Lucky_Ladybug (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladybug_archive) wrote2014-12-28 06:50 pm
ladybug_archive) wrote2014-12-28 06:50 pm
Entry tags:
- duke,
- fanfiction,
- rp,
- ygo
YGO thoughts
Woke up looking for tapes for my shows tonight and happened to glance at my YGO DVD set that's the first half of season 1. I plan to get some more of those at some point, but since I do have video copies of every episode in English, I haven't been bending over backwards to hurry and get more.
I was thinking on how I think my favorite arcs are the first two: Duelist Kingdom and Battle City. I liked Noa's arc up to the point where Tristan had his "accident"; as glad as I was that the robot monkey thing was all virtual reality and not real, that was still getting too, too weird for me. I did like Seto's duel with Noa, though.
When they finally got out of the VR world, the Battle Tower wrap-up of Battle City was mostly tedious. Every duel seemed to take forever. Yugi and Seto was six episodes. Seriously? Joey and Yami Marik was four and Yami Yugi and Yami Marik was five. The best thing about the Battle Tower episodes was the Ishtar family squee.
Doom arc I love for the bikers, but it's a really depressing arc, with Mai going bad because Yami Marik emotionally destroyed her during Battle City and so many characters losing their souls. Of course, there was soul loss during Duelist Kingdom too, but aside from Yugi's grandpa, it was for a much shorter time than in Doom arc. Or it seemed like it, anyway ... though I guess Mokuba spent quite a long time soulless. I love any scrap of screentime the bikers have, and Duke had some great scenes too, but I hate wading through all the depressing stuff.
Grand Prix was honestly a really nice break from all the heavy stuff. I love Siegfried and still delight to remember how he beat Weevil and Rex in one move. It was a fun, light-hearted arc, and aside from the awful Vivian, I quite enjoyed it. I didn't realize how much I and the characters needed a break from the dark stuff until Grand Prix came along. And to think I was lukewarm about it at first because it was filler.
The Pharaoh's Memories arc is ... I'm not sure. I like that they put Seto in it; not having him in the manga version of the arc was a terrible omission. But the anime version doesn't have as many of the deep scenes with Thief King Bakura that the manga does. And I have mixed feelings about the very last saga, where Yami Yugi crosses over to the afterlife at long last. It's great to think that he can finally be at rest and that Yugi has matured enough to stand on his own, but it's sad to think of them being separated. And the dub version cuts out the epilogue scene where it shows what most of the characters we've seen throughout the series are up to.
And I thought about Duke some more, too. He and Tristan have some interesting interaction. Tristan always seems worried about Duke if it looks like Duke is hurt or worse. There's some mini hurt/comfort in Noa's arc when Tristan wakes up and finds Duke slumped next to him. And Tristan really seems to freak out and be upset and distraught when Noa encases Duke in stone.
But it's hard for me to get past Tristan not trusting Duke. They weren't allowed to discuss their strategies when they and Serenity were forced to duel against one of the Big Five, and Tristan decided that Duke was just out for himself because his strategy didn't involve protecting Serenity even though that was not helping anything long-term and it was just causing Tristan's lifepoints to whittle down to nothing. The Big Five guy was deliberately targeting Serenity because he was trying to get the guys to protect her and lose the game for all three of them. Duke's strategy was to try to save all of them, not just Serenity, and he knew that if Tristan just let himself lose it wouldn't help any of them, including Serenity. But he couldn't say anything about it and Tristan didn't trust that he had a plan that would be good for everyone. So Tristan kept doing his own thing and did end up losing. Then it was up to Duke alone to win, since Serenity really didn't know how to play the game. (Although if I remember right, she did end up turning out a couple of cool moves.)
It's one thing for friends to argue all the time, if that's just how they show affection, but when they can't even trust each other during life-and-death situations, it's really hard for me to believe that they're really close. I guess that's why the common fangirl ideas of Duke and Tristan as being really close friends (or even lovers) just leaves me cold. Tristan might be upset for Duke to be hurt or killed, but most decent people would be upset by that. If he can't trust Duke, after Duke should have already proven himself an ally, there's something wrong somewhere.
Of course, there is the fact that from the time Tristan and Serenity were saved from Rare Hunters by Duke to the beginning of Noa's arc was, I believe, one 24-hour period. Yes, this show really crams a lot of adventures into one day, just like what happens in a lot of my stories. Tristan and Duke had that fight on the roof in between (and the dub really made Duke sound awful in it, whereas in the Japanese he didn't say anything like that) and their rivalry over Serenity was definitely well-established. Naturally Tristan's distrust of Duke had a lot to do with his crush on Serenity and his feeling that Duke wasn't good for her (and perhaps anime Duke really wouldn't be; I still detest the changes they made to his character for his anime introduction arc). And the short period of time between events didn't allow for Tristan and Duke to really become friends. Tristan's distress over Duke's fate at Noa's hands was not the distress of someone who has lost a dear friend. They didn't know each other well enough for that.
The rest of Noa's arc may have taken place over the course of one day; I'm still unclear how long they were there. Battle Tower was all one day, I think, and then Duke went his own way again. He and Tristan may have been willing to bunk together out of necessity in both Battle City and Doom arcs, but neither arc had them having known each other enough to be doing that because they were close. However, out of all of Yugi's friends, Tristan is probably the one Duke has had the most interaction with and the one he felt most comfortable with. I can't see Duke bunking with Joey, for instance.
Then there's the fact that Yugi and company didn't even tell Duke about things in Pharaoh's Memories arc; Yugi felt guilty and admitted that he had forgotten. Duke said he understood, and he probably did; he was a loner and only came on their adventures if he either invited himself or was dragged into it by the bad guys. But perhaps he was a loner partially because he didn't fully feel like he had been accepted into the circle. Yugi wouldn't forget to tell Joey, Tristan, and Tea, so for Duke to be omitted definitely says that he is not as deeply in the friendship as the original four. And it doesn't help that his business is right across the street from Yugi's house. It seems pretty hard to forget a friend if they're right there.
I'm sure the fault is a bit on both sides; Duke is a loner and maybe Yugi and company think he prefers it that way. Maybe he does, but the fact that he comes right out with Yugi's grandpa as soon as he does find out what's going on suggests that at least part of him does want to be involved. It's a sticky problem, and in my fic Desperado I tried to explore it from both sides.
My YGO fics are mainly divided into two groups. The earlier ones, which I wrote while the show was still airing in first-run, have the whole group as buddy-buddy, including Duke. A couple years after the show finished, I started writing for it again, and reviewing the episodes gave me new perspectives on things, including how Duke sometimes seems excluded from the tight-knit group of the original four. In addition, the manga strongly suggests that Duke is not really part of the group and still doesn't fully grasp the idea of friendship. Those newer fics, up to the present, follow those concepts, especially anime-wise. But he does come to realize the value and reality of friendship, mostly through the store manager character who is obviously pretty close to him judging from their canonical conversation in episode #46.
I'm not sure I can ever un-see those concepts. I always explored the loner-Duke idea to some extent; even when writing the first batch of stories, the song Where Will You Go? was always Duke's image song, and he was quite a loner in the RP with Aubrie. So I guess I've just expanded on those ideas since then.
I feel like re-reading some of those fics and maybe writing some more. I often feel like that and don't really do it, but maybe this time I will.
I kind of wish I could do a Duke RP exploring some more of these ideas, but it would probably need to be a clean-slate RP and not one deeply entwined in canon of its own, so that is unlikely to be able to happen. Once I get an RP going with someone, it very quickly develops canon of its own, which is the case with the one steady RP I currently have going that sometimes involves YGO characters. And its Duke arcs have already covered some of those ideas, as well as the events of my Lead Me Through the Fire and Close Your Eyes, Clear Your Heart fics.
I miss the days when I had several RPs going at once. But I'm of course grateful to have any RPs still going at all. They are fun times.
I was thinking on how I think my favorite arcs are the first two: Duelist Kingdom and Battle City. I liked Noa's arc up to the point where Tristan had his "accident"; as glad as I was that the robot monkey thing was all virtual reality and not real, that was still getting too, too weird for me. I did like Seto's duel with Noa, though.
When they finally got out of the VR world, the Battle Tower wrap-up of Battle City was mostly tedious. Every duel seemed to take forever. Yugi and Seto was six episodes. Seriously? Joey and Yami Marik was four and Yami Yugi and Yami Marik was five. The best thing about the Battle Tower episodes was the Ishtar family squee.
Doom arc I love for the bikers, but it's a really depressing arc, with Mai going bad because Yami Marik emotionally destroyed her during Battle City and so many characters losing their souls. Of course, there was soul loss during Duelist Kingdom too, but aside from Yugi's grandpa, it was for a much shorter time than in Doom arc. Or it seemed like it, anyway ... though I guess Mokuba spent quite a long time soulless. I love any scrap of screentime the bikers have, and Duke had some great scenes too, but I hate wading through all the depressing stuff.
Grand Prix was honestly a really nice break from all the heavy stuff. I love Siegfried and still delight to remember how he beat Weevil and Rex in one move. It was a fun, light-hearted arc, and aside from the awful Vivian, I quite enjoyed it. I didn't realize how much I and the characters needed a break from the dark stuff until Grand Prix came along. And to think I was lukewarm about it at first because it was filler.
The Pharaoh's Memories arc is ... I'm not sure. I like that they put Seto in it; not having him in the manga version of the arc was a terrible omission. But the anime version doesn't have as many of the deep scenes with Thief King Bakura that the manga does. And I have mixed feelings about the very last saga, where Yami Yugi crosses over to the afterlife at long last. It's great to think that he can finally be at rest and that Yugi has matured enough to stand on his own, but it's sad to think of them being separated. And the dub version cuts out the epilogue scene where it shows what most of the characters we've seen throughout the series are up to.
And I thought about Duke some more, too. He and Tristan have some interesting interaction. Tristan always seems worried about Duke if it looks like Duke is hurt or worse. There's some mini hurt/comfort in Noa's arc when Tristan wakes up and finds Duke slumped next to him. And Tristan really seems to freak out and be upset and distraught when Noa encases Duke in stone.
But it's hard for me to get past Tristan not trusting Duke. They weren't allowed to discuss their strategies when they and Serenity were forced to duel against one of the Big Five, and Tristan decided that Duke was just out for himself because his strategy didn't involve protecting Serenity even though that was not helping anything long-term and it was just causing Tristan's lifepoints to whittle down to nothing. The Big Five guy was deliberately targeting Serenity because he was trying to get the guys to protect her and lose the game for all three of them. Duke's strategy was to try to save all of them, not just Serenity, and he knew that if Tristan just let himself lose it wouldn't help any of them, including Serenity. But he couldn't say anything about it and Tristan didn't trust that he had a plan that would be good for everyone. So Tristan kept doing his own thing and did end up losing. Then it was up to Duke alone to win, since Serenity really didn't know how to play the game. (Although if I remember right, she did end up turning out a couple of cool moves.)
It's one thing for friends to argue all the time, if that's just how they show affection, but when they can't even trust each other during life-and-death situations, it's really hard for me to believe that they're really close. I guess that's why the common fangirl ideas of Duke and Tristan as being really close friends (or even lovers) just leaves me cold. Tristan might be upset for Duke to be hurt or killed, but most decent people would be upset by that. If he can't trust Duke, after Duke should have already proven himself an ally, there's something wrong somewhere.
Of course, there is the fact that from the time Tristan and Serenity were saved from Rare Hunters by Duke to the beginning of Noa's arc was, I believe, one 24-hour period. Yes, this show really crams a lot of adventures into one day, just like what happens in a lot of my stories. Tristan and Duke had that fight on the roof in between (and the dub really made Duke sound awful in it, whereas in the Japanese he didn't say anything like that) and their rivalry over Serenity was definitely well-established. Naturally Tristan's distrust of Duke had a lot to do with his crush on Serenity and his feeling that Duke wasn't good for her (and perhaps anime Duke really wouldn't be; I still detest the changes they made to his character for his anime introduction arc). And the short period of time between events didn't allow for Tristan and Duke to really become friends. Tristan's distress over Duke's fate at Noa's hands was not the distress of someone who has lost a dear friend. They didn't know each other well enough for that.
The rest of Noa's arc may have taken place over the course of one day; I'm still unclear how long they were there. Battle Tower was all one day, I think, and then Duke went his own way again. He and Tristan may have been willing to bunk together out of necessity in both Battle City and Doom arcs, but neither arc had them having known each other enough to be doing that because they were close. However, out of all of Yugi's friends, Tristan is probably the one Duke has had the most interaction with and the one he felt most comfortable with. I can't see Duke bunking with Joey, for instance.
Then there's the fact that Yugi and company didn't even tell Duke about things in Pharaoh's Memories arc; Yugi felt guilty and admitted that he had forgotten. Duke said he understood, and he probably did; he was a loner and only came on their adventures if he either invited himself or was dragged into it by the bad guys. But perhaps he was a loner partially because he didn't fully feel like he had been accepted into the circle. Yugi wouldn't forget to tell Joey, Tristan, and Tea, so for Duke to be omitted definitely says that he is not as deeply in the friendship as the original four. And it doesn't help that his business is right across the street from Yugi's house. It seems pretty hard to forget a friend if they're right there.
I'm sure the fault is a bit on both sides; Duke is a loner and maybe Yugi and company think he prefers it that way. Maybe he does, but the fact that he comes right out with Yugi's grandpa as soon as he does find out what's going on suggests that at least part of him does want to be involved. It's a sticky problem, and in my fic Desperado I tried to explore it from both sides.
My YGO fics are mainly divided into two groups. The earlier ones, which I wrote while the show was still airing in first-run, have the whole group as buddy-buddy, including Duke. A couple years after the show finished, I started writing for it again, and reviewing the episodes gave me new perspectives on things, including how Duke sometimes seems excluded from the tight-knit group of the original four. In addition, the manga strongly suggests that Duke is not really part of the group and still doesn't fully grasp the idea of friendship. Those newer fics, up to the present, follow those concepts, especially anime-wise. But he does come to realize the value and reality of friendship, mostly through the store manager character who is obviously pretty close to him judging from their canonical conversation in episode #46.
I'm not sure I can ever un-see those concepts. I always explored the loner-Duke idea to some extent; even when writing the first batch of stories, the song Where Will You Go? was always Duke's image song, and he was quite a loner in the RP with Aubrie. So I guess I've just expanded on those ideas since then.
I feel like re-reading some of those fics and maybe writing some more. I often feel like that and don't really do it, but maybe this time I will.
I kind of wish I could do a Duke RP exploring some more of these ideas, but it would probably need to be a clean-slate RP and not one deeply entwined in canon of its own, so that is unlikely to be able to happen. Once I get an RP going with someone, it very quickly develops canon of its own, which is the case with the one steady RP I currently have going that sometimes involves YGO characters. And its Duke arcs have already covered some of those ideas, as well as the events of my Lead Me Through the Fire and Close Your Eyes, Clear Your Heart fics.
I miss the days when I had several RPs going at once. But I'm of course grateful to have any RPs still going at all. They are fun times.