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dahniwitchoflight · 3 years

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Homesquared Chapter 16

Alrighty, that was a fun tangent, now back to John it seems?

Oh, no, Narration of John (So Actually Dirk, speak of the devil and he shall appear and all that etc etc)

“ leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had. “

pfft lol so Im not the only one that thought it would be funny if that scene was interpreted in a Pale Romantic light, even though that really wasn’t what was happening

OIh! but we still get Roxy, just the other version of Roxy

Roxy subtly being like “hey!! shit has apparently gone down, were not exactly close atm but I feel bad about you dying to want to know if youre still alive so im gonna message you while trying to make it look like i dont care about it as much as I do”

JOHN: trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so

and the wonderful question is, what IS going be happening with you now John?

Roxy looking nice and casual, but also yeah narration, why are you making this ominous, its not like Roxy’s out here to double spy on behalf of Jane, I don’t think Roxys on her side THAT much

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out

ROXY: but so far so good

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Roxy once again being a master of hiding how shes feeling, even when trying to open up, feeling pretty stressed about whats happening with Jane, understandable, the exclamation points give it away lol

The narration is really trying to make John nervous though

OH lol that was the implication haha no lol John it obviously wasn’t that

“John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced? He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.“

lol once again, Dirk has no idea how to read Roxy at all and just trips over himself and his assumptions XD

Yeah, looks like Roxy not on the Jane train and is doing some takesies backsies, shes glossing over her feelings on the matter still though, I know thats par for the course of how Roxy tends to handle stuff too but I wish shed open up a bit more, but maybe shes playing the smart game, yknow, knowing that Dirk has a hard time reading her, so glossing over stuff is how you protect yourself against the narrative force, confusion and vaguery in the narrative and her actions only helps her to keep control over it, because at any point, you can decide to “clear up” any narrative “miscommunication” or “confusion” and lay down what is it thats actually happening with you any time you want

Void working in the behind the scenes to do what they want

JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE.

JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house?

JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self?

JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know?

JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something?

JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames.

JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it.

JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late?

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good.

JOHN: but that’s just bullshit.

JOHN: it DID feel good.

JOHN: i DO feel free.

JOHN: sorry.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize

ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn

JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Im pretty sure you’re talking about a gender thing John, like, very 100% sure now this is what’s happening

because if you were actually a girl, of course you’re dad leaving all these notes about how one day hes gonna be so proud of the man youll become, yeah, that can feel a little pressuring, even if your dad didnt mean it like that, since he was unfailingly the kind of dad just bumbling around trying to understand their kid as best they could and leave encouragements everywhere, thats what his intent was, but all his notes come off a bit wrong in particular issues

remember the note under the fridge that was all like “SON. IF YOURE READING THIS NOTE, YOUVE FINALLY BECOME STRONG ENOUGH OF A MAN TO PICK UP THE FRIDGE.” not exactly that but that was always the vibe Dad’s little notes always had

Yeah, i can see how John would view it as a bit off, but if he hadnt the self awareness to realize it was a gender thing at the time, hed be understandly confused as to why such a thing would bother him

now though, he’s realizing, maybe, he doesn’t exactly want to be the man his dad always encouraged him to be

John does seem a lot happier here in his convo with Roxy than he did on his own when the house was burning, that conversation with karkat left me wondering if John was about to start dissociating he was so down, but here he says he feels freeing and happy about it?

ROXY: but like now that u mention it

ROXY: *meaningful pause*

JOHN: …

JOHN: i

JOHN:

John’s beginning to question stuff, or acknowledge that he’s questioning stuff, cuz it’s true, and hes feeling happy about it, in a way that he wasnt before, but he hasnt quite connected the dots here between the happy feeling and what exactly he has to be happy about

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

JOHN: yeah ok.

Yeah Roxy’s 100% picked up on it, and maybe Dirk has as well if the narration is commenting on it

Alrighty then, to the secret lair under the bed!

oh I just noticed how kind of cute and interesting Roxy’s nickname for Harry is, “Lil H A” Harry Anderson shortens to Ha like laughter haha

and if Harry had Roxy’s last name, it’d be Harry Anderson Lalonde

Lil HAL

lol what is Callie doing under Roxy’s secret bedchamber XD

This whole secret bedchamber thing is turning into one big metaphor isn’t it?

That thing behind the curtain kind of looks like the Attic Portal shape from Hiveswap though

that’d be neat if that was it, like obviously we knew one of the cherubs had to have something to do with that portal just going by the design of it alone

Honestly it makes sense that Callie is doing it under the curtain of Roxy’s Void, it’s honestly the safest place to do something like that

lol Calliope has grown past writing fanfic about shipping and being in love, now the drama of broken relationships and divorce is all the rage XD character growth? haha

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point.

Calliope just burned him harder than his childhood home’s destruction

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

have you been talking to Jake lol (I mean, probably Original Grandpa Jake tbh if that portal is actually the portal)

Alright so John is getting caught up on the major plot points, Earth C is indeed in the large black hole, his choice didn’t matter since both choices happened anyway yadda yadda

CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip.

CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads".

CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads.

yup yup yup pretty par for the course of timesplits in homestuck so far

CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

yup, this is true, the ending’s of both referenced the others, so it’s disingenuous to say one is “canon” while the other isn’t

one is simply in the realm of actual possibility, the other is in the realm of unlikely possibility

More than likely, John would have chosen to leave and go die and be the hero like in Meat, but there was still the possibility that he would stay, even if it was unlikelier than the other, but since both were possible choices for him to realistically make, both actually happened for real

CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity

that’s interesting, so there’s the original meteor that crashed into the surface of Earth C, and it’s in here that the singularity of what I don’t wanna call the Green Hole to match the Green Sun when I wanna talk about this specific Black Hole lolol

but yeah, here in this meteor lies the crux of the paradox it seems, interesting, also interesting again, this is where that Hiveswap Portal is

Hiveswap does have a plot point of “Joey must do thing in 11 days otherwise Earth and Alternia will be destroyed” and the only known destruction event of Earth and Alternia so far in canon is the Green Sun’s Creation from the destruction of both universes (and then later Callie’s destruction of the green sun into the black hole) so is Hiveswap gonna be a factor in the green sun’s destruction/creation as well? (Joey has the symbol of the Green Sun for a reason, I’m super curious as to what factor Joey has in relation to the Green Sun’s Existence, We still don’t know what the fact those black monsters are too, they’re like nega-first guardians, the kind of things that look like would come out of a Black Hole that came from the Green Sun tbh)

It’s all inter-related I tells ya

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

You say that now but

CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them.

CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish.

CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart!

CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been.

yeah that’s basically how this multiverse’s reality works, the future is a thing that already physically exists, just in a different location in the universe somewhere else

time travel and spacial teleportation could be said to be the same thing all along

that’s why violating the events of the future has actual consequences, because its like asking to go somewhere that doesn’t exist but how has to exist because it’s the future, too much of that and reality starts cracking at the seams to make room

same thing happens with sessions and playing sburb

the planets and dreaming moons and all that simultaneously have always existed here, and started existing only because the player played the game and the planets were generated upon entering a session, but to the player involved, it looks and feels like you are just being teleported to a different location in the universe, because you also kind of are

CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary.

CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence.

CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon.

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist!

So you’re just in a little seperated bubble, that’s not connect temporally to any other place of existence, you aren’t anywhere in the past or the future of anywhere else

nowhere leads here, and here can not lead outwards either, theoretically, and yes it exists, so it must also

JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...?

CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal.

CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific.

JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that.

CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U

CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley.

CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u=

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So someone else definitely has managed to do such a thing

JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything?

JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal?

CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not.

CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm.

JOHN: oh.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

yeah, so because here in the black hole neither affects the past or the future of anywhere else, being so disconnected, they are technically free of the reigns of the Alpha Timeline that exists elsewhere in the multiverse

the Alpha Timeline now being understood to simply mean, The Narrative

Things are the way they are because they are thus written to be so

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth.

CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher.

ROXY: its total bs is what it is

CALLIOPE: right, yes.

CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite.

CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Hmmm. It’s a dangerous idea to be playing with for sure, to decide all the black pieces in the game of chess suddenly become white, it is a very flip turning of reality upside down to be sure

To be honest, I’d think you’d need a powerful Doom player at your disposal to even try something like this

or actually, a powerful Doom user would be most likely to shut this entire thing down, knowing how bad of an idea it’d be, maybe it’s more you need a powerful Life player to do something like this instead

is that also why Dirk viewed Jane as an ally then? She would technically have the kind of power to upend the black and white doomy laws of reality if driven to her full potential, i mean obviously yes, we know this already because of the candy colored I-can-do-whatever-I-want-with-no-consequences lollipop

Is this what Calliope hopes to achieve with the Hiveswap Portal then? her goals for Joey and friends are to be the ones to prevent their universe’s twin destructions, and thus the Green Sun’s initial existence and then also the destruction into the Black Hole after the fact? that would be one way to prevent the Black Hole from existing, making it so the thing that creates the black hole never exists either

and that's certainly a canon event that would be difficult to tear asunder without major consequences

That would be a “Re-writing Homestuck from the very beginning” level of canon event

And if I’m correct, Joey is theorized by me to be a Mage of Life, if any classpect at their full potential was gonna do something like that, or have the impossible knowledge to something impossibly paradoxical like that, well..

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh

ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix

JOHN: oh.

JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then.

ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense

ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan.

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

I mean yeah! makes sense! Johns major factor here is Freedom, Vriska’s is Importance

and yeah, I can think of no other wholly dramatic event that to mess with stuff with the Green Sun, everyone will have eyes on that, they have to, their whole existence the way it is relies on it

But, they could also mean something else, its only condition is that it has to be something so imflappably impossible, something so not-canon and so outrageous that it basically horse-shoes around to the other end of the canon spectrum to being something that truly exists again

and that could be literally anything and it’s nerve wracking and exciting to see what thing theyre gonna come up with to just directly kneecap Homestuck itself

ROXY: thx babe

ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or

JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine.

(yeah that’s because Babe can be construed as feminine June)

so, I’m basically convinced they’re doing June Egbert now

that to me was like, pretty severely on the nose

John: Hey Roxy, what it does mean when you find a sense of freedom when all of the symbolism of the masculinity surrounding your childhood burns down around you

Roxy: idk It’s probably a gender thing man

John: I didn’t say the word gender-

Roxy: It’s ok babe no pressure, we can hash it out later

John: Hmm, later then. :)

Roxy: (Turns and looks towards the camera with a knowing smile)

shit all that imagery makes me think of Roxy as that picture of the small kid smirking at the camera while a house burns in the distance XD

#Homesquared #june egbert #john egbert #yeah theres no way there not gonna bring up June Egbert as a apossibility now #Roxy couldn't have quirked her eyebrows harder at the fourth wall if they had tried #Homestuck #I'm basically convinced now lol #that plus my reaction to chapter 14

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spidersfanfics · 3 years

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Let’s Make the Most of the Night

Eridan x Karkat | Valentine’s Day | Angst

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm a monster so I wrote some angst :D Eridan goes on a date with Karkat for their anniversary. That's all :)

"Happy anniversary, Kar." Eridan said softly, handing over a bouquet of red roses. "I got you some flowers. And before you ask, no it's not a jab at your blood color. They're red for flushed feelings," he chuckled.

The sun shined down brightly as birds overhead chirped cheerfully. Eridan's stomach growled and he laughed sheepishly, "Let's eat why don't we?" He reached over and grabbed the picnic basket that had been prepared for the occasion.

Eager to get started, Eridan dug into the basket, pulling out sandwiches, salad and a bottle of wine. "Yes, wine," Eridan said with a playful smile, "I know sandwiches aren't exactly gourmet but it's a special occasion. Alright? We go over this every year."

A pause.

"And every year I win, don't I Kar." Eridan laughed as he poured out the wine. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

As he dug into his food and sipped on his drink, he began to fall deep into thought. A look of reminiscing painted across his face as he relaxed.

"Do you remember our first date?" He asked, breaking the silence that had briefly fallen. He smirked and shook his head, "No come on, let me tell it. I know I do this every time but that's only because it's cute every time."

He set down his wine glass and leaned back. His eyes grew distant as he cast his mind back. "Alright, let's see."

~ ~ ~

It was nearing the end of winter. No, not quite spring yet. That first date didn't count for the anniversary day, they'd agreed on that ages ago.

Eridan was handling the cold just fine as a seadweller, but Karkat's mutant blooded self always found the season miserable.

"GOG IM FREEZING MY FUCKING GLOBES OFF OUT HERE", Karkat texted Eridan. He'd just gotten off of work that day and was waiting for the bus to take him home.

Eridan texted back a moment later, "Wwe could go get some coffee together if you'd like. Might help to wwarm you up."

Karkat hesitated only a second before agreeing, "FUCK IT, WHY NOT. YOU KNOW WHERE I AM."

"Great, I'll pick you up in a minute. Don't freeze to death wwaiting for me."

"HA HA VERY FUNNY. JUST HURRY UP."

True to his word, Eridan was there not long after and the two of them drove over to a nearby coffee shop. They ordered their drinks and were just about to pay when Eridan stopped Karkat.

"Wait, let me pay for the both of us."

Karkat raised an eyebrow at him but let it slide and the pair brought their drinks to an empty table, tucked away in a quiet corner. Karkat took a slow sip of the drink and winced at the sudden temperature change.

After a long moment, he spoke up. "So, tell me Ampora. Is this a date?"

Eridan nearly choked on his drink. His face flushed a violent violet and he spluttered, "I mean. I was kind of hoping, that is I was going to ask at the end if. Well, do you want it to be one?"

Karkat stared forward evenly for a long while before rolling his eyes, "Yeah whatever. Why ruin a good thing right? This is our first date."

"Ah," Eridan said weakly, still coughing slightly. "Lovely," He gave Karkat a wary smile. When Karkat returned it without a trace of mockery, his fins fluttered excitedly and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

Soon, they had both finished their drinks, as well as the slices of cake Eridan had insisted on buying for the two of them. "Well, I'd better head home for real now." Karkat said, gathering up their trash and sweeping it into a nearby garbage can.

"Yeah, do you need me to drive you?"

He shook his head and glanced at his watch, "There's a bus coming soon. I'll be fine." He paused then pulled Eridan into a hug, "Thanks for the food and drinks, Ampora. This was fun. Maybe we should do this again sometime."

When he pulled away, Eridan was blushing once more. "Yeah, we should," he agreed with a chuckle. He pulled his car keys out of his pocket and twirled them around his finger, "I'll see you around. Text me when you get home?"

"Sure," Karkat laughed and the two parted ways.

~ ~ ~

Eridan finished his reminiscing and his sandwiches at around the same time and he smiled lovingly. "The first of many lovely dates to come," he said.

He reached back towards the picnic basket and opened it up again. After some quick rummaging, he pulled out a couple of cupcakes. "They didn't have cake slices when I went this time but these are from that same coffee shop." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "Is that too cheesy? I thought it would be a nice surprise."

He unwrapped one and took a bite before thinking once more of another story to tell. "Oh, well of course if we're going to talk about our past, we should talk about the day you asked me out." He laughed, "Still can't believe you beat me to it. That's why I insisted on being the one to propose you know. Oh but that's a whole other story."

As if fearing the silence, Eridan launched into yet another story.

~ ~ ~

"AMPORA, WE'RE STILL ON FOR OUR DATE TODAY RIGHT?"

Eridan smiled at yet another text from a familiar number. "Of course wwe are," he texted back, "Same thing I told you the last thousand times you asked. In fact, I'm gettin' ready right noww. Evverythin alright?"

It didn't take long for the response, "YEAH YEAH EVERYTHINGS FINE. JUST MAKING SURE. ILL BE THERE SOON, DONT KEEP ME WAITING FISHDICK."

"As if I evver do," Eridan shot back with a laugh as he fixed his hair, "You wwound me." Despite his words, he still smiled warmly at his phone. They'd been going on regular dates for some time now and he'd already decided he'd ask Karkat to be his matesprite properly soon. He couldn't wait.

A few minutes later, the ringing of the doorbell alerted him to Karkat's arrival. He ran eagerly to the door and opened it with a wide smile. "How's that for quick, Kar," he teased.

Karkat scoffed but still handed Eridan white rose, "Here, gift for you."

"Charming," Eridan laughed as he slipped it into a vase he kept by the door for this very reason. "Now let's get going. We don't want to be late for our reservation."

The two drove over to a fancy restaurant where Eridan had booked a table for them to enjoy. And after a delicious dinner, they decided to go for a stroll through a nearby park.

As the night drew to a close, Karkat stopped Eridan before they could start heading back to his car. "Hey Ampora," he said, taking both of Eridan's hands.

"What's up Kar? You've gone all stiff."

Karkat cleared his throat awkwardly. "I've got something important to tell you," he said, "So shut the fuck up and don't ruin it."

Eridan raised an eyebrow but stayed silent as he was told and nodded at Karkat to continue.

"We've been going on these dates for some time now," Karkat said, speaking quickly as if to stop himself from chickening out. "And I was wondering if you'd want to be my matesprite. Properly and officially."

"You're kidding," Eridan said his jaw dropping. He scrambled to keep talking before Karkat could snap at him for the less than optimal answer. "No wait, yes, yes. I would love to be your matesprite," he laughed, "It's just that I was thinking of asking you out soon and here you are doing it first instead."

Karkat tried for an annoyed look but ended up laughing along anyway, "Yeah well, guess I'm just better than you like that."

~ ~ ~

Eridan sighed, leaning back on his hands. "You should have seen your face when you thought I was about to reject you," he laughed, wiping away a tear. "As if I would ever be that stupid."

He shook his head, "No. Never. And so many good days came out of that one yes, didn't it? God remember moving in together? And our wedding?"

Taking just a second to catch his breath, Eridan started talking again. Telling story, after story, after story. Before long, evening had fallen. The food he'd brought was long gone and in fact it was nearly time for dinner.

"Well," Eridan said softly. He gathered up various wrappers and tupperware to throw back into the basket before standing up with a grunt. "Should probably head home now."

His voice wobbled as he lifted his hand to his mouth and blew a kiss at the grave before him. "I miss you," he said. Tears flowed freely now, trailing violet down his face. "I'm doing alright though," he managed. "Kanaya told me to say hi. Feferi too."

With a heavy sigh, Eridan picked up his things and turned to leave. "Until next year," he said, glancing back one last time.

A pity lowbloods always die so young.

#Eridan Ampora #Karkat Vantas #Erikar #Matesprite #Erikar Red #Eridan x Karkat #Karkat x Eridan #Valentines Day #Angst #I'm sorry lol #Actually no not really #Spider Writes Homestuck

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pinktatertots99 · 3 years

Note

🔥 Feelings on the canon ships of Homestuck?

Send Me a 🔥+ a Topic, and I’ll Tell You My Honest Opinion About It

god am i gonna need to go with the sequals too? just og or all ships that’re considered canon by the end? whatever i’ll just go in order in what might be the ‘canon’ ships from all three of these categories. this is gonna be fucking long so anything and everything is under the cut. also i’m SO not gonna add hiveswap that can be its own separate ask. so:

roxygen: it’s a cute ship...but the sequal vers is garbage considering how inconsiderate roxy is to john’s feelings and his house burning down like damn rox this is the guy who sat with ya as ya mourned doom rose’s death give the guy some fuckin time himself.

rosemary: also cute ship...sequal versions are fuckin godawful tho. their barely a thing in meat from wha i can gather and then there’s candy...oh CANDY kanaya deserves better fuck this sense of her sayin she’s over it idc if it was off screen, even then half the cast ate stupid pills during that time so WHY must i be surprised that this is wha happens?

dave/kat: i dun like it. in either universe. meat is just perfect gay bois who have occasional deep talks and literally do nothing else while candy they split up thanks to jade which, geez ya guys must’ve been shit to tell her to fuck off like come on. og hs wise i barely consider them canon if we only get pictures and them just being on equal footing on quadrant talk. not to mention dave implied to be crushing on jade and JOHN not karkat, idk where this couple even came from other then love triangle situation with terezi but like, that’s barely much of a reason to become canon. i’d go with em bein pale/moirails more.

jadedave: i’m guessing candy and meat i thought meat implied they were dating but may aswell. so....it sucks but thats because candy and meat suck, meat dave’s basically cheating on her i didnt hear any implication they broke up and she’s like...chill??? and then there’s candy where she literally forced him and kar to break up and dated after dirk apparently died, i do not like the implications of this whole thing. course candy dave is dead and a robot now so...anyways canon wise dave had a crush on her and if jade does like him i’d hope it’s not cause of davesprite cause despite both being dave’s they were different. it’s cute otherwise.

davepetajade: it’s...cute? i guess? idk i kinda found davepeta a bit...idk overwhelmingly overrated? like i know where their popularity came from but readin the series now after all that hype i dont really see it anyways tho it’s basically davespritejade with nepeta in the mix. and idk nothin implied much of nepeta liking jade, or talkin to her much. and davepetasprite is a mesh of both so idk. it’s a ship with cute fanon works of em hanging with outfits but that’s bout it.

janejake: i hate it. legit. this is disgusting and completely throws out jane’s character. like even in the fixed timeline the talk she had with dirk probably still happened on the god bed’s and how she acknowledged wha she thought was wrong on wantin jake’s kids and so on trickster still happened and how she also realized she might’ve overhyped jake. but lets throw it ALL out the window to force jake in an unhappy marriage in both universes and possibly force him to stay in candy due to having tavvy if i’m reading the implications right. even then jake isn’t good for jane either both got their own needs this ship would’ve been sunked in canon and WAS but the sequals are beyond it so maybe that explains it but it disgusts me.

roseterezi: guess in meat specifically. yeah i kinda dont...care for it, like i still cant tell if rose and kanaya broke up or if she just fucked off without breaking up either one is fucked up on kan’s behalf. even then i just dont care for their kismesis it got brought up once and that was it.

jaderose: candy wise i guess even tho it was a fling. it disgusts me still mostly because of kan’s behalf on bein fucked over and both goin through a ‘surrogation’ process without her notice. like fuck this shit the jaderose fans deserve better.

roxycallie: idk if this one’s canon but it’s heavily implied callie lives with roxy least in candy. it’s cute, cant deny it even in og it was pretty cute, dont really care for candy vers tho but then again maybe their not a couple in it idk what’s canon couples anymore.

johnterezi: literally fucked in meat universe and john has kismesis feelings for her in canon. it’s...interesting, idk tho i feel like it’s one sided on john’s side.

ms paint/spade slick: i cant deny it’s cute, he’d least know how to treat a lady but god i’d hope it wouldnt be his only defining trait with her. also want ms paint to call his bullshit out pls and thanks.

dirkjake: honestly i cant tell if their STILL canon in og or not god forbid the sequals. in general though...i dont. i honestly dont really like em together much. they seem like the type to least stay friends but idk bout another relationship would be a good idea for em. maybe later down the line but otherwise canon wise they need a break.

and now for the canon one timer ships this involves any ships implied, uncomfirmed, ex-relationships, crushes, etc:

arasol: it’s cute, best ship. their quadrant was never confirmed but regardless their cute. sol tho in the sequals deserved better then to get abandoned by aradia goddamn.

fefsol: also cute, i live for both of em bein ass’s together.

erisol: oh boi this one...this was...yeah i cant even deny they wouldnt be too healthy, i like lookin at fanon ways tho for em. canon wise tho yeaaaah no these guys definietly wouldnt work.

gamtav: it’s...cute but boi gamzee needs some help i think.

gamsol: -sollux did imply he either wanted a kismesis or matesprit with him in one of the flashes- again same as gamtav.

aradia/equius: BIG NOPE nope nope nope equi that’s weird wha ya did never do it again thank fuck aradia hasnt been around him since.

karterezi: their actually kinda cute, looking back on em they could’ve worked. stupid doomed timeline bullshit.

daverezi: also kinda cute, idk tho if i got flushed for em tho i get more pale vibes but it was semi-a thing.

kanvris: it’s baaaaad kanaya deserves much better and vriska never seemed much the type for cementing into a relationship.

vristav: even worse, like i’d like to thank fuck tav one up-ed her in the end cause fuck wha he had to go through.

karmeenah: it...could be cute? maybe? only iffy part is the ages, i thought the dancestors were like sixteen tho since the kids said they were teenagers even tho they were at the time about fourteen? idk tho if eighteen is considered an adult in alternia or not tho it’s kinda implied to be? anyways tho it’s just off puttin maybe a bit tho.

meenahvris: it’s kinda cute, it was atleast, idk lookin back it does feel more unhealthy.

rufidama: baaaaaad i love rufi but he’s got some bullshit he needs worked out and damara deserves someone better.

rufihorr: just as bad as above, both deserve someone better or atleast horrus does with some therapy on it rufioh i think should just chill on relationships but it’s so obvious their not meant to be.

mitula: it’s cuuuuuute i cant deny it, ...okay fanon vers is canon is barely anything and tula does give more pale implications for tuna but with how protective she was over damara near him it’s sweet, but god do i wish canon tuna gave more feelings for tula.

kantula: it’s...creepy. like it’s so obvious the vantas bois cant communicate well but kankri’s crush feels almost pressuring on tula when he kept goin about them and goin “oh but we’re totally friends and i’m celibate so it’s okay its whatevs” like kan go to a corner give tula some air to breath.

crotuna: BIG NOPE cronus needs to learn fuckin boundaries thirsty fish bastard.

should i even add cro//eri due to the fact he literally asked an eridan out? regardless gross, ew, no, i’ll take the fanon ampora brothers anyday canon i didnt fuckin need that thx.

porrnea: it was implied to be more of a fling. idk considerin aranea’s track record i cant really say i’d trust her in many flushed quads. and porrim seems the type to have hers open and not a closed off thing so idk they got different cases.

aranea/jake: i cant deny it’s fuckin cute, i’d would’ve loved if they tried to do somethin but aranea was definietly uhhh not a good choice for jake. least she backed off when he didnt wanna be kissed but man yeah, it was cute while it lasted.

kurmeu: i cant deny the idea kur forced himself quiet due to hurting meu hurts me in a sweet way but as of rn them bein ‘pale’ and him mind controllin her when we dunno if she’s alright with this or not is...disturbing.

vristerezi: i am HIGHLY doubtful this is canon considering everything but i guess i gotta cement this. i dont see em as canon in og or sequal wise since vris is still gone in both, even then i dont like, see it, i see it but idk man i like em more pale then pail.

erifef: honestly no. both are much too different for a relationship, kinda glad they uh...got cut short cause honestly even their moirailship wasnt healthy what’s to say a matespritship would? on BOTH sides mind you.

rosejohn: thank karkat’s shipping board. anyways, i think their cute cause fuck it rose is a bi-con to me, canon wise probably wouldnt work but i’ll take fanon.

vriseri: kinda glad they got cut short of their kismesis cause boi eridan deserves a better one with how shit vriska was in breaking up with him.

johnvris: it was cute, i cant deny i’m soft over how the two talked things about vriska’s life and john’s it’s just kinda cute. it’s obvious tho canon wise with wha john went through it wont work out. would’ve loved if they became moirails tho but o well canon is god i guess.

spadePM: i dont like much of their implications, would be an unhealthy relationship regardless considerin spade’s flushed and PM’s pitch, they deserve some therapy and other people.

dadbert/momlonde: their cute i like the implications of em, sad they died though, it was cute while it lasted.

meowrails: may aswell count moirails in this shipping mess. anyways their cute, they gimmie sibling vibes course equius early into it was so...not a good moirail.

kurtuna: i guess it might be cute moirails? idk tho with kurloz’s implications it concerns me.

gamkar: as moirails...karkat was fuckin shit at his job i cant sugarcoat it. i get where it’s from he’s not gam’s lusus and shouldn’t be forced to check on him during his time of gettin high and such, i get they were kids, but god gam kinda deserved a better moirail. and then later on in the series it gets more fucked up between kar gettin stabbed by him and both in a pretty unhealthy moirailationship to the fixed timeline where gamzee is just shut into a fridge and kar doesnt fuckin care, like dude, wow. gamzee was bad yeah but damn, harsh a tad.

terezigam: as a kismesis it’s almost disgustingly unhealthy to me and honestly terezi deserved better and gamzee maaaaybe shouldn’t get a kismesis, ever, unless he can sort his shit out -the sequals tho wont do that lol-

minorly gonna count johndave in this: idk if i can see john reciprocating for dave so dave’s crush on him almost kinda hurts, especially since fixed timeline dave’s john is well, dead and our john is probably still different from his john, has angst but man i kinda dont mind it as a one sides crush it’s nice confirmation of dave bein bi atleast.

nepetajasper/jasprose: i cant see it, it’s disturbing i guess. i like em more as friends but jasprose is probably more creepy bout it.

signless/diciple: i think considerin the implications they were fuckin adorable and deserved the best.

summoner/mindfang: it’s kinda sad considerin its implied mindfang’s love for him might’ve been one sided, they could’ve been cute tho.

orphanor/mindfang: probably sounded like the best kismesis’s until he murdered dolorosa.

dolorosa/mindfang: BIG NOPE i dun like the implications.

condence/orphaner: since it’s implied orphaner had a crush on her, gonna say tho big nope considerin condence is a bitch.

condence/lord english: its hard to decipher their relationship in canon, but to cover all my bases it’s big nope to me somethin bout it makes me uncomfy despite both bein bastards.

#home stuck #hs #the pink one speaks

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mmmmalo · 5 years

Text

This is a (meandering, non-exhaustive) overview of Homestuck’s use of

by which I do not mean examples of psychological realism in a character’s words and deeds, but rather the various means by which characters’ psyches are expressed outside of themselves. I wish to elaborate on how thoughts, feelings, and desires may find expression in the environment, in the medium of the story itself, and in the form of other characters.

That’s perhaps a little vague, so here’s a ready example of what I mean: brainghost!Dirk. He talks with Jake, but since he is a construct of Jake’s mind, Jake is essentially talking to himself. Brainghost!Dirk is an alienated medium for voicing Jake’s own thoughts, irretrievably distorted through its intermingling with what Jake thinks/wishes Dirk would say (not unlike a puppet). I am claiming that this mode of characterization is not a unique to Jake; the blurring of inner and outer voices is omnipresent throughout the story.

Or, rephrased: what I hope to show is that a great deal of Homestuck is haunted with brain-ghosts, of one kind or other.

An early example of this kind of storytelling in science fiction would be the film Forbidden Planet (1956). The film contains a pair of conflicts which eventually reveal themselves to be one: the scientist Morbius wants some space explorers to get off his planet, and an immense monster (pictured above) appears during the night to attack the explorers. Morbius, it turns out, has been experimenting with a machine capable of turning thought into reality. So when Morbius sleeps, his dream of driving off the trespassers materializes in the form of beast that forcefully enacts the wish.

The beast is declared a “monster from the id”, the “id” being a concept borrowed from Freudian psychology, indicating the part of the mind responsible for the unfiltered generation of impulses, of urges. In the film, this passing mention of psychoanalysis precedes the revelation of Morbius’s link to the beast.

Homestuck hints towards its own mixing of thought and reality with a device similar to Morbius’s dream machine: Sburb.

A snapshot of Dave’s Sburb client (1519) shows that the final subprograms launched during the games installation make reference to terminology associated with Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. The terms suggest that Sburb interacts with the ideas in the kids’ subconscious minds (archetypes) and brings symbolic representations of these ideas into conscious reality (manifests the ideas). The game alters the means by which reality is constructed. As with Forbidden Planet, a major result of this is id monsters.

When John slips on a staircase, he flips out (left, 560). And when he nearly launches himself into the abyss with the Pogo Hammer, he has to take a nap before he has calmed down enough to continue (center, 637). Immediately following both moments of vertigo, massive ogres appear. The eventual fight with the ogres begins after John looks over the edge of the platform above his house, into the abyss (right, 662).

All of this suggests that Sburb is reacting to John’s emotional state (fear) to produce in-game content. The game functions as a waking dream.

It should also be noted that Sburb provokes the reactions it elicits. Karkat once mentioned a nagging feeling that the game was mocking him by giving him a planet covered in the candy red blood he had spent a lifetime attempting to hide (2301). Karkat’s paranoia seems to be correct here, and moreover applicable to the cast in general -- John’s house was likely placed atop an immense spire /in order to/ bring John’s dread of falling into sharp relief. The suspicion can be substantiated with a few related motifs.

The story provides two likely origins for John’s fear of heights: his own fall from the slime pogo as a child (2626) and the death of Nanna, which John believed resulted from her falling from a ladder and being crushed by a book (52). What’s more, Sburb’s invocation of the Fall of Man (Adam and Eve being cast from the Garden of Eden) via biting into an apple hints that there is an allegorical significance to John’s more literal fear of heights.

We can apply these patterns to other characters in an attempt to learn more about them. LOLAR being covered in ocean suggests that Rose is afraid of water, with the likely cause of Rose finding Jaspers dead and washed up on a riverbank (presumed drowned). Dave speaks openly about how his sword fights with Bro left him anxious of metal sounds (7749), meaning the grinding gears of LOHAC were a personalized hell for Dave. Jade’s first imp manifests in response to the sight of a yellow aurora (2998), inviting the reader to investigate why that image invokes a fear response.

But we won’t get to into all of that, not for now at least. Let’s take a step back.

For my reading of the imps as manifestations I’ve been leaning heavily on a piece of film theory devoted to the effects of sequential images. The sequence above constitutes two observations. One, that by this arrangement the viewer will infer the old man sees and reacts to the middle figure. Two, that the viewer’s impression of the old man will change based on the content of the central image, even if his expression is the same. Is he smiling at Nepeta or warm embrace Marvus’s armpit? The answer may influence your interpretation of the little smile.

The neat thing about montage is that the interrupting frame need not bear any obvious relation to what precedes or follows in order to be subject to a causal reading. Moments that occur sequentially can be read as triggering one another, even if what follows any particular moment appears to be a break rather than a continuation.

Example: There’s a moment where Aranea walks into Jake’s dream, and brainghost!Dirk immediately starts razzing Jake about his attraction to the alien girl and threatening to give him a boner. The scene is interrupted by Jack committing a series of gratuitous murders. We then cut back to Jake, and bg!Dirk is now teasing him about his dirty thoughts.

DIRK: You have got to be kidding. Did you seriously just think something THAT dirty? DIRK: You must be doing this on purpose to spite me now. I mean, just wow dude. That was x-rated as fuck.

JAKE: (No no stop. See youre talking about it and now i cant help it!) JAKE: (You are psyching me into having dirty thoughts get fucking lost you interloping brain douche!!!)

DIRK: Don't worry, I'm gone. It's like a goddamn peep show in here and I feel like a sleazy piece of shit watching this from a dark corner of your mind. DIRK: You have a graphic imagination, English. I'm kind of impressed.

JAKE: (Shut up theyre just thoughts its not even like im trying to have them THEY DONT MEAN ANYTHING!)

The ostensible joke is that bg!Dirk is exaggerating or outright fabricating his account of Jake’s thoughts in order to hassle him. But by way of montage, one can infer that we /have/ seen Jake’s dirty thoughts, in the form of Jack’s display of overwhelming bloodlust. Violence is superimposed over the sexually explicit.

Whether the scene literally takes place in Jake’s mind is secondary (though such a reading would explain why Jake’s brain ghost is even aware of Jack) -- the use of montage allows Jack’s actions to function as a /metaphor/ for Jake’s thought.

Another example of Jack functioning as a murderous/libidinous avatar would be the death of Mom and Dad. At their little tea party, Dad spills some wine on Mom’s clothes and declares that she must disrobe immediately (so that Dad might launder the garment). Mom calls the aromas wafting from his pipe sensuous. The two clasp hands and declare that all they need is eachother. Then they die! The joke is that while Bec Noir is ostensibly an interruption to date night, he also functions as its culmination, with murder acting as substitute for the sex act.

The link between violence and sexuality is perhaps a hard sell, but I hope to convince you that the reading holds merit. Let me emphasize that the very act of Mom and Dad holding hands was itself sexually loaded.

I owe to HS liveblogger elfstuck the insight that John’s linear 3 card sylladex is a reflection of his short attention span. Consider how John’s role as a game character means he is thrown all around his room, back and forth, as the player figures out what to make of the situation. If you ignore the fourth wall, you’re left with an extremely distracted person, who attention flows easily from one object to another. Accepting the object-in, object-out nature of John’s sylladex and the resulting shenanigans as a metaphor for this, it would follow that the sylladex in general can offer an abstract representation of thought.

In passing, I can mention how the enormity of Jake’s sylladex (it cannot even fit on the page, and contains an object that exceed most players’ size limits) would imply that despite evidence to the contrary, the boy likely has a big brain (and perhaps its being offscreen suggests Jakes own unawareness of much of his own thought). Dirk’s comment about avoiding items that are difficult to shoehorn into his mnemonic schema (4535) could be read as a difficulty maintaining information that doesn’t fit into his personal mental models. The sylladex becomes a metaphor for the mind that requires interpretation.

Under this mode of thought, the moments when Jade’s pictionary modus fails to correctly interpret her drawing become akin to a mental slip-of-the-tongue. For the Tanglebuddies to be misread as enmeshed hands implies an association, in Jade’s mind, of horny Squiddles and clasped hands. John affirms the association much later by miming Tanglebuddies as he attempts to grapple with the question of whether Jade and Davesprite are sexually compatible (5294):

JOHN: how do things even work if you marry a sprite?

JADE: what do you mean

JOHN: i mean... JOHN: ok, he has a ghost butt, for one thing.

JADE: uh JADE: so

JOHN: a GHOST BUTT, jade!

JADE: SO WHAT IF HE HAS A GHOST BUTT!!!!!

JOHN: i'm just saying...

JADE: WHATEVER YOURE JUST SAYING, JUST STOP SAYING IT! JADE: and whatever youre trying to gesture with your hands there, stop doing that too!

It should also be noted that before launching into her “daring dream”, waxing poetic on the miraculous union of the human and the animal with her hands clasped in wonder, Jade successfully captchalogued the Tanglebuddies (796). And more to the point, Jade’s pose in reproduced during discussions of cherub (5961) and leprechaun (6007) reproduction. Hand-holding becomes representative of an (oft-sexualized) union, underlining the euphemistic nature of Mom and Dad’s post-contact demise.

The next example of using montage to communicate thought requires a little more buildup.

There’s a gag in Rose’s introduction where the reader tells Rose to play with her writing journals, and scoots the journals under the bed and retorts that she would only do that if no one were watching (220). At first glance, the moment scans as a minor meta joke in a story filled with meta jokes -- but the trick is that Rose does not /know/ herself to be a video game character, her every movement controlled and observed. Rather, she /believes/ this to be true -- the joke about being watched establishes that Rose is paranoid, as will become apparent in the hostility she assigns to Mom’s every action.

The command prompt and narration are themselves brain ghosts of a sort: the voice deployed in them is always linked to the present point-of-view character. The insults that precede character introductions ( “Zoosmell Pooplord”, etc) become marks of anxiety, an intrusive proclamation of what the kids at times think of themselves (and/or what they think others think of them). “Nice time management skills, sweetheart!” becomes a bit of self-deprecation Rose as she procrastinates, which Rose experiences as having been voiced by some objective observer who judges her deficiencies.

A blurred line divides characters from the voice at the back of their head, belonging to the (presumed) omniscient, omnipotent author-god. This is why avatar!Hussie is dressed as Calliope when he is killed by Lord English. Both Calliope and Hussie are a voice in Caliborn’s head, and thus both present apparent obstacles to an unmediated self.

The left panel (3219) foreshadows the right (3358). Gamzee is not being declared the objectively most important character in Homestuck. Rather, Gamzee is declaring himself /to have been declared/ the most important character in the story. The line establishes that Gamzee believes himself to be in a story (with an author!) and that this author has declared him paramount. Furthermore, “fondly regarding creation” is an modus operandi of Problem Sleuth’s Godhead Pickle Inspector. Applying that turn of phrase to Gamzee’s actions further establishes that Gamzee believes himself to /be/ the god-author declaring his own importance. So it should come as no surprise that 137 pages later, Gamzee outright proclaims himself to be the god(s) he worships.

Going back to montage, it becomes interesting that this snapshot of Gamzee’s megalomania is inter-cut with the creation of Jadesprite -- the moment that dead!dream!Jade merges with Bec, forming a unity with a deity not unlike the unity Gamzee claims with his mirthful messiahs. The interweaving would suggest that Jade and/or Jadesprite experienced analogous thoughts of megalomania upon the moment of ascension.

This would be a good point to mention that not only imps and ogres, but trolls also function as manifestations for the people they impose upon. Karkat is not only an interruption here, but also a continuation. He points out that Jade’s self-loathing, that she cannot safely distance herself from the qualities of Jadesprite she finds distasteful. This is precisely why Karkat ends the conversation by telling Jade to turn off the fourth wall (which divides the self!), as well as the reason he imagines Jade making out with herself: Karkat is on every front presenting the prospect of union with oneself.

The notion of trolls as manifestations first emerges clearly when Rose and Dave receive their packages from John. As they finish reading John’s letter, each is suddenly contacted by a troll and greeted with the command “Answer.” Critically, by word alone it is ambiguous as to whether the command refers to answering the troll or the letter. And as it turns out, these answer occur simultaneously: Rose and Dave’s responses to the letters are embedded in the subsequent conversations.

Rose receives a letter poking fun at her pretensions, claiming that her attempts to hide her affections for people are futile. In response we get Kanaya, who imperiously proclaims her disdain for Rose, only to suddenly change tact and explicitly seek Rose’s friendship, an entreaty which the oft paranoid Rose accepts. Dave receives a letter imploring him to let go of his insecurities and express himself. In response we get Tavros, the very picture of insecurity, who is fixated on the idea of making Dave shit himself (as part of an ‘emotional constipation’ motif that follows Dave). And Dave complies, in a sense, by way of the quasi-ironic gay treatise that compels Tavros to block him. Each conversation addresses the issues laid out in John’s letter.

Examples can be found throughout the comic. Equius remarking that he talks to Gamzee every day (2220) establishes that Gamzee is regularly haunted by the thoughts of domination that Equius voices -- both in the literal and metaphorical sense. Erisolsprite referring to Dirk as a rock 2oliid piiece of a22 and then calling himself 2ociiopathiic for even thinking something so callous (5516) expresses a conflict already present in Jake’s own mind, echoing the frustration with his own dirty thoughts expressed by the argument with brainghost!Dirk. Feferi’s pronounced enthusiasm for the imminent apocalypse should cause you to question Kanaya’s seemingly neutral resignation towards the end of the world, since Feferi manifests for Kanaya (2328). And so on.

The person being trolled is always being confronted with thoughts or feelings or memories already present within themself. Alien contact always doubles as a brain ghost haunting.

Another example, with some buildup: Karkat invokes the phrase “PERFORATE MY BONE BULGE WITH A CULLING FORK” to express his contempt for Vriska, and on subsequent pages we see Feferi pointing her culling fork at a cuttlefish (2181), as if to suggest that the creature symbolizes the bone bulge. Fast forward to Kanaya, who has just gotten through a conversation with Vriska and finds herself haunted by Eridan, who keeps going on about his romantic desperations and insisting (correctly) that Kanaya’s crush on Vriska is itself romantic. That his notification erupts from an image of cuttlefish held at Kanaya’s waist adds to the air of yearning, as though her own bulge is rumbling. The scene is capped off with a double entendre: “its hard and nobody understands” is playfully poignant jab at an inability to understand one’s own desires (among other things).

And Homestuck devotes a lot of attention to desire.

It’s long been acknowledged by the fandom at large that Kanaya’s attraction to Light players functions as a joke on the proverbial moth-to-the-flame. As reconciliation with the fire destroys the moth, there’s a morbid tinge to the attraction, as though it doubles as a death wish. And the wish is granted -- when Kanaya dies in Homestuck, she dies to light, either from Eridan’s wand or the laser blasts unleashed by HIC. Even the death of Kanaya’s lusus pertains to light -- the matriorb ripped from her innards is shaped like a miniature sun, as if to establish some loose link between the notion of motherhood and the incandescence Kanaya eventually achieves.

This can be generalized into a principle wherein lusii (and the circumstances of their deaths!) can functions as analogies for the desire of the wards.

Vriska, for example, desires execution. When offering Terezi a flimsy apology for crippling Tavros and proxy-murdering Aradia, Vriska offers to slam her head against her desk in penitence. This moment should be read against Vriska’s addiction to breaking 8 balls, and leaving the broken shards lying around as though she’s inviting the “bad luck” of stepping on them. It /is/ an invitation. Vriska seeks love via violent retribution against herself. This is why in the right panel, Vriska’s blood-spattered head is juxtaposed with a broken 8 ball: the blood came from Spidermom’s execution (which characterizes Vriska’s desire), and motif of 8R8K H34DS connects the moment to Vriska’s idea of apology.

Like Kanaya, Vriska (to a degree) seems to structure her love life along these lines. In the words of @azdoine:

like ppl are actually out here writing Vriska as the top as if her entire Act 5 character arc isn’t about bratting out until Terezi has no choice but to punish her

“oh noo, I, the thief of light, stole all of your luck, and made the coin land on the scratched side! now you have to kill me! but I’m probably going to get away with everything, because you don’t have the guts to stab me with that sword of yours!!!!!!!! if only there was somebody, like you, who could prove me wrong!”

EXTREMELY SUBTLE THERE, VRISKA

Vriska’s approach to wooing Tavros also revolves around baiting execution:

The scene: Tavros leads a horde of imps and ogres into a mystery cave, the top of which is adorned with kissing lizards and an alchemical symbol. Tavros is putting a puzzle of a frog together, but Vriska has already pieced together the puzzle: making a frog universe is, in part, a cipher for personal reproduction. The Ultimate Alchemy is making a baby! And as Vriska says, “real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold.” So she brings Tavros to LOMAT and makes the moves on him.

Tavros is equated to a treasure chest by the repeated use of framing and Vriska is GOING FOR THE GOLD, like a WINNER. Tavros later reaches into the same chest for his lance before heading off to attempt to kill Vriska -- affirming that the treasure Vriska seeks here is Tavros’s “lance”.

This setup was suggested by the conversation accompanying the kissing salamanders: Vriska gives Tavros a map with a big red X, saying he should take his legion of imps through the gate and go defeat his denizen. The gate actually leads to Vriska, but she isn’t lying. She is positioning herself to be Tavros’s final boss. The imps are manifestations of Tavros’s pent up rage (much of which was generated by Vriska’s harassment), and Vriska wants Tavros to take that anger out on her. Hence the later panel which uses Vriska’s boots to place a big red X directly over her groin, making explicit the implicit goal of Tavros’s trip to the windmill X-gate.

This pursuit of love through violent comeuppance may have something to do with Vriska’s bitter disappointment that ghost!Aradia did not seem to hate her.

An intermission/introduction of sorts, as we bridge from one discussion of desire to another: did you know that Michael Bay’s Armageddon (1998) structures itself in part around Freud’s Oedipus complex? I say this in total sincerity.

The plot: a meteor the size of Texas bears down upon the Earth, threatening armageddon. Luckily, a crew of rough-and-tumble oil drillers are ready to fly into space and split that mother in two. Oh HELL yeah.

Except, wait, the movie’s actually about family drama: Bruce Willis finds Ben Affleck sleeping with his daughter Liv Tyler; Willis proceeds to chase Affleck around the oil rig with a shotgun, bang bang bang. Not Allowed. The Protective-Father-Hates-Your-Boyfriend dynamic is presented as an Oedipal triad of sorts: although Tyler is not literally Affleck’s mother, she performs the mom-function of “forbidden object of desire” -- and Willis opening fire is equivalent to the castration said to await trespassers onto maternal soil.

The above reading is buttressed by jokes: Armageddon appears to function within an implicit dream machine, such that the characters’ thoughts and fears can become manifest in their environment. So when it comes to pass that whenever Affleck climbs into a hole (heehee), a pipe breaks (hoohoo), and suddenly everything goes boom, I read that as Affleck reliving the consequences of boning Tyler, packaged in such a way that the Freudian fear of castration is more explicit. (The relevance of Oedipus to the proceedings adds some humor to Steve Buscemi declaring the entire disastrous situation a “Greek tragedy”)

At any rate, after some shenanigans, Willis comes to accept Affleck’s claim to his daughter and confers the deed, as it were. Willis gives the young couple his blessing and they get married. Hooray!

Except, wait, the movie’s actually about the perpetuation of the oil industry: the dream machine was declared at the beginning of the movie when a petty street-side argument triggered the first barrage of meteors. The meteor the size of Texas (aka Dotty) is triggered by conflicts that haunt the central cast -- namely Willis, who enters the film hitting golf balls at a Green Peace boat. On a metaphorical level, Dotty is a golf ball the size of Texas, striking directly at the Earth instead its self-declared representatives. There’s a certain irony here: the film lampshades that the men who are destroying the world have been tasked with saving it.

The family drama folds into the environmentalist angle: Liv Tyler is a symbol of the earth (which gets drilled). This is the joke when Affleck is bouncing animal crackers around on her belly like she’s host to the Savannah: she kind of is! It’s no coincidence that Willis confers ownership of the oil rig at the same moment that he offers his daughter’s hand in marriage: the motifs are being discussed simultaneously.

But enough of all of that: back to Homestuck.

Armageddon’s simultaneous casting of Liv Tyler into the roles of earth and mother offers a glimpse at the interpretive possibilities made available by Hussie’s statement that Homestuck is in a way a synonym for Earthbound (an RPG in which “homesickness” is a status ailment which can be cured by calling your mom). Stuckness or boundness can be deployed to communicate a sense of longing for “home”.

A good chunk of Homestuck is built upon feelings of nostalgia, taken to mean a sort of intense separation anxiety with the past. John speaks about this when he watches Con Air with Jade – John wants the movie to feel like it did when he watched it with his Dad long ago, but the feeling from when he was a kid is gone. This upsets him. Moreover, John’s freakout starts at the moment Cyrus puts a gun to the bunny’s head (5286): Con Air itself is partly about Nic Cage trying to return to the life he lost when he went to jail, and ‘putting the bunny back in the box’ is a metaphor for the attempt. Cyrus, in threatening the bunny, is highlighting his role as a force preventing things from going back to how they were. Thus, if we are to believe that John is responding to the movie thematically, Cyrus confronts John with his own inability to go back to a happier past – his inability to go home -- and this recognition is met with anger.

In making the leap to the psychoanalytic motifs, it helps to recall the part where baby!Dirk responds to being born by cracking open his ectotube and crawling back inside. Dirk, who aspires towards his “ultimate self”, illustrates here that he envisions his ascension as a return to the ‘essence’ of Dirk from which he (and all other iterations of himself) arose, as represented by the ectoslime. Baby!Dirk gestures at unity with his ectoslime/essence by crawling back into the place from which he was born, which I’m basically claiming is a “return to the womb” on a symbolic level, or at least that this is a useful parallel to draw. (A related motif to think about: Dirk decapitates himself by sticking his head inside a box, which as per Con Air symbolizes the place you wish to return to)

[Hella Jeff sez: “i took (my pants) off because i was banging your mom for a minute there..... AND NOW YOU ARE BANGING HER”]

Castration becomes unavoidable as you try to relate all of this to Dave, whose occasional references to banging hot moms are part of an ongoing reference to the Oedipus Complex. Critically, the complex is not /just/ about wanting to bone your mom, but also fear that your dad will chop your junk off if you do. The breaking of Dave’s sword on the rooftop is a realization of this fear (yes, we’re doing the “swords are phallic” thing). But Dave has no mom that he knows of, so what gives?

The answer is in the way Bro inexplicably breaks the record emblem on Dave’s t-shirt, as though he has introduced a fissure into Dave’s very identity. Life with Bro has made it very difficult for Dave to be honest with himself, which is to say, Dave pictures Bro’s abuse as having divided him from an ideal “true self”, which can feel emotions without all the anxious ironic detachment. I mentioned before that seeking unity with that from which you came is a “return to the womb”. This is the sense in which the Oedipal mom attraction becomes relevant: the return to the past is sexualized. The ‘home’ Dave wishes to return to is /himself/, and in this sense Dave is his own hot mom (which is related to how often Dave compliments his own looks, as well as the above gif suggesting Dave’s boner – he is literally/metaphorically “attracted” to himself).

(Incidentally: this model of desire, in which a broken subject attempt to become whole again by seeking out its lost half, is basically the concept of the soulmate, as laid out by Plato. Cherub reproduction turns the metaphysical pursuit of one’s lost half into a plot-level objective)

John’s entry item (apple) was linked to fear embodied in a childhood trauma (the Fall), and the same can be said of Dave. Hatching from the shell that contained your primordial goop (Dirk) is analogous to being violently separated from yourself (Dave), which is why Dave’s entry item (an egg) hatching coincided with Bro slicing the meteor in half: the abuse that divided Dave from himself, his “castration” by Bro, is simultaneously the “birth” that separated Dave from his “mother” (which is also Dave).

The general idea is that birth = self-alienation = castration, insofar as all are depicted as modes of being separated from oneself.

The broad motif of ‘being separated from oneself’ can be very useful for identifying brain ghosts in unexpected places. Take for example, Roxy’s fenestrated planes: when they are introduced the narrative is quick to tell us that if someone were caught half in/out of one of the windows when the power cuts out, they would be sliced in half. By the rule of Chekhov’s gun, this introduction should mean we should eventually see someone get gorily bisected by the window, but alas we never do.

Instead, when Gcat warped the panel away, trapping Roxy between the windows, we were shown the image of a bisected horse puppet in Dirk’s apartment, This signals that Chekhov’s gun has indeed gone off. But rather than splitting a body, it split a soul: Meenah’s introduction follows the sequence because Roxy has generated a shadow of herself, a doppelganger. This is not without precedent: an earlier portion of this post was devoted to exploring the fourth wall as a mode of self-alienation. Roxy’s panel mishap can be considered part of that pattern.

If Meenah functions as an extension of Roxy, all of her actions can be read as bearing some relations to Roxy’s own latent thoughts and desires. Prior to the epilogues, for example, Meenah imploring John not to give her the ring seemed to be yet another Fuck You to the late Chekov: the issue never comes up again. But a psychic link between Meenah and Roxy would suggest that John broke his promise to Meenah by giving the ring to Roxy, and that whatever motivations compelled Meenah to make her request in the first place would also apply to Roxy.

Decapitation is yet another mode of self-alienation, and thus can be construed as a mode of birth. Hence the image of Lil Sebastian hatching from his shell of taxidermied man meat. That’s a motif unto itself, but what I wish to call attention to is the match-cut from John’s broke body to Jake’s broken tower. The juxtaposition collapses the images into metaphor, such that Jake’s loose dome in the woods becomes a decapitated head -- an appropriate addition to the pumpkin patch it rests in, given all the Headless Horseman jokes. We can look to Dirk for for another example of a headless horse-man of the house echoing the head: for a guy who idealizes decapitation to such a degree, it is striking that Sburb aims to provoke him by reattaching his beheaded apartment to its underlying units.

Houses act as metaphors for heads, then “Homestuck” could also interpreted as “head trapped” -- like the title emphasizes confinement within one’s own mind. Such a reading offers up Failure to Launch and Arrested Development (posters on John and Jane’s walls) as alternate synonyms for Homestuck, as each satirizes (or outright mocks) potential failure states in the process of inter-personal and mental development (ie “growing up”). Like Earthbound, both lean on a sense of homesickness in characterizing despondency, as though characters are haunted by the needs that defined their childhood -- or else find themselves needing that childhood itself.

But collapsing nostalgia into infantile regression is far from the only way to approach the house/heads equation. One might read the transformation and growth of houses with Sburb as metaphors for expanding the mind. One might infer that the choreography of events within houses can map out thoughts like dancing bees. One might take the metaphor as a foothold for interpreting the significance of the Sburb logo being at once a house and a window. \I have my own thoughts about Homestuck’s brain-ghost haunted house-minds, but for now, I only hope that this document has raised some interesting questions -- and ideally, that the interpretive approaches I’ve described might be useful in seeking answers.

#homestuck #homestuck meta #this is basically the contents of the stream #movies #john #rose #dave #jade #jake #dirk #roxy #gamzee #vriska #4th wall #psychoanalysis #house as head #plato

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blaperile · 5 years

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Homestuck Epilogues - Meat - Page 19 (Epilogue 4 Page 2)

#Homestuck #The Homestuck Epilogues #Meat #Epilogue Four #Jade #Roxy #Calliope #Dirk

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abundantchewtoys · 5 years

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HS Epi: Meat p11 reaction

Is the resolution of the Masterpiece really going to fall in between pages about Jane & Jake's fake date?

Maybe not. Maybe we'll see something from John's perspective first, inside the house juju. Giving himself the retcon powers. Coming to terms about some things. But I suspect he won't be able to contact anyone. At least, it would surprise (and entice!) me if someone contacted him while he's hidden away so remotely in there... Speaking of contact, how did John intend to have read anything inside the juju without his glasses or contacts? You can only spend so much time squinting.

I also wonder what they'll do when they're let out. I mean, they haven't become any better at fighting, and LE has. John won't zap his friends, Vriska and Davepetasprite^2 away to confer in a more secure location, right? Assuming he still has his retcon powers by the end of his stay in the house juju.

---

"That’s that, you think. Your glasses are broken forever, and you totally fucked up and underestimated young Lord English. Rose should have known better than to trust this to you alone." Well, I guess having a mental breakdown is one way to pass the time. I'd rather he had some sort of breakthrough instead, though. As for the glasses... Maybe a non-final death will restore them? Or by ascending to his Ultimate Self god tier. Whatever that'd do to his personality...

"Rose, Rose... your smart, amazing friend Rose, you can almost hear her voice now.

> Listen closer, jackass." ... Ah, so Reload Rose and the others can still talk. Their jails neighbour each other after all - they represent the four blocks of the house - but I didn't think it'd be enough for them to confer. Though, I rather think they're limited in what they can do in here, right? Unless... Unless by being in the house juju, they can influence some things inside the plot, still put some things in place so some time loops are fulfilled and stuff is prepared for bringing down LE!

Pretty sure they're barred, narratively, from performing a jail break, though. :P

Ya know, I've talked about the sentiments behind the narrative prompts before, and I just now realized that the kind of intruisive, inflammable language they use are a throwback to Homestuck's narration, since now that we have this POV-type story, the language there in is more shaped towards the person in question.

"You’ve only realized right now that your cell has walls, because it’s awfully bright in here. It’s so white that nothing in the cell is casting a shadow. Looking around, you realize there is no apparent source to all this bright light, making it hard to tell where the floor ends and the walls begin." Oh, I figured it was dark for him, but yeah, the house is white. Maybe the jail cell looks to each as what their idea of being imprisoned in a house-shaped object should be like, and proportions of the space go to match that? Hence why John can't yet tell the floor from the walls, he's got only an inkling of an idea. :P

"JOHN: yeah, i’m here. ROSE: Oh, thank goodness. Everyone’s accounted for then." Hah, John spaced out while the others reconnected. Nice. I'm interested to see what ideas Rose will bring to the table.

So it all comes back to four kids, standing idly in separate rooms, huh. :P

"Are you okay? JOHN: what? ROSE: Are you OKAY?" Okay, either the walls muffle the sound of John is like "this situation does not warrant the use of the word 'okay', rose. 'okay' is definitely not how i would describe us being right now."

"JOHN: i think so. i can barely hear you though.

You can hear a thud from Rose’s corner, like someone slumping against the wall in relief. Well, that’s what you’re doing at least." That's pretty much all she needed to hear right now.

"DAVE: this is kinda dorky to say out loud but i dont DAVE: feel... time" ... They're cut off from all their aspects now, are they? That'd just make them ordinary people. :/ Or maybe it's in reference to time outside of the juju passing way faster, relatively.

"DAVE: thats not just me right you guys feel it too DAVE: or dont JADE: yeah JADE: i mean theres obviously space inside this box but i cant do ANYTHING JADE: its like im blind" ... Okay, so I'm left to wonder. Would the egg sword and Jade's First Guardian powers still be usable? I'm assuming Dave had it out, so even if their sylladexes are inaccessible they might be able to do something.

"The noise outside the juju grows. Something sharp and metallic splinters above and rains down on the top of the chest." That isn't something to do with the pirate party finding the chest in the dreambubbles... So then, what? Did the B2 kids do something with the chest after exiling (excorcising? ... INcorcising?) Caliborn into Lil Cal?

Blaperile has a good point. Do all the soul splices inside Lil Cal experience this in the same way? ... Do all the soul splices in LORD ENGLISH experience this in the same way?? In the sense that the mobster is just a prison they can't escape or influence?

"ROSE: What did my future self say it was we had to do? JOHN: erm... she never rea—" Oh this is going to be so embarrassing.

"The metallic noises rain down harder, drowning out Rose’s attempt at being loud." ... It's that the noises are metallic, otherwise I was almost beginning to think it was more like the white noise. And that would have made me think of the Scratch. That would sure be something though, if the B2 kids initiated a Scratch of Caliborn's session. Actually, what if that was how Alternate Calliope's timeline came to be...

"JOHN: NOW I CAN’T HEAR YOU! JADE: TRY USING LESS WORDS

The length of the silence coming from Rose’s corner communicates just how difficult a task that is for her." Pfffffffff. Incoming character development for Rose: being concise.

"JADE: WHAT????? JOHN: I KNOW IT’S ALL A BIT ABSTRACT, BUT... JADE: NO, I JUST CAN’T HEAR YOU! DAVE: JOHN YOU SUCK AT YELLING JOHN: UGH!" Pfffff, I thought John would be better at yelling coherently, being Karkat's counterpole. ... Blaperile points out the similarity with Karkat sucking at whispering. XD

"Now you understand defeating young Lord English was never supposed to happen. Not the way Adult Rose was implying it would. You surmise the other four teens remaining outside the juju were the ones meant to be tasked with his defeat." It just sucks that John has to come to these admittedly wrong decisions by himself and couldn't have been given more information to work with.

"And judging from the cacophony still emanating from beyond the walls of this house and its confining chest, they are taking the task seriously." Okay, so the B2 kids' fight is still going on. Still unsure what the metal sounds could be about though. Aside from Dirk hacking at the chest with his unbreakable katana.

"But what does this mean for the four of you?" John, don't lose hope, you said it yourself, you'll be unloaded... some time.

"You try to picture what’s going on in the battle outside, but it’s not easy.

> Use your imagination." Of course, the house juju's powers run on imagination! :P No, wait, he's just going to give us his idea of the proceedings of the rest of the Masterpiece. Sadly, he doesn't have any clay at hand. :P

"The coolness of the action in your mind’s eye is belied by the actual sound effects booming all around you, which you can only describe as vaguely stupid." Welp, guess the bar of wedgies is still being cleared only marginally.

"There’s a lot of hysterical screaming, which, if you’re not mistaken, is coming exclusively from the male combatants. ... Well, Dirk IS living and breathing anime. :P

"Almost as if an outrageous bubble of pure Hope were enveloping the stage, is how you would describe it if you didn’t mind sounding ridiculous." Hah, John still doesn't believe in the application of Hope.

"Then you hear... it can’t be. Horses?? No, not simple horses of flesh and bone. These horses are metal, if we’re to believe they’re horses at all." Oh! Right, Arquiusprite summoned those Metalhoofs. Well, that's what I picture they were, Caliborn represented them with metal horse figures... But perhaps he even created robo-centaur butlers and the like. *shivers*

"You figure no one will ever truly know what’s happening out there. You doubt anyone would even be able to handle how incredible the raw, unfiltered account of this teen brawl actually was, so it’s probably for the best." Welp, and we were doing so well just now. :P Eh, it seems the battle unfolded pretty much exactly as foretold, only with some of the more stupid details removed, curtousy of Caliborn's impatience with stupidity. Which in this case might not have been entirely bad. :P

"you overhear Dave from one of the rooms below you, raising his voice to speak to either you or someone else." Right, they are not all on the same level, since it's a house-shaped prison. Uh, but wasn't Dave supposed to be in the part of the house with the extra window? It's been too long, I probably misremember. Oh, wait, yeah, they went through the fourth wall via one of the bottom panes, and it stood for Dave. Never mind.

"Once more you ruefully reflect on these teen versions of your friends, and all the questions they must have for you. For each other. What would you even say to them?" The responsibilities of an adult, John never expected they'd be this hard. He must be growing more appreciative of what his Dad went through with him without even knowing it.

"You’re not even sure you could handle it, if you were Teen John. You’d have too many follow-up questions, which Adult John is in no way prepared to answer." Still, I wouldn't mind a little one-on-one between Johns. A John-on-John, I suppose. In a serious way, nothing from the animes.

"Would you tell them about Terezi..." Oooh, does he suddenly get an idea, thinking of Terezi? Can't say I think they can do anything to contact her from inside here. Hmm, but earlier, Blaperile thought about what the B2 kids could do with the juju chest, whether they might try to get the others out. That's assuming Caliborn didn't captchalogue the thing, though. Still, it would be something if they could defy what's been foretold and unload the house early, maybe load it with a real surprise for LE.

"For some reason her name feels like nails in your heart. Makes sense, you guess, cause there’s a lot of sharp letters in it. She had sharp teeth too, and sharp elbows. Sharp words." Ahhhh, so we get to see what black romance feels like to John. Looking pretty sharp, apparently. Still, her sharp intellect could've come in handy here. It's a good thing chances are good they'll meet again, I'm sure post-victory Terezi has an important role to play yet.

"Terezi Pyrope was a sharp girl, and maybe what these sharp feelings are trying to tell you is you miss her more than you realized." Well, John has already acknowledged his feelings about Roxy, guess it's time for the other side of the two-headed coin now.

"She wouldn’t have let you neglect relationships with certain friends for so long that you missed whole chapters of their lives. She wouldn’t have put up with you moping around with the salamanders for so long. She would have kicked your ass for being such a loser about everything. She would have poked you in the forehead and called you insufferably lame and told you to pick up the damn phone. You would have called her a weirdo and pretended you hated it, and maybe you would even have believed you hated it. But now, sitting here in this little white cubicle, contemplating your regrets, you don’t think you’d have hated it much at all.

Would you tell the teens that?" Oooh. Very good point, actually. Even if John really only knows that version of Terezi from talking to her on two separate days separate by three years, she had a real impact on him. Granted, they also kept contact on WhatsApp as well in Universe C, but during the session was when their interactions bloomed. It'd probably be a stretch for Meat to end with John retconning the post-victory timeline to include Terezi on Earth, with him, right? After they defeat Lord English first, of course. Oh, right, she was there for two years before leaving... somehow. I kind of forgot. Still, five years would've made a difference in where John ended up by the start of the epilogues.

"JOHN: am i... depressed??" ... Well. Well, as far as growing self-awareness goes, this might be a very big development! Yes, it does seem that John has become listless on Earth C. Mostly it seemed to have to do with the absence of his Dad. But maybe he'll have other ideas about that, like his misfortune in matters romantic.

"as it turns out, you are really fucking depressed. You’re just a giant, wet meat sack of self-involved misery, and all that big, wet, meaty ooze drips out your mouth every time you open it. All the time and space in the world isn’t making it better. It’s something you should have been doing for yourself, instead of waiting around for things to get better." Wow, John. I suppose things will get a little harder for him, now that he's realized this about himself, but I hope he'll find a way soon out of this mess. And so, that's what he's been doing on Earth C, just waiting for things to get better. And no-one picked up on it, not even the other people close to him that bordered on depression before? Like Jade? He really alienated himself...

"Well, screw waiting! It’s boring as hell! You are JOHN EGBERT, after all, immortal CREATOR OF WORLDS, the one and only man ever to completely transcend the partitions of CANON ITSELF. You’ve got these powers, remember?" Well THAT's a sudden surge of RESOLVE if I've ever seen one!

"You hold up your hands and form a rectangle with your fingers and reach outside yourself, outside canon, to the place your retcon powers come from. You focus. You strain. You contemplate with all your might a place you can zap to, any place but here." There's no place like home, there's no place like home! :p Kind of wondering if he'll succeed though. He might be cut off from his powers. But if not, canon is his oyster.

"You wait. And wait. And wait and...

Nothing happens.

You slump back down against the wall" Welp! He tried.

"JOHN: THE ONLY WAY OUT OF HERE... JOHN: IS FOR US TO WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO LET US OUT. JOHN: SORRY GUYS. ROSE: OH." Anyone up for a game of "I see I see what you can't see"?

"JOHN: ALSO... JOHN: I THINK I MIGHT HAVE DEPRESSION?" Well, at least they won't have a lack of stuff to be talking, sorry, yelling about. Rose might be partially delighted to pick at the brains of an adult John, in fact.

#homestuck #upd8 #homestuck epilogues #homestuck liveblog #reaction #spoiler alert #john egbert

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paragonrobits · 5 years

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in this liveblog i did while reading Vast Error, we shall see more of Albion, the gal who is all the Lantern Corps at once... kinda!

also i initially wrote this by copy-pasting pictures from the actual site into the google doc but it didn’t paste over, and some of my writing was, at the time, based on the assumption you could see that too, im sorry

Let’s see, last time i was reading Vast Error, I met this olive gal called Albion! Let’s check up what’s with her, yeah?

What the heck that’s a green lantern ring, its even the right shape and stuff? Also that is a very pretty sweater, looks like a christmas sweater almost

You are completely green and stable! Hooray! You already knew this, because your ring is always completely green and stable as that is your WILL.

Um that sounds a bit worrying, Albion, are you okay?? But stability = green/Will sounds about right! It looks like her ring is….. A literal mood ring. I love and hate this pun, it is my new kismesis.

Reading further along, I get the impression that her moods strongly dictate her personality and she won’t let herself feel anger at all, nor fear or greed. While that’s a laudable goal, I feel that this is not at all healthy for her state of mind, especially not anger. Also, pity instead of love! CONSISTENCY WITH TROLL ALIEN-NESS.

I got a bit of a smile on the white = life thing, ahhh now the Blackest Night returns to me. The connoitions of the Black Lanterns corps as blank is an interesting one, too.

Star Childre reminds me of both a play on the whole Lantern Corps thing, and back when you have New Age philosophies that referred to themselves or their kids like that? That whole Indigo Children thing. I know they had specific terms for autistic people that was probably meant to be nice but even then came off as condescending at best.

Albion im probably going to gently mock u a little bit at some point but in all honesty your room sense is very well together. Look at this excellent lay out! IS THAT A FROG POND IN THE CORNER OR JUST A LOTUS. EITHER WAY IS SIGNIFICANT. That’s almost definitely a bonsai tree on your desk, in any case.

Now you have to do a quest to find a scholar in Daedric languages, stay away from the Stalwards of Stendar, they are mean. Plus you literally look like a daedra and someone with the right mods could easily play as you, so…… be careful plz

You're taking the time to properly translate it to CURRENT TEXT first, which has been taking longer than you expected. Your language as of now is structured very differently than that of anything before THE RENIASSANCE, in both phrase and symbol. You've been staying away from digging deep into this scroll until you've gotten that done, you like to be surprised when you read tales of the past. You really have your priorities straight!

Though, from what you've seen just at this quick glance, it seems to talk about some sort of CURSE THROUGH BLOOD.

Curse through blood?? I iniitally would assume that this would have something to do with a Karkat analogue but I know there’s nothing like that going on here. I therefore assume that it is an ancestral issue that will come into play later, maybe?

Doing this task was for once not for your personal enjoyment, but at the request of your MATESPRIT, who you have been slowly teaching PLANETARY CUSTOMS as they are rather BEHIND.

Your ring begins to turn PINK.

You slap it.

It goes back to green.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAASP I DONT KNOW WHO IT IS BUT IM ALREADY SHIPPING IT. A lesson to other writers; if you want someone to ship the relationship you’re planning, a good idea might be to emulate that kind of writing. THAT is what they mean by ‘show, dont tell’

I wont lie, that looks disgusting as hell but it also looks genuinely relaxing. One time when i was living with my dad back when he was living with, and I’m not kidding here, an actual evil step-mother out for his money that abandoned him the second she cleaned him out, i took a mud bath in a giant hole we dug for…. Some reason. I don’t remember why. It was very nice, it was at a point of my life where ‘idk why the hell not’ is a legit excuse and i have recursed back to that era. The world may never know why this happens

You use GLOP ENHANCERS to make each experience slightly different, though you've been set on MIRACULOUS VIEW lately. The colors really permeate in both size and smell.

HMMMMMM. It’s just me remembering Gamzee, sweet as he was without Caliborn fucking him up, but ‘miraculous view’ has me deeply concerned and a bit suspicious here.

‘Recieve message from Taz’ AWWWW HELL YEAH, OUR GIRL IS BACK IN THE HOUSE, WHOOT WHOOT

You could feel the hot passions of her overblown conundrums coming from miles away.

I was already shipping this before i even know it was my fav purple wrestler gal coming back in to hug my brain in an angry fashion.

Its likely not deliberate but ‘hot passions of overblown conundrums’ makes Taz sound exactly like what would happen if Karkat and Gamzee fused into a troll gal or had a daughter. IDEA FOR AN AU, KARKAT AND GAMZEE HAVE A DAUGHTER, WITH TEREZI AS SURROGATE MOTHER GRUB, AND TAZ IS THAT CHILD. FILM IT AND I PROMISE YOU ALL THE MONIES WILL FLOW.

However, you'll need your ASTRAL PROJECTOR in order to use SKORPE and speak with her, a device which has been placed in your SPIROGRAPH MODUS.

I assume that astral projector is a very literal thing here, and a spirograph modus sounds HORRIBLY inefficient

Your modus is currently rigged to an eleven card system on a ten point graph.

The ASTRAL PROJECTOR holds a spot in the middle, which will always be a WHITE card. It is also surrounded by five currently inaccessible BLACK cards and five accessible GREEN cards.

The center card can be accessed and can have something new put in it at any time. Doing either of these actions will alter the arrangement of the spirograph.

There’s more but i didnt wanna copy the whole page and really i was not wrong when i said this was inefficient, but it IS very interesting!

Like i honestly LOVE, LOVE TO PIECES the more in-depth and weird sylladexes that primiered with the trolls coming into the scene. Fandom never employs sylladexes and this is a travesty, bring them back, do it now, with GUSTO.

New challenge: take a fantroll and give them a sylladex that’s weird and cool. Not a joke, DO IT NOW PLEASE

Luckily, you've rigged your modus with some of your less appealing sounding candles to have your item just where you need it.

The SPIROGRAPH now allocates one of your TRANSLATED SCROLLS into the center card, allowing your POTENT GLOP ENHANCERS, SPARE INCENSE, SEXTANT and GRUBBY JUICE SCENTED CANDLE around it as the INACCESS cards. Not that you'll be needing them anytime soon.

Aren't things much better when you plan ahead?

I have to admit, if Karkat or literally any of the other trolls with ill-timed inventories had thoguht ahead like you, a lot of messes would have been avoided. You’d make a FANTASTIC life coach to the canon trolls, someone get albion a machine to travel into other universes so she can do just that.

Taz comes along and winds up seducing equius just by flexing in aggressive ways, their children are lovely

You place the ASTRAL PROJECTOR in front of you, using your SPIRIT POWER in order to activate it.

You will now have electronic access in THE CELL.

Aw, nice-

WAIT A MINUTE

Did she say what i think she did

THE CELL.

Holy fuck

Is she in some kind of prison!?

If she is i assume she put herself in there on purpose

-----------

Is, is that a fucking sniper rifle aimed right at her head!?!?!?!

NO NO NO NO DO NOT FUCKING FADE TO BLACK ON ME, YOU HEAR ME!? YOU SCOUNDREL, YOU CADS, YOU ABSOLUTE FIENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ohhhhh oh okay wait a minute:

I may have been misinformed about this, it looks like this is something similar to a chakra point being opend, perhaps? A sign of enlightenment tied to her meditating? AND WHAT IS UP WITH HER EYES IN THAT PAGE

MIRACULOUS INDEED. Seriously it looks like Gamzee-tier colorfulness

No wait!

Rainbow eyes

Eyes the color of all the shades in the spectrum

That is goddamn cool i want that to be a thing for trolls in general that are transcending the limits of the hemospectrum: AU where terezi’s eyes do that when she does the mind-y thing?

Ooooh pretty even the background takes on thel ight of the hemospectrum and, if im not wrong, the colors are grouped in a similar fashion but a bit more chaotically arranged. That might just be color blurring into another in the normal way, though

Tranquility is an asset harshly under utilized in the minds of others.

That is why yours acts as a personal safe haven.

Well i mean you’re not wrong

That’s pretty dang sensible, i like this way of doing it

Letting your mind be a safe haven is just…. Common sense, really, we sohuld all strive to be like her

#/#//#///#////#/////#vast error #liveblog #johnny reads vast error

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corvid-knight · 6 years

Text

Shitty Feelings and Cuddly Idiots

Dave's having a bad day; Karkat does what he does best: talks him into a slightly better one.

(Read it on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14615118)

TG: need you over here

CG: LIKE YOU'RE MOVING MOVIE NIGHT TO YOUR ROOM INSTEAD OF MINE?

TG: yeah TG: sure TG: karkat please just get your ass over here TG: ill fucking pay you if thats what you want TG: i need you where i can wrap my stupid self around you right now okay TG: you know how you steal my cape? well you dont gotta do that today because you can just pretend im the cape TG: need you

CG: HEY. CG: CALM DOWN. I'M COMING OVER RIGHT NOW, I SWEAR.

TG: trying TG: doesnt work

CG: WHAT DOESN'T?

TG: calming down TG: youre coming?

CG: FIVE MINUTES. COUNT THEM OFF.

You don't think it's going to take you five minutes, but counting the time down will calm Dave at least a little, you think. It usually works; that's one of the ways you use to talk him down from his too-fucking-frequent panic attacks, reorient him on when and where he is when his mind slips a little out of time.

Maybe that's what's wrong now—just him disassociating. You don't think so, though. He texts differently when that happens, either terse and perfectionist or even more rambling than usual, full of misspellings. This time, he just seems upset. A little frantic.

Fuck, you hope this isn't the aftermath of some kind of Time fiasco again. You hate those, not just because you know each of them adds another dead Dave to the dreambubbles but because your Dave, the one who's left, has to process the aftermath of dying every fucking time. He hides it, or he thinks he hides it, but you know how he wakes up stifling screams and grabbing for you, sleeptalk spilling out of him and letting you know how much he blames himself for every doomed timeline.

It's not fucking fair.

You cross your fingers that today's shitshow doesn't involve time shenanigans and push the door to Dave's respiteblock open, slipping inside as quietly as you can (not very) and blinking a few times as you close it behind you, letting your eyes adjust to how dark he has it in here. "Dave?"

"Karkat." Yep, there he is on the floor by the couch, tangled up in his own caps and two or three blankets that he hauled off said piece of furniture. His shades are off—not really a surprise; when he has most of the lights off it's usually so he can ditch the eyewear without being in pain—and as you take a step toward him he drags his sleeve across his face before reaching up for you. "Hey. Sorry."

"Oh, shut the fuck up." Lifting him off the floor is easy; Dave doesn't let you pick him up often, and it's always a surprise how fucking light he is. This time, he curls against you as you sit down on the couch, settling on your lap and burying his face in the crook of your neck. "Actually no, don't shut up, but don't waste your fucking breath on stupid-ass apologies either. What's going on? How bad is it?"

The pained whining sound he makes suggests that it's pretty fucking bad, but he just mumbles, "I'm sorry for calling you over for nothing, dumbass..."

"Nothing?" You want to growl offendedly at Dave, point out that there's no such thing as him calling you over for nothing. If he just wants to hang out, if he decides he needs to watch a movie with you, if he wants to show you prophetic patterns in fucking spilled apple juice, you'd come to him in a heartbeat. You want to make it known that there's nothing here for him to be sorry for.

But that'd become an argument, and while usually you'd love to snipe back and forth with him until you're both mutually annoyed enough to end the argument by cuddling up with a movie, right now that's the last thing Dave needs. So you just shrug, card your fingers through his hair, and offer one questioning chirp.

He's silent for a long minute. You can feel him relaxing, so slowly and in such small increments that he's probably not aware of it.

Finally, "I feel. Like shit."

That's a complete statement in and of itself, but it still raises so fucking many questions. You know that if you ask them, there's a pretty fucking good chance that Dave'll just clam up, pretend that there's absolutely nothing wrong.

Well, try to pretend. You know him too well for that to have a chance of working.

So more waiting. Patience isn't a natural thing for you, but you can manage it for him.

"I shouldn't...feel bad," he says haltingly, after another minute or so. He keeps his face tucked up against you, where he doesn't have to let you see him. Like he's ashamed of whatever emotion's showing there. "Like...fuck, man, nothing's going to shit now. Everything's good, everything's fine, no one's dying and everything is fucking safe, you know? And I'm. Here. Feeling like...like I should fucking tear myself apart, like I am tearing myself apart from the fuckin' inside, do you get it? I want—I feel like I'm dying, like dying makes sense right now, like that's what's supposed to happen, what should happen, what—what I—"

"Dave. Dave, shush. Shush." Normally, you'd let him talk himself to a stop, but that's obviously not really going to happen today. He stills after a moment of shushing and gentle hair-petting, at least, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to go limp against you. "You're not fucking dying. Right?"

"No, but it feels—"

"Shhh. Bad, right? It feels bad."

"Fuckin' awful, horrible." And a shaky laugh, maybe at the inadequacy of bad next to how fucked up he is.

"Does it get better when I'm here with you?"

Dave doesn't even hesitate. "Hell yes."

You can't help the immediate possessive/pleased growling purr that rumbles up from your chest as he tightens his grip on you. Dave obviously appreciates it, too; he sighs, leaning his head against your chest to hear it better, and because it obviously calms him you try to keep the purr going as loudly as you're capable of.

"You're supposed to fucking call me when you need me," you tell him softly, hearing how your own purring smooths out the rough edges in your voice. "Not when you can't fucking stand the shit in your head any longer. You call me when you think things are starting to get bad. Let me try to keep you from spinning out like this."

"I can't," he whispers, and presses his face against your sweatshirt again. This time, you feel telltale dampness and know it's because he's crying. "Can't, fucking—stupid, I know I'm stupid, I let it get this far and I don't even think—"

"Shush. You're not stupid. I can call you an idiot, because I don't fucking mean it. You're not allowed to think you're stupid."

Dave hesitates, then nods slightly, huffing out a sigh. He's quiet for another minute or so, just holding onto you.

Then, "...hey."

"Mm?"

"What if. This is how I am? Just, like, if there's nothing to fight, nothing to worry about, no—no danger? What if this is normal for me? What if Bro knew that, if that's why he was always such a fucking bastard—because he knew I'd, I'd get more fucked up if he r-raised me like a fuckin' normal kid—"

His voice cracks on the last word, and when you shoosh him he gratefully goes quiet. "It's not normal for you."

"What if it is? Dude, I remember—when I was a fucking kid, feeling shitty right around when he'd come home, what if—"

"Does it feel like that? Like your bro's coming home?"

"I—" Dave makes a considering noise, pulling back just a little to frown up at you thoughtfully. "...kinda. But—"

"You know what flashbacks are, right?" God fucking damn it Rose should be the one helping him through this. You barely know what you're doing.

"Yeah, of course I know how those feel, but that ain't what this is, dude."

"Why not?"

"Because—" He shakes his head, groping for words for a second, then very obviously gives up. "Because? It's not? There wasn't a fucking trigger, there's gotta be a reason for my mental shit to act up. This is me being fucked up in the head, is all."

"Oh my fucking god." You give him a Look. It's an expression you learned from Rose, you think; it conveys the general feeling of you're being very stupid but I can't say that out loud really fucking well. "'Mental shit' as opposed to 'being fucked up in the head?' Are you really saying that you're going to try and fucking differentiate between those two?"

Dave just stares back at you blankly for a moment. "There's PTSD shit, and then there's shit I don't have an excuse for—"

"You don't have to have an excuse, idiot!" You let yourself get probably too loud there, and try to apologize for it by kissing Dave's forehead. From the genuinely pleased smile he gives you, it's an acceptable apology. "Who says the shitty feelings aren't your fucking trauma kicking in again?"

"It just isn't."

"Did you ask Rose if it can present like that? Did you talk to her about it at all?" You already know he didn't; you won't force him to answer those questions. "This isn't just you being broken for no reason. We'll figure it out, okay?"

"Mhm." Dave nods and loosens his grip on you enough to lean over and snag the remote from between the sofa cushions, offering it to you. "...thanks, man. Is a movie enough payment for the whole trying-to-fix-me thing?"

"You know I'd do it for free." You roll your eyes at him and hit the correct sequence of buttons to get the TV on and playing whatever he has in the DVD player, raising your eyebrows at the sight of human Leonardo DiCaprio onscreen. "You were watching Titanic?"

He just groans and leans up against you. "Shut the fuck up."

"Nope. I'm too amazed that you finally grew a sense of taste."

"I only watch it because it reminds me of you, asshole."

"Fuck, that's even better." You grin at him and lean down to kiss the corner of his mouth, he turns his head just enough that you catch his lips full-on, and both you and Dave relax against each other as the movie really gets started.

You can't help but be fucking amazed that this is where you are, even though you spend so much time just like this, curled up somewhere with Dave. All the crazy shit you went though, and somehow you ended up right where you belonged. Right where he needs you to be.

It's fucking insane.

You'd never want it any other way.

#Dave #karkat #davekat #ptsf #ptsd #cuddles

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pesterloglog · 3 months

Text

Jade Harley, Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider

Candy, page 9

JADE: arent you guys happy to get out of the house for once!!!

KARKAT: NO ACTUALLY.

KARKAT: I DON’T GET WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT IT. I CAN SEE THE SAME BULLSHIT FROM THE COMFORT OF MY HOUSE.

KARKAT: CHECK IT OUT. A GIANT BILLBOARD OF JAKE ENGLISH COMPLETE WITH A GYRATING MECHANICAL ASS.

KARKAT: WHAT A TOTALLY NECESSARY THING TO SHOVE RIGHT INTO MY GANDER BULBS.

KARKAT: DEFINITELY COULDN’T HAVE LIVED WITHOUT SEEING THAT.

DAVE: dude ok dont pretend you dont spend at least 15% of your day ogling jakes ass on television anyway

DAVE: in fact youre doing it right now

KARKAT: WELL I CAN’T HELP IT, DAVE, IT’S RIGHT FUCKING THERE.

KARKAT: OH MY GOD, ARE THE MECHANICAL GLUTES ON THAT BILLBOARD ACTUALLY PADDED WITH PLUSH TO MAKE THEM MORE LIFELIKE?

DAVE: yeah see crazed fans kept climbing the billboards to cop a feel so dirk designed the second run of them to have an accurate recreation of jakes butt density

KARKAT: HE DID WHAT?

DAVE: its wild dude its like exactly spot on

KARKAT: WAIT

KARKAT: HOLY FUCK, HAVE YOU ACTUALLY TOUCHED JAKE’S ASS???

DAVE: i mean not necessarily on purpose but who hasnt

DAVE: like i wouldnt say its so much that i touched his ass its more like his ass copped a feel of my sweaty palm one time and my poor fingers havent been the same since

DAVE: sometimes i wake up from a fevered sleep and find my reluctant groping hand huddled in the corner of my bed all shaking and shit

DAVE: the mind represses but the body remembers

DAVE: ive thought about taking my hand to a psychologist but i dont think the little guy is ready to talk about it yet

DAVE: anyway have you seriously never touched it

KARKAT: I HAVEN’T!

DAVE: not even by accident like brushing by in a crowded elevator

KARKAT: NO

KARKAT: I DON’T SPEND A LOT OF TIME STANDING IN ELEVATORS WITH JAKE FUCKING ENGLISH, OR FOR THAT MATTER, DOING MUCH OF ANYTHING WITH THE IDIOT, AS YOU WELL KNOW.

DAVE: what im hearing is youve tragically never touched his ass and its a bit of a sore subject with you

DAVE: is that why youre so obsessed with it

KARKAT: ?????

DAVE: do you wanna touch it

DAVE: shit can be arranged my dude

DAVE: here ill text dirk right now i bet he can pencil you in to cop a feel sometime next week

KARKAT: NO I DON’T WANT TO. PUT YOUR PHONE THE FUCK AWAY.

KARKAT: WE ARE NEVER HAVING A PLAYDATE WITH DIRK AND JAKE AGAIN, ESPECIALLY NOT ONE ARRANGED FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF ASSAULTING ONE OF THEM.

DAVE: dude jake lives for this shit

DAVE: its not assault if his ass is begging for it

DAVE: wait wow that sounded bad

DAVE: lets strike that one from the record

DAVE: anyway its no problem he literally will be delighted to hear you want to spend time with him for some insane reason

KARKAT: STOP TEXTING RIGHT NOW!!!

JADE: hey can we focus here?

JADE: jakes ass isnt the one you two should be talking about right now

KARKAT: OH MY GOD, JADE DO YOU EVER FUCKING STOP.

KARKAT: I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR ASS EITHER.

KARKAT: I’VE SEEN IT ABOUT AS MANY TIMES AS I’VE SEEN JAKE’S. THE NOVELTY HAS WORN OFF, ASSUMING THERE EVEN WAS MUCH TO BEGIN WITH.

JADE: thats NOT what im talking about...

DAVE: jade

DAVE: cmon what are you...

JADE: this is a DATE dummies!

KARKAT: NO, STOP!

DAVE: dude

JADE: no..... let me.... show you....

JADE: you have to... turn it... flipwise!

JADE: see i dont mind at all!

JADE: i would never try to break up what you two have.... im just trying to make it BETTER!

JADE: see isnt this perfect?

JADE: it could be like this all the time you know... the three of us in every combination

JADE: or whatever combinations you two are comfortable with

JADE: heheheheh.... positions too!!!

KARKAT: AUGH! DON’T DO THAT!

KARKAT: YOU KNOW I FUCKING HATE THAT!

JADE: dont worry karkat theres nothing to be scared of...

JADE: well take care of you... right dave?

KARKAT: OKAY THAT IS IT.

KARKAT: I AM DRAWING A FUCKING LINE IN THE SAND RIGHT HERE AND NOW, JADE. YOU WILL CEASE THIS ENDLESS VIOLATION OF MY PERSON WITH YOUR MOUTH, FINGERS, AND OCCASIONALLY, YOUR FUCKING TAIL.

KARKAT: I AM NOT A PIECE OF MEAT THAT YOU CAN BRUTALLY AND VICIOUSLY MOLEST WHENEVER YOU’RE BORED.

JADE: brutally and viciously?????

JADE: :\

KARKAT: ALRIGHT, IT’S POSSIBLE I’M OVERREACTING. BUT THAT’S MY *FUCKING RIGHT* AS A FREE AND AUTONOMOUS PERSON WITH A CERTAIN DEGREE OF FUNDAMENTAL BODILY SOVEREIGNTY ENDOWED TO HIM BY THE GODS OF *MOTHER FUCKING CONSENT*.

DAVE: (mm hm)

JADE: sigh...

KARKAT: BUT I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M GETTING AT HERE, WHICH IS THAT I WANT YOU TO STOP DOING SHIT LIKE KISSING ME WITHOUT ASKING PERMISSION FIRST.

JADE: karkat youre absolutely right

JADE: and i couldnt agree more with you on issues of consent as everyone whos gotten to know me well enough is perfectly aware

JADE: BUT

JADE: im not the one who kissed you silly.....

KARKAT: WHA...?

JADE: it was.......DAVE!!!!!

DAVE: i what

JADE: you kissed karkat! finally!!!

DAVE: n

DAVE: no

DAVE: no i didnt

DAVE: why would i...

DAVE: i have no idea what youre talking about

DAVE: i would never

DAVE: youre wack jade im not

JADE: wack????

DAVE: why would i kiss karkat ive never even once thought about kissing karkat

DAVE: how would you even fucking do it

DAVE: hes so

DAVE: petite

KARKAT: I’M WHAT?!

DAVE: youre like

DAVE: ok yeah im gonna admit that was a weird thing to say and has got dick all to do with your kissability

KARKAT: GOD DAMN IT.

KARKAT: CAN WE STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS YET??

DAVE: what i mean is like

DAVE: how could somebody kiss this guy

DAVE: like anybody

DAVE: when his teeth are so

KARKAT: WHEN MY TEETH ARE *FUCKING WHAT*?!

DAVE: dude

DAVE: theyre just

DAVE: like theyre huge and

DAVE: not always in your mouth

DAVE: so like how would a guy get his tongue in there

KARKAT: TONGUE??????????

DAVE: youd have to be really careful to like

DAVE: i mean if you were INTENDING to kiss karkat

DAVE: i mean its not like ive put any thought into this

DAVE: but youd have to be so careful like just so totally gentle in your approach to it because hes so

KARKAT: ENOUGH!

KARKAT: CEASE! I COMMAND YOU!

DAVE: you know

DAVE: like this

DAVE: idk im just spitballing and this is literally the first time the thought has like

DAVE: EVER popped in my head?

DAVE: but upon earnest reflection i dunno if im up to the task

DAVE: um

DAVE: im not

DAVE: i was never

DAVE: were not

DAVE: actually ya know what

DAVE: i dont have time for this

DAVE: peace dudes

JADE: wow RUDE!

JADE: siiigh. i forget sometimes how immature dave can be

JADE: well karkat i guess its just us.... do you still wanna go split a plateau of grub spaghetti at the noodle barn?

KARKAT: AH!! FUCK!!!

KARKAT: JADE!!

KARKAT: WOULD!

KARKAT: YOU!

KARKAT: FUCK! OUCH!

KARKAT: A LITTLE!

KARKAT: HELP?!

KARKAT: MAYBE?

KARKAT: AAUUUUGH!

KARKAT: FOR THE RECORD

KARKAT: JUST SO WE’RE BOTH CLEAR

KARKAT: THIS IS WHY I HATE LEAVING THE *FUCKING HOUSE*!!!!!!!

JADE: well i guess im eating grub spaghetti alone

JADE: *again*!!!

#homestuck #homestuck epilogues #jade harley #karkat vantas #dave strider #candy epilogue #page 9

0 notes

edenfalling · 7 years

Note

Ooh! Homestuck, Dirk, Roxy, cuddle. It's the post-Sburb world, and there are too many people all the time, and only Dirk and Roxy want to flee screaming to a (pair of) faraway mountains. Bring back the blissful solitude of the post-apocalypse.

Notcompliant with the credits snapchats, because reasons. :) [2,700 words]

---------------------------------------------Some Little Talk aWhile of Me and Thee---------------------------------------------

The stupid part is, up until that one moment, Roxy washaving a really good night. All her friends (except Dirk, who hung grimly onthrough dinner and absconded immediately thereafter) together in one room, enoughdinner for everyone to eat their fill and then dessert on top of that, thepleasant ache of an honest day's work building the infrastructure of their newworld... yeah. A good night.

Except the thing is, as much as she needs people -- and sheneeds people a lot, needs that feedback loop of attention paid and returned --there's a big difference between hanging out online and hanging out with adozen people jammed together in a single room. And she hasn't been gettingalone time during the days either, always busy working with a crew ofcarapacians (who at least are quiet) and consorts (who are emphatically not).

Roxy doesn't notice the slow buildup of stress, but she canpinpoint exactly when the night tips from I-can-manage to oh-god-make-it-stop.

She's been kibitzing on the edges of Rose, John, and Jane'smeal planning session (defusing any baby disagreements before they grow intoanything serious), keeping half an ear on the Pictionary session Callie,Kanaya, and Terezi have going in the far corner, and watching Jade gleefullyannihilate Dave and Karkat at Mario Kart. It's maybe a little bit much to betracking all at once, but the satisfaction outweighs the strain until Davethrows a piece of popcorn at Jade, who teleports it into the tangle of Karkat'shair, who draws breath in preparation for an inside-voice-what-inside-voicerant, and Roxy is abruptly and completely done.Zip, zilch, finito, cutlery shop's closed up and all the merchandise is gone.

She shoves herself up from the warm and squashy armchair shestaked out as her private territory back when they first built this grouphouse, and says to nobody in particular: "I'm gonna go check on Dirk, it'sbeen a while since he noped out and I want to make sure he hasn't broken his neckor started a robot apocalypse in his sleep."

Rose and Jane break off their debate over the relativemerits of fish tacos and sushi to give her a pair of sharp glances. John justlooks adorkably confused.

Roxy dredges up a smile from her last reserves of sociability.

It must not be very convincing, because Rose frowns andtenses like she's going to ask if Roxy needs any help, or maybe even stand upand give her a hug. Her concern is like a warm mug of hot chocolate, but thething about warm mugs of hot chocolate is they're awesome on a frigid winterday after messing around in the snow for a couple hours, but this specific timeand place are more like a metaphorical scorching summer day when you're alreadysugared out and anything sweet makes you want to gag. In other words, amomdaughter's loving attention is nice in theory, but it's not conducive tonoping the fuck out of the room, not to mention if anyone touches her rightnow, Roxy might actually break down and scream.

Fortunately, Jane rescues her.

She does something to Rose -- elbows her? kicks her underthe coffee table? hard to say -- and while Rose is busy trying to regather hertrain of thought, Jane grins at Roxy, somehow managing to make the expressionboth obviously fake and equally obviously made of 24-carat solid goldsincerity.

"That sounds like an excellent plan!" she says."When you find him, tell him that Jade needs to run the latest plans forthe electricity grid past him, particularly the battery storage systems forevening the solar and wind outputs. I think the files are in the civilengineering dropbox account, so he shouldn't need to ask her for anything untilhe's finished reviewing and annotating them."

Roxy nods.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Scram!" Janemakes little shooing motions with her hands.

Rose, apparently catching on to Roxy's actual state of mind,smiles benevolently and waves goodbye. "Au revoir," she says in herperpetually dry tone. "If anyone asks where you are, I'll tell them I sentyou to give daddy dearest my love, perhaps in the form of seagull pie."

Jane rolls her eyes. John snickers and sticks out his tonguein mostly mock-disgust.

"Thanks, guys," Roxy manages to say, and flees.

---------------

After a indeterminate period of time trying not tohyperventilate in her en suite bathroom, she sits cross-legged on her bed andwonders if she ought to make good on her escape excuse.

Dirk's even worse with large groups than Roxy is and doesn'tmake any attempt to pretend otherwise, but he's still human (no matter how muchhe sometimes dislikes that fact) and even the most introverted human is, atbase, a social animal. And not all contact has to be as overwhelming as groupevents.

Roxy pulls out her phone, briefly contemplates calling him,then tosses that plan right the fuck out the window. Voices are bullshit. Textis their mutual mother tongue, and she'd bet at least half a baby universe Dirkisn't up for vocalizing right now.

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified[TT] --

TG: the thing nobody ever tells you about other people ishow fuckin NOISY they areTG: amiright?TG: i never thought id say this, but i miss ourpost-apocalyptic disaster zoneTG: not like, the looming threat of the batterwitch n shit,but the quietTG: maybe even some of the survivalist stuffTG: rose and the crockerberts gave me the weirdest look wheni said we should make seagull pie for our next movie night extravaganzaTG: there is GOOD EATING on seagullsTG: and they make a nice change from fish you know?TG: i thought id finally gotten away from descaling fishwhen we ditched sea hitlers water hellscape, but nopeTG: here we are back to fish for every meal that doesnt comestraight from our alchemiters and dwindling stocks of gristTG: (its ok you dont have to talk back if you dont want to)TG: (i just wanted to bitch to someone who gets it)TT: It's cool.TT: I know exactlywhat you mean about the quiet.TT: If you're game toendure the ultra minimum of human contact, i.e., breathing within the samecubic meter of air, I'm on the roof by the south chimney.TT: If not, I can seethe dock and it's currently unoccupied.TT: Assuming this isa day when the incessant susurrus of waves will invoke positive memories ratherthan negative ones, that could make a decent temporary retreat.TG: awww, ur a sweetie, sitting watch over our friends likea depressed gargoyleTG: on due consideration im ok with breathing your grosspre-breathed airTG: maybe if we get really daring we can work up to touchingpinky fingers!TG: le gaspTT: Scandalous. What will the neighbors say?TT: But I'm down forperversion if you are, Ms. Lalonde.TG: k hang onto your panties, im coming up

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified[TT] --

---------------

Roxy scrambles over the edge of the roof (she could justfly, of course, but where's the fun in that?) to find Dirk not just near thesouth chimney but actually curled up in the angle where it meets the solartiles, using the heat radiating from the bricks to counter the early autumnchill. He has his shades off in deference to the darkness, but his eyes are closedinstead of aimed up toward the frankly gorgeous light of the pink and whitemoons, both approaching full tonight.

Roxy flops back against the dark tiles of the roof, armsspread wide, and watches the moons flirt with thin veils of cloud. Her friends'voices drift out of the open windows downstairs, but distance and the ambientsounds of wind and wave blur them into a companionable sort of white noise. Theconsorts' various weekend parties are louder, but further away; noticeable onlywhen a line or two of song finds a favorable breeze or a new branch tossed on abonfire sends a gust of sparks above the trees and roofs of the slowly growingtown.

The carapacians' celebrations, of course, make no sound.

She and Dirk breathe in companionable silence for nearly anhour, while the white moon travels fifteen degrees toward zenith and the pinkmoon nearly twenty degrees in the same direction, edging toward partialeclipse. Roxy's still kind of giddy over the orbital mechanics of a three-bodysystem, and the difference two moons make in the rhythm of the tides. It couldtake years to work the changes into her bones.

She has years tospend on things like that. She spent her whole childhood isolated and trappedunder an incessant, shadowy weight. Now it's gone. She's free. She's not aloneanymore.

It would be nice if she were better at coping with thatchange.

Beside her, Dirk sighs, pulls his legs up to his chest, andrests his face between his knees. Something's gone cockeyed in his head again,and if nobody interrupts him he'll just debate himself into knots and grandiose'for your own good' bullshit stunts.

And hey, an hour of silence isn't enough to get Roxyanywhere near ready to face a crowd, but it's more than enough to talk to heroldest friend.

"The dumbest thing," she says, jumping straight inbecause what's the sense in wasting mouth noises on irrelevancies, "isthat weekend movie nights aren't even party-parties,nothing loud or crazy intense. It's just all our best friends hanging out oncomfy sofas playing goofy sleepover games, but stupid me got so wound up I hadto run screaming into the night. Otherwise I would've lost my shit at them overfish tacos and a popcorn fight, and that's just wrong with a capital R."

"Capital W," Dirk mutters, uncurling slightly andtilting his head until a sliver of orange iris is visible over the edge of hisright knee.

"Pedant," Roxy says, rather than draw attention tohis temporary lack of shades. "I just keep thinking, it shouldn't bug meso much. You've got a perfect excuse to flip out at extended socialinteractions, mister raised-by-robots. I actually had real live neighbors. Ishould be over this by now."

Dirk shrugs, which looks incredibly doofy when he's allcurled up like a pill bug. "As people keep telling me, brains aren'tparticularly logical organs. Besides, there's a pretty big difference betweensign language and a dozen plus people with actual vocal cords, some of whomhave a tragically shaky grasp of appropriate volume control."

"Ha. Yeah. Still."

"Still," Dirk agrees.

Roxy spreads her arms wide, staring up at the moons and theas-yet-unnamed constellations of their new universe, galaxy, solar system.Their new sun's a little brighter than Sol used to be -- a little smaller inthe sky, a little more pure-white than yellow-white -- and more like Alternia'ssun in its position vis-à-vis galactic center, which makes for some amazinglydense and brilliant starscapes. And she's saying this as a person who grew upwith no artificial light to blank out old Earth's night skies.

"Humans made the trolls' signs into constellationswithout any outside influence, just the shape of the universe orsomething," she muses. "I wonder if it's cheating to design ourconstellations ourselves."

Dirk shrugs again, a faint movement of shadow against darkershadow in the corner of her vision. "All our sessions were fucked from thestart; we had to cheat just to get out alive. What's a little more cheatingcompared to that? Ethical qualms aside, I'm pretty sure this planet isn't goingto be the focus of any future Sburb sessions. That dubious honor goes to the billionsof native planets kicking around this universe. If anyone's getting gentlymanipulated into using three-eyed cats and purple horrorterrors as part oftheir star myths, it's all those statistically inevitable aliens out there inthe wild black yonder."

"I bet their myths kick ass," Roxy says.

"I believe that's more or less implicit in thedefinition of the word. I'm not sure what they'll make of a hat or an LPrecord, though," Dirk says.

This time it's Roxy's turn to shrug. "Old-schoolD&D monsters, maybe? Or no, ten gets you one they'll go with crows andseagulls instead." She pauses, reconsiders. "Then again, Terezi'ssymbol is basically a giant lab tool with a shit-ton of cultural baggage, andKarkat's is kind of like, handcuffs, right? Maybe hats wind up as a symbol ofintellect and general badassery -- oh! or artificial life, like Frosty theSnowman's magic hat, 'cause of your robots and puppets thing -- and recordssymbolize creativity and art and stuff."

"Hats as a symbol of hubris and overreach, morelikely," Dirk mutters.

Roxy wriggles sideways until she's just close enough toflick the fingertips of her left hand against the side of his shoe. "Knockit off, dumbass. Nobody gets to badmouth my best friend -- not even my bestfriend."

Dirk unburies his face and meets Roxy's eyes straight on,one eyebrow raised. "I was under the impression that that title belongedto either Jane or Calliope. When did I inherit the position, and why was I notpreviously informed of this change in status? Are you sure you're followingfriend protocol correctly?"

Roxy flicks his shoe again. "Friendship is a bigcategory! You're all, like, different instantiations of the concept of 'bestfriend' -- Callie's my squee and kissing partner, Janey's my partner in crime,Rosie's my sister, Jake's my goofing off friend, Dave's my surrealism feedbackdude, John's my maybe-kinda-sorta other kissing partner, and so on and soforth. You, Dirk Strider, are theperson who knows me best in two and a half entire fucking universes. Okay?You're the one who knows what it's like. If I ever run off to be a hermit on amountaintop, I want you to come be a hermit on the mountain next door. We cansend heliograph messages back and forth, or learn how to yodel and shit, andonce a month we'll get together and have a wild and crazy hermit party, justthe two of us. That's the kind of best friend you are for me."

Dirk is silent for a long moment. Then he unwraps his righthand from his legs and lets it drop downward until his fingertips are justbrushing the soft, ticklish (completely un-carapacian) skin of Roxy's leftwrist, right over the veins carrying blood back to her heart.

"All that, back at you," he says.

Roxy blinks back a sudden rush of tears, and laces theirfingers together. Dirk lets her.

"Jade has some electric grid plans for you to lookover," she says after a minute. "You can do that anywhere,right?"

"Yeah," Dirk says.

"Then come seagull hunting with me tomorrow. Just the twoof us, out on the water. Like old times. I have a harpoon gun I've been wantingto try out, and we can tell anyone who complains that we're taking soundingsand stuff for potential tidal generators. Hell, we can even actually do that.But I miss you. I keep getting tangled up in everyone else and losing sight ofus."

Dirk squeezes her fingers. From him, it's as good as a hug.

"Yeah," he says. "It's a plan."

Roxy looks up at the night sky rather than try to put heremotions into words. There's a patch that looks a bit like a cat with wings, ifshe squints and takes some heavy artistic license. She holds up her phone inher right hand and adjusts the camera settings until she can snap a usefulpicture. She'll photoshop the constellation in later tonight and show it toDirk tomorrow: their friendship, immortalized in stars.

"Cool," she says.

They watch the pink moon overtake the white one in silence,fingers still entwined, the same air pumping in and out of their lungs.

---------------------------------------------

End of Fic

---------------------------------------------

It's still a little disjointed, I think, but whatever. Iwin. \o/

#liz writes stuff #homestuck #roxy lalonde #dirk strider #mini ficlet prompt meme #cotton candy bingo #asks and answers #in conversation with the internet #madamehardy #generalized content warning

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sherlocks-bitch-moriarty · 7 years

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MUSIC SHUFFLE

Rules: Put your music on shuffle, list the first 9 songs and your favourite lyrics from each. Then tag 9 other people to participate! Tagged by- @olivineonyx Its gonna be 18 songs woot. More fu n. (Also, I don't delete songs form my phone. Beware the terrors of musicals and big time rush) Shampain - Marina And The Diamonds Elderly stars slide down the morning sky Slipping away to find a place to die I wonder when the night will reach its end The sleep is not my friend Drinking champagne meant for a wedding Toast to the bride a fairly tale ending Drinking champagne a bottle to myself Savor the taste of fabricated wealth Show Me - Big Time Rush (fuCK) (I just like the opening?? For animation?) Guys like me, like girls like you An girls like you like guys like me (you know) If I Were A Bell - Guys And Dolls From the moment we kissed tonight Thats the way I've just got to behave Boy, if I were a lamp I'd light And if I were a banner I'd wave! Ask me how do I feel, Little me with my quiet upbringing Well sir, all I can say is I were a gate I'd be swinging! And if I were a watch I'd start popping my spring! Or if I were a bell I'd go ding dong ding dong ding! Deja Vu - CircusP Bring on the excuses Tell me that I deserve this Don't let me open my mouth Don't stop the rain from pouring down So why does this keep on happening? We're crashing down with the lightning. You smash our hearts into pieces ad then sing These moments are your fault I'm losing a rigged battle And you restart the cycle And you restart breaking me again I Feel The Earth Move - Carole King Oh darling, when you're near me And you tenderly call my name I know that my emotions Are something that I just can't tame I've just got to have you baby Pretty Women - Sweeney Todd What more? Can man require then Love sir More than love sir What sir? Women. Ah yes women. Defying Gravity - Wicked I'm through accepting limits 'Cause someone says they're so Some things I cannot change But till I try, I'll never know! Too long I've been afraid of Losing love I guess I've lost Well, If that's love It comes at much too high a cost! I'll Be Yours - Those Dancing Days We lie on the clouds And we're kissing the sky The raindrops are falling But we're staying dry And I'll be holding on I'll be holding on Love - Eyeris P Oh, loving you was as simple as chewing needles Wanting you was a complete waste of m damn time Needing endless care, your ego so small and feeble Loving me, filling your facade, it was all just a lie. The Only Exception - Paramore Maybe I know somewhere Deep in my soul That love never lasts And we've got to find other ways To make it alone But keep a straight face And I've always loved like this Keeping a comfortable, distance And up until now I had sworn to myself that I was content With loneliness Because none of it was ever worth the risk Give My Regards To Yotsuya-San - Himeringo I hate it I hate it, I hate it. I can't breathe The spring breeze is too strong I had a bad feeling When I'd turned that corner It hurts, It hurts, It hurts I'm being strangled By a bundle of lukewarm air In this cruel play I'll leave the rest to you, ok? Burn - Hamilton You, you, You! I'm erasing myself from the narrative Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted when you broke her heart You have torn it all apart I am watching it Burn Watching it burn The World has no right to my heart The world has no place in our bed They don't get to know what I've said I'm burning the memories Burning the letters that might have redeemed you You forfeit all rights to my heart You forfeit the place in our bed You'll sleep in your office instead With only the memories Of when you were mine I hope that you burn. Eyes - Broadway Karkat You can't escape from your own shadow I can smell your fear The venom on those honeyed lips still burn Oh it burns How it burns Because when I arrive I I'll bring the fire Make you come alive I can take you higher Can you tear your gaze Away from your reflection And see me Look at me Promise me Top To Toe - Fenne Lily So I'm changing all my day sot make your night It's just not right And you tell me I'm a child And the my light To smoke your mind But I don't smile like before And you take him to your bed I should have said I need you more... Mad World - Gary Jules And I find it kinda funny I find it kinda sad The Dream sin which I'm dying are the best I've ever had I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take When people run in circle sits a very very Mad world, Mad world. Between The Bars - Elliott Smith (V sent this to me, and f u ck. ThaNK you WrIter BeHIND V I owE yOU) Drink up with me now And forget all about The pressure of the days Do what I say And I'll make you okay And drive them away The images stuck in your head People you've been before That you don't around anymore That push and shove and won't bend to your will I'll keep them still Drink up baby, look at the stars I'll kiss you again between the bars where I'm seeing you there With your hands in the air Waiting to finally be caught To All Of You - Syd Matters I cry sometimes walking around my own place Wondering why she cries sometimes talking about her own place Somewhere around the mountains No one could dry her fountain Till she got tired to complain Thats when I fly to the wild land, to your land River Flows In You - Yiruma (No Lyrics but holy shit another song from V wow.) I tag- YOu YOU INNCOENT UNSUSPECTIGN PASSERBY DO IT DO IT FOR V Or not I dont judge I'll prob ably forget OoPS

#taggged

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gulescamisade · 7 years

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Alaska: Day 16

DAVE: -with attentive care, he's doing much better. and it's going to hurt for a while, but he can move and do what he needs to do for the most part. can he sprint across the room? no, but he can make himself a sandwich. you win some you lose some. he's watching television in whatever area of the base has it, bored but it's all he can really do-

HESONY: =Whaddya know, he's carrying more stuff inside. Whether he knows Dave is there or not, he's not saying. In fact, he's not even looking at him each time he passes by.=

DAVE: -he's looking at him, however. watching him carry stuff back and forth-

HESONY: =The next time he walked in, he has a crate balanced on his shoulder. It may seem like a shoddy attempt at creating a barrier between him and the STARES.=

DAVE: -he speaks up instead- sup when did you get that crate transplant

HESONY: Oh, you like it? I got it a few seconds ago. =He does a little spin before placing it down with the others.=

HESONY: Perhaps I can pull a few strings so you can get one too.

HESONY: =The entire time is face is= :|

DAVE: would you do that

DAVE: shit im flattered you usually offer this stuff in private

DAVE: in the intimacy of an exam room

HESONY: =just keeps staring at him. What if he just piled all these crates in front of Dave's door? Merry Christmas and a happy new year.=

HESONY: I suppose I'll go inform the doctor Here that you want a crate implant, although in my opinion that seems more like a downgrade. A sylladex should suffice, but after seeing How many of you dont Have the Hands free version, you plebeians need all the Help you can get.

DAVE: shit this relationship is movin quickly

DAVE: can we survive the trials and tribulations of crate marriage

HESONY: What the Hell is a marriage?

DAVE: how the fuck should i know -says the married guy-

MICEXA: -eyes them from the doorway like pls-

HESONY: Assume I'm an alien who knows nothing of your weird "Techsush" and "marriage" words, but is able to understand you solely through a translation device.

HESONY: Unless "marriage" is another word from an alien race you are simply inclined to repeat.

DAVE: what the fuck is a marriage

HESONY: The more you talk the more I feel as though you are trying to =makes air quotations= pull my leg.

DAVE: ba dm ts

DAVE: im a mystery

DAVE: an enigma

DAVE: of all of motherfuckin humanity

HESONY: Yes, it appears so.

HESONY: You seem to be more of the confusing variety, However.

DAVE: you figured that out at least

DAVE: humans like what they cant figure out

DAVE: we dont know anything about each other

HESONY: That makes incredible amounts of sense. :|

DAVE: i know right

DAVE: were so easy to figure out in that respect

HESONY: I'm wondering more about How your species continues to persist.

DAVE: fucking

DAVE: cloning

DAVE: ectobiology

HESONY: Now, I know for a fact that those are Carapacian methods.

HESONY: I Have Heard rumors your methods are far more disturbing.

DAVE: my wife is a clone

DAVE: my brother and i came into the world without science

DAVE: my nephews are the result of ectobiology so

DAVE: boom

HESONY: ...

HESONY: =squints=

HESONY: I don't think I believe you.

DAVE: -he shrugs- its the truth

HESONY: Let's say it is.

HESONY: If Humans Have alternative ways of reproduction, why not use this to create soldiers that will drive out the invading force and win this war?

DAVE: -makes a face- because thats fucked up

DAVE: we dont make kids for our own purposes

HESONY: Even if it meant you would win?

DAVE: you realize that humans take time to grow right

HESONY: If you can discover different ways to create life, why can't the same be said to speed it up?

DAVE: because life isnt about bein a cog in the machine

HESONY: Even if it meant winning this war? =he said again=

ARANEA: -pipes up from wherever she's been- How awful it is that many trolls sill 8elieve life perpetuates itself only to conquer the inferior races.

ARANEA: Imagine the lives those soldiers would live after the war is won, knowing that was their only purpose.

ARANEA: -eyeballs- Well, may8e you do know how it feels...

DAVE: -dAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN-

DAELOS: - He's here too. Vaguely listening to this but not looking Hesony's way. -

HESONY: That is why Alternia Has a kill switch for each batch of drones.

HESONY: You are right in that, However. What use are we now after Having disgraced ourselves for abandoning our cause and Helping you? This is what Terezi must Have felt like when she left the League. It is likely why she joined T.U.M.U.T. when she never should Have stopped running.

MITUNA: -He's been quiet the past couple of days. To gain back something like a limb, only to lose an actual one. It was hard. However, with the fact that his psionics were indeed back it was high time to work that muscle again. Currently he's just in the back, quietly disassembling and assembling a pen.-

ARANEA: -oh hell nah... she's not going to bother being passive aggressive about this. she's scowling.- How dare you say that a8out her! She had every right to try to move on with her life and find fulfillment elsewhere -- in something she 8elieved was good.

KARKAT: =suddenly from the back corner= There's no life if you run. She helped because she could, she had the knowledge. The training. The bravery. She is selfless. She wanted to make things better. Hiding is giving up. She's a fighter.

ARANEA: -DAMN STRAIGHT-

MITUNA: -The pen floats over to sunny, then starts writing on the crate in front of him.-

HESONY: And look where that got Her!

HESONY: You still don't get it. When the Expunger wants you dead, she won't stop until she gets what she wants.

HESONY: The moment Terezi stopped running =there is a slight tremor in his hand= it was only a matter of time.

KARKAT: You don't get it. Fuck it. Fuck you. =turns back over holding her cane=

MITUNA: (5he knew 7ha7 ri5k and 5he 57ill braved her fear5 even when 5he wa5 horrified) -That's what is written on the crate. Tuna isn't much up for talking-

MITUNA: (i75 who 5he wa5 you 5hould know 7ha7 a55farce)

DAVE: so im gathering you guys were tight

HESONY: =stares daggers at the writing before shaking his head with a laugh=

HESONY: Yeah. I did know Her, and it seems the rest of you knew Her too.

HESONY: She was brave.

HESONY: She was selfless.

HESONY: She fought with words and actions both.

HESONY: And then she lost.

HESONY: =His head tilted to Dave= Oh, it was far more than that.

DAELOS: - Just watches the fire as they fight it out. He's a statue now that lives in this chair. -

MITUNA: 5he didn7 lo5e

MITUNA: fuck you

HESONY: Then How would you describe what The Expunger did?

HESONY: That isn't Her title for nothing.

HESONY: If you step in Her path, she destroys you. She takes what you are and runs it through the dirt, erasing everything you were.

HESONY: If The Expunger gets Her way, Terezi won't even be a memory. And you all...keeping that memory alive? =he gestured to the people in the room= You're in just as much danger now.

MITUNA: 7oo bad 7he big bluh bi7ch won7 ge7 ge7 her way

MITUNA: dea7h i5n7 7he end

HESONY: Sure, just like the moons are made of gumballs.

MITUNA: holy 5hi7 7ha7d be rad

MITUNA: bu7 uh i75 no7

MITUNA: my ex ma7e5pri7 died once and 5he came back

HESONY: =Sighs=

HESONY: As what, a nutcreature?

HESONY: I do not understand any of you.

HESONY: That big guy for instance! =gestures at Daelos= Hoarding a body like that will not Help.

HESONY: It will not Help His psyche.

HESONY: Eventually bodies decay and all He will Have to Hold onto is a pile of rot.

MITUNA: no 5he came back a5 a gho57 and 7hen 5he wa5 able 7o be brough7 back wi7h her body

MITUNA: i75 no7 7ha7 difficul7 holy 5hi7

HESONY: ....How strong is the stuff you're toking?

MITUNA: even karka7 died and wa5 able 7o be brough7 back

MITUNA: H0LY FUCK 455H0L3 1 H34R 7H3 5CR34M5 0F D34D 455H0L35 3V3RYD4Y M4Y83 1 KN0W 4 L177L3 M0R3 7H4N Y0U

HESONY: Everyone knows the dead stay dead! This life isn't merciful! You don't get a second chance!

MITUNA: Y35 Y0U D0

HESONY: No, you don't!

MITUNA: Y35 Y0U FUCK1NG D0 4ND 1F 4NY0N3 W1LL G37 0N3 175 73R3Z1

MITUNA: JU57 FUCK1NG W47CH D1CKF4C3

HESONY: How do you expect that to Happen? Should we rewrite History? Got a time machine on Hand?

DAELOS: Be silent

DAELOS: You are ignorant and I am tired of listening to it

MITUNA: 0H MY FUCK1NG 8ULG3 Y0U 5H17 3471NG D1CK M4CK3R3L

DAELOS: None of us are interested in your opinions, least of all me

DAELOS: - Glaring at Hesony and clutching his seat with his ears pinned-

HESONY: =turns his head to face Daelos= Grief is clouding your judgment. You know you cannot hang onto a corpse forever. I'm sorry it Happened, but nothing you do will be able to change that. She is dead. She is staying dead. She is taking up space in your sylladex. A space you could use that may actually increase your chances of survival!

MITUNA: -GROANS LOUDLY and tries to facepalm with his left hand but just kind of...Falls on the floor-

DAELOS: How f001ish, insisting you know better when several sources refute your version of the truth... but I would e%pet nothing less from a mindless Alternian drone who has never needed to think for himself before now... someone content to watch their friends savagely murdered

DAELOS: Scum

HESONY: =his lips curled into a scowl= And where would all of you be if we Had gotten ourselves killed alongside Her? If you were in our place, can you truly say that is what she would Have wanted?

HESONY: Ingrate.

DAELOS: Anyone with a soul would have done whatever they could, would have been driven mad with rage at seeing someone they cared for brutalized in such a manner

DAELOS: You beat and punished this group for having souls because you cannot conceive of what that is like

DAELOS: Spineless... abso100tely disgusting

DAELOS: No matter, I will do whatever I can for Nyalah

DAELOS: If you do not think me capable then put it out of your 100dicrously small mind

HESONY: Yes, we could Have done just that. We could Have been killed for our trouble.

HESONY: And you all could Have perished in that cave with no one to know you Had died.

HESONY: The League would Have collected the bounties on your Heads and would Have been that much closer to wiping out your sorry excuse of a rebellion.

HESONY: You are speaking like revival is possible.

HESONY: And I am saying it is NOT.

MITUNA: -Picks himself off the floor-

MITUNA: Y35 17 15

MITUNA: W3 H4V3 533N 17

MITUNA: W3 H4V3 3XP3R13NC3D 17

DAELOS: - Simply stares back at Sunny blandly and then glances at Mituna.- I suggest you give in... there is no convincing an idiot with no imagination

MITUNA: W3 KN0W M0R3 480U7 D347H 4ND 54CR1F1C3 7H4N Y0U 3V3R C0ULD H0P3 70

DAELOS: Think me de100ded for all I care, the % is mine to bear

HESONY: =makes a strangled noise= YOU CANT IMAGINE SOMEONE BACK TO LIFE IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT—

HESONY: =full out glares at Mituna=

HESONY: Don't you dare say that. You don't-- =A fraction of recognition crossed his face at Mituna's words. He laughed, mirthlessly= She didn't tell all of you, did she?

DAELOS: - Sips tea at >>-

MITUNA: 7ell u5 wha7

HESONY: Why she's blind. Why Micexa and I are like this. =He slaps his right arm and the sound it makes isn't from flesh.= Why the Expunger doesn't Have real arms.

HESONY: Why we all keep ledgers of everyone we Have ever killed.

HESONY: ...Have you found Her copy yet?

MITUNA: -He Squints at this dude. He's not denying he's had a rough go of it, but he knows what Terezi used to be, how she used to be, how she could still be-

MITUNA: no

HESONY: Then do not presume to know more than we did of those things.

HESONY: Do not presume you knew Her.

MITUNA: 7hen don7 claim 7he 5ame

MITUNA: people change and i knew 7erezi

MITUNA: 5he wa5n7 7he one you remembered

HESONY: Well. =he glanced down at the ground, the anger from his face drifting.=

HESONY: We'll never really know, will we?

Dom-01/24/2017

MITUNA: -Sighs- look dudepuff im 5orry you can7 believe wha7 we 5ay bu7 we have 5een 5ome 5hi7

MITUNA: i didn7 even have my p5ionic5 when we go7 7o 7hi5 frozen 5phinc7er

MITUNA: i burn7 7hem ou7 and 5crambled my pan like lu5u5 egg5

MITUNA: i go7 7hem back in 7ha7 fuckhole cave 7hank5 7o aranea ju57

MITUNA: ju57 fucking believe me when i 5ay 5ome impo55ible 5hi7 ha5 happened and will con7inue 7o happen i7 won7 57op keep happening

HESONY: Let's say I believe what you say.

HESONY: You're telling me there's a chance Terezi can come back? How?

MITUNA: fucking miracle5 and cocoon5 and 5hi7 i don7 know 7he de7ail5 every7hing from before i go7 fixed phy5ically hur75 7o remember

HESONY: ...

HESONY: =glances over at Daelos, then slowly looks back to Mituna=

HESONY: You need the body to do it. =it wasn't a question.=

MITUNA: from wha7 i remember yeah

HESONY: ...........

HESONY: =he closed his eyes and put his face in his hands.=

MITUNA: 7hey

MITUNA: 7hey 57ill have i7 don7 7hey

HESONY: =his shoulders are shaking and his hands moved to grip his hair=

DAELOS: -Breaks in- A body is not always required....it just makes it easier

DAELOS: At least, a new body can be procured

MITUNA: 7ha7 doe5n7 5ound fucked up in 7he 5ligh7e57

DAELOS: -Shrug-

DAELOS: -Mad scientist shrugging-

HESONY: =he's just...gonna go take his anger out on a tree somewhere=

#technologicgodot #felicitousVicissitude #pinnacledSuasion #academicgeniality #coltishdaedalian #trojanabstruse #cranktankerousGeneticist

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