The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

So I just saw a Tweet KB Toys made several months ago saying "We were always better than Toys R Us anyway." Boo! Never! **hugs Toys R Us.**

I did get to see Geoffrey's Toy Box, and I'm over the moon to have seen any piece of Toys R Us existing! I took pictures of the logo. I did see some stuff I would like, and some other stuff that was sold-out that I'd like to see too, such as a telescope. Mine has always worked funny. Maybe one by a Toys R Us brand would work better. I'm hoping they'll restock, or that another branch will have the out-of-stock stuff.

I also bought a Wreck-It Ralph plushie at The Disney Store. I wanted him when I saw him on my prior shopping trip, but I thought I'd see if I could find a bigger plushie for the same price somewhere else. I couldn't, and when I returned to Disney, that one looked pretty big to me. And he even has real clothes, not just clothes-shaped fabric pieces sewn on! All the attention to detail made me feel the price was worth it (he was $20). So, I got him. It's been fun cuddling with him, although it's not so easy when laying down. My plushies made with the blank plushie bases seem to be ideal for cuddling while laying down, amusingly enough.

I'm having a lot of trouble with the DVD player on the desktop computer. Things pixelate, my Odd Couple discs will rarely play right, and I often have to restart to play more than one disc of anything. I either want to buy a DVD player for my TV or get an external CD drive for my laptop. I'd prefer the latter. Except now I'm wondering if buying one that's around $18 would give me the same trouble as if I tried buying a regular DVD player for that price. I'd be looking at horrible quality if I did that. But if I have to pay $40 for a decent external drive, I'd rather pay $35 for a regular DVD player like the one we have in the living room now.

Duel Links is finally giving us another unlockable DM character, Tristan! He's unlocked if you beat Zorc in this latest incarnation of the Monster World RPG. Manga Yami Bakura has trapped Tristan's soul in a game piece. Free him and you can play as him in the regular Duel Links game! I'm at Area 12 and he's unlockable after passing Area 20. And since I play as Yami Bakura, it makes for an odd situation and reminds me of the plunnie of Manga Yami Bakura getting loose in my anime verse and causing trouble. I consider that in Duel Links, I play my post-series anime verse Yami Bakura, so he's traveling with Tristan while the Manga Yami Bakura is presiding over their torment. I may have to write a blurb, although I think in it, Tristan's soul isn't trapped, but he and Yami Bakura are simply trapped in a life-size Monster World game.

Meanwhile, my current YGO fic has taken various odd twists and turns. The Big Four got back to their bodies thanks to Yami Marik, they've decided they don't want anything to happen to Lector, and Khu is free now as well and wants to kill Lector for possessing him to keep him from killing Mokuba. Of course, this will lead up to hurt/comfort and angsty situations in the climax, with the Big Four trying to protect Lector and all being caught in a blast from Khu's staff. This Khu is more of a loose cannon than the old timeline Khu, but he's still very cunning, cruel, and sadistic. Of course, now that we know P. Seto is a good guy, unlike years ago, Khu has taken on the desire for power while P. Seto is the rational brother. And since they're half-brothers in this verse, Khu's motivation is fury at Ahknadin for deserting his mother and for focusing on P. Seto when Khu wanted power and P. Seto didn't. Khu now wants to prove himself a worthy son to Ahknadin, which will creep the Big Five out when they realize. Deja vu much?

I've rewatched the Big Five episodes so much for fic research, by now I'm really figuring out the various intricacies of the characters. I also watched most of the Lector and Seto duel in Japanese and decided I prefer Lector in the dub. He's angry at Seto's apparent heartlessness in both versions, but he's more emotional in the dub and more devoted to justice. The Japanese version is rather coldly businesslike for the most part. I also had more of a sense that Lector might care about Mokuba in the dub. I also prefer the Seto duel over the Merger duel. If Lector was interested in justice to begin with, I think losing to Seto made him snap, as he seems much more concerned with just getting out of the VR world any way he can after he loses to Seto. He's much more interesting in the Seto duel.

I definitely like how they all seem to be trying to find ways to all get out, instead of being "every man for himself!" They did squabble over bodies in one episode, and yet they all figured they'd each have one. It's kind of refreshing to see antagonists who aren't trying to backstab each other any time they can. I've been noticing how well they work as a team and how they really only have little spats that aren't serious and are likely quickly forgotten. Of course, that makes me want to think they could really care about each other. I was already exploring that concept in the second fic of this trilogy, where they're all shaken by Khu trapping Lector in the darkness once it looks like Lector's been killed and assimilated into it. Them still being shaken over that is partly why they're so determined to protect Lector from Khu in this fic. They know that they do care about Lector, even though now Lector is tired of revenge schemes and wants to try doing something else. I'm planning that they will all decide to try to move on eventually, and they will stay together and embark on a new venture together (maybe making Crump's wildlife preserve/penguin theme park). After sharing so much together, they realize they all want to keep being together. Crump especially considers them his family, since he came from a very dysfunctional family and was introduced to very different interactions when he met the rest of the Big Five.

I also wanted to work with a random angsty blurb where Mokuba and Lector are caught in an explosion and Mokuba wakes up to find Lector seems to be dead. Mokuba is badly shaken, especially since Lector was trying to protect him. Mokuba tries to revive him but cannot. Seto finds Mokuba later and tries to comfort him. Then it decided it wanted to be a fic and not just a blurb and that I should show how the Big Four react to this. Nesbitt impulsively runs off seeking revenge on whoever set the explosion. Of course, Lector will be okay, but probably not before a lot of chaos happens. I won't be focusing a lot on writing this until my multi-chapter is done, and maybe I won't even have the courage to post it if or when it's done, like I'm still having trouble deciding to post that fic about Yami Bakura being swallowed up by the darkness.

I remember I used to occasionally encounter people (usually kids) who liked Lector. I think my reaction to any member of the Big Five being liked was approximately "..." But of course, it figures that eventually I would be sucked in too, since Lector is one intriguing antagonist during his duel with Seto. I am always fascinated by antagonists who seem to be seeking justice for some real or imagined wrongdoing.

I also decided to try making a Lector plush to see if I could do it. I had two plushie bases here, although they were earmarked for other characters. I can replace one easy enough, and considering I had fabric markers to color a plushie tan, plus I had left-over brown fake fur from my Baxter plush that looked like it would be just enough for the hair, I wanted to jump right in and see what would happen. Well, it's been interesting. Especially constructing the hair in the back, as I had to use many little scraps to fill in places. But I don't think it looks too bad, and tonight I got material for clothes. Instead of a business suit, I wanted to make that awesome trenchcoat he wears at the beginning of the Seto duel (or something approximating it, more likely), and I decided that under it he's wearing black pants and a black shirt. I plan to make the fedora too, but Walmart was out of purple felt tonight (and most other colors). WTH.

(I think I'd better always have at least one plushie base on hand from now on, and maybe certain supplies that could be used for multiple characters, like the brown fabric markers and certain hair materials, so I can start plushie projects any time I feel like it. I really want to make pretty much every YGO character eventually. I think right now, plushie-making is my second favorite creative expression, right behind writing.)

I want to draw a picture of Lector standing under a lamppost in the trenchcoat and fedora too. Haven't got to that yet. Maybe I'll try it after I post this.

Seriously, this is not something I planned on happening. I suppose that's the case for any sudden obsession, though. I wouldn't actually say I'm crushing on Lector, but he fascinates me enough to do all this, and from past experience I know it's very likely I could end up crushing on him.

Mama Mia....

So the mini-Toys R Uses, Geoffrey's Toy Box, have opened! And ohmygosh, I never would have guessed this from the description of a Midwest retailer since that sounded like it was mostly or only in the Midwest, but they partnered with Kroger! Yesyesyes! That means Smith's picked them up! Not the one here in town, unfortunately, but others that are very close! I saw the participating stores list and they're all over!

The downside is that for now they're only offering a few brands and toys that were exclusive to Toys R Us and are more the kind of thing you see in educational toy stores, but the products do look really interesting and I'm tempted to buy something. If this venture is a success, it could lead to the brand fully resurrecting as the big toy store we love. And then hopefully a lot of people who lost their jobs because of the idiotic bankruptcy would get hired back. (If they'd even want to be hired back; a lot of them are understandably bitter.)

I was going to talk about other things, but as soon as I saw this news I got so excited I think I mostly forgot what else I was going to say. Everything else seems inconsequential.

Been nostalgic today, remembering a shopping trip from nine years ago. I was looking for Ninja Turtles and Sonic merchandise. Maybe other stuff too, but that's mostly what I remember. I went to Big Lots, Rite Aid, Toys R Us, and maybe F.Y.E.

At Rite Aid I saw a Turtles plush, but it was made out of a really annoying non-furry and non-smooth material that catches fingernails. And it was of Michelangelo, who at that time I didn't like. He annoyed the heck out of me in the 2003 series, which was my main focus at that time. But he'd always kind of annoyed me; I remember thinking he was an idiot in the one Archie Comic I had. I wish I'd been able to see some of the other Archie Comics they did for the Turtles, because I've since learned that Michelangelo really had some powerful storylines! I think it was only a couple of years ago when I really began appreciating Michelangelo, both because of how he began developing in my fic verse and because of the long conversations I had with ThickerThanLove, a devoted Michelangelo fan. Hilariously, he's now my second favorite Turtle in the 87 verse. Haven't revisited the 2003 series much, so I'm not as sure how he stacks up there now, but I did rewatch my DVDs of the first few episodes a couple of years ago and only found him super annoying in the first one. I'm glad I didn't get that plush, though. I've found much nicer Turtles plushies of all of them.

At Big Lots I saw the game made for the TMNT movie. I seriously considered getting it; it looked like a blast. But from the system requirements, it looked like it would probably only work on Dad's computer, and I didn't think he'd appreciate that much. And I wasn't crazy about the thought of being downstairs to play it, either. At this house my computers have been upstairs, and I like that much better.

At Toys R Us I found a DVD of Sonic Underground with all four Knuckles episodes gathered together. Those were the only episodes of Underground I really wanted, so I was thrilled and bought it. That ended up being my only purchase of the trip, although I may have seen some other things I liked. Those are the memories that stand out the most for me.

I've been in a bit of a Sonic mood tonight. I meant to install Sonic R and Sonic Heroes on the computer in the hall, but I haven't got around to it yet. I switched the computer that was first in the hall with one that was downstairs that has more memory. I want to use it as a gaming computer. But I've only played Duel Links for my gaming sessions since I finally got to have it, so all other gaming projects have been on hold.

I've also thought a lot about Toys R Us. Of course, how could I not? I haven't been able to fully accept that the U.S. stores are now gone. Part of that may be because I didn't see it at the last. I was last there when I bought Sailor Mars, and they still had a lot of stuff. Maybe in the future I'll regret not seeing them at the last, but right now I'm fine with it. It makes it easier to remember it as it was. But it also helps to know that the store lives on in Canada and overseas. Even though I'll likely never visit any of those locations, it's just comforting to know they're there. The brand isn't dead, like my beloved Borders is.

The brand has certainly changed, though. It's been years since the days when I could almost always find something there I wanted to buy. The last several times, even before the liquidation, I wanted desperately to help give them business and I just couldn't find the things I wanted. I think the last thing I bought there before the liquidation was the Baxter figure I turned into Barney, and that was in February 2017. I did see Miraculous Ladybug stuff I wanted, and I remember wanting to get in on a BOGO half-off sale on dolls, but there was only one Marionette doll and nothing else I could combine her with. Now the dolls and figures aren't anywhere to be found except online, and usually for bad prices. But after hearing how the dolls often fall apart, I am horrified and think maybe it's for the best. But seriously, WTH Bandai? You're a big name brand. Where's your quality control?

There are so many happy memories of Toys R Us through the years, starting from around age 5, when my brother discovered it after my beloved Play World went out of business. I was skeptical that any store could be as good as Play World, and I think I was initially lukewarm to Toys R Us, but it didn't take long and I warmed up to them and loved them. It was my favorite place aside from home. I was always asking to go there, especially if we were out doing other errands. I remember one time Dad needed to talk to some guy about I think a computer problem, and the guy was really nice and let me play these fun arcade games he had set up while I waited. Afterwards, I asked to go to Toys R Us and we went to the one East of us.

They were there through all of my Sonic love up to now. I remember when Sonic and Knuckles was going to come out and they had a banner with the logo and my eight-year-old self overdramatically proclaimed it "Beautiful!" Heh. Then when the game really came out, it was on display and I got to play it a bit. The Loop-De-Loops baffled me. Later, I also played a little of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle there. Probably other Sonic games through the years too, but that's what I remember most. And the Tiger Electronics handheld games. I have two of them and always meant to get the other Sonic one, but never did.

All of my Talespin and Darkwing Duck figures came from there, and my Donatello figure. A lot of my childhood Ponies, too. I remember how proud I was to take my carefully saved money and buy a Magic Meadow Pony when they came out following the demise of G1 My Little Ponies in America.

Of course I went through a period where I mostly wasn't interested in visiting Toys R Us. After I discovered Yu-Gi-Oh!, that all changed. I went there so much again after that. We used to get milk from a dairy because Dad was obsessed with natural products without lots of added chemicals, and I was fine with that. We got to get ice cream cones from the dairy and then go to one of the Toys R Uses on the way back. I loved all the Toys R Uses, but for YGO visits I probably got the most sentimental about that one. We went there every couple of weeks when we needed milk. So many happy memories of those trips....

(And I hardly ever use makeup. Example: I bought two tubes of lipstick around then, when I was 16, and ... I still have some left. Occasionally I still use it. The smell will forever remind me of YGO and those shopping trips.)

I remember visiting a Toys R Us shortly after I first discovered YGO. We'd been to a wedding reception and were coming back and I stopped there and was looking in a magazine. Then we hurried on home so I could watch and record YGO that afternoon, LOL. It was one of the Seto vs. Yugi trilogy from season 1. I think it was part 1, and yet another part of me thinks it was part 3.

I remember calling them asking about YGO figures, and then going and seeing them. Just the small ones then, but I was happy for any. When the big ones came out, I was over the moon. I ordered Seto online, not sure when the stores would get them, and then he arrived on August 1st. We were going out later that day, visited the standard YGO Toys R Us, and I found the figures were out. Heh. Of course. So I bought Yami Yugi that same day. (That winter I found Joey at Walmart and asked for him as a New Year's present. About a year later, after five months of searching, I found the big Marik figure at ShopKo. I wish they'd made more human characters, in both figure sizes.... I don't know why Yami Bakura wasn't made, for instance, since he has always been a very popular character. Now there's a gorgeous figure of him, but it's far too expensive.)

My 16th birthday I usually cite as my happiest one, although I've had many happy ones. That one was my first after getting interested in YGO. I got the board game among my presents, which thrilled me, and on the shopping spree that year I bought my first two YGO shirts, which I'd previously selected as things I wanted to buy. One was gray with Seto and Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon, the other was electric blue with Yami Yugi. Most future YGO shirts came from Walmart (with the exception of my first Marik shirt, bought at Target), but those first two were from Toys R Us. Although I think one was at Kids R Us, so we must have been at the Toys R Us where I recently bought Sailor Mars, as it was the one with a Kids R Us next-door.

Many years ago I started a tradition of wanting to go to Toys R Us on my birthday. I think my 8th birthday was the first year that was done. Later the plan expanded to include other stores. A couple of years I didn't make it to Toys R Us in favor of other stores that had more of what I wanted.

I think the last point in time when Toys R Us had many things I wanted was around 2009, when I was having fun with Sonic stuff. Figures, clothes, fun memorabilia. . . . Then Sonic Boom came along a few years later and pretty much all merchandise was Boom. I still haven't tried Boom; I detest what they did to Knuckles' personality. The changed design was bad enough, but I could have dealt with that if they hadn't ruined his personality. Finally the ban on other merchandise lifted, but I don't recall seeing any Sonic stuff at Toys R Us other than Boom, except the recent classic Sonic plush and maybe one or two other classic design items. Last year on my birthday trip, I was very sad that I couldn't find any Sonic stuff there at all.

There were other fun times.... One year I had a very Mario birthday. At Toys R Us I bought the Mario backpack plush for $14.99 and a shirt on clearance for $2! And I got a free Mario scarf because they were running a promotion of getting a free scarf with purchase of Nintendo stuff. I felt a little guilty at first to be buying Mario instead of Sonic, even though I'd always loved Mario too. I quickly got over such silly feelings, especially since having a Mario plush was always a dream of mine!

And now I'd probably better close this topic, as I'm starting to get sad really thinking that those times are over and there won't be any more unless that businessman saves the U.S. stores. I'm not even sure if he's still trying, but he said he'd even be willing to get the empty buildings just to save the store. That was some months ago, though.

I did, however, finally decide after days of deliberating, what I wanted most to buy with some of my video conference money. Of course, in the end, what I wanted most was a lot of YGO Hexors that included the Yami Bakura one and a lot of pins that had the Yami Bakura one. Both were a little more than I wanted to pay, especially for the pins, but they really were an amazing price. And at the moment I could afford it, so I decided to do it. No regrets! I am so thrilled to finally have those things that I looked so hard for years ago. I bought as many boxes of Hexors as I could, trying to find the Yami Bakura one, and I went to so many 7-11s looking for the Yami Bakura pin. I'm really happy to have the Mai pin too. It's really nice and I've always liked her since she started to develop around episode 11. I thought the Seto pin was the same one I had, but it's not. The pose is the same, but it's a totally different pin, much sturdier and more collector's quality. Then the Joey pin is neat, and even though I'm not a Pegasus fan aside from scenes of him being awesomely helpful in the movie or setting the souls free because he's a man of his word, I do like his pin. I think I have every pin in the set except Yami Yugi, and I'm hoping to get him to complete it. At the moment, though, just so thrilled to have the Yami Bakura merchandise.

I also decided to make a Bakura plush. I have my cute little one, and so of course I felt guilty to bring in a second one, but that first, commissioned Bakura is in scale with my commissioned Yami Bakura in Thief King form but not with the Yami Bakura I recently made. I thought it was sad for him to not have a Bakura too. So, I made one. Everything went so well! I made most of the plushie on the 4th, and then I did the shirt this weekend. Not sure if I'll make the sweater. If I do, I'll change the design and have it open so the pretty turquoise shirt will still be visible. http://meromeroyui.deviantart.com

Awesome friends and family helped fix the attic, I found a tablet, and I've been playing Duel Links!

I wanted to go Best Buy to see if I could find a tablet shown on their website that they were clearancing. I don't think I found it, unless it was a different price in-store, but I found one cheaper than the Fire tablet because it was on sale (normally it's more expensive than the Fire). It's 8 inches and it's an Android system. I really felt it would be smarter to get one that already had Android stuff so I could know for a certainty things would work. I'll probably need to get a micro SD chip for it; I rather suspect by now that the stats I saw for the Steam version of the game are true for the mobile version too. On Steam it said 4GB of storage was the minimum, but 8GB was better. Which means if it is the same, it could technically fill up the whole tablet, it seems. There's a way to format micro SD so it can be part of the internal storage, so that would definitely help even if I could only get a 2GB chip. Right now the only thing I'm using the tablet for is Duel Links, which is just fine with me. Clearly I badly wanted that game since I was willing to pay $40 to get something to play it on. And since I find it completely worth it.

Wednesday was a very long day. I had insomnia, was super exhausted all day, and I have to go back to the dentist for more work. But one nice thing is that I've never been afraid of dentists since two of my brothers are dentists and I go to them.

Toys R Us ... honestly, I felt blank. They're only charging 10% off of most everything, which just makes me go WTH. K-Mart was doing 30% by now. And there was no Ladybug stuff. But they say they restock with stuff from their warehouses each day, so maybe later they'll get awesome things. Borders did that too; they had a much better inventory towards the end than they'd had for years, sadly. I'm hoping maybe they'll bring in some of the Sailor Moon figures, since they sell some online. But they'll have to bring the prices down more than 10% to make it worth it to me! At the nearest store especially, barely anything seemed to be gone. Maybe it still doesn't feel real yet, or maybe it's that for ages it's felt different than the store it was years ago, but I couldn't seem to work up any emotion while I was there.

I felt I needed to visit both Toys R Uses before deciding what to do about other things, so we went to the one an hour away after the dentist and then came down to the closer one. Best Buy was across the street and I spent a long time trying to find the tablets and then trying to decide on the best tablet. When I saw the sale price on the one, I was astounded. At first it looked like they didn't have any, but then the guy and I found one stuck in the wrong slot. I debated between it and the Fire and finally chose it for the reasons stated above. I had to wait a long time to get checked out, but everyone was really nice and so far the tablet has been really good. Hopefully it will continue to be, especially since I'm really only using it for that one thing. A 16GB would have probably been wiser, but I just couldn't afford that. As it was, I was only able to get this tablet right now because Mom was able to help me with the cost. Squeee.

My Target coupon came in right before we needed to leave, and then I couldn't get Dad's computer to cooperate to print it. But the nice lady at the dentist office let me print it there when she heard us talking about it! Since I'd already bought a tablet by the time we got to Target, I decided to check Target for the retro My Little Ponies. They were out, but I saw they had one copy of The Dark Side of Dimensions for the exact price of the gift card. I was extremely tired, hadn't seen anything else there I wanted, and I have been wanting to see that after all, for curiosity and completion's sake if nothing else, so I decided that was a great way to do it and it came home with me.

Since it's a verse all its own, not anime or manga since it contradicts both, I was able to view it as a separate entity and enjoy it for what it was. I was a little disappointed not to hear the classic gravelly Yami Bakura voice in the flashback, but I was happy to see him at all, even though it was a seriously disturbing scene. Gah. And the best line was when Yugi pulled out these weird Apple and Lemon Magician Girls and Seto exclaims, "You're fighting me with fruit?! You're mocking me!" ROTFLOL!

I found it interesting that Atem never speaks. He had so little screentime, but it was pretty epic when he showed up. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the Millennium Puzzle and everything to do with Yugi collapsing at the point of death. And I'm actually not sure that Seto went to the afterlife to see him at the end. I think now that maybe the original assessment that he went to the past is more accurate, because Atem was wearing the Puzzle, and he wouldn't have been wearing that in the afterlife.

If anyone is curious, here is what I found that contradicts the manga:

- Shadi teaching a bunch of kids about love and peace, yadda yadda. Shadi was a messed-up guy, as shown in the early manga, and he didn't understand about love and friendship. Yugi had to teach him.

- Bakura's father is not dead in the manga. Yami Bakura says in the final arc that he's the owner of the museum and that's why he, Yami Bakura, was able to get in.

I thought Joey was kind of mean to Tristan about the Duel Disk, when he starts yelling that Tristan broke it and he wants the new one. He knew that he'd asked Tristan to fix it, WTH. So it apparently wasn't broken by Tristan. But I loved the scene where Joey's memories are fading and then his memory of Atem is still there and that brings him out of the villain's world and back to reality. Very powerful! That is one of my favorite Joey scenes in any verse, I think.

I liked that it showed how the Ring warped personalities. I think that's canon to the other verses and it definitely makes Yami Bakura more sympathetic. However, what was weird is that the way they presented it, it almost looked like they were saying that the Ring only changes people but there isn't a separate entity there possessing them. We know that Zorc was in the Ring and that's why Thief King flipped out even more than he already was, and the other verses make it very clear that Bakura is being possessed by Yami Bakura; it's not just that Bakura is being corrupted by the Ring. After Zorc was destroyed, it's curious that the Ring is still a problem. I guess dark essence like that doesn't leave so easily. I'm frankly not sure Zorc can ever be destroyed, since he's the personification of the darkness in people's hearts, but that's a discussion for another time.

To be honest, even though the creator wrote the movie, it felt like a fanfiction. Things were so hand-wavy, like the contradictions with other verses and the stuff with the Ring corrupting everybody even with Zorc gone. But I had fun watching it and there were things I liked, and I'm happy to accept it as another verse. The main anime, the Toei anime, the manga, the video games, and this movie are each a separate verse. Of them all, I like the Toei anime the least, but I do remember enjoying Bakura and Yami Bakura's episodes and I should try to dig those up again.

Anyway, I'm glad I got it. I'm happy I was able to use the gift card for it!

And Duel Links.... Oh wow. So I had to wait to try it until the tablet charged for the first time, so I took a short nap out of exhaustion and then it was ready. Duel Links took a while to download and install, but they showed pictures and blurbs of all the characters and that was fun to look at. I'd had so many disappointments that I couldn't let myself believe it was really working until I logged in for the first time and got the game going.

I picked Yami Yugi as my starter, because I'd learned I had to beat Yami Bakura with him as part of the requirements for making Yami Bakura playable. And if I hadn't started with Yami Y, he wouldn't have become available until after Yami Bakura, so I had to go with him. But I was just as happy to, since Duel Links is definitely more manga-based and Seto is, hence, even more of a jerk.

It's all so fun! Most of the Standard OC duelists are okay, although I'm not crazy about Andrew, Josh, or Christine; they are very arrogant. The really little kids are adorable, especially Bella, and I like Daniel, Meg, Hailey, and ... is it Ashley? And there's one called Jess who's really nice. My favorite, though, is David. He looks like Duke's store manager, except he doesn't wear glasses, and I've headcanoned that he is Duke's store manager, wearing contacts. LOL. I haven't seen him for several Stages now. I wish he'd come back.

Things got much more interesting when canon characters started to become available, of course! I got Joey without too much trouble. Tea took a bit longer, and Mai took a lot longer. But I got to duel them until I met the requirements for making them playable.

The goal I was working on the whole time was getting to Yami Bakura, of course, although I wanted the other characters too, especially Tea. I've had a blast playing as her and Mai, and Joey too. One of the most epic duels was where Tea beat Seto in like five turns! I accidentally unlocked the GX world and Jaden, but I have no interest in that side of the game and I'm kind of glad that they're separate, LOL. I don't consider GX canon. I have nothing against the characters; it's just that I don't like the concept of a duel school and I don't like what the show did with the original characters when they popped up.

So, Yami Bakura. I wondered if he even would show up at Stage 13, because only two sites were reporting he would and other ones were still saying he was event-only. I wonder why they don't update. But to my delight and relief, yes, he was there, and so were a lot of other characters! Including Yugi! Squeee. I thought Yugi was still event-only!

My first duel against Yami Bakura was incredible. Not just because I'd longed for it for so long, but because it came out so well. I saved it and I hope to record and post it to YouTube. One requirement was to play against him using no spell or trap cards. Gah. Another was the Yami Yugi one, and I had to play with Yami Bakura being at Level 20 experience. I did both of those in the same duel, and for the first time I was able to play Slifer the Sky Dragon! It was incredibly awesome. Later that night, I had a duel with Tea playing against him, and that ended up fulfilling the requirement of winning against him with 2000 lifepoints or less. I was really wondering how to achieve that one, since you know, I wouldn't know how to go about deliberately losing lifepoints. As it turned out, I didn't have to do that deliberately, LOL. I also saved that duel.

The hardest requirement was dealing out 3000 points of effects damage to him, thankfully not all in the same duel. I have a starter card that deals 300 points, and that certainly helped, but I needed more. I got a bunch of card packs and found a couple of cards that really seemed to help. There was an awesome dragon that deals out a lot of damage if one is sent to the graveyard and you have another copy of it available to play. I built Mai's deck up with the express purpose of dealing effects damage to him. He and she had several interesting duels where they toyed with each other, dragged it out for ages, and finally Mai would get in some damage here and there when the right cards came up. The deck also worked on Joey, but Mai had very little luck using it against the Standard duelists or The Vagabond. (I'll have to change her deck around now that it's served its purpose.) Then tonight, Tea won Fire Sorceress (or is it Sorcerer? It's a girl, but it might be Sorcerer....) and I was able to give that to Mai to deal out the final points I needed! Eeeee. It was so exciting to at last see the message that he was unlocked! It is totally manga verse, as he delivered one of his creepy manga lines, but I will just pretend he didn't say that and it's anime verse instead, since anime voices are used and anime is my favorite verse. I played my first duel as him after fixing up his deck (all the characters come to me with really bad decks I have to fix), and he won! So much fun. I can hardly wait to play as him some more. I also want to unlock Ishizu and Rishid. I've been actively working towards that by playing Light cards and traps.

Oh, interestingly, people were saying that it was obvious Yami Bakura was a character Seto created for his VR world, but I actually had the impression that it was the real one. All he says is, "Memories.... Virtual Reality.... I see, Seto Kaiba." That sounds like Seto got the real one and somehow stuck him in there, and he was aware that it was a world based on memories of what happened. If he himself is only a memory made to move around, he would hardly be aware of that, LOL. I will continue to believe that Duel Links is augmented reality, as depicted in the movie, and the real people are just all in there. Joey certainly indicated that he was real and had been plopped in there when he showed up. Tea too.

I think too much about things.... While watching Yami Bakura vs. Yami Marik again, I started pondering again on the shadow left in the Millennium Puzzle. He spoke like he was fully Yami Bakura and knew what was going on, but he was left in there before Battle City ever began. How did he know about the duel? Since he is part of Yami Bakura's spirit, does that mean Yami Bakura is aware of everything he does and thinks? Or did he not know of the shadow's adventures until they merged at the beginning of season 5? It's always confusing to me when characters in media can split off pieces of their spirit, because of that perplexity. Is it the whole person, as far as personality and memories go, or is it only a part? Was Yami Bakura with Bakura in the Shadow Realm while the other part of him was in the Puzzle? I write it as such. And I got a weird plunnie of him running across a part of his spirit he'd left somewhere and forgotten about, and what would happen if that part didn't want to be good and they had to face off. Weird stuff, but the whole concept of splitting off parts of your spirit is weird anyway, so it lends itself to weird ideas.

I also got an idea for another hurt/comfort picture and I finally had the chance to sketch it out tonight. It came out mostly exactly as I'd pictured in my mind. It has Bakura embracing an extremely limp Yami Bakura around the upper torso and burying his face in the thief's shoulder while crying. Yami Bakura is in his classic form. His head and neck are falling backwards, his visible arm is very limp, and it's all in all a rather curious pose. It's hard to really describe it. One reason I like hurt/comfort art (besides the obvious reason of exploring feelings and interaction) is that it allows me to practice drawing all sorts of strange poses.

Last night I was watching Cannon, an episode where he investigates a girl's death from doping up on drugs and then falling out a window, and got a plunnie where Yami Bakura finds Bakura at a schoolmate's house, completely drunk from being tricked into drinking spiked drinks and swinging in a window in his underwear. Yami Bakura is horrified and outraged. Bakura falls and Yami Bakura catches him, and then he enacts punishment on the creeps responsible for getting Bakura into such a state. He makes them feel the hangover Bakura will feel and also have the sensation of falling over and over. It's not a permanent spell, but he says it will last until they regret what they did to Bakura. Even when Yami Bakura tries to be good, he can end up acting like Yami Yugi in the Toei anime and the early manga volumes. And he doesn't see anything wrong with that. He feels he's enacting justice. Makes sense to me, since what he wanted in ancient Egypt was justice, before Zorc got hold of him and warped him the rest of the way. He will probably always have that dark streak; that's one way I keep him quite the character! I have the first draft of the ficlet written and I quite like it. I need to re-read it and see if it's done. I also need to get the next chapter of the multi-chapter finished. I'm having a little trouble with this segment and am getting easily distracted. Hence why I'm writing epistle entries instead of working on it!