, but honestly, wasn't that pretty much how he felt too? More than I thought I would...And anyway, insulting or not, unsure of his own feelings or not, it was hard not to feel more than a little affected by hearing this proud, beautiful man admit that he liked him. It was tempting to just kiss him right now and let that lead where it may.

"I need some time to think about it," Gauche said instead, feeling somewhat like he was having to force the words out.

V smiled and squeezed his hand back. "Good."

◁◁ Part 1: Passing By

Part 3: In Consort ▷▷

#Contrastshipping #Zexal #christopher arclight #Gauche #zexalfic #fanfiction

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kenyonexeter-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Vessels

It is not until the first of the reds that I suspected I’ve made a mistake. My arms move heavily across the smooth wooden table. The dark wine inside the glass spins as if it were a gelatin disk.

“This one has that weight,” says the voice of Marc Millon ’77. “It has the glucose.” There is far too much Red Burgundy Cabernet in my mouth. Bombarded by a thousand small fruity fists, I swallow all the wine to save myself. However much I have drunk reaches my everywhere and the word mistake appears in my head in stone-grey Apple Chancery. Marc mentions periodically that these particular wine types are particularly expensive, but doesn’t mention their expense particularly. I wonder how much wine in pounds sterling I’ve just hastily consumed because of a mistake caused, ironically, by the wine. You should never trust a product that influences the way you consume it. And yet, here I am. I set the glass down, sliding it into the other glass. The ring fills the room and the eyes of the others at the table shoot to me with my hand still on the stem. The defined ring dissipates into the now monastic air. The eyes remove themselves and my hand unfreezes from the glass. My face goes up a few stovetop settings. I hear the various voices as if through a thin glass door.

This one is not my friend. The smell burns my nose like Purell, and the taste somehow reminds me a conversation I once had where someone described their undying love for a book I hated. Professor Singer is right, red wines are gross. Regardless, the effect of the wine appears to be the same.

“I think I’ve made a severe mistake,” I tell Fletcher and Isaiah, both of whom sit opposite me.

“Whatever do you mean?” Fletcher asks with one eyebrow raised.

“Nobody else has been spitting any of it, right?”

“Oh, no,” Fletcher assures me. Isaiah shakes his head in complement. “No,” Fletcher continues. “We have all been, certainly— I have consumed all of the wine.” He grins.

“I think I now have consumed a combined total of at least more than three glasses,” I note.

“Probably,” Fletcher replies.

I nod. “And I have the strong urge to sing the Kokosing Farewell.”

“Don’t do that,” Isaiah says. “This is not the place for that.”

“I’m well aware. It will happen, though, eventually. It is inevitable.”

Isaiah nods. “Well let’s just hope that happens after we leave.”

Marc stands by the table next to ours. “Do you like the wine?”

I took too long trying to decide if, by “the wine” he meant the wine we had had over the course of the night or the wine currently in my glass, because I have different answers. “Yes,” I say, meaning all of them.

He nods, raising his wine glass slightly and taking another sip. I resist the urge to ask him ten thousand questions about Kenyon. I succeed, in that I only ask him two.

“You’re class of ‘77?” “Yes, I am,” he grins and makes a pronounced nod. “Class of 77.”

“Do you know Mark Robinson? He would have been a few years behind you, he was ’79, and so you would have been on campus together for only one year…”

“No, I don’t know him. What’s your connection to him?” I very suddenly don’t want to say. Will it seem I brought it up to mention I’m a Kokosinger? Why would I do that? I also know nothing of the Kokes’ reputation in 1977. They could have been absolutely loathed, after all this was years before—

“When was Professor Tazewell a Koke?” asks Professor Singer.

“He graduated in 1987,” I reply, perhaps too quickly. Had the way I said it implied he was too young? Had I offended Marc? I crinkle my face.

Before I am able to instinctively ask him what he studied and what dorm he lived in as a Freshman and where his department was based when he was there and who the head of the department was and how many students there were and what the gender ratio was and what he did on campus he, ever so fortunately, began a leisurely return to the center of the room. I pour the remainder of my glass into the silvery bucket in front of me. I let curiosity reign and, without hesitation, peer over the edge to see the contents, which resembles red wine exactly. Disappointed, I sit back down.

“This next wine is a little heartier, and far darker, just note the difference in the shade.” He pours the purple wine into my empty glass, and Fletcher and I hold the two wines up to each other, marking the “radically different colors,” although they both look mostly black with different-colored lights shining through. We toast rigidly, laughing, before taking a sip. I curse myself for skipping over the smelling stage. Oh well.

“Wine is such a personal experience,” Marc reminds us, “created with so much individuality. Wine is really about community. It’s about getting to know the maker of the wine, the land that it comes from, the people from that land, and the friends you share the wine with.”

“And if you go to these places,” Professor Lynn adds from all the way down the column of tables, “then when you have this wine again you will be reminded of that place. Wine is a vessel, for alcohol certainly,” he grins at all of us, “but it’s really a vessel for memory.”

Marc comes round with the final wine of the night: Riesling, a golden liquid disco ball. On the sheet where I’m supposed to write a description of its smell, I write without hesitation New Years Eve, a tap on the shoulder. I don’t know. I described a white Sancerre as gladiatorial, I’m clearly bad at this. Wine never seemed to be for me. At my father’s house, wine (red wine) was a callous, pernicious, and expensive beverage that sat in the center of the dinner table and in a glass in front of me for the rest of the night, and apparently also came with a more absurdly complex playing system than the Yugioh trading card game. At Kenyon, it was another way for people who apparently didn’t have ten pages on Boccaccio due by 10am to forget the hopelessness of it all. But this. This is a discovery. I say “wow” aloud, involuntarily, with enough force to make Professor Singer recoil in surprise. Fletcher raises both eyebrows. Isaiah blinks. Shame attempts to scurry around, but has to hold its breath in the new basin of wine that now flows through my body. I, again aloud, remark that it tastes similar to cider. Marc pauses and gives me a disapproving look, but mutters, “okay.” It does taste like cider. Or maybe it feels like cider on my lips and in my mouth. It bubbles around, having a party, but careful not to break anything. Marc offers everyone a second glass. I accept with a quickness I should be ashamed of, but I’m not.

Still in the thorough bright beige light of the wine cellar I push my left arm through the polyester inside of my coat, and Fletcher nonchalantly plants my right hand onto his recently shaved head. His head is sweaty, but the collective of short stiff hairs is strangely relaxing on my palm, so I go with it and put the other hand on there as well, and start humming a single low note.

“Is this some sort of mind meld?” Fletcher asks quickly. “What’s happening?”

“You were the one who put it there.”

“Fair enough.”

We stay for a few moments until my hands slide off of his head, and everyone files out. I hear thank yous directed back at Marc from ahead of me. I turn back toward him myself, open my mouth, contract a muscle in my throat, but merely exhale. We walk the damp streets of Topsham. Short bursts of voice volley back and forth in front of me, but I forget each word instantly. For a while no one speaks to me any more than the small figurines in the shop windows do. The buildings are all charcoal-colored and neon yellow, the street pavement is its color when wet, the brown coat hangers and hand-carved chess sets and shoes are black. Eric’s skin is grey. Bailey’s is grey, then suddenly thrice-diluted yellow in front of some shrubbery under a street light, then grey again.

The color palette more or less returns at the train station. The shingle roofs of Topsham still surround us but they fade out. My world is a few rows of train tracks, and a small crowd of Kenyonites on the slatey platform before them. I begin to sing the Kokosing Farewell.

Fletcher joins me. His eyes hide behind his glasses as if they are screen doors overlooking a backyard ruckus. I can’t tell if he is following me in the song, or simply confused as to why I am making eye contact with him. I turn and notice Professor Lynn has also joined in, arms motionless at his sides, his brimmed hat turning in the dark as he nods at the start of each line. Two or three voices accompany mine, sometimes following exactly, sometimes only a few milliseconds behind. I fear if I make a mistake it will stop, which, once we have begun, seems unacceptable to me. Behind his hat and his beard Professor Lynn’s either stares straight on or looks at me, it is unclear. His look tells me he is also determined to finish the song. I wonder whether it is out of a sense of duty, or enjoyment, although he seems somehow annoyed, or perhaps under “some strange spell.” The spell isn’t strange to me anymore. It is quite familiar. I’ve been at the Topsham station before, but tonight, for about two of the minutes we stand here, we are not at Topsham Station. We are at Kenyon. Not Kenyon College, just Kenyon. The heaths and hills of Devonshire still lie in wait just outside the edge of the station’s overhead lamp, but everything the light touches is Kenyon. So long as the song continues.

“In meadows sweet with asphodel…” I stop. The other voices stop.

“What is the next line,” I ask aloud. This is the part I’ve sung ten thousand times, and yet. And yet.

“I can’t remember,” Fletcher relents. The individual words sit in the air around me— “reposing,” “memory,” “dwells”— but I can’t organize them into the penultimate line. I start singing pieces of the line out of order, at half volume. I am a jukebox running out of batteries. Fletcher and Isaiah turn back to the train tracks, and Professor Lynn adjusts his hat. The circle is incomplete, the spell is broken.

“That song will be with you for the rest of your life,” Professor Lynn says, hands in his pockets, walking slowly up the edge of the platform. “Every time you hear that song, you will think of Kenyon.”

A minute of vigorous tapping brings me to a lavender web page on my iPhone in a grey broken case. I sing the rest of the song. I mean to do it quietly, but eyes start turning back to me, more confused than the last time. I finish anyway. I step onto the train after Emma Longstreth. The professors wave briskly and march down the platform in the opposite direction. The train doors close. I have a window seat, but I don’t look out of it once. We take up three rows on either side of the train. I can see everyone from my seat at the edge of the section. I want to sing the song again, but we’re on a train.

Six of us get off at St. James’ Park. This part of the city is newer than the rest, even newer to me. I’ve never been before. We scale a somehow rural staircase up to streets of whitewashed buildings and stone walls no taller than six and a half feet. Trampling down a small hill, my arms and legs and torso are warmer than they should be. The wind cools my face in a consistent layer, I feel the cold as one point, one color of a single pixel. Behind my face, my thoughts move by a giant iron wheel powered only by my forward momentum. If I stop walking maybe I’ll just collapse on the floor. Not so fast. Not so fast indeed, I agree at the mouth of another alleyway. It opens up onto a larger road: Pennsylvania. We walk up and suddenly the trip is identical to coming back from Tesco, back from the firehouse, back from anywhere in the City. The small wall at our side is ancient and quaint and matches the street that makes me think the word “cobblestone” even though it’s paved. The way I feel I might as well be coming back from Rosse Hall, from Kokes practice. It’s the same lighting, that makes me wish there was some other place, somewhere I could justify walking to, somewhere I could sing all night. I don’t want my throat to cool down. I don’t want to sit back down at a desk, and edit ten pages on Salvador Dalí by 10am. That’s what I’m doing, though. That’s Kenyon for you. No matter where you actually are, there’s always ten pages due tomorrow by 10am. And I had all of that wine anyway.

#November #writing #Zack Eydenberg

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bluewavesofchange · 2 months ago

Text

Another leaf on the tree

I don't own Yugioh or it's characters

Prologue

When thinking of life and the many events and choices that have guided us to where we are, we always wonder what would have happened had things turned out differently…if we had chosen to stay home instead of going to that party where we met the love of our lives and end up married years later…if we had chosen to go to one college instead of the other…if we had just taken a second to throw a cup in the bin instead of letting it fall to the ground to be forgotten…we wonder if even the most insignificant events or decisions in our lives could’ve led to a different part in life, like a tree with all its branches flowing into different directions, each one having its own story to tell with its numerous leaves or lack thereof, a nest with newly hatched chicks or eggs waiting to greet the new world…

So what happens when a story we’ve already been through takes a different turn…when one fleeting glance leads to a change of heart, causing a domino effect that would affect the lives of many of our heroes…

...learning at only an hour old...

...what loneliness and brokenness really was...

...the only time we were somewhat safe was when they sent us to school...

...but even that place had its list of problems and horrors...

...if it wasn't the kids at the orphanage beating us up...

...it would be the kids at school...

"Well, well...if it isn't little lonely Lilly."

He said with a chuckle, I hugged myself defensively, not wanting to aggravate him in case he tried to smash my skull in with his wooded beating stick.

"What do you want Markiato?"

I stuttered as I stared down at the ground, not wanting to make eye contact with the mammoth in front of me.

"Just wanted to spend a little time with my favourite little loser..."

He kept grinning as he reached out to lift my chin, making me look right into those horrible eyes. I quickly hit his hand away and got up keeping my gaze away from the rest of the boys.

"Just go away Markiato..."

"Now why would I go away? We're just having some fun right? Besides you seemed so lonely sitting here all by yourself."

"You know fellas...maybe we should put her out of her misery? Send her back to where she came from..."

"Pl-please st-stop!"

Just as Markiato raised the bat over his head to strike me, I knew nobody would come help me...nobody cared about me...I closed my eyes...waiting for the pain to come...when...

..."Leave her alone!"...

"Well, well, what do we have here? Prince charming coming to save his pathetic excuse of a princess?"

The boys began to laugh as I just looked back down at the ground.

"I said leave her alone. Go back to playing king of the idiots you freak."

"What did you just call me runt?" he growled through his teeth.

The kid didn't even flinch or look scared of the towering bully in front of him.

"I called you a big fat freak..."

The boy slowly approached me; I kept my gaze down, not really knowing what to do...

..."Hey are you ok?"...

"Hey, it's ok. I'm not going to hurt you."

He said in a soft spoken voice as he smiled at me. He reached out a second time and this time I didn't pull away, letting him clean my cheek...

"Th-thank you...for saving me...even though you didn't have to..." I spoke shyly as I kept my gaze away from his.

"It's ok. I just don't like seeing people pick on those weaker than themselves."

He said with a smile. Blushing at the comment, I looked up, glaring at him slightly, "Are you saying I'm weak?"

He chuckled and kept smiling that stupid smile,

"No. I'm just saying I don't like seeing people getting bullied. Especially if it's a cute girl."

..."So what's your name?" he asked...

...not many of the other kids in the orphanage really knew my name...besides those who picked on me...

..."Um...I'm L-Lillian..." I answered shyly...

"Lillian? That's a pretty name."

The small boy that stood behind his brother answered with a sweet smile,

"I'm Mokuba and this is my big brother Seto. Hey wanna be friends with us? My big brother can keep you safe from the kids who bully you..."

...friends...

...nobody had ever wanted to be friends with me...let alone wants be around me...

Almost a year has now passed since Seto and Mokuba had arrived at the orphanage and my world had changed. We became like a family and promised that we would always be together no matter what. I was no longer bullied and Markiato and his band of idiots left me alone. Things were going great and I was happy...sadly the day I had always dreaded came...the day Seto and Mokuba were taken away from me...the day they were adopted.

When news got out that the CEO of a big corporation was coming to visit the orphanage, Seto started coming up with a plan. It was odd seeing him this way...serious and almost never smiling. In the first few months that he and Mokuba were here, he seemed mostly happy, trying to keep a smile on his face for Mokuba's sake. However he started to change...it seemed that he was growing up too fast, but who could blame him. He had a little brother to take care of. Seto had once told me that the reason for him turning down so many families that wanted to adopt him was that he wouldn't leave without his brother and that he wanted to make sure that whoever adopted them was well off and would never suffer financially. So when word got out that Gozaburo Kaiba was coming to the orphanage, Seto started to finalise his plan. Since Gozaburo was not only well known for his title in the business industry, he was also well known for his skills in the game of chess, (not that anyone could match the skills of my...I mean...nevermind).

So the plan was that when Mr. Kaiba arrived, Seto would challenge him to a game of chess, in exchange if Seto won, then Gozaburo would have no choice but to adopt him and Mokuba, both of them becoming the children of one of the most powerful business tycoons in the country. Seto seemed so perfectly certain that his plan would work...however there was one thing he left out of the equation...he left out...me...

It was the day before Mr. Kaiba would be arrive and I would have to say goodbye to the only friends I ever had. I was sitting by myself on the swing set, a growing pain spreading in my heart. I held in my emotions as best I can, I didn't want to upset the two boys, especially when there was a chance that they could have a better life. But it still hurt...my only family was possibly going to leave and I would be where I was in the beginning...alone...but that wasn't the only reason why I was upset today. You see today was my birthday, I was turning 10 and you know what they say about orphans who are 10 or older...there's no chance of them being adopted. And not to mention, my birthday was a reminder that I was unwanted and would always be alone...Seto was a year younger than me and Mokuba was about 5 years old...

I was staring down at the ground when Seto came over and sat on the swing next to mine. It was obvious he had seen that I was looking rather down today. Not making any eye contact with him, I just wanted to be left alone...

"Well, Mokuba seems rather excited about tomorrow. I mean...both of us would have a chance to have a good life and we would never have to suffer again..."

I could feel him smiling as he spoke. His words cut me very deep with the mention of them leaving. I bit my lip, holding back the tears...

"That's great. I-I'm happy for you two..." I mumble trying not to show any signs of sadness. However, Seto knew me too well. He could easily pick up when I was upset and when I was happy. He could read me like a book. He turned towards me, the smile fading from his face,

"Hey, are you ok? You seem a little down."

I could hear the hint of concern in his voice as he spoke. I didn't answer; I didn't want to talk to him right now...like I said...I wanted to be alone. I could sense him processing what could be wrong, spending so much time with him and Mokuba had given us the ability to pick up when any of us were deep in thought and what they were feeling, we knew each other too well to have any secrets between us...and it was at that moment when I knew he figured it out, or I thought he did. His expression changed to that of someone who had forgotten something important...

..."Oh that's right, it's your birthday."

He smiled softly as he took my hand in his, "Is that why you're upset? You thought I forgot something as important as your birthday?"

He got up out of the swing and kneeled down in front of me, still holding my hand, trying to look at my face. I still tried hard to stay emotionless, but it was getting difficult with each passing second that he was near me. At the moment I hated him, I hated him for the way how he could make me open up, I hated him for the fact that he gave me happiness, I hated him for the way he made me feel and most of all, I hated him for wanting to leave me behind and steal away my happiness. I finally broke as a tear run down my cheek; this didn't go unnoticed by him.

"Did I say something wrong?" he asked concerned. I jerked my hand away and got up, "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" I yelled as I ran to my room, slamming the door behind me. I sat in the cold, dusty corner in the room and I hugged my knees to my chest and buried my face in my arms and cried. I cried and cried, not caring who heard me. I poured out my heart through my tears, I was broken and it was his fault. He gave me hope that I could be happy, that I would never have to be alone again; he gave me the feeling of what a family was. It was his entire fault; it was his fault for making me hurt so much. He broke my heart, he broke me. I hated him! I hated Seto and I would never forgive him for abandoning me just like my parents did...

I didn't hear the door opening as the sounds of my shattered cries deafened the sounds around me. I only saw the shadow of someone entering the room and it wasn't hard to tell who it was.

"G-go a-away S-Seto. I-I wanna b-be alone..." I stuttered in between my sobs.

I didn't notice the box he was carrying with him. Without saying anything he sat beside me, setting the box down and wrapped his arms around me, embracing me in a warm hug. As much as I hated him right now, he always knew just how to make me feel better. He rubbed my back in little circles, trying to soothe my pain. I didn't stop crying, I couldn't stop myself from letting out the past 10 years of pain I went through. I let out all the anger, all the hurt, and all the sadness, everything I held back for all those years. I wanted it all to just go away...I wanted to be alone...because that is where I would be by night fall tomorrow...and every other night there after...

..."You're upset because Mokuba and I are leaving tomorrow...am I right?"...

I looked up at him to see his eyes closed as he faced downwards. I didn't expect him to say anything. His eyes slowly opened and he turned his gaze towards me and I was met with those same sweet blue eyes I had seen the day he arrived at this place. Those beautiful blue eyes that held so much, but what I saw in those orbs now was sorrow...

"I know you think we are...well I'm abandoning you, but I'm keeping you safe. I know you think that me and Mokuba are leaving you behind but the thing is, I don't know what this guy is like and I can't take the risk of this guy being a creep and risk you getting hurt or worse..." he looked away sighing softly, "I care about you too much to risk your safety. Before we met, it was just me and Mokuba and it was easy to just have to take care of him. But to watch out for two people who are very close to my heart and-"

..."Seto stop..." I interrupted him. He looked back at me confused while I looked away,

"I get it. Your little brother comes first. And I don't want to be the one to hold you back from a good life." I turned back to him and smiled and wrapped my arms around him, "I was being selfish. And I'm sorry for getting upset with you." I pulled back and gazed up at him, the tears running down my cheeks were those of joy, "I should have never doubted you Seto. I was just scared of losing my two best friends..." he reached out to wipe away my tears as I spoke.

It still hurt, but I guessed it would still be inevitable. They would eventually have to leave and I would be left behind...but it would be alright. I would be ok…somehow. Seto had taught me something about myself that I never knew...that I was strong and I knew how to survive on my own...and that made me smile at him, and he returned a smile.

He reached over for the box that he had brought, "When I went looking for Mokuba's toy aeroplane after the caretakers took it from him, I found this on one of the shelves in the closet where they keep the confiscated things..." he said as he handed the box to me.

I examined the box and noticed that my name was written on it. I was rather confused as I had never seen this box before. I slowly opened the box and took a look inside...

...My eyes widened, the things inside...a purse...silver female watch...a purple scarf and a necklace that held a beautiful blue jewel.

I picked up the purse and opened it; pulling out the only thing that was inside it, an old photo of a man and a woman, the necklace in the box hanging around the woman’s neck in the picture...could these have been my parents? It could be possible that the things in the box belonged to my mother...the things could have been left behind when my father ran off. Seto reached into the box, pulling out the necklace, "I believe this was your mothers...I thought that it wasn't fair that the caretakers kept this away from you for all these years. So..." he reached out and hung the necklace around my neck, "...I got this back for you. I guess it can be some sort of a birthday gift." He said chuckling. I dropped the box and wrapped my arms around him again, hugging him tightly as I cried again, "Thank you. Thank you so much Seto."

He just smiled as he hugged back, "You're welcome Lillian. And remember, whatever happens tomorrow...we'll always be together...in here," he said placing his hand on my heart, and I placed my hand over his as I smiled, knowing everything was gonna be ok...

The next day I stayed back and watched as the CEO of some big company arrived at the orphanage, giving out gifts to the other kids and posing for photos. The man carried a smile on his face but it didn’t match his eyes…there seemed to be something hidden behind them…they reminded me of Markiato, a cruelty for the suffering of others. I couldn’t help but wonder or rather worry that Seto was getting himself into trouble by tricking this man into adopting him and Mokuba…

I watched as my best friend confront the CEO, walking over as they headed into one of the play rooms where the games were kept and stood by one of the windows to watch them play chest…my hand wondering over to hold onto my mother’s necklace that I kept hidden under my sweater…

Normal POV…

Everything was going exactly as Seto had planned, Gozuburo had agreed to adopted him and Mokuba if he could beat the man in a chess game and the boy was one move away from claiming victory and secure a good life free of poverty and suffering for him and his little brother, the only important person in his life…well one of the most important people…the other person he would be leaving behind…

His hand froze over the piece he was about to move, noticing a familiar face out of the corner of his eye, shifting his gaze for just a moment and seeing the sad broken face of his best friend, the girl watching him with her big blue eyes.

The previous day she had told him that she would be ok with him and Mokuba leaving her behind…the both of them reassuring each other that they would always be together no matter where they would end up and he had been so sure of himself that this was the best course of action, the best chance of a future for him and Mokuba but…seeing her standing sent a sliver of doubt into his mind…she would be losing the only family she had while he and his brother would be gaining so much more. Seto and Mokuba had had a mother and father, a home, a good life before it was taken from them suddenly over a year ago…but Lillian had none of that. She told them how she was left abandoned at the hospital the day she was born and had only ever known loneliness and neglect till the brothers came into her life…

Seto knew the day his relatives dumped him and Mokuba at this hell hole that he would be solely responsible for his little brother and that he would be the only person he would ever take care of…but then he saw some punk about to beat a defensive girl with a bat and he had to do something…coming to her aid and saving her…and when she looked up at him and he saw those big bright blue eyes he felt something within him, something he couldn’t explain…even after a year he didn’t know what it was but he knew one thing…the thing he felt hurt at the thought of being away from her now and leaving her behind…

He turned his gaze back to the chess board…there were two possible moves…one that led to him winning and the other would lead to him losing…maybe if he waited just a bit longer the right family would come, one that would adopt all 3 of them and they would never be apart…

A small smile fell on Seto’s face as he made his choice, moving the piece into place…

Gozuburo couldn’t help but smirk as he made his last move, “Checkmate.” He knocked over Seto’s king and sat back with a smug look on his face, “I have to say you played better than most of the opponents I’ve faced but ultimately you weren’t good enough to defeat me. So it looks like you’ll be staying here boy.” The sting of losing hurt but he looked over at Lillian who was still standing outside the window, seeing a look of hope in her eyes that made him forget about giving up the chance at a life of wealth and privilege.

The boy shrugged as Mokuba who had been with him during the game came over and looked up at his big brother. Seto smiles at him and ruffles his hair before his face turns stern and he looks back at Gozuburo, “Oh well. I gave it my best. Thanks for the game. Come on Mokuba.” He turned to leave, his arm around his brothers shoulders to lead him out when the CEO grabs the small child’s arm and pulled him away from his brother, “Oh no. Don’t think you can just walk away without consequence.” The man stood up and towered over the two boys, “You need a lesson to teach you about arrogance and pride since you don’t have a grip on yours.”

Seto didn’t understand what he meant and didn’t like how the CEO was keeping a hold of his brother’s arm, the man smirking, “I think I will be adopting someone today, and your little brother is the perfect candidate to join my family.” Mokuba’s eyes widen and tried to get free but the man’s grip but his fingers were like iron around his arm.

Seto felt a wave of panic hit him, “Y-you can’t do that!” he tries to protest but Gozuburo laughs in his face, “I can do what I want boy and you need to learn what happens when you let your ego get the better of you.” He drags Mokuba to the door but Seto tries to stop him to no avail. The man growls as she shoves Mokuba away, the small boy landing on the floor with a wince. The CEO takes hold of Seto’s arm, the boy struggling as the man shoves him into the closet and shut the door, locking it.

Seto bangs his fist on the door, screaming to be let out and for his brother to be left alone but Gozuburo ignored him as he took Mokuba, forcing the small boy out of the room and too the office, the kid struggling to get free as tears start running down his face…

Lillian watched this all and wasn’t sure what to do. What was she to do? She saw how he manhandled the brothers without even breaking a sweat so what could she do? She could let Seto out of the closet but there was nothing they could do to stop the man from taking Mokuba…

She pulled her necklace out of her sweater and stared at the blue gem that hung from it…swallowing the lump in her throat she let it go and ran to the office…

Seto continued to bang his hands against the door, tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He had to get out of there and save his little brother but he was trapped, hyperventilating before the door is unlocked and opened, one of the older boys having heard the commotion from within the closet. Seto dashed out without even thanking the kid and ran to the front gate just in time to see Gozuburo’s limo driving off.

He was too late…

He runs into the road and stands there, watching the black car disappearing into the distance, falling to his knees as tears stream down his cheeks, slamming his fists into the road as he cries. He had lost his little brother and it was his own entire fault. How could he have been so stupid?

He clenched his eyes shut trying to stop the overwhelming emotions of disappointment and hatred in himself when he hears a soft voice calling out to him…

“Seto!”

He’s eyes fly open as he looks up and sees Mokuba standing by the gate of the orphanage, “Mokuba!” he doesn’t even think about how this was possible before stumbling to stand and runs over to his little brother, pulling him into arms and hugging him tightly, relieved that he was still there but…how?

He pulls back and was about to ask when he sees that Mokuba was holding something in his little hands, the younger boy sniffling as he slowly uncurls his fingers from object…the gold chain slipping off his palm, leaving behind the blue gem of the necklace that belonged to Lillian’s mother.

Seto’s heart sank as he carefully took it and stared at the jewel before looking up in the direction the limo had disappeared in…

Lillian was gone…

#yugioh #seto kaiba #fantasy #ocs #mokuba kaiba #alternate universe #fanfic

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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

Text

S5 Ep12: Brand New Mokuba Just Dropped

My tumblr has decided that it can’t save drafts again. Which sure is a problem I keep having but no one else seems to have...but were back. Back and ready to talk about cards.

First off, lets address the best thing about this episode, it’s the return of The A Team animation team! Dunno if it’s the same ones that did the seasons before, but it is a pretty good team this episode, so there’s lots of that to look forward to. Everyone is now 2 feet taller (Kaiba is 4 feet taller) and there’s just some really nice shots going on. It’s not as shiny as other seasons, which makes me think it might be a different team or a different studio using a different method (you don’t really see them playing with line weights anymore which makes it seem like a different method to me) but still--it’s a nicer looking episode today.

So we start off this episode with Seto begging us all to forget the hell that just happened and just get on with it. Of course, no one’s gonna do that, because yo, what just happened was kind of weird.

And because there’s only like...I dunno...maybe 2 episodes left in this arc? (kind of a quick arc, honestly) Leon decides to do a complete personality reversal. Although, it’s really hard to do a reversal when you didn’t have a personality in the first place...so I guess this more Leon showing us A personality--and I’ll take it.

He’s a little jackass now, but it’s youknow...still Leon so it’s not really that bad. Like we deal with Seto on the reg, so I feel like Leon as a jackass is just like...well that’s just how you play cards in this universe.

Everyone speculates whether or not Seto actually did a crime, and a SURPRISING number of them said he did not! Weird! But hey...I’ve gone over a billion times before, their memory is like when you throw popcorn into the ocean--it just fffzt’s and then it’s gone.

Roland was THIS close to actually saving Kaiba corp a huge hassle for once. This Close, Roland. You almost did it.

(read more under the cut)

I love that Roland has decided to give all these teens maybe the uncoolest nicknames in the entire world, and the teens have not made any indication whether they do or do not appreciate their alliteration nicknames.

But despite the fact that although Roland uses these opportunities behind the microphone to embarrass them just SO MUCH, the Kaibas still persist in having him introduce most of the matches. It makes it feel like the Kaibas freakin love this. They love his Dad jokes. I cannot tell if they are like “yes, please embarrass my friends.” of it they’re like “yes. Roland that was so cool. Yeah Leaping Leon. Good one! You’re so cool!” Because they don’t know what fun is.

Also, look what I see in the sky.

Truly a sign that they have overcome their trauma of seasons 2-3.

Or maybe they had a lot of blimps laying around and this is a completely unrelated blimp? Either way, I’m glad they can still handle the sight of a blimp.

And then, just out of nowhere, Mokuba hit puberty.

Which I mean, it was inevitable. It was going to happen some day. Luckily, we will be getting a new Mokuba this episode to make up for the fact that this one has done A Flirt and it was probably a completely innocent turn of phrase he has no idea is a double entendre but do the writers know that?

And while we ruminate the decisions there, lets bask in the glory of purple staircase.

This is such a purple staircase!

On another, identical staircase walks Leon, who gets to have a discussion with Zigfried, who probably just stood next to the wall and just chameleon’ed in here without getting caught cuz coincidentally this staircase dresses like him.

Freakin Mai?

Anyway, lets start this duel where like...I dunno, it’s a little late to start stealing souls, but maybe Leon will do a stab? (He will not)

So glad the storyboarder is back to kind of flex. I don’t normally see Roland drawn with this much attention. Look at him go. That’s the stance a grown man takes when he’s ready to embarrass a bunch of teens.

Kaiba writes a speech introducing himself, or Roland just kinda made up a speech as if Kaiba hadn’t asked him to do that. Either way it’s kind of a big way to talk yourself up--but he is trying to talk up the theme park so people will actually like...go. So it makes sense.

Also what is this nonsense where people worldwide are watching a theme park opening match? Card culture is so weird because we’ve noticed in other seasons there are people that don’t play cards, and I feel like they’re not watching this for fun. It’s like when I watch news unfold--they’re watching to see if they have to raid the toilet paper aisle and the canned goods again to prepare for yet another onslaught of card nonsense.

Legit Mokuba was like “Look at my bro. Look at how he gave up dueling to throw this nice tourney for everyone!” and it’s like...Mokuba...he just dueled...Mokuba...he’s putting all the profits directly in your pockets this is hardly a martyr up here.

Seto Kaiba decided to inform the world that he would have won if he was actually playing and that was sure a statement he made after losing to Yugi like...3 times now? Several times.

Everyone else converses how Leon’s acting weird. I don’t know why they care all of a sudden, because no one acts normal playing this game, but the plot desires them to care.

Which is when we find out...

...the new Mokuba...

That’s right. He was a Mokuba the whole time. For once we haven’t abducted Mokuba, instead...we have too many Mokubas.

This Mokuba even has hella long hair, too. I imagine if Mokuba proper had a ponytail it would probably look just like this but black. It would have been just--so good if he whipped off that ribbon and shook out his hair and it fluffed into a horrible Mokuba mess, but you know, that’s one of the many reasons why I don’t write for this series. That and I was like in high School when this came out.

(Please admire Kaiba’s head of Security who looks like he’s about to drop a poop out of terror. It’s a really small detail, but I appreciate that the storyboarder had him kind of antsy in the background)

Seto insists that the only one to beat Yugi Muto will be himself and it’s like...I know. That’s why I keep expecting someone to get stabbed by this tiny purple haired Mokuba. But instead, Leon’s too busy feeling mad that he’s not necessarily playing the game for fun.

But he’s still playing the game though? so I feel like Yami doesn’t have many stones to throw here. Leon hasn’t even cheated yet. (As if Yami isn’t cheating basically all the time by being 2 people in one body)

I can’t BELIEVE this show would throw that at me after the number of times I have seen Yami Muto nearly murder other people (and sometimes literally do a murder) out of revenge. Yami is basically a revenge god...like...show...what? It’s season 5, I thought we’ve basically cemented this in. Occasionally the show will just be all “card games are supposed to be fun though!!!” and it’s like...these are the last children on Earth who are playing card games for fun.

If anything, it should be Leon lecturing them on how to have fun. They just murdered a Great Leviathan with cards. Before that they were dealing with Noah, with Marik, with Pegasus, with Bakura. The times that Yugi has just played a game for fun has been...This Arc.

So maybe Yami is just begging himself to have fun for once. Maybe he’s just mad that he can’t play a single tournament without someone getting possessed? Maybe his frustrations really aren’t about little Leaping Leon, and more to do with Yami sick and tired of being a protagonist.

But, youknow, it’s not an anime, unless the protagonist hypocritically can get away with every sin out there and everyone else gets punished for it. So lets find out just how far Leon fell from fun-having grace with a flashback.

This Belle cosplayer went off in like...one of the most hilariously bad accents I’ve heard in a while, it was just so much, I’ll probably cap it because lolol.

But since Leon wasn’t actually in line to inherit the company, he has to sort of hole up in his room for his entire childhood. It’s kinda weird, since we can’t assume that Zigfried will either a.) live forever or b.) have or adopt or raise children in any capacity. But they’re pretty sure Zigfried will live forever, and in this universe--maybe.

Also, I’m really not sure why they have to dress like it’s 1890, but they sure are. The Victorian era just never left the Von Schroeder house. Like these women are wearing corsets to be in that dress, and you can’t BUY a corset to match this type of dress, you have to make your own, and I know, because in Quarantine, I got really into historical sewing videos.

I can’t believe I spent an entire year watching historical sewing videos. Holy crap. I don’t even sew.

But then again...Seto is kind of drawn like he wears a corset...so maybe people are still wearing them in the Yugioh universe? Maybe that’s how their fashion just works?

Guys...I analyze Yugioh fashion a lot but the fact that the Edwardians never freakin left this worldly plane is just...that’s canon to Yugioh. I really just want to sit back and analyze Yugioh fashion with a moodboard and try to connect all the dots logically as if they aren’t just one-off jokes, but I don’t know how I’d fit that on this post.

And like, one of y’all brought up in a comment in the last post that what’s neat about this arc is we are seeing Zigfried as what Seto would have been like if he hadn’t like...gotten cursed by Yugi Muto. So, going off that idea, I think it’s kinda fun that Zigfried’s outfit is a bit of a younger take on Pegasus’ whole look with the wrist lace and a fusion of Gozaburos look of wearing a cravat with a smoking coat. It’s fun to imagine that this is what Seto’s inner gremlin dresses like (which...now I think about it...was a thing from S1 where Yami defeated a Seto gremlin but...I don't remember much about it) Of course, Seto would also be hella dead if he hadn’t gone through the Yugi cycle, but it’s still a fun road to think about.

Plus, when we go down that road, it really makes this arc look even more like it’s just about Seto Kaiba’s therapy sesh to recover from the last several seasons that he’s accidentally (or intentionally??) invited the entire world to watch and that’s very funny to me.

Bro has informed me you can make a deck out of Jerry but could not show me any receipts.

...I mean that is Dartz right?

Like I know all the characters have cards of themselves IRL and all the characters are also based on cards that were made before they were on TV (with the exception of our main cast that was...youknow, a horror manga) but like...

...what’s up, Dartz?

Anyway, our little Mokuba decides to sneak out the house and run around the world at the ripe ol age of ... what I’m guessing is like 10-12, and is pretty sure he can just get away with that. Luckily, the crimes he’s committing are exactly the type of crimes that Zigfried needs.

(Pretty sure their Dad died or is incapacitated but OK, dub, go ahead and pretend that plot point didn’t go down last episode.)

Also, I’m really glad we got a good storyboarder for this part who was like “Zigfried looks...like that?” and still managed to make this character design really work this episode. In some parts they even gave Zigfried those wide Marik Eyes that are kind of ubiquitous with Yugioh. It just needs the right hands to draw it, and then any amount of...this outfit...can work.

So, just like when we met Mokuba in S1, he’s gonna do a duel on Yugi to save his family and probably also like Mokuba, not give a damn for how this game is supposed to be played. Luckily, this time Pharaoh doesn’t have any star chips lying around for this kid to just run around and steal before booking it out the back gate.

Yugi over there with his twitter-brand hot-takes, not knowing the difference between actual brainwashing and blackmail/family pressure.

(WHY IS MAI HERE?)

Look at that hatching!

Ah this is the 00′s content I’m here for! Check out the soft brush! The dodge and burn! Ah! Man this sure was an era of computer art! and stuff like this cost a lot of money to make and it looked ... like this!

Now I’m pretty sure we can make art that looks this dated on like...a free phone app.

PS please do not ever shade your art like this. This is what you don’t do. Do not do this. I will shed a single tear shaped like the Photoshop symbols for dodge and burn.

Also...guys...

next episode is Ep 13. Every season so far this show has been like “we’re normal, everything is normal” getting us complacent until exactly Ep 13, when everything gets really effed up. So...

will that happen? Will they continue this tradition into S5 or has it been a coincidence until now? Excited to find out.

Anyway, if you just got here, this is the link to read these from the beginning in chrono order:

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

#ygo #yugioh #yu gi oh #S5 #Ep12 #yugi muto #leon von schroeder #good because I forgot his other last name #zigfried von schroeder #seto kaiba #mokuba kaiba #roland #joey wheeler #tea gardner #the others who didn't say or do anything so I probably shouldn't tag them #Can't believe how quickly this arc is wrapping up

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steve0discusses · 6 years ago

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Yugioh S3 Ep22: Mokuba Gets Murdered

So today’s is...a long update, I may half it, but I’m gonna be away from my computer a whole bunch for a few weeks so like...if I half it you’re gonna be waiting on that other half for...kind of a while and by then I may have sort of forgotten what was happening in the first half. So I dunno, maybe I’ll just make this a huge ass...59 cap post.

honestly it’s mostly 59 caps because, surprisingly, no one dueled this episode.

I KNOW.

When I saw that “To be continued” last episode I really thought I’d have to deal with more paper-form BS but Noah finally plopped over at the beginning of this episode so I guess he’s just officially done playing cards now. Everyone has been turned back from being stoneware with absolutely no consequential brain damage. Probably because you could not do any more damage than what has been previously done.

But don’t worry he’ll get some more brain damage in by the end of this episode.

Remember the plot point that Tristan was slowly becoming a real monkey? I think he forgot about that because he’s been a monkey for...a realllllly long time and he kinda like...continues to just be Tristan. Maybe Tristan was nearly a monkey to begin with?

We also get a rare sighting of an actual real deal hug on this show and it was from the last person you’d ever expect.

Surprisingly heartwarming for this show.

If that duel disk goes off, both of them are super dead. Hugging in a duel disk might be the most dangerous sport either of these boys have ever done.

Anyway, because Seto and Mokuba were the first ones to go, they have no idea that any time has passed at all.

He seems pretty OK for Yugi just nonchalantly taking his dragons but this is VR and...the cards aren’t...actually here. So like...Yugi didn’t actually steal anything? No proof, no crime.

To be honest, no one should have any cards in any of their decks right now, but the show kind of forgets that these digital cards need to be drafted each round. It’s fine.

Anyway, in the wake of losing a card game, Noah just remembered that he’s a freakin god of this universe so he decides to just go for plan B, which you would think would be most people’s plan A.

(more under the cut)

Ya Noah could have peaced out at any point in this show, but because he was trying to impress Daddy he just...didn’t?

Not like it mattered because the integral plot device was like “oh yeah guys, I’m in this show, too, completely forgot. Oops, is it too late? It’s already episode 22? Eh, better late than never.”

and don’t be deceived by the cap, it showed like...every millennium item for some reason. You’d think it wouldn't show the rod because Yugi doesn’t have that, but apparently Marik up there on the ship was like “the hell is this going off for?” and then just shrugged it off.

Noah gets...mostly this image of a well waxed Pharaoh while Yugi gets images of Noah’s memories, where he finds out each of Yugi’s friends and Yugi himself were stuffed in little sci fi VR pods. You’d think that they wouldn’t need to access Noah’s memories to realize that. Should’ve been the first thing they realized when they got here. In VR.

Like, think about it, the only other person that got kicked out of here was Pegasus. And to kick out Pegasus it took all of Yugi’s friends except Bakura. Apparently this time all Yugi needs is for Pharaoh to focus (and Bakura to be just...youknow...present, I guess. Assuming the writers haven’t forgotten that Bakura’s still in there)

I think they mostly did this memory exchange as an excuse to give us a review--thing is there’s so much weird stuff to review it feels a lot like exposition. Like I don’t remember seeing these big boys before:

There is just...a lot of design put into this robot you only see like a couple of times. Some concept artist when all ham so I wonder...was this his OC? I’m so glad his weird OC sleepytime bot got into Yugioh. Good for him.

So at this point I kinda turned to my bro and was like “this feels a lot like the Matrix, doesn’t it?” and then in rolls in the bright purple cloud of “you don’t even know.”

I’ll just leave this here.

back to Yugioh.

Yo I kinda forgot in the mayhem that Kaiba’s Dad was clearly here this whole time. I figured we’d run into him, I didn’t really think he’d Castlevania it up in the sky in order to do it.

So this show presents these two brain orb AI monsters as being pretty well...alive...in that Orb because we’ve only heard this explanation from two AI beings who are pretty sure they never died. But, are they alive, really? Did they really transcend to a higher plane like Noah thinks? Or was this a thinly veiled murder/suicide? Did Gozaburo Kaiba kill his son because he could not allow him to be crippled, seeing an opportunity test out this crazy orb AI that needed a human brain in order to function--knowing full well what he was doing? And then later kill himself after losing everything to Seto?

Like, I’ve heard that in the Japanese version, Gozaburo commits suicide and in the English version he does not. But, at least from where I’m sitting...I think he commits suicide in both versions. Like, maybe it’s because I’m an adult watching this and not a child, but it feels like Gozaburo did this in order to set a trap for Seto as his last screw you before he left this mortal plane.

Either way, Noah’s kind of an idiot and so he still has not caught on. What followed was the three very worst Kaiba boys just kind of shouting at eachother for 5-10 minutes but, like, on completely different wavelengths, every single one. The lack of communication between these dumbasses right after Gozaburo drops this horrifying bomb of “and then I killed myself to kill all of you” was actually pretty low key hilarious.

The dub then got very confused as to when Noah died. Really confused, I’m not going to analyze that too much, it’s dub problems. Dubs do that sometimes.

Also, this is a new Noah outfit. Huh. shame we never got to know it.

Anyway, as the truth comes out, suddenly this accidental Kaiba family therapy

sesh everyone else in this High School class is privy to just starts escalating.

OH OK, KID’S SHOW.

Yo, remember how many jokes I made that Kaiba was raised in Outer Heaven? Apparently I was WAY closer than I realized.

And speaking of Metal Gear:

Anyway, remember that random idea that Noah dropped on us to consume the world with VR tech? I knew it would come back, just not quite like this. Not with a nice Power Point slide show via the sky from the Most Evil Mufasa.

And that was how Kaiba’s Dad decided “I was once scorned by a rude 12 year old, lets destroy every human on Earth and extinguish all civilization.”

So basically the entire freakin ocean is just filled with these robots? Just completely polluted with nighty-night bots?

Yo.

So like this whole time we’ve been following Marik, who’s trying to destroy the world, and keeping babysitting tabs on Bakura, who’s trying to destroy the world, but Kaiba just wants to be the best and show everyone else up so he just decided to set in motion the entirety of humanity’s destruction BEFORE THIS SERIES EVER STARTED.

*coughs* I can’t believe Yugioh just did the Matrix better than the Matrix.

Now listen, I know what I said--and I have to tell you, the Matrix was one of my favorite movies when it came out when I was wee middle schooler and watched it secretly at my friend’s house. It was rated R for absolutely no reason, and so I wasn’t supposed to watch it--but I did anyway and it was very thrilling to break the law like that. Keanu Reeves did a middle finger--yes, that was the cuss that put it into R territory--and I was like “wow, he is crazy!”

But, while it’ll always hold a place in my little tween heart, that one did not age well. Mostly because, once it stepped away from the cave allegory you have to start asking questions like “so...how did everyone get trapped in the Matrix?” and it was like “because the robots needed batteries. So like...humans...became batteries...rather than..........actual batteries.” which makes a lot of sense when you’re like a child and you don’t know how batteries work, but as an adult it’s like “...so they’re not very smart robots, then?”

But, Matrix came out about 1999, and because it was super cool, it influenced everything. This show was about 2001, and Kaiba’s wearing a floor length coat--I really think there may have been a bit of an influence?

And I think they may have explained how all humanity would get placed in the Matrix better than that movie series that was like 3 movies and a bunch of video games and a very violent cartoon. And like, the Yugioh explanation is still balls insane, but hey, at least this motive makes sense.

And then, at this point, Mokuba’s Stockholm Syndrome came back, but this time it’s just plain old fashioned Stockholm Syndrome, no weird brainwashing on the part of Noah was necessary to make any of this happen.

Like I really think Moki’s finally snapped. It’s finally snapped. He doesn’t know have any idea what is going on anymore and desperately needs a nap. A nap that will last like 5 days. Moki needs to go to the beach and just...not move for about a straight week to recover from the mess of this tournament.

Most people at this point would be like “yeah I think maybe Noah isn’t trustworthy” but this group of kids--this is the only group of kids that sees a cackling undead digital ghost dude hunched over like this who has already tried to kill them on multiple occasions--straight up just 10 minutes ago--and says “he’s probably much better now.”

Just 10 feet away from them, Marik is desperately trying to finish the arc he started, but keeps running into filler problems. Which is this door.

This X-men door, the most powerful filler villain in the Yugioh universe.

I can’t believe they explained away Marik--super powerful evil villain that bested Bakura--by using one singular door that kept him occupied for like 20 episodes.

Apparently the bedtime bots are equiped with Huge Lasers.

Which kind of defeats the purpose of keeping everyone alive to send them to the VR realm?

But whatever, they have huge lasers, but little do they know, Marik can shoot lasers out of that necklace he stole off Bakura, and he didn’t actually do that and it’s kind of a bummer. Instead he reflects the lasers with the rod. Which then makes you wonder--is that why Bakura didn’t use his laser attack then? Because of the reflection issue?

Sorry I can’t believe I even entertained that idea. Clearly they completely forgot about S1 at this point. It feels like it’s been so many years since things were simple and you could shoot lasers out of your eyeball/necklace.

And then, canonically, Marik gave up on this door. This normal ass door. The only foe he has ever stepped down to.

This door has faced the ultimate evil, it has stared down an actual fallen god born of anger and violence, who, after thousands of years steeped in an abusive tomb, has risen to consume the entire world, but, this door, using all of it’s bolts and joints you can buy at your local Home Depot, sent that fallen god back whence he came. Which was a blimp. Marik came from a blimp.

This door should be the 4th God Card.

(I want y’all to know that I originally wrote “5th” god card and bro corrected me because I literally thought there were 4 this entire time.)

The amount of time that Mokuba was not kidnapped after Yugi and co just saved him? I want to say maybe 10 minutes. He got one hug from Seto, and then went back to the kidnap zone.

Apparently, Noah decided to trap everyone else in their old memories--which is an interesting way to recap what happened in S2. The trap doesn’t trick them very well because these guys are missing a fair amount of memory at this point, so they basically got served a bunch of weird nonsense.

So while those guys are going to go down their very, very short memory lanes, Noah takes Mokuba to the same exact Dave & Busters that Tea and Yugi went on a date to back in like S2. Like this is the same exact one. And what’s nuts is I think they even redid the backgrounds, but definitely used S2 as reference. It’s quite the devotion to detail.

Noah tried to invent some sort of weird mystery doorway but then Mokuba was like “yeah it’s in the game right? Don’t say no, because I am hankering for some arcade time--don’t touch the other stick though, I want to play solo.″ and then Mokuba just proceeded to play this 2 person arcade game by himself while Noah just...watches.

In Dukes memories, Tristan looks the same as Duke’s always perceived him.

There’s just a lot to take in here.

But don’t worry, it gets weirder than three cultists on one small toy monkey, because here comes some romantic development that had absolutely no basis in reality. This is just so freakin weird, get ready for it.

They definitely almost run over Duke and Serenity--Joey’s sister--and Joey does not not seem to have any reaction to nearly running over his little sister on the road, because one second later, this is happening.

And that was how Noah managed to insert his JoeyxMai fanfiction into Joey’s head and tried his damnedest to make it canon. It’s wild. I can’t believe Noah was a shipper this whole time. Like, who else has he been secretly shipping???

Noah had a split second to use his fabulous orb brain to deal with Joey, and while he used actual memories from the other kids, when it came to Joey, he sort of stopped and went “oh yes, my OTP!”

So then, in this split second Noah kinda turned to his pile of Joey fanfic he keeps stashed in the corner of his Orb Brain Consciousness and was like “well I have this really good one I wrote where Mai wasn’t in the coma yet, and there clearly aren’t enough romantic sunsets, and like...what if they were getting married? Oh man I love this AU! This is so good, can’t wait to upload it to his brain, OMG, he’ll love it. What if they were in Hawaii or something!? OMG they’re so freakin cute.”

Like everyone else on this show who has a canon relationship had to go through some type of sweet hell terror memory but Joey--just Joey--got to go on a date or something and then seal his love with a ring. Like we’ve seen many indicators that Noah is a small child but this was probably the biggest indicator we’ve seen of Noah’s maturity level when he was like “this is how relationships work.”

Again, Yugioh just writing your fanfiction for you--did you want an AU where Mai and Joey’s age wasn’t an issue and she also wasn’t in a coma yet and was uncharacteristically like “lets run off and get married?” because usually you’d have to search Google for that content, but now it’s just here and given to you on a silver platter.

At about the same time they were fully convinced none of this was a real memory, they all ended up back here, minus Kaibas. Joey apparently took the longest amount of time although he had the most bizarre set of memories. He probably just wanted to see where that fic would pan out, but like most fic’s, it kinda stopped updating at about chapter 3 so he gave up on it.

Just a few blocks away, Mokuba and Noah’s playdate from Hell is going according to plan, and Noah is just biding his time before snatching a body. But, before he does, I guess Noah did want to see what happens in this arcade game Moki’s playing because he’s just been standing here admiring Mokuba’s work.

Even Noah at this point is surprised at how deeply Mokuba has Stockholm Syndrome. Noah was just not prepared for how low Mokuba’s expectations are regarding his evil and pathological brothers.

Actual line of the show through this whole ironic experience, Noah just saying “wow...I almost feel bad”

Anyway remember that DDR game--that huge screened DDR game where Tea had a dance fight with Johnny Steps during her date with Yugi?

Did you ever think it would, one and half seasons later, become the scene of a horrific crime?

Did you ever think that the crime that would occur on the inane DDR machine that Tea once had a dance fight on against a guy wearing fringe moccasins would later be the scene of a family betrayal where Mokuba got murdered by his own dead secret older brother?

Because I sure didn’t.

Anyway, now equipped with his ultimate form--a very small kid with hair that weighs more than the kid itself, Noah rises from his grave.

I kind of love evil Moki, not going to lie.

Apparently Moki’s evil in Season 0 so I’ll probs have to go back to that season eventually to get more of that evil Moki fix.

I hope this is the type of scene that will end this entire show, TBH, just a crazy ass Moki cackling over the bodies of every other card player. That would be such a good way to end this series.

Anyway, I don't know whennnn the next update will be. I may update on that later--maybe not, but until we meet again, we’ll just leave evil Moki here in this nearly abandoned SeaQuest, laughing his face off over the sweet tunes of some Plantasia.

youtube

#yugioh #yu gi oh #episode recap #photo recap #S3 Ep22 #yugi muto #seto kaiba #mokuba #tea gardner #tristan taylor #serenity wheeler #joey wheeler #duke devlin #I can't believe Mokuba's freakin dead #again #Joey considers matrimony and it's not even the weirdest thing that happened this episode #ygo #tw suicide

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steve0discusses · 6 years ago

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Yugioh S2 Ep 48: Bakura Completely Fails to Murder The One Person He Was Actually Supposed to Murder

Yo guys, this is the last episode of the season.

...

I know. How exactly do you resolve ANYTHING in one episode? The secret is, you don’t. Like...one thing did get resolved but it really seems like this was a 2 season storyline they were really banking on doing so well it would stretch into season 2 but, according to bro, this show got hella cancelled?

I can’t believe it. Finally. I’ve been joking about it for like a year but it actually happened.

Now my bro is full of spicy headcanons about this show and I decided to look up on Wikipedia to see what the hell happened between Season 2 and 3 for him to say this but I saw nothing about cancelling anything, but he’s pretty certain that this happened. So, I’m gonna open it up to all of you guys who know way more about this show than either of us to set it straight--was there cancellation drama between Season 2 and Season 3 or is bro just remembering history incorrectly?

Anyways, this show is obviously around for Season 3 but bro says it gets distracted and everyone has hinted that we get a really great filler arc that is most people’s absolutely favorite arc in the entire world. I’m honestly shocked I made it this far. But, lets first get into the episode.

This episode starts exactly where I wanted it to, with Tea realizing that she’s not only wandered into Bakura’s room, but that, from her perspective, it has made Bakura so freakin uncomfortable that he hella left.

Like imagine with me that your on a High school trip and you’re with all your buddies but then there’s that one kid who is a friend, but you don't know TOO well because he’s kind of awkward and also half a murderous ghost. Imagine he gets hella sick and then for some reason, you sleepwalk to his bedside, all draped across the sheets, and when you wake up he’s just...peaced right out of that entire awkward conversation that would have been.

Like...my reaction would have been completely the opposite of what Tea did.

Which was run straight to her somewhat-boyfriend Yugi Muto and tell him exactly what she just inadvertently did.

Also, forgive me for this aside, but Yugi is like 16, so why is Yugi randomly kind of jacked all of a sudden? Is that little backpack he carries just full of lead?

Oh wait, yeah...necklace is solid gold. But even still like...this small boy shouldn’t appear this jacked. Like, I know a lot of preteen girls were into this show for the large selection of anime boys, but I prefer Yugi looking sort of like the human version of a Pekingese instead. Mostly because I’m an adult, I guess. Not that I never had a preteen anime boy crush phase, but we’re talking Tuxedo Mask, who was sort of developed to be a preteen anime boy crush. Like, Tuxedo Mask has literally no other reason to exist except to be a perfect husband who gets abducted a lot, but Yugi? Like..he sells cards, why’s he gotta grow up?

My bros current spicy headcanon is that he’s slowly becoming jacked because of being in the Shadow Realm so often, and that it beefs you up like when Goku goes to space and turns the gravity on super duper high, but sure bro, you do you. Bro’s got a spicy headcanon for every loophole this show throws at us. (and it is surprising which ones were actually correct and which were probably a fanfic he read in High School.)

(read more under the cut)

Anyways, Yugi thankfully puts on a jacket and they decide not to wake up Joey’s room to see if Bakura also joined the Boy Chamber after Tea kicked him out but like...while that would be the most reasonable place to look, they decided to see if maybe Bakura is sleeping in...the hallways? I dunno why they immediately thought Bakura was kidnapped. Now that the ring isn’t with him then...there’d be no reason for Marik to kill him.

Then again, maybe Bakura kind of wanders off and does ghost stuff so often, that these two are always checking up on where Bakura wandered off to?

I guess these two just didn’t feel like waking anyone up. Or using the enchanted necklace Yugi just got. Or asking Roland the security guard. Or maybe, I dunno, ever asking Kaiba for help, who is still absolutely awake and doing literally nothing else with his time.

Like serious talk, a lot of this season’s problems would have been resolved if they had just gone to the guy in charge of the tourney and asked for him to use his endless resources to help out the tourney that he is hosting. Like, he would have done it. I know this is a bit of a stretch but I don’t think Kaiba wants people dueling to the death at 3AM. Especially if he can’t watch them do it.

I appreciate that the blimp was so important to Kaiba that he rendered it in 3-D and has it just rotating there, weirdly CG while the rest of this screen is drawn. Also, Kaiba’s desktop situation is an absolute nightmare, this boy is somehow managing a company but he cannot manage a desktop?

PS are you ready for this outfit without the horrible spiky shoulder jacket? Are you ready? Because I wasn’t.

he can’t seem to get away from that victorian gothic lady silhouette.

And so Kaiba is faced with a problem, he’s only got a low win chance to get this card the fair way. This would be a great time to just arrest Marik right now, although it would be somewhat difficult since their duel to the death is halfway over, but like, Kaiba also really likes losing at cards. He says he doesn’t, but Kaiba seems to sprint to every opportunity he can get to absolutely lose or only just narrowly win because your Dead Wife Card sent you a weird hallucination that one time.

Like...of the times that Kaiba’s dueled solo we’ve only seen Kaiba win twice, right? And once was to a random guy on the street? Yeah. Kaiba’s only won a single time on screen.

I mean, of course, unless you count the time he threatened to commit suicide if he lost and Yugi was like “What the hell!?” but I don’t know if we should count that as like...a game.

Despite the fact that Yugi has never once offered her even like...a coat in this freakin weather, Tea has decided that they’re official enough, that she will argue with him about how they now both...share a destiny??? This feels like jumping the gun a little bit?

I don’t know what the hell she’s even talking about. But she’s been treating it like they’ve been married for like 8 years. Which...would require a little bit more...supporting evidence for me as a viewer that Tea and Yugi would actually be this much of an item at this point.

Like at least she’s not a reincarnated soul of his dead wife stuffed into a playing card--this show has pulled weirder random romance plots out of it’s ass--but it’s a huge leap to suddenly tell me “And remember these two???? This romance of the ages?????” at this point, this far into the end of the season.

And like...don’t be misled by my description of this conversation, they never once even come closer than a foot of each other.

Everything about this is kinda weird. No kinkshame of course, all ships are good and valid. But, assuming that Marik’s got a foot in both Tea and Bakura’s brain right now, these two are 6 people right now (2 are Bakura, if he’s still swimming around with Tea, it’s unclear), and 2(3) of those people has tried to kill both of them, but now are piggybacking on these guys’ bodies that are currently fumbling about how the hell to date even. Imagine how awkward Marik feels rn. Just imagine.

Or maybe he’s super into it, Marik’s a nut.

Pharaoh just kind of rolled his eyes and walked through this mist door as Tea stood uselessly on the other side and it’s like, yeah, we feel you, Pharaoh, we don’t know why that conversation had to happen either.

Meanwhile, I’ve been skipping the card game portion which actually looked very nice. Again, it was the last episode, they upped their game, but that won’t come through in caps so just know--that was nice. but because Bakura decided to do the taboo of playing a God Card, it absolutely royally screwed him over. and then Marik fused his body to it like Final Fantasy and it’s like...sure why not. It’s the last episode. Fuse your body with a playing card, no one will question how that would have worked outside of a shadow game.

Anyways, Marik kinda saw that happen and was like, well damn. Didn’t know it could do that. Weird, right? Huh. So much for living in obscurity and being tortured underground and keeping the Pharaoh’s secrets for 5000 years, apparently we knew...NONE OF THEM.

And then Bakura died, and even dropped us an iconic one liner as Marik sends him into the darkness while saying “enjoy the darkness!” or something like that. This was extremely 2000′s. It’s fine to be cliche if you’re...Bakura. You kinda have to be. That is the whole point of Bakura.

So he said, something like this

Like the exact line was more like...”Did you forget, I AM darkness??” or something, but man, that sums up the whole of Bakura so well. Like, he doesn’t make sense. But, he doesn’t have to, because the point of Bakura is that he’s just a walking 00′s prototype and that’s what makes him great. Like if you could make the 00′s hot topic aesthetic (minus the meme shirts) into a candle and then burn it down to nearly the end of the wick--that’s Bakura.

Like I watch kids as a dayjob and the other day the 12yo was like “I drew stuff, do you want to see?” so I was like “Absolutely!” and she’s like “I warn you--it’s kind of messed up.” and I’m like “that’s fine” and she’s like “no but really it’s spooky, ok? I just want to warn you.” and I’m like “try me” and she flips open her ipad and in the apple version of MSpaint I kid you not it was

A happy face

crying black tears.

And I’m like “Wow.” and she’s like “I know, it’s pretty dark” and I’m like “well, not exactly, he seems pretty cheerful” and she was like “well this one is really really scary are you ready?” and I’m like “OK, because that one was pretty happy” and she’s like “no Rach this one is like reallllllly messed up. You’re going to think I’m crazy.” and I’m like “oh shoot” and she flipped open to the next page in her ipad and it was

A happy face

It’s eyes are bloodshot. (magenta blood. It was Magenta)

And I’m like “wow! He’s even happier!” and she was like “But this is the scariest thing I’ve ever drawn in my life!” because to a 12yo, that is scary. Like it’s funny to me because honestly, the way kids and even teens think of what is “scary” is so different than what is “scary” to an adult. And Bakura is sort of like the personification of an MSpaint happy face crying blood tears.

Like, he’s different than Marik in that Marik’s backstory was super well established, while Bakura...never needed one. Apparently he will get one, but he honestly doesn’t need it. He’s just a nightmare that a kid would have. I don’t really question the logic of what happens around Bakura vs everyone else because...he’s Bakura.

I do question that he somehow got beaten by Marik. That doesn’t add up for me, but honestly the other Marik kind of messed Bakura up so...you could say he was doomed to fail that. It was more that Marik beat himself and dragged Bakura with him.

And like, I’m not upset that I don’t have to look up Britishisms anymore and take notes during British Bake Off and then completely lose those notes when it comes time to write these. But wow, I will miss Bakura.

Didn’t know I’d miss you until you were gone, little gross disgusting buddy.

Didn’t realize how I’d miss you killing off random people all the time and pretending to be a good boy while leaving little cookie crumbs of a storyline that will apparently not even get picked up until like forever from now.

Ah, so lets pour a glass of fries that we call potato chips, pour some vinegar all over them and remember our favorite Bakura moments.

Like that time he straight up murdered everyone on this show and then inspired me to pick up bro’s idea to create this entire blog series.

Or that time he tried to possess Mokuba but then got stomach punched by Tristan while everyone else canonically thought Tristan was taking 4 hours to poop.

Or that time he decided “Screw this, I’m just going to use lasers!” and then never used lasers ever again.

Or that time they all walked in on Pegasus doing human sacrifices of living people and Bakura went “Oi, that’s a little much!” and then wiped everyone’s memories and dragged them back to their rooms, including Pegasus.

Or that time he decided to swing from the rafters of a warehouse and knock over Bandit Keith, and then say “Oi, all better” and then just walked away while the entire warehouse combusted into flames.

Or that time he just held up a recently used disembodied eyeball and then in the Japanese version, licked it clean.

I will miss you, you freakin weirdo, and will I ever get to write about him again? I actually have no idea. Season 5 is a really long time from now. I’ll keep the Bakura color palate saved in the corner of my Photoshop, but ah, it will be a forever from now before I get to click it again. If I ever do.

But congrats to his voice actor who now gets to take a very long drink of tea and fix whatever the hell talking like Bakura does to your vocal chords.

Marik picks up the ring although I’m not sure that it matters and now I’m very confused as to where the hell the absolutely never-washed eyeball went. Maybe he saw it rolling around down there and was like “I’ll have to come back with a ziplock baggy for that.”

We started this season with Yugi being late and arguing with Tea about being late and now we end the same way. It all came together.

Yami could have done something, but there wasn’t enough time in this season, so he just let Marik walk free.

I swear, Yami.

In her defense, maybe this is what jammies actually are when you live underground?

And then, to make things even more complicated, Marik has decided to show up to Ishizu as...Tea.

Also, miracles of miracles, this plot thread actually paid off:

And then for I guess 2 Seasons Bakura just plays with Yugi’s Tomogachi’s and does calf raises on all these stairs. I would say he’d have to avoid running into Pharaoh, but I feel like Pharaoh only really hangs out in the one room at the entrance. He doesn’t seem to really care about these doors anymore.

At least someone was there for the Tomogachis, in the end. Mine has been dead for 20 years, but Yugi’s will live on apparently eternally. The immortal Tomogachi (which was apparently featured in Season Zero?).

Stepping away from the Yugioh Tomogachi headcanon, lets see what Marik’s up to. Oh that’s right, that thing he keeps trying to do.

Nice.

And just when I thought this episode was finally over, get ready for it, get ready for this massive plot dump that just comes right out of no where so quickly I didn’t even get to fit it all in one cap.

That’s right, this season ended with a cliffhanger of Seto saying along the lines of he stole his father’s company (OK?) and then his Stepfather got super pissed and fled here and then Kaiba built a huge ass phallic tower on it and like...it was a lot for the last 1 minute of the show.

Anyways, it ends with Kaiba being like “NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND, WHY WE’RE COMING HERE, TO THIS ISLAND, TO PLAY CARDS!?” and it’s like no, no one understands, Kaiba. Your brain doesn’t work right. This is weird.

This is so freakin weird.

Kaiba was giving the Ishtars a hard time about their family issues being resolved with his tourney, and it was because apparently he was ALSO using this tourney to resolve his own family issues the entire time.

Anyway, I never expected for Kaiba to become such a dominant character on this show but we are going to Kaiba island. Another freakin island.

So Season 3 is apparently way different and my bro was like “we can just skip all that filler? We can skip like 20 episodes.” and I was like “That is not the point of this blog. We are watching the filler.”

Now, just FYI I’m gonna take a break for a bit between seasons, probably for about 2 weeks or so. I’m probably going to make a little buffer because life stuff will inevitably pop up and I’d hate to go too off schedule now that I know Pharaoh wears PJs in season 5. Like, I enjoy doing this blog, it’s incredibly nice to do something that isn’t art related and has zero expectations assigned to it, but it is a side project, so I gotta prep accordingly.

That being said, thanks so much y’all for reading these, and all the nice comments (which I am very bad at responding to, especially since it really feels like tumblr doesn’t...have a response ability built in). I was really only making these with bro to cheer him up when he hated his job and was quitting--and then he quit and we continued to make them because last year was pretty stressful (like I don’t talk about it here because this is a happy blog but damn I’m glad 2018 is in the trash) That other people seem to enjoy these rants was fun and unexpected. So thanks for reading and putting up with the fact we know very little about this series. Well, now I know an awful lot actually. Scary how much I know about Yugioh now. Eh.

I got a graveyard post I’ll probs put out there around next weekend, in the meantime, but, other than that...I’ll see y’all in Season 3.

And if you just got here, this is a link to read the recaps in chrono order from s1 ep 1

#yugioh #yugioh recaps #photo recaps #s2 ep48 #I did it #I did two full seasons #apparently this is the 97th post I made including season zero ps #although math is not my strong suit #yugi muto #bakura #bakura freakin died #marik ishtar #tea gardner #kaiba #seto kaiba #mokuba

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steve0discusses · 6 years ago

Text

Yugioh S3 Ep 11 pt 1: Mokuba Gets Kidnapped (Again)

I miiiight have to split this one in two?

A lot happens this episode, and when I cap things it’s mostly to help summarize what’s going on so these posts won’t be so freakin long but visually--a LOT happens this episode. So...there’s a few caps.

Anyways, I’m still trying to not think too much about what it is that Tristan has turned into. Considering that apparently you can exist here without a body it makes you wonder if their own minds are here at all or if we’re just following some shadow selves but again, it’s--that’s way too deep for Yugioh.

Been joking about the team getting turned into Heartless for a whole season and it actually happened. Sort of. Being turned into a monkey isn’t exactly the same as being turned into Darkness but if Yugi, Bakura, and Marik are any indication, being turned into Darkness on this show just means your hair gets kinda big and sometimes you almost (and often do) kill people.

Tristan’s CGI body is now running around and I’m not sure how that works.

Like if Tristan’s ACTUAL body is being stored somewhere, then the CGI body should have vanished, right? Like, his CGI body got incinerated by lava? Anyway, apparently, his body is absolutely fine, and now it’s being controlled by Nezbitt.

I’m glad he found the Kaibas at their familiar territory. Yes, that’s right, they all met up again, reunited after 10 episodes at their favorite place in the whole world. Guess where? Guess where they are?

It’s like meeting at the Cinnabon at the mall. They just all know where to go.

(read more under the cut)

And then Kaiba just kind of acts like he’s been expecting this for years. I mean...there’s reasons to expect that.

TBH if Tristan nabbed Kaiba in the shoulder with that broomstick, Would Kaiba even be able to feel it with all that padding? He’s got like football gear for shoulder pads up there.

We get no explanation of how Blue Eyes Wife made it to the VR zone. Probably willed itself out of pure love or whatever. But, don’t worry, Seto will have to choose cards from a pool just like everyone else at the end of this episode so uh...that’s about all we’ll see from her. Unless she was also in the pool, but I kinda doubt Noah gave Seto a Blue Eyes.

Just so weird that in the same episode she’s clearly here, but in 10 minutes from now, she’s not.

Anyways, everyone else finally shows up and they don't seem to be confused as to how Tristan is just fine when they just saw him die like...just now. They just left the place Tristan was dead and incinerated by 600000 degrees of lava and they were like “Oh good! We found him immediately! Hallelujah!” as if this isn’t very weird.

And...in a past life, Kaiba was the head of the House of York or...something? Like he was in the War of Roses or something? I forget exactly what y’all were saying Kaiba was up to in a past life in some video game spinoff when he and Yugi were European 500 years ago. Their family bloodline really got around.

ALSO, thing I just realized now I’ve actually read the wikipedia, Kaiba is supposed to have been Christian Rosenkruez in this game, which is amazing. Because, if you thought the Kaiba timeline was effed up before, just you wait, because Christian Rosenkruez was a freakin nut. We’re talking Indiana Jones type of nut. I’m pretty sure the game never brings this up, but Christian Rosenkruez is famous because so many people thought that he was the reincarnation of Lazarus.

LAZARUS.

Sorry, I’m like...kinda cracking up as I’m typing this. For those who don’t know your Christian/Middle Ages art, Lazarus is this guy, seen on the right. He’s always wrapped up like a mummy and with this expression like “woah, Jo, I’m alive!? Nice!” as at least one guy in the foreground plugs their nose because he smells like so freakin bad.

Yeah. So now, canonically, a past self of Seto Kaiba swore that he was once Lazurus. Who is...a real freakin nice guy, actually. Which--and this is my favorite part--this means that Lazarus--a real guy from the Bible--was also soul married to a Blue Eyes White Dragon. Hot damn.

I mean, this is a mess, but aesthetically though--Lazarus was a dead guy right? Like a revived mystical dead guy? Wrapped up like a mummy? In a crypt? If you don’t know too much about Christianity, it kinda fits right in with our whole vibe.

And if art twitter is anything to go by, the original fanart was bible stuff anyway, so anime and Bible stuff are absolutely and always interchangeable.

(Sorry, I was about to derail on another art rant hoo boy, a rant within a rant. You know, I hide a LOT of art discourse in these posts. Spicy times. Thanks for bearing with me, I’ve been holding that one in for a WHILE.)

But this is mostly amazing because, completely unintentionally, that means Seto Kaiba’s bloodline met freakin Jesus, y’all.

In fact, lets go over it, so Kaiba’s bloodline was Egyptian wizards who killed Pharaoh Yami (who ends up being Yugi’s bloodline), kinda forgot they were royalty or magical, went up to Jerusalem for a spell, hung out with Jesus and got helllla Christian, then ended up in Germany, fought Yugi who was British royalty for a hot minute, buried Rosenkrueuz in a very weird and mystical spooky sarcophagus, and then both families forgot they were super special royalty and somehow ended up in Japan where Kaiba got orphaned with no knowledge of any of this and got adopted by a crazy Gozaboro Kaiba who is now trying to kill them all with a VR game.

Anyway, if a past version of himself was in the War of Roses, dueling with actual swords should come naturally to him. Or at least would have come naturally if Tristan wasn’t so good with brooms.

(Bro’s Spicy Headcanon: Tristans wooden stick was originally a sword but they edited it out in development. Sure Wtv.)

And surprisingly, Joey got to do a hit in this version of Yugioh--like actually kicked a guy. On screen. And it was Tristan. Wow. Really thought that would get edited out, and I’m glad they left it in because lol this whole sequence is a mess.

Anyway, Tea gets hella mad at Joey because they don’t want him to kill Tristan although this body was in fact incinerated at the bottom of a lava pool not ten minutes ago, and so she decides to go after Tristan herself? Because she figures that Tristan’s body will not attack her? Maybe because Tristan’s body would be too afraid to attack Tea.

And this is Tea, so she is used to people going ghost, getting cray, and then passing out ten minutes later and being like “Oi, love! I seem to have made quite a fuss, again, innut!”

Please look at the bottom of this cap and admire that Joey kicked Tristan so hard, that his body bent a metal door completely the other way around.

That’s right, the motorcycle license is back, and now it gets to serve a purpose!

Guys, when they revealed that Tristan could drive a motorcycle I did not think that later this ability would be yet another insane way to abduct Mokuba.

Lol what?

Moki just...hanging off the side there. Like...he’s not even strapped in. What is it with the kidnappers in this show having just no idea how to properly hold Mokuba? At least this time he isn’t being suspended from a helicopter but it’s still kind of of a lot?

And there goes Kaiba.

They reunite again for like...2 minutes after like 10 episodes and then bam, Kaiba is signing out immediately.

Unfortunately, there goes the only two people here that know how to drive motorcycles, so the rest of our team is just kinda stuck back here with Tristan in a monkey suit.

Because of perspective issues, Serenity appears to be like 2 feet taller than Yugi Muto, dang.

So I think I mentioned before that one of the reasons I was like “Yeah lets watch this show” is because someone tweeted that Yugioh had motorcycle dueling, and so when this happened I was like OMG they’re actually going to do it somehow, right now on this Sonic Adventure Highway. Finally! A motorcycle duel! I thought that was only in the spinoff I’m not going to watch!

I mean look at him go.

JK no motorcycle dueling in this series. My poor hopes. Dashed.

And he runs right into Kaiba’s coat from last season who is wearing just the thickest old timey Southern accent. Ah, I miss when his coat color was nearly his font color and it all made sense.

Bro pointed out that the best part of this scene is how small the motorcycle was compared to how big this fire is now. Like...they should just be able to walk around the fire at this point, right? Like it’s a highway with multiple lanes? What was even in this motorcycle? Nitro?

Anyway, this post will be very long if I don’t chop it in half, so get ready for next time, when we find out what this guy and his accent’s whole deal is. How many references will he make to grits and warm summer evenings? A lot, right? Like a lot?

Anyways, if you just got here, this is a link to read the recaps from Ep 1 S1

#Yugioh #Yu gi oh #recap #photo recap #S3 Ep11 #Does Mokuba have a requirement to get kidnapped every 10 episodes?#Seto Kaiba #Mokuba #Yugi muto #joey wheeler #tea gardner #tristan taylor #robot monkey #Seto Kaiba's Timeline gets more and borked every episode of this arc

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