Comment on Monochrome Duet

  1. Majerus on Chapter 2 Wed 31 Jul 2024 12:02AM UTC

    You say it was a weak chapter, but it was pretty chock full of backgrounding and bonding. I'm enjoying how Kirito is trying to rationalize his feelings for Asuna - especially her absence. I assume that his ex... partner is especially relieved that Kirito will be safe. I think her assumption is that he's essentially guarded in both the physical and romantic sense, not that she would admit to it. I am wondering if you will give Asuna the opportunities to realize what she's missed out on, before Kirito clues in that he's in a relationship. Of course, Kirito might not be clued in on his wedding night, so... :P

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    1. Solid_Shark on Chapter 2 Wed 31 Jul 2024 12:39AM UTC

      I will say, Kirito's relationship with Asuna in this ends up somewhat... complicated. I should point out that Kirito is not nearly as oblivious to such matters as his reputation suggests; the anime and especially the games play him up as typical Oblivious-to-Love anime protagonist, but the novels make clear he's nowhere near that dense. That's very much emphasized in this story, as you'll see later on.

      For the record, Asuna largely drops out of the plot for a good while (remember this was originally planned as a much shorter project, with a much more confined focus on Kirito and Kizmel's relationship, so Asuna was not originally expected to be relevant very often). Starting around Chapter 9 and especially from Chapter 18 onward, she becomes a much more important character. And her relationship with Kirito, as I say, becomes... complex. Mostly subtly, sometimes a bit more than that. Suffice to say she is, at the least, definitely one of the most important people in Kirito's life by the end of the death game, even in this version of events.

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      1. Majerus on Chapter 2 Wed 31 Jul 2024 05:52PM UTC

        Oh boy... well, while I dearly love Asuna, I do not envy how you are going to make the connections work with all three of them. Since this is not listed as a Triad fic, and you have not included Asuna as part of the pairings list, I'm going to assume she adopts more of a sisterly role... though it still occurs to me that she will be kicking herself for a very long time when she realizes what she has lost.
        Then again, I'm getting way ahead of myself and I've truly enjoyed everything that you've presented so far, so I will just anticipate with baited breath what you do with the three of them in the future.
        As to Kirito's attitude with girls, I am adding it to the long list of reasons why I need to go to the library and pick up the Progressive series Manga - After this!
        While I can read multiple stories concurrently, I try to never read more than one of the same genre let alone the same Source material; so I can read this, a Rurouni Kenshin, a Harry Potter and an original dramatic work... but I wouldn't want to try to juggle this and any Canon work for example... I'm not that crazy 🤪

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        1. Solid_Shark on Chapter 2 Wed 31 Jul 2024 09:49PM UTC

          The way I generally describe Asuna's relationship with Kirito as of later parts of the story is "more than friends, not quite lovers". Kind of a gray area, where she's allowed more intimacy than any other girl would be (Kizmel not being the jealous type, and very fond of Asuna herself). I will say, the story fully justifies Kirito being as fixated on rescuing Asuna in Fairy Dance as in canon.

          The Progressive manga isn't really the best source for Kirito's more insightful nature--it's fun, and I do use elements of it in Duet, but it's rather less serious in tone than the novels. Also, even the Progressive novels do have him missing some fairly blatant hints from Asuna (though justified by this being early in his time in Aincrad, when he's only fourteen and hasn't yet gone through his character development yet, plus having baggage of his own). It's material set later in the SAO arc that shows him more capable of picking up on romantic nuances. For example, where the anime version of his adventure with Lisbeth has him clueless about her interest in him, the novel makes clear he picks up on it just fine, he just has no idea how to react. Similarly, while it's somewhat harder to tell how much he picks up about Asuna's feelings in the lead-up to them getting together, he certainly doesn't seem surprised when she makes things clear.

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          1. Majerus on Chapter 2 Thu 01 Aug 2024 01:13AM UTC

            Thanks for the clarifications.
            Honestly, even adding Progressive to my Stack, it wouldn't be actually Read for... a While *sighs*

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