#Mai Valentine was totally an inspiration for me because other cartoons didn't have women with chests like that

[gettothestabbing]

Back from the real world!

And I got some venting to do!

SO. I didn’t have Internet except at work (where I’m not supposed to be on it when not on break, a rule I broke a lot and feel only slightly bad about) for about 3 weeks. And this happened about the same time as the death of Kazuki Takahashi. Who created my favorite manga, and the first anime/show I loved as a child that wasn’t something my parents picked out for me.

I know my blog is a heady mix of politics and fanart and real art and a bunch of things now. But when I started out, and I was afraid to post anything political, I was following mostly Yu-Gi-Oh! fanblogs. (And Communismkills. Love her.) I’ve posted a lot less about YGO over time. This is partly because of the Obsession Cycle (see below) and partly because I am influenced by the content that people I like post. Hence why I got more political from following CK, more artistic from following art blogs, etc.

The Obsession Cycle is a cycle of hyperfixations on certain stories that I love more than any others. Although new stories are often added to the cycle, making it longer or shorter, it always includes Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, Gravity Falls, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hey Arnold!, Disney in some form, and Ghibli in some form. The cycle is complete either when I drop all hyperfixations for a period of time, or when I return to the fixation I started with in the most recent iteration. My sister, explaining this concept to her husband, pointed out that I used to cycle through this entirely within 8 months. Then, adding new media in and having more to do in college and law school, the cycle widened dramatically to 3 years. Right now, she estimates that my cycle is about 2 years long. The implication of course is that there has been a regression.

I would agree with that. To be completely honest, I was about to reread the manga when I heard Takahashi had died, and that news hit me very hard. While I am not interested in large swathes of the franchise that Yu-Gi-Oh! spawned, and therefore do not see Takahashi as an ideal, I have always respected and admired his work. It is also easy to sympathize with him losing some creative control over time due to the insane popularity of Duel Monsters, but he found a way to end his story satisfactorily (twice, if we include the Dark Side of Dimensions movie) despite one game taking massive precedence.

So without Internet, having just moved into a new apartment, with a lot of frustration at work, and feeling very isolated and upset, I restarted my cycle and started shoving Yu-Gi-Oh! into my brain as fast and as hard as possible. I have been very very annoying to talk to lately, even to myself. My sister has been delicately asking me “when I’m going to be done” with this phase for at least a week. I don’t really see an end in sight, and I can never predict when the feverish fascination will fade.

Honestly, this is a period of mourning. Even though the story concluded long ago, Yu-Gi-Oh! has always had a special place in my heart. It helped me make friends (through playing the card game w/boys at school) and learn new ways to express myself artistically. (Yes, I wrote fic, no, you can’t read it.) It was something I enjoyed that no one else in my family liked.

It was also my safe place. I was nine when I got into the show. You know what else happened when I was nine? I started puberty ahead of everyone else in my class and I was subsequently molested. I took real comfort and strength from how characters stood up for themselves and made themselves comfortable in their own bodies (or others’ bodies, as the case may be). I liked that they could make stupid mistakes but still have their friends’ support.

I only ever got to see the first two seasons because for some reason the TV station would never air anything past the first half of the Battle City finals. I also owned the first volume of the manga, which is extremely different from the dub I knew and hinted at a wealth of interpretation and content that was beyond my reach. Then my card-playing friend moved away and my mom died. Real life stuff like that got in the way of my exploring the story further until I was in high school and found the abridged series.

I never let myself finish the manga before, because I didn’t have all the volumes. Now I’m waiting on the last one to come in the mail. Because I always expect the cycle to come back again, I try never to fully exhaust any of these media properties. If it appears I will run out of the finite content for any of them, I try to start distracting myself with lesser media, chores, anything else to draw it out. I have to assume other people do this but I’ve never met anyone IRL who does (that would admit it anyway).

Despite all of this, I’m still an adult with a job. I’m trying to manage and balance my hyperfixation with all the other things I need to do. Like if I can’t have any free time, I’ll play instrumental music from the show as I work. I guess I expected to outgrow the Obsession Cycle without having to expend noticeable effort in doing so. Like my dad has told me many times, “it’s a phase.” Sometimes you don’t return to things you used to like, sure. But I resent them applying that label to Yu-Gi-Oh!. It’s really not a phase. It was a part of my childhood (then rapidly vanishing) that helped me learn the person I wanted to be as an adult. It still inspires me so much.

And aside from all that, I think having that break from regular Internet time helped me refine what I want out of that time now that I have it back. I enjoyed how much reading and organizing I was able to get done. I felt less distracted, even as I chafed at my difficulties in listening to music or communicating with friends. I may post less for awhile, maybe permanently. I don’t think I’ll ever really leave Tumblr or the Internet. And I didn’t enjoy being forcibly without it. But I feel like my relationship with the Internet will be healthier going forward.