Hi. Been a while.
As you've probably guess, this fic is dead. There's a multitude of reasons for that, but the biggest one is simply that I had no plan. I had ideas in my head, sure, but I had no concrete outline or writing schedule, and after suffering from writer's block for the 6th chapter, things kinda… spiraled.
Ultimately, I waffled about officially declaring this fic dead: I always gave the excuse that I might come back to it someday, but at this point I don't just think that's going to happen. I've felt guilty about leaving you all high and dry for a long time, so I wanted to give everyone who gave this fic a chance the closure they deserve by going over the ideas I had for this story. I owe you all that much.
Overall it was supposed to be a mix of slice of life shenanigans with the deeper plot of the puzzle sprinkled throughout. For the more serious plot, my idea was that Yami was the manifestation of the parts of ourselves we reject, and don't want others to see- the "darkness" in our hearts, negative emotions that we suppress. The backstory of the puzzle would've been that all this excess darkness was sealed away with an equal balance of light, but the darkness eventually began to outweigh the light, and the puzzle had to be broken into pieces to prevent it from being completely overtaken.
Since Yami's tied to Atem, he would be a direct mirror of him, and the more Atem was ashamed of a part of himself, the harder he rejected it, the stronger that trait in Yami would become.
For example, Atem feels guilty about his attraction to Yugi, so Yami reflects that with an unhealthy obsession. Atem likes his skill in games but doesn't want to seem like a brag- Yami is prideful and haughty. Atem believes strongly in justice- Yami delivers disproportionate retribution to those who slight them. You get the idea.
The solution to this would've been acceptance. Accepting the bad and working to be better instead of ignoring it.
I never actually figured out how to make that happen in a satisfactory way, though. I had some ideas that involved the other millennium item wielders (especially Malik and Isis) and a big climactic battle once Yami broke out, but the ideas I came up with were really contrived and kinda cringy so I never actually settled on how I wanted the fic's climax to play out.
Another thing about Yami is that he kind of worked like a jackass genie. He could grant wishes, technically- but he could only do so by causing misery to other people to achieve the result the wisher desired. Like, if you find 20 dollars on the ground it's good for you because you found 20 dollars, but that also means someone else had to lose that 20 dollars for you to find it. Something like that.
When he was much younger and naive-er, Atem had actually made wishes using Yami, but after he realized this consequence (my original idea was that he made a wish that lead to a chain of events that killed his mom) he stopped and decided that if he wanted something, he would work for it with his own power, instead of relying on Yami's power.
And, about Yugi and her connection to the puzzle- so I find this idea really cringy now, but basically, Yugi would've literally been the last piece of the puzzle. As in, it was inside of her soul.
The way I imagine it, Shadi, who didn't want Yami to come to full power, took the last piece uncorrupted piece of the puzzle and made a living doll, and then put the piece inside of that doll, before showing up at Sugoroku's house like "here you're the reincarnation of Siamun so you're trustworthy, take this" and dropping the doll off. Initially the doll would've been completely emotionless, but thanks to Grandpa Moto it would've eventually grown a soul and become Yugi. (The process would've started when he gave the doll her name, since names having power is kind of a big deal in egyptian mythology and the final arc of Yugioh lol)
Because of this, Yugi would've survived having the piece removed, although it would've been really painful because her soul was literally grown around the thing.
Now I'll go over the various ideas for specific scenarios I had in mind for different chapters:
I wanted Yugi to meet Tomoya Hanasaki (a first year in this fic) in the school library, and they would end up hitting it off pretty well. Eventually he actually asks her out and she accepts, while Atem tries very hard not to be weird about it while screaming internally because he knows Hanasaki's not a bad person, but oh my god he is still intensely jealous, while Kaiba munches popcorn and laughs at him for failing to ask Yugi out before a shrimpy, timid kid like Hanasaki did.
What would happen from there was that Hanasaki and Yugi would go to burger world for their first date, and Yugi would discover Anzu's job there, and then the escaped criminal would come in and take Anzu hostage and order Yugi to go get him a drink like in the original story, but then what happens is that Yugi doesn't come back. Instead, the criminal starts talking- to someone that isn't there. At this point Anzu ends up slipping away from him, but he doesn't even notice, and in fact keeps acting as though she's blindfolded right next to him even as she watches the proceedings from several feet away.
Then the one finger battle would play out, but with the criminal alone, talking to air and gesturing with nothing. At the end of the encounter, as he screams about burning to death while not on fire, he ends up collapsing, dead.
When the police arrive, they find Yugi passed out in the kitchen, and conclude that the convict died from a heart attack. Everyone involved in the encounter is pretty shaken, and Yugi, Anzu, and Hanasaki end up going home, with Yugi and Hanasaki admitting that this was a pretty terrible first date, but still deciding to remain in a relationship, while Anzu ends up quitting her waitressing job, and the restaurant closes fairly soon after due to the bad press from the whole affair.
Obviously what happened to the convict was Yami's doing, and Atem is furious when he finds out, but Yami just "hey I did it to save Yugi's life" and Atem ends up stuffing the puzzle away again, horrified by the implications of Yami being able to operate his powers remotely.
What would end up happening to Hanasaki-kun is that his family would end up moving to America for his father's work, and he and Yugi would break off their relationship on good terms because of this.
Most of the other ideas I had were seasonal SoL stuff. The ones I can think of are:
Anzu and Yugi invite Atem to the water park from the ferris wheel bomber chapter (but there's no bomber here this is just fluff). Yugi says the offer is open to Kaiba as well, but he ends up sending Mokuba with Atem instead of attending himself. Most of the chapter would've been Yugi trying to set Anzu and Atem up, and Atem being kind of dense about it. There'd be a part where Yugi and Mokuba go to get some snacks and have a conversation, but I don't remember what it would've been about.
Festival episode! There would've been a summer festival episode, which was just my excuse to dress them all up in yukatas. Atem decides to join Yugi (and Anzu and Joey and Tristan) (yes I'm using their dub names for this write-up, I'm lazy) and actually manages to drag Kaiba along this time. Atem would wear a yukata because I like the idea of him being super into cultural stuff, but the other guys would be in plain clothes. There would be a bunch of game booths at the festival, and Yugi and Atem would get into a friendly (intense) competition over who could win the most prizes. Joey and Tristan are manning a dunk tank, with Joey as the dunk-ee. Kaiba would discover this. Joey promptly regretted all of his life choices.
There was also going to be a halloween party at one point (Ryou would've been part of the group by now) with everyone in costumes. Kaiba brought Mokuba to the party, and Mokuba was Mario while he was Luigi (because it was Mokuba's idea so he let Mokuba be Mario). Joey and Tristan were also dressed as Mario and Luigi, respectively. It was pretty awkward. Since Ryou was there they would've ended up playing Ouija, with Kaiba as the guy who was writing down the letters since he scoffed at the whole thing, and some spooky ghost stuff happens ooooooo (it was Bakura. Bakura swears at them with the weegie board.)
There would've also been a part, probably in the final arc of the story, about Yugi and Anzu talking after Anzu would've confessed to Atem and gotten rejected (and have realized who the person he liked was) where they affirm their friendship and eat ice cream and watch cheesy movies together. IDK it was just important to me to have a scene like that, since a lot of these kinds of stories end up with girls' friendships falling apart because of a boy, and I wanted to make it clear that Anzu and Yugi's friendship was stronger than that, on top of really hating that trope personally. Also because a lot of fics turn Anzu into a raging bitch and I wanted to make it clear that was not the case here.
(For the record Anzu would've been one of the first people to approach Yugi when she was still pretty awkward from having a growing soul as well.)
I've gotten pretty rambly at this point, but anyways, this is what I can remember. I'll probably leave this up for a week or so and then delete the fic, though it will still be available on AO3, albeit orphaned and untagged, so it might be troublesome to find. Thank you for reading, everyone. Sorry I failed to see this story through.