Apr 15, 2018 02:56
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!
squee,
family,
outing,
yami bakura,
movies,
toys r us,
ygo,
shopping,
fanart,
video games,
fanfiction