been a busy af week and I miss kim soleum so much it's unreal omg. haven't even been able to read new chapters, its crazy. I wanna sit down and really focus and read them... checking out all the chapter spoilers on here is making me lose my mind WHAT do you mean baek saheon might come up soon omg. and I can't WAIT to see lee gyeol... my beloved son... fjdfiedfdksk I missed him so dearly ugh.
today I got a little break and decided to work on some art for this gsgw alnst au that has been bouncing around in my brain for the past few months. here's a little bit of the sketch:
a friend gifted me a wacom tablet earlier this month so the lines look really tasty compared to touchpad and procreate art. pressure control is heavenly, by the way. soleum doesn't look fully soleum though, since I'm still trying to figure out how to draw him with this newfound freedom.
I've been thinking of basing his outfit mostly on the theme park contamination... there is no strategic reasoning for this... it just looks too cute. I'm thinking of adding antlers to the design too.
anyway, once I finally get to reading all the new updates, I'll definitely post about them.
We ALLL know that the only reason mpreg doesn't exist in the gsgw universe is because Choi would baby trap Soleum in an attempt to stop him from leaving/doing his usual bullshit
Choi would not be the only one! Soleum is gonna have Braun and Choi telling him they're pregnant at the same time. Somehow, Kwak Jekang is also pregnant.
“Maybe none of the people who entered before were familiar with American pop culture.”
“……”
Could it really be explained that simply…?
“Uh, Soleum-ssi, did you study abroad or something?”
“No, I didn’t.” Kim Soleum answered immediately. “I just happen to know a lot of random stuff.”
- KSE making his excuses about why he was able to solve the clown darkness so quickly.
It's something that made me laugh during my reread, because yeppp. Such a familiar experience as a non-US fan who has been in fandom for a long time. You end up knowing so much random stuff that you have no way of explaining to anyone IRL about how and why you know other than going 'i just know a lot of random stuff haha'.
That said, all through Part 1 and Part 2, I had definitely assumed KSE was a stealth fan IRL. Great at maintaining normie cover in front of colleagues and people irl, given his age (mid-late 20s in 'real life' i think, though in DER world his body was younger) the way he was during the pop-up event and his monologues about the importance of maintaining a poker face etc (and his competence at it!)
[Some speculation and wondering about KSE's fannish activities, as shown in Part 3 under the cut]
I can't say I really thought about this before seeing a comment to this point on KKP, but
KSE's boss (and presumably fellow employees) all know him being a fan of DER wiki, and apparently he was someone who would openly going on the wiki during work breaks.
But as per KSE, he hasn't actually checked the DER wiki at all in the 365 days after he got back home. As soon as he checks the wiki, it goes down with that specific message for him.
So exactly how openly obsessed with DER was he in his workplace, that even after ONE YEAR of not doing anything with it, his boss still associates that with what KSE usually does in his breaks? Because this changes my perception of KSE as a person pre-isekai quite a bit I think!
Unless... it's just these last 365 days when he's often spending his breaks with idk the search engine results for DER open on his computer, trying to psych himself into clicking on the link to the wiki but never actually doing so. And that's what the others noticed?
With the trendy dog plush thing, I guess it could be a new habit after getting used to having Braun with him all the time, but at the same time, it could also be that he was already used to carrying around plushy type toys with him, which is why he didn't overthink openly carrying a pink bunny keyring/plushie with him even in a cutthroat corporate environment. IDK which option I like better.
I really want to know more about KSE's irl life pre- and post- his (first) DER jaunt so bad!!
What i also find a bit touching is how the fact that KSE is a two-faced liar is easily accepted by his friends and colleagues, even the more morally rigid or honest ones like bronze, dolphin, or go youngeon, as just one of his character quirks. Nobody makes a deal out of it.
I am projecting a little but i am often self-conscious about how people might be put off if they find me behaving differently with other people. But really most adults do it even if it's not to the point of kim soleum performer extrordinaire lol...
I think Soleum's personas/social masks are more easily accepted by his colleagues, friends, or those he's close with because EVERYONE in the GSGW world wears them as well, tighter and stronger ones.
Without those masks, it doesn't just end with a social disadvantage but can lead to certain & instant death. Daydream people wearing masks before entering darkness is just physical manifestation of this.
what if your doppelgänger wasn’t evil it was just a person. what if your doppelgänger wasn’t trying to replace you it was just trying to learn to be a person and you were the best model it had. what if your doppelgänger looked at you with your eyes and said with your voice that it just wanted to be loved. what then.
Some details I added into this piece are the lines in the background that warp and twist, representing the flow of time, and the glitches that cut off their flow, representing the damage to the timeline that lu guang is making on his doomed mission. His watch is cracked and stuck forever on 00:05 september 13, cos never lets himself have a future beyond this time. Also the bloodstain on lu guang' left hand aligns with cheng xiaoshi's wound ha ha ha ha ha ha (im not ok)
I half want to lie to people who havent read the whole novel.
Just be like "Oh, if you thought that was weird wait until you find out about Soleum's half brother that the blue dragon adopted while he was away. Yeah, remember the mirror ghost he freed? He came back. Wildddd arc."
"Are you on the first divorce arc?"
"Its funny you say that because Soleum DID become a god (non-consentually) in part three. The twins from part two saw him in a totally diffrent cult and bartered for him by literally trading ONE OF THEIR EYES. Yeah they tied him up BDSM style with some sort of magic red god rope."
"Omg I can't believe Moose from part one is back!!!!"
help I’m so basic and I’m absolutely the audience being catered to, apparently, BUT I’m imagining this as possessive Cold-Storage-Writer!Soleum x the person of his obsession Choi
and then immediately paired him up with The Baddest Bitch who is immediately threatening people while drinking beer and telling him to drop the UwU soft boy act or else she will kill him.
And Soleum is like 'This is the best. This is my ideal scenerio. No one save me.'
3 years having passed in the DER world is fucking me up so bad.
what do you mean it's been 3 years since everyone who has ever loved soleum gave their points up to save him. most of them didn't even see him actually return home in person. just the melted entity one moment, then nothing but the assurance that he finally got home.
and then they just had to move on. immediately start fixing the mess left in wake of the finally-concluded sekwang disaster, return to their daily lives, etc.
three years like that. that's a long time; like 1095 days. enough time to expect soleum to never return, just accept that he's probably somewhere out there, finally happy and well even if they can never reach him again.
