#can you tell I used to be obsessed with yugioh by that intro?

[rebrandedbard]

For the reverse trope: too hot to cuddle, pairing of choice!

-solcorvidae

You FOOL! You've activated my trap card by invoking the fire-related adjective 'hot!' I summon Rience/Jaskier angst in ATTACK MODE!

WC: 495

A Burning Embrace

Jaskier lies awake in Rience's embrace, afraid to move, and contemplates his situation on a winter's night.

-

Small shadows drifted softly across the floor, speckling a beam of moonlight from the window. The air was colder that night and clouds drifted through the sky, now and then covering this small comfort. Jaskier had been watching the moonlight for hours, even as the snow began, hoping the clouds would move on once more and return the little patch of cold white.

The room was dark at long last, free of its oppressive candles. The scorched logs lay limp in the grate, the fire finally dead in the night. He'd flinched at every pop and stray spark which floated upward on the warm draft. He would rather shiver in the dark. Were he able, he would throw himself out over the windowsill into the frigid night.

But he could not. Arms engulfed him, caging him in place. Rience lay at his side, asleep. His embrace was stifling, skin burning where it touched. It was only his memory, Jaskier knew, but it was a torture of its own kind. And it was true, no matter what his mind exaggerated, them mad mage ran hot.

He supposed that was the fire in him, sleeping beneath his skin like embers beneath the bark of a log. Jaskier could feel it. A hand on a porcelain cup of fresh tea; no matter how sweet it was, with one shift it would spill over and burned all it touched.

This sick approximation of affection kept him captive. A doting obsession. Rience knew it was a ridiculous farce, but it was his own. It was revenge and indulgence, and perhaps jealousy, Jaskier thought. The lingering glaces at the mirror, the way Rience stroked Jaskier's face—even the way in which he spoke of the beauty he admired in Jaskier was laced with a kind of envy.

As one might keep a precious bauble was to make its beauty one's own.

So he was kept. He was posed and ordered, dressed up and down, taken out and admired at Rience's whim. He delighted in his power, and his cruelty blazed like the sun. But when the sun fell to give way to the moon, he quieted and left Jaskier to his own devices. Except for the darkest of nights.

Tonight was dark enough, and Rience came quietly to Jaskier. He did not speak to order him, nor did he take from him anything more than his space upon the bed. He merely lifted the coverlet and inserted himself behind him, wrapping his arms around his chest. There he clung, to be vanished by morning and forgotten.

If there had been no fire in him, Jaskier might have embraced him. In a pub, without agenda, such a face would have made him stop. He was weak enough to admit it. But there was no choice in this. There was nothing gentle in it. Rience was a wildfire, destroying everything in his path, mindless in his consumption.

Such a fire burned too hot to embrace.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Season Zero: Yuugi Gets a Tomagachi Pt 2

So because I spent like...weeks away from Yugioh I recently decided to kinda review what was even going on in this show, and so, as I was quickly going through my own recaps this week while putting this Season Zero episode together, I was reminded about this observation I made so innocently so long ago.

I keep making jokes with this show and then the jokes end up being real. Like it just keeps happening, so I don’t know why I bother trying to dive so far into the hypothetical thinking “Yugioh would never possibly do this” but...I’ll keep trying.

So, lets see just how dangerous a Season Zero Tomagachi can be. (v bad)

So about 3-4 days have passed since Honda left school for maternity leave despite the fact he is a 14 yo biological male and was never pregnant. I’m glad he’s here to break gender norms and I’m glad that the teacher has just accepted this.

Anzu has decided it’s time for an intervention and thinks, “if I can talk sense into Yuugi occasionally, maybe I can talk some sense into this purple haired alien that we’re also friends with?”

Miho, I swear.

(read more under the cut)

Yuugi has decided to show off his digital pet, which looks a whole lot like the Olympics mascot from 1996.

Izzy. That was the name of the Olympics mascot from 1996. I got the stuffed animal of him for my birthday and that’s the only reason I remember this weird ass 90′s fact.

I do not like the weird bangs that are Tomagachi arms, and it says a lot about the volume of Yugi’s bangs that they could have tiny arms attached to all those little bangs and it would...match up.

Now I watched a dubbed version done by English voice actors (hence why I’m getting all these names wrong) and I figured, I may as well take you on the same journey I went through watching this episode, starting with the name of Yuugi’s pet here.

Some of you, who know every single thing about Yugioh, are right now like “oh girl, do you not even see how you’re getting played all over again? Do you not realize what you JUST walked into?” and don’t worry, we’ll get there. But first, I have to go through this entire episode. Don’t worry, I’ll address the elephant in the room shaped like “the Joshua Tree” but with bangs that are hands.

(if you are too young to know about the lore behind U+Me=Us, then please look it up and listen to their entire discography and know that we were so hardcore about U+Me=Us that, for a very little while, they topped TRL over Destiny’s Child and Britney Spears)

And so they decide to do the very awkward fusion thing where you slap the butts of these Tomagachis together, but Jounouchi’s tomagachi is way too tsundere to date.

Anyway, in walks this boyman who I think gets bigger and bigger every scene he is in, like Violet Beauregarde. I mean...the door is...only so big. One of y’all brought up in the comments (I think gingerninja) that his name means “whale” in Japanese. Indeed he is.

He decides to show us his shiny golden pet, and remember this is 1999, so here’s some...1999 technology alright.

Dear lord, never draw these nips again.

Just...never again.

This is just...

How is this the only post I’ve made in months that hasn’t been flagged?

...Anyways, Kujirada’s monster, instead of going on awkward play dates, just kind of devours whoever he goes up against in a battle. It’s sort of confusing though because like...the same process for battle is the same as for this weird social network/dating scene.

Like there was absolutely no battle system until just now, when this thing started eating other people’s little monsters.

RIP Johnny and Somomo, who we knew for like all of 4 seconds. Truly one of the most devastating blows of Yugioh lore to see the death of these little monster assholes that have consumed all the time that these kids should have spent studying/actually attending school.

And then, our hero arrives and he’s a freakin mess because he hasn’t slept in 3 days.

And I was fully expecting for Honda to also lose and gain a valuable lesson in how to better use his time. I was waiting for Yuugi to pull out his little pet and go through a whole transformation sequence right here and now. But, something impossible happened.

I can’t believe the episode is already over and it was Honda that won. You heard it here first, kids, always skip school for video games, the Yugioh way.

I mean...kudos to Honda, I guess. I’m just really surprised he won something. I mean, the last time I saw him play a game he full on died by being tossed into a pit of lava and then he got turned into a robotic monkey for like 12 episodes.

Haiyama, meanwhile, did not take this very well, since he was the one from the bathroom who was being coerced into giving money to Kujirada in order for Kujirada to buy the golden pet, who just lost within a day of buying it.

As Haiyama leaves, we kind of assume that Haiyama is about to get his ass kicked in, because he’s small and cute and wears glasses, and this is Yugioh Season Zero, and those are all the things required to get your ass kicked in.

When just...everything starts to get really, really weird.

Also, this happened,

And FYI whenever I do these Season Zero episodes, I also look into the other translations on Youtube and the one I looked at seems to have also noticed that the Warehouse situation in Yugioh has gotten a little bit out of hand.

Ah, I see what you did there, random Youtube guy. I mean I love the abandoned warehouse, personally, he’s a core actor in this show. But yes, I do see how it’s turning into a little tiny bit of a meme.

Hilariously, Kujirada makes sure to run directly past Yuugi on his way to the abandoned warehouse district while carrying this girl in a sack over his back.

It is the middle of the freakin day.

So you’ve probably guessed the main twist by now, mostly because of the lack of characters, but as Tristan comes to the end of this warehouse, out steps our very large 3 Stooges boy who keels over and is...entirely covered in bloody lashes????

For your consideration--Haiyama has the yellow glasses and this face type, yes? and Kujirada has the hair? You stick the two together and remove entirely the problematic whipping sequence and you have yourself a

Of course I say this and maybe Weevil is also in S0 and Haiyama is just his own type of nut.

With a whip for some reason. OMG why does this child have a bullwhip?

Also how on EARTH did he manage to get Miho all the way up there???

So Haiyama explains, while pulling out a photo album of just tons of people in it, a comically large photo album of people that I guess he just keeps in his butt pocket, that these were all the people who were doing dirty deeds for him in exchange for money. No idea how the hell Haiyama got all that money, but he likes to blow it all on what is essentially slavery because apparently once you get money from Haiyama, you’re stuck with Haiyama for life.

Like really there is so much gang imagery in this show, it’s like a big PSA of “Don’t Join a Gang, Kids! Or Your Classmate Will Whip You With a Bullwhip Until You Pass Out In an Abandoned Warehouse” and it’s like damn Yugioh fine, I wont, damn.

But like the whole murdery photo album was certainly something because uh--there were more people in there than Kujirada so it’s like...did they die? Did all those people die? Did you in fact murder all those people, Haiyama? Did you manage to kill all those people at age 14 like you’re some sort of Bakura? Like, it’s Yugioh, so I really am just assuming they died but like...can’t add it to the death count until they outright say, right?

And then Yuugi’s timing was pretty excellent.

colorist kinda messed up on Yuugi’s teeth here. It happens. Cartoons are hella hard to make so we’ll give it a pass.

The TRAJECTORY.

Haiyama then decides to point out to Honda that Miho is essentially using Honda like he uses Kujirada and that was...kind of cathartic for me, actually. Thank you, villain, for recognizing that this whole Miho obsession thing is uhhhh kind of wrong. I guess we’ll see if the fact that Haiyama pointed this out to Honda will actually stick or if Honda will forget it by next episode.

Although, in Miho’s defense, she may be too stupid to know that she’s actually using Honda. She may just be that stupid. I honestly can’t tell what her deal is at this time.

But then Haiyama decides to try and extend the great offer to Honda of being whipped and manipulated for the rest of his life in exchange for keeping Miho alive, which um. Wow Yugioh, this is a 14 year old kid. Wow, that’s some dark stuff wow, this basically serial murderer has just been hanging out in the back of their class for their what we assume is their whole lives, and NO ONE NOTICED?

Like again, this entire class is just...they gotta be plants. There’s gotta be at least 3 people in this class being made in test tubes underneath Domino by Gendo Ikari, there’s just no way they aren’t.

And what’s crazy about Zero vs the rest of Yugioh is that in Zero they just happened upon a freakin maniac. They didn���t like...search this guy out, or enter a contest that they knew was freakin cursed. No, they just wanted to play with a Tamagachi. That was it. Instead, they found out that their one classmate has been abusing their other classmate to the point of hospitalization for the past several years.

They just wanted to play with a Tomagachi.

After that, Yugi had a fun intro sequence into Yami Yugi where a beam of light expanded across his face from the middle and that was actually a very nice effect 10/10 I can’t actually cap the animation but you can trust me. For a low budget thing that this season appears to be, that was a nice low budget way to do a good effect.

(seriously, if Yuugi lived a normal life would he have ever known he was cursed? Would Pharaoh have ever woken up at all?)

Honda at this point passed out due to the constant whipping, which is very surprising because I’m so used to Tristan, who once threw Double Spike Mullet Man over his shoulders. Honda is kind of a weakling in comparison.

So, Yuugi looks down at this device with a little monster in it and is like “yo I have a great idea, lets make the monsters fight eachother” and so we got like...a Yugioh meets Pokemon aesthetic, and FYI Yuugi’s monster still has the weird hand bangs. It’s...it still looks like that.

And, turns out the kick that Jounouchi’s monster gave to Yuugi’s monster made Yuugi’s monster learn how to hate, enough to gain a new power.

...so, in the end, Yuugi spent a really long time making his monster just a very nice guy, and would have absolutely lost if Jounouchi’s tomagachi hadn’t kicked Yuugi’s tomagachi’s ass. I guess that’s symbolic.

PS never forget that these are Tomagachi’s with a 20-50 pixel screen.

and there you are, Haiyama eaten by his own Tamagachi.

Yuugi was like “and THAT’s why you don’t whip the people who are your pets. You treat your pets with love.” and it was like wtf that guy was devoured by his own Tamagachi.

And then you think about it a second later and it’s like “WTF YUUGI. Yuugi. That’s still not a very good message.” And like I figured...this is probably a translation error that they accidentally made Yugi seem like he was cool with using people so long as you’re nice about it, but it was in the other version I watched as well so I think the real desired meaning just...didn’t quite make it to the final draft. I hope.

Straight up, this episode would have scared me absolutely to death while I was still in the Tomagachi craze and feeling very guilty about not taking care of them. Like can you imagine just killing your Tamagachi over, and over when you’re 10 and then watching this episode? Like Gremlins did irreparable damage to me as a kid, can you imagine what this episode would have done?

This guy was devoured by a Tomagachi and Yuugi just watched.

Don’t worry, Miho says “momma” here so she is still about as blase towards Honda as ever.

They did pan down to show us that Haiyama is still alive after this whole event. Of course he’s...passed out so he’ll probably just end up in the hospital wing in Domino they’ve reserved for Yuugi’s classmates.

...Eaten by a tamagachi.

Now, a little bit of story time, in the process of putting these caps together, I figured well after the fact that I should, youknow, go and check on the spelling of all of these characters (because again, I watch the dub so I have no subs to tell me how things are spelled) and the sub version had omitted quite a bit of the episode, including the parts where Yuugi says his pet’s name.

...so I was like...is Yuugi’s pet named Yuutou or Yuutsu? And surprisingly enough, when I typed into Google “what is the name of Yugi’s tamagachi” ...

DAMN IT, YUGIOH.

HE REALLY DID CANONICALLY NAME HIS PET U2!

Freakin U2. SPELLED LIKE IT LOOKS LIKE.

That makes no freakin sense, whatsoever. Yuugi is the type of person who listens to weird grungy alternative from whatever local show his weird anti-establishment cousin tells him about and would just--I mean he has so many accessories and eyeliner, he does not put in his Mom’s CD of U2 and drift off, no, he puts in a burnt CD of early Radiohead while he spends 2 hours dying his bangs in the sink. There is no universe, let it be Season Zero or Season whatever where Yuugi acknowledges U2.

I can’t believe this is Canon.

I just...Wow. U2.

U2.

Y’all I am shook that Yuugi is a closet U2 fan.

FYI, I have been listening to U2 for the entire time I’ve typed this. I mean, Pride is a good jam.

Anyways, I know none of you that are too young to know 2gether looked this up when I mentioned it earlier, so here you go, one of the best worst songs ever made. In case you were wondering what I was busy doing as a young tween instead of having a Yugioh phase.