#this story never leaves my mind i love talking about it ahhhhh thankyou for this

[sigridhawke]

I'm still totally normal about "Leather and Linen," so I thought I'd ask if you have any headcanons about Yugi as a kid. What was he like growing up? Did he make friends in school? If not, was it for the same reason as in canon (especially since Yami wasn't there), or because he knew something was waiting for him? Was he doodling birds and ankhs in the margins of his class notebooks and assuming it was just because of his grandpa's adventures? Did he know what he wanted to be when he grew up?

We can be totally normal about Leather and Linen together 🤝🤝

I have many headcanons about younger Yugi! A lot of which I never had a place in the main story or the extra ones I have written, but I have thought about Yugi a lot.

(Also I accidentally spiraled with this so please enjoy my small rant about Yugi lol)

Because I wanted Jou, Honda, and Anzu to be older than Yugi in this setting and to help establish the fact they had been working within ‘The Tower’ for a longer period of time they were absent from any of his schooling life. 

Instead Yugi began much like canon Yugi began  as the quiet shy nerd playing games with himself, doodling video game characters in the margins of his book. Ryou joined the class as an exchange student, and the duo hit it off. Bonding over their similar vibes and that’s how they spent most of their high school years. 

When university came around the duo did part ways in a sense. Still keeping in contact just not as often as they pursued their own goals, and then Ryou drops off the radar and Yugi can’t get in contact with him, no one seems to know where he is. His search for Ryou kinda falls down his list of priorities when Grandpa passes away and he ended up dropping out of university to deal with the everything going on emotionally. 

He goes job hunting instead, not really sure if he wants to try and tackle university again just yet and when a dream job at a gaming company comes his way he can’t not go for it. But like Ryou the job offering was a front for The Tower to get their hands on their desired individual to shove them in the Animus and practically break their brains to get information about the Apple of Eden. 

Because he was in a different city at the time, his Mother didn’t know he had gone missing (and since his phone was taken too there was fake texts sent too to keep his location hidden)

A little more on the technical soul stuff below the cut:

Up until being thrown in the Animus (and finding Ryou again in the communal hall of The Tower) Yugi had no obvious indications he held the still wandering soul of Heba. Which made it easier for him initially to separate himself from Heba.

Excluding Yugi, all of the descendents are only descendents. The Animus taps into their genetic memory and plays them like an old video tape over and over until the film breaks down.

Yugi however, is a little different. While it is correct to call Yugi Heba’s descendent, Yugi is also Heba. When Heba finally went to the afterlife to be with Atem (and Mahad) he felt like he could not truly be at peace because he did not destroy the Apple of Eden. After much begging Atem did finally let him go, using his power as Osiris to reincarnate Heba who spends the next 3000 years wandering/waiting until he is reborn as Yugi. 

Yugi holds Heba’s soul yes, but the life in which Yugi is brought up in with his Grandpa and Mother shape the person he became. 

The Animus ‘reawakens’ his memories so to speak and a part of him knows he’s suffering more than he should be with reliving Heba’s memories. His biggest struggle is being torn between feeling like Heba is him, while wanting to hold onto and believe he is still Yugi. Why Heba’s ‘ghost’ brings him comfort is because he can visualize that ‘nagging at the back of his head’ and see Heba as an entity separate from himself. 

It takes him a very long time to come to terms with his sense of self even after the Apple is destroyed. He’s still struggling but making progress with that in the afterlife just as Atem and Mahad are coming to terms with their Heba not being the same Heba they remembered. But that doesn’t stop them all from trying and working towards their deserved peace and happiness within their polycule in the afterlife <3

#leather and linen au #yugioh #yugi mutou #ryou bakura #tags asks and replies #this story never leaves my mind i love talking about it ahhhhh thankyou for this #quoththemaiden