Throwing my hat back into the tumblr ring after like 8 years because I can only subject my best friend/roommate to so much of my ramblings about yugioh fanfics before she has the right to strangle me (even though it's entirely her fault I even got into this show LMFAO)
Just gonna use this space to yap a little bit about my little writer hopes and dreams (because god knows actual consistent motivation to write vanishes at the worst times) and hopefully find some other people to yap with lol
(my main/interact blog is @bastilledna and I reblog yugioh things et al. at @mossiecobble)
My genuinely unreasonable hyperfixation on yugioh unfortunately shriveled up in January but I am inching back into it. Also unfortunately I have lost the inspiration to write the platonic sequel to my "orichalcos arc but make him Worse" fic, but maybe one day I'll get back to that
At the moment I'm very slowly kind of piecing together this (what I hope to be) big and long and complicated story — been calling it my mobium fic because it started as me thinking about how mobiumshipping is cool but it's basically exclusively total AUs, so how could I get them all together in canon? And came up with something I think is really neat. Not entirely sure if it will be romantic though; gotta be honest, I'm leaning toward no?? It feels like more people would read it if it were romantic, but... y'know, plenty of people are doing romantic fics. Maybe it'll be fine if I try to do something a little unique? They're crazy about each other <3 no romo <3 just soulmates <3
Attempt at a succinct premise under the cut
Instead of bringing the god cards to the tablet and doing the whole memory world arc, the gang just brings the Millennium Items to the Millennium Stone. Yami Bakura shows up, makes a dramatic speech, they put the Items in.
The "door" opens and out stumbles actual Pharaoh Atem as well as Thief King Bakura. Still working out exactly the steps from A to B but eventually big Zorc dragon shows up, fucks things up, gets defeated — but Atem and TKB are still here, confused. They cannot speak Japanese nor any other modern language and the Ishtars have to communicate with them.
Yugi picks up the Puzzle and realizes Yami is still in there.
Cue the main body of the fic: The entire point is that I want to explore the very complicated feelings between everyone, especially with Yami having a lot of defensive and perhaps jealous/possessive emotions about Yugi bonding with Atem, also his sense of self and "I was supposed to be him" (said despairingly) or something... It's just a whole big mess of emotions and figuring out new relationships and identities.
Also featuring hits such as:
Addressing the Tombkeepers' trauma!
Acknowledging that the events at Kul Elna were fucked up!
Ryou Bakura waking up for more than two minutes for the first time in two years and learning he suddenly has friends he doesn't remember! (That boy was NOT conscious during canon, the spirit was in the driver's seat at all times, I swear)
Atem and TKB (begrudgingly) learning modern Arabic, then later Atem insisting on Japanese so he can talk to Yugi!
Atem lamenting the differences from his time!
Atem learning he can just be a youth, actually, maybe not having the responsibility of being a king anymore isn't so bad!
Yami being a little bit of a bastard at first because he's insecure about his place in Yugi's life and his identity etc.!
And of course the final question: What happens if Atem puts on the Puzzle? What is Yami's fate?
I can currently think of a few options and I'm still not certain, but I'm leaning toward option 2:
Nothing happens. Atem and Yami are separate and the Puzzle has lost its magic, only able to maintain the swapping between Yugi and Yami, and that's it. The consequences: One day Yugi and Atem and everyone else will die and Yami is doomed to be lost in the Puzzle forever. (I do love angst but this one kinda feels too fanfiction-y for the vibe I'm hoping to go for)
Atem and Yami merge into one person and there is a grief from losing these two people you knew and now having to get to know this new person. You miss red and you miss blue, but you do have purple, so now what? (Kind of the most intuitive, but also doesn't this dismiss the time spent on their individuality? The whole point of them learning their own new identities and relationships? Like, what's the point then of all that? Also the classic "reintegration is the only healthy state of being" pitfall)
Yami is too changed by his time and circumstances to be considered the same soul as Atem anymore, but they are still intrinsically linked, so he becomes essentially an alter to Atem, both of them in there, perhaps permanently out of the Puzzle and living in Atem's body. (Like, I guess it's fine? But something feels off with it. Almost disrespectful, I don't know)
Writing it all out like this I'm suddenly gripped with terrible insecurity that it sucks but... IDK!!! I feel like there's potential!!! It could be something really cool... but it'll definitely be really difficult to get right.
update: some thoughts about tweaking option 1
Any other ideas for his fate are welcome.
Who knows if it'll ever happen but I have a bunch of fun tiny snippets already written out, so... here we are! Shouting into the void. Thanks for reading.
the way any email address that starts with A shows up with an icon of an A in a red circle on my phone so every damn time I see an email notification at a glance and see a red A my heart jumps hoping it's an ao3 email but nope just Amtrak lmfao
the way any email address that starts with A shows up with an icon of an A in a red circle on my phone so every damn time I see an email notification at a glance and see a red A my heart jumps hoping it's an ao3 email but nope just Amtrak lmfao
sorry op to add text to your post but uhhhh i got into a bad habit of texting myself when I had inspo and this is my warning to Not Do That because sometimes you might click the wrong conversation half asleep and that’s how you get awkward conversations like this:
I just keep rereading all the lovely comments people have left on various fics and I'm just!!!!!!!!!! smooches to all of you. thank you. it brings me indescribable joy.
it's actually really interesting, writing that last one has definitely gotten me closer to really wrapping my head around the idea of "Yugi calling Yami 'the other me' is not being self-centered, it is genuinely a compassionate and generous offering they're both sharing"
like. I don't quite know how to put it into words, but sometimes I still have some lingering prickliness I'm trying to shake off at the idea of him continuing to say "the other me" after they learn he's basically just a spirit who's living in there with him because it triggers this instinctual concern in me about selfishness. but like. Yami WANTS this. he only BARELY has anything else after they're told he's the pharaoh. he knows ABOUT himself, just a little tiny bit, but he still has no alternative name, no memories of being THAT. only memories of being Yugi.
Yugi is offering to share a sense of identity, a sense of REALITY. it's not that he's putting himself first or thinking that he is the most important. he's saying we can share this life. and Yami wants to.
it still feels simpler to think of him as "the spirit of a pharaoh, some other guy" after they, y'know, are told that. but if being a Yugi is what Yami wants... and Yugi is NOT saying "I'm the most important"... then like. it's fine. it's just their dynamic. it should be really sweet. my brain just can't quiiiiiite get it to click yet. maybe one day
oh wouldn't it be so cool to be able to post the remix of the Orichalcos spirit valley duel on the anniversary of my first ygo fic that was literally rewriting the whole Orichalcos drama? I started working on it in mid to late July last year but it was posted Aug 12. that would be neat. perhaps I will try picking away at that one.
it's either that one or the other Orichalcos draft i have that's getting all in Yami's head during the actual Rafael duel and when he actively loses Yugi, since my first one started immediately after he already lost him
GODDD I'm just thinking about my fic and the way the search history is listed in reverse chronological order (is that the right term?? I think so. the most recent is listed first) and the way Yami probably doesn't process that and the way his mental process goes from a somewhat stable question about having another self ("how to talk to my other self") to THEN becoming afraid that he's scaring Yugi and thinking that that's where Yugi is feeling now, instead of the REVERSE order of processing this that Yugi went through — first he was afraid ("hiw to talk to my ogher self") and then he stabilized and he is curious and just wants to learn and connect—
he didn't end in fear, but Yami DID, and THINKS Yugi did aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
New yugioh fanfic about Yami struggling through finding out he might actually not be Yugi, directly inspired by this super amazing art by @rocketbirdie :3
Super cerebral??? is that a good word here?? PURE vibes. also second person POV.
posting a new fic this afternoon :3 something possessed me (ha) (fitting) and now I've got a 2,500 words of very weird and uhhhh. spacey. heady. man I don't know, all the adjectives got reserved for the fic I guess 💀
OMG WAIT I might make this one in second-person POV actually. I've read some INCREDIBLE second-person fics and it fits very well for the "where am I? what's going on?" nature of this piece. much to consider
my writing process is like. scribbling down concepts and feelings and Points, and then randomly will come up with a fully-formed line or paragraph and I'm like. well now I NEED to write the whole thing because damn I want to use THAT
AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE. It does not fulfill exactly what I imagined (I did NOT get the geometry of their hole punch Puzzle chests accurate to what I wanted; I wanted it to be like you're looking down a hallway sorta) but it's got some neat vibes.
Inspired by both @rocketbirdie's art, specifically this one, and my fanfic "destined, doomed, ripped apart."
(Yes it's kinda crunchy, it's meant to be. When it's all pixel-y it feels like the pressure is off, or at least some...)
it's so so fun to see such a great response to this latest fic particularly because it was kinda born out of repurposing a tiny concept and a line that I had written before and really liked, originally intended to be used in my mobium fic, but then I decided the story isn't going that way:
"There's a ripping sensation, like a fistful of grass being torn from the ground, each tiny root snapping"
also just to put it out there, I am a FIEND for comments. I do not care if it's a string of emojis or a 10-page essay, if it's been 5 years or literally 2 seconds since I posted, I treasure and cherish them all. be free. they're often the best motivation in the world.
