How Placido Stole Christmas

How Placido Stole Christmas is a Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's one-shot written by Psychid (Psychid45 on the Wiki). It is the second Christmas story written by him (the first being The Loon of the Rings: A Tribute to Brak), as well as the third story to celebrate a certain holiday. It is also the first fan fiction to which Psychid keeps the original [Japanese] names of the anime's canon characters.

General Information

 * Title: How Placido Stole Christmas
 * Author(s): Psychid
 * Genre(s): Humor/Parody
 * Date of Publication: December 24, 2009
 * Story Rating: K+
 * Current Status: Complete

Characters (In Order of Appearance)

 * Yusei Fudo
 * Crow Hogan
 * Jack Atlas
 * Aki Izayoi
 * Placido
 * Unnamed boy running charity drive
 * Jose
 * Lua
 * Luca
 * Lucciano

Storyline
The story begins in Neo Domino City, where Yusei Fudo is admiring the Christmas season. His admiration is stopped by Crow Hogan, who has found a way to beat Aki in a snowball fight (in this case, it was a "tie"). Not long after Jack Atlas arrives to wonder about what's going on, Crow notices Aki in the distance. He triumpantly tells her he is going to win, only to result in getting pummeled with snowballs from her... twice.

Meanwhile, in a nearby tower, Placido, too, is watching the current Christmas season, but with much displeasure. It is cut short by a boy who is running a charity drive. Upon knowing this, he calls for Jose, who leads the boy into a room with a sign marked "BEATING IN PROGRESS". After a few minutes, Jose informs him that he "may have beaten the kid a little too much". He only tells him to "throw him down the chute" that "leads to the others", only to be "disposed of" later.

Placido then has fantasies involving, in the following order, Lua and Luca opening their presents with much joy, the traditional Christmas feast, and every citizen in Neo Domino City singing Christmas carols.

After his fantasies, Jose asks Placido why they must brutually assault children for no good reason. He even gives some examples of what he means, including the boy he just beat up, and a little girl who was trying to raise money for her "hundreds of thousands of kittens and puppies". Placido simply responds: "I don't know." This only makes Jose furious.

He is interrupted by Lucciano, who is walking in reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, by Dr. Seuss. After telling Placido about the book, he quickly snatches it and reads it (except the part where the Grinch's plan to ruin Christmas fails), giving him a "wonderful, awful idea".

His "wonderful, awful idea" is the Grinch's same plan: disguise himself as Santa Claus to rob Neo Domino City of its precious Christmas. He also shaves off Jose's beard to make him look more like Santa, much to his frustration. He also asks Lucciano to build a "sleigh" for them (and one whose reindeer bears resemblance to Machine Emperor Skiel Infinity), and asks him and Jose to be elves (Jose is given uncomfortable clothing, only humiliating him more).

Eventually, they arrive at Lua and Luca's condominium, where Placido starts his plan. From there on out, the storyline follows similar to the original book, including the stealing of stockings, presents, the feats, and the tree. It also includes Luca (portraying Cindy-Lou Who, in this case), and Placido deceiving her about why he is "taking" the tree. With the exception of the latter, this is repeated in each and every house Placido robs.

After the robbing, he commands for Lucciano to take it up to Mt. Crumpit (which apparently exists in Japan), to dump the load of stolen presents and Christmas decorations. Jose argues that it seems "meaningless", but Lucciano claims that "most of these gifts are fragile". He also warns Placido that the engine is close to overheating. Placido reasurres him that they will dump the load as soon as he hears all of Neo Domino's "misery and suffering".

Back at Neo Domino, everyone is indeed panicking about Christmas being stolen, especially Lua. Luca calmly reminds her brother that Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself to save the world from sin. This only makes Lua even more hysterical. Aki, however, calms the crowd down with her melodious singing. Luca joins the singing, then Yusei, Jack, Crow, and everyone else in the city.

Placido himself is astonished that his plan to ruin Christmas had failed. Lucciano and Jose assume that this will teach him the true meaning of Christmas, and that Placido's "small heart" will grow "three sizes that day". Unfortunately, this only drives Placido into a violent fit of rage and starts up the vehicle's engines, despite Lucciano's warning of the engine overheating. The engine does overheat, and causes Placido to plunge to his "untimely death"; Lucciano and Jose munch down on some peanuts, courtesy of Lucciano.

However, it is revealed that Placido wasn't going to die, mainly because of the "evil acts of the no-good 4Kids Entertainment". Instead, he crashes into a wall, thus also resulting in the presents and decorations flying out of the sack, returning to their rightful owners. From there on out, the story ends.

Trivia

 * Similarities to How the Grinch Stole Christmas:
 * (Most of) the narration in the story
 * Placido greatly despising Christmas
 * The flashbacks involving what he hates on Christmas
 * His Santa Claus disguise
 * Him robbing the "first house", including the stockings, presents, feast, and tree
 * Luca asking why "Santa" is taking their Christmas tree, only to be fooled by him
 * The travel to Mt. Crumpit to "dump it"
 * His plan to ruin Christmas failing
 * Differences from How Placido Stole Christmas:
 * The narration begins similar to The Night Before Christmas.
 * Placido doesn't make an animal his "reindeer"--one is already made when Lucciano makes the vehicle.
 * Placido asks Lucciano and Jose to be his elves. In the book, no elves are mentioned.
 * When Placido fools Luca about the tree, his beard accidentally falls off, revealing to her he isn't really Santa Claus.
 * As soon as Luca finds out the truth about Placido, he makes her unconscious with sleeping gas (which he apparently had)
 * Much to Lucciano and Jose's disappointment, Placido does not accept the true meaning of Christmas into his so-called "heart" (he responds to this by saying: "You're BEEPing kidding me, right?").
 * Although the presents are returned to Neo Domino City, it is not done in the same manner as the original book
 * In the story's introduction, Psychid wrote this story because LittleKuriboh was too sick to make a Christmas special of his own. When he started this, he didn't originally think of this until he actually found out.
 * It is also revealed that he once wrote a Yu-Gi-Oh! GX story similar to this one, which no longer exists.
 * In Placido's fantasy, Lua's gift was a Duke Nukem action figure, while Luca's was a Princess Courtney doll who sings My Prince Will Come.

Reception
This story received numerous excellent reviews. Many of the reviewers have enjoyed the snowball fight at the beginning of the story.

DigitalStarry was concerned that this story was to be a "terrible copy and paste of a classic Christmas story". She was, however, relieved about this, and found it to be "genuinely funny and unique".

RebelliousdreameR was especially pleased with the fact he was able to put in his "own creative twists".

"Ray", an anonymous user, absolutely loved the fact that Placido, Lucciano, and Jose were in "what little character they had".

The story itself has 819 hits, 10 favorites, and 2 alerts. It is added to the Hall of Fame: 5D's Edition community, making this the very first of his stories to be added to an actual community.