Yugioh: Worlds Collide - Author's Notes

So ends my Yugioh crossover story, though really it wasn't so much of a crossover with MLP, but more of an original story that had MLP characters. But I digress. Anyways, now that the story is done, it's time to answer some of your questions you have involving this story and give you guys some behind the scenes info. Now I've PM tons of people that were fans of this story if they had any questions they want answer about anything when it came to working on this piece of fiction. The response I got was a lot. Seriously. Now granted I can't answer each one of them, so I've decided to write them all down and put them in a hat and draw out questions. So again I apologize if I don't answer a question you specifically wanted, but hopefully you'll be pleased with the questions that I pull out.

Now before we begin, the first question that I will answer that's not part of hat is one that I know is the primary one. And that is: How/What/ Why did I do this story?

Answer: I was thinking about Yugioh when I was reading some stories on Fimfiction. Eventually, I started to think, why not try creating a story that has Yugioh and the characters of MLP playing the game. Why not try my hand at writing a story given what writing skills I have and see if I can put together something that if any, a few people might like. Safe to say, that a lot of people enjoyed what I made. Also, I've watched Yugioh growing up so it's been one of the few things that has been with me my whole life. And to be honest, writing this story really made me fall in love with the game once more. Another thing was that it was constantly in my mind and bothering me that I just had to write it down and get it out. In fact, believe it or not, the duel with Isaac and Sunset at the Fall Formal was the first thing that I had thought of and wrote down before ever writing the other chapters. So that tells you how invested I was to making this story the best it could be.

Now with that major question out of the way, time to draw some slips of paper and answer some questions. So, again, apologize if there was a certain question that you were hoping that I didn't answer. Now time to draw... some questions. Here we go, actually reaching into the hat. Here we go first one.

Question: What was the reasoning behind giving the characters certain decks?

Answer: A good question to start off with. So, why did the characters get the decks they were assigned? Let's start with Fluttershy. You all know her and her personality, not to mention her love for animals. So it only made sense to give her a Beast-type deck. Now in the beginning, I was thinking of giving her a Fluffal/Frightfur deck, only cause I didn't know of any strong Beast-type monsters off the top of my head. But after looking up and rewatching some episodes of all the series, I saw that there were some potential options. So as you can tell, I knew that I wanted to give her Thunder Unicorn, Voltic Bicorn, and Lightning Tricorn, since it fits with the theme of her Equestria counterpart being an equine. From there, I looked up on the Yugioh wiki site to find duelists who had beast cards in their deck throughout all the different series and the cards they used and low and behold I found good picks. Ronin Raccoon being a good Xyz monster and easy for her to summon, and Master of Oz being a fusion monster that was a beast. So overall, Beast monsters are actually pretty good and was surprised by how many cards could work with them to make a deck. And Fluttershy sure showed it, also that she wouldn't necessarily be the weakest member of the group, since she can hold her own with the cards that make up her deck.

Moving on, Applejack. Farm girl, loves to handle things with her own two hands. Likes to get down and dirty if need be. So that meant, for her deck, I needed to pick either something plant-based or ground/earth. Not I didn't go for the full plant based theme, since again Fluttershy could be made the connection with nature, where as Applejack would be more to earth itself. So after some digging, no pun intended, I settled on giving her Predaplants, since I could see Aj being a fusion summoner. Now, of course her two dragons, Starving Venom and Greedy Venom Fusion Dragon aren't Predaplants themselves, but when looking up the archetype, the deck lists them, so I added them. Also deciding Aj's deck was also vital for another person's deck, which we'll get to in a bit.

Rarity. What other deck would our favorite fashionista/drama queen even use? If Rarity were to play Duel Monsters, you know the only deck that she would like is the Crystal Beast. Maybe Gem-Knights, but she's also a cat person and the Crystal Beast have two cats as well as other animals that are fluffy. So it was clear that this was the one true deck for Rarity to have as a duelist. Cause like they say, "Jewelry is a girl's best friend" and Rarity herself said it, she likes accessories that are functionable. Not to mention her Crystal Beasts are stylish when they battle. The only challenge was finding a way for her to summon Rainbow Overdragon since it was a fusion monster for the deck's archetype and not many people know about it. So I figured out that part easy, since Rarity usually summons it to attack and then clear the field so that she can use the custom card to bring out her regular dragon to finish her opponents off.

Rainbow Dash, now this is the one that was dependent on Aj's deck. Cause as you know, these two have a rivalry that's legendary. Always trying to figure out who the better person is in terms of strength, athletic prowess, etc... So off the bat, I gave RD an Ultra Athlete(U.A) since that's what she is. But as the first few chapters were going by, I was looking up some other decks and cards for opponents, when I came across Speedroids. And I knew, that it would be not so much of a crime, but at least giving her some other cards that fit her personality. So low and behold, I added them into her deck for her to use in later chapters and it provided a good mix and match for me when writing duels involving her. Also, cause I need to keep that rivalry with AJ, which is the reason why I gave her Clear Wing Synchro Dragon and eventually Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon to combat hers whenever they bicker.

Pinkie Pie. Granted our party girl can be a bit... zany at times. That's putting it lightly, so it made sense to give her a deck that fit her personality. So obviously she would have a Toon deck. But that alone was tough cause, while they may be fun, they are impractical. Not having much cards to support their archetype, plus if I had Pinkie going against someone who wasn't prepared for her monsters, she would win the duel in like 3-4 turns. Meaning I wouldn't have much to write about. So, if I was going to have her not only be competitive when it came to a duel, but show off her skills. It meant giving her an extra deck, she's the only one who I decided on giving two decks for the reasons I stated. So that lead me to do some more searching and eventually came upon Madolche. Now I didn't know what they could do, nor did I even know they existed. So I looked them up and began to read their effects and how the archetype functions. It took a while to understand, but eventually I made the connection it's like ingredients you use to make food. You can use them to create something and then recycle them to make something new. Plus it had some Xyz monsters, which would help Pinkie to not be left out of not having Extra Deck monsters. So the decision was made to give her the second deck so that she could actually duel and showcase her skills while also giving me more stuff to write about.

Sunset Shimmer. Now this was a hard one. Cause up until the aftermath of the Fall Formal, I just had her using any made up cards to signal how she was using magic to win all of her duels and be undefeated. Now I knew that once she was defeated and reformed, I was going to have her use a regular deck. The question being: Which one? And to be honest, I had no clue. In fact, I literally didn't know what to do or give our bacon-haired girl. So while I was working on Chapter 23, I decided to just simply give her one card to act as her signature monster, similar to how I did Isaac. So I started thinking about Sunset, okay many people compare her to a phoenix, phoenix meaning fire. And eventually, I landed on simply giving her Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Now, I simply left it there for the chapter, but once I saw the comments on that chapter and how well it went over with you guys. I knew, that I had struck gold unintentionally. So I looked up the archetype and got to reading their effects, and I knew that this was the one to give our girl. Plus there was a saying that resonated with me: "While the white dragon represents power, the black dragon represents potential". And potential, Sunset has cause even without magic, she's still a damn good duelist and a badass. As evidenced by how she can hang with Isaac on the dueling field and is sort of on the upper tier list when it comes to the whole group. So while it may have been on a whim, I ran with the idea and it was a good profit. Sometime you just throw shit at the wall and see what's sticks and this was one of them. The only thing I changed were the Gemini monsters in the archetype since it would be easier on my part to make them effect monsters and cause the show never once showed off a proper Gemini summoning for new fans getting into the show. Plus, it had monsters for each summoning method, which I think Sunset would know how to do given she's a good duelist.

Twilight. Again, self explained. Pony counterpart, unicorn/alicorn. Special talent: Magic. So of course it made sense for her to have some sort of Magician deck. The biggest thing was figuring out which one, cause I could have had her be like Isaac with a variety, but I wanted to distinguish the two. So I then started to find words that describe magic and eventually landed on spell. So I looked up the Spellbook archetype and right away I knew that it was the one for her. Not to mention, her pony counterpart having a knack for magic, means of course, Twilight would have a lot of spells she could activate at anytime. So when it came to giving her custom cards, it was easy since most of them are labeled as "Spellbook of...", so that means I could attach any word to the end of that like, Defense, Penetration, Immunity, etc... It was easy to come up with so many spells she would have in her deck. Which also led me to giving her Dark Red Enchanter since everytime a spell is played it would power up, and Twilight loves magic so it would fit her playstyle while boosting up her own monster to great strengths. I also gave her those six Gadget monsters to highlight her love for science and inventing things.

Now as for Isaac. This one was probably the one that I had the most influence on, being that I actually have a Dark Magician deck myself in real life. Plus being that Dark Magician was and still is my favorite card from a protagonist stand point, plus there is so many support for the monster as well as Dark Magician Girl, so this one was the one that sort of reflected the deck I had. Now granted there were some custom cards that Isaac uses, but for the most part, the monsters and spells/trap cards he uses are ones that I have.

So there you go, that's the reason behind each person getting the deck they had. Moving on to another question, reaching into the hat.

Question: How far ahead do you think/plan chapters? Is there always a direction you want to go in?

Answer: A good question, so to start off, before this story was ever approved for the site, I was already 6-7 chapters in. So by the time it did get release, I was well ahead in terms of writing. And from there, I just kept on writing non-stop. To the point that when Chapter 5 was published, I was already writing the Friendship Games story arc. So yeah, I planned that far ahead. Eventually, as I started to think of things and take some time to slow down and not burn myself out, that number began to get shorter and shorter, that by the time we reached sort of the last 3/4 of this story, I was but 10-12 chapters ahead. And of course, the ones that were long in words, did require more time to write. To put it into perspective, from the time I write a chapter and when it gets published is about 2 weeks or so. So taking that into consideration, I would sometimes write chapters that wouldn't be published until like a month later.

I guess I was that passionate into making this story good that I kept on writing, also because I didn't want to leave you guys hanging. I wrote so many chapters ahead because in the case that I'm gone for a certain reason, I don't make you guys wait too long in fear that you would lose interest. So I pushed myself to making sure that I had extra content ready to go to please you guys. Maybe I should have toned it down, but I was just so invested in this project that I put all my focus into it. And I'm glad I have something to show for it, they say if you love to do something, you do it to the best of your ability and that's none truer than with this story. Going forward with stories, the plan is to write a small bunch of chapters together and then taking a small break so that way I can relax and do other things to take my mind off of writing.

As for certain directions, well obviously there were ideas and arcs that I wanted to do like Friendship Games, trip to Equestria, etc... So yes, at times there were certain things I wanted this story to have. For example, the final arc with Starlight, that was something I thought of at the very beginning when writing this story. Yeah, that far. Similar to how I started the Equestria story arc, I was already thinking about the next one which was introducing the students the girls would teach. The challenge for things like this was figuring out how I was gonna get there and planning a roadmap so that I can figure out what chapters I wanted to talk about in between to help us buy time till we get there. Also, there were times I had nothing else I could think of so I just hot shotted an idea I wanted to talk about. An example being Isaac's 18th birthday, that chapter I was hoping to put it off for a bit longer, but when I finished the previous chapter before, at the time I didn't have anything else I could come up with. And that was the only thing I had on my mind, so I decided to just write it then and there. And it helped me, cause then it allowed me to come up with new stuff from the fallout of that chapter. So majority of my chapters and ideas, I did plan out with somethings just happening when I had nothing else to think of to delay the central themes.

Next one.

Question: Do you plan out each and every duel that you write?

Answer: No. Apart from the ones that are references to the different series that take place in the shows. I don't have them plan out apart from who the winner is. To give you an example, if I were to write a duel between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, I would just pull up their archetype, pull up the Yugioh Wiki for all anime cards that don't have a TCG counterpart or are written differently from their real life, the card database, and just go from there. I would literally just play it by what I think would be the optimal move each person would make in the scenario and just go from there. Just playing whatever card I saw first and going from there, not something worthwhile, but it was just how I handled writing the duels. Now once I got used to seeing their decks over and over, I then started to do tactics that would be considered standard if they were to play it against anybody. But most of the time, I just think of it on a whim and roll with it.

Question: What lead me to the romantic decision?

Answer: Oh, boy. This is a good and juicy question that many want answered. Well, if you must know, the decision to have a romantic interest was something that I didn't focus too much on at first. I will say, that when it came to the girls having a crush on Isaac, the reason Pinkie acted more like a little sister rather than a potentially love interest was because of my personally prefer. Oftentimes people ask me, hypothetically, would you see any of the girls as a love interest. And my response would be yes to all of them, except Pinkie. To me, I just see her as something of a sibling. So that option was the only thing I had a direct control over. The rest of the girls, well really, I didn't pick. See with so many options it was hard to pick which one to have as Isaac's girlfriend, since they all could be made a case to be with him. So as crazy as it sounds, I literally put all their names on a wheel and spun as each time it would generate one of the girl's names. The reason I did this was to avoid any unfair bias that I might get from people who read the story and commented and they think "that I choose this person over another cause I'm the writer and my choice is the only one that matters". So I decided to be fair and spin a wheel to get a good outcome in who would be the lucky girl. After countless spins and time, I had the final results and the percentages. And to my shock, Twilight was the name that came up the most with a 50.7%, Applejack being the second highest and Sunset being the third. The lowest one was sadly, Rarity. But now looking at how it turned out, it kind of makes sense that Twilight would be the one to be Isaac's girlfriend.

Compare the two of them, they are fit for each other. A nerdy girl who love books and is practical, with a boy who has a passion and drive for something that he loves. Twilight being calculating and logical in a duel; Isaac being about heart, courage, and playing because he loves the game. That pairing was sort of served to me on a silver platter, so in a weird way, fate was telling me that Isaac and Twilight were destined to be the main couple of the story. And it worked out, so that by the time I came to the end of the chapter about Isaac's birthday, that was when I started to go all in with the romance of this story. Then the next chapter happened, and from there, boom! People liked the pair and they also saw the connection between the two. So I made the decision to have them as the main love interest and ran with it, and it was the right choice based on how the final chapter was focused on them and how the ending of the story shows the two of them being together. So that's why Twilight ended up being the one, but as I said before. Each of the girls could be made a case for being Isaac's girlfriend, I guess it's just a matter of, would it make as much sense as to how Twilight fitted that role? Something for you guys to think about.

Question: Did writing this story make you have a better understanding of the show and its different series?

Answer: Yes. See as much as I can sit here and say, oh, I'm just writing stuff and looking up cards. It's more than that, I was also watching the different shows. But this time, I was looking at them with a more critical eye. As a kid and people who just watch a show, they watch it without thinking too much. Cause they're so invested by what they see, that they don't know why they see. This was research, believe it or not. I was looking at different duels and cards that certain characters and figuring out why they did what they did in the given situation. It was looking at a character and thinking about their mindset on what they were thinking.

Also, I now understand what it means to actually be a real-life card designer. Being able to come up with cards that not only have to be used by the dueling community, but to make sure that they are original and not fully copy and paste of other cards, and making them not broken. I understand the hell they go through with coming up with stuff to produce. Coming up with names for custom cards is hard enough, figuring out what they are suppose to do and how they function is another tall task. So once again, I give props to the people of Konami who have to design cards. Your job is not easy, even on a smaller scale such as writing them for a story. So to everyone reading this, appreciate what they do for giving us the cards they produce.

Question: What does Pot of Greed do?

Answer: As Yugi would say, "This card lets me draw two cards from my deck".

Question: Have you seen all the shows?

Answer: I've only seen the shows that have been released for the English dub. The most recent one being Yugioh Arc V, since I started to watch it for research purposes when it came to introducing Pendulum Summoning and Pendulum cards for people reading this story that might not know about them or haven't seen the show to know how they work.

Question: Why didn't I do Link Summoning?

Answer: So this ties into the previous question, cause I haven't start watching the series that revolved around this type of summoning. And seeing how the format for the competitive scene for Yugioh is and how people hate it, I decided against it. Also, cause I don't know shit how Link Summoning works, and the things that I've heard from some of my friends is that they don't like it and that it's a bit difficult to understand. So I stayed away from that and just stuck with adding Pendulum Summoning only.

Question: During the Friendship Games, why was Crystal Prep given their decks?

Answer: A similar question with the one about the group. But regardless, the main idea for the Friendship Games was seeing as how each person was going against their counterpart/doppelganger, I had to think of decks that would be opposites.

To start, Sour Sweet. Her character plays off of Fluttershy so well both in terms of personality and dueling style. So while Fluttershy may be the shy, timid person; Sour Sweet is more the dominant girl who says something nice but turns it on a dime in a second. So that's why I gave her an Amazoness deck to highlight dominance she has.

Sugarcoat. Brutally honest, ironically to her name, and seeing as how she's AJ opposite. I gave her the Magnet Warriors and rock-type monsters due to her stone cold attitude and how she says things. Plus, they are a bit complex which also highlights her intelligence level that not many people take full notice of.

Lemon Zest was always going to have a machine-type deck. Sure I could have given her a musical deck, but I had already given that to Sweetie Belle. So I started to dig around and soon began to focus on her headphones and from there I soon landed on Morphtronics. Having monsters that can morph into devices, that was a good decision to give her. Plus, most Yugioh musical archetypes focus singing, rather than instruments. So that's another reason why I didn't give her a musical deck and instead focused on devices when it came to the headphones connection.

Sunny Flare was given the Hazy Beast archetype. Like most of these decks, apart from the ones I knew about from the shows and the characters that used them, this was one that I didn't know existed or knew how they worked. But once I got to reading their effects and saw that they were based on mythological beasts, it made the perfect parallel when it came to Rarity and her deck. Plus, you gotta admit, they are cool looking based on their artwork.

Indigo Zap was obvious. If Rainbow had U.A. then she would get Formula Athletes(F.A.). That's the logical conclusion, the only thing that was a pain in the ass was that they gain levels constantly, so you can bet it was hard to keep track of. Thankfully, I didn't have to worry about constantly writing about them.

And since Shining Armor was Isaac's opponent, the biggest tell was there. Dark Magician's rival is Blue-Eyes White Dragon. And like with Dark Magician, there is so many support cards for Blue-Eyes that it would be believe for Shining Armor to have such powerful cards, especially since he's Crystal Prep's #1 and was nearly undefeated before losing to his rival.

Question: Why introduce the students that the girls tutor in their final year?

Answer: I wanted to do something fun with people who enjoy the story. So I reached out to people who liked this story and PM them if they would like a character to take part of the story. It was a limited offer and those that responded said yes and from there I gave all the options that were available and they chose. Out of the seven, there were two students who I bent the rules with due to certain circumstances which were Jason and Bryant. But the rest were chosen from the decks that I selected. Then when it came to matching tutors, I had the people with characters, rank the seven girls. This was done to assign pairs and for future duels, most notably during the final exams.

Question: How far was I willing to go when it came to writing the Equestria story arc?

Answer: IDK. When I first thought about the idea, I wasn't too sure on the idea of doing it. Mainly, cause I didn't know how I would wrap it up. I knew how to introduce it, but if I was gonna start this particular arc, then I needed an end goal. And another part of me, almost didn't want to do this, cause I feared it wouldn't turn out good. I was this close to just mention it in one chapter and then the next chapter being like, oh it happened now it's time for them to go home and just move on like it didn't matter. So I took a leap of faith with trying to actually write about things happening in Equestria; so I focused several chapters around popular places in Equestria and went from there. Eventually, I decided on the idea of having five factions fight for control of the land and went with that as I felt it would be easier on my part. And it turned out to be much more decent than I was expecting. I managed to make a story arc that allowed some new places to be explored for our main hero and to create some new memories. And the fact that it was my 100 chapter when I started it, sort helped to elevate it to make it feel even more special. I will admit, I was contemplating on making the journey through Equestria a separate story with tons of chapters, but I felt that to be a too much, so I went with what I did and it proved to be a good call for my mental aspect.

Question: What sources/websites/places do I get my info for helping me to write my chapters and duels?

Answer:
https://www.yugiohcardguide.com/yugioh-archetypes.html
https://www.db.yugioh-card.com/yugiohdb/?request_locale=en&request_device=sp
https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!_Wiki

These are the main sources that I used.

Question: Why didn't I do Rainbow Rocks to adapt for this story?

Answer: Reason being is that because of two major things. First off, I had no clue on how to include the Sirens into this story. I didn't know how I was going to have the plot of Rainbow Rocks mix well with Yugioh. And when it would come to the climax, I'm not sure how the format would work, 3 vs 7, doesn't seem right. So that's why I moved onto Friendship Games cause the format of that was more balanced with team vs team. And the second major thing was because of music. The second film is heavy with music and I had no clue how that works with playing Duel Monsters. I didn't even try to think about working it in, so I skipped it all together. Maybe Konami and the writers of the show will figure out how to put music and Duel Monsters together, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing they've done based on all the other stuff that they've done. But that's why I skipped that film all together.

Question: Will there be a sequel?

Answer: This is a question that every writer loves to here: What happens next? As stated before, there are currently no plans to do a sequel, but... never say never. And again, so much goes into this decision if I were to make a sequel. One thing is if I were to make a sequel, would you guys find it enjoyable as how this story went. They say sequels never top the original and that's the sort of bar that I've set and would need to overcome to make a second story. And then there's the issue of, what would the sequel even be about. Maybe a new generation of duelists/students, maybe following the children of Isaac and Twilight, but is it something that interests you all. Maybe if I could do a story that at least allows us to see how the entire group is doing during the time after graduation, I don't know. So right now that idea is neither confirmed nor denied, it's just up in the air.

And the last question that I'll answer which is: What will I do now? Will I continue to make other stories?

The answer to that is, yes. I've received tons of requests to do stories that I have a lot of messages to respond to. But know that because I finished this story, doesn't mean I'm done. This is only the beginning, so I guess the another question I can answer is when will I put out a new story? That I can't say, however, it will be before this year is done. And for context, my next story will be a crossover. Unlike this one where I just used the crossover tag because of two different franchises, so it's really more of an original story. The next will have the characters of MLP be involved with the events of another franchise. Which one, I can't say. You'll just have to wait and see, but I promise it'll be something most people will enjoy.

So with that, we've reached the end of this Author's Notes. Again, I'm sorry I couldn't answer all questions, I did my best to be fair when picking by pulling them out of a hat. But if there is something you would like answer, send me a PM with your questions and I'll try to answer it to the best of my ability. Till then, take care everyone and I'll see you all very soon with a new story.

Comments

[Fluffy-Boi]

I look forward to your other stories pal. This was a nice ride. Thanks for making a enjoyable story.