i think the thing for me that ultimately separates yugi’s relationship with yami/atem and the puzzle from ryou’s relationship with yami bakura and the ring is that there was an effort on yugi’s part. he spent eight years putting that thing together.
which when you take puzzleshipping normally doesn’t really mean much. it’s not as if he put it together thinking he would get a headmate out of it. and for aurumshipping that’s kind of just the basis of the relationship. but if you take puzzle’ or aurumshipping in a weirder/darker way, it suddenly becomes this strange time sink. the sunk cost fallacy. there becomes this element of what it was for.
(he spent so long on the puzzle—why did he spend so long on the puzzle? was it just a game? was it a calling, a whisper in the back of his mind, urging him forward through nights with no moon in the sky, twitching in his fingers, leaving him restless when he wanted nothing more than to take a moment and breathe? there’s something haunting him, tucked into his heart and strung through his nerves. he doesn’t know what it is, but he knows where it came from—and yet, he can’t just let the puzzle go. what would he do, break it? no. never. it’s his treasure. even if this isn’t what he put it together for (or was it, the possibility of it, lingering somewhere in his subconscious, knowing, craving this so much it kept him up at night? or was that thought constructed piece by piece as a pyramid slowly revealed its shape? how would he have known?) this is what he has now. this is what he spent all of that time to get.)
whereas there wasn’t that kind of commitment on ryou’s part. i’d say there was on yami bakura’s, in the whole “sealing his friends’ souls in figurines” kind of way? but i guess ultimately bakura’s role in his relationship with the ring just feels a lot more passive than yugi’s with the puzzle, which kind of diminishes the creative potential for me? i guess?
i dunno. if i had to guess most of the horror potential/focus for tendershipping is rooted in the fact that yami bakura and the ring are presented as antagonistic, and that antagonism bleeds into yamiba’s relationship with ryou. and of course the fact that the ring can and has stabbed ryou before. but those are things that have mostly passively happened to ryou, and as far as i see it his relationship to the ring is less of a time sink and more just…time spent? he’s had it for years. one of his only constants. he’s attached.
it’s a fundamentally different relationship. and i think the reason tendershipping is taken in a dark/horror route more often is probably just because that’s…kind of the only route you have to take unless you make yami bakura less horrible. whereas with puzzleshipping, in order to make it not out of character, you have to figure out how to do horror without making yami malicious toward yugi, which is a bit harder.
but putting the puzzle together was a choice. a very long, repeated choice, which yugi had many, many opportunities to back out of. he put his care into it and gave it every reason to care for him in return.
and while yami bakura was an asshole, he was still jumping between hosts, in contact with and in understanding of humanity. all the while the puzzle was hidden away. if the sentient puzzle or ancient spirit which don’t quite understand the concept of modern human affection and morality get a little attached to the boy who put them together and decide to act on it…
well. i don’t really think any malice is required to make that horrifying is all i’m saying.