Oh here's Duke again (fancy/awkward/singer)

Hi, I'm going to talk about Duke. But before I get into that, some personal updates. 

Yesterday: I was at a Hanukkah party at my school's Hillel with my friend. Wow, finally something for Hanukkah. Latkes, finally. Got a gift too, which was nice. I got a Mad Libs book, which is nostalgic and funny for sure. 

Today: It was my last day for my Tuesday/Thursday classes before finals. It's the end of the semester already. Wow. I enjoy my two Tuesday/Thursday classes. My other classes not as much. Though there is more challenging work in these classes. 

I have to finish a take-home exam due tomorrow. For another class, of course. 

Yeah. Now I'll get into talking about Duke. 

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Here's the three small pictures of Duke I drew a few nights ago. 

I drew them in a notebook this time. 

I also have close-ups of each of them. 

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Duke 🖤 
(with slicked back hair) 

(& gold earrings) (17 years old) 

I accidentally drew this as a Fem!Duke too, haha. 

A few days before I drew these, I had images of Duke with different hairstyles stuck in my head. One of them was Duke with his completely dark semi-long hair, and his bangs (?) slicked back so he has no hair in his face.

Out of the three Duke drawings here, this is him as the oldest. For any context, I imagine Duke looking like this when he is in his red formal outfit and the men bring him to meet Dawn. Duke was supposed to be dressed up there. And so, this is how I picture him then. 

I'm not sure how to really draw fancy-looking slicked back hair, so I just drew a bunch of backward C's. 

I felt like coloring his lips, so it looks like he has lipstick on. Haha, that's pretty funny. 

I keep on imagining Duke having pierced ears for some reason, so I put gold earrings on him. They're the same ones I put on Fierdan not too long ago. It goes with the formal-looking vibe I was going for. 

My drawings here were too small for me to include the white glare in his eyes. Duke looks distant here too. That look in his eyes though. 

This one made me want to draw a Fem!Duke on purpose. Oh hmm... 

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Surprised young Duke 

(14-15 years old) 

Alright! So if I kept Duke's original story age of 14, this is how he would really look like. 

Fourteen year olds are so young. They're like.. actual children. I literally can't imagine Duke being a 14 year old in the story. That's just way too young. 

And now I think being a 17 year old might be too young. But it's not as bad as being 14. 

Pfft, I drew him like he's reacting like a meme. (Duke: ! *gasps*) 

I intended on drawing him scream-singing before his hair got all dark, but it didn't turn out that way. 

He looks so young here. Middle-of-puberty Duke be like ^^. Ahh haha. 

He had pretty spiky hair at this age. 

He looks so offended here too. Lmao I can't-- 

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And this one is my favorite. 

Duke-- about to sing a song 
(17 years old) 

This is supposed to take place after he recently turned 17. So I'm thinking late December or early January. 

I talked more about this drawing in the previous post. 

But I didn't mention that I know he's holding the microphone awkwardly. I'm not sure how he's holding the paper up like that either. 

I also colored the wrong part of his left arm red. I messed it up, ugh. 

I wanted to draw singer Duke a few days before I drew this. 

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Read Chapter 71 for information about Duke's singing and songwriting days. He did it with Finny. 

From Ch. 71, Finny's POV: 

• "A long time ago, Duke and I dreamed of becoming famous when we grew up. ... Back then, we dreamed of becoming a famous rock-rap combo duo." 

Duke and Finny.. friendship goals? They wanted to become famous rock singers (with some rap too?).. aww, that's cute. Yes, Finny can also sing. So can Twinkle and Fierdan. They all have distinct singing voices. I recently came up with an idea of Duke and Fierdan singing a song together. They have different voices, and I think it would sound neat having them sing together. Duke and Finny singing together also sounds pretty good in my ears. Duke has such a good singing voice in my opinion, so of course he sounds amazing when he sings with Finny. 

• "Duke denied it as being good every time I complimented his songwriting. I honestly was surprised when he showed me one song he wrote. ... Duke has a way with words. He can word things in a way that I can't help but to admire." 

Duke's supposed to be smart, but it's hard for him to be like that with all the shit going on in his life. Duke has a way with words (vocally and written) when he wants to be. He's a damn good writer, haha what. 

• Finny: "You better go. My girlfriend is coming here in under a half hour."

Duke: "Admiral, you mean? Dude, you know she doesn't actually love you, right?"

Finny: "You're only jealous because you don't have a girlfriend. Maybe if you weren't so stuck up, you would have had plenty by now."

Duke: "I felt nothing between any of those girls. If I'm going to ever date someone, I have to love them and they have to love me back. If it doesn't work both ways, then dating is pointless."

Finny: "Maybe you will fall in love if you stopped closing people off from knowing anything about you. We're best friends, Duke. Even I don't know that much about you."

Duke: "Shut up, Finny. Maybe I wasn't meant to be involved in fake love like you and the majority of the grade. Maybe I wasn't meant to love girls."

. . . . 

Finny: "If you're trying to tell me that you love me as more than a friend, then quit it right now. Get a girlfriend since that should be easy for you, so then you can't be bitter about Admiral and me."

What the hell, Finny! He's just like "oh my girlfriend is coming over, so you have to leave now" to Duke. That is so rude. Listen to Duke! Not long after this conversation you find out that Admiral never loved you, Finny. Duke isn't jealous or bitter; he's upset and worried about you. And what Duke said about dating is very important. Like, come on now, listen to what he has to say, Finny. Is Admiral influencing you, Finny? What has gotten into you, man? How could you do Duke so wrong like that? Duke just confessed to you that he thinks he never loved girls before, and you tell him to suck it up and get a girlfriend already..? Seriously? And Duke didn't even explicitly tell you that he sees you as a possible boyfriend, but you cut him down on that anyway. Duke tries to "come out" to you, and you spew this bullshit? Finny, what did Admiral do to you? Duke is trying to tell you that your relationship with her isn't that healthy. And.. ugh.. Finny! But yeah, you're too distant with others, Duke. You should open up and not keep all the pain to yourself. You're not going to be a burden on others, I promise.

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This has nothing to do with Duke, but... 

Today, I came up with an idea for when Twinkle says Duke's famous line. 

"There's a part in all of us that wants to be free." That famous Duke line. 

I'm thinking of Twinkle saying it in a completely different context. 

She would say it as a threat. I'm thinking of it going like, "There's a part in all of us that wants to be free. ... I want to be free from you." 

Yeah, it's quite something. Pretty threatening. Yes. 

I don't want to reveal too much, so I'll leave it vague. 

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Duke honestly is so much more of a main character than Twinkle is. That's kinda sad. He only became such a main character because he came into Twinkle's life and messed hers all up in the process. 

Duke is, well, he's such a complex character. He does evil things. But he's not evil. But at the same time, he is pretty cruel. So, idk, I think not having the story be completely from his side of things brings some relief to it..? 

Twinkle at the end is just like, "So that's it. That's my experience with this guy called Duke. It was quite something, alright. He's gone away now." ... pfft. 

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Damn :/ 

I do Duke so wrong. 

Huh :'( 

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Duke's whole life is just different levels of hells. He never has the opportunity to truly be happy. 

He never gets a happy ending. It just gets worse for him. 

I can't believe I only recently realized how damaging it is. What happens to Duke. It's so messed up. It's even making me angry now. 

I talk about Duke far more than any other character in posts and in chapters, so I know Duke has a lot more content. But despite that, Duke deserves so much better. 

His ending just hurts so much. Poor Duke. :'( 

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No offense but...

Duke is so much more of a tragedy boy than Fierdan is. 

When I compare Duke and Fierdan's lives side by side, I view Duke's as being so much worse. 

Fierdan's is not that bad in comparison. 

Sorry, Fierdan. It's just the truth. 

At least Fierdan (Post-Fierdan) gets a happy ending. He gets proper treatment and recovery. He eventually becomes truly happy. He falls in love, and it's wholesome and healthy. He lives past his 20s. He possibly becomes a dad (though the child he has with his significant other, whoever that may be, is adopted). He possibly gets married. He gets a happy ending. He struggles a lot, sure, but at least he doesn't die young like Duke. 

From story 2 on, Post-Fierdan is a combination of story 1 Fierdan and Duke. So now I'm thinking, hey, maybe his PTSD can also be from Duke's because, hey, Duke would have PTSD just as much as Fierdan does. 

Maybe Duke had more subtle signs of having it before he gets tortured by Taurel, but that just pushed him over the edge. 

Duke never has good mental health. He's so, so damaged. 

Duke's ending consists of a graphic death. Fierdan stabs him in the heart. Duke's body was breaking down before then, but his body becomes fully destroyed because of that. Duke's dead body doesn't even stay a body. It disintegrates. There is no corpse left behind. There is no sign left behind that Duke ever lived. It's very messed up and extremely sad. 

Yeah haha, Duke has it much worse. 

But! Story 2 Post-Fierdan partially equals Duke. He's like Duke, just without the Soulless parts of him. 

Duke said he never wanted to live. He wanted to die time and time again. At some point, he hates being alive. He begs for death. Desperately each time. The next time more desperate than the last. 

So there you go, Duke. You die. Congratulations. 

You were a broken case. You were too broken and damaged to be fixed. I'm sorry, Duke. You had to die. You never get saved. ;~; 

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But I enjoy thinking of AUs where Duke stays alive and lives a long and eventually happy life. 

I'm so up for that. 

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Duke staying alive only further contributes to the project world getting torn apart. 

It's very bad. But Duke (more like Soulless) is the reason the world is destroyed and dies. 

Many people died because of the toxicity. Toxic air, toxic land. It's no longer suitable to live in. 

Sure, authorities could have done much better jobs. But it wouldn't actually go to an end if Soulless didn't die. And Soulless could only die if Duke also died. 

Soulless planned on destroying the world at some point. Destroying the world and killing all the people in it. 

Soulless was the main reason why Fierdan became so obsessed with violence, death, and killing. Soulless made Fierdan want to destroy the world and kill "everyone" (psst, he actually doesn't get close to killing everyone). 

In a way, Duke got caught in the crossfire. It's all Soulless' fault, but he also had to face the consequences. Geez, Duke is such a tragedy boy. He didn't deserve to die. He might have done some fucked up things, but he didn't deserve to die. Especially how he dies. 

Duke really deserves to heal from his trauma and live long enough that he no longer is suicidal. Like, ahem, Fierdan after story 1. But he doesn't. Ahh! ;~; ;; 

So yes, haha, I'm doing story Duke so wrong. Put a trigger warning sticker on him. Heck. 

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Haha wow. I got far from my drawings. 

How did that happen? 

I want to draw singer Finny. And other Finny moments. 

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The story is a work of fiction. It's purely fictional. None of the characters are real people. 

Just a reminder. :-) 

Unlike Duke, the world would not be significantly better with you gone. Other people don't die as a result of you simply existing. 

Duke, throughout his life, is suicidal. I don't think he's ever not. 

Yet he dies young. 

There's no positivity in it. The story is a tragedy. There is no hopeful message in story 1. 

It's just full to the brim with pain. No, it's overflowing. 

I guess I made Duke the way he is because in a way, it helped me get through the times in my life when I was the most self-destructive and suicidal. Even though I had a long phase where I hated literally every single thing about the story (honestly, I still do but I view it in a 2018 lens and not a 2016 one), thinking about and writing the story and story plans helps me. It saves me. I don't know where I would be without it. I'm not that sure. Through all the changes that I've been through these past few years, it's always stayed here. Sure, I'm making lots of changes to it (I'll post about that later) but it's still here. It didn't go anywhere without my permission. I wanted it to go away, but I'm glad I didn't go through with it. Haha, it's pretty ironic for me to say this because the story is so fucking dark, but it is a light in my life. And it's not just the story either. I have more lights in my life now. Around this time last year, I wanted to die so badly. I hated being alive. I still have days like those, but that's just what they are. Bad days. They come and go. I have more friends now. People care about what happens to me. My college professors so far actually give a damn about their students. It's different from how it is with most high school teachers. But I have to admit. I had some very nice teachers last year. Kind people really make a difference. They kinda made me not want to really die. It was just the hell in my mind. I know that. Don't give up. Don't die. Live. Live. Live. I have to survive finals week. I'm terrified. But that's okay. It's okay to be scared of the future. But I'll make it out alive. 

... yeah idk what else to say.