Geez, I let this one go too long. Updating the blog has been a little more difficult lately, due to work.
I had all sorts of issues with the last panel of Page 28-- mostly, I didn't know what I wanted to do with it. Early lines included Joey talking about his father (out of character) and Yugi and Joey teasing Kaiba about having been adopted again (addressed in a later scene.) I only hit on the "talking nonsense" line after doing the bonus art mentioned in the last commentary. Kaiba muttering deliriously fixes everything in fanfic.
No, really, it does. Next time you can't figure out where your story's going, just get the man drunk. He will show you the way.
Page 29 is basically just a wrap up of the scene, but it still amuses me horribly. I love those little Calvin and Hobbes style chases, and I don't get to do them often in enough in serious storylines. (Also I got to draw Kaiba snoozing some more, echoing the first page in the sequence. I was pretty happy with that.)
As mentioned on the page, the random bystander lady belongs to My-Oh-Mai, one of our longtime readers who contributed to the open invite I keep mentioning.
I've mentioned in the original comments for page 30 that I love Duke. I say that about a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh characters. This is because it's true. XD
Duke is one of those characters that I draw consistently off-model, mainly because his hair didn't make much sense in the series (Hah, hair making sense in this fandom. Right.) When I talk about a character's hair not making sense, mostly I mean things like the fact that Duke's headband doesn't seem to circle around his head, instead terminating behind his bangs (without even a string to hold it up) and the fact that you really just can't tell where Téa's bangs start or where the part of her hair begins.
Other than that, I like drawing Duke because he dresses in a semi-girlish way-- not unlike the way that I dress, to be honest. (Although I seem to trend toward Atem's jewelry tastes.) This makes him easy for me to dress while keeping his outfits interesting, so drawing him is actually pretty relaxing. (It helps that he has a pretty ponytail. I love drawing hair.)
Tristan's nephew right there appeared in the manga. I like the fact that Tristan has a nephew, and that he gets pressed into watching the kid; it adds a dimension of harrassed younger brother to him that I identify with and am entertained greatly by. I gave Johji some aging up for the simple fact that time has passed and babies grow quickly; Johji will probably make more appearances, and he will look different every time.
Also I totally drew a picture of freaky baby Johji when I was prepping for that page. It makes me feel mildly dirty. XD
As noted pretty much everywhere I've mentioned her so far, Amber, making her introduction on page 31, belongs to SK Dark Dragon, who I asked for permission to use the character some time ago. We used to hang out in the same Yugioh forum back when TV.com was TVTome, and she hosted some of my early fanart on her website before I was allowed to have a DeviantArt account. I became very fond of Amber after reading several stories that featured the character, and asked if I could write a version of her into the future story I was concocting. Obviously, she said yes. (But I asked her again a year or two ago, because we hadn't talked in a while. XD SK still said yes.) (SK now has a blog on BlogSpot, and as she says herself, usually calls herself Little Scarf Girl now.)
Anyway, I liked Amber enough to let Duke chase her around in Game of Dreams. There is some amount of canon that indicates that Duke isn't entirely straight, but anybody who's read The Law of Purple knows I don't give half a damn about that kind of thing. XD Not being entirely straight doesn't disprove any hetero tendencies. (Incedentally, the LOP character Lette was very mildly inspired by SK, although they're absolutely nothing like each other and Lette isn't actually based on her. It's complex.)
Sometimes, YnY being a slightly disjointed online comic requires a scene to wrap quickly. I usually go for humor when this happens.
Also, I was very gratified by the positive response to Amber. Often when you introduce a recurring non-canon character into fanfic, a lot of acid is spat. (And let's be frank, a full-body shot is like the equivilant to a Mary-Sue description page in comics sometimes.) I'm sure it helps that she's not actually mine. XD
Some people were a little confused by Bakura's soul room on page 32. At least one person who was confused by it seemed to have never read the manga; this is where I got a lot of my ideas on what a proper soul room should look like. Téa's, for example, used a dance studio as a starting point, with lots of mirrors to indicate a confident personality, and an open ceiling to indicate an open personality. There was a cute little love seat and a tree in the middle of the floor, and a framed picture of a superhero without a face, which represented Atem (she didn't know who he was at the time.) There was also a portrait of the Statue of Liberty holding a ballet shoe and a soft drink cup. XD Another character, who spent a lot of time with himself and concentrating on ancient knowledge, had a dark soul room which used a library as a starting point.
Ryou's soul room started as a combination between a medieval courtyard and a Japanese garden, to represent, among other things, his love of the fantastic (as manga readers and those familiar with Series 0 will know, he likes to make his own tabletop RPGs.) On the wall directly opposite the viewer is a window hidden by a curtain and obscured by willow trees; behind this shroud is a portrait of his mother and sister, who died prior to the series. Though I doubt we'll ever see the portrait, his sister is slightly more prominent in the image, because he wrote letters to her in the manga, which indicates to me that he took her loss harder than that of his mother.
To the left of the portrait, from our viewpoint, is another arch. In this arch, which is uncovered, you can see a portrait of Yugi, Téa, Tristan and Joey, although the distance involved makes it a smallish picture and therefore obscures exactly who is represented there. These four people are the only friends that Ryou has had that have not abandoned him or rejected him outright when they learned that he was possessed, and who went to great lengths to help him even when they didn't know him that well. Therefore he holds them in a place of great importance, and they get to have a picture in his soul room.
Even more prominent is the statue to the left of that, whose feet can be seen in the side of the panel. This is Atem, who he's given a Theban style monument in his head. I refuse to go very deeply into that, aside from the fact that it started in the same place as the portrait of Yugi-tachi. (I did mention elsewhere that there were going to be undertones of this.)
Somewhere in the soul room, where we cannot see, there is probably a smaller image of his father, whom he doesn't seem to be especially close to. This is understandable, because Ryou's father would appear to be out of the country a lot. On the opposite wall from the viewer, there is another window, but it looks "out."
The pool in the floor handles several jobs. First of all, it represents a deeper emotional and spiritual side to Ryou that he keeps private. Secondly, it divides his soul room into two parts: the "lighter" side, with Atem, his friends, and his father (and his sister and mother hovering in between) and the "darker" side, which features more trees, some ivy on the wall....
And a screen door, which leads us into page 33, and Ryou into a blank room. The screen door was Invid's idea. As anyone who is into this fandom knows, when Atem and Yugi's soul rooms were depicted, we never saw inside Yugi's (except for a few toys scattered on the floor), but there was a hallway dividing the two rooms, and the hallway itself resembled Atem's room more than it did Yugi's (Although Yugi's door had something that looked like metal plating and circuitry on it. Which is awesome.) Invid postulated that this hallway represented the fact that Atem's soul room actually existed within the Millenium Puzzle, and thus if Atem had actually fully inhabited Yugi's body, it would have looked different.
Hence the screen door. Yami Bakura's blank soul room is actually directly a part of Ryou's room, but their souls remain distinct; Yami B is just hiding out in Ryou's head. Since it's a single vessel containing two souls, there's only one soul room, but it's been divided into two by a screen door so as to represent the separation of the actual personalities.
Yami Bakura is currently in a very bad way, as the blankness of his side should indicate. Consider: if everything in Ryou's room means something, and the Escheresque maze in Atem's soul room represented hidden secrets, what does blankness mean? Marik will get to show up later and explain a bit of this to us, and to Ryou.
I was aware that having Yami Bakura turn out to be alive might put certain readers off. I can only say that I had several good reasons for doing it; which can be summed up like so: There is a starting point from the series for this that makes it possible (the fact that several times he shunted part of his own soul into objects other than the Ring.) I like him and want to see him heal. And he plays an important role in later stories, a role that only Yami Bakura can play. (Also Yukai likes him a great deal. I'm not sure why, because Yukai actually has to have a human relationship with him, and I don't, but there you go. They have some weird things in common with each other, and they're both snarky. Maybe that's enough.)
Ryou maybe loses some of those manly points he's been racking up on page 34. I have to admit I kind of giggle when he drops Yami B, even though it's horrible. Mostly he didn't expect Yami B to flop like that, but he's also startled that Yami B doesn't seem to be a figment of his imagination. I dressed Yami B in darker clothes than Ryou to make it simpler to tell them apart. As time goes by, I'll be using varied methods, like shadow scars, actual scars, shadows over the eyes, mascara, and context. I try to draw Yami B's little hair horns that started to show up in Battle City, but somehow that doesn't make them look different enough when I'm the one drawing them.
Do notice that on Yami B's side of the soul room, the screen door appears to be just floating there. XD Aside from that, I am very pleased with Yami B's hair, and the way he looks as Ryou is dropping him. The dropping pose came about in a very natural way and I'm not sure how I did it.
Yami Bakura wants you to help him, Roooo! He is bleeding spiritually! Augghhh!
I don't really have anything else to say about page 35, because I said most of it in the comments. XD
Page 36 features that nice statue of Atem. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, although it seemed to confuse at least one person into thinking Atem was alive in Ryou's head too. O_o He's not. That would be weird. And also he'd be like "Bakura, I don't want that half dead guy on my feet, put him back." Other than that, I'm happy with the progression of the page, and stuff.
On page 37, Ryou once again references time. I may as well mention here that the next storyline is another half a year later, but that it takes three months, and that the next two storylines coexist over a time period of about a year. I'm mildly shaky on exact time within the actual series, but have chosen to assume it covers a time period of maybe a year to a year and a half. The end of the last story will be about seven years after the Ceremonial Duel. :P
Ryou moves Yami B from the "dark" side of his room to the "light" side of his room and puts him at Atem's feet. Make of that what you will.
Let it be known that I have no intention of reviving Atem in the same way. He's conclusively dead. He has every reason to rest in peace. Bringing him back would destroy the point of the series ending, which is "death must be accepted." Yami B's problem is partly an inability to take the moral to heart.
(Despite this, Atem manages to be very present throughout Game of Dreams, as the statue itself indicates.)
This page was the result of a lot of last minute editing, and it was mostly because I suddenly realized I had never made it clear, anywhere in the storyline, that Yami B has amnesia. I'm not sure how that happened, but I like the page.
This situation is not permanent, but won't be changed during Game of Dreams, because it's partly thanks to Yukai that the change happens. There, ya'll have your spoiler for the day. XD
Next up, Ryou goes looking for answers!
Showing posts with label shipping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shipping. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
The Science of Pairings
(Note: Feel free to go find "She Blinded Me With Science" on YuuTube or whatever and listen to it while reading. I don't think it'll add any flavor or anything to it, but you never know.)
Nobody knows for sure what makes any particular fan fall in love with a particular pairing, be it canon or otherwise. Maybe a glance passes between two favorite characters, and a surge of emotion swells in the chest of the fan in question. Maybe one stumbles across a pairing on a fanart hunt, and cannot help but think, "You know, there's something about that which just feels right." Or maybe one comes across a fanfiction or comic that just handles the pairing, and the characters, so well that it fixates in the mind.
I could tell all about how I fell in love with Kaiba/Serenity first because of fanart, then because of watching the characters myself. I could also tell how it happened that I fell in love with any of my Téa pairings, with Joey/Kaiba, with Joey/Mai, with Ishizu and Pegasus. I can tell the exact story of how I arrived at every single conclusive pairing in YnY, too. But each of them would take at least as long as a character study to explain properly.
This essay is about how I think about pairings in general, what I think makes them appealing, and how two characters can bubble together in a way that makes a story worthwhile. Please be aware that much of this is based solely on my own opinions and my own observations of real relationships-- most especially on what I observed of my own parents, my father and his first wife, my aunts and uncles, my siblings and their respective exes and current mates (I don't feel that examining my own romantic relationships would be very helpful, as I can't exactly be less than passionate about them. XD There will be a few observations as handed to me by other people, however.)
Obviously, the differences between two people in a pairing tend to give it a lot of its conflict, and therefore, its fire. But similarities can do the same, and in any event a couple with the wrong mix of similarity and difference, or characters too similar or too different, cannot work if you want the characters involved to feel real or be interesting as a couple. Too, tailor-making a character to fit with another usually backfires without the right kind of interplay. (Making a character, for example, who has an uncanny understanding of Kaiba's tics and issues, is exactly what he wants in a woman (or man!), is infinitely patient with him all the time, is great with Mokuba, etcetera, would probably find that Kaiba was about ready to launch her from a cannon off the roof of KaibaCorp in a fiction that handled him realistically. Kaiba can't stand perfection in other people-- and really, who can?)
I tend to find that the most important differences and similarities lie in temperament-- likes and dislikes, while important, mean nothing with incompatible temperaments. These characters might be friends, but that doesn't mean they could stand each other for more than a few hours. Yet the cocktail will be different between any two people: I like both Seto/Wheeler pairings but for totally different reasons. Serenity is calm and patient yet quietly strong, Seto is abrasively stubborn and dramatic, yet often gives in to patience with time and is terribly vulnerable under a veneer of arrogance. Joey and Kaiba are like two sides of one coin, yet Joey is an extrovert and good with people, while Kaiba is not. These are both mixtures that appeal to me, and it's also the real reason why I think both pairings are so popular, although plenty of fans on both sides don't seem to have any idea what really drew them to the couple interplay.
Some differences or similarities in temperament are more forgivable than others. Two fiery personalities with short tempers are going to have a harder time meshing than two calm ones. (Although as many foe-shippers will tell you, sometimes that's half the fun!) I have a lot of such pairings that I like quite well, but not as long term relationships. Other differences and similarities don't really matter much at all; I see a lot of Kaiba/Rebecca on the basis that they're both "geniuses" and therefore would have an easier time keeping up with one another, but I tend to see being able to understand the other person's work as more of a bonus than as a necessity. (Kaiba and Rebecca are practically a male and female version of each other and are both temperamental, stubborn, and oversensitive. While I understand how this draws other people to the pairing, it reminds me way too much of the relationship I have with my father. No thanks.)
Often, a pairing will work less when you toss the characters together as they are, and more if you let one or both of them grow up a little. With Kaiba and Serenity, for example, both of them need to work on their social skills, while Tristan would be much more successful at any romantic relationship if he could just garner a little more confidence.
In some cases, we can see that certain characters clearly have "types," based on the characters they go after within the canon. Rebecca's "type," at least at the moment, is a calm, kind, gentle sort of person (obviously there'd have to be a lot of patience there, too.) Joey seems to go for the tall, well-built and forceful type (although he values their vulnerable sides. XD) Téa likes them stoic and enigmatic. Tristan prefers quiet, shy, "princess" types (and he's easier to pin down, because he's had more girls he's crushed on.) This can certainly tell a writer what kind of characters a character will chase after, but it says nothing about who a character will actually end up with-- sometimes a person picks a "type" that turns out to lead them into destructive relationships no matter how often they try. (Tristan, in my opinion, definitely needs to go against type: he comes on too strong and tends to scare the shy ones off.)
When I consider a pairing, I not only take into account whatever interaction the characters might have had (including any assessments they may have made of each other) nor do I merely consider temperaments (although that's a large part of it), but I also think about the relationships they have outside of the pairing. All Seto Kaiba pairings absolutely MUST consider Mokuba's feelings in the equation: since Mokuba trusts Yugi, the closer someone is to Yugi the more likely Mokuba is to approve. The more stable and level-headed the potential mate is, the more likely Mokuba is to approve. The older the brothers are at the time of story (like, if Mokuba is in his twenties) the less likely Seto is to care about Mokuba's opinion, and he's also less likely to care about Mokuba's opinion pre-Mind Crush. The way she/he treats Mokuba when Seto's not around is a huge factor, and so is the way Mokuba treats him or her when Seto IS around. I can easily see Seto sneaking around with a relationship just because he's strongly suspicious that his little brother wouldn't like it. Similarly, I can see Mokuba trying to set Seto up with people.
No matter who you pair Serenity with, Joey's going to be mad (unless it's Yugi. Or possibly a woman. Who isn't Vivian.) So the real question there is, how are Tristan and Duke going to respond, and does Serenity care about their opinion OR Joey's? Joey doesn't particularly care how his friends respond to his love interests, as long as they're not unkind to said interests, but it should still be taken into account that, for whatever reason, Tristan disapproves of most of them. XD (He probably cares more about what Serenity thinks, but less than Seto cares about Mokuba's thoughts-- partly because she's not dependent on him to support her.) Ishizu's brothers should be considered at the same time one considers any pairing involving her, not because their disapproval would keep her away from anyone but because it adds significantly to the story. Any pairing with Pegasus has to consider (unless it's Cecilia herself) how he might reconcile his widower status with his new relationship, and whether he'd be able (I dislike Mai/Pegasus as a pairing for the sole reason that the person who suggested it to me said "because she looks like his wife" and it really, REALLY put me off.) Mai pairings have to consider the fact that she's a sought-after woman-- who really knows for sure how many other Jean Claude Magnums there are in her past? (Certainly Valon can't be ignored, either, if you're going by anime continuity, and Joey can't ever be ignored here, even if you only consider him her close friend.) Téa is more likely to ask her friends directly what they think of a boyfriend or girlfriend, but not what they think of a crush.
Sometimes, after considering the out-of-pairing interplay, the potential conflict I see causes me to drop a pairing. I don't pair Téa with Joey more because Joey would be determined not to hurt Yugi than because they wouldn't make a good couple (and I don't like that kind of "we can't hurt him! SNOG" story. Personal taste.) Other times, the potential reaction sucks me in, and I just can't keep myself from rubbing my hands together and grinning from thinking about it. I love the idea of Ishizu marching her brothers into a family meeting and declaring, like a general heading into battle, "I am in love with Maximillion Pegasus!" I also love the mental picture of their faces after she's declared. XD (Sigh. Now I have to do a picture.)
Finally, how the two characters actually do treat each other, or how they might treat each other. This is wrapped up heavily in temperament-- Joey's going to be at least a little rough and playful with pretty much anyone. Yugi will be sweet and supportive even if he doesn't want the relationship. Most people who try to have a relationship with Kaiba are going to find themselves taking on a mildly parental role, and because of this, their probable parenting styles should also be considered. (I'm not saying Kaiba's an overgrown child. He just tends to need somebody who can handle his vulnerable side in a way that won't backfire and piss him off.) This is pretty important towards whether a relationship will work, yet at the same time, the way two characters treat one another will and should change within a story, especially one focused on a pairing.
Anyway, that's the bulk of it. Hope this got the gears working for at least a few of you (and if you can't figure out why someone likes a pairing? Ask me, I can probably come up with at least one reason.)
Nobody knows for sure what makes any particular fan fall in love with a particular pairing, be it canon or otherwise. Maybe a glance passes between two favorite characters, and a surge of emotion swells in the chest of the fan in question. Maybe one stumbles across a pairing on a fanart hunt, and cannot help but think, "You know, there's something about that which just feels right." Or maybe one comes across a fanfiction or comic that just handles the pairing, and the characters, so well that it fixates in the mind.
I could tell all about how I fell in love with Kaiba/Serenity first because of fanart, then because of watching the characters myself. I could also tell how it happened that I fell in love with any of my Téa pairings, with Joey/Kaiba, with Joey/Mai, with Ishizu and Pegasus. I can tell the exact story of how I arrived at every single conclusive pairing in YnY, too. But each of them would take at least as long as a character study to explain properly.
This essay is about how I think about pairings in general, what I think makes them appealing, and how two characters can bubble together in a way that makes a story worthwhile. Please be aware that much of this is based solely on my own opinions and my own observations of real relationships-- most especially on what I observed of my own parents, my father and his first wife, my aunts and uncles, my siblings and their respective exes and current mates (I don't feel that examining my own romantic relationships would be very helpful, as I can't exactly be less than passionate about them. XD There will be a few observations as handed to me by other people, however.)
Obviously, the differences between two people in a pairing tend to give it a lot of its conflict, and therefore, its fire. But similarities can do the same, and in any event a couple with the wrong mix of similarity and difference, or characters too similar or too different, cannot work if you want the characters involved to feel real or be interesting as a couple. Too, tailor-making a character to fit with another usually backfires without the right kind of interplay. (Making a character, for example, who has an uncanny understanding of Kaiba's tics and issues, is exactly what he wants in a woman (or man!), is infinitely patient with him all the time, is great with Mokuba, etcetera, would probably find that Kaiba was about ready to launch her from a cannon off the roof of KaibaCorp in a fiction that handled him realistically. Kaiba can't stand perfection in other people-- and really, who can?)
I tend to find that the most important differences and similarities lie in temperament-- likes and dislikes, while important, mean nothing with incompatible temperaments. These characters might be friends, but that doesn't mean they could stand each other for more than a few hours. Yet the cocktail will be different between any two people: I like both Seto/Wheeler pairings but for totally different reasons. Serenity is calm and patient yet quietly strong, Seto is abrasively stubborn and dramatic, yet often gives in to patience with time and is terribly vulnerable under a veneer of arrogance. Joey and Kaiba are like two sides of one coin, yet Joey is an extrovert and good with people, while Kaiba is not. These are both mixtures that appeal to me, and it's also the real reason why I think both pairings are so popular, although plenty of fans on both sides don't seem to have any idea what really drew them to the couple interplay.
Some differences or similarities in temperament are more forgivable than others. Two fiery personalities with short tempers are going to have a harder time meshing than two calm ones. (Although as many foe-shippers will tell you, sometimes that's half the fun!) I have a lot of such pairings that I like quite well, but not as long term relationships. Other differences and similarities don't really matter much at all; I see a lot of Kaiba/Rebecca on the basis that they're both "geniuses" and therefore would have an easier time keeping up with one another, but I tend to see being able to understand the other person's work as more of a bonus than as a necessity. (Kaiba and Rebecca are practically a male and female version of each other and are both temperamental, stubborn, and oversensitive. While I understand how this draws other people to the pairing, it reminds me way too much of the relationship I have with my father. No thanks.)
Often, a pairing will work less when you toss the characters together as they are, and more if you let one or both of them grow up a little. With Kaiba and Serenity, for example, both of them need to work on their social skills, while Tristan would be much more successful at any romantic relationship if he could just garner a little more confidence.
In some cases, we can see that certain characters clearly have "types," based on the characters they go after within the canon. Rebecca's "type," at least at the moment, is a calm, kind, gentle sort of person (obviously there'd have to be a lot of patience there, too.) Joey seems to go for the tall, well-built and forceful type (although he values their vulnerable sides. XD) Téa likes them stoic and enigmatic. Tristan prefers quiet, shy, "princess" types (and he's easier to pin down, because he's had more girls he's crushed on.) This can certainly tell a writer what kind of characters a character will chase after, but it says nothing about who a character will actually end up with-- sometimes a person picks a "type" that turns out to lead them into destructive relationships no matter how often they try. (Tristan, in my opinion, definitely needs to go against type: he comes on too strong and tends to scare the shy ones off.)
When I consider a pairing, I not only take into account whatever interaction the characters might have had (including any assessments they may have made of each other) nor do I merely consider temperaments (although that's a large part of it), but I also think about the relationships they have outside of the pairing. All Seto Kaiba pairings absolutely MUST consider Mokuba's feelings in the equation: since Mokuba trusts Yugi, the closer someone is to Yugi the more likely Mokuba is to approve. The more stable and level-headed the potential mate is, the more likely Mokuba is to approve. The older the brothers are at the time of story (like, if Mokuba is in his twenties) the less likely Seto is to care about Mokuba's opinion, and he's also less likely to care about Mokuba's opinion pre-Mind Crush. The way she/he treats Mokuba when Seto's not around is a huge factor, and so is the way Mokuba treats him or her when Seto IS around. I can easily see Seto sneaking around with a relationship just because he's strongly suspicious that his little brother wouldn't like it. Similarly, I can see Mokuba trying to set Seto up with people.
No matter who you pair Serenity with, Joey's going to be mad (unless it's Yugi. Or possibly a woman. Who isn't Vivian.) So the real question there is, how are Tristan and Duke going to respond, and does Serenity care about their opinion OR Joey's? Joey doesn't particularly care how his friends respond to his love interests, as long as they're not unkind to said interests, but it should still be taken into account that, for whatever reason, Tristan disapproves of most of them. XD (He probably cares more about what Serenity thinks, but less than Seto cares about Mokuba's thoughts-- partly because she's not dependent on him to support her.) Ishizu's brothers should be considered at the same time one considers any pairing involving her, not because their disapproval would keep her away from anyone but because it adds significantly to the story. Any pairing with Pegasus has to consider (unless it's Cecilia herself) how he might reconcile his widower status with his new relationship, and whether he'd be able (I dislike Mai/Pegasus as a pairing for the sole reason that the person who suggested it to me said "because she looks like his wife" and it really, REALLY put me off.) Mai pairings have to consider the fact that she's a sought-after woman-- who really knows for sure how many other Jean Claude Magnums there are in her past? (Certainly Valon can't be ignored, either, if you're going by anime continuity, and Joey can't ever be ignored here, even if you only consider him her close friend.) Téa is more likely to ask her friends directly what they think of a boyfriend or girlfriend, but not what they think of a crush.
Sometimes, after considering the out-of-pairing interplay, the potential conflict I see causes me to drop a pairing. I don't pair Téa with Joey more because Joey would be determined not to hurt Yugi than because they wouldn't make a good couple (and I don't like that kind of "we can't hurt him! SNOG" story. Personal taste.) Other times, the potential reaction sucks me in, and I just can't keep myself from rubbing my hands together and grinning from thinking about it. I love the idea of Ishizu marching her brothers into a family meeting and declaring, like a general heading into battle, "I am in love with Maximillion Pegasus!" I also love the mental picture of their faces after she's declared. XD (Sigh. Now I have to do a picture.)
Finally, how the two characters actually do treat each other, or how they might treat each other. This is wrapped up heavily in temperament-- Joey's going to be at least a little rough and playful with pretty much anyone. Yugi will be sweet and supportive even if he doesn't want the relationship. Most people who try to have a relationship with Kaiba are going to find themselves taking on a mildly parental role, and because of this, their probable parenting styles should also be considered. (I'm not saying Kaiba's an overgrown child. He just tends to need somebody who can handle his vulnerable side in a way that won't backfire and piss him off.) This is pretty important towards whether a relationship will work, yet at the same time, the way two characters treat one another will and should change within a story, especially one focused on a pairing.
Anyway, that's the bulk of it. Hope this got the gears working for at least a few of you (and if you can't figure out why someone likes a pairing? Ask me, I can probably come up with at least one reason.)
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Fandom Rant: Kaiba, Kisara, and silentshipping
(glances at title) That seems a little off, does it? Well, it's not.
Recently while searching for more stuff to put into YnY's collection of other people's Yu-gi-oh next generation stuff (this doesn't count GX, it's fanmade nexgen of the original cast I look for) I became more aware of the attitude that many Kisara/Kaiba fans have toward other Kaiba pairings.
As one shipper put it: "Seeing Kaiba with anyone but Kisara sickens me." (Emphasis mine.)
Sickens you? Really? That seems a little harsh, for one thing.
I guess I can understand the roots of this rather arrogant, evangelistic attitude about the whole thing. Kaiba/Kisara is considered "canon" by most people. (For the record, I actually like the person who said that, just not what she said. Which is why I'm not pointing out her name, because I don't want any jerks getting the idea that I want her flamed or something.) Some anti-silentshippers, whom I have much experience with (being the stalwart captain of the ship), go so far as to call Kisara "evidence" that Kaiba and Serenity shall "never be." My fellow silentshippers have gone to such extremes in order to "get around the obstacle" of Kisara as claiming that Serenity is Kisara's reincarnation. This is preposterous, and it's kind of disheartening that they feel the need to stretch so far.
Here's what really bothers me about the whole thing, though-- Seto Kaiba and Kisara are not actually a canon couple.
You read right. And I'm not insane. Kisara's in love with Priest Seto, not Seto Kaiba. Kaiba is Priest Seto's reincarnate, sure-- but he's not Priest Seto himself. Are Yugi and Atem the same person? All evidence points to NO. In Yu-Gi-Oh, reincarnation is not resurrection. If Seto Kaiba is fulfilling some destiny, it's because Priest Seto is using him, by proxy, to get the job done. Kisara herself says, "you're like him, but you're NOT him." And even more than that? By the time Priest Seto would have died, he and Kisara were actually a merged soul. THAT soul is the one that would have been reincarnated, which is how Kaiba still had a Blue Eyes as a Ka. (The Shipper's List agrees with me: "blueshipping" is Kaiba/Kisara, "Mizushipping" is Priest Seto/Kisara.)
Which, in a way, makes Kisara Seto Kaiba's mother.
Give me a few moments, I need to get over the squick factor before I can continue.
Kisara has no direct reincarnate counterpart, but Kaiba decorates all his stuff with twisting, twining Blue-Eyes White Dragons. He feels a direct affinity for it. Priest Seto had no relation to the beast until he fell in love with Kisara. You can call that a sign that Kaiba remembers the romance somehow, or you can see it as something deeper-- Kisara living on within Kaiba himself. He's like her child. I, personally, find that a lot sadder and more touching, especially since we have no real hint of what his biological mother might have been like. (There are going to be photographs shown of her in Game of Dreams. I intend to make her look rather like Kisara, for the reasons given.)
Now then-- because Kisara has no direct counterpart, making one for her is essentially creating a fancharacter. I've mentioned elsewhere, I don't care for OC pairings, if I can help it.
So I'm going to stick to silentshipping, thank you.
Recently while searching for more stuff to put into YnY's collection of other people's Yu-gi-oh next generation stuff (this doesn't count GX, it's fanmade nexgen of the original cast I look for) I became more aware of the attitude that many Kisara/Kaiba fans have toward other Kaiba pairings.
As one shipper put it: "Seeing Kaiba with anyone but Kisara sickens me." (Emphasis mine.)
Sickens you? Really? That seems a little harsh, for one thing.
I guess I can understand the roots of this rather arrogant, evangelistic attitude about the whole thing. Kaiba/Kisara is considered "canon" by most people. (For the record, I actually like the person who said that, just not what she said. Which is why I'm not pointing out her name, because I don't want any jerks getting the idea that I want her flamed or something.) Some anti-silentshippers, whom I have much experience with (being the stalwart captain of the ship), go so far as to call Kisara "evidence" that Kaiba and Serenity shall "never be." My fellow silentshippers have gone to such extremes in order to "get around the obstacle" of Kisara as claiming that Serenity is Kisara's reincarnation. This is preposterous, and it's kind of disheartening that they feel the need to stretch so far.
Here's what really bothers me about the whole thing, though-- Seto Kaiba and Kisara are not actually a canon couple.
You read right. And I'm not insane. Kisara's in love with Priest Seto, not Seto Kaiba. Kaiba is Priest Seto's reincarnate, sure-- but he's not Priest Seto himself. Are Yugi and Atem the same person? All evidence points to NO. In Yu-Gi-Oh, reincarnation is not resurrection. If Seto Kaiba is fulfilling some destiny, it's because Priest Seto is using him, by proxy, to get the job done. Kisara herself says, "you're like him, but you're NOT him." And even more than that? By the time Priest Seto would have died, he and Kisara were actually a merged soul. THAT soul is the one that would have been reincarnated, which is how Kaiba still had a Blue Eyes as a Ka. (The Shipper's List agrees with me: "blueshipping" is Kaiba/Kisara, "Mizushipping" is Priest Seto/Kisara.)
Which, in a way, makes Kisara Seto Kaiba's mother.
Give me a few moments, I need to get over the squick factor before I can continue.
Kisara has no direct reincarnate counterpart, but Kaiba decorates all his stuff with twisting, twining Blue-Eyes White Dragons. He feels a direct affinity for it. Priest Seto had no relation to the beast until he fell in love with Kisara. You can call that a sign that Kaiba remembers the romance somehow, or you can see it as something deeper-- Kisara living on within Kaiba himself. He's like her child. I, personally, find that a lot sadder and more touching, especially since we have no real hint of what his biological mother might have been like. (There are going to be photographs shown of her in Game of Dreams. I intend to make her look rather like Kisara, for the reasons given.)
Now then-- because Kisara has no direct counterpart, making one for her is essentially creating a fancharacter. I've mentioned elsewhere, I don't care for OC pairings, if I can help it.
So I'm going to stick to silentshipping, thank you.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Pairing Crack: Whar's teh slash?
Darnit, this is the wrong computer to upload an "appropriate" image from to head the blog off with. Oh well, we can edit it later. XD
There's no way to keep everybody happy when it comes to pairings. Some people only like a fic when all the pairings are "totally and undeniably canon," whatever that means, while others can't stand anything resembling canon pairings and will only read a fic if Weevil is paired up with Princess Adina from the VR episodes right after Duelist Kingdom (or something equally WTF.)
And then, of course, there's the people who can't stand slash ("gay" pairings) and the people who can't live without it.
This is a nexgen. GDG and Invid (the authors) are both very creeped out by MPreg. Therefore, there will be little actual slash to speak of between canon characters.
That doesn't mean either of us really has anything against slash. Invid doesn't like sex in his fic fare at ALL, and GDG is bisexual. All sexual relationships in YnY and Game of Dreams will not so much be shown as hinted at (sometimes very, very strongly.) We believe that, for the purpose of this story, less is more.
There will be hints of pairings that don't actually end up happening in the long run. The driving force of Game of Dreams is mainly to get everybody together that are parents of main characters of YnY. After that, pairings won't be quite as central, despite the fact that Yukai's sexual orientation seems to be Kaiba's daughter. (If you've read the preboot, you know this already. It's not a spoiler.) But slash will rear its crack-dazed head more than once in both YnY and GD, occasionally humorously, sometimes as nothing more than a whisper, and possibly for real at least once.
But I refuse to limit any two characters by keeping them solely to each other. Yes, Kira Kaiba is Serenity's daughter and GD needs to explain how a heck that happened. But Kaiba's relationship with Joey plays a major role in that, as does Serenity's relationship with Joey. Even Mai's relationship with Joey. And the same goes for other relationships that exist in this fancomic, up to and including relationships with dead characters.
Game of Dreams is not a romance about any one pairing. It's about a web of relationships both romantic and otherwise. And YnY isn't really a romance at all. It's about a father-son relationship (and about one of the most entertaining characters I've ever devised, including my original works.)
One of the reasons I arrived at some of the pairings I use, in fact, is the fact that they create very interesting relationships between the main Yukai no Yugi cast. If, for example, Joey and Kaiba ended up together instead of Serenity and Kaiba, then not only would Yukai not be all weird about Kaiba's daughter (as opposed to Kaiba's niece, which mightn't be so charged), but Kira and Ken (Joey's oldest son) wouldn't be cousins and wouldn't act like siblings. I find the fact that Kaiba and Joey's kids act like brothers and sisters to be much more interesting than an uneasy friendship or fullblown rivalry would be.
If something having to do with pairings disappoints or upsets you, I apologize. Go over the Golden-Dragon-Girl account at DeviantArt (or email at yukaimotou@gmail.com) and send me notes demanding your slashcrack there. Or your hetcrack. Or your Weevil/Adina crack. It might not work, but then again it might. But don't knock YnY for something you dislike about the canon character pairings. You'll deprive yourself of all the crazy slashy jokes we start making about three (four? five? something like that) chapters in.
There's no way to keep everybody happy when it comes to pairings. Some people only like a fic when all the pairings are "totally and undeniably canon," whatever that means, while others can't stand anything resembling canon pairings and will only read a fic if Weevil is paired up with Princess Adina from the VR episodes right after Duelist Kingdom (or something equally WTF.)
And then, of course, there's the people who can't stand slash ("gay" pairings) and the people who can't live without it.
This is a nexgen. GDG and Invid (the authors) are both very creeped out by MPreg. Therefore, there will be little actual slash to speak of between canon characters.
That doesn't mean either of us really has anything against slash. Invid doesn't like sex in his fic fare at ALL, and GDG is bisexual. All sexual relationships in YnY and Game of Dreams will not so much be shown as hinted at (sometimes very, very strongly.) We believe that, for the purpose of this story, less is more.
There will be hints of pairings that don't actually end up happening in the long run. The driving force of Game of Dreams is mainly to get everybody together that are parents of main characters of YnY. After that, pairings won't be quite as central, despite the fact that Yukai's sexual orientation seems to be Kaiba's daughter. (If you've read the preboot, you know this already. It's not a spoiler.) But slash will rear its crack-dazed head more than once in both YnY and GD, occasionally humorously, sometimes as nothing more than a whisper, and possibly for real at least once.
But I refuse to limit any two characters by keeping them solely to each other. Yes, Kira Kaiba is Serenity's daughter and GD needs to explain how a heck that happened. But Kaiba's relationship with Joey plays a major role in that, as does Serenity's relationship with Joey. Even Mai's relationship with Joey. And the same goes for other relationships that exist in this fancomic, up to and including relationships with dead characters.
Game of Dreams is not a romance about any one pairing. It's about a web of relationships both romantic and otherwise. And YnY isn't really a romance at all. It's about a father-son relationship (and about one of the most entertaining characters I've ever devised, including my original works.)
One of the reasons I arrived at some of the pairings I use, in fact, is the fact that they create very interesting relationships between the main Yukai no Yugi cast. If, for example, Joey and Kaiba ended up together instead of Serenity and Kaiba, then not only would Yukai not be all weird about Kaiba's daughter (as opposed to Kaiba's niece, which mightn't be so charged), but Kira and Ken (Joey's oldest son) wouldn't be cousins and wouldn't act like siblings. I find the fact that Kaiba and Joey's kids act like brothers and sisters to be much more interesting than an uneasy friendship or fullblown rivalry would be.
If something having to do with pairings disappoints or upsets you, I apologize. Go over the Golden-Dragon-Girl account at DeviantArt (or email at yukaimotou@gmail.com) and send me notes demanding your slashcrack there. Or your hetcrack. Or your Weevil/Adina crack. It might not work, but then again it might. But don't knock YnY for something you dislike about the canon character pairings. You'll deprive yourself of all the crazy slashy jokes we start making about three (four? five? something like that) chapters in.
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