#ygo stuff

[strwbrrybnny]

Omg, I'm so glad I got them, they're so cute!! They're pretty well made too!! I'm crying form cuteness overload!!

[laerugo]

had the weirdest vision while watching the nintendo direct today that in another universe, seto kaiba has to give his own similar public presentations for kaibacorp projects and duel disk updates, while yuugi + co are being thoroughly entertained by the chat spamming “blue eyes second printing when”

[risualto]

Spots to Kiss + dealer's choice for Prideshipping, pls?

Hello, dear anon! I assume you sent this in after I revealed my participation in @projsakuraygo, which means you've been waiting an awfully long time. I don't know if you're even still watching for this fill, but I hope you are, and I hope you enjoy it. It's set after DSoD, so there's some very vague spoilers in here...but also please understand that I say fck canon, I do what I want to make my little stories work.

42. a kiss on where the sternum ends [dealer’s choice] + Prideshipping

Atem has been “born,” in a manner of speaking, three times. The first, he carries no memories of, having been a perfectly natural birth in which his infant brain was hardly equipped to encode anything more complex than survival instincts. The second, he recalls distantly and with dread, for there are few things worse than the feeling of being completely unmade and unmoored, barely strong enough to have a sense of what the word “I”means. There were days when Atem had been at his weakest that he had questioned if the experience was worth it.

The third, he knows he will remember, and it burns. Perhaps it’s only because the last time was so frigid—perhaps this isn’t actually scalding heat so much as warmth, since it doesn’t hurt. But it is intense, so much so that it’s just as difficult as the first two times to grasp onto a coherent thought.

The warmth is radiating from somewhere in his torso, and as Atem considers raising a hand to brush over the spot (yes, he does seem to have a body this time, not just a mental projection of something resembling limbs), it all floods back.

“You were right, you know,” Kaiba had said, voice strangely raw. Maybe because the image of their monsters between them was acting as a curtain, but Atem could see his, at least, already fading into golden sparks and then nothing. The shield wouldn’t last. “Yuugi doesn’t need you.”

Atem’s throat felt tight, but despite the stiffness it put into his movements, he nodded. “Yes, Kaiba. I know. That’s why I’m here.” The words were too bitter to sound imperious, and Atem cursed at his own weakness.

The last of the magic faded, field clearing completely, as Kaiba stood across from him, victorious. You don’t either, Atem didn’t say, but the thought still settled over him with the same sort of oppressive weight as his crown.

“You say you know,” Kaiba said, stepping towards him, “but you don’t. Not really. Come on, pharaoh—you’re too smart not to realize it’s never that simple.”

Atem barely remembered to turn away, back towards his throne, before Kaiba had closed the gap between them, and for a breath that was perhaps the most difficult he’d ever drawn, he could swear he heard others. The others, his others, his friends. “Neither of us makes the rules here, Kaiba,” he said. “Do you think you’ll just break the afterlife itself if you dream hard enough?” The sort of sentiment Kaiba would always have pushed back against for its naivete, and yet here he was…

A hand landed on his shoulder, and it did not push Atem down. He turned back to see Kaiba crouching (not kneeling, thank the gods, because Atem wouldn’t know what to do with that in any universe) in front of him, free hand pressing two fingers against the place where the Millennium Puzzle once rested. “I already did,” Kaiba said, blue eyes burning as smugly as the smirk on his face. “It’s your turn, pharaoh.”

Atem could only stand, shocked, as Kaiba replaced his fingertips with his lips. The gesture almost had Atem questioning whether this was real or—or a desperate hallucination—but Kaiba’s expression, the taunting lilt of his voice, the way his eyes were not quite the same blue as the magic of the cards and yet somehow brighter.

Kaiba vanished, and Atem fell, and now here he lays, still feeling the spark of that touch. It’s hard to feel much else, and Atem isn’t certain whether this burn is steady or more a flicker in the wind, until he feels something brush his arm.

“Other—Atem?” says a voice so familiar that it jars Atem’s eyes open. “Oh, my god,” says Yuugi, squeezing Atem’s wrist so tight that Atem can feel him tremble as he reaches for his phone and promptly drops it on the carpet twice before he can manage to do whatever it was he was trying in the first place.

Atem can barely muster the strength to laugh, exhausted as coming back to life has apparently left him, but he manages. It is still incredibly frustrating to be so sluggish, and he pushes through the discomfort to perch up on one arm anyway as he hears Yuugi’s phone start to ring.

“Kaiba, what did you do—” Yuugi starts, equal parts delighted and chastising.

“You could just say I was right,” says Kaiba’s voice, as smug as Atem recalls it, overflowing with confidence. But it’s pleased, too, and that spot just under Atem’s sternum almost fizzes with warmth. He turns his face away.

“So I’ll see you both tomorrow,” Kaiba says, and it is a fact, not a request. Yuugi splutters something—a barrage of questions twisting over themselves, many of which Atem is fairly sure are entirely logical and things he himself would like to ask—but Kaiba cuts him off. “Just…tell him I said, ‘Good game.’ For now.”

“He can hear you,” Yuugi retorts, but the line is already gone, dial tone filling the space. Atem has not missed that, at least.

But the rest… Well. Seems it’s never been about what they need. Certainly not about what they deserve. Atem places a hand over where the sensation of that kiss refuses to be smothered and breathes. This time, perhaps, wanting is enough.

[leonawriter]

Thief King Bakura was probably pretty much my gateway into ‘ok but look at this villain’s motives look at this aspect of them against how the canon source material treats them’ where I took the question, ‘is this really fair, though?’.

His story also really made me question - what is the nature of justice? Is it merely that one person believes they’re right so that means other stances are ‘evil’? How do we ensure that we keep our sense of what is right and wrong not tied to our position in society? How about making sure that any need for vengeance doesn’t make our soul unrecognisable, turning (our view of) justice into something where we don’t care about anything other than hurting someone else?

As well, because I like TK Bakura and Atem both, I think it might also have been my first foray into ‘what would it take for them to be able to get along? And how much communication would be involved, regarding apologies and acceptance of guilt and blame where it rightfully belonged?’.

So, yeah, those characters are always going to have a place in my heart because of how formative they were.

[strwbrrybnny]

Omg, I was having such a bad day, just got home, and my sis was like a package came for you today. I wasn't expecting him till Friday, but look who came early!! I love him!! 🥺

[laerugo]

thinking about yuugi and kaiba creating a “hades” roguelike game but using ancient egyptian mythos about a pharaoh trying to break out of the egyptian afterlife beginning with aaru and traveling through duat (shadow realm) with the use of boons (monsters) the gods send him, all so he can spend a few minutes with his friends each time he makes it to the mortal realm

[laerugo]

you can put one f-bomb in yugioh, where do you put it

[risualto]

For the kiss writing prompt : a kiss on the back of the hand... for Aki and Jack

Hello, hello!  Thank you for asking, and thank you for waiting!  I hope you like this; it was harder to write than I thought because I find Jack to be a pain in the butt even though I like him.  But I enjoyed it.

7. a kiss on the back of the hand + Aki and Jack

“So, were you always such a prince charming?” Aki teased, elbowing Jack in the side as Martha left them to settle in as she ducked into the kitchen to make some tea.

“What,” deadpanned Jack.

Aki’s eyes twinkled, even as the rest of her expression seemed far too innocent for how conniving everyone knew she could be when she wanted.  “With Martha,” she clarified.  “I think it’s really sweet.”

“It’s none of your business is what it is,” Jack said, sweeping his coat behind him as he moved into the room and took a seat on the couch, leaning back against the armrest and crossing his legs.  “No one will believe you if you tell them, either.”

Aki just hummed, going to sit in a nearby armchair. “Who would I tell, anyway? Everyone important to you already knows. Martha, Crow, the kids… Yuusei.”

Jack grit his teeth.  She was right, but that didn’t mean he would have to say so.

“I just think it’s a nice side of you.  That’s all,” she said lightly.  The tone was a shield, though.

…Or, maybe not.  When Jack looked at her, fully intending to deploy the sort of glare that used to have staff tripping over themselves to placate him, he saw that the little smile on her lips was reflected in her eyes.

He didn’t think much of it—that’s what he told himself and what he projected to others, especially since Martha took that moment to come back into the room with a tray full of teacups.  From there, the afternoon was a blur of embarrassing childhood stories from his adoptive mother and a flurry of activity playing and Dueling with the kids.  Most of them had the kind of spark behind their amateurish plays that could, with the right motivation, make them into the kinds of Duelists who could change the world someday, too.

When the day had passed, though, and he and Aki were aboard a helicopter back to the heart of Neo Domino, there was nothing to distract him from that conversation.  From the genuine praise from Aki, which was rare, even now, to the way that her eyes had sparkled with happiness when Jack had again given Martha’s hand a kiss before they left…  A part of him wondered if Aki did this on purpose, since Jack knew that she absolutely had it in her to be so cruel, but that wasn’t fair.  She, like Jack, like so many people since the Zero Reverse incident, had used that sort of cruelty-born-of-apathy as a shield against their ruined world.

And both of them, too, had learned how to live without it.  To choose something kinder.

So, once the helicopter landed and he had disembarked, he turned back to offer Aki a hand down.  Instead of letting go after she thanked him, Jack held her hand lightly between them, leaned over, and pressed the barest kiss over the back of her palm.

The look of surprise on her face (and the blush on Jack’s ears that he would never acknowledge) was entirely worth it, Jack thought, when a smile blossomed in its place.