Wanna play yugioh? -- Anon Guest
[AN: I have no idea how to play Yugioh, and I'm moderately certain that describing said game will impinge on someone else's intellectual property... so today, the part of Yugioh will be played by a completely made-up game called Ebisnach]
Humanity loves combat. Synthesized or real. They have more or less tamed their competitive nature in the form of formalised synthetic competition. They call them all games, but the nature of Human games is always some kind of competition. No more or less so than their card games.
Humans also like to collect things. With a combination of collecting and card games, the species has come up with some truly complex systems of simulated combat involving nothing more than sets of colourful pieces of card stock. Humans insist that the best way to learn is by playing, mostly because the verbal explanations can take weeks. Only Humans can pick them up that quickly. After that, it's simply a question of how deeply they dive into the fandom maelstrom.
Human Kee was, apart from one little quirk, a fairly amenable Ships' Human. The reviews were glowing wherever ze went. There was only one red flag. It read, Do not, under any circumstances, get hir started about Ebisnach.
Those with the curiosity to ask about it found out exactly why curiosity was deemed fatal. Felines not necessary.
Human Kee would take a deep breath and begin, "Oh man, I just flakkin' love Ebisnach, you have no idea. Every spaceport, I'm checking dispensers for new packs. I check the infonets for news on new series on the daily. I've got the novels, the comic books, the animated series, even the live action movies... but everyone agrees they were a mistake. I concur, by the way. I watch them once a year anyway to remind me how good the audio dramatisation is. But you wanna know about the game, right?"
Captain Thork didn't get a chance to voice either assent nor dissent. The question seemed to serve only to allow Human Kee to take a breath.
"You start with a basic deck and the simplified rules. You can get that in a Starter Pack, now, but I began with Series One and building it from scratch, so everyone new starts on a better footing. I remember being trounced by the whales when I was a newbie, so I always have a couple of spare Starter Packs for anyone who's interested." Ze produced one, still shrink-wrapped, from hir pack. "Want to play? It's an excellent way to learn. I can even use the Starter Pack so we're equal. I've been into Ebisnach so long I'm practically a whale myself."
"I have duties."
"Oh. Right. Yeah. The whole fun of the game is creating a perfectly-balanced deck. It's more art than skill. It's amazing when you get into it. Just remember that I'm always ready with spare decks in the rec room if anyone's willing to play."
Captain Thork didn't want to check, but ze was fairly certain that Human Kee had a thriving account on the infonets that was almost overflowing with Ebisnach fandom fiction.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / leeser]
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