Vatheon Application

[puzzle_king]

[ Personal DW ] : obscuredtempest
[ Age ] : 24
[ Timezone ] : Central US
[ Other Characters ] : Peony Upala Malkuth IX

[ Character's Name ] : Atem
[ Character's Age ] : 18
[ Series ] : YuGiOh!
[ Canon Point ] : Post-series

[ History ] :
[Name changes: Joey = Jounouchi, Tea = Anzu, Tristan = Honda, Ishizu = Isis, Yami Yuugi = Other Yuugi, Yami Bakura = Bakura, Marik = Malik, Ishtar = Ishtal; Serenity = Shizuka, Mai Valentine = Kujaki Mai, Duke Devlin = Otogi Ryuuji, Odion = Rishid; Slifer the Sky Dragon = Osiris, Destiny Board = Ouija Board, Dark Magician (Girl) = Black Magician (Girl), uh... If I miss one, I'll add it later. I think Mahad in the English and Mahado in the Japanese is meant to be Mahaad. I will... probably go back, take out the links, and rewrite all of this later while it chills in my journal.]

Yuugi spent eight years working on a puzzle that no one could solve. The puzzle's pieces kept shifting as if to spite those who tried. Yuugi's success revealed the puzzle to be shaped like a pyramid, and one piece held not the wedjet but something a little different that identifies the puzzle as one of the Millenium Items. This freed the spirit trapped within, but the spirit possessed no memories of its life before being trapped. In fact, it took on all of Yuugi's memories, believing itself to be Yuugi. ...Or at least another Yuugi.
From that point, generally no one messed with Yuugi. When they did, bad shit went down.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Duelist_Kingdom_%28arc%29 - Yuugi, along with Jounouchi (who Yuugi's given one of his star chips to), Anzu, and Honda (both of whom sneak on board) head off to Dueslist Kingdom via ship. An unfortunate encounter results in Yuugi losing his strongest monster, Exodia. On the island, Yuugi and Jounouchi duel their way through, though Yuugi isn't exactly the one dueling. The spirit of the Puzzle, the Other Yuugi, rises to the challenge. Bakura Ryou, a classmate, also carries a Millenium Item--the Ring. The spirit residing within it pulls them into a Shadow Game, a game that uses the players souls as a reward. The Other Yuugi is victorious, but only with Ryou's help. The group carries on to face Pegasus J. Crawford, host of the event, and encounters Kaiba Seto along the way. And man is he a douche. But he's trying to get his little brother, Mokuba, back. Mokuba's also trying to get his brother back at one point. Other Yuugi gets annoyed that Crawford's guys are using a fake Seto. Screw that, that's dumb. When he finally faces Pegasus J. Crawford, they find out he has a Millenium Item, too. Just not one with a spirit in it. It lets him read people's minds, so Yuugi and Other Yuugi formally meet in order to formulate a plan and keep Pegasus from kicking Other Yuugi's ass quite so much. So they switch back and forth by turn, eventually getting dragged into another Shadow game by an uppity Pegasus. Yuugi can't take it, but the last card he places is the card that brings them to victory.
The prizes are the taken souls, and Yuugi gives Jounouchi the prize money so he can use it for his little sister. [/Duelist Kingdom]

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Legendary_Heroes - Then there's a stunt in a virtual reality world Kaiba gets himself stuck in and it's up to Yuugi, Jounouchi, Mai (a duelist met in DK who left an impression), and Mokuba to save him. This is all thanks to some pretty terrifying employees, mind you, that Seto wanted to fire.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeon_Dice_Monsters (History) - Young game designer versus the King of Games... Sounds legit. Is pretty legit, aside from the bruise to Jounouchi's pride.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_City - Wherein Malik is a brat and Shaadi is a misleading douchebag.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Waking_the_Dragons - Gay gay gay gay gay. Wherein Atem has a mental breakdown because Yuugi's been taken away fom him. "Partner". Platonic. Sure.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Grand_Championship - We're penniless and need to get home; sure we'll help you, Kaiba. And then Man!Utena and viruses and Kaiba Corp.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Dawn_of_the_Duel - This is not Atem's history. This is Atem's memory, and therefore biased. It is also Bakura's game rather than history, so there are numerous and intense differences between the two.

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/The_Ceremonial_Battle -Atem returns to the Afterlife after a ceremonial duel that symbolizes his death.

While the combined efforts of the Thief and Zorc in the Ring conveyed one history, but that was not the memory of the pharaoh. That was, instead, what the spirit wanted him to believe and to see--perhaps to understand the plight of the Thief and his people due to the pharaoh. Or perhaps the pharaoh's own conscience twisted things into his favour. Whatever the case, that wasn't history.

That was a game.

To the victor go the spoils, and so too goes the hand that pens history.

Atem's life was not so black and white.

The village of Kul Elna was sacrificed to create the seven Millenium Items that would turn the tides of war at the behest of a twisted man, who spoke reassuring words to the then-pharaoh. Atem was raised in this war-time, and he learned cruelty. He was harsh, spoiled, arrogant, and selfish--far from the youth the Shadow Game displayed.

Atem was required to sacrifice his council--Set, Mahaad, Isis, Kalim, Siamun, Shaada--and himself in order to seal Zorc into the seven Millenium Items, the only means of defeating him. The thief responsible for unleashing the god was trapped in the Ring in the process, and Atem in the Puzzle.

[ Personality ] :
Atem is a charismatic, sharp, and actually fairly introverted young man. He is clever and confident, but sometimes conceited and still caught up in his own views of justice. He's learned, after spending three years with Yuugi, and learned compassion and patience. As this couples with his memories, he has grown exponentially since being freed from the Puzzle where he first thinks he is Yuugi.

At first, it's questionable if he even cares about Yuugi's friends, but he proves over time that he does. It's in his own way, his own kind of protectiveness, but at first it really is just because they're Yuugi's friends and not his. They become important to him as well, though he still shies away from their help and shows his fondness for them in small ways.

He prefers to solve his problems on his own, and when he's stuck he might ask his partner for help, but no one else. He doesn't like not being in control of a situation, and he feels that giving up and asking for help would be giving up control as well.

Yuugi is the single most important person to Atem. His heart breaks and he panics when Yuugi's taken away from him in the Orichalcos arc. It takes being punched in the face for him to just shut up about it.

He's also pretty selfish, and sometimes a little spacey. He's on a date with Anzu and all he can talk about is Yuugi this, Yuugi that. He doesn't always pick up on what he should, as a general rule. Some things don't come quickly to him, particularly those that involve other people. Atem has a problem with being laser-sighted, too, and doesn't always see the bigger picture around his ultimate goal. This is particularly true when it comes to dealing with people he's angry with.

One of his mixed points is that Atem is deceptively caring. He can seem very caring, but at times this is due to Yuugi caring instead of himself. In other words, he cares because Yuugi cares. Other times, this manifests in him caring more than he lets on. Kaiba's a good example of this--he actually does respect the other man to an extent, though he certainly shows no outward signs of this.

Atem vehemently believes in Yuugi's own strength, pointing out numerous times that Yuugi possesses strength in his tenderness. To be kind takes far more strength than to be vengeful or cruel. It's easy to give into those, but to maintain that kindness? He admires Yuugi for it.

Despite being pharaoh, Atem isn't exactly... Regal. He holds himself with confidence and superiority, but he's more apt to be a lazy speaker and very loose with his words, and probably otherwise informal. He'll be regal when he thinks the situation calls for it, but that isn't likely to occur. This leads into the odd moment of entitlement--something that's been worked on since his time with Yuugi, but it still crops up now and again.

[ Strengths/Weaknesses ] :
+ Atem is confident and sure of himself as a general rule. It takes a lot to knock him off balance from this.
+ Morale raiser
+ He's effectively lived two lives, possessing all of Yuugi's memories up until they parted ways as well as his own from his life as pharaoh. As such, he has the collective wisdom and experiences, which helps him to handle strange situations. Not much help with Vatheon, though.
+ Independence is important to Atem, and while he used to be very dependent on Yuugi, the boy taught him to be able to hold himself together without anyone else. It was a hard lesson learned because Orichalcos. Oh god, Orichalcos. At this same time, he learned the value of treating his duel monsters with respect.

- Conceited and prideful. No matter how much he's grown, Atem will still be faced with these two vices. Self confidence often times bleeds over into arrogance, and he will suffer for it. In this same vein, he uh... Has gotten better about speaking too arrogantly, but don't expect him to be wholly polite. He still has a superiority thing.
- Introversion isn't a weakness in some cases, but it can be for Atem. He doesn't like to share his problems, and he'll withdraw from doing so. He gets stubborn about this and won't share vital information sometimes.
- Atem has two different views of justice: what he saw as pharaoh and what he saw with Yuugi. If he's unhappy enough (or, really, feels as though he's been truly offended or scorned), he'll lean towards the more violent and definite justice executed by the pharaoh.
- He can get... clingy. Sometimes even with a possessive undertone, which can prove problematic. It isn't intentional, but he's not very good at being open with people so it manifests like this. The occasional attention-whoring is also a factor.

[ Other Important Facts ] :
YuGiOh! generally broke Egyptian history and mythology. If he meets real-world-style Egyptians or anyone who knows about real-world Egyptian history, he will be very confused.

Atem carries some features very distinct from Yuugi, which I don't think the anime or comic demonstrates very well because of style. Other than narrower eyes, better built body, and a different colour palette (red hair and eyes as opposed to Yuugi's purple, and tanned skin to Yuugi's nerdpale), his nose, lips, and jaw are different in shape from Yuugi's.

He will have no idea what you're talking about if you call him "Yami" for whatever reason that might come up. As that's a dub-coined term and I'm not playing dub-verse (because there's enough story differentiation for me), he's never been known as that. Just "Other Yuugi", "Nameless Pharaoh", and "Atem".

I kind of blend anime and manga for Atem. Just a little, mostly with undeclared things in the anime, and leaning predominantly on the anime for source. The anime just forgets things, sometimes.

[ Sample ] :
Atem couldn't remember the last time he'd been soaked from head to toe. He could remember the last time Yuugi was--diving over the side of the ship sailing for Duelist Kingdom to get Jounouchi, but not himself. Tan hands wrung the water out of his cloak, but his clothing would have to wait for now. He did his best, though. This was really, really unpleasant. If he'd still been with Yuugi, he mused with a small smirk, he'd have retreated by now. Sorry, partner. He sighed, smirk slipping into a smaller, fond smile. Partner... He wondered how the Japanese was doing, not being able to do much more than wish to see him since he'd passed through the door into the Afterlife. He didn't regret his decision, but at the same time it would be a lie to say he didn't dearly miss Yuugi.

Pulling himself together again, Atem lifted his chin as he strode through his new whereabouts. There were people wandering through, a series of fountains, a... glowing blue thing. Coral, his mind supplied from a memory of one of Yuugi's homework assignments. But did coral glow? He frowned, approaching it warily.

"Have I been pulled into another world? Just when I'd gotten settled, too." Annoying. "Mana's going to be disappointed." His magician's apprentice was so excitable, and he was sure she'd spread the news like wildfire. It was going to be his sealing within the Puzzle all over again. "Just without my partner."

It was okay, though. He'd like to see Yuugi again, like to be able to talk to him, tell him about the Afterlife and everything--everything, but Yuugi had his own life to live. He didn't need to be caught up in Atem's continual temporal misplacement. At least he had all his memories this time around; it would be a pain in the ass to try to find them wherever he was now. It almost looked like the monster world, or maybe this was Atlantis? It looked pretty much like it was underwater, and very blue.

What would Yuugi think of this place? He probably wouldn't find out. The thought made his heart sink a little, but he hadn't expected Yuugi to be here, anyway. No sense in it. Better start exploring, then.

[ Questions? Comments? Concerns? ] :Uuuuuuuhm... I j--Uh. Gamer's pride?