Dueling for Souls and Questioning Racism

These last few days I've been at Comic-Con, and I knew I'd certainly end up with some material for a post while being here, but I can't quite say I imagined it would end up like it has.

Yesterday afternoon, I ended up entering a pokemon card tournament with a preset deck just for the hell of it. I figured I had little chance, but hey, why not? Anyways, my first match brought me face to face against a young teenage girl cosplaying some character or another with a short blonde wig, white shirt and yellow scarf. This girl was clearly knew exactly what she was doing and obviously knew every in and out of this card game. She was completely ready to win the tournament. Besides politely telling me the name of the cards she just put down, she was absolutely silent. My half-assed deck managed to completely counter her delicately constructed deck perfectly. As I was slowly taking the lead, I met her glance once or twice and could see a deathly hollow glare from beneath her blonde bangs that will haunt me till the end of my days. Other than the hair color, It kind of reminded me of this:

I think if the match lingered for a mere minute longer she would have devoured my soul.

Needless to say, though I won the match, that first match was the only one of the tournament to end for me without a handshake and a "good game" afterwards and I was saddled with the guilt that I may have just ruined this girl's day.

This put a slight awkward damper on the tournament for me until I reached my final match. In that match, I found myself battling a twelve year old who seemed to generally know his stuff. Another similar boy was in a battle right next to me but his opponent was more unique. The guy that boy was battling had two different My Little Pony posters on the table, one of which he was using as his place mat. He was out and out, a true "Bronie", like I had never seen.

This bro just has two ponies. My "Bronie" friend would be ashamed.

As my match aganist the boy went on, he slowly started winning more and more harshly, and I realized that my usage of a theme deck was among one of the stupider things I'd done.

Fuck you, Lucario, and your bonus booster too.

As he was 3 prizes ahead of me, I'd all but given up, and was just getting frustrated while waiting for the whole torture to end. It was then that something rather miraculous happened. The boy next to me started quizzing the guy he was battling about the names of all the little ponies on his poster. There were easily 80+ ponies on the poster, and the guy knew every single one. However, after questioning their names for a while the boy got bored, as boys are adept to do, and tried another route of action. He pointed at one pony in particular and mouthed out: "That one's racist."

...He kind of had a point.

The guy, showing a true level of insight and honestly in what was clearly his favorite show merely laughed and stated: "Yeah, it kind of is."

The boy smirked and pointed at another stating, "Is that one racist?"

....Again, an understandable point.

By this time, the boy I was battling was getting amused and started to get into it as well. He joined the other boy as they started pointing at every pony on the poster questioning: "Is that one racist?" "Is that one?" "How about that one?" and I quickly found myself smiling and laughing like an idiot, totally forgetting about how badly I was being slaughtered in this children's card game. Before I knew it, I asked the guy, out of curiosity, if he could point out Derpy Hooves to me, and the fact that Derpy Hooves was in fact on the poster, and in full derp, made me laugh all the more. 

Soon enough, my match was over and I lost completely but I didn't even care. I had learned an important lesson today. I learned that, no matter how cliche it is, sometimes it doesn't matter if you win or lose, as long as you have fun.

And there's always fun to be had in Derp.