#i felt nostalgic for s1 while drawing this

[sleepeven-deader]

I’m so happy it was finally confirmed that Oliver Banks dated Graham Folger. I just had to draw these 2 KINGS together!

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 44-45: Bakura‘s Back for More of This Nonsense

Man, I can’t believe we’re closing in on the 4th season of this show (still in shock I’m still able to make these.) Seems like just yesterday I felt like I had no idea what was happening, and now I’m like “they put in freakin Sans into Smash but not Bakura???” I’ve become one of those people now.

It’s been interesting how, because I have slowed down to watch these, I think I’ve been able to have a much more positive experience with the show. People have been talking about how binging has kind of changed TV from a place where fandoms could chat to a place where...you just watch it all in a weekend and hope no one spoils it and then wait for the next big thing to consume a week later.

But, when you’re watching a 15 year old anime you don’t have to worry about any of that. So it’s like a kind of nostalgic experience of a pre-streaming era despite the fact I’m totally streaming this.

But back to the show, now that the deep and reflective moments for Marik are over, my favorite storyboarder went home and left the rest of this to the night team who are clearly in a real rush to get this all finished. Again, the Yugioh whiplash is going from that high of “damn this is so goo-” then to the reality that the rest of the art direction in this show is “-acceptable. I meant to say acceptable. It’s perfectly acceptable”

Yugi Muto is still strung up by weird shadow magic restraints that must also be around his legs for some reason. I mean...it wouldn’t be so kinky if it wasn't also around his feet. More bits and pieces of Our Boy have been removed over the course of this endless card game, and he’s doing pretty good considering.

Joey has decided he’s had Enough Of These Damn Ghosts.

And so Marik decided that he’s been shamed by Joey Wheeler enough that he will just go away like Joey asks. This may be the only person who was actually bothered enough by Joey Wheeler to walk away in all of Yugioh.

(read more under the cut)

They....

Legit no one told her what had just happened.

They........

Just want to note that while Yugi’s leg burst out a stream of weird purple gas and Yugi screamed in pain, when his crotch disappeared, he did nothing but patiently look over at Pharaoh, who awkwardly winced. I guess the animation team knew better than to animate gas exploding out of that one particular spot, but it is still a rather funny contrast.

Marik has achieved his final form of so many veins, and it is a still frame every time it’s on screen. You cannot animate this. You cannot.

On the other end of the field, Odion has somehow made it down these extremely steep stairs, only to look up and see so many more stairs.

And back on the field is so many cards. So many cards, including the Card Poem. This awful Card Poem I tried so hard to forget.

Bro brings up that maybe this poem sounds way cooler in Japanese but like...I doubt it, right? Like this was a poem that the writers threw together in 5 minutes and were like “we’re never going to actually say the shame poem, right?”

But anyway more cards things happen but why talk about cards when this eventually happens.

I feel like Pharaoh was attempting to use Shadow Magic on Marik like just a few episodes ago so he could have done something now but...maybe he forgot? I dunno. Pharaoh didn’t feel like participating in this particular fight, maybe because his alter ego is holding on to life solely by having extra long emo bangs to count as lifepoints.

and so, Odion gives Marik a pep talk--and I kid you not, this is all Marik needed the entire time.

Yeah.

That was it.

Like maybe Odion had to be awake since Odion has a spell or whatever on Marik but still it’s like...all you had to do was say “This guy is not even a person, Marik--you are the person, just nix him and we’re good”

And so the two alter ego’s fight with eachother in the same body and that must have been a treat for everyone watching.

Man, it’s a good thing Mokuba already has so many PTSD situations under his several belts up to this point, because otherwise I’d be somewhat concerned about this very young kid who is privy to all this type of magical abominations every time his brother just wants to play cards.

and then...Yugi plays a bunch of cards and...um......

......don’t ask me what happened........

After the big group hug, Marik and Marik switch places.

This was because bad Marik was fused with a monster card--which turned bad-Marik into...the definition of a Monster.

So, if you kill the monster card then you can...

...switch places with your alternate half...

...yes...

Basically it’s a more complicated version of what Pharaoh did to Ryou and Bakura in S1, except in S1, Bakura played Ryou as a card and Pharaoh just slammed his hands on the table and was like “Screw it, Bakura! I’m so tired of this! We’re all so individually tired of this! I’m just going to use my Shadow Magic and switch you with Ryou and then we’re all going the HELL BACK TO BED!”

This time it just had to be so much more complicated although we have seen Pharaoh willy nilly switch souls before just two seasons ago.

So, just like Bakura did to his evil side in S1, Marik banishes his evil side to the shadow realm in a card game.

Which worked super good last time, amiright?

I guess we’re all just going to assume that this works now? Even though this absolutely did not work in season 1? Like Bakura went right back to a life of murder immediately?

Then again, Bakura’s an actual dude, and Marik’s alter Ego was a figment of his anger or something?????? Maybe that’s the difference? Maybe that’s why we can be rest assured that this works now?

Maybe they’re just tired of the Marik plot line and are like “listen, he’s kind of hard to draw and we don’t want to do it anymore. He’s dead now.”

For realsies though, from what I’ve been told, Marik never goes cray again and gracefully exits the show. But, if they ever want to continue Yugioh back in this direction, you can just have him snap at any time you feel like, we all know this type of exorcism is wholly reversible.

Anyway, the clouds are lifted and we are reminded that it is still hardly even lunch time.

It is at this point that Marik turns to his Brother and his Sister, who all three have no world skills outside of scamming museums and filtering sewer water, and waxes long about all the great times they’re about to have in the future.

Like what future though? You have to go to 20 years of actual real deal school, Marik, you can only read one Egyptian text. Hell knows how many people you possessed in order to get that motorcycle permit. You for sure aren’t ever allowed to play cards ever again. Like what are you going to do, Marik?

...dude what if he just goes back on the boat and just sails away for the rest of his life with his cultists who are equally unqualified to live in the real modern world. OMG what if that’s the real Marik’s Boat Time all along?

Ah. 

I almost forgot about you, Bakura.

Just in time for the British Bake Off to start updating episodes on Netflix, just in time, Bakura.

And following this is actual real thing that happened which, if you told me about, I would have just assumed was a joke or an edit to make it appear like this is happening. But no, it’s strip time.

the hell?

Yo can you believe that like a week ago I was like quoting “One Week” for kicks in these recaps and then this week Marik is, indeed, “in the history of taking off his shirt” ?

Anyway, Marik reminds us that his only purpose in life is to uh...be a book. A book that no one can read because Pharaoh didn’t have the foresight 5000 years ago that no one would be speaking Egyptian anymore and also that his reincarnation would be a 14-16 yo Japanese boy who’s entire brain power is used for selecting cards and selecting matching belts.

I just...Pharaoh’s mind must have been in a real place 5000 years ago and that was before he ever became a ghost.

Also, it is kind of amazing how many times it has come up how illiterate Pharaoh is over the past season and he still hasn’t decided to do anything about it. Like, he’s just kind of hoping that someone else (probably Kaiba) will feed the answer to him like a baby because that’s just how this show has been up to now.

In this case he has a one-ness moment with the tablet and gets the sense of “It’s fine, we’ll figure this out later” which um...

I’m really happy that in this scene, Pharaoh is still tripping balls but everyone else is so used to him doing stuff like this, they just completely ignore it.

So glad I had 2 seasons to build up this back tatt in order to figure out that Marik’s back didn’t help Pharaoh at all. The tablet yes, the back tattoo--no, completely unnecessary. Congrats, Pharaoh’s mole people servants, you screwed up and did this weird ass ceremony on 12 yo’s for 5000 years trapped underground for NO REASON.

Anyways, preteens rejoice, Marik without a shirt is randomly 10 lbs more buffed now, which I’m pretty sure was never a thing when he was wearing that itty bitty pink hoodie. Like maybe the animators are just used to really buffed anime and this is them toning it the hell down, but uh...no actual 16 year olds will ever look like this, sorry to break it to you, preteens.

Man, the horny line running through this show lol.

Letsee, Yugi now has the puzzle, Ishizu’s necklace, the Ring, the Rod, the...

...where’s the freakin eyeball?

Did...where is it? Where is the nastiest of the golden objects?

Did Bakura never bring the eye with him to this trip? Like...is it just hanging out in his desk at home near his secret stash he super hopes that his Mom doesn’t find?

Guys, where’s the eyeball?

Anyway, now that Mokuba has decided Seto can feel joy and smile again, he gives Seto the A-OK to blow the hell out of this moneypit island that has already been violently blown up just a few years previously.

Like this begs the question, why even build this tower if you wanted to blow it up? But then again, that is the equivalent to a small child that builds block towers just to knocks them over, right? Like that part of Seto just never grew up?

So........

My bro, while looking this over, gave me the best spicy bro headcanon I’ve ever heard, and it’s absolutely too ridiculous for this blog that is mostly about what actually happens in the course of this show, but I’mma gonna share it with you anyway. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a common headcanon, but if my bro got it from some random fic he read off Ao3, I don’t know any better. So bro kinda squints at Roland, Seto Kaiba’s most incompetent bodyguard (if “bodyguard” is even an accurate description for the weird fake not-a-job that this guy has to do) and is like “do you feel like Roland has Noah’s hair color?”

and I was like “Bro, if you are suggesting that Roland is the illegitimate son of Gozobura because his hair is the same shade as the darker parts of Noah’s hair, that is one wild headcanon and I love it”

So--using Bro’s logic, lets say Gozaboro had a really stupid illegitimate son he had to hide from his wife. So he just...gives him a fake job. Considers “maybe I can use this son on A.I. Noah?” but Roland ends up being too much of a dumbass to intimidate Noah, so instead, he keeps Roland around on low-tier jobs so he gets keep an eye on him, torture him, etc.

And as the company falls out around him, Roland gets slowly promoted, as Seto and Mokuba fire basically everyone who worked with Pegasus and the Big 5. And Roland, who is just so bad at everything, forgot to attend the Pegasus coup (and would have no idea what is ever happening), so when the Kaibas returned from Pegasus’ island they still have Roland...sitting there at that long table covered in 4 identical idiot salads and orange juice he laid out for them in his patchy green moustache and his huge Gozaburo shoulders, they’re like “well.....I guess we have to take care of him now.”

And that’s the story my brother has in his head now every time Roland is on screen. It’s not canon at all that Roland is the secret 4th Kaiba brother but damn. What if he’s just the 4th Kaiba brother but has no idea, and Mokuba and Seto do, and that’s why they drag him all over the world with them? Hilarious.

I mean...Seto and Mokuba fire everyone. But they don’t fire Roland, their biggest dumbass. What a headcanon. (and if this joke ends up being real I’ll be very happy)

ALSO, new thing, the necklaces around their necks with the cute picture of eachother that they had up till now to remind eachother of their forever brotherly love--also keys used to blow up things very violently.

I should have expected this.

Anyway, lets check up on Mai---oohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Y’all this was WEIRD.

WHAT. THE. HELL.

So after that extremely insensitive joke that made us doubt if bringing back Mai was a good thing, lets have a reminder that we brought back someone else even worse, who, like a parasite, was devouring everything that they love.

(Bakura’s font color has been changed to blue stripes because before he was just too similar to Joey’s yellow and my white. Eventually I will find the right system for coloring everyone’s font legibly, although I know that the patterns are sometimes harder to read for people that aren’t colorblind.)

Ah, local nasty boy is back. I’d love if they had shown more of the food he ate, but they wisely decided to crop that huge spread out of frame. Bakura eating all of the donuts is canon though. Somehow every donut aboard this blimp fit inside of that small boy’s endless stomach.

PS Kaiba Corp makes their own milk. At some point, Seto Kaiba was just leaning back into his work chair, Mokuba on the couch watching TV, Roland completely unable to reload the Keurig, and Seto was like “But what if...I made CHEESE.” (BECAUSE YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THESE KIDS LOVE CHEESE) and Mokuba was like “OMG you could sell the company back to them at 2 times the price for each share” and he was like “I KNOW.”

and so he marched down to the nearest cheese fields to buy some cows, only to find out that the agriculture market is so strained you can’t sell the shares at a times-two profit now and he‘s like “Ah dammit! I have to do real business! This freakin blows!”

Makes you think.

Anyway, then Ryou throws some shade at us about “PS, I was in Hell! I love you, too!”

Anyway, so it’s about time we ended this season, so how about it? How about we take off, watch it all blow up as a symbolic representation of all the hopes and dreams Kaiba had at the beginning of this tourney, and end this crazy ass season?

Oh wait, that relies on Roland being able to do even one thing competently.

So, that’s where we leave off.

Really truly, honestly, we need to get everyone on this show matching cuff radios because the number of times they’ve needed to call Kaiba is insurmountable. Could have solved so many problems. Really surprised that Roland can’t like...call the Kaibas right now, but now that I think about it, we clarified several episodes ago that Mokuba forcibly kicked Roland off of the radio because he was unable to work it properly.

Good job Roland, the best Kaiba son.

Anyway if you just got here this is a link to read just the Yugioh recaps in chrono order

[wakabahiguchi]

Continuing my Misfits freakout after having seen the best episode of the series Season 3 Episode 3, I just had some thoughts about television in general, mainly nostalgic feels and other nonsense about my emotional and obsessive love for tv 

Cue nonsense below: 

So the year I really got obsessed invested in television was around 2010/2011 when I was just turned 13 and being a weird antisocial kid in middle school. For some reason, watching Misfits this past month and experiencing All The Emotions™ really brought me back to when I first started loving television and that 2009-2013 era of television that I loved so much.

My first real show was Glee, which I started during the season 2B in 2010. At the time I was also watching Bones in 2010 (all out of order) and also started watching Pretty Little Liars in 2010. I really spiraled out of control when I started watching Elementary in 2011 (yup I started from THE BEGINNING), Modern Family in 2012, The Good Wife in 2012, Hawaii Five-O in 2012, Lost in the summer of 2012, Battlestar Galactica in 2013 (and probably some other show I’m forgetting?). Oh and let’s not forget all the Disney Channel shows I still watched lol. Don’t believe me? Go through my old posts. Actually please don’t. 

But it still makes me feel nostalgic when I remember watching a lot of these shows during middle school/beginning of high school. It still boggles my mind that at that age, I was able to understand complex shows TGW elementary Lost BSG etc. Or maybe I didn’t understand them. But I sure went through The Emotions. It was probably because at that age, I was still “finding myself” or at that age where I was really anti-social and started thinking of Bigger Things in life or something. And so many of those shows (Elementary, BSG, and LOST in particular) were so character driven that I was immediately captivated by the stories they told. And BSG and LOST really drew me into the sci-fi/mythology genre that I’ve come to love so much in the shows I’m watching now like Westworld and Misfits. My particular love for BSG/LOST comes from that aspect of character driven storylines with elements of mystery and humanity I guess? It was the first time I was exposed to entertainment and storytelling that made me rethink the way humans and society worked, and I know that’s Going Deep but it’s really true. In addition, shows like The Good Wife (back in it’s better days) and Elementary really made me smarter in a way, because it pointed out things that I wouldn’t have noticed, and there are so many subtleties and nuances that made for thrilling television (Like the iconic Hitting the Fan?! The Season 1 finale of Elementary, which to this day I still remember as the BEST season finale of any show?)

This isn’t to knock on any of the shows I watch now.  I still remember those iconic 7 days where I binged all 6 seasons of Scandal, completely enthralled with the political twists and turns.  I still remember those first 9 episodes of HTGAWM (still my favorite episodes) where I was literally writing recaps on this blog and thinking about who killed Sam?!?!  I remember falling in utter complete love for a character on Daredevil, Elektra, who I related to more than I even knew I could connect to a character. Being able to appreciate the nuances in her characterization and trying to fight a storyline pre-written for her, and fighting her inner demons and darkness all while putting on a front to appear confident and collected. I remember falling in love with Raven Reyes, a character who goes through too much shit on a trashy show but consistently fights for every breath she takes. I remember being shook by a cartoon show, Avatar the last airbender and legend of korra, and the fact that I literally loved every single character for being complex and wonderful to watch. I remember discovering The Flash and the iconic Iris West develop agency and become 1/2 in the most ICONIC ship to exist.  FINALLY having an Asian American family to watch in Fresh off the Boat, and discovering the incredibly talented and outspoken Constance Wu. Exploring my love for sci-fi with the ever thought-provoking Black Mirror (before it got popular, mind you!) Delving into the world of Marvel with Luke Cage and the world of ancient mongolia with Marco Polo. And that’s not even half the shows I watched, or still watch today! Honestly, if anything, my love for television hit it’s peak once I entered high school and started discovering a plethora of wonderful stories to be invested into.

But at the core, (and evident by the previous paragraph), what really affected me the most in television were the characters and their stories. I was reflecting on how I don’t really ‘ship’ characters as much as I thought, because I mainly loved the character first, and then any relationship they had with others second (WA is the only exception at the moment I think). And that’s why my television phase in 2009-2013 means so much. Because those shows, and LOST/BSG in particular exposed me to what beautiful storytelling could be. And it made me feel The Feels towards characters and storylines for the first time. I still remember how I felt after LOST 1x06, when Jin is waiting the airport line before showing Sun the white flower. I was hit with The Emotions. And it only got worse as the show went on. BSG was the same, with the concept of humanity, survival, and cylons. (I’m kicking myself for writing such a passionate piece on BSG because I still haven’t finished the last season. But that’s another problem for another day).

So bringing this back to focus, what does this have to do with Misfits? Well, as stated earlier, Misfits was a show airing from 2009, so it fits within the timeline of my early phase of television, and to be honest, it feels like it too. Of course I felt The Emotions while watching shows 2013+, but for some reason, after finishing THE episode of Misfits (S3E3), I was hit with The Feels that I didn’t remember feeling since my early phase of television. And I’m not sure why? It’s a wacky, weird, dark, cheeky, extremely british sci-fi show that’s not necessarily as character driven as Lost, not nearly as mythological as BSG, much shorter than both shows, but for some reason it’s still making me feel The Emotions. The ending scene itself just destroyed me. It made me feel nostalgic. It reminded me of my summers binge-watching LOST and BSG, where I was constantly entertained by ideas that seemed larger than myself. And Misfits doesn’t necessarily ask those hard-hitting life questions like lost and bsg might, but it provided such a relatable feeling to it? Similar to how I could relate to the storytelling and characters in lost/bsg, I connected to the characters in misfits in some strange way. It’s hard to sell misfits in my opinion, because you never really get what it’s about until you actually start watching. To me, I connected with how each of the characters didn’t really fit in? They are all odd, realistically dealing with whatever goes their way. It’s not glorifying or heroic. In fact, it’s ridiculously messy. Sometimes it’s just one big wtf. 

So I’m still trying to figure out why S3E3 hit me so hard. Maybe it’s because it was a huge combination of an overarching sci-fi plot (Superhoodie and the time traveling loophole), an emotional core (Salisha? <3), suspense and thrill in the plot (graphic designer guy who isn’t really a villain but just wants to be something MORE, at the end realizes what he wants to do), the combination of superhero and graphic novel/comic storylines that I’m also becoming more invested in, the emotional FEELINGS upon seeing the final drawings graphic designer guy pinned to the wall documenting the final events of Simon, ensuring that he keeps the superhoodie, ensuring that it all works out and realizing how he could help the narrative rather than hurting it. The sheer humanity of the episode (which sounds ridiculous if you’ve seen any of the other episodes) if probably what got to me. Similar to how San Junipero (and to a lesser extent Nosedive) hit with me for Black Mirror.  This show has given me zany, weird, strange, etc. but it’s never given me pure emotion and genuine humanity before. Sometimes it’s so narcissistically cynical that you come across an episode like S3E3 that just punches you in the gut because you didn’t expect a show about telekinetic milk powers, the origins of harambe, or a self-proclaimed jesus to hit you all of a sudden with genuine hope and love (similar to how San junipero was so incredible compared to the lineup of gloomy Black Mirror episodes). Additionally, what made me love LOST/BSG was the incredible score and soundtracks that accompanied each emotional moment in the show, and Misfit’s soundtrack game was STRONG with S3E3, and I’m really starting to love the score so much that I’ll probably download it too. Not all episodes have sweeping orchestral themes, but this one did, and it definitely made me feel more feels. It’s not often that a television show relies on scores rather than soundtracks, so maybe that’s another reason why Misfits gave me nostalgic and emotional feels.

So after the episode ended, of course I was an emotional mess. But it was the kind of emotional mess I didn’t remember being in since watching LOST, BSG, S1 Elementary, or those older shows I watched when I was transitioning from middle school to high school, still trying to find my voice or who I wanted to be.  I’m still puzzled to exactly why, but I enjoyed thinking back to the shows that really brought me into the world of television and how I still need to finish bsg. It makes me so thankful for these shows that I grew up with and are growing up with now, because those stories really helped to shape me into the person I am now.  It’s probably why I’m so selective with tv shows now, because I’ve seen so many great things and have felt The Feels from so many impactful shows that at this point, I have standards lol. (one of them being well written WOC but that’s besides the point).

Anyways, I told myself I’d stop watching misfits after S3 since that’s when all the originals leave (and truly, I loved all the original ASBO 5 characters, and Rudy is kind of growing on me even though I find him kind of pointless and annoying most of the time), but if the show continues thrilling me and producing quality episodes like this one, I might give S4 and S5 a chance. Hell, I’ll probably still watch it because one of the new characters is kind of cute.  But basically the whole point of this post was to express all my nostalgia and how my television habits have evolved over the years. And it took the best episode of Misfits to trigger these feelings. But it’s crazy to see how far I’ve come in my television. To see how some shows have fallen off my radar after previously loving them (TGW, Bones) and how some shows are STILL going strong (Elementary!!!). And of course all these new shows I now have to deal with. But Misfits really gave me the ultimate TBT, and the whole vibe really reminds me of the shows I cherished back in 2009-2013. It was a good feeling, and it was nice to go back and document what really made start investing in television and how I’ve evolved in that sense.

Beyond that, I’ll look forward to all my shows I’m watching now, and of course, the rest of Misfits (which sadly will never upstage the glorious S3E3).