#this is basically just a very longwinded way of me saying that i dont think there's anyone that makes solo work like yunho

[sanstropfremir]

Hey! I hops life has been treating you well! And warning for a long and convoluted ask incoming (which is pretty par for the course for me). I’ve been going down a Yunho (U-Know Yunho to be precise lol) rabbit hole and I’m curious how you think he compares to other male SM solo artists especially Taemin (though I think it would be interesting to compare all SM solo artists like BOA or Taeyeon and Hyoyeon for the purpose of this ask im just thinking about the dudes). Cause I feel like him, Taemin, and Kai all fall on different ends of the same spectrum that’s distinct from some of the other SM solos like the other Exos (except I might add Baekhyun in there but I’m just not familiar enough with him) as they tend to tackle that darker sexier sound. I’ve been thinking about how when people say a male solo artists is making taemin lite music it’s usually actually closer to Yunho’s more recent stuff. Like taemin has kind of become short hand for dark male solo concept especially if it’s on the sexier or high concept side when that’s not always an accurate comparison. I’ve seen this especially with Wonho which is really interesting to me cause in my mind he falls way more on the Yunho end of the spectrum than Taemin (by like a long shot). And this could also be cause the kpop circles I run in are way less familiar with Yunho to make that comparison in the first place, I was just wondering if others like you that knew Yunho would agree with me. I also found it interesting that Taemin went solo before Yunho even though TVXQ are the older group so I wonder he affected Yunho’s music at all. Cause Yunho kind of seems like a more, I don’t want to say masculine, definitely more of a player, conventionally sexy foil to taemin’s more unhinged (satanic?? Fantasy? Horror-adjacent? I can’t really describe it accurately but I mean TVXQ has down their share of that too) sensual side and I can’t tell if it’s cause of the age difference between them, their group concepts (I mean TVXQ are the grown men of the kpop industry in my mind and I have no doubt they play a role in inspiring any “manly” or mature concept and Yunho’s concepts seems to follow pretty closely to TVXQ’s image in a way that Taemin doesn’t at all with Shinee), or their own artist personas and careers- taemin has always been viewed as the “feminine” one and you’ve talked a lot about how he’s both rejected and embraced that image overtime in his career. And to further complicate this I don’t really know where to put Kai between them cause he has the more overt sex appeal in Mmmh, and in his image over all, that Yunho has but also is more sensual and softer (subtle?) dance style that seems closer to taemin (or at least taemin’s image I’ll be the first to admit that my understanding of him as an artists doesnt always align with his actual output and the expectations I project on him) so I guess he goes in the middle. But peaches does really stand out as a sort of softer lighter storybook concept (which I love cause I feel like we don’t see traditional concepts that are more feel good) so that kind of throws a wrench into my theory and I guess thats what I get for treating artists’ output as a monolith and for comparing them😅. This ask is getting very very long and I’m late for class so I won’t continue but I did have some idea about where Xiumin’s recent comeback fits into this roster of artists but I’ll save that for another day lol. As always thanks for your input and I hope this makes at least some sense to you!

i stopped photo editing to answer this lmao bc i think this a very interesting question/thought experiment etc etc

firstly, most people will make the taemin comparison for male soloist because he is significantly more well known as a soloist, and part of that is that he's famous for being a soloist; an extension of which is the disparity between his solo work and his group work. now there are two points i want to fork off into from here:

-> the first is that it's a flawed comparison to place yunho, taemin, and kai on a spectrum because they're not derivatives of each other in the way that a spectrum would imply; what they all are is derivatives of rain. every dance-based male soloist is, via some lineage, a descendant of rain, whether it's through the skills line (taemin) or the 'masculinity' line (yunho) or a mix (kai). baekhyun doesn't factor in here because he's almost purely rnb based and therefore a kangta derivative.

-> the second is that it is valid for people to be making that comparison to taemin because most younger idols are going to be using him as reference, and because a lot of these younger idols are following his method of creating a separate solo persona from their group. yunho does not have that distinction. he is quite literally the face of tvxq, and therefore inextricably bound to the group's identity because there are literally only two of them. if they were, for example, still a five member group, he might have had more a chance to diversify himself a bit, but that's a bygone point because we don't live in that world. the reason tvxq made it through the split and maintained being an extremely successful group is very likely because of yunho's singlehanded determination. obviously changmin does care about the group, but as we've seen with his solo work, he's much more of a musical chameleon; he's more focused on dabbling in widely different genres that interest him. yunho's solo music however, is pretty consistent in sound and also not all that surprising of a leap from who he is in tvxq. so by that observation, i would say there isn't actually a difference between uknow yunho and uknow the soloist. his artistic identity is tvxq, in a way that he can't separate, unlike how taemin can separate from shinee. and following that point through, no younger soloist can really be compared to him because his history and group image are so integral to what he does. that's why there's like a negative number of young idols that every attempt to cover a yunho song, bc the vibes of something like follow or thank u would OBLITERATE anyone under the age of 30.

if you were to look at just aesthetics and music styles, sure on the surface there are some younger idols that unintentionally skew more towards some of the stuff that yunho has done, but in the end that's because they're all under the rain umbrella.

#kpop questions #tvxq w #tvxq #yunho #taemin meta #i know i've talked about this before in a post somewhere. but yunho's only comparable peers are literally like. junsu and rain #both them COULD cover a yunho song if they wanted to. but again. their vibes are wrong. they don't have the same desperation #to be completely honest i actually think it's unimportant to compare the literal aesthetics/music style of solo artists #and instead you need to compare HOW they approach those aesthetics styles etc etc #like you could say that taemin kai yunho and baekhyun have all done dance based 'dark sexy' concepts within a relatively close timespan: #criminal (sept 2020) mmmh (nov 2020) thank u (jan 2021) and bambi (march 2021) #but that doesnt take into account the fact that all of them approach the concept of 'dark sexy' totally differently #and each according to their own contexts #i dont think you can put all of sm's soloists on a big scale of similarity of music and aesthetic #i mean. you can bc duh theyre all gonna look and sound similar bc they share resources #but that's not seeing the forest for the trees in terms of actually analysing and understanding a soloist's work #this is basically just a very longwinded way of me saying that i dont think there's anyone that makes solo work like yunho #i guess you could argue that kai is actually the most similar to yunho since he doesnt have a real distinction between solo kai and exo kai #but again its different bc he's got a wider array of genres he's willing to try and exo is not the same as tvxq #but again again its not about relating them to each other. its about relating them in comparison to rain #answers #text #like when i say taemin is more popular i mean like. 1.2 million monthly spotify listeners vs 30k. its not an insignificant difference

[deathandthemaiden23]

Bro idk who's around me rn idk who's really still here in this fandom idk who will even see this or read it and i dont wanna get into it (proceeds to get into it) but ive been on a grand fucking expedition to confront past trauma and shit lately which whoopeee what else is new for what basically amounts to a dreamworks adult obsessed with the grim reaper from shrek specifically i think there's probably an actual good reason this is my biggest blorbo yet (which by the way, my good bitches, is truly saying something) beyond "big scary wolf sexy" but like anyways its been a hot fuckin second of me just sort of existing in purgatory with basically only this character to keep me real company the whole time chipping away at fanfic and makin doodles here and there while trying to solve the great big fuckin mystery of hey pal is there any particular reason you spend most of your free time fantasizing at length about being loved and cared for by literal fuckin death but um i kinda sorta had been making peace lately with the very real possibility that probably the only reappearances from Death we'd see going forward in this franchise would kinda just be relegated to stuff like being a playable character in that dumbass mario kart game they made recently that they had the audacity to charge $50 for the version with him in it and I was immediately prepared to shell out the fuckin money regardless anyways tldr this is my longwinded way of saying bless harvey fuckin guillen for supposedly saying he wants to reprise his role as perrito in shrek 5 and specifically mentioning he wanted to know more about his backstory including the near death experience he had in the sock that he still wears like ok let me be clear im not getting my hopes up for shit im super excited about the idea of harvey and everybody reprising their roles for future shrek installments but i know shit be disappointing sometimes and it just be like that sometimes blablabla alright nothing is set in stone in this cursed ass timeline we're in bbbbbbut

✨️H O W E V E R✨️

I cannot help but think in some kind of weirdly jaded optimism that surely dreamworks would not fucking let the absolute furry cashcow that Death is go to fucking waste if they're bringing shrek back to the big screen it just seems incredibly fuckin stupid this big fuckin bastard gave everyone a boner when last wish dropped to the extent that i actually didnt know anything about last wish going in to see it in theaters the first time knew nothing of the plot who was in it whatever right THE ONLY FUCKIN KNOWLEDGE I HAD OF LAST WISH PRIOR TO SITTING DOWN AND WATCHING IT WAS "OH I GUESS THERE'S A WOLF CHARACTER AND EVERYONE WANTS TO FUCK HIM" LMFAO UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE FUCKIN YEAR RIGHT LOL anyways if dreamworks doesnt seize the opportunity to give him at least one more like visible cameo appearance anywhere in whatever they can squeeze out of the shrek franchise after it was dead (lmfao) for like years (the puss in boots show is little known to anyone sadly and also it seems vaguely noncanonical if that makes sense stuff gets said on the regular in that show that just seems too batshit even for shrek standards) I'll genuinely like die of shock the entertainment industry is chock full of companies just like dreamworks always achin to get their hands on another iconic character they can squeeze money out of ad infinitum and like i dont want that to happen with Death I dont but also... please just let him show up at least one more time dreamworks throw this bitch a bone im begging you you will make so much money i promise u the thirsty tumblr fans are no joke we'll bankroll your ass to the moon and back

I feel it would be remiss of me not to offer some form of content after all this impassioned war and peace length solilioquy about the scu (shrek cinematic universe) so here's an old WIP from forever ago im like 90% i havent posted here (if i have oh fuckin well tbh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) its a lil scene from chapter 2 of my death fic where he gets caught redhanded picking flowers for his crush because he's a dork ass loser and wants to impress her without coming on too strong lmao like bro she's so into you just go for it

#puss in boots the last wish #puss in boots death #lobo #muerte #puss in boots wolf #shrek #ramble time i guess #i pity you if you make it through this whole post #idk what this is to be totally honest with you #i dont expect many will read it but #idk ive been gone for a second and i just read a screenrant article that gave me the happies #i wanted to release the happies here on the tungle #where surely civility reigns #sentences i will not regret later #tw mentions of death #i mean like #obviously lmfao #its shrek news idk if anyone still talks about shrek news on here #i guess im just excited to see what they come up with

[akechicrimes]

tomorrow A-side / tomorrow B-side

@blazhy​ this got so long and im so sorry in advance 😔

the story of the two endings is a whole mess. i set out to write a story where akira and akechi reunite, akira becomes incredibly angry with akechi after reuniting post-royal, and in the original premise, akira just absolutely tears him apart--even moreso than he already does in B-side, because the original conceit was an angry fistfight and then horny makeouts. LMFAO. and then, i think, i vaguely imagined that akira would tell akechi to leave him the fuck alone, at least for a little while, while akira figured his emotions out.

also, i imagined that the story would be about 2-3k long, so as you can see by the fact that both editions of tomorrow are longer than 17k, you can see how this did not work out. LOLOL.

so with this premise in mind, i tried to figure out how they’d get to such a falling-out argument, and started with a external third person pov about the phantom thieves noticing how sad akira was after akechi left. i scrapped that because i feel a type of way about stories that center around validating the main character’s pain, switched to close-third person, started throwing around super mournful, angry, and generally upset paragraphs about how akira felt with akechi gone, which later became the sections nearer to the end (e.g. his dream about akechi’s funeral).

i really liked the strain of “akira daydreams about all the ways that the reunion could go, only for the actual reunion to be a total letdown/wake-up call,” so i kept writing the passages about his daydreams and how they eventually became more and more exhausted from the strain of waiting. and because i kept chasing that thread, it turned into the whole 16k saga that’s up on ao3.

around the midway point, i realized that the original ending wasnt going to work, because the original ending seemed weirdly fantastical and too picture perfect, especially after 16k of words about akira imagining picture-perfect scenarios where everything works out, and it felt wrong to play right into his fantasies of a reunion where things turn out alright.

so about the midway point, i came up with a series of different ideas that later became the B-side ending--rather than necessarily an argument that turned into an emotional reunion, maybe something less fantastical. in one of these endings, akira says he’s tired of being in love with goro, which finally sparks a conversation about their feelings. (i did not write this because it was a hugely guilt trip move on akira’s part. it made sense considering akira’s very very long wait for three years, but it made me want to gag, thinking about akira throwing his feelings at goro like goro is responsible for them.) in another one, akira apologizes for being in love with him (i dont remember WHY this was a thing). these were kind of floating around in my head, but it was ultimately all iterations of “akira and goro have some sort of argument but not in a horny way” at the end of the fic.

so a whole good chunk of the fic was written with an argument ending (essentially B-side) in mind: i wrote the scene in the jazz club with that in mind, as well as the strains in the fic about akira feeling like akechi was the one person he could be honest with, and a bunch of stuff about how much both akechi and akira appreciated and depended on each other to disagree with them.

but by the time i had gotten all my sections in order and written them back to november 2019, when the reunion was supposed to take place, i felt... really weird about the B-side ending. i’d basically dug my own grave, because i’d written 16k of akira slowly realizing that maybe he had to let akechi go after all, and the original ending didnt make any sense. and it felt really weird as an ending for the same reason i scrapped the original premise: it seemed like bad form to play into the idea that they’d reunite and everything would turn out alright, especially after all that time of akira imagining ridiculous and unrealistic lovesick daydreams. it doesnt make any sense to have a story about akira daydreaming and then end with more daydreaming.

*through gritted teeth* so i. had to put on my big boy pants. and admit. that i’d written myself into a corner. and i was narratively obligated. by virtue of pushing back against akira’s silly daydreams. to write an ending. where shuake. does NOT resolve everything. and instead. *grits teeth louder* their reunion goes disastrously. and. they break up. and. *grits teeth loudest* go their separate ways. for the foreseeable future.

i wrote it and was immediately so fucking devastated with my own ending that i DM’d vintgecassette like oh god please read this thing and tell me what you think of the end (please tell me that there is another option) and she was like “no actually this ending makes sense. im crying but it makes sense” to which i dramatically fell upon my knees and had to accept that i’d written SEVENTEEN THOUSAND WORDS about shuake reuniting after royal only to have them IMMEDIATELY BREAK UP.

i hated it instantly. i talked to kat about it some more and told her about the other ending ideas i had, and somewhere in that conversation she said that the B-side ending sounded actually really cool, since there was already lots of good foreshadowing for the ending set in place, and also because goddamn if anyone should open up a bit, it’d be akira “i dont talk about my feelings” kurusu. (again, i wrote most of the fic intending for the B-side to be the ending, so it made sense.) so i was like owo? and pulled all my scrapped content for the B-side back out of the Trash and started reworking it purely out of spite for the A-side, despite the fact that the A-side existed in the first place as a pushback against the B-side.

i think this is a very longwinded way of saying that i posted both endings because i thought both of them, if by itself, was just ridiculous. a sad ending like A-side felt like meaningless sad feelings unless there was a universe where things could have been better. B-side felt unrealistic without acknowledging that things could and maybe should have turned out for the worse. of course, this is just how the endings game to be written, and i think the effect they have is more complicated--ive read some really cool comments on what people feel and think about the endings, and i think all those interpretations all extremely cool and extremely valid.

tldr, i dont actually know how to write and everything was a mistake. thanks for the ask, im sorry again this is so long 😔

ask for the director’s cut on a fic i’ve written

#mine

[marsixm]

edit sorry this post is both long (if the readmore fails i am truly truly sorry) & longwinded im just reflecting and thinking; (another edit: u can probably just read the tl dr and get it)

anyway allow me to spin some very personally based theory here for a mo while i put off/warm my fingers up from the cold in preparation to email my therapist

so growing up i had, i think only, het ships, but i never quite had the ones you were (narratively speaking) “supposed to” have

in most media i recall when i was a kid, there were like, 2 diff structures of character romance plot arcs in media i consumed, there was the main lead and 2 best friends model, where thered be the star of the show who had outside romantic leads and the 2 best friends (who were always a boy and a girl) would have their secondary romance, OR there were ensemble shows where there was a more clear romance set up between the main boy and main girl, then side characters whod pair off in whatever ways ended up happening. in the first, see: hannah montana, the second, see: zoey 101. obv this isnt a hard rule and there were loads of exceptions but like, lets just say i tended not to care for the romances set up for the main girls in the trio models, or quite as hard for the main boy and girl in the ensembles, and in general if there was an obvious romance between two leads i either didnt care or outright hated it

basically i never liked the ships they set up for us in straight media, as a kid (namely, a girl) i liked being that “ew pink!” “i hate valentines day” sort of contrarian, but what i remember actually disliking was the predictability of it, because i clearly still shipped characters, so it wasnt /really/ that i hated romance, per se

looking back on it i think it was probably or at least to a degree more like that i hated the hetero expectation of it- i can nit pick down to more specific examples of why i disliked the main pairings (kataang, for example, i thought was weird bc katara acted like a mother/older sister figure to aang, and i didnt feel like there was romance between them at all except where it felt shoehorned in) - maybe it was also that i thought it made more sense for a main character to be with someone they clearly already spent a lot of time with and not some random new hot boy in town (i very distinctly remember shipping miley and oliver on hannah montana, and i believe that was the first time i ever read fanfiction @ age like... 11 lol) as is often the case w like these things.

theres another level to this though, which is that i notice i tended to ship characters who were more vaguely similar to each other, like, physically (ie, similar heights, or hair colors mainly) obviously this is funny now since my main pairing is johnlock which is such a physically different ship we can construct them from basic shapes and colors and theyre still recognizable as who they are, but i have some thoughts about this- but i think there might be two interesting things about this again in retrospect

first of all, this sounds silly ik, but shipping the vaguely similar ones as a child’s way of queering heterosexuality is an interesting concept and not that difficult, like, two boys are also vaguely similar to each other in a similar way a boy and a girl with the same hair color and height might be, which is something i thought of a while ago

the other way in which this is really interesting to me now, that i think might have been more actually pertinent to myself as a trans child, is that i think i shipped the characters i did in an attempt to morph the concept of boy and girl? to find the boy counterpart to every girl??? that second one makes more sense actually. anyway, i digress

2 start off i definitely had gender feelings starting from a very young age so i think these observations ring more true than just reflections, PERHAPS

so the first thing i remember shipping, ie wanting them to be together, thinking about it an inordinate amount of time outside watching the films, even imagining them eating ice cream together in their pjs (i was NINE DHFJGghfkg) was jack sparrow & elizabeth swan from potc (basically my franchise of choice as a kid bc i never read harry potter) now this doesnt quite fit the “visually similar” thing bc actually orlando bloom looks more like kiera knightly and is prob due to them like making out in one movie, but i think this works for the “shipping as gender expression” theory, because elizabeth swan dressed up as a boy, spent most of that movie wearing boy’s clothes, etc- meanwhile jack was a wacky pirate which like hello duh i’d want to be. so i wonder if beyond the fact that they kissed and flirted, there was something to this concept of me wanting two characters to be together, meant i wanted to marry together two conceptual things happening with two characters, or absorb the cool dude and the boyish girl characters into each other to make one whole archetype for myself? i likewise shipped aang and toph (toph who, normally doesnt really have anyone to be shipped with, since she likes sokka but he has a gf) who we all know is the VERY boyish girl character, so boyish im p sure her actually being a trans dude later in life is a p decently accepted headcanon (i dont actually delve into aatla fandom though so i can only hope) 

another thing about this ship thing, is most of my ships had brown hair (like miley and oliver), just like i always have, and in certain cases the girl character would look a LOT like me (i also shipped logan and quinn on zoey 101, which to my surprise n delight actually came true later (although looking back im like... 11 yr old me is glad they made out a lot but adult me is like uhhh why were the kids on this show making out a lot? anyway thats another issue) and i def was a weirdo girl with glasses and long brown wavy hair) which sort of further fuels my feeling that this was an attempt by my brain to do 1 of 2 things, if my own involvement really was a greater motivating factor in this thing, 1. ship MYSELF with a boy (which is like def possible for my gay kinnie ass, but not quite my thesis here) or 2. morph these boy and girl counterparts by imagining them together, seeing them together, etc

for example, i realize now, when i was a kid i drew an avatar sona for myself and said sona looked an awful lot like how id imagine a katara/zuko fusion would be, and the fact that i shipped zutara (very hard lol) was what lead me down this thought path rn

i feel like even to me this concept sounds weird and far fetched but like, gem fusion made enough sense for someone to write with its clearly, usually, romantic implications and we all “get” that, so whom knows???

another thing ive noticed while writing this is for a good few of these ships you can argue the boys in them can be read gay, like jack sparrow and zuko and aang, which feels even more strongly like me trying to marry my gay boy feelings to my tomboy realities [thinking emoji]

the biggest reason i think this makes sense to me is because when i was 10 i became obsessed with the idea that this boy i was friends with and i were secretly twins separated at birth, like i was so into the concept that we looked alike, i like hoped and wished so hard for it to be true, i wished a christmas miracle would happen for fucking real and a magic door in my house would open and be his new room and itd all work out perfectly! and you might think this was a manifestation of my difficulties with my family and wishing to leave it, but in my dream world my parents were still my parents and he came to live with us- which makes me think the obsession of ME looking like this BOY was a manifestation of my gender feelings, which i think can maybe be traced to this concept of pairing a visually similar, possibly gay, brunette boy to every brunette and/or tomboyish girl

anyway. if you actually read all of this id love it if you lmk somehow (doesnt need to be a like) like this is clearly very long and strange but i hope it makes sense. i think i stop myself a lot from ever commenting on gender or theory or whatever but i am a living breathing trans person who has experienced things and i have opinions and i dont think im claiming anything destructive with this lol i think its not unusual to reflect on the way you interacted with the world as a gay/trans kid

also im obviously not saying that shipping straight things is somehow inherently queer, im not trying to retroactively claim something about straight ships, like, those two characters are still functionally straight, and i definitely also shipped probably all of them for normal shipping reasons (although, kid ones, so less “oh theres a lot of ACTUAL romantic subtext between these two” but rather “oh theyre friends and would be cute together!” (or like they kissed and i was like O: )) but im just trying to theorize about something its possible my tiny trans brain was trying to express- and who knows maybe im not the only one!

anyway i guess the TL;DR is: when i was a kid i had a lot of “unconventional” straight ships- i already observed that i eschewed the main canon pairings in kids media in what was probably my tiny baby brains rejection of hetero culture, but i also actively shipped side characters who looked like me, and also looked like each other (ie, both tall and brunette, a boy and girl counterpart of Each Other) OR characters who seemed to be a gayish boy and a tomboyish girl, and im theorizing that maybe the reason that was was my tiny trans brain wanting to gem fusion those two together because of my Gender Feelings and fuse the boy with the girl and this desire manifested in shipping therefore thinking about a lot these pairings of boy and girl counterparts

#please dont be weird about this post i hope its like understandable what im trying to think about here? #like i dont think its that weird to consider nor am i claiming anything bad or destructive about ppls lives n genders n whatever #purely an observation about myself and the way i consumed media ages like 8-12 #in reflection as a gay/trans adult and thinking about what those things might have potentially been expressing or something #i dont know any official queer theory stuff n i dont think that should stop me from thinking my own thoughts so here u go #also i am TRULY sorry if this readmore doesnt work

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi: Meat p23&24 reaction

So, uh, how about that Meenah, huh?

---

I'd actually wager she's not collaborating with Alt Calliope, just intent on confronting her solo, logic be damned. Then again, assuming Alt Calliope's really evil, if she has a silver tongue* she might have made Meenah a convincing offer, don't mind that she wants to consume all and everything. *Figuratively, since she should have a white tongue - although, consuming Caliborn might have changed that, I guess?

As for what the next page might hold - I'd like it that Kanaya, Dave and Karkat would band together and go to Dirk's place. But it's just as likely Dirk will get back to Kanaya nigh-instantaneous after narrating this last part. And he might just influence them into dropping their suspicion, for now.

---

"KANAYA: Why Are You With Rose KANAYA: What Is Going On" Ah, well, so he really did only spent an acceptable amount of time keeping Kanaya on hold. Just enough to pen down what happened to John. ... He won't pretend he's righting John-fanfiction to cover up his previous remark about John & the plot, now, will he? :P

"DIRK: Why would you think something was going on?

DIRK: By which I mean, why would you automatically assume that what’s going on has a sinister overtone.

KANAYA: Did I Say That I Suspected Something Sinister Was Going On

DIRK: Not with your words, no." ... I didn't realize, but because Dirk and Rose are so similar in demeanor, it's basically time to dust off ye olde flight-broads-and-their-horseshitometer, isn't it? There's going to be a bit of back and forth here, for sure.

"DIRK: But in the grand scheme of things, isn’t something always “going on”? Why would you even ask “what is going on” if you didn’t assume that the thing going on was both abnormal and untoward.

KANAYA: Well Now I Definitely Think That Something Sinister Is Going On Because You Are Obviously Trying To Distract Me With Semantics" "Phrasing!" is not something Kanaya is focusing on when people might be in jeopardy. Nice try, Dirk.

"DIRK: A tactic I’m sure you’re familiar with.

KANAYA: Excuse Me

DIRK: I’m just making an observation. You know your wife pretty well.

KANAYA: ...

DIRK: You know all of her tricks, all her little personality quirks. You’re confident that you know everything about her.

DIRK: But for some reason, you have no idea where she is right now." ... Is he trying to make Rose look guilty of something now? ... I would almost think he's trying to bluff his way out with his omniscience, but Kanaya's actually not going to take it well if he demonstrates he knows more than he should.

"KANAYA: Why Dont We Start This Conversation Over Again And You Can Say The Correct Thing This Time" "KANAYA: Hello

KANAYA: Excuse Me But I Would Like To Speak With My Wife Rose

KANAYA: Whose Phone I Do Believe I Am Calling

KANAYA: As Even These Primitive Human Smartphones Have Acceptably Accurate Caller ID Technology" This is Kanaya at her best. Longwinded and accidentally(?) sarcastic.

"DIRK: Sorry, Rose can’t come to the phone right now.

DIRK: She is otherwise... /occupied/.

KANAYA: Where Is She

DIRK: She’s at my place.

KANAYA: Im Sorry What

KANAYA: Rose Is Extremely Ill And Should Not Be Leaving The House Alone

KANAYA: What Is She Doing At Your Place" Rose didn't seem bothered by Dirk's request to come over, but that might have just been her overestimating herself. Plus, Dirk claimed he had a solution to her condition. I don't think the solution is getting her to fall asleep. Unless it gives her time to readjust, but then why wouldn't her pills have helped? I also don't think he's induced a situation where Rose is in a sort of trance, a dreambubble-like dream, communicating with her alternate selves while she absorbs their knowledge. Would be a fun conversation to read, though.

"DIRK: Chillaxing, whilst we discuss the inevitable heat death of the universe and the unknowable, solitary nature of human consciousness.

KANAYA: I See" That second part may have been discussed somewhat, but it already passed. Kanaya's not going to buy this even it laid in the discount bin.

"

KANAYA: If She Is Capable Of Such Abstract Polemics Why Is It That She Cannot Speak With Me

DIRK: That’s a damned good question." I had NO idea Dirk was this bad a liar. Guess it was only due to his AI nature that Lil Hal was so good at it, huh?

"Kanaya loves Rose, but sometimes love just isn’t enough. Sometimes what you need is /understanding/." He can't really work his magic on her through the phone, right? ... Plus, even then, she's not a god tier, she isn't growing towards an ultimate self, why would he bother?

"KANAYA: I Am Not Making A Joke

DIRK: Me neither.

DIRK: I don’t really “do” jokes?

KANAYA: Neither Do I" Why is Dirk even pulling her leg like this, I mean, he could've lied convincingly OR told the truth, why this? ... Maybe the "understanding" bit didn't mean Dirk's trying to understand Kanaya. Maybe he means, Kanaya can't help Rose but Dirk can. But still, why all this horseshit?

"DIRK: I do often make statements which hold varying degrees of irony, acerbic wit, or dry expressions of amusement.

KANAYA: Yes That Roughly Describes Many Of The Remarks I Make As Well

DIRK: I knew you’d understand." Oh... OH!!! He wants the OTHER people to understand HIM! Somehow, that is what triggered Rose's current state?? And he's trying to make Kanaya faint as well?? But WHY?? Well, now you can start the game of "when did Kanaya's comments start sounding like Dirk's", which her quirks makes more difficult. I suppose it's already happening, when I read back. D:

"KANAYA: However My Commiseration On This Matter Should Not Be Mistaken For A Gesture Of Friendship Or Camaraderie At This Moment" This echoes Karkat's comments in the vein of "this doesn't mean that friendship is what's taking place here".

"DIRK: Then it seems we’re at an impasse." Is that true, really? Not sure if Kanaya can withstand this... whatever it is. Sympathetic linking??

"KANAYA: It Wont Be An Impasse For Very Long

KANAYA: Im Coming Over Immediately

KANAYA: To Retrieve My Wife

DIRK: If that’s what you want.

KANAYA: Tell Her That Im On My Way

DIRK: Sure. I’ll get right on that." WHAT'S YOUR GAME??? It still seems like he might stop her at the last moment, I mean. Why would he allow them to confront him?

"Rose looks up from where she’s suffering on the floor. The shadows around her are growing. She stares at me with glassy eyes.

ROSE: Is everything okay?" Wut?? She's conscious again? ... Don't tell me Dirk was, in fact, telling the truth, and while he wrote the previous scenes, he simultaneously spent time talking with Rose. That's really like a Doc Scratch thing to do, you know, holding multiple conversations at once.

"DIRK: Yeah. Just a telemarketer.

DIRK: You know how those carapacians can be when they want to sell you some chess shit.

DIRK: Impossible to get ’em off the phone." So... He's trying to talk Rose into coming to a certain understanding, then? (All the while isolating her from her loved ones.) Nothing as crude as a soulbot, he's trying to walk her through the final stages of the ultimate self? Even if she specifically stated the idea scares her? She's not well though, in pain as she is, she didn't notice who Dirk was talking to.

'The shadows around her are growing', it said about her. I suppose it's due to the hour, not an indication that her ultimate self is grimdark? I hope?

---

"The server Meenah fled through is a distant speck now." Ooh! Back to John now! Guess Rose's conversation continues in the background. Pleased to see Dirk deems his continued adventures plot-relevant enough to continue narrating after a small time skip. So uh, I guess John wasn't able to open the device himself. Otherwise he'd have wanted to get his ring back.

"It doesn’t really bother you, though. It’s not like you had any plans for it. Taking it from Aranea was, like, a bonus as far as you were concerned." Huh! I didn't think he'd be so 'meh' about it.

"Extra life ring? Nice, maybe it’ll come in handy someday. Scratch that now." I guess the whole "conditional immortality" thing kind of makes resurrection artifacts lose their shine. But Rose, I assume, had a plan for John travelling back to that moment that extended beyond "pre-emptively clock the bitch that killed my alternate self before she could do it". Well, I GUESS it could be she didn't, Terezi messed with him too through her list.

"The young Condesce has it, and is probably hatching bold new plans as we speak. Not that those plans will ever have anything to do with you." Is this John's thoughts, Dirk giving John's thoughts, or Dirk's own opinion? Does he think her plans will have something to do with himself instead of John?

"Hours and hours slip by. Your eyes starts to hurt, and the wound in your chest starts feeling numb. It’s a disconcerting combination of sensations." Okay, so the wound was still there. But is the numbness coming from it healing, slowly, or the poison? :/ I can imagine peaking at white space for so long is a drag on the eyes, especially if your glasses are in such a shoddy state. Plus he's probably getting real tired. Just as long as he doesn't realize he died at one point, when someone mentions his eyes are white. :/

"After a while you think about tending to your wound. There must be something in your dad’s wallet that you could use to bandage the gash." Well, better late than never, I guess? Though that doesn't apply to poisoned wounds...

"You eye the wallet and try to imagine what could possibly be inside it that would be of any use on a medical basis. A straight razor?" So... he did peek inside it before we skipped ahead. Guess he might not have accessed the wallet modus so much as peeked at the literal object, and found a note?

"You notice you can’t seem to make yourself care about healing yourself long enough to continue entertaining ways to MacGyver your body back to health" That the depression talking again, John? :/

"A glint of red catches your eye, just ahead. Then it’s gone. No... there it is again, another glint. It’s flickering or sparkling in some way." I don't think it's Red Miles? :P Maybe Terezi's dragon wings.

... Blaperile has a good idea, it might be the red ruby slippers. Welp. At least John might call his search for Jade over when he finds them? But that seems to go against Dirk's plan for keeping him out there, hmmm.

"What it that? You drift toward it without urgency, worried that it’s exactly what you think it might be.

You get close enough to confirm. Two small red slippers, coated in tiny gemstones." The witch has gone to the wizard's lair, but she won't be coming back from there. End poem. :/

"Jade’s empty shoes are a depressing sight, but you feel a sense of duty to retrieve them. Might as well. You secure them in the wallet, along with whatever other junk is in there." Not sure if they have any magical properties. They DID lead Game Over Terezi to her 'home', in a sense, with Game Over Vriska.

"Your wound is starting to throb again. You can hear your blood in your ears. The rush of your pulse is so loud that it almost sounds like the engine of a rocket sputtering to a stop." Pfffff, that's literally what's happening, right? Terezi finding him, having flown over with her dragon wings. If so, the non-magical ruby slippers worked! In a nice twist from Game Over Terezi finding John while she was gravely injured and wearing the slippers. Well, to be fair, they're red and bright, and that's why GO Terezi took them, of course post-victory Terezi would be attracted to them out here as well!

"Wait. It sounds exactly like the engine of a rocket sputtering to a stop." Finally! I've been looking forward to this reunion. To see Terezi's reaction to everything that's happened, her knowledge of Vriska's current state, and just see how the demeanor between John and Terezi is now, after all this time.

"She hovers in place, looking not a whole lot different from when you last saw her years ago." I think she aged as much as him, though of course a time difference shouldn't be ruled out. But even so, tealbloods age real slow anyway.

"Her arms are crossed over her chest, making knifelike angles where her elbows jut out." Terezi is really all edges, isn't she? Sharp in body as in mind as in glasses as in horns. :D

"She is giving you a look of absolute disregard. It’s an expression of exasperation so performative and habitual, it sends bolts of aching nostalgia and fondness through your heart." <3<, back in business!

"Dumbly, you raise your hand and give her a dorky little wave. It does not adequately communicate whatever it is you’re feeling right now. But then, nothing else would, you suppose.

She waves back. But hearing her voice is what makes it real.

TEREZI: H3Y LOS3R" That's probably how they said goodbye on Earth C as well. It's how they said goodbye before the last fights in the session, anyway.

---

Cool, something to look forward to. I'm banking on Terezi's sharpness/aspect, to notice Dirk's influence on John/the plot! Might be too much to hope for, though.

But hey, now John has retrieved the wallet like Game Over Terezi wanted. Not sure it'll become relevant, since Vriska & Terezi deduced he'd need it to captchalogue Earth C.

Also, I really hope her Mindy thing gets discussed, what she underwent during Terezi: Remem8er.

#homestuck #upd8 #spoiler alert #reaction #homestuck epilogues #homestuck liveblog #kanaya maryam #dirk strider #terezi pyrope #john egbert