Wait, was someone actually threatening people over ships? because: 1) I've been concerned PUZZLE will become a target bc they "look alike" plus Atem is technically 5000+ yrs old (even if he doesn't act it/etc); 2) Multishipping is a thing, people, I ship Yugi&Atem with not just each other but multiple others (Polyshipping is a thing, too!) and 3) am I the only one who sees their relationship as kinda being "canon" like...? They could be bi/pan/poly?? (+ I highly doubt Takahashi is homophobic?)
I apologize for taking this long to reply, generally, I tend to stay away from discourse for this very reason. I don’t like bringing drama to any of my blogs but lately, its become such a trend that avoiding it seems almost impossible at times. To answer your question, yes there has been some “problematic” shippers in the puzzleshipping fandom. It’s not nothing sort of new, I been around YGO fandom far TOO long to know this, but it’s become like I said, such a trend that is grossing me out lately enough to speak out.
I will cut the rest because I realize this got too long!
To answer your very first question, I have seen people insult and even yell at others for specific ships, not to a level of other fandoms where Puzzleshippers are telling others to KILL themselves for it but I am afraid it is going to get to that level sooner or later? (I had literally come reblog my previous post saying how I should REMOVE myself from Puzzleshipping tags, in which case they forget to check my blog IS about puzzleshipping? So you have absolutely no right to tell me to go when I ship it but I am expressing my CONCERN for this fandom, mainly this ship because I have seen enough discourse thanks to another fandom I DON’T want this to end this way because one. IT WAS NEVER this way when I was in YGO fandom and two it’s NOT right.) Just because our ship has more canon screentime (well duh given and all) doesn’t automatically make you entitled to be an asshole to someone else who MIGHT not.
In case people forget this show is about FRIENDSHIP, not shipping per say, there might be some romance hints like Yugi crushing on Anzu, and Honda crushing on Miho (in season zero) etc. but that’s just it, that’s the extent of it? There is no shipping at the end game, so everyone is free to ship freely.
Like so many others, (YOU AND I), We are drawn to the softer ships, Yugi and Atem to be more specific. It is something about them that makes us HAPPY, but there is a fine line between what is canon and what is fandom. People seem to cross that line every day. As for the rest of your question, Atem and Yugi might look alike but that was purely because Takahashi wanted it that way. Because he wanted to toy with the idea of a darker theme for original YGO.
Originally it was not going to be about duel monsters, it was going to be Atem playing dark games using Yugi body as a host for it. Likely sort of a demon possessing Yugi? At least that was the original design until his staff made him change it claiming duel monster cards would gain more money. You know what speaks faster than anything else? Selling.
It’s always about toy selling.
To take note as well, Atem may very well be soul wise 3000 years old (I am going by Japanese, not English dub) but he was at the very least sixteen-year-old boy when he died. Giving him literally no room to do anything in his short period of time he was ruling before his father was killed off. That means the entire time he was trapped IN the puzzle, guess what? No social interactions? no skills to improve, he was literally going MAD inside the puzzle, hence why season Zero exists.
Yugi was literally Atem rock, he stables him to be human again. All Atem has known all his life is darkness after he was sealed off, so it means his mind still the mind of the time he died, a sixteen-year-old boy. He took the only option he had, death, by sealing his soul and Zorc inside the items.
Yugi is another who guess what? Was fifteen when YGO started and became sixteen as the series progress. So he and Atem are literally probably only months apart from each other (Yugi being born in June… ?) But I never believe age as a power imbalance because my parents are years apart and they were happily married until my father pass away. They had happy, 24 years of marriage before then.
So really, toxic things can exist within the same age gap, as well as separate, it is the matter of how personality is. People seem to forget this? -shrug-
No, you are not alone in this feeling, I, too, feel they are very close to being a couple if you can factor the fact Atem is… well… dead? If the god’s somehow found or granted mercy enough to give him a body, at the end, Atem would be given a teenage body because it is the way he dies. But like I said.
There is a FINE line between what is canon and fandom.
I don’t know what it is about this generation specifically that feels so self-entitled to things but like yourself, I am also a multishipper.
