#bakuras

Both Bakaru figures are actually very similar. I think their biggest difference is that Ryou tends to be altruistic while Bakura tends to be greedy. But both are clever and destructive in their own ways (often self-destructive). 

So you have Ryou shattering his own soul to destroy Bakura’s dice and save his friends in the first RPG (and before that while they fought Zorc in the game, he was converting his own health points into magic in order to protect his friends longer), and at the same time you see Bakura do similar things like stab “himself” to help Marik in Battle City, take over for Ryou so he can absorb Slifer’s blast, and die fighting Yami Marik. The difference between them is Ryou did it for his friends (altruism), but Bakura claims to do it for his goals/plans (selfish/greedy).

However, they’re both clever and one of the reasons I think they wreck themselves so easily is because they often have a back up plan which gives them more confidence. Again, Ryou dies in that first RPG, but he created a copy (white mage Ryou) who gets revived in his body. Bakura dies in Battle City, but he had a copy of his soul in the Puzzle for emergencies (and still gets to come back after Marik forfeits against Yugi). 

So how do you use this to develop their character in a fanfic? In Ryou’s case, the virtue part is easy. He’s polite, he’s loving, he protects his friends. He would never just walk up and slap Atem because it’s funny (Bakura would! but not Ryou), but if you notice before that moment, Atem was being snobby and instead of using Bakura’s name, he calls him a thief. Before that, Yugi had his break down and started crying. There is only so much of “you hurt my friends” that Ryou can put up with. Atem doesn’t even have a good reason for it. He’s not avenging a murdered villages, he’s just feeling sorry for himself, and through out the fic it’s been suggested that he’s been like that since the beginning (so it’s not exactly an impulsive move for Ryou- it was a slow burn anger that finally snapped). Even a polite, loving, nice person like Ryou is going to run out of patience after so much pushing, and that was his moment. 

And currently his goal in Only Human is to seduce Marik, which brings me to another important thing about character development: let your characters fail sometimes! Ryou and Kek’s first attempt isn’t going to work. They’re going to fail, but that’s going to make it even happier latter when they succeed. 

So with Bakura, damn he’s so complex to start with that it really depends on what sort of story you’re writing. I think the “goal” aspect with Bakura is what makes him change the most in a fanfic. So in most fanfics, he loses against Atem, Atem moves on (or maybe it’s like Only Human where Atem’s back, but it’s so obvious that he’s god-protected that there’s nothing Bakura can do about it), Bakura also somehow gets resurrected (with or without Zorc’s influence still corrupting his soul). If Zorc’s influence is still attached to him, he’s going to have a rougher, more sinister character. However, if Zorc’s influence is gone- suddenly Bakura is alive, w/o the goal that’s been his goal for thousands of years, and what the fuck does he do? He needs a new goal, and whatever that goal is will be what defines him as a character in the fic. 

Usually with Bakura, you need to establish at least one social bond. If you’re shipping, that can be a romantic bond, but you can just as easily go with a friendship bond. In fact, even in a romance, it’s a good idea to get Bakura a friend or two *first* and then get him into a romance. And in a romance, the “greedy” part of his character can become fun. Sure, it makes him the kind of person to steal things, and do whatever he wants regardless of the ppl around him, but once he actually likes someone, he can crawl into their lap and become the cuddliest fuck in the world because he *needs all the damn affection he’s never had and he needs it all at once.* (And that’s how cuddle-slut!Bakura can be an in-character thing lol). 

So again, a new goal is going to be what changes Bakura the most. In the zombie fic, his goal is to protect his new family. In Only Human, his goal is split between luring Marik to him (he’s achieved that goal), and coping with the fact that he’s still alive despite having been alive too long (he’s still working on that goal). In Wanted, Bakura’s goal was to pay his rent (by getting a roommate that he doesn’t want to punch). So the goal can be anything from “ending the zombie apocalypse” to “paying rent, bruh.” It doesn’t matter what, just give him something that’s going to make him do things that aren’t… you know, killing the Pharaoh (or do make that the goal, and then let him fail and develop his character that way). 

Good grief, I’m sorry this is an essay. Character development involves a lot of nuance. 

tl;dr characters need virtues (like be protective and clever), and flaws (being self-destructive and/or greedy). They need to goals, but they need to struggle to achieve those goals (don’t let it be easy), and sometimes they need to fail and pick themselves up, dust themselves up, and go for it again, or go for something else. It’s also a good idea to give them something they’re afraid of (Bakura gets a second family- he’s going to be afraid of losing that family). And give them things they love (Yugi loves games, Ryou loves cream puffs, Bakura probably loves sticking a neon loopy straw directly into a pot of black coffee and drink it with a slurp just to piss off everyone else in the kitchen. Give them favorite songs, favorite colors, favorite movies. You *don’t always have to put it in the fic* but know what those things are because it creates a more complex character). The more you build them up in your head, the more you’ll be able to show what kind of a person they are when they react to your plot.