my itemswap ishizu! i decided to indulge myself and bring back "naomi"-- i definitely wasnt the first person to come up with a yami ishizu, but when i was 12 i decided to call her naomi because of the one yugioh game that called her that, and she proceeded to live in my head rent free for a couple of years
story + design run down below cut
naomi is the product of itemswap ishizu using the rod on herself to chisel off inconvenient emotions (see: how the rod can be used to split mariks soul across hosts and rip ka monsters out of people by set) like guilt or pity or indignation in order to protect her brother and the pharaoh (ie using the ability to control minds in heinous ways). eventually all these little scraps are Not So Little and form something akin to a consciousness of her own. im not entirely sure how/when to do the emergence but unlike yami malik or the ghosts she takes a name of her own as an act of self-determination and wants to assert herself as a person through a variety of means ranging from claiming the tombkeepers birthright because shes the eldest (ishizus envy of marik) to turning on tkb (resentment of duty) while similar to ymarik in that she can be a bit of a loose cannon, i think the circumstances of her existence greatly soften the blow in the sense that she also carries ishizus sympathy for others and altruistic willingness to die for those she loves. that being said, she can also be a lot more contradictory and conniving than he is.
naomi is not responsible for their fathers death. she wasnt "born" yet. ishizu did that after he took the last piece of the puzzle from marik after he defied his punishment of odion, in order to retrieve it and give it to him. the guilt and conflicting feelings about it are what ishizu first scrapes off her own brain like burnt cheese on a stove that begins forming the basis for naomi
design wise her outfit takes elements from canon + priest set (since isis now takes that role) and the hair looking like wings 1) resembles the rod 2) resembles obelisk 3) resembles wings a la the myth of isis the goddess bc i want to tinker with isis / osiris / anubis symbolism w the ishtars she took off the hair bangles as a way of lashing out at the past and being forced to assume the role of her mother. lots of tradition conflicts in this one. hence also why she assumes the kohl of the heir-- asserting her birthright as the eldest
her fixation on personhood comes from "you cant just make me and treat me like scraps when i never even asked to be alive" & a desire to prove she doesnt need someone else to give her the right to live. which of course correlates to. well. coughs abd looks at the panel abt ishizus birth jungian shadow ahit
and unlike ymarik who was destroyed as a representation of letting go of the burden of anger and hatred the conclusion to their little arc is about reunification and acceptance but thats wip













