#actual homestuck makes up 40% of what i like about homestuck the rest is fandom shenanigans and the hypothetical act 6 where it was good

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

At this point like 40% of what i like about the owl house is just shit i made up in my head lmao

[takashi0]

Ship asks: 2 3 4 5 8 11 12 13 15 16 17 18 21 22 23 26 27 31 32 33 37 40 (sorry if this is a lot)

5 and 8′s already been covered so I guess I’ll do the rest lmao. 

2. Talk about three of the most important ships throughout your life.

Arkos - If you’re a RWBY fan then you need no explanation. Jaune and Pyrrha meshed so well together. Pyrrha was powerful and kindhearted and Jaune’s a lovable dork who needed a guiding hand. Had things gone differently I think I speak for damn near all the RWBY Fandom when I say the potential for sweetness and feels would be practically limitless.

Naruhina - I almost never talk about Naruto for a lot of reasons, but I was one of those kids who got swept up in the craze back in the day, and it’s because of that I probably got into anime as much as I had been in the pre-brony era. I’m just a massive, massive sucker for extremely shy characters and it’s because of Hinata. I instantly started to root for her to get her man, and if I didn’t fall off the Naruto wagon near the end of the war I would’ve absolutely lost my SHIT when it turned out that she ended up succeeding! 

...What a shame about Boruto though. 

JohnVris/Con Heir - This one’s gonna get me some shit, I’m sure. I wouldn’t exactly call myself a “Vriska fan” when Homestuck was going strong, but I resolved to reserve judgement until I got a decent ways in to see what the actual HELL all this ridiculous discourse was about, because if there were people willing to defend her then surely there had to be SOMETHING redeemable, right? Turns out Vriska is pretty damn awful, but she was so largely entertaining (up until that business with the retcon and her other self happened) that I couldn’t bring myself to hate her too much (up until you-know-what).  BUT.

The thing I liked most about her was her relationship with John. First she saw him as nothing more than yet another tool in her games with Terezi, and guided him through the game purely for her own selfish ends. But then she killed Tavros and started to regret it, something she’d never done for any other troll she’d ever killed before. Her grappling on whether or not she was justified or should she change was an interesting turn of events and John’s promise of a date to help her become a new person hit me pretty hard, and it made her dying at Terezi’s hands (necessary as it was) even worse.

I don’t care if people say it was strangled by the red string or if John was out of his mind for asking out someone who just admitted to being a mass-murderer, I’m an intense sucker for Love Redeems and a story where a girl driven to toxic influence status by an incredibly hard life (because love her or hate her, Vriska’s life DID suck pretty hard) manages to become a better person for the sake of the guy she loves is brimming with so much story potential it’s downright insane, and if Hussie wasn’t furiously stroking himself off to the notion of making the fandom argue with itself he might’ve found something worth exploring.

Oh right, that already exists, it’s called Darling in the Franxx. Whole reason I even got in was reading spoilers and realizing that it pretty much JohnVris done right with more Robot titties.  Which means I’m counting Hir02 as an honorable mention for this list, lmao.

3. What’s your current OTP?

Arkos. I need to get the gang back together to work on that AU.

Current Runner up is Deku/Ochako because how can you NOT love these two dorks?

4. What’s your current NOTP?

Bakugo/Anyone from MHA. ‘Cause he’s an asshole, that’s why lmao.

11. Talk about your favorite first kiss.

Pyrrha’s sealing of the deal was the perfect blend of joy and dread, because you’re glad it happened but the fact that it happened means you know damn well what’s about to happen next and you’re on the edge of your seat hoping in vain that it doesn’t. 

...It’s a poor choice but it’s the Kiss I explicitly remember the most.

12. Have you ever been disappointed when your ship finally got together?

JohnVris. Because not only was it not even Alpha John, they broke up anyway.

13. Has a ship ever broken your heart?

JohnVris and Arkos, both for very obvious reasons.

15. Have you ever “shipped at first sight”?

Naruhina, for reasons I already listed above. Arkos for more or less the same reasons. 

16. Talk about a ship you initially disliked.

NaruSaku. Sakura was just so damn mean to him that I made me baffled as to how people could think they’d work together. But over time she mellowed out and started to not be as bitchy to him (unless he did something legitimately dumb), and it helped warm me up to the ship, leading to the next question. 

17. Talk about a pairing you’ve stopped shipping romantically.

NaruSaku. There was a point in time where I switched from NaruHina to NaruSaku because I was convinced by some at-the-time friends that it was more likely to happen for some reason, probably owing to Sakura’s character development into being much less bitchy to Naruto. But then NaruHina happened so I was happy either way lmao. 

18. Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.

see 16. 

21. Is there a ship you just don’t get, but have nothing against?

BakuDeku. Bakugo is just. 

A massive cunt.

for the majority of MHA’s run.

Even by standard Shonen Fujoshi “rivalry = eventual romance” rhetoric, this is a fucking stretch and a half considering we start the damn series with Bakugo telling Deku to KILL HIMSELF. 

Yeah yeah, Character development, whatever, if you ship it’s your business but Jesus fuck I’m not seeing it. 

22. Which of your ships have the best chemistry?

If flawed characters are essential to any story, then I would like to propose a writing exercise where you give each half of the ship a significant emotional problem that they lean on the other for and their S/O helps them overcome it. The key is that BOTH of them have to go through this, as it will help increase their bond and make their feelings more believable. 

23. Which of your ships deserve better writing?

Pretty much all the ones I’ve talked about thus far lmao, though in some cases that better writing is just “Make it official already dude.”

26. Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?

As mentioned, make one of your characters incredibly shy and that’ll get me on their side almost instantly. Especially if the target of their affections is secretly mutually pining for them. 

27. Is there a ship you’ve shipped for most of your life?

I spent close to a decade being a Narutard, so flip-flopping between Naruhina and Narusaku was a pretty lengthy experience and probably the closest answer.

31. Talk about one of your favorite headcanons for a ship you love.

Another one for RWBY, Black Sun. Since two different species of Faunus means their offspring will be a completely random animal faunus, Blake and Sun will have at least one child who is some form of dog. 

32. Share five must-read fics.

Dude I barely read fanfics at all so I can’t give you anything, sorry.

33. Name your favorite fanartist(s).

Like in General? Or for shipping purposes? 

Either way first and foremost artist for fanart in general is the legendary John Joseco, though he doesn’t really do shipping unless you pay him lmao.

37. Do you have a favorite trope and/or AU for your OTP?

“Pyrrha doesn’t fucking die” AU. 

40. If you could change one thing about your OTP, what would that be?

It’s Arkos, I think you can probably guess. 

[egg2k16]

40 Fanfic Q’s Answered

the server wants answers, and they want them now!!! from this post

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Smut and pining all the way. Also, falling in love via laughing

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Eh...I don’t think so, I’m always 100% self-indulgent, so what u see is what I want

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

Anything that has to do w mega sadness, I just Don’t. I can’t write anything sad, and if I do, there’s certainly gonna be A Lot of comfort afterwards

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

I have 91 wips, motherfuckers!!! My latest wip is a daddy month fic!

5. Share one of your strengths.

I think, since I’ve been trying to be sparser in my words, I’ve been able to better emphasize what isn’t being said

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

No action scenes from me are ever good, lmao

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

It was late at night, when he started to cry.

He didn't want to cry, but he did.

It's been years since he's last let himself feel, or was it since he was last allowed to feel?

He choked on his sobs, uncomfortable with his tears. He's forgotten how to properly cry. His entire body is shaking, and the connections between flesh and wire hurts.

He stops crying. He starts crying again.

This continues for another few minutes, until he feels as if he can't possibly have any more tears.

He wipes his face, pulls the covers up to his chin, and falls asleep.

(from Twilight on the Sea) I really like this bcus I don’t think I’ve ever really typed out crying in this way, n I tried to make it feel like it was a lot

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Cass was quiet for a moment. “... you know what? Maybe I’ll just go up there and surprise you.”

“If you do, then you already ruined the surprise, haven’t you?”

“Eh, I dunno about that. Seeing my beautiful face is a shock for many people.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it.”

“Hey, Koda? I don’t know about you, but it’s really late here.”

“Really?” Koda asks, then remembers that time zones exist. “Oh crap, what time is it over there?”

“It’s midnight. What about you?”

“It’s eight o’clock. Only four hours difference?”

“Oh hey, that’s not so bad.”

“It reduces our time,” Koda said, a bit whining.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“What are you going to do? Move here? Send for me?”

“You’ll see.”

(from Together) This was a gift for one my best friends on here, @suncatchr​ , and it’s about his ocs!!! I love this a lot bcus while it’s a soulmate au, it’s not ur average soulmate au, and I tried making it as original as possible! And this blurb, I just wanted them to effuse so much love w/o having to say love...cries

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

If this is by posted fics, then I remember writing Look What You’ve Done to Me was very very difficult, bcus, since it’s also a gift, for @daniel-bryan​ , I wanted to write it Good, n since my buddy usually wrote from the love interest’s pov, I felt a weird pressure to write Daniel Bryan’s pov as good as I could

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

2 of my fics in Spanish!!! My oc centric one, Rayos y Centellas, and my shyan one, oye cariño, solo pienso en ti ! Turns out writing in ur native tongue makes everything easier

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

It’s a very passionate hobby!!! I just!!! try to pour all of my love into everything I write!!!

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

I’m not sure!!! I just watch movies n quietly scream to my gay lonesome bcus No One Ever Watches Movies ;-;

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

To just keep writing n not stop for details or forgotten lore, bcus it’s important to write down what’s firing u up Right Now. Of course, it’s very difficult following that ;;-;;

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

“No adverbs!” “No ‘said’!” “It has to make grammatical sense!” sometimes things Need those

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Was gonna say my rewrite of the end of The Rover, but actually, my SPN fic Ube . Shit was peak inspired

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Eridirk (Eridan Ampora/Dirk Strider from Homestuck) all the way. The one otp that’s stayed thru thick n thin <3

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

A little mix of both, and tbh it depends on the fic, but I tend to write chronologically

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

I’ve started bullet pointing my ideas out before writing my fics, and so far, it’s been helping me be more streamlined n get my things written out faster n clearer!

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

Is the need for representation in all the niche movies I keep watching a muse?

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

In my dark room, w music blasting from my laptop, the TV w a soft hum, I have the perfect playlist to get the mood right, curled up in my blankies, n my plushie Sweet Pea by my side

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

Zero, we rely on autocorrect & editing while typing and die like men

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

YOU DON’T SEEM SCARED.

Del Rio shrugs. “Working as a cop, it makes you numb to some things. It’s good, it lets you react to things as you should, and not how you’d want to.”

YOU SOUND SAD ABOUT THAT.

He makes a noncommittal noise. “It is what it is.” He eats another spoonful of his ice cream, then gets a thought.

“Can you show up?”

HOW SO?

“Can you,” he tries, waving his spoon around, “Manifest?”

I DON’T KNOW. I’LL TRY.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Del Rio assures, and he can feel the air around him smile. The...world, he thinks, around him shifts just slightly, and there seems to be a chink in the armor for a moment before it goes away, as if someone had wiped the glass clear. He realizes that this is her, trying to show up in a physical form, step out of the phone.

He doesn’t know where to look, but then his confusion wanes when a butterfly shows up, fluttering towards him. It lands near his phone, skitters a bit, flaps its wings.

“Lucy?” he asks, transfixed on the butterfly. Its orange wings are bright under the sunlight.

I THOUGHT I’D TRY SMALL, FOR MY FIRST TRIAL.

“Well, you certainly nailed it.” He smiled warmly at the butterfly, and he had the crazy notion that it smiled back at him.

(adapted from The Policeman , the first fic I posted!)

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

Yeah, probably The Policeman lmao, I remember it today n I cringe a little at the very obvious refs to other fandoms I made. Despite that, it continues being one of my best hits!

24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

Never

25. What do you look for in a beta?

I’m just thankful to have gotten a beta in general in life at all

26. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I beta’ed once, and since English is my 2nd language, I pointed out syntax confusion, typos, n continuity errors

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

Can be done, it’s just that I am frightened. Tried doing that, it fell thru, n the new thing that came up, I still have to hold up my end of the bargain ;;-;;

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

cries omg ok so!!! Chancy_Lurking ( @lurkerviolin​ ) is one of my faves, n we’ve become friends, n their Felix+ Sense8 series is the reason for it all, and u know it’s good if it managed to make a friendship that’s last its good while, and also they’re so nice, and we vibe so well!!! thegoatz ( @daniel-bryan​ ) is also now one of my bestest friends ever, and I wuv him so much, he is such a good kid, n he’s so enthusiastic about writing, and I hope that spark never goes out!!! And adamwhatareyouevendoing ( @skatingthinandice​ ) bcus she’s doing a rewrite of The Last Kingdom where it’s all gay where it should be and vnjkdfsnvkd God, what a wonderful friend!!!

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I actually technically am working on a sequel to @rettaroo​ ‘s A New Kind of Touch ! Another promise I have to hold up eventually ;;;-;;;

30. Do you accept prompts?

Sure!

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I try to follow canon as much as I possibly can!

32. How do you feel about smut?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

33. How do you feel about crack?

Eh, it’s alright. I don’t normally look for it, so I don’t really have a solid opinion on it

34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

I don’t want to read it, but I have so far encountered it twice very amicably: once here in a ficlet, and another in a longer fic on AO3, and they were both very good

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Probably not, I don’t like sad things!

36. Which is your favorite site to post fic?

AO3! I’m RedLlamas on it!

37. Talk about your current wips.

Lmao which one. The one I’m currently working on is an impregnation kink turned “oh no I actually do wanna have a family” feelings fic!

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

Gonna be real w u, the best comments I’ve gotten have mainly been from my friends, who either write a paragraph or two going into detail of the fic, or just send a one sentence comment that’s just “screams!” I’ve gotten very few paragraphs from other people, n they’re always so!!!

My friends are the realest :’)

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

The perks of being a rarepair writer is that the only people who read my fics are the ones actively looking for content!!! And they can’t complain about my work because No One Else Is Writing For It!!!!!!

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

All my fics are masterpieces, so I’ll do a summary change! For don’t you just know (exactly what they’re thinking?)

Dakota finds himself in unexpected heartbreak, and the universe decides to bring him in the direction of a night club with a dancer with stars on his skin.

[definitely-not-an-alb]

I think the best thing about TMA for me until now is that it’s the first time I’ve actually gotten into one of those unspoilable fandoms myself. Like that’s the main reason I started it, people kept reblogging stuff about it onto my dash and I was always like ‘??? this makes NO SENSE but it sounds rad and like ya’ll are having FUN and I appreciate that’.

LIke I’m generally the kind of person who does not give a single fuck about spoilers, in fact, I appreciate spoilers. Like I don’t care about A:EG AT ALL right now, and I’ll actually write to a friend who saw it today and ask her to spoil it so that I can have like, emotions about this and enjoy watching it once I get my hands on it. And I only ever got into Hannibal because I read a misfiled fic that spoiled me for every single plot twist of the show. There’s some fandoms I’ve never consumed any canon of, I just exist on the branches of them, consuming fancontent and getting the same kind of enjoyment out of them as out of my main fandoms. So I’m a weirdo and I start 90% of my fandoms because someone ‘spoils’ me for them. 

So not only do I Not Get Spoilerculture, it’s actively detrimental to my enjoyment of media.

But. There’s those fandoms. The ones that make no goddamn sense. I love them.

The SCP-Foundation was prolly the first time I experienced this with, but that one has the added bonus of literally never stopping it’s bullshit. Like you can’t get ‘into’ it, I feel like, it’s too much content, and to disjointed. There’s no canon, there’s not even several main narratives, it’s just An Organically Grown Purposeful Mess hive-minding it’s way, and on top of that it has like seventhousand different internal (some defunct now) subcultures and occasionally you find a relict from the 4chan days (the true horror of the archives). It’s a mess, I’ll never understand it’s writhing, weird mass and I love it.

Homestuck. I have no fucking clue what the fuck Homestuck is (a comic? a webseries? an eldritch abomination beaming content into it’s follower’s brains?) or what it’s about and there seems to be like 100 years worth of canon and it’s own language and logic and I have no intention of ever reading it, because otherwise I might understand the nonsense that crosses my dash and where would be the fun in that. Please, for the love of god, don’t explain homestuck to me, because that’s literally the only way you could make it boring to me.

Animorphs, is kind of the same, though I might actually read it at some point. With that one it’s more like ‘I know the themes, but I can’t name a single character or plot event and I have no idea what those words mean, I only understand the abstract interpretion at the end of your essay’. It’s fuckign great. Please don’t explain Animorphs to me.

And gonna be honest, TMA is kind of like that. Like I’ve seen stuff about it, and I mean text posts and character studies and explenations of plot points ffs, cross my dash for month now, and I’ve read them. And they sound rad but I honestly don’t understand a word? And that’s great!

It’s like, I see the words and I see the letters and they make sense individually, but then I read, and they do not make sense together. I should know what this means, but I do not. But it’s also not nothing, it’s not meaningless babble; it’s something, and there are people, somewhere, who know how to understand this, somehow.

I’m at around episode 40 now, and it’s like, with the very first episode, i picked up this threat and started unraveling it. With every episode, those jumbled words look more and more like the stories and explanations I know them to be. And it’s exilerating, way more then it is scary, to reach out into that darkness and grasp that line of explanation and follow it, episode by episode. I don’t know any of the deep lore yet, but I’ll get there. Let me know, let me be part of this shared hallucination that is Fandom.

Old Wierd Fiction, your Lovecraft and whatnot, always had this problem, I think, that the people writing the stories wouldn’t have picked up the threat. Their horror is less of the things out there, and more of watching their friends pick up the threat, watching them start unraveling it and wandering away from them. They, the writers, and you, the reader, they assure you, are not like that. They are Sensible, the Right Kind of People, who wouldn’t do this out of their free will. They only come into contact with the strange and dangerous through accident, or the choice of others (misguided idiots). They’d never pick up the book, never read the words they can’t understand, never talk to those people (the Wrong Kind of People). They don’t listen to the sounds in the darkness, they don’t find the other half of those barely eligible notes, they don’t ask the people talking weirdly like that and they mind their own, respectable business. They wouldn’t do this, they are the sensible ones, right?

I’ve never been very good at being the Right Kind of People, not in who I am, and not in who I am, and I have very little aspiration, if any, to be. And I think I’m not a very Sensible Person either.

I’m not stupid, of course, I wouldn’t open the obviously creepy door and wouldn’t touch the definitely cursed amulet and wouldn’t read the barely legible, antique book I found that says ‘Here Be Demons’ in Latin.

But I am, in the end, not very sensible. I lay awake at night not saying ‘that was just my birds.’ but ‘Was that my birds?’. I name the things in my nightmares (what a stupid thing to do, don’t.). I go digging for the rest of what those people are talking about, those barely legible posts on a website.

And in the end, this is save, right? It’s just fiction. There’s worse ways to fill this want-to-know-want-to-dream-awake-want-want, like a cult or something, right? It’s a podcast, some transcripts - I can always stop listening.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 6-13 [the rest of Epilogue 2]

I’m told that there are 40 chapters, and a postscript, in Candy - and also that it’s split into 8 individual ‘epilogues’ within that, of varying length. ‘Epilogue 2′ began with chapter 4, featuring Rose and Kanaya. So I kind of cut it off in exactly the wrong place. Oops!

Anyway I’m going to split these up by Epilogue section from now on. This one covers the rest of Epilogue 2, which mostly concerns shipping, and processing of feelings.

Here are the irons in the fire at the outset of chapter 6:

Gamzee is back! he claims to be setting out on a ‘redemption arc’

Terezi is in space somewhere looking for Vriska, but set to return at some point, and not all that happy that Gamzee’s back

Dirk has perceived some bad news. And briefly spoken about it with Jane, though without explaining anything.

But that’s all Epilogue 1 stuff - old hat!

Rose has suddenly recovered from her illness, and is patching things up with Kanaya

Jade has attempted to push Dave and Karkat to admit they’re into each other, but really just made things worse

Jane attempted to run for President of Earth C - to the trepidation of the Karkat, who hyperbolically suggested this would amount to troll genocide - but abandoned the idea

That’s all interesting but let’s talk about money! This is something I didn’t pick up on in the last post:

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

Elsewhere, Jane’s megacorp and stocks are mentioned.

One wonders why, given the machinery to manufacture just about anything by means of alchemizer, the forms of money, stocks, and corporations are retained... what sort of productive and reproductive labour is regulated and mediated by these markets? Or are they merely acting out the vestigial forms of capitalism as a bizarre drama...

As for the consequences of an infinite money supply, let’s not get into the ‘modern monetary theory’ debate on a Homestuck post, maybe.

on to chapter 6+

This is a Jane chapter. It opens almost immediately with economic discussion; Dave apparently once accused Jane of ‘neoliberal corporate welfare’ for trying to bolster the ‘struggling locksmith industry’ rendered unnecessary on a planet without crime.

She’s visiting Jake, who’s probably my least favourite Homestuck character (who’s not an alpha troll). About Dirk... Jake (Jane says) seems to still have a bit of a thing for him, and Jane, meanwhile, still “has no idea why she can’t get [Jake] out of her system, even after all these years.”

The reason Jane cancelled her run was, it turns out, because Dirk said ‘cancel everything’. She gets drunk, very quickly... and hits on Jake, who is completely oblivious to her advances. She speaks of wanting to abandon business to raise a family, which Jake himself notes is something rather new for her (though the whole traditional gender thing she does isn’t lol)

Jake/Jane isn’t a ship I have any sort of opinion about, honestly. Dirk/Jake’s terrible collapsing relationship was kind of interesting but yeah, here’s a thing. What even are heterosexuals though? “I want to clean your giant house and have a lot of children”... incomprehensible!

One thing I will give credit for is the narration: it creates pretty strong images of like, these characters as fully embodied people, being intimate in like, subtle physical ways. that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense... whatever lol. it works

chapter 7

...brings us back to Gamzee. fittingly, i’m listening to the friendsim soundtrack as i read this, and i just hit ‘take me to clown church’.

anyway since this whole story basically seems to be an exercise in developing ships along the lines of ‘A is into B, B is obvious to their advances’... Roxy’s hot for John now I guess? or at least, so Callie thinks. she insists they’re all going to be ‘very, very happy’ despite her disappointment.

anyway, then we get Gamzee saying a bunch of casually misogynist stuff to John about Roxy. in this context, basically two interpretations are shown: a shallow ‘oh he’s redeemed now’ attitude from Roxy and Callie, and a ‘oh god i hate this person keep him away from me’ attitude from John. Gamzee’s repulsive qualities are underlined by the narration (from John’s perspective): he’s unhygienic, he’s casually misogynist (which seems like a new element, and rather out of keeping with the gendered-but-somehow-theoretically-not-patriarchal Alternia)...

chapter 8

Rose and Kanaya chapter. Jane’s possible presidency is once again the subject of discussion. Jane apparently wanted to apply some kind of anti-troll eugenics policy, and tried to bring Kanaya on board - and got told to fuck off for it. Our two good lesbians agree that, if Karkat were president (and Dave running the economy), things might have worked out ok...

We are briefly introduced to a new character, a jadeblood troll called Swifer Eggmop. Her character archetype, we are directly told, is ‘1920s newsboy’.

We bear witness to an egg hatching (in prose, anyway). This particular baby grub out closely resembling Vriska... which Kanaya says is because she comes from a slurry based on the original 12 trolls. Rose notes this would make Vriska the troll’s Ancestor, which raises an interesting question of whether Ancestors still exist as a social concept on Earth C. Anyway, Kanaya wants to adopt baby Vriska, which can only be a fantastic idea...

KANAYA: There Are Two Things Of Which I Have No Doubt

KANAYA: That You And I Are Going To Be Happy For The Rest Of Our Lives

KANAYA: And That We Are Never Ever Going To See Vriska Again

I think we can safely assume that neither of those things are true. The emphasis on ‘happiness forever’, voiced by multiple characters, is interesting... also the turn towards reproduction.

I went to uni with people who have kids now. Heck I have friends who have a child (who they are trying to spare from gender)... but for most of my social circle, which is to say almost entirely 20-to-30-something trans women, even the idea of adopting is incomprehensible? It’s somehow weird to think of ‘wanting kids’ as the narrative of 20-something year olds...

Kanaya is right. Vriska is dead, and despite everything, she died a hero. Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.

It would be a fitting memorial for her and Kanaya to raise a version of Vriska who would be given every chance to make good on her noble characteristics. A true, symbolic redemption arc. Something about the thought appeals to Rose’s taste for the dramatic flourish. It would be proof that this was all worth it in the end: the destruction of multiple universes, the death of Kanaya’s friends, the circuitous rites of suffering experienced by the nearly infinite splintered versions of every being to inhabit Paradox Space...  

Once again, the notion of a ‘redemption arc’ enters the narrative explicitly, directly echoing fandom discussion. Unlike Gamzee, this is studiously neutral on the Vriska Question: steering exactly between ‘Vriska did nothing wrong’, nor ‘Vriska is a monster’. Regardless... I think it’s probably safe to say that everyone’s prophecies are wrong and we haven’t seen the last of the ‘true’ Vriska.

chapter 9

More of Jade trying very hard to ship her friends, to the discomfort of everyone involved. Jade kisses Karkat, and Karkat explicitly names what she’s doing as sexual assault, a violation of boundaries and consent - Jade attempts to convince him that no, it was really Dave who kissed him!

This prompts a long monologue from Dave in which it’s obvious that he has put some thought into kissing Karkat. Point seems to be: they sure are into each other but Jade’s intervention is not at all welcome. At least I hope that’s the point. I would prefer not to see Jade vindicated by the narrative.

Anyway, other things of cultural note: grub spaghetti is apparently still eaten on Earth C. I always thought it was implied that ‘grubs’ in Troll food were like, actual troll babies, but maybe they’re just ordinary (for certain values thereof...) bugs bc I don’t think Kanaya would stand for that.

chapter 10

The ‘Jane running for president’ subplot has largely disappeared, because what we’re really here for is... shipping! This time, a John/Roxy chapter. I think they call it Roxygen or something? Terezi explains the ‘pair the spares’ logic of the ship (dequirkified):

TEREZI: Um, yeah John.

TEREZI: We are not idiots. We can all do the math on this.

TEREZI:  It’s not like you were going to fuck your human mom or human sister.

TEREZI: And you are “not a homosexual,” which takes Strider dick out of the equation.

TEREZI: And Kanaya is the only girl troll left, and she lesbian married one of the two remaining eligible human females.

TEREZI: Oh and Jake is a double threat. A human dad with a human dick!

TEREZI: So by a process of elimination, of *course* you were going to “fall in love” with Roxy.

Equation of ‘dick’ with ‘male’ there terezi but whatever... (god is this fic going to get into the question of what a ‘nook’ and a ‘bulge’ is...)

(lol i’m calling it a fic...)

Anyway, my position on this one is: Roxy/Calliope was a fine ship worth upholding, and I do not see any reason why anyone would be into John. Though I may be biased on that front.

Terezi also brings up the Calliope question. John is trepidatious on that front.

There’s an interesting line from Roxy here, when John tries to assure her she doesn’t have to wear makeup:

ROXY: john...

ROXY: do u ever think about like

ROXY: gender???

JOHN: ???

JOHN: uh. not really, i guess?

JOHN: but i don’t think girls should feel like they HAVE to wear makeup just because they’re girls.

ROXY: lol

ROXY: thats not what im getting at

JOHN: what do you mean then?

JOHN: are you, like...

ROXY: like what

This is where I’m conscious of the ‘trans character’ tag on this one.

They talk about adulthood, as a performance that they do not feel ‘ready’ for. At that point Dave shows up, clearly aflustered after Jade’s intervention:

DAVE: anyone can be a dude if they really want thats part of the beauty of living in this brand new world with none of the baggage our old world had like gender and sexuality and relationships only involving a very specific number of people

chapter 11

So yeah now to pick up the torch on Dave starting to understand he’s gay. here for this

DAVE: theres a metric fucking ton of shit about to come down on me because i dragged my heels on doing some serious self reflection

JOHN: is this just some more stuff about...

JOHN: being gay?

DAVE: maybe yeah

DAVE: ok definitely yeah

DAVE: its 110% about being gay

JOHN: i thought you’d already worked all that stuff out?

DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse

nice to see it named as such i guess

the dialogue in the last couple of chapters has been really good. i’m getting properly drawn into this, the characters feel extremely well-realised. threads which were long latent are finally being made explicit.

Dave is struggling with very abrupt self-realisation: he definitely has feelings for Karkat, he has complicated feelings for Jade, but the ‘simple’ solution of just entering a non-mono relationship both is not feeling ‘right’ to him. John isn’t really able to help... he’s gonna talk to Dirk.

This chapter does a lot, I really like it, but at the same time I’ve not got a tremendous amount to add to it.

chapter 12

in our latest chapter of ‘homestuck but they fuck now’, Jake and Jane did that - while up on various substances, including at least alcohol and the trickster lollipop. Jake is having second thoughts but when he tries to back out, Jane looks sad, so he decides to go for it. This can only end well.

Also damn I guess someone on the team thought ‘what would it be like to fuck while high on the trickster lollipop’ so uh, that’s a thing now.

chapter 13

Back to the Strider boys. There’s a heavy intro...

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing.

Yeah huh.

Can’t believe Rose and Kanaya have the dubious honour of being the most ‘together’ characters in this.

Anyway in this case Dave still feels like he needs to talk to Dirk - who we know has gone awol, for some mysterious reason. He meets... Gamzee, who says some religious clown stuff, and offers Dave a redemption arc (really running this joke into the ground huh), but Dave brushes him off. Then he finds a fembot that Dirk was working on, with a note.

We don’t get to read the note yet. I would guess that’s the end of epilogue 2.

Sure enough it is.

Epilogue 2, taken as a whole

I quite enjoyed this, Gamzee sections notwithstanding. The prose is tight, the dialogue is hitting its flow, and a lot of relationships that were left vague in Homestuck proper are finally being given time to develop.

Obviously it’s kind of risky bringing in explicitly sexual themes, but I think they approach them in the ‘right’ way: focusing on the emotional meaning of relationships that now might - now we’re dealing with 23-year-olds - include sex, rather than just porn lol. It does slightly strain credibility that, in all their time on Earth C, none of them have made any meaningful friendships or relationships outside the core group of 8 kids and a handful of surviving trolls, but I can also understand the desire to focus on the already-developed characters. That’s a common problem for ‘endgame’ ships: in truth dating exclusively within a tiny friendship group is probably a recipe for disaster, but in fiction it makes a work manageable.

I am enjoying just how gay Homestuck has gotten. If Homestuck is the comic for Very Online kids who were around 13 in 2009 when the comic began, it’s somewhat fitting, because our cohort has, at least to a degree, done the same thing lol. Of course, that’s shaped by my personal experience of like, transitioning and moving to a friendship group that’s like 99% trans lesbians and bi women, but I suspect statistics would bear out the idea that more and more people are comfortable identifying ourselves as not-straight in some way. I could be wrong about that though lol.

Of course, it’s too much to hope that this trend - insofar as it exists! - is like, the beginning of the end for Gender as a system of social relations, violent exploitation and coercion - especially since periods of ‘more acceptance’ often seem to precede violent repression (c.f. Weimar Germany and then, the nazis; the period just before the AIDS crisis; much earlier, the construction of colonial/modern gender in the first place on the bones of less rigid gender systems...)

Anyway, let’s see what’s happened to old Dirk. I’m still wondering who the “trans character” is going to be, and how they’re going to handle that. It’s going to be tough to match fic like @rememberwhenyoutried‘s An Earth-Shattering Confession, but we shall see.

[hakureiryuu]

[1/31/2017 9:36:28 PM] Ryuu: OKAY SO ON A SCALE FROM ZERO TO ALL OF THEM HOW MANY SPOILERS DO Y'ALL WANT [1/31/2017 9:36:42 PM] Ben: For? [1/31/2017 9:36:44 PM] Rhia: ALL THE SPOILERS [1/31/2017 9:37:22 PM] Ben: Oh YGO movie [1/31/2017 9:37:23 PM] Ben: ok shoot [1/31/2017 9:48:01 PM] Ryuu: so it opens up with the fact that kaiba has built a goddamn space elevator

[1/31/2017 9:48:16 PM] Ryuu: because why wouldn't he [1/31/2017 9:49:20 PM] Ben: Right [1/31/2017 9:49:53 PM] Ryuu: I mean I guess the real thing to start with is, my circleverse fics no longer fit in canon, and I have a sad [1/31/2017 9:50:06 PM] Rhia: Aw [1/31/2017 9:50:09 PM] Ryuu: because this was an after-the-end kind of thing [1/31/2017 9:50:15 PM] Rhia: -nod- [1/31/2017 9:51:13 PM] Ryuu: and it did surprisingly well for itself!! several characters got completions to otherwise ignored story arcs. bakura for example. huge shit there. and a few nods to tea and joey. [1/31/2017 9:51:42 PM] Ryuu: mostly though, this movie was about kaiba's unquenchable hateboner for atem. [1/31/2017 9:51:50 PM] Rhia: WHEEEEE [1/31/2017 9:51:51 PM] Ryuu: like, jesus fucking Christ dude calm the fuck down [1/31/2017 9:52:47 PM] Ryuu: just. thank GOD for homestuck because without quadrants firmly in my head I would spend 3/4 of the movie clutching my skull and screaming internally MAKE THE FOE YAY STOOOOOOP hahahhaa [1/31/2017 9:53:08 PM] Rhia: -snigger- [1/31/2017 9:53:22 PM] Ryuu: the Japanese don't mess around with their spades okay? [1/31/2017 9:53:31 PM] Rhia: Nope [1/31/2017 9:54:40 PM] Ryuu: leading to weirdly poignant conversations between the pharaoh's moirail and kismesis that boil down to "dude he's dead let it go" "NO HE'S NOT FITE ME" [1/31/2017 9:55:12 PM] Rhia: oh my gaaaaaaaaaawd [1/31/2017 9:55:41 PM] Ryuu: seto kaiba. this fucker. [1/31/2017 9:55:58 PM] Ryuu: THIS FUCKER SCIENCES HIMSELF INTO THE AFTERLIFE FOR ONE LAST GO ROUND OKAY????! [1/31/2017 9:56:23 PM] Ben: flashbacks to YuYuHakishu and Kuwabara at Yuuske's funeral [1/31/2017 9:56:33 PM] Rhia: Yuuuuup [1/31/2017 10:00:34 PM] Ben: Seto Kaiba is the real protagonist. [1/31/2017 10:00:49 PM] Rhia: OMG KAIBA GIVE IT UP [1/31/2017 10:01:52 PM] Ryuu: SO ASIDE FROM THE FACT THAT KAIBA'S EGO WAS LITERALLY TOO BIG FOR THIS STORY [1/31/2017 10:02:50 PM] Ryuu: and aside from parts of the ending there I felt like he was really pretty flandarized into exactly two character traits: his kismessitude with atem and his UNPARALELLED ABILITY TO MAKE A PUBLICITY STUNT [1/31/2017 10:03:51 PM] Ryuu: i had a rly good time with this movie! like i said, there were nods to incomplete character arcs. i appreciate bakura's trauma being FINALLY FUCKING ADDRESSED. [1/31/2017 10:04:35 PM] Rhia: YAY IT CHEERED YOU UP [1/31/2017 10:04:45 PM] Ryuu: even though his backstory was one among several rather noticeable retcons... another being shadi's entire. existence. :? [1/31/2017 10:06:04 PM] Rhia: Shadi is the schrodginer's cat of the YGO fandom [1/31/2017 10:06:29 PM] Ben: ... [1/31/2017 10:06:36 PM] Ben: Wait that's flanderizing Kaiba? [1/31/2017 10:06:45 PM] Ryuu: like. i get that he's some kind of force ghost in canon but there's no way he died THAT RECENTLY. and there's also no way he would not have talked to the villain of the movie in all the years since, given that shadi's death is the villain's motive. [1/31/2017 10:06:57 PM] Ryuu: KAIBA HAS AT LEAST A FEW MORE TRAITS TO HIM OKAY? XD [1/31/2017 10:07:31 PM] Ryuu: i mean i like to think of him as a stage hog, but not desperate. that's beneath him, y'know? [1/31/2017 10:08:21 PM] Ben: XD [1/31/2017 10:11:52 PM] Ryuu: but yeah this movie was nostalgic in other ways. it had that good ol' 4kids overdub, with bad puns and inserting extra dialogue where there was clearly silence in the original. but there were no visual edits except for making any actual visible text into English, which was nice. the voice acting was a return to its season 1 quality as well, not the lazy crap they devolved to by the end. [1/31/2017 10:12:14 PM] Rhia: ogood [1/31/2017 10:13:51 PM] Ryuu: okay u said ALL of the spoilers so [1/31/2017 10:17:55 PM] Ryuu: supposedly with atem's death a residual power would be awakened. this power at full force can completely reshape reality in the most vague and yet literal sense, and shadi, before his death, had spent his time giving this power to worthy children he came across. when the pharaoh finally died, they would reshape the world as they wished. shadi gave this power to kids because they would supposedly create a good, pure world, free of fear and hatred. and there was a lot of really good talk on that subject, if necessarily kind of clipped by the dub (it's a complex subject that you can't fit into x mouth movements too precisely, so i understand). it's basically yoda's fear -> anger -> hate -> suffering, paraphrased. [1/31/2017 10:20:17 PM] Ryuu: but shadi's lessons are cut short by bakura's retconned backstory, in which he received the ring as a damn 10 year old or something and murdered shadi with more power than he EVER displays in canon so shruuug haha. but this breeds fear/hate/all the rest in the antagonist's heart, and he begins to misuse the power once it comes into play. [1/31/2017 10:23:42 PM] Rhia: Which would explain all the stuff from the later series. [1/31/2017 10:27:53 PM] Rhia: ....That line was supposed to be earlier. Thanks Skype [1/31/2017 10:28:31 PM] Ryuu: well, no. because, for no reason, if the pharaoh ever returns, the power would be negated. which brings us back to kaiba. [1/31/2017 10:31:38 PM] Ryuu: and. y'know. his hateboner's quest to bring the pharaoh back. kinda throw's a wrench in whatever plans this kid might have for his powers. [1/31/2017 10:32:31 PM] Ryuu: so he's like, okay 2 possibilities here. i could stop kaiba from digging up the items and putting the puzzle back together, or i could kill yugi and make the whole thing moot anyway. [1/31/2017 10:32:40 PM] Ryuu: he chooses the latter ^^U [1/31/2017 10:33:35 PM] Ben: Naturally [1/31/2017 10:34:54 PM | Edited 10:34:58 PM] Ryuu: many shenanigans ensue, including some handwavey bullshit involving how magic and technology interact. literally handwaved. like, "oh, that happened, i don't care why." [1/31/2017 10:36:19 PM] Ben: Any magic sufficiently analyzed? :P [1/31/2017 10:36:51 PM] Ryuu: apparently, since i repeat, KAIBA SCIENCES HIMSELF INTO THE AFTERLIFE [1/31/2017 10:37:09 PM] Ben: I really want that YGO/DBZ crossover now. [1/31/2017 10:37:17 PM] Ben: Kaiba and Vegeta would get along like a house on fire. [1/31/2017 10:37:18 PM] Ben: EGO [1/31/2017 10:37:22 PM] Ben: EGO EVERYWHERE [1/31/2017 10:38:09 PM] Ryuu: one of my earliest fics was like that, only with kaiba and sesshomaru from inuyasha. only the punchline was that it was less explosive than expected xD [1/31/2017 10:38:20 PM] Ben: XD [1/31/2017 10:38:22 PM] Ben: Like [1/31/2017 10:38:34 PM] Ben: I like to think that Kaiba is Vegeta's ego with Bulma's brilliance [1/31/2017 10:38:53 PM] Ben: Mabye YGO takes place AFTER DBZ and Kaiba is Trunk's little brother? XD [1/31/2017 10:39:30 PM] Rhia: PFFFFFFFF [1/31/2017 10:40:00 PM] Ryuu: that's the other thing i think is a bit flandarized about kaiba, and yet even i have to admit it's pretty accurate - he keeps losing because he's so goddamn predictable. [1/31/2017 10:41:22 PM] Ryuu: THAT'S LITERALLY WHAT COST HIM THE WIN AT BATTLE CITY: HE SAID LET'S HAVE A SUDDEN DEATH ROUND, DRAW WHATEVER HAND OF CARDS YOU WANT TO USE. and he lost because he picked the cards that let him get the blue eyes ultimate dragon, and yami picked a hand that would negate exactly that. if he did something different just this ONCE... [1/31/2017 10:41:28 PM] Ryuu: i mean [1/31/2017 10:41:34 PM] Ryuu: it's for effect, y'know? it's for his ego. [1/31/2017 10:42:15 PM] Rhia: It's like when Bri is going for the super-dramatic effect. "Because she can, because it's Rule of Cool." Kaiba's BEWD is because Rule of Kaiba. [1/31/2017 10:42:21 PM] Ryuu: in his duel with ishizu the whole plot is that he ALMOST fell prey to that, because his plan for ego purposes was to use obelisk against her, but went against predictability FOR ONCE IN HIS LIFE and chose blue eyes. [1/31/2017 10:42:28 PM] Ryuu: BUT FOR SOME REASON HE DID NOT LEARN FROM THIS [1/31/2017 10:43:02 PM] Rhia: It could be said that Kaiba is a tragic character and therefore will never learn to fix his flaws. [1/31/2017 10:44:03 PM] Ryuu: yeah let's go with that. i even kind of believe it. i'd like for it to be at least addressed in canon though, even if it can't be fixed. i just don't want it to be a plot device again. it's old. [1/31/2017 10:44:23 PM] Ryuu: god TOO MUCH KAIBA IN THIS MOVIE [1/31/2017 10:44:43 PM] Ryuu: HIS EGO WAS SO HUGE THEY HAD TO TRIM DOWN TO JUST ONE REFERENCE TO THE HEART OF THE CARDS SO IT WOULD EVEN FIT [1/31/2017 10:44:57 PM] Rhia: LOL [1/31/2017 10:45:06 PM] Ryuu: but yeah where was i [1/31/2017 10:45:54 PM] Ryuu: so through shenanigans the puzzle is almost completed but for a few stolen pieces. yugi, through more shenanigans, gets his hands on them, then puts the puzzle together to make a point. [1/31/2017 10:46:48 PM] Ryuu: literally everyone in the story is all like putting the puzzle back together would bring atem back but yugi basically waves it in their faces like Y'ALL. THIS IS A PIECE OF METAL. HE'S NOT IN THERE. HE IS DEAD. CALM DOWN. [1/31/2017 10:46:56 PM] Ryuu: and then everyone refuses to calm down XD [1/31/2017 10:47:06 PM] Rhia: -snrk- [1/31/2017 10:47:13 PM] Rhia: Yugi the only one with his act together. [1/31/2017 10:47:23 PM] Ryuu: HE SO HAS HIS ACT TOGETHER THO [1/31/2017 10:47:39 PM] Ryuu: LIKE HIS DESIGN IS ABOUT THE HALFWAY POINT BETWEEN HIS SHOW SELF AND YAMI [1/31/2017 10:47:49 PM] Ryuu: WHICH IS EXACTLY HOW I PICTURED HIM IN MY FIC IT WAS WONDERFUL TO SEE [1/31/2017 10:47:55 PM] Rhia: XDDD [1/31/2017 10:49:07 PM] Ryuu: like he's taller and has slightly pointer eyes and has his "do no harm" FULLY UPGRADED to "do no harm but take no shit" IT'S WONDERFUL [1/31/2017 10:49:19 PM] Rhia: 8D [1/31/2017 10:50:05 PM] Ryuu: and he wants to design board games when he grows up like YES I ACCEPT THIS HEADCANON [1/31/2017 10:50:28 PM] Ben: Because FUCK has he had his fill of the bullshit that comes with card games [1/31/2017 10:50:36 PM] Ryuu: i imagine XD [1/31/2017 10:50:42 PM] Ryuu: joey hasn't though. wants to go pro. [1/31/2017 10:50:47 PM] Rhia: YUGI BEING SO DONE WITH EVERYONE [1/31/2017 10:50:54 PM] Rhia: AND CHEERING JOEY ON THE SIDELINES [1/31/2017 10:50:59 PM] Ryuu: YAS [1/31/2017 10:51:44 PM] Ben: Reminds me of Vanguard. In the Vanguard G series the old protagonist shows up once. Sees the other new progtagonist...and keeps walking. [1/31/2017 10:52:04 PM] Ben: Like "OH HELL NO I'VE DONE MY TIME GOOD LUCK SUCKER YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN WITH THIS GENERATION OF BULLSHIT" [1/31/2017 10:52:16 PM] Rhia: LOOOOOL [1/31/2017 10:52:26 PM] Ryuu: OMGGGGGG [1/31/2017 10:55:08 PM] Ryuu: but ye i was very happy that dead is dead? because that's the sole problem i have with 99% of after the end ygo fics: they can't find a plot without bring atem back to life, which i find oddly disrespectful. [1/31/2017 10:55:26 PM] Rhia: LET THE MAN REST MOTHERFUCKER [1/31/2017 10:55:29 PM] Ben: I was actually going to do that in one of my own fics. [1/31/2017 10:55:47 PM] Rhia: Now if he's doing stuff from the afterlife, that's a different set up. [1/31/2017 10:56:38 PM] Ben: Basically.  Basically my fic had Necromancer bad guys trying to do True Ressurection. [1/31/2017 10:56:58 PM] Ben: Yami didn't like that so he sent a deck to a girl of Fallen Heroes, or dead characters from fiction. [1/31/2017 10:57:23 PM] Ben: He refused to come himself in card form though. Until the very end, which was the form of a card that banished all cards from the grave yard. [1/31/2017 10:57:30 PM] Ben: Then the deck vanished. [1/31/2017 10:57:38 PM] Ben: "OK, WE CLEANED THIS SHIT UP NOW GET BACK INTO THE AFTERLIFE" [1/31/2017 10:58:51 PM] Ryuu: that is.... KIIIINDA what happens actually. because due to yet more shenanigans, the ring possesses the villain, and ring corruption + infinite power = the end of the world as we know it. [1/31/2017 11:00:08 PM] Ryuu: so naturally dueling the weird monster that results happens (because this is ygo we're talking about here). and some more foe yay pining happens. and then it's just yugi about to pass out from shadowgame biz and GIANT COLUMN OF LIGHT hey look who it is. [1/31/2017 11:00:24 PM] Rhia: WOOOOOOOO [1/31/2017 11:00:37 PM] Ryuu: and as much as i would have loved that he not appear at all [1/31/2017 11:00:51 PM] Ryuu: they reached a middle ground by keeping him completely silent. [1/31/2017 11:01:01 PM] Rhia: Nice. [1/31/2017 11:01:43 PM] Ryuu: i'm not sure if he even actually dueled when he arrived so much as dispersed the shadowgame entirely. [1/31/2017 11:02:08 PM] Ryuu: also, mahaad. like i am a ridiculous mahaad fangirl and i don't know why. all i know is that i SQUEE whenever he's onscreen XD [1/31/2017 11:02:17 PM | Edited 11:02:16 PM] Rhia: SAAAAAAME [1/31/2017 11:02:29 PM] Rhia: It's because he's a giant fucking sweetheart. [1/31/2017 11:02:35 PM] Rhia: Have you read his story in the manga? [1/31/2017 11:02:40 PM] Ryuu: yeeeeee [1/31/2017 11:02:49 PM] Rhia: GIANT BAB [1/31/2017 11:03:13 PM] Ryuu: i headcanon that he had an on/off thing with isis and she was pregnant with his bab when he died, thereby starting the line of tombkeepers. [1/31/2017 11:03:25 PM] Rhia: Fuck. [1/31/2017 11:03:28 PM] Rhia: Sharing that now. [1/31/2017 11:03:44 PM] Ryuu: LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY BEFORE-THE-BEGINNING FANFIC [1/31/2017 11:03:46 PM] Ryuu: LATER [1/31/2017 11:03:58 PM] Ben: Weren't the tombkeepers a thing BEFORE mahaad? [1/31/2017 11:04:03 PM] Ben: Because Theif King Bakura? [1/31/2017 11:04:13 PM] Ryuu: nope, only after the pharaoh died (the first time) [1/31/2017 11:04:22 PM] Ben: I could've sworn in the manga [1/31/2017 11:04:29 PM] Rhia: The tombkeepers were specifically guarding Atem's tomb. [1/31/2017 11:04:31 PM] Ben: millennium world arc? [1/31/2017 11:04:31 PM] Ben: Oh wait shit envermind [1/31/2017 11:04:33 PM] Ben: I'm thinking Village of Kul Elna [1/31/2017 11:05:18 PM] Ryuu: so yeah atem does a total deus ex machina [1/31/2017 11:05:37 PM] Ryuu: because of that convenient rule that if he shows up in this world again, the megapower or whatever is gone. [1/31/2017 11:06:43 PM] Ryuu: and like yugi said in the beginning of the movie that he would have liked a chance to say what he needed to say, so i knew there was always a chance of him showing up. but all they do is stare meaningfully at each other for a bit, and then he's gone and everyone's happy. [1/31/2017 11:07:18 PM] Ryuu: which, i was also pleased with, because i would argue very strongly that they said everything that could be said through their duel at the end. the manga version had some fairly transparent subtext. [1/31/2017 11:07:27 PM] Ben: It always does [1/31/2017 11:07:31 PM] Ben: Manga>anime [1/31/2017 11:07:55 PM] Ryuu: well i love the anime too. but i like sort of mashing them together in my head when i put together what i'm considering canon for fanfic purposes. [1/31/2017 11:08:02 PM] Ryuu: SPEAKING OF MANGA THERE WERE SO MANY CAMEOS [1/31/2017 11:08:04 PM] Ben: Fair [1/31/2017 11:08:19 PM] Ryuu: DUKE'S FATHER WAS THERE OKAY. THE GUY WHO DIED IN A FIRE AFTER TRYING TO MURDER YUGI. [1/31/2017 11:11:48 PM] Ryuu: but yeah with the power gone the antagonist has nothing except the family which had been trying to get him off this path of darkness for years now so they all get to be kids again and grow up in the world we've got. [1/31/2017 11:12:01 PM] Ben: D'aw [1/31/2017 11:12:56 PM] Ryuu: appropriately, this movie was about moving on from loss and grief. if the world had real quadrants and no queerbaiting i'd call this an excellent addition. [1/31/2017 11:13:25 PM] Rhia: As it is, it just pulled you out of a shitty mood, so I call it worth it. [1/31/2017 11:13:46 PM] Ryuu: yeees, tis what i needed. <3 [1/31/2017 11:14:14 PM] Ryuu: also the main kids all graduate highschool and tea goes off to some kind of juliard analogue with a full ride. hooray! [1/31/2017 11:14:21 PM] Rhia: Wooo! [1/31/2017 11:14:35 PM] Ryuu: and kaiba sciences himself into THE FUCKING AFTERLIFE. [1/31/2017 11:14:37 PM] Ryuu: the end. [1/31/2017 11:14:42 PM] Rhia: Pfffffffff [1/31/2017 11:14:49 PM] Ryuu: i will never get over that [1/31/2017 11:14:50 PM] Ryuu: just [1/31/2017 11:14:53 PM] Ryuu: this fucker [1/31/2017 11:14:55 PM] Rhia: This movie, alt title: Kaiba plz. [1/31/2017 11:15:30 PM] Ben: Just when you got done saving the world, relaxing in the afterlife, your pokemon are almost unconscious [1/31/2017 11:15:33 PM] Ben: who should show up [1/31/2017 11:15:35 PM] Ben: but gary [1/31/2017 11:15:36 PM] Ben: fucking [1/31/2017 11:15:37 PM] Ben: kaiba [1/31/2017 11:15:46 PM] Rhia: -SNORT- [1/31/2017 11:16:19 PM] Ryuu: the entire theater was laughing their asses off when he pulled this i shit you not [1/31/2017 11:16:30 PM] Rhia: Man [1/31/2017 11:16:35 PM] Ryuu: HE'S WEARING THIS TRON OUTFIT OKAY [1/31/2017 11:16:43 PM] Ryuu: IN SOME KIND OF SPACE POD AT THE TOP OF HIS SPACE ELEVATOR [1/31/2017 11:17:00 PM] Ryuu: HE AIMS IT DOWN, PRESUMABLY TO HIT 88MPH OR SOMETHING [1/31/2017 11:17:11 PM] Rhia: PFFFFFFFFFFFF [1/31/2017 11:17:13 PM] Ryuu: SHOOTS FOR EARTH IN HIS FUCKING SPACE ROCKET INSIDE THE SPACE ELEVATOR [1/31/2017 11:17:18 PM] Rhia: Leave Doc Brown out of this [1/31/2017 11:17:35 PM] Ryuu: AND THEN SUDDENLY HE'S IN ANCIENT EGYPT, STILL IN HIS TRON OUTFIT [1/31/2017 11:17:54 PM] Ryuu: HE WALKS STRAIGHT INTO THE PALACE, STANDS BEFORE THE PHARAOH, WHO LOOKS AT HIM [1/31/2017 11:17:58 PM] Ryuu: AND SMIRKS [1/31/2017 11:18:04 PM] Ryuu: CUT TO BLACK, ROLL CREDITS [1/31/2017 11:18:17 PM] Ryuu: GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY [1/31/2017 11:18:29 PM] Rhia: 8D [1/31/2017 11:18:55 PM] Rhia: Ben can you illegally download this for me when it makes an appearance? I need to see what the hullabaloo is about [1/31/2017 11:19:06 PM] Ben: Will do [1/31/2017 11:19:10 PM] Rhia: Ta [1/31/2017 11:21:44 PM] Ryuu: oh, i'm gonna call mokuba genderfluid from now on. just cuz. ^^ [1/31/2017 11:21:52 PM] Rhia: Eeee [1/31/2017 11:22:25 PM] Ryuu: not that his growing bishiness is in any way out of the ordinary for Japanese masculinity [1/31/2017 11:22:31 PM] Ryuu: i just think it would be cool [1/31/2017 11:22:41 PM] Ben: I'm sorry [1/31/2017 11:22:46 PM] Ryuu: and i like to picture seto asking his sibling's pronouns every morning :D [1/31/2017 11:22:54 PM] Ben: but isn't the term Japanese masculinity self-contradictory? [1/31/2017 11:22:57 PM] Ben: badum-tish [1/31/2017 11:23:08 PM] Ryuu: -double pistols and a wink- [1/31/2017 11:23:27 PM] Rhia: Imagine Kaiba donating to SHITLOADS of charities for LGTBQA because Mokuba. [1/31/2017 11:23:40 PM] Rhia: And biting heads off anyone who dares give them stinkeye [1/31/2017 11:24:44 PM] Ryuu: yes. this is the kind of headcanon that makes my day. using kaiba's assholery and penchant for drama for the forces of good. [1/31/2017 11:26:13 PM] Ryuu: "did i just hear you misgender my sister?" [1/31/2017 11:26:35 PM] Rhia: -person recants or dies by BEWD- [1/31/2017 11:26:47 PM] Ryuu: -dies of happy-