Summary of my replies to reviews for "Return to Romance" Chapter 20
Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I really appreciate it and it was so encouraging to hear from people!
Yami: Getting to know Yami has been an evolution. In my first story, I wrote a pretty perfect Yami and someone commented that Yami wasn’t perfect. That’s probably the most influential comment I’ve ever gotten because it really made me think about Yami’s flaws and limitations and fears - not in a tearing down way - but it just made me much more interested in who Yami was as a person. In Return to Romance, I wanted to write a story here where Yami is prepared to go to the afterlife, but ends up shoved into living, so to speak, with a lot of his conflicts about identity or how to separate from Yugi still unresolved. I kind of see Yami focusing a lot of his anxiety about his identity on the little everyday choices he’s never had to make - like clothes or food, and I wanted to show how the pressure of each little choice was building up inside of him.
Kaiba and Yami: Kaiba and Yami do keep heading for trouble, don’t they? I’ve been trying to up the tension over the last few chapters, because I think the more Kaiba started to want to be with Yami, the more conflicted he’d be about that desire. So by now, Kaiba’s pretty much tied himself into a knot by desperately wanting reassurance and then framing it in a way that sabotages any chance of actually getting it. And until Yami figures out that it’s okay to want different things from Yugi, he’s not in a position to help. So I wanted each chapter to sort of up the ante. Thank you for your faith in my being able to resolve this in a way that’s satisfying and true to the characters. I’ll try my best!
At the same time, when they can get out of their own way, like late at night when Kaiba feels safe enough to talk, they work very well and support each other very much, with Yami giving Kaiba the support and security he needs and Kaiba grounding Yami and accepting him. Now they just have to learn how to do that when it’s not night-time!
Kaiba and cuddling: And yeah, I can see Kaiba being a secret cuddler, like really craving the warmth and intimacy and comfort of cuddling, but only allowing it at night, and then never mentioning it during the day.
Character development/contrast with Yugi and Anzu: Right now, Yugi and Anzu’s relationship is a counterpoint to Kaiba and Yami’s. Yugi’s relationship at this point, to me, is largely idealized. He’s had one date, and most of his advice is based on his totally unrealistic ideas of what he thinks love should be and how relationships should work. A lot of what Yami is feeling is based on his experiences, and - as troubled as the relationship is - his own very understandable feelings aren’t something that shouldn’t be tossed aside because they don’t agree with Yugi’s assumptions of how the world works. And inverting it is something that could easily happen once Yugi and Anzu get passed the first OMG we’re dating feeling. I’m not sure how well Yugi would deal with getting past the initial euphoria that Anzu was with him at all or how he would handle a disagreement - or how Anzu would, either for that matter.
Kaiba, Atem and memories: When Atem is in the past, he meets all these people - and realizes that while they all know him, he has no memories of any of them, It’s really sad, as is how touched he is when he realizes he had friends back then. Kaiba, is of course focusing on the big ticket items because questions of honor and responsibility would be foremost in his mind (and partly because it’s Kaiba, but Yami is also right in that even if he doesn’t remember the details that made up that life, he still feels their absence.
I think there’s a real contradiction with Kaiba - that as much as he looks to the future, he hangs onto the past. I think that’s what Yami was trying to tell him at Alcatraz, that he can’t move forward until he comes to some kind of understanding of his past, that trying to bury it just resurrects it as a living force all the more.
Parallels with Yugi: I got a comment that Kaiba’s day and night selves parallels the change from Yugi to Yami in the early duels! I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but that’s absolutely right. I was thinking about Kaiba having managed to find a space where he felt safe enough to reveal himself in a way he wasn’t able to, and probably hadn’t been able to since he’d assumed responsibility for Mokuba that was completely at odds with his perception of himself. I really loved your interpretation that this matches Yugi and Yami.
Thanks for commenting!
The link to Chapter 21 at FFNet is here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11040748/21/Return-to-Romance
The link to Chapter 21 at AO3 is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3341984/chapters/16393795
This entry was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html There are
comments on the original post.
Yami: Getting to know Yami has been an evolution. In my first story, I wrote a pretty perfect Yami and someone commented that Yami wasn’t perfect. That’s probably the most influential comment I’ve ever gotten because it really made me think about Yami’s flaws and limitations and fears - not in a tearing down way - but it just made me much more interested in who Yami was as a person. In Return to Romance, I wanted to write a story here where Yami is prepared to go to the afterlife, but ends up shoved into living, so to speak, with a lot of his conflicts about identity or how to separate from Yugi still unresolved. I kind of see Yami focusing a lot of his anxiety about his identity on the little everyday choices he’s never had to make - like clothes or food, and I wanted to show how the pressure of each little choice was building up inside of him.
Kaiba and Yami: Kaiba and Yami do keep heading for trouble, don’t they? I’ve been trying to up the tension over the last few chapters, because I think the more Kaiba started to want to be with Yami, the more conflicted he’d be about that desire. So by now, Kaiba’s pretty much tied himself into a knot by desperately wanting reassurance and then framing it in a way that sabotages any chance of actually getting it. And until Yami figures out that it’s okay to want different things from Yugi, he’s not in a position to help. So I wanted each chapter to sort of up the ante. Thank you for your faith in my being able to resolve this in a way that’s satisfying and true to the characters. I’ll try my best!
At the same time, when they can get out of their own way, like late at night when Kaiba feels safe enough to talk, they work very well and support each other very much, with Yami giving Kaiba the support and security he needs and Kaiba grounding Yami and accepting him. Now they just have to learn how to do that when it’s not night-time!
Kaiba and cuddling: And yeah, I can see Kaiba being a secret cuddler, like really craving the warmth and intimacy and comfort of cuddling, but only allowing it at night, and then never mentioning it during the day.
Character development/contrast with Yugi and Anzu: Right now, Yugi and Anzu’s relationship is a counterpoint to Kaiba and Yami’s. Yugi’s relationship at this point, to me, is largely idealized. He’s had one date, and most of his advice is based on his totally unrealistic ideas of what he thinks love should be and how relationships should work. A lot of what Yami is feeling is based on his experiences, and - as troubled as the relationship is - his own very understandable feelings aren’t something that shouldn’t be tossed aside because they don’t agree with Yugi’s assumptions of how the world works. And inverting it is something that could easily happen once Yugi and Anzu get passed the first OMG we’re dating feeling. I’m not sure how well Yugi would deal with getting past the initial euphoria that Anzu was with him at all or how he would handle a disagreement - or how Anzu would, either for that matter.
Kaiba, Atem and memories: When Atem is in the past, he meets all these people - and realizes that while they all know him, he has no memories of any of them, It’s really sad, as is how touched he is when he realizes he had friends back then. Kaiba, is of course focusing on the big ticket items because questions of honor and responsibility would be foremost in his mind (and partly because it’s Kaiba, but Yami is also right in that even if he doesn’t remember the details that made up that life, he still feels their absence.
I think there’s a real contradiction with Kaiba - that as much as he looks to the future, he hangs onto the past. I think that’s what Yami was trying to tell him at Alcatraz, that he can’t move forward until he comes to some kind of understanding of his past, that trying to bury it just resurrects it as a living force all the more.
Parallels with Yugi: I got a comment that Kaiba’s day and night selves parallels the change from Yugi to Yami in the early duels! I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but that’s absolutely right. I was thinking about Kaiba having managed to find a space where he felt safe enough to reveal himself in a way he wasn’t able to, and probably hadn’t been able to since he’d assumed responsibility for Mokuba that was completely at odds with his perception of himself. I really loved your interpretation that this matches Yugi and Yami.
Thanks for commenting!
The link to Chapter 21 at FFNet is here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11040748/21/Return-to-Romance
The link to Chapter 21 at AO3 is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3341984/chapters/16393795
This entry was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html There are
comments on the original post.