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rabble-dabble · 3 years

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The Cancer King's Court ~ The Mourning Mother

Kanaya Maryam/The Mourning Mother

This Kanaya got her happy ending.

She made it to Earth C. She married the woman she loved, started a functioning moralliegence with Vriska now that she’s genuinely interested in bettering herself, and set up a peaceful little home in the suburbs. She got John to do her a favor and take her to a God-Tier bed. No one knows for sure how long Rainbow drinkers live and she wants to spare Rose the heartache.

After a few years of being happily married, the couple decides they want a baby, so they adopt a beautiful baby girl. With Rose’s help, Kanaya makes her way through this strange thing humans call motherhood.

Young Stacey Maryam-Lalonde gives her poor mothers many scares growing up. Rose took a photo for all of then.

Rose gave her an eldritch tome when she was five. She ended up summoning a horde of the undead and Kanaya had to cut down hordes of zombies at three am. Rose agreed to wait until she’s older to give the book back.

At age eight, Stacey convinced her teacher to read The Call of Cthulhu to the class. She got suspended. Rose gave her daughter a lecture, even if she was a little bit proud.

At age ten, Stacey met her first bullies. That was the day everyone at school learned that she had a scary vampire goddess for a mother. Her bullies would never forget.

“My dear, are you certain that you didn’t go overboard?”

“You Would’ve Done The Exact Same Thing.”

“…Touche.”

At age twelve, she had to spend the week at her Uncles John and Karkat’s house. John enlisted her to help him prank Karkat. The resulting prank war burnt the house down and the two had to stay at the Maryam-Lalonde household for the week. How those two made it to adulthood, neither Rose nor Kanaya would never know.

At seventeen, Stacey graduate from High School on the high honor roll. During there ceremony, Kanaya whispered to Rose, “This Is The Best Gift You’ve Ever Given Me.” They cried. A lot.

Then cane Stacey’s eighteenth birthday.

It was a camping trip. Jade had nanaged to get Stacey interested in outdoor exploration, so she took her truck and brought her friends out into the forest. Kanaya wanted to chaperone, but Stacey insisted she could handle herself.

“Don’t You Summon The Undead Again Young Lady.”

“Moooom, I was three! I’ll be fine.”

“I Know, I Know. …I’m So Proud Of You.”

While exploring, Stacey discovered a fridge, covered in chains a locked shut.

…Then she discovered the troll inside.

It took three weeks for them to find the bodies.

Rose and Kanaya were never the same after their loss. Their friends did all they could. They paid for the funeral, offered their condolences, checked up on them whenever they could find time. Vriska moved in just to help Kanaya keep her head up. She did everything she could to be there for her moirail, even if she didn’t fully understand this motherhood thing. Even if she didn’t fully understand what Kanaya lost.

Rose turned to drinking, and that was the beginning of the end. After a painful, gradual decline, Rose and Kanaya agreed to separate until Rose can get her addiction sorted out. As Rose leaves her wedding ring on the table, Kanaya has one last thing to say.

“No Matter How Long It Takes, I’ll Wait For You. Because, No Matter What Happens, You’re The Woman I Fell In Love With.”

When the authorities reveal they have a lead on Gamzee, Kanaya decides to take her grief out on him. Vriska tries to warn her against it. She’s been there before. Angry, bitter, and pissed the hell off. But revenge blackens the soul. She learned that the hard way. Kanaya doesn’t listen.

She thought killing Gamzee would give her some kind of relief. Lift up some of the burden. At least, it would make her feel better. But… it doesn’t.

Instead she feels… empty.

She ignored her moirails advice. Her wife is still gone. And Stacey is still dead.

She thought she’d feel better, but now she’s just more lost than ever.

She sits alone with her thoughts and soon finds The Cancer King sitting down next to her.

He promises her her family back, and she agrees.

She sees the atrocities she’ll have to commit abd she agrees.

She sees who Karkat has become and she agrees.

Kanaya is… scary. She’s not the mad zealot that Gamzee is. She’s not carefully trying to avoid going to far, like Terezi or Eridan. She’s just… focused.

She takes no pride or joy in what she does. She never wanted to hurt anyone. But she will have her daughter back.

Kanaya’s relationship with this Rose is… weird. Kanaya is the oldest member of the Court next to Karkat while Rose is one of the youngest. Kanaya knows her Rose intimately, while this Rose hasn’t even met her yet. Kanaya tries not to spoil anything for her sake, aside from a few quips along the lines of “I Am Quite Sure You’ll Make Whoever You Marry A Very Happy Woman” and such. She’s pretty pissed to learn that this Rose did basically nothing wrong and still lost her timeline, so that’s some extra motivation in her tank.

You’d expect Kanaya to be pissed off with Gamzee. But… she’s not. She’s just cold and distant. It’s not like killing him in her timeline got her anywhere. But she’s still curt with him and avoids conversation. Gamzee asks some of the others what her deal is, but they only give him the basics. It’s not their story to tell. Still, Gamzee puts the pieces together and actually finds himself sympathizing a little. He gets this strange, distant feeling that he might know what it’s like to be a parent in a different timeline…

She remains good friends with this version of Terezi and Vriska. She apologizes to Vriska for not heading her advice and Vriska returns the sentiment. They all bond over shared fuck ups and The Scourge Sisters are happy to hear there’s at least one timeline where Vriska managed to turn her attitude around.

Similarly, she has a decent relationship with Tavros. Tavros finds it odd how Kanaya found her revenge unsatisfying when Tavros absolutely revelled in his.

Kanaya eventually discovers that Karkat could simply revive Stacey right now if he wanted abd tries to demand that he do so. He refuses. The King makes himself clear: you’ll get your daughter back after you help me and not a moment before.

In Kanaya’s mind, she has to agree.

“…I Am Bringing Her Back, Rose. I Do Not Know… How Much It Will Cost Me… But I Am Bringing Her Back. …You Will Always Be The Woman I Fell In Love With. I Just Hope I Am Still The Woman You Fell In Love With When I Return. …I Love You.”

evil john anon when I get my fucking hands on you

HRHRGRHGRHGRHRGHRGHRGRHGRHGRHGRGGRGRGGRGRGRRRRR

i did kanaya in a mourning mother outfits - IM GONNA CRY IM GONNA CRY - just a fade that I thought looked cool and her wings and her mourning veil - OH GOD THE TEARS IM AJHHAGRGRGARGHRGRGH - just in a little suit vest and hat and

IT GETS SADDER AND SADDER AND I HAVE NEVER FELT MORE SADDENING RAGE RIGHT NOW THIS IS HORRIBLELY WONDERFUL

the moment I read that stacey found the fridge and opened it I wanted to S C R E A M

and then the NEXT FYCKJING LINE LIHENMMMJNKLHKJHKHBFKBSHFB

WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON GAMZEE MAKARA THE BARD IN THE FRIDGE

UNSPEAKABLE INHUMANE THINGS SHALL BE DONE

VENGANCE I WANT VENGANCE *cries like a baby*

i also drew stacey BUT EVIL JOHN ANON IF YOURE OUT THERE IM GONNA THROTTLE YOU LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO THIS POOR GIRL *SOB*

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bladekindeyewear · 3 years

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HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-10-31

THE SPOOKTOBER SPOOKD8 IS HERE! Time to blog it and hope to the lord of bones that it heavily features the 12-foot Home Depot Skeleton! Continuing from last time.

Will John remember that he should be off protecting the other kids from running off? Or will he search for Vrissy finally, now that he’s spent a literal DAY staring at his house burning down?

> (==>)

This is the last Blood tie with your childhood and the past you were clinging to like a man-child, finally cut. Your psyche is no longer allowed to be....

....Housetrapped.

Now get your Breathy ass over to your more adult responsibilities. Or do something as irresponsible as usual, but more forward focused and thus singularly impressive.

> (==>)

I LITERALLY GASPED

I knew I was a fatally addicted Homestuck fanboy despite the trauma but I didn’t know I was THAT much of a just-over-thirty-year-old fanboy, I literally GASPED out loud. To finally have the joy and confidence for the future that comes with JOHN and KARKAT together IN PERSON and interacting with a common goal.

What a dramatic, perfect shot. This IS Karkat right? That’s what the visuals and my heart and soul said

> (==>)

THEY’RE CLOSE FRIENDS

CLOSE ENOUGH FOR THAT

KARKAT HAS COME SO FAR

Karkat and John conversations are some of the strongest in Homestuck, I ship them as FRIENDS so hard

It brings to mind something I mentioned in the Breath, Blood, and the Flow of Reality explanation/theorypost, which was holy shit SEVEN YEARS AGO wow

I didn’t always understand the appeal of John as a character, ranking him in the middle of my liked characters list. But after a while, I suddenly noticed how enjoyable he was for the things his conversations did to others, making his pesterlogs some of the most enjoyable to read. I wrote the following two years ago, in a character rankings thread, back when we knew jack shit about the import of classes and roles:

“I didn’t really see why I should think John was such an amazing character until I realized his consistent effect on the other party. He’s goofy and doesn’t really understand anything, but he understands just enough about his friends and others to make cutting, hilarious, almost unintentional insights that can change people for the better, even if he’s off the mark. It’s not what he says himself, but what he brings about in others that makes him so great to read. I mean, if you wall him off from everyone else… he kind of fails.

That’s why I take issue with the complaint of protagonist syndrome, here. John is very little by himself, but enhances all the characters around him immensely. Imagine if John were doomed to stay the least powerful and/or game-advancing of the kids and trolls combined; notice how little that would do to the story, or his beneficial role in it.”

John cut himself off from EVERYONE for YEARS in the Candy timeline. He tried to be close to people and just ended up distancing himself from it. He tried to keep himself tied down by his old home and memories of the version of Dad he lost, and all sorts of childish stuff. But that tie is cut, and the bonds he’s forged need to be grasped to bring him out to exercise his maturity, because Breath is futile without real BLOOD.

> (==>)

Awesome shot.

KARKAT: ROUGH DAY, HUH.

youtube

(that was supposed to skip to 2:26 when you click but I couldnt embed it that way -- I haven’t metal geared i just seen clips and super best friends & know some memes)

So many scars. I used to even ship Jane and Karkat a little so they could just be aghast together at everyone’s shenanigans and level criticism at them together, but to think Jane’s fought and hurt Karkat THIS much...

(And yeah, his blood color is shown through his eyes now at this age, that’s correct.)

> (==>)

Oh my fucking god, going from that to Sprite mode that abruptly. XD

This is great.

JOHN: karkat? JOHN: what are you doing here? KARKAT: IT'S NICE TO SEE YOU TOO.

Hah, SO close that Karkat’s immediately critical of NOT being greeted warmly. :)

JOHN: this isn't a battlefield, it's just... KARKAT: THE OBLITERATED, SMOLDERING HUSK OF YOUR FORMER HOME. JOHN: well, yeah. KARKAT: WHICH WAS DESTROYED AS COLLATERAL IN AN ONGOING MILITARY CONFLICT. JOHN: oh all right, fine. JOHN: it just feels weird to call it that. JOHN: i guess i'm used to thinking of home as somewhere far away from all that war stuff.

Yeah John, the burning down from a bomb that was meant for you and ALL of your friends’ children is supposed to shatter you out of that illusion.

I’d continue criticizing, but Karkat’s about to do it for me:

KARKAT: JESUS *CHRIST* JOHN. KARKAT: I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO LIST ALL THE WAYS IN WHICH THAT CONSTITUTES A SHORT-SIGHTED AND PUKE-WORTHILY IGNORANT THING TO SAY TO ME, PERSONALLY. KARKAT: AND FRANKLY I DON'T HAVE TIME TO BOTHER, THANKS TO THE COUNTLESS FIRES I HAVE BEEN PUTTING OUT ALL DAY, THE ONE PRESENTLY CONSUMING YOUR HIVE NOTWITHSTANDING. KARKAT: YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE MADE THINGS GO A BIT MORE SMOOTHLY? JUST A FRACTION? KARKAT: IF YOU HADN'T JUST DECIDED TO WANDER OFF THE INSTANT SHIT STARTED HAPPENING. JOHN: jeez, i'm sorry karkat. JOHN: i had no idea how much time had passed. JOHN: i must have gotten a bit distracted by my house being blown up.

A BIT DISTRACTED. You empty-headed irresponsible guardian.

KARKAT: NOT WANTING TO POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS, BUT I FEEL LIKE THIS WAS A PROBLEM THAT YOU OF ALL PEOPLE WERE UNIQUELY AND MAGICALLY EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH. JOHN: huh? KARKAT: YOU KNOW. KARKAT: WITH YOUR SHOOSH THING. JOHN: my shoosh thing. KARKAT: YOUR SHOOSH THING. KARKAT: THE GUSTY NONSENSE? THE GIFT OF GAS?? KARKAT: YOUR SBURB ALLOCATED BLOW JOB??? JOHN: uh. KARKAT: THE SUPERNATURAL COMMUNION YOU HAVE WITH ALL THINGS WINDY, YOU ASS!! JOHN: oh right, that. JOHN: that would have let me put the fire out, maybe. JOHN: i don't think there's anything in my skillset that would have unexploded my house though. KARKAT: THAT'S FAIR.

Mhmm. Many of the characters in Candy AND Meat are currently in a situation where due to either years of unpractice in a worshipful society that discourages it by fueling their insecurities or inability to due to confinement in a years-long space trip has caused them to AVOID using their powers for the main beginning stretch of our new story. People have complained about them outright “forgetting” to use their powers, and they’re right, to an extent, but it’s story-justified. They’re almost all physically or psychologically prevented from doing so! But those walls are coming down, starting now. They’re going to come back into their own. And we’re bound to see a LOT MORE of these literal Gods using their abilities to shape the fabric of reality as the story progresses.

JOHN: i suppose i'll add one more notch to the daily tally of crazy stuff that happened which i just have to accept as my life now.

It was all already happening, you just refused TO accept it until now.

JOHN: so... JOHN: what else happened while i was caught up watching the symbolic representation of my former life get consumed in a giant fire ball? KARKAT: OH BOY. WHERE TO START. KARKAT: SO FIRST OFF, IN HINDSIGHT, TODAY WAS PRETTY OBVIOUSLY JUST ONE HUGE BAITED TRAP. KARKAT: I SAY "IN HINDSIGHT", BUT FORTUNATELY IT WAS ALSO EXTREMELY APPARENT EVEN IN FORESIGHT TO THOSE OF US WHO SPENT A FEW SECONDS THINKING ABOUT IT. JOHN: ...right. KARKAT: OH COME ON EGBERT, SERIOUSLY? KARKAT: KIDNAPPING A PERSON OF IMPORTANCE, ONLY TO LET US KNOW PRECISELY WHERE AND ON WHAT OCCASION THEY WOULD BE MOST ACCESSIBLE FOR A RESCUE ATTEMPT? KARKAT: HAVING THAT OCCASION BE NONE OTHER THAN THE CORPSE PARTY OF A HIGHLY NOTEWORTHY POLITICAL FIGURE, WHOSE CASKET MIGHT AS WELL HAVE HAD A GIANT "KICK ME" SIGN DAUBED ON IT? KARKAT: THERE WAS BASICALLY NO WAY IT WASN'T A FRONT FOR SOMETHING HUGE. AND IT WAS! KARKAT: WE HAPPEN TO BE SITTING IN FRONT OF ONE FACET OF THAT HUGENESS AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

Wait. Oh, God.

Someone brought up the possibility that Gamzee might still be revivable by Jane, and I speculated that she’s deliberately CHOOSING not to because she actually doesn’t like him that much or has some semblance of fucking sense left in her.

But what if she PLANNED to have a public funeral for him, and then revive him SOON AFTER to turn him into a Christ-like resurrecting figure? D:

JOHN: well, when you put it like that... JOHN: i guess we all got pranked pretty hard, huh. KARKAT: THIS IS NO TIME FOR YOUR SHITTY NERD PRANKS JOHN. KARKAT: FRANKLY I'M INSULTED THAT YOU THINK SUCH A WORD IS EVEN REMOTELY APPOSITE TO THE PRESENT SITUATION. KARKAT: OTHER THAN TO DESCRIBE THE WAY I AM PERSONALLY BEING "PRANKED" BY REALITY IN HAVING TO EXPLAIN ALL THIS TO YOU.

Pretty much. Get serious, John, actual people are dying by the--

--oh right, he was like this through the apocalypse and death of everyone on Earth.

I guess this is in character. Paradox Space made sure to choose someone empty-headed and disconnected from reality enough to withstand this shit easily. He really is a Breath player.

KARKAT: IT TURNS OUT THAT WE DIDN'T NEED TO PUT SO MUCH EFFORT INTO THE RESCUING YIFFY PART OF THE OPERATION. KARKAT: SHE BASICALLY RESCUED HERSELF WHEN ALL WAS SAID AND DONE. KARKAT: AND TOOK CARE OF KICKING GAMZEE'S CORPSEBOX OVER WHILE SHE WAS AT IT, IN A STUNNING DISPLAY OF EFFICIENCY WHICH THE REST OF US CAN ONLY ASPIRE TO.

Excellent, yeah.

JOHN: it sounds like she'd be a pretty welcome addition to your ranks then. KARKAT: SHE'S A CHILD, YOU MORON.

Yeah, you’re fucking grown up now, John. Stop thinking of the kids as the ones who have to rise up when the adults aren’t all doomed or dead.

KARKAT: THE VRISKAS, PLURAL. JOHN: shit. KARKAT: THEY'VE BOTH BEEN CAPTURED. JOHN: shiiiiiiiit. KARKAT: YEAH. KARKAT: GREAT WORK KEEPING AN EYE ON THEM, BY THE WAY! KARKAT: YOU LITERALLY HAD ONLY ONE JOB, AND YOU MESSED IT UP IN THE EQUALLY SINGULAR WAY IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DO. JOHN: urgh, i know, i know. ):

At least he messed that part up while he was TRYING to watch them, and not when he wandered off and watched his house burn for a whole day instead of protecting the remaining kids.

KARKAT: JANE'S PLAN FOR THIS CONFLICT HAS THUS FAR CONSISTED ALMOST ENTIRELY OF KIDNAPPING VARIOUS HIGH PROFILE CHILDREN. KARKAT: IT'S BIZARRE. KARKAT: AS THOUGH WE ARE FIGHTING A WAR OF ATTRITION, WHERE THE MAIN RESOURCE BEING UTILIZED IS THE OFFSPRING OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE ON THE PLANET. KARKAT: IF IT WASN'T ONE OF THE CORE TENETS OF HER FASCISTIC PHILOSOPHY, I'D BE TEMPTED TO SAY THAT CURBING REPRODUCTION MIGHT HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA, IF ONLY TO PREVENT THIS KIND OF FUCKSHIT NONSENSE FROM HAPPENING.

Leave it to Karkat to point out the blatant absurdity of Homestuck’s nonsense in any given situation.

JOHN: wait. JOHN: wait a minute. JOHN: you said that both vriskas have been captured, right? KARKAT: EXCUSE ME WHILE I WEEP FOR JOY AT THE REVELATION THAT YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION FOR ONCE. JOHN: okay, well putting that emotional outburst aside for a moment. JOHN: how is that even possible? JOHN: doesn't vriska, the original vriska, still have her magic alien mind control powers? JOHN: it seems like it should be basically impossible for anyone to kidnap her. KARKAT: YOU'VE STUMBLED ASS BACKWARDS ACROSS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT OF THIS UNFORTUNATE DEVELOPMENT.

...Is Karkat going to put two and two together and realize that Vriska must have been intentionally captured of her own free will for some sort of ploy?

KARKAT: YOU ARE CORRECT, IN THAT WITH HER CASTE-TYPICAL, *COMPLETELY SCIENTIFIC AND NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT MAGICAL* PSYCHOMANIPULATIVE ABILITIES, STAYING OUT OF CROCKER'S REACH SHOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY TRIVIAL FOR SERKET PRIME. KARKAT: EVEN ACCOUNTING FOR THE FACT THAT SAID ABILITIES ARE NOT NEARLY AS POTENT ON HUMANS AS THEY ARE ON FELLOW TROLLS, THEY STILL OUGHT TO HAVE TIPPED ANY ALTERCATION SQUARELY IN HER FAVOR. KARKAT: BUT SOMEHOW, IT DIDN'T! KARKAT: INSTEAD, THINGS APPEAR TO HAVE GONE GLOBES UP IN CLASSIC VRISKITE FASHION, AND NOW ONE OF THE MOST UNEXPECTED AND UNWANTED BUT NEVERTHELESS USEFUL WEAPONS IN OUR ARSENAL IS DOING TIME IN CROCKERJAIL. KARKAT: THAT'S ABOUT ALL WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO GLEAN FROM TAPPING INTO THE BATTERBITCH AIRWAVES, WHICH IS A FANCY TERM FOR EAVESDROPPING ON THOSE OF HER AGENTS WHO TALK A LITTLE TOO LOUDLY IN SEMI-PUBLIC SPACES. JOHN: jeez. JOHN: i really screwed that up, didn't i.

Guh. I guess Karkat is underestimating Vriska a bit or just assuming the worst out of a habit of assuming the worst of everything. (Or, if he has his suspicions, he’s not telling John.)

KARKAT: HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT, AND WITH THE RECOGNITION THAT I AM CHOOSING TO NURSE YOUR BRUISED FEELINGS DURING A PLANET WIDE CONFLICT FOR THE FATE OF MY SPECIES, KARKAT: IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO TO EXPEDITE YOUR GETTING THE FUCK OVER IT? JOHN: i... hm.

Yeah, use your shoosh-paps from Karkat wisely, John. You needed them.

JOHN: i don't really know? JOHN: this all feels wrong, karkat. JOHN: no offense, but when you're around, it's usually a lot... KARKAT: A LOT WHAT? JOHN: a lot funnier. KARKAT: FUNNIER. JOHN: how to put this. JOHN: normally listening to you go on and on about how much we've fucked everything up is just very funny! JOHN: but now it's just not the same. JOHN: maybe it's part of what's going on with this entire reality? i don't know. JOHN: once upon a time i would have put down your ability to pull a silly rant out of your butt as a fundamental law of physics or something. JOHN: remember back when we first knew each other? JOHN: it felt like all you ever said to me was how much you thought i was screwing up and being a useless asshole. JOHN: and once i realized that you were also just a dumb kid who didn't know what was going on, i started to kind of enjoy it. JOHN: but now it's like... the only one who's still a dumb kid is me, and everyone else has something big and important going on that i just don't understand.

Mhmm, Karkat has every reason to be mad. And everything really, REALLY close to you that you care about is in danger from the very things he’s mad about. Karkat is RIGHT for once with every angry seemingly-exaggerated-but-not word, and that’s throwing you.

JOHN: i thought that i finally got what was going on with this whole war and everything. i wanted to be useful! JOHN: i guess i got a little too wrapped up in the feeling of something finally happening again. JOHN: and then watching it all blow up in my face, kind of literally now that i think about it...

...you think maybe something that happens to be A WAR is actually a big farking deal that you should be serious about??

JOHN: it's hard not to feel even more dejected about the situation than i was before. JOHN: and now even the patented karkat vant rant has lost all its sparkle.

IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FUN.

JOHN: maybe if you had like, painstakingly itemized a list of all the things wrong with my plan in a comically overdone fashion or something. KARKAT: I CONSIDERED IT, BUT HONESTLY THERE WAS SO MUCH WRONG THAT I CONCLUDED THAT THE BEST THING FOR EVERYONE WOULD BE TO NEVER SPEAK OF IT AGAIN. JOHN: oh. okay.

Heheh.

KARKAT: IF WE'RE BEING HONEST, YOU DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A PLAN, JOHN. KARKAT: CALLING IT A PLAN WOULD IMPLY THAT IT WAS A STRUCTURED SEQUENCE OF STEPS DESIGNED TO ACHIEVE A GOAL. KARKAT: WHAT YOU CAME UP WITH WAS A CONVOLUTED MESS WHICH STILL SOMEHOW INVOLVED DOING FUCKALL. KARKAT: AND I USE CONVOLUTED HERE IN THE SAME WAY THAT I WOULD TO DESCRIBE THE FRENZIED DRAWSTICK SCRIBBLES OF A SQUALLING HUMAN INFANT.

All Breath and no Blood? All concept and influence and ephemeral accomplishments and no physical impact or results?

Karkat has been fighting this whole time with physical results in mind. He NEEDS to tie that ephemeral shit down, and once added to his plan, once Breath sweeps the tide of actual sentiment of people, inspires them, you have an actual victory in reach instead of just more attrition.

KARKAT: I APPRECIATE THAT YOU SEEM TO HAVE DUG YOUR PAN OUT OF YOUR OWN CHUTE THE FEW MICROMETERS NECESSARY TO NOTICE THE PRECISE DEGREE TO WHICH THE WORLD IS BEING JUDICIOUSLY BATFUCKED RIGHT NOW.

Really need to dig yourself out more than that, John, yeah.

KARKAT: AS HARD AS IT IS TO BELIEVE, THAT'S A FEAT WHICH NO SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE ARE COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF DOING!

(Which is why your plan of attack needs more Breath!)

KARKAT: BUT NOTICING THE PROBLEM AND MAKING MEANINGFUL PROGRESS TOWARDS SOLVING IT ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. KARKAT: THE NEXT TIME YOU GET THE IMPULSE TO "LEND A HAND", YOU'D BE BETTER OFF CANNING IT FOR FIVE MINUTES AND LISTENING TO THOSE OF US WHO'VE BEEN TRYING TO SOLVE IT A LOT LONGER THAN YOU HAVE. KARKAT: THIS ISN'T AN EXERCISE BEING CONDUCTED IN ORDER FOR YOU TO PROVE YOUR PERSONAL DEGREE OF MORAL RECTITUDE. KARKAT: AND IF IT WAS, YOU WOULD HAVE ALREADY FAILED MISERABLY! SO DO YOURSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE A FAVOR AND STOP TREATING IT LIKE ONE. JOHN: well... all right. if you say so karkat.

Phew. Let’s hope he takes Karkat’s gift of a worldbound, arms-in-the-dirt sense of responsibility (Blood) and runs with it.

KARKAT: I DO SAY SO, EMPHATICALLY AND AT GREAT VOLUME. KARKAT: AND NOW THAT MY OBLIGATION TO CATECHIZE YOU ON THE SUBJECT OF YOUR OWN LIFE IS FULFILLED, I HAVE A WAR TO GET BACK TO. JOHN: wait, hold on. KARKAT: OH MY GOD WHAT NOW.

--is it gonna be a hug?

> (==>)

JOHN. Put it together.

JOHN: you can't be leaving already. JOHN: there's... so much we still need to talk about!

No, not that!!

...well, yes, I’m all for more of you two talking but. This ain’t just about you two.

KARKAT: WHAT MORE COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE FOR US TO DISCUSS?? KARKAT: PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME YOU JUST HAD ANOTHER EMOTION THAT WE NEED TO DROP EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO DISSECT. JOHN: no, that's not what i'm talking about at all. JOHN: karkat, we still haven't spoken about *you*! KARKAT: ABOUT ME? JOHN: yes. KARKAT: ABOUT *ME*? JOHN: about you. KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT ME. JOHN: well... JOHN: you know, how you feel! KARKAT: HOW I FEEL. JOHN: or just... JOHN: argh, i don't know!

This was more of an intervention than a feelings jam, John. I’m not sure John’s in the condition right now to Breathily inspire Karkat somehow and help his war with an idea and drive he didn’t have before -- like he SHOULD eventually -- but I suppose we’re about to see.

JOHN: it's just been so long since we've seen each other. JOHN: all sorts of things have happened in that time, and it doesn't feel right to just not even mention any of it! KARKAT: LIKE WHAT?? JOHN: oh, i don't know karkat, literally anything! JOHN: i mean, look at you. JOHN: you are decked out in a tight body suit and have an eyepatch and everything. there is simply no way there isn't something to discuss there.

You talked with him plenty while NOT in person, though.

> (==>)

Such MOOD. What a good image.

JOHN: or like, forget the eyepatch, we don't have to talk about the eyepatch. JOHN: i feel as though my point still stands? JOHN: there is basically a bottomless well full of stuff to go through. JOHN: i mean we kind of glossed over it when you brought her up earlier, but what about yiffy? JOHN: this might not come across so easily due to human troll cultural boundaries, but her existing is kind of a big deal?? JOHN: i feel like somehow i missed the part where we all sit around and talk about how strange it is that two of our friends went off and had a secret child without any of us knowing! JOHN: is it too much to ask that we have that part now, karkat?

That’s fair. And they DO need to talk about it! But this is sort of like in the Game -- there’s important shit to do, and not a whole lot of time to do it. You’re going to do a lot of talking, but you won’t be able to do all you want with certain people separated from you by the circumstances of how this war is dividing your responsibilities.

JOHN: i mean, maybe it just doesn't mean that much to you. KARKAT: JOHN. JOHN: which is a little strange, given that it ties in to the whole conflict that you had with jade and dave. JOHN: oh god we have to talk about dave. KARKAT: JOHN. KARKAT: FUCKING HELL! KARKAT: I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT DAVE. JOHN: no, this is what i mean, karkat. JOHN: we need to talk about dave! KARKAT: HAHA! LIKE SHIT WE DO!! KARKAT: I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE HOW THIS IS EVEN A RELEVANT TOPIC OF CONVERSATION. JOHN: oh come on. JOHN: there's no way you aren't feeling kind of messed up about him, right?

THIS is fair. Karkat does need to talk about this with somebody. Whether John is the right somebody... I guess he is where Dave is concerned. And he has to talk to Jade eventually, too.

JOHN: i know i am. JOHN: whenever i think about how things ended between you two... JOHN: especially now that he's... JOHN: ugh, i'm sorry. i'm SO sorry karkat. sorry doesn't even begin to cover it. JOHN: this whole thing feels so impossibly sad. JOHN: all i'm trying to say is... JOHN: it's not healthy to bottle these feelings up and not acknowledge them. JOHN: even if you aren't feeling anything right now, and i don't for a moment believe that's true, *i* need to talk about dave! JOHN: so can we please just talk about dave for a moment. KARKAT: NNNNGNGNGGGGGGGUUUUUUGUUGHHHHHHHH FINE.

It’s difficult to live in a Daveless world.

KARKAT: IF IT WILL GET YOU TO SHUT UP ABOUT THIS TOPIC FOR EVEN A BRIEF MOMENT, THEN FINE. KARKAT: REGARDLESS OF HOW POINTLESS AN EXERCISE I CONSIDER IT TO BE, I WILL DISCUSS WITH YOU MY "FEELINGS" ABOUT DAVE. JOHN: okay. JOHN: thank you. KARKAT: ARE YOU PREPARED TO BE INUNDATED WITH NONE OTHER THAN AN UNINTERRUPTED SPATE OF HARD, UNEMBELLISHED DATA VIS A VIS MY SWEEPS-SUPPRESSED, BISCUITFELT EMOTIONS ON THE DAVE SITUATION?? KARKAT: WELL HERE GOES.

--it’s not gonna be short, or cut away, is it? --actually it could just switch to a very sad sunset-like vista of the two sitting there, and one poignant line from him followed by a long, hanging pause.

> (==>)

KARKAT: *DEEP BREATH*

A giant expletive isn’t it.

The best sendoff you could give him.

> (==>)

Holy shit. It really IS a rant!

KARKAT: YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I REALLY FEEL ABOUT DAVE? KARKAT: HOW I FEEL IS THAT I WISH THAT EVERYONE WOULD STOP FUCKING BOTHERING ME ABOUT HIM!!! KARKAT: ALRIGHT, SO HE AND JADE GOT HUMAN MARRIED!! BIG DEAL!!! KARKAT: DO PEOPLE FORGET THAT I WAS THERE?? I FEEL LIKE EVERYONE IS FORGETTING THAT I WAS LITERALLY INVITED TO THE OCCASION. KARKAT: I'VE EVEN COME TO EXPECT THIS KIND OF AMNESIAC BEHAVIOR FROM EVERYONE ELSE, SINCE I ADMIT THAT I DIDN'T EXACTLY STICK AROUND OR ACTUALLY SHOW MY FACE FOR MOST OF THE ORDEAL, BUT YOU EGBERT SHOULD HAVE NO FUCKING EXCUSE! JOHN: wait, karkat, that's not what i KARKAT: SO YEAH! THAT WHOLE THING HAPPENED, AND I CAME TO TERMS WITH WHATEVER THERE WAS TO COME TO TERMS WITH, WHICH WAS FUCKING *NOTHING*, AND THEN I GOT ON WITH THE ACTUAL IMPORTANT BUSINESS OF TRYING TO PREVENT THE WORLD FROM CRUMBLING! KARKAT: WHICH, NOW THAT WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT, IS *STILL FUCKING HAPPENING*! KARKAT: I AM UTTERLY APPALLED THAT THIS IS AN INFO MORSEL I KEEP HAVING TO SPOONFEED DOWN YOUR WINDCHUTE EVERY FIVE SECONDS, JOHN, I REALLY AM. KARKAT: I MEAN HOLY SHIT, NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR THIS! KARKAT: AND ONE THING I CAN SAY WITH ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD CERTAINTY IS THAT IF DAVE WERE HERE, HE WOULD SAY THE SAME THING!!

Okay he dealt with it by keeping his hands in the dirt working on hard-fighting responsibilities, yeah, as a Blood player might. But the way he’s ranting about it seems a little-

KARKAT: SPEAKING OF WHICH, WHERE *IS* DAVE?? JOHN: um. KARKAT: I FEEL LIKE IF ANYONE COULD HAVE PREVENTED TODAY FROM DEVOLVING INTO A HEADLESS CLUSTERFUCK, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN... OKAY, MAYBE NOT HIM, BUT AT LEAST HE MIGHT HAVE HELPED DRAG YOU OUT OF YOUR DEPRESSIVE FUGUE A LITTLE SOONER! JOHN: (oh shit.)

Oh SHIT

> (==>)

Oh no... oh no, they’re BOTH about to let it out together.

They’re gonna have to cry it out. Finally, onscreen. THIS is why they weren’t showing us, why they were saving it. It felt so awkward at the time but it’s because it has to culminate in these two, some of the closest to Dave since CHILDHOOD, get to show us the effect on everyone in a microcosm.

KARKAT: NOT ONLY THAT, BUT MAYBE WITH BOTH OF US HERE WE COULD HAVE DISPENSED WITH THIS ENTIRE SORRY TOPIC ONCE AND FOR ALL, IF ONLY FOR YOUR BENEFIT! KARKAT: OH HI DAVE, JOHN SEEMS TO BE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE UNSPOKEN HISTORY BETWEEN US IS OF SUFFICIENT IMPORT THAT WE NEED TO HASH IT OUT THIS VERY SECOND IN FRONT OF THE BLASTED REMAINS OF HIS HOME! KARKAT: yo karkat that does seem to be a strange thing for my best friend john to be concerned about given that he has spent the past five years wallowing in the depths of deepest divorce fever KARKAT: and especially since jade and i have meanwhile been working as part of your resistance with no complaints, but sure, we can brofist each other and arrange our limbs in an unambiguously platonic way KARKAT: a way which is also flawlessly calculated to communicate to everyone present that here are two guys who are totally and unequivocally over each other JOHN: (oh god. you don't...)

Talk about John’s comment about Karkat’s rants not being hilarious in a situation. THIS situation really tugs it out of them. :(

KARKAT: THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA DAVE, AND WITH THAT MAYBE THAT WAY WE CAN WASH OUR TOUCH STUMPS OF THIS WHOLE ORDEAL AND NEVER HAVE TO SPEAK OF IT AGAIN! KARKAT: WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, JOHN? KARKAT: WOULD THAT SATISFY YOUR CRAVING FOR CATHARSIS ON THE SUBJECT OF DAVE?? KARKAT: WELL WHY DON'T WE TRY IT THEN. KARKAT: IN FACT, WHY DON'T YOU CALL DAVE AND GET HIM OVER HERE RIGHT NOW! JOHN: (oh my god...)

> (==>)

These visuals are ON POINT. This entire sequence since Karkat showed up is masterfully done.

KARKAT: MAYBE WE SHOULD GET JADE TO COME AS WELL! JOHN: ): KARKAT: FUCK, WHY NOT INVITE FUCKING EVERYONE!!! KARKAT: WHY NOT PRESS "PAUSE" ON THE RACE WAR FOR A MOMENT AND HAVE ONE HUGE FEELINGS JAM LAWNMEAL WHERE WE ALL PUBLICLY EXPATIATE OUR VARIOUS CONVOLUTED EMOTIONS. KARKAT: FORGET PEACE TALKS, GET FUCKING *CROCKER* TO COME! KARKAT: MAYBE THE SIGHT OF A DAVEKAT RECONCILIATION IS THE SECRET KEY TO UNLOCKING THE PART OF HER BRAIN THAT STOPS HER FROM BEING A GENOCIDAL RACIST BITCH!!! KARKAT: HOW COULD WE HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN SO BLIND!!!!!! KARKAT: IF GAMZEE WASN'T DEAD, YOU COULD HAVE INVITED HIM AS WELL! KARKAT: HAHAHA, THAT'S OKAY, WE STILL HAVE A VERITABLE MENAGERIE OF PEOPLE WE KNOW WHO AREN'T DEAD. JOHN: ))))): KARKAT: ALL OF WHOM I AM SURE WILL BE SIMPLY DELIGHTED TO ATTEND WHAT WILL UNDOUBTEDLY BE THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN EARTH C'S BULLSHIT HISTORY. KARKAT: IF THIS IS WHAT IT TAKES, EGBERT, THEN I AM PREPARED TO DO IT! KARKAT: DON'T THINK THAT I WON'T!! KARKAT: IF JUST FOR AN *INSTANT* IT WILL GET EVERYONE OFF MY CASE ABOUT THIS, I WILL STAND UP WITH DAVE IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE ***FUCKING WORLD*** AND SOLEMNLY VOW THAT I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT!!!! JOHN: KARKAT!!!!

That last bit with John. I can HEAR the rawness in his voice as he shouts that last bit... he’s about to burst into tears. And Karkat is going to have to with him. And they’ll cry it out together, as they should.

> (==>)

JOHN: ugh, fuck, this is just too much! JOHN: i thought you KNEW! KARKAT: KNEW WHAT??? JOHN: dave's GONE, karkat! JOHN: he's... JOHN: he's dead.

Let’s see it happen.

> (==>)

Just body language, the blow of the words...

JOHN: i didn't mean for you to find out like this at all, i thought... JOHN: i mean, i only heard about it yesterday, but i was convinced someone would have told you already! JOHN: apparently one minute he was there, and the next... JOHN: none of us even know how it happened, and it doesn't make any sense that he's dead, but he is. JOHN: he is dead and he's not coming back. KARKAT: JOHN: talk to me karkat, please. JOHN: please talk to me karkat. KARKAT: KARKAT: HE...

Jade and Rose were on a different part of this battlefield, they didn’t have the ability, time, and/or heart to break the news--

> (==>)

KARKAT: HE DIDN'T EVEN SAY GOODBYE?

aaaaAAAA

What a fucking expression, wow.

And what a regret RoboDave has to have for abandoning everyone without so much as a farewell letter. To think that ditching them like that was IN his Ultimate Soul is going to eat away at him. He may be linked to all of his self of selves, but he’s still an individual with individual regrets.

This was a damned good update. See y’all next time.

(It may be the new meds I’m on, but between this and the thorough love I see put into the unofficial archive, I’m suddenly reminded that despite all the drama, I fucking LOVE Homestuck. Even its current incarnation.)

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #spoiler #spoilers #John Egbert #Karkat #Dave Strider #Jane Crocker

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autumnblogs · 3 years

Text

Day 4: You eat a weird bug and don’t even care.

Starting later than usual today because I’ve been absolutely swamped with work. Let’s get down to business to defeat the Huns.

https://homestuck.com/story/644

I’ve never really gotten why John falls asleep here. Seems an odd place to fall asleep, especially with the adrenaline rush that must have been. Maybe he’s passing out from exactly that? Alternatively, maybe Vriska is putting him to sleep.

I also forgot that John Sleeps/Skaian Magicant is split between two flashes.

https://homestuck.com/story/651

Ah here we go. John has what are, if Jade is to be believed, lousy dreams. He dreams of his Dad, of clowns, of baked goods, of Fruit Gushers, of his own symbol, the weird knock-off slimer, and Harry Anderson, before finally Jade appears.

I am not a psychologist or therapist. I am not even anything more than an amateur literary critic. But let me give you my take on that. It’s clear that John is dreaming about all kinds of things that are giving him anxiety here, if Jade’s assessment about his dreams being lousy is true.

Harry Anderson is, as he’ll say later, kind of a weird mutual father figure for him and his Dad, and as a stage magician and comedian, he represents John’s aspirations.

John wants to grow up to be a great stage magician and comedian, and if there’s anything we’ve seen about the Heir of Breath so far, it’s how extremely self-critical he is of his abilities - he’s screwed up every disguise and magic trick he’s tried so far.

The other things are pretty self-explanatory - he’s anxious about his relationship with his Dad, he’s anxious about his Dad’s identity, he’s anxious about his own identity - with the exception of the gushers. Are gushers just symbolizing Sburb for John? Does he have a premonition that the gushers are tainted by the hand of his archnemesis, Betty Crocker? Maybe that one’s just silly.

Maybe they’re all just silly!

https://homestuck.com/story/652

I promise I will have more to say about Jade’s conversations once she is actually introduced, but until then, she is too enigmatic for me to talk about :^)

I will say, if the fact that John is stressing out about everything in his life and just not vocalizing his anxiety, it’s probable that he thinks Jade is just as mysterious as his pals think she is, and is just not talking about it.

I think John, like Jake, is way more intelligent than he lets on, and probably just keeps a lot of things on a simmer, thinking about them without necessarily opening up about them. He talks a lot about surface level stuff for sure, but he seems a lot more hesitant to talk about emotions, theories, that sort of thing. It actually reminds me a lot of how Kim Kitsuragi from Disco Elysium, far from his highly imaginative partner the player character, writes his thoughts down in a notebook to keep track of his through processes, hunches, case details, etc, whereas the Detective organizes everything in an interactive Thought Cabinet that serves as one half of the game’s Inventory and Progression System.

For example, John’s ability to describe and his ability to theorize is on full display in the FAQs that he writes, but when he talks, he’s often just as disorganized as he is everywhere else. Maybe John needs to take up journalling.

Huh. I wonder if Kim is a Prospit Dreamer and the Detective is a Derse Dreamer? That would make a lot of sense. Once @bladekindeyewear finishes playing Disco Elysium (which he is playing at my behest), I’ll see if he’s interested in assigning Lunar Sway, Classes and Aspects to the two of them.

https://homestuck.com/story/665

Dave Owns. The Narrative switches between character perspectives often right before there’s a major climax so that lots of characters can all have climactic encounters in sync with one another.

Eye imagery is on full display here as Dave ascends to the highest point in the building. The Sun over Dave’s house is drawn differently from other abstractions of the Sun in Homestuck, and this particular drawing of the Sun will later be juxtaposed against Terezi’s eyes as Alternia’s Sun burns them out.

The Sun as the Symbol of Light is also juxtaposed with Rose’s eyes later when she uses her seer powers, strengthening the connection between the Sun and Eyes. Near the very beginning of the comic, Rose compares the Sun moving on from the east coast to the west as him casting his lurid gaze on younger parts of the world, or the country. I’m not recalling the exact phrasing at this time.

Lil Cal’s creepy eyes are also highlighted by the Camera here. Through the vehicle of Lil Cal, Lord English is watching and quietly giving approval to all of this.

I choose to interpret the camera’s focus in this flash as giving us a glimpse into what Dave is paying attention to. And boy does Dave notice all of these eyes on him. Between seeing the sun as a malevolent eye watching him, to Lil Cal’s glassy gaze, to the Cameras bro uses to surveil him 24/7, Dave feels like he’s constantly being watched, and I think it’s safe to say it gives him the creeps.

https://homestuck.com/story/673

WV’s self-estimation isn’t much better than John’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/678

I wonder if we can get some insight into the strange minds of the Carapacians in the way that before he’s even finished receiving the commands, WV acts on them. WV is even more impulsive than John.

https://homestuck.com/story/684

Oh yeah, WV’s self-worth is way worse than John’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/685

Luckily almost as soon as his thoughts come, they go. He doesn’t spend too much time brooding over his self-loathing and survivor’s guilt, so good for him.

https://homestuck.com/story/688

A whole bunch of things that are symbolically related to the cast!

While WV’s can town playtime functions as foreshadowing for us, it serves as a replay of the extremely recent past for him, at least in terms of events that we know about.

https://homestuck.com/story/694

The light on Serenity’s belly looks a bit like the Sun, and therefore, an eye.

https://homestuck.com/story/699

The Blue Trees of Can Town call forward to Terezi’s forest, but I don’t think this is probably more substantial than something fun Andrew decided to call back to when he was writing the trolls.

IDK. Maybe Blue Trees = Democracy = Justice?

But Terezi’s brand of justice has nothing to do with Democracy.

https://homestuck.com/story/709

Tab, like GameBro, is an artifact of a bygone age.

https://homestuck.com/story/711

It’s a lot easier to become a citizen of Can Town than it is to become a citizen of the United States!

https://homestuck.com/story/714

I wonder who input all those commands before WV got on board? Maybe whoever was in charge of building these contraptions in the first place - a Carapacian Lab Rat in the Veil.

Always felt like the unseen actors making Sburb run behind the scenes were one of the nicest touches, they lend an air of sinister mystery even beyond the Guardians.

https://homestuck.com/story/721

I am not good at chess.

Maybe sometime, I will have my friend who is good at Chess analyze this game, and see how he feels about it.

https://homestuck.com/story/735

WV’s Self Esteem is very, very bad.

https://homestuck.com/story/752

Our first introduction to the laws of time travel in Homestuck - the past is a place that materially exists, and in only one specific configuration that can be interacted with. You can only bring things forward from the past if nobody else got to them before you. You can’t go back and undo things that somebody else (or you) has already done according to the canonical configuration of events.

https://homestuck.com/story/757

This is ridiculously cool.

Homestuck’s huge climactic story events are arguably one of the things that makes it so special as a story. I can’t think of a story that does such a good job of building up tension in multiple storylines before having them all converge.

https://homestuck.com/story/760

https://homestuck.com/story/765

I wonder what the exact mechanism is by which Jade is aware of the gaming abstractions and commands to the degree that she is? Is it just her Skaian dreams? This could be a one-off gag, but it could also be an indication of a degree of clairvoyance greater than that which I feel like the visions she has as the Prospitian Moon passes through Skaia.

https://homestuck.com/story/768

Jade loves to watch things grow.

It’s a Space Thing.

https://homestuck.com/story/777

According to BladeKindEyeWear’s Inversion Theory Jade’s complicated and carefully orchestrated time loops, which she uses to connect people with possibilities, is an example of her inverting under extreme stress, acting more like a Seer of Time, her opposite, than like a Witch of Space (in much the same way that Rose acts an awful lot like a Witch of Void for much of the comic’s first half!)

I expect a real Seer of Time wouldn’t need quite so many contrivances to keep track of everything going on in the past and future. Eventually, Jade stops using her colourful reminders, which is probably an indicator that she is no longer attempting to play outside of her lane.

https://homestuck.com/story/789

Pretty much all of Jade’s interests cast her immediately as someone with a pretty strong maternal instinct, something that she shares with other heroes of Space. Jade is a caretaker.

Her playthings are dolls so she can roleplay the part of a Mom. She grows oodles of plants, and seems to have a knack for it. She likes animals, and though the only animal in her life takes care of her, she puts in some work to take care of him too.

Her interests definitely mark her as the more classically girly of the two between her and Rose, and like her brother is preoccupied with manhood and Dadliness, Jade seems to preoccupied with Momliness - which is odd, considering that she doesn’t have a maternal figure to aspire to! (Maybe the White Queen?)

https://homestuck.com/story/790

Jade is not of course, only girly. The same way that Dad’s culturally out-of-place baking hobby marks him as transgressively feminine to John’s dismay, Jade’s scientific and artillerist hobbies are transgressively masculine.

Although it’s tempting to say that Jade loves the sciences because Grandpa raised her to, or because she’s aping him after he died, she’s clearly born to it. I think about the question of nature and nurture a lot in Homestuck.

I think on the whole, it falls pretty far to the side of Nature. Characters who share a common ancestry also share common character traits more often than not, even in the absence of shared cultural touchstones, shared geography, shared timeline. The same character only has a limited number of possible choices that they could have made, as Aranea will later say.

On the other hand, some characters turn out very different in one life than they do in another. Dirk doesn’t turn out nearly the psychopath that Bro Strider is by the time that Homestuck Proper concludes.

https://homestuck.com/story/795

Squiddles are, as everyone knows by now, a manifestation of the Dark Gods of the Furthest Ring, but I think there’s more going on with them too - they have kind of a horny energy that I can’t quite place. I’m going to come back to that. Any case, they seem to be one of the symbols that Rose and Jade share in common, although Rose subverts the colorful and cute squiddles into icons more of the extradimensional beasties that they actually represent.

Maybe I think Squiddles are a symbol of horny for the same reason that snakes are lewd to Cherubs - there’s definitely something phallic about tentacles, and definitely something intimate about the idea of becoming someone’s tangle buddy. The very first time I read Rose’s handle, I thought it read Tentacle The Rapist, which I suspect is kinda the point, and some of Andrew’s other works have variously described the process of interacting with tentacles as being molested and so on and so on.

Rose and Jade actually share a huge number of symbols in common between the two of them, which I think is great, but also sad - Rose and Jade clearly actually have quite a lot in common, and the two of them don’t really interact very much.

https://homestuck.com/story/797

I’m going to eventually decode Jade’s fascination with animals too, but for now I want to remark that it’s not just the idea of looking like an animal that excites Jade - it’s the idea of being like an animal that excites her. The exact same little poem is later reiterated by Serenity in WV’s nightmare, as he dreams of losing control of the power of the Ring of Orbs Fourfold and killing everyone he loves. What would be a nightmare for WV though is a fantasy for Jade. The idea of being out of control is thrilling for her.

Dave is also a furry.

https://homestuck.com/story/798

The trappings of a proper gentleman. Monocle. Pipe. Top Hat. Little White Gloves. A proper gentleman without these is a piss poor excuse for a proper gentleman indeed.

SYMBOLS.

https://homestuck.com/story/800

Another spot where Jade is able to interface directly with the audience, in some form or another.

https://homestuck.com/story/802

Jade may have fantasies of transforming into something more animalistic, but she’s not willing to indulge them.

https://homestuck.com/story/803

Jade completely rejects the symbols of witchcraft that Rose so readily embraces.

https://homestuck.com/story/804

Jade contemplates engaging in some Vriskaesque behavior. Is it just because Vriska is watching her? Maybe she’s picking up some Vriska-esque vibes through the feed as the Thief of Light practices her mind control.

https://homestuck.com/story/808

I think it’s safe to say one of two things is going on here.

Jade is either literally cognizant of the audience and interacting with them, putting her on a layer of the story that is quite a lot closer to us than you would expect of someone as innocuous as Jade (maybe the immediate presence of the Fourth Wall upstairs could facilitate that relationship?)

Or Jade has an active imagination, is extremely lonely, and likes to interact with her imaginary audience as a way of projecting a friendly and hospitable demeanor onto the world around her in sort of the exact opposite way that Rose imagines the worst of everything and everyone?

Or, as it often is in Homestuck, it could be both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/829

Did I mention Dave is a furry? Dave is totally a furry.

If we read Squiddles as a symbol of intimate contact with living things, Jade’s computer having Squiddles front and center is appropriate - it’s her point of contact to all the people in her life.

Tune in on the morrow to watch Dave’s Bro beat the shit out of him.

Until then, this is Cam signing off, alive and not alone.

#homestuck #liveblogging #commentary #disco elysium #bladekindeyewear #inversion theory #squiddles

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talesfrombeyondthebelly · 4 years

Text

“Come into my parlor,” Said the spider to the fish.

I know I’m not great at titles but oh well. This is an Eri.Vr.is oral vore fic! Mainly because I’ve been doing some rps and been caught up in the great dynamic they have imo. This is a sfw fic, but again it is a vore fic so if you turn away I won’t be offended. That said, I hope you enjoy and I’m always open to criticism!

There would be an unceremonious sigh that would come from a certain violet blooded sea dweller as he fiddled with the pieces for his latest scheme to exterminate all the land dwellers. Or at least, that would be what he had claimed he was doing, he never truly planned to execute it both due to lack of ambition and the resources. Really, the boasting and bragging about what he planned to do wasn’t as much of a threat as he liked to claim it was, and truly it was more along the lines of a need for attention than any true plans of committal.

It had been a slow night for one Eridan Ampora, and having wasted most of it attempting to message any troll to either gossip with three of them or spew some rhetoric he didn’t fully believe. But even then, all that was accomplished was that he was being ignored while he vied for attention. All that was left was to stay cooped inside and rewatch old documentaries as he idly fiddled with historical figure memorabilia.

That was, it was all he had to do until someone had decided to free him from his self-isolation.

AG: Heeeeeeeey, Eridan. ::::)

The sea dweller would squint, he didn’t think his rival would message him after deciding not to message her first. They had broken up when they were six sweeps due to him boring and overbearing; but some time after they turned seven sweeps, Eridan’s attempts to renew their rivalry would pay off after much work and effort. And now they had been going strong even after they hit nine sweeps old.

However, he would roll his eyes at the sight, he knew her innocent seeming spider smile was anything but.

CA: wwhat do you wwant you cerulean blowwhard dont you knoww im busy AG: I’m hurt! After all I went through to check on my dear rival! I would have thought he liked someone giving him attention. AG: Oh well! Guess I’ll just leave you to your devices seeing how you’re *so* busy, CA: god damn it wwait CA: okay maybe i got a bit of an openin in my schedule to wwaste time wwith you AG: Please! The only one who’s going to be wasting their time is me, we 8oth know you’re pro8a8ly doing something 8oring like watching one of your lame documentaries. CA: theyre not LAME theyre goin to be your miserable dirt munchin dowwnfall soon enough AG: Oh???????? 8old claim from you Ampora. Seeing how I know you’re dead wrong. AG: Anyway! You’re coming over to my hive today right? AG: Why am I even asking? You o8viously forgot. CA: i didnt forget i totally fuckin remembered our meeting at your stupid and completely ridiculous hivve AG: It’s not stupid! What’s stupid is the fishbreath who 8uilt his hive surrounded 8y the ocean when he 8arely spends any time in the water. AG: Whatever, just come over. I’m not waiting all day for your dum8ass. CA: ugh fuckin fine CA: you still havvent told me wwhat specifically you wwanted to do ovver there anywway AG : :::;)

And with that, the conversation was brought to an end. Eridan would rub his temples, her purposely vague answer meant any number of things, usually which ended in his embarrassment in one way or the other. Of course, it was better to just go over as soon as possible rather than him wasting time by speculating, even if he did plan to make her wait to purposely be fashionably late. Something to put his pompous attitude on display. Soon enough, Eridan would don his scarf and cape before leaving his hive and embarking on the trip to Vriska’s.

The trip wasn’t terribly long, mainly because traversing through the ocean was far from an issue and her home conveniently overlooked the sea. Even so, Eridan would hold make sure to wait for an extra amount of time for no reason than to uphold the gesture that he was royalty. Feeling accomplished with his amazingly petty task, he would approach the door and knock a few times before waiting for her to answer as he dried himself off as he uncaptchalogued a few towels.

Vriska would answer the door surprisingly quickly, having not had the patience to return his petty actions before pulling him inside and closing the door behind them both. The expression on her face was blatant annoyance, but that was far from the norm regardless if it was actual exasperation or not. Eridan would up look at the other troll with a frown, even since they had gotten older he would find that she had sky rocketed past him in height. He had been a respectable height of nearly six feet, while she had him beat by additional four feet, much to his unending irritation and to her endless amusement.

“You’re late. Even after I went and so kindly reminded you of our little arrangement. Well, I guess everything’s little to me when you’re short, but the point stands.” “yeah yeah keep braggin vvris i wwas towwerin ovver you before-” “Sure, you had a few inches on me when we were six! But now we’re nine and you’re still short, how do you explain that, hm?” That would cause him to shut up rather quickly, though he would dart his eyes around and attempt to come up with a retort, only to fold his arms and huff soon after. It wasn’t uncommon for trolls to grow as much as she did, but the fact that he wasn’t one of them meant that discussions of height were biased in her favor. Her ten feet tall favor. His violet eyes would eventually return to her cerulean ones, there had been smile on her face, one that reeked of mischievous intent. Before he could open his mouth to question her intentions, she would cover his mouth with her hand, and some of his face as a natural consequence of the difference in size between them.

“Alright Ampora, shut up for a minute and listen. I had you come over because I had a proposition that’s going to 8enefit 8oth of us. Here’s the deal: You got two minutes to hide somewhere, and I’m going to seek you out. If I can’t find you in 8 minutes, you win! And if you pick somewhere dum8 and I find you, I win! And the loser has to do whateeeeeeeever the winner wants! Sound good? ::::)”

Eridan would try to speak his response, only for Vriska to keep her hand pressed against his face, only pulling back once he felt something wet trail along it. Irritation making itself apparent with a scoff, she would return the favor by grabbing one of his hands, sticking out her tongue and slowly pressing the wet muscle against the other troll’s hand in a rather long lick before finally letting him go. His hand utterly drenched in saliva, Eridan’s face would scrunch up as he shook his hand dry while a small tinge of violet came across his face. It made her brief taste of him all the more delicious.

“for fucks sake fine ill WWIN your stupid land suckin game and then wwe can do somethin wway less ridiculous and more dignified afterwwards” His statement was spoken with his usual amount of sea dweller pompous pride, even if the chips were stacked against him. Even so, he held his head up high and puffed his chest out, not about to turn down a challenge that was surely easy enough to win. She had a castle, there must have been plenty of places to hide.

“Good! Now get going Eridan, unless you want to 8e 8oring and lame and make this too easy.” She’d give him a wink, teasing him over her self-assured victory and a lick of her lips. She had no problem hinting at what she wanted to do once she won, it made it fun to see him squirm.

He’d pause for a moment and confidence turned into brief uncertainty in less than a minute, “wwait you mean right noww i havvent fuckin evven gotten to-” He cuts himself off as he sees her turn away and start to count, realizing that she wasn’t even going to wait for him to prepare himself. He’d scramble off, the sea dweller handling himself incredibly well on land even when he’s running around wearing a rather long cape.

He wasn’t used to hiding as he was often hunting for the sake of Feferi’s lusus, but he would certainly try his hand at it to the best of his ability. Of course, his first two attempts were less than idea, having run to the very bottom of her hive to try and disguise himself by burying himself under her pile of miscellaneous belongings, only to realize he was shifting too much. He’d then decide to try his hand at hiding on one of the upper floors, deciding that hiding behind her pile of treasure would have been an unlikely spot seeing how he resented her various wins against him during their FLARP sessions. Unfortunately, this would prevent him from hiding there for long, as he does grow irritated looking at her spoils and decided to leave before it caused those pitch feelings to flair too much. Ultimately, he would decide to hide somewhere so obvious, Vriska would never think to check. He was confident in this idea, so much so that he decided to take it easy and relax in his new found spot, all he had to do now was wait 8 minutes and win. He means eight.

Vriska, predictably, did not count the entirety of two minutes before she began her hunt. Rather, she stopped once she got to eighty eight and decided that was enough for her. When she turned around, she half expected Eridan to standing right there out of spite and stubbornness about the whole thing but to her delight the violet blood was playing along. The question was where to find him, if she had to guess, it was probably somewhere dumb, like him. And so her very first guess was her trophy room, because of course he would think she’d skip over her own hoard of treasure to look for him. But upon making her way up the many stairs to check, she would find not a hair of him to found. She was a bit annoyed her first guess wasn’t right, but she had extra time to spare and her next guess would most certainly be right.

Except it wouldn’t The next room would be devoid of Eridan, and the next and the next. It would seem that no matter where she searched, he was nowhere to be found, it raise her irritation with him, and with it her hunger. The stomach of the ten foot cerulean would grumble as she briefly put a hand on it and huffed, she had to give her rival credit, he was doing a good job at making her work for this. And here she thought she’d grab an easy snack. But the warranty of it was wearing off as time passed on, even with her head start, it would seem that Eridan was safe wherever he had chosen to hide. She couldn’t allow this to happen, she had planned for this all to go a certain way, and the fact that it wasn’t was unacceptable. Annoyed, she’d retire to her block for a moment, purely for the sake of trying not to get too caught up and at least try to remain rational about this. Only a minute to go, there wasn’t much time left, and Vriska was certain she had searched about every place there was to offer. Unless...

Without a word, Vriska would approach her wardrobe dresser, there was no way he’d hide in there right? It’d be dumb and stupid and completely ridiculous! Well, she didn’t have time, so she would ultimately waste not a moment more as she ripped open the doors to her wardrobe and... found her prize. Eridan for one was shocked with the sudden burst of light and appearance of Vriska, who apparently been frustrated looking for him. He wishes he could have seen the whole experience, but from the noises she made he got his fair share of entertainment. “8h my g8d, r8ally!!!!!!!! Y8u hid in my wardr88e????????” There was an unending amount of vitriol pouring from Vriska now, irritation at herself and him were flowing freely, and despite Eridan’s surprise, he would waste no time in displaying adjusting himself and nodding, “of course i hid here because i thought youd fuckin ovverlook it seein howw all your attire is plain as SHIT and it wworked just god damn fine seein howw a certain obnoxious glory lovvin troll took forEVVER to find me-” He would step out with a large amount of pride, quite certain he had won, only for his eyes to dart over to the clock in her room and his face would immediately fall. She had found him with ten seconds to spare. “wwell fuck”

Vriska would try to take a moment to herself to not have too radical an outburst, she was upset, but she also wanted to savor her prize. The expression on Eridan’s face certainly helped “Wwell fuck is right! I win! And that meeeeeeeeans you have to do what I want, and I think we both know what that is.” A chill would go down his spine, while Eridan could be clueless at times, she had given him more than enough hints as to what she wanted. It certainly hadn’t been the first time they had done such a thing, but it was more than a bit embarrassing for him, which made give her some push back on the idea. “are you fuckin kiddin vvris you didnt say anythin about this bein your prize-” “Don’t 8e coy!” She’d interrupt him immediately, taking a step closer to him as he took a step back. “ I made it plenty clear! 8esides! I win, and you agreed to the terms right? It’s only fair I get what I’m promised.”

Another step forward and he’d take another few steps back and bump into the wall behind him, Vriska smirking as she’d get closer to him, their bodies practically touching as she leaned down towards him and her lips would slowly part, strands of saliva breaking apart as he start down that cerulean abyss, taking a few teasing swallows as she inched closer before letting her warm breath washing over him and fogging up his glasses. A few drops of drool would fall into his face before she’d close her mouth pull away, letting the situation sink in for the sea dweller as well as calm herself down, she may have had a bit of cerulean tint her cheeks in the same manner violet tinted his. Eating someone in this manner was embarrassing after all, which was why she’d only do it in private, not that she’d ever admit it out loud. Eridan had similarly shared the sentiment on the other side of the spectrum.

While embarrassment would go around on both ends, the sea dweller still contemplated making a run for it; the thought of being consumed always did trigger a fight or flight instinct, regardless of the fact that she probably wouldn’t digest him. Before he can even make an attempt however, his body is kept in place by hands on his shoulders, she had decided that she wasn’t going to give him the chance to scramble off and hide again, “I hope you’re ready, because you’re going to be in there for a while~” She would lean in again, salivating as she brought herself closer yet as her jaws widened to accept her meal. Slow warm breaths would beat against his skin as she drew tantalizingly close, all the while the fish troll would gulp nervously.

Instinctively, he would press his hands against her face as she started to lean in, he wasn’t about to let his hatemate have her meal without at least giving some fight back. One hand on her top lip and the other on her bottom, there’d be some push back as she slowly closed the distance between them yet again, it was a losing fight on his end as the predator drew closer and closer, letting him stare once again into her mouth before her tongue would slide out to press against his face and trail upwards, taking his glasses with it and causing him to loosen his hold. It was all he needed give the spider troll all the leeway she needed. Before he can even think about his mistake, she would jolt forward and wrap her lips around his neck, sealing him inside the jaws of the ever hungry troll. A hum of approval would resonate around the noble of troll royalty, reveling in the taste of victory and her meal, saliva being thoroughly slathered across his face during his various attempts to voice insults and protests. Though that wouldn’t stop him from trying.

While it was certainly dark in the other’s mouth, being a nocturnal species meant that Eridan could see each and every detail as she made sure to truly make him squirm. It wouldn’t be long before she’d take the first swallow, letting his glasses slide along her tongue before they were unceremoniously pulled down her gullet Of course. with that swallow, he would be brought only a short distance away from the opening in her throat, as his shoulders would be brought in next. Her teeth would be pressed against his clothes to keep him in place as his struggles and attempts to free himself grew stronger despite the situation going in the opposite direction for him. Her tongue would waste no time in running over the formerly dry parts of the troll, drenching the top of his shirt as drool as she decided to move on with her meal and take the gulp that would trap him inside her throat and bulge it out with his struggling form.

His head now captured in a pulsating throat, Vriska can continue her meal in confidence he won’t wiggle out. Her hands would move to keep his arms pinned to his sides as she moved further down his body, a hum flowing freely as she continued this consumption of him. Drool would pool in her mouth and dripping down as his chest was next to slide between her jaws as Eridan was tugged further down her throat, slightly bulging it out as he defiantly tried to move it around. Her tongue was relentless in running along the fabric she brought into her mouth, it was a bit tasteless and bland, and she regrets not shredding the shirt when she had the chance, but she ultimately makes do. Mainly by lapping at the shirt to lubricate it before taking another swallow, sending him further down the slimy gullet.

Her lips and fangs now reach his hips, and his stomach is safely contained within her mouth. Now she could have a bit more fun with him. Her tongue would curl under the bottom of his shirt to gain access to his skin yet again, an unadulterated groan escaping her to make it well known how much she just enjoyed this feeling, the noises ringing through his ears amidst his own grunts and swears. She’d stop her swallowing for a moment, reveling in the taste and wanting him to squirm a bit longer for her and attempt to fight back against the intrusive tongue as it rubbed against him, only to end up rubbing his body more against the wet muscle, her taste buds gets all the flavor she could ever want. What probably gets the biggest reaction from her is when she gives attention to his grub scars, which are oddly enough, pretty delicious for a reason she couldn’t quite explain. But they do elicit some sounds from Eridan was well, mainly increasingly flustered insults as he keeps kicking wildly. It was quite enjoyable a feeling if she were to be honest.

While she could have kept slathering, lapping and sucking on him for a considerable amount of time, a sudden loud growl would emerge from her stomach, reminding her that she was quite hungry still. And so, she’d wrap her hands around his legs to keep them still as the next series of gulps condemned the violetblood to his fate. There would be only the briefest moment where she would remove his shoes before finally sealing the deal, tracing the last of the troll’s form down with one hand as she pushed him down to her stomach. A long sigh would come out of her as she laid on back and massage her now bloated stomach. It was a lot of work to get him down and she was blue in the face, but she had done it. She could feel him fighting and hear his complaints both of which were more than annoying when she was trying to relax, but damn, it was always satisfying to do this.

Eridan, for his part, always had conflicting feelings about this. His face flushed violet and his entire body was absolutely drenched in ever warm saliva, it and he was now surrounded by a brilliant shade of blue that made up her stomach walls. He attempt to push and stretch it to its limits and cause her indigestion as a form of revenge, but all he would be met with was a few gurgles as the stomach churned around him. Luckily, it didn’t seem like he was going to be digested, otherwise he would have been splashing stomach acids all over him from his struggles, instead of other contents in her stomach. It included a few eight balls and dice, unsurprisingly. Despite his best efforts, he would only slightly stretch out her grey skin as Vriska could see her bloated stomach wiggling and bulging with his form, she was content to keep him in there.

It would be a few minutes before Eridan’s protests would die down and he’d resign himself for now as he attempt to get comfortable against the soft stomach lining that surrounded him. As embarrassing as this had been, he had expending his stamina and his frustration dying down to contempt. It would allow her to relax a bit more and close her eyes. She thinks she’s going to take a nap before they do anything else. She might let him out later but for now, this was just another mark of victory for her. It was fun, they’ll have to do this again sooner rather than later.

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calamitascalliope · 4 years

Text

Vriska and Rose=====>Make Them Pay

My submission for @ladystuck2020, written for @haruspeks. You can also find it on Ao3 here. Enjoy!

From the day she was born, everyone knew Rose Lalonde was a peculiar child.

Most children, when brought into this world, scream and cry and generally make a huge fuss about things. Rose, on the other hand, made not a single sound as the doctor brought her out into the light. No screaming. No wriggling. Nothing.

It was so alarming that Rose was immediately placed into intensive care, fearing that her lungs had not developed properly. But after multiple tests and several weeks of head scratching it was discovered that no, Rose was perfectly healthy in every way. Aside from the strange fact that she never cried.

While this certainly made her mother’s life easier, a poor woman who was woefully unprepared for raising a child, it lead to a lot of concern as this pattern continued into Rose’s older years. When she began eating baby food, she never made a mess of things. When she fell over while learning to walk she shed not a single tear. When she became a toddler, she never threw a single temper tantrum.

On paper, Rose would seem like a perfect child. A child who never fussed? What more could a new parent ask for! In practice however, Rose was exceptionally unnerving.

It was on Rose’s thirteenth birthday that her existence took a turn from unnerving to terrifying.

It had been a small affair. Some family had been invited, but all that really amounted to was her uncle Dirk and cousin Dave. Dave was what you would expect from a thirteenth year old boy. Loud, full of energy, and never staying in one place for too long. He was everything Rose was not.

As Dave tore a path through the living room, playing with a small toy bird he had brought with him, Rose sat delicately at the table, taking careful bites of her cake. Rose’s mother was chatting with Dirk on the couch, with Dirk having to occasionally tell Dave to not try and jump off of high places. It was a rather peaceful scene.

Until Rose was lying on the floor, completely unresponsive.

One panicked rush to the hospital later, and Rose was in a hospital bed, dozens of monitors hooked up to her small body. Her heart monitor was the chief among them. Every so often, her heartbeat would begin to beat sporadically, nearly tripling in speed for less than a second before returning to normal. It had been decided that these palpitations were what caused her fainting spell, but they were still trying to figure out why they were happening.

After a tense couple of hours filled with tests, tears, and nervous pacing, Rose opened her eyes and did something she had never done in her thirteen years of life.

She screamed.

Rose screamed with a fury far beyond her age, and began to violently try and tear apart the many apardi that was attached to her body. A panicked nurse rushed over to try and calm her down, to tell her she was safe, but Rose snapped at the woman like a mad dog. When the nurse tried to approach her again Rose kicked her in the stomach causing her to stumble backwards, doubled over in pain.

Rose’s heart rate, obviously high due to her sudden physical exertion, spiked higher than it had ever gone. Rose fell back in her bed, going unconscious once more.

After that they got permission from Rose’s mother to strap her down.

When Rose next awoke, she was her usual self. Confused at her location, but nowhere near the violent state she had exhibited earlier. A few doctors spoke with her, asking if she was okay and if she was calm. Asking how she felt. Asking why she attacked that nurse. Rose answered all the questions with her usual calm demeanor. All except the last one. To that question she simply gave a confused look, and said that she did not remember that happening.

The doctors were stumped, but Rose seemed to be doing fine. The palpitations had stopped, and while her behavior was not normal by any stretch of the word, she was her usual self once more. Rose was prescribed some medication that would hopefully stop this from happening again, and she was to make regular checkups to ensure that she was doing well.

Exhausted, Rose’s mother took her straight home. She held her daughter tight, trying her best to ignore how detached and cold Rose felt in her arms. She eventually fell asleep, but Rose did not. When her mother’s breathing leveled out, Rose carefully slipped out of her grasp. She planned to head to the kitchen to find a snack, but her plans were put on hold when she saw something that would change her life forever.

Floating lazily near to the ground was a small girl. Well, girl would not be the proper term. Sure she was small, and sure she had a messy tangle of long hair, but no one who saw this thing would describe her as just a girl.

Her skin was a mottled grey, flaky and ashen. She looked as if she was a snowman made of ashes. Her tangled hair was not just dark, it was the color of the blank night sky. The color of nothing. Sprouting from between her impossibly colored hair was a pair of brightly colored horns that clashed heavily with the darker tones of the rest of her body.

She had eight eyes, but they were not arranged in the way a spider’s were. Two of her eyes were in the places one would expect them to be, and the remaining six were placed in a circle around her left eye. The sclera of her eyes was not the typical white, but instead a bright orange, and her iris seemed to be missing in its entirety. Her pupils were slits, much like that of a reptile, and all eight of them were darting around the room sporadically.

Rose stared at this strange figure for several seconds, and a few moments later the figure took notice of Rose’s attention. She gave a cautionary glance behind herself, before turning back to Rose.

“You can see me?”

The creature’s voice was deep, and had a chittering to it that Rose could not fully understand. A good comparison would be trying to understand someone with a heavy Scottish accent when you have never heard of Scotland in your entire life.

“Yes.” Rose said, a bit hesitant. “Who are you?”

“Vriska. I think. How did I get here?”

“I’m not sure. Um, give me a second.” Rose turned towards her mother, and gently shook her awake. “Mom?”

“Oh, uh, yeah?” Rose’s mother woke up with a start, looking dreary eyed around the room. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Do you see that weird grey girl?” Rose asked, and could immediately tell by the lost expression on her face that the answer was no.

“What do you mean Rose?”

“It was nothing, just a, uh, dream I had.” Rose assured her, and within a few moments her mother passed out once more. Rose turned back to face the strange girl, Vriska apparently, who was nodding.

“So only you can see me. I guess. That is real fucking weird.”

“Your flippant use of crude language is....Interesting. Although not surprising given your situation. ” Rose spoke with the voice of a sixty year old woman, and Vriska scoffed at it.

“And who’s gonna fucking st8p me? You’re the 8nly one who can see and hear me, so try it 8itch.”

“How did you say the eight with your mouth.”

“Fuck y8u that’s h8w.”

Rose paused, her rational mind slowly turning to try and fully comprehend this situation and figure out the best way forward.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be antagonistic.” Rose said. “It has been a weird day for me, and I’m assuming it has been a weird one for you to.”

“That is putting it lightly.” Vriska’s words still carried a sharp tone, but Rose could tell that she was settling down a bit.

“I know your name, it is only fitting you know mine. I’m Rose Lalonde.”

“That’s a pretty long name if you ask me.”

“Well, it is usually just Rose. Lalonde is my last name.”

“What’s that?”

“Well,” Rose was prepared to go into a long winded history lesson on the use of last names in ancient times, but she figured that she had better things to do. “Never mind. So….What exactly are you?”

To that Rose received a lazy shrug from Vriska.

“Hell if I know. All I know was that I woke up inside of a tiny pink monkey’s 8ody and I felt extremely pissed a8out the whole thing. Then I passed out again and woke up here, talking to you.”

“So you have no memories about why you are here? None at all?”

“There is nothing 8ut my own name in my head.” Vriska said. “That and a lot of anger, 8ut I’m not exactly sure what I’m angry at. As we’ve been talking its been going away though so now it really is just my name.”

“Can you….Do anything?” Rose asked, and upon realizing the vagueness of her question she clarified. “I mean we know that no one can see you except for me, but can you interact with the world around you?”

“Dunno.” Vriska contemplated for a moment, and then reached down to try and pick up a toy bird Dave had left behind in the panic after the party. Her hand phased right through it, but the toy trembled slightly. Almost as if it had been blown by a slight breeze. “I guess the answer to that question is kinda 8ut not really.”

“To be perfectly honest, I am not entirely convinced that I’m not hallucinating right now.” Rose said. “I have just undergone an extremely traumatizing experience, my brain playing tricks on me should almost be expected.”

“Well I am very much real, 8ut I have no clue how I could possi8ly convince you. I can’t touch anything, and….” Vriska paused for a moment, her eight dark eyes focusing on Rose much in the way a cat does when it is preparing to pounce.

Vriska pounced.

Rose jumped at the sudden movement, and was doubly shocked when she felt her . Vriska’s body crashed into Rose’s, toppling them both to the ground.

“Okay! You’re real! Get off!” Rose said, but Vriska did not seem to be listening to her. Vriska’s eyes were still massive, all eight of them looking directly at Rose’s chest. Vriska raised one clawed hand, flexing her fingers before burying them into Rose’s chest.

There was no blood, there wasn’t even a wound, but Rose felt Vriska’s sharp nails burrow into her chest. Rose screamed, thrashing about to try and get Vriska off of her, but it was no use. While Vriska seemed capable of attacking her, Rose’s own blows passed right through Vriska.

The screaming did alert Rose’s mother. The poor woman woke up with a start to see her small daughter screaming her head off and flailing about the floor for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile, from Rose’s perspective, Vriska was still tearing into her chest. The pain was gradually growing unbearable, and Rose was beginning to feel the room spinning around her as she grew faint. She was on the edge of losing herself once again when she felt her hand wrap around something solid.

No, wait. That wasn’t her hand. That was Vriska’s hand. Vriska’s hand had wrapped around something solid. Why had Vriska felt Rose’s hand?

Rose wasn’t in her living room anymore. She was weightless, floating in an empty abyss. She couldn’t feel anything, anything aside from the rhythmic pumping of Vriska’s own heart.

No, not Vriska’s heart. HER heart. Why did Vriska keep doing that?

No, she’s not Vriska, she’s Rose. Why was her mind all over the place, where-

The dark void around Vriska lit up into a brilliant gold, blinding Rose’s eight eyes. She saw a sigil, burnt onto the bottoms of her eyelids. A small sun. It was everywhere she looked. She could close her eyes for hours on end, but Rose could not escape it. It pulsated in time with her heartbeat, with their heartbeat.

Vriska and Rose woke up in Rose’s room, already tucked into her bed. It was dark, the small digital clock on the nightstand reading eight pm.

“What….What happened?” Rose mumbled, holding her head. It felt as though someone had smashed her head in with a hammer.

“I’m not sure.” The voice came out of Rose’s mouth, but Rose was not the one who controlled it. “Something in my head clicked and I just acted on instinct.”

“Vriska? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Not sure how 8ut now I’m, like, a part of you.”

“Why’d you do that?!”

“I dunno! Like I said, something just clicked in my head and I lost control.”

Rose swung her feet off the edge of the bed, and was about to stand up when the same sun sigil flashed into view. Rose her own body stand up from the bed as she was about to, and saw her foot get punctured by a knitting needle that had been thrown onto the floor.

Rose was suddenly sitting back in her bed, just about to stand up. Taking a moment, she peered down onto the floor and sure enough a knitting needle was lying there on the ground ready to stab her in the foot.

“Tell me you saw that too.” Rose asked.

“Uh, yeah? It would have 8een pretty hard not to.”

“Did we just see the future?”

“I think a more correct way of putting it is we saw what could have 8een the future, and then we changed it.”

“Were you able to do that before? Was that just a thing you could just do?”

“No! At least, I don’t think so, I,”

Vriska was interrupted by another vision, this time showing Rose’s mother walking into the room. As soon as it ended Rose leapt back into bed and pretended to sleep, getting into position just before the door opened.

Rose held still as her mother walked into the room, and gentle tousled Rose’s hair. She had likely heard Vriska and her talking before, and came in to check on them. Or, to check on her. Rose specifically. She didn’t stay long though, and before long Rose and Vriska were alone again.

“So what now?” Rose questioned, her voice in a low whisper. “We are now two people squished into a thirteen year old body, and we can sometimes see the future.”

“What’s a year?”

“Will this ever stop?” Rose ignored Vriska, continuing with her worrying. “Are we just stuck together forever? How did this happen? Why did this happen?”

“Okay, I think you are starting to panic. I can tell because it's starting to ru8 off on me. Come on, this isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

“And why not?”

“Well, for one you’ve got some gr8 company with me whenever you want it,”

“Oh, what a relief!” Rose rolled her eyes.

“And two, you can see the future! Sometimes. How cool is that!”

Rose let out a yawn, and started to feel her body grow weary. Despite all the sleep she had gotten in the last twenty-four hours, her body was still begging for more time to rest.

“We can figure this out another time.” Rose mumbled, already feeling her consciousness fade. “Another….Time….”

The following day was school. Rose’s mother tried to insist that she stay home, but Rose wanted nothing more than a sense of normalcy to return to her life. She managed to convince her mother that she was completely fine, and that she just wanted to see her friends at school. It was this last part that convinced her mother to allow it. She had always been concerned about Rose making friends, and was worried that Rose was going through her schooldays sitting alone and silent. She was right to worry because that was exactly what Rose had been doing.

As they had been preparing for leaving the house, Rose ran Vriska through a few ground rules. Vriska was not to speak unless the two of them were definitely alone. Rose was going to handle all of the talking. Vriska found the rules annoying, and a lot of complaining and grumbling came from her, but she eventually promised to keep her mouth shut.

Rose sat in her usual seat on the bus. Three rows up from the back on the right side. It was snowing out, and Rose was sweltering in her oversized sweater due to the constantly humming heater just below her feet. Rose tried her best to deal with it as she watched out the window at the slowly falling flakes.

That was until her eyes flashed with another vision.

This one was short, less than a second in length, and by the time she processed what it had shown her the small wad of paper had already smacked her in the face.

It wasn’t painful, but it was extremely surprising. It probably wouldn’t have been that bad if she hadn’t been disorientated by her powers flicking on. Rose looked up to see a small group of boys giggling and holding an open notebook, a page evidently torn out.

Rose rolled her eyes and turned back to the window, but Vriska butted in.

“What the fuck are y8u d8ing?” She asked, having the courtesy to at least keep her voice at a low whisper. “Get them 8ack!”

“It doesn’t matter. If I give them attention they’ll never let up.”

“N8, if you don’t do anything it’ll show them that they can walk all over you. Then they’ll never let up.”

“That’s not,”

Another wad of paper pelted her in the face. Rose tensed, and then sighed.

“This isn’t worth it.”

“It most definetly fucking is!” Rose could see the boys preparing another wad of paper out of the corner of her eyes. As she saw them prepare to toss it she could feel her heart racing in her chest, her muscles tightening as the sigil of light flashed in her eyes.

“ M a k e t h e m p a y .”

The sigil flashed brilliantly, and a lot of things happened at once. The boy preparing the wad of paper, a wiry kid with red hair, managed to give himself a papercut, and a pretty severe one at that. His finger began to bleed quite a bit, and his two friends pulled away from him to avoid getting it on their clothes. As this happened, the boy closest to the wall, a larger boy that Rose knew was on the school’s soccer team, placed his hand near the window of the bus. The bus hit a massive pothole at this moment causing the boy in the middle to bounce upwards and hit his head on the ceiling, and the window came undone and flew downwards, crushing the larger boy’s finger beneath it.

The bus driver noticed all of this sudden commotion due to the screaming of all three boys, and he pulled over quickly. He grabbed the first aid kit and ran to get them some help. All the while Rose sat in her chair, taking deep breaths as her heart rate returned to normal.

“Did….Did we do that?”

“I don’t….know.” Vriska mused. “It certainly felt like we did something. What are the odds all of that happened on its own? Right as we were freaking out and seeing shit?”

Rose looked around the bus. Everyone was either minding their own business with various projects or looking at the three injured boys. Everyone except for one person. A young girl with long, extremely curly hair and brilliant green eyes behind round glasses. This girl, despite all of the chaos, despite being able to do literally anything else, was looking directly at Rose. It was unnerving, and Rose looked away from her as soon as she was able.

“That girl….”

“What the fuck are you worried about? How could anyone possi8ly connect anything that happened back to us? 8esides, they had it coming.”

Rose sat in silence as the bus resumed moving, heading towards the school. Thoughts of the new power she wielded swirling through her mind, and the potential they could have going forward. While Rose sat in silence, thinking solemnly about the potential these new developments provided, Vriska did not work like that.

“Think about what we can do with this! We can get 8ack at anyone we want and there is no way we could ever be caught and punished for it! We could predict what people are going to do! Rose….With this power we could be gods.”

Rose could not see Vriska, but she could picture her smiling deviously at that. That was probably because she was also smiling at the prospect.

#2020 ladystuck #haruspeks #homestuck #rose lalonde #vriska serket #janethegaygal

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thegodshavehorns · 3 years

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Come Into My Parlor (5/5)

Chapter 5: Tentacle Therapist Slumber Rumpus

The spring draws to a close, and you go home without seeing Vriska again.

Your mother is as she always has been, seesawing between near-manic workaholism and decrepit insobriety. She buys you a new, top-of-the-line laptop. You leave her bitterly to her self-destruction.

You spend most of the boreal summer reading supernatural romances, riding Maplehoof through the woods, and talking with your online friends about everything except your shared fate. You are introduced to John. You knit yourself a new set of mittens for Antarctica, as your old ones have gotten a little small.

-------

You avoid speaking Vriska's name. You know she'll come on her own if she wants to, but you're not anxious to accelerate the process. As much as you'd like to have closure on what, exactly, her intentions are, you are also a little apprehensive. You are not sure if she was being serious or not, and if she was, you are not sure if you reciprocate, or even if you can reciprocate. How can you be sure? What is 'pale' supposed to feel like to a human? Perhaps you should have asked that Archangel, while you had the chance.

It's a bit of a shock when she appears on your doorstep in the middle of a rainstorm, but you also can't say you haven't been expecting her. Thank gods (well, thank her, you suppose) that your mother is working late.

"So, gonna let me in?" She smiles at you, hair and clothing sopping wet, and it's not even a predatory grin. She's significantly shorter and slighter than usual.

You step back, and she steps in, boots squelching. Her outfit is not one of the the form-fitting black getups that you've seen her in before, but rather baggy and grayish, almost like sweatpants. No sign of her sigil. She glances around the foyer, at the chandelier and the plush carpets and the huge wizard statue. Judging solely by appearances, she doesn't look a day over fifteen. "Fancy digs. Can't say the decor is quite my taste."

"Digs?" You finally find your voice as you shut the door.

"Isn't that the thing mortals say now? 'Digs?' Like it's, I don't know, a fucking burrow?" She's dripping on the marble floors.

"Surely," you swallow. "Surely you could have carried an umbrella? Or a raincoat? Or do you enjoy getting drenched? We get thunderstorms often here, you know."

She grins and brushes a sodden lock of hair behind an ear. "Oh, silly me, I must have... forgotten to bring one."

"Forgot to bring one in the infinitely large, yet portable, pocket dimension to which you alone have access."

"Right. Oops!"

You cross your arms and let the silence drag on a moment. The goddess continues to drip.

"Why are you here?" Your voice is softer than it had been a moment ago. "This is my time off. I don't have any more information on Eridan. "

Her black lips purse. "I didn't want any."

In truth, you hadn't really thought she did. You let out a long sigh. "You should dry off before the floor becomes dangerously slippery. Come on, we have towels in the bathroom."

She grins. "Sounds... comfortable."

You're not sure what to make of the emphasis she put on 'comfortable'. You're not sure what to make of any of this. She's not here to make you spy on Eridan. She's not here to exchange questions. What does she want from you?

Once at the hall bathroom, she touches the towels, frowning. "Don't you have any more than this?"

You blink, surprised. "Ah, yes, in the closet. This isn't enough?"

"I'll need more than this." At your expression, which could be metaphorically compared to a wild game animal in headlights, she adds, "I'm soaked."

You go to the closet, leaving the goddess to her own devices, and grab as many towels as you can hold, mounding them in your arms. You don't think she'll destroy your house while you're not looking, but you're a little on edge.

"Okay," you sigh in exasperation, returning to the bathroom. "Here's all the towels we-"

"Perfect!" Vriska grabs the towels from your hands, and drops them unceremoniously on the floor on top of the first set of towels, which had been treated likewise. She flops down on the pile of towels, crossing her legs and folding her hands behind her head.

You stare. She's completely dry, dressed in what looks like a white nightgown and blue pajama bottoms with a spiderweb motif. She looks so young she could have been one of your old classmates from the Academy. It's eerie.

"I was thinking," she says cheerfully. "That we could have a slumber party."

You stare at her, a twisting, tingling sensation rising up your throat, and you don't bother holding it back.

You burst out laughing. You double over, knees weak, and grab the bathroom doorframe for support. This is ridiculous, undignified, what are you doing here? How did this become your life?

"I don't see what's so funny," Vriska mutters, sitting up and crossing her arms. "Isn't this a normal thing humans do?"

You try to compose yourself, wiping tears from your eyes. You haven't laughed like this in a long time. "It is, it's just- it's such a normal thing, but I - you're not normal. Neither am I! You're a god, and I will be, and it's not normal, and you come in here acting like we're old friends, and why are you making yourself look like a teenager?" You take a few calming breaths and straighten up, starting to get yourself back under control. "Are you trying to get me to let my guard down?"

She blinks at you, eyes wide and blue. Her mouth twists. "No, it's not that."

"Then what?"

Vriska frowns, looks away. "Maybe there's no big reason. Maybe I just want to paint my nails and shoot the breeze and relax in a non-godly way, once in a while. And maybe it's hard to find someone else to relax that way with. Maybe instead of questioning it, you should be flattered." The goddess crosses her arms.

You sit down and cross yours as well, mirroring her pose. "Relax? Lady Vriska "Irons in the Fire" Serket? You're surely joking."

"Well, I'm full of surprises!" she snaps. "Now let's do each other's hair or get makeovers or something."

You raise an eyebrow. "Apparently. Well, you should know that I've never had a traditional slumber party, per se, but I am aware of the cultural script. And makeovers are no doubt a better option than 'truth or dare.'"

Vriska snorts. "Yeah, you're not stupid."

You set up in your room, kicking your diary under the bed as you arrange cushions for you to sit on the comforter. Vriska insists on bringing the heap of towels as well, though their purpose still eludes you.

As Vriska adds her towels to your arrangement, you go into your mother's room. You haven't bothered with makeup since your preteen dabbling with black lipstick, but you have no shame in raiding your mother's vanity. Blue would look good on Vriska, you think.

Upon returning, you see that the Thief of Light has perched herself atop a considerable-sized jumble of sheets and cushions, which is in turn piled on top of your bed. Before you can remark on this arrangement, she speaks:

"Remember how we met?"

"I could not possibly forget," you reply. "Vriska, why-"

"I didn't make a great first impression, did I?" Vriska's expression seems distant. "Since I was plastered with happy honey. It was pretty pathetic of me, wasn't it?" She smiles, sadly, and gestures towards the mess on the bed. "Join me?"

With some trepidation, you climb into the pile of upholstery. She turns away from you. "Do my hair?"

Strange as it seems, this is your life now. You might as well go along with it. "...How do you want it?"

"I don't care at all."

So, with both of you sitting cross-legged on the bed, you braid the Thief of Light's hair into pigtails. Her wavy locks are thicker and stiffer than human hair, and they feel almost rough to the touch, a contrast to their silken appearance. Still, her hair is long, not like yours, and you can braid it as you've never braided your own. There's something satisfying in that.

"Yes, you were pathetic," you agree, after a taking the time to consider. "But that's okay. There... probably aren't very many other people my age who know how to deal with drunks as well as I do."

"Hm." You can't see Vriska's expression, but she doesn't sound elated to hear that. "But, I still should have tried to make a better impression. I let my grudge against Eridan get away with me, and I acted like a scrub."

You're not entirely sure what the 'look' you're going for is, with these pigtails. Canadian lumberjane? Farmhouse-chic? Wednesday Adams? Maybe you could make her up as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz. The blue eyeshadow you stole would go nicely.

"Actually," you reply, "I didn't mind that much. I have a generally low opinion of gods in general. Your intoxicated state didn't do much to affect that." You pause, your hands stopping their motion as well and dropping down. Then you continue, your tone softer. "I minded it more when Eridan shot you."

Vriska's shoulders tense. "Well," she says, after a moment. "That doesn't matter much to me. It... wasn't the first time. But I'm sorry that you had to see it. It was probably unpleasant, to see death like that."

To your infinite surprise, she sounds sincere. "Yes," you say. "Although 'unpleasant' is rather an understatement."

Her hair is so thick, your fingers vanish into it, completely obscured in the black. If you squint, it almost looks like your hands are vanishing into tendrils of eldritch darkness.

"What did Eridan do to bother you so much?" you ask.

Vriska's head tilts downward slightly. "Nothing, really. He didn't do anything, personally."

You affix a clip-on bow with a cartoon pony decal to the goddess' hair, for no reason other than because it amuses you. Then, you tap on her bony shoulder and hand her a small mirror. "Done. So, what was it, then?"

Vriska blinks at her reflection in the mirror. Then, very suddenly, her expression scrunches up. "I killed someone," she says.

A year ago, you would have deadpanned back: "Is that really newsworthy?" and it's a testament to your maturity, or your tact, or your budding friendship, or something, that you don't. Instead, you quiet, and she turns around to face you on the linen pile. You listen.

"Someone I liked. Someone who didn't deserve such a bad break." She sighs, puts down the mirror, curls up her legs, and leans her forehead against her knees. "This is stupid. Why am I telling you this?"

You have the same question, frankly, but instead you just nod. "Do you normally feel this way about killing?"

Vriska's face snaps up. "No! That's the thing! I don't! I kill idiots and stuck-up assholes all the time! And sometimes for other reasons too, but it's fine. They deserve it! But," she rests her face down again, and when she speaks again she sounds... strange. "She didn't."

"Then why did you do it?" you ask, quietly.

"I was upset. She told me something... truthful. And I didn't want to hear it anymore. So I killed her. That's all. It's... it's my prerogative as a goddess to do that, isn't it?" She still sounds strange, and you realize it's because she sounds... flat. Defeated. Lady Victory, defeated.

You pause a moment to consider your reply. "You know how I feel about that."

Vriska, goddess of Light, chuckles dryly. "Yeah, I do."

"So, I'm not going to tell you that what you did is okay. Because it wasn't." You lift one hand up, reach towards her a moment, then withdraw. "But it's progress, that you feel bad about it. I think. So that's good. You still need to learn to control your temper, and be held to consequences for your actions... but it's progress."

"I hate this," grumbles Vriska. "I didn't become a goddess so I could feel bad about it."

Your lips quirk upwards. "Well, great power comes with responsibilities, or so once said a beloved superhero movie character themed after your favorite arachnid."

She rolls her eyes and lowers her legs from their fetal position. "Responsibilities? Please, no, that's so last epoch."

You frown at her irritation. "You're a goddess, does that really not come with inbuilt responsibility?"

"The responsibilities came first, then came the godhood." She leans forward, ridiculous braids and all, and takes your hand in hers. "But I suppose you're going to learn about that eventually, too." As she continues, you stare down at her hand, holding yours. "You don't like responsibility, either. But you think some things are more important than your dislike. Right?" She smiles, closes her eyes, and brings your hand to her cheek. Her skin is cool and silk-smooth. "You'll be a better goddess than me."

You stare at your hand on her face. You feel oddly mesmerized.

"Vriska Serket," you say softly. "Is this a pale solicitation?"

The goddess laughs, a little teasingly, but without mockery or cruelty. It's an unexpectedly pleasant sound. "It took you this long to figure that out?"

-------

She's a goddess, but you're not normal, either. You still don't much like how the gods run this universe, but you're becoming self-aware enough to realize that, well, you're starting to like them more as people. They are flawed, immature, selfish, sometimes cruel. But they were mortals, once. Why do you expect them to be that much better than humans?

Still. It's... good, to have someone who confides in you. Someone who's not just there to teach you, to mold you, to be your superior. Someone to keep you company when Mother is in the lab for days on end, a warm body to lean on when she is black-out drunk.

She's not your mother, not your sister, not your friend, not your lover. She runs her fingers through your hair. She lays her forehead on your shoulder and listens to your problems. You listen to hers. There are times that summer she comes in angry, upset, wings spread and words burning blue. So, you make a soft nest for you both and clean her horns, rub her shoulders, stroke her face. She calms. Is this what is meant by moirallegiance?

Maybe it's helpful. Maybe you are making a difference this way, calming her and making her more likely to show mercy on her supplicants. But you know these are justifications. The truth is, you just like it.

Maybe, for now, that's enough.

#godstuck fic #homestuck #homestuck fanfiction #Vriska Serket #rose lalonde #moirallegiance #the gods have horns #slumber party #finished at last

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thewertsearch · 2 years

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I'm asking what you intend to do about it. AG: I don't know, I guess I will just curl into a little 8all and cry and hope they go aw8y! AG: Is that what you want to hear you sick f8ck???????? Aren't you going to kill her?

It’s very telling, I think, that murder isn’t Vriska’s first recourse.

I mean, you’d certainly expect it to be, wouldn’t you? That’s just another day at the office for her. I don’t get the sense she’s especially good friends with Aradia, either. And yet, she’s reluctant to kill her, for reasons that aren’t yet clear.

It really makes you think. Vriska is infamous among her friend group for doing all sorts of nasty things to the other trolls - but now that we’re seeing one of those nasty things, we’re seeing that she was goaded into it.

Just how many of Vriska’s transgressions were actually her idea?

AG: Ok, so why don't YOU kill her! 8e my guest! Wow, thanks for offering. Wh8t a pal! That's not how I work. AG: Oh really, well you seemed pretty excited a8out killing Tavros too.

We only saw one side of this conversation.

I’d bet a million Boonbucks that if we’d got a look at Vriska’s screen at the time, we’d have seen a conversation very like the one currently taking place. It’s not just Alternia that turned Vriska into what she is.

AG: Yeah ok, you getting off on talking a girl into killing her 8uddies sure is important! AG: Los8r. Again, I didn't talk you into anything, nor am I doing so now. You were, and are, going to do this regardless.

This argument is nonsense.

Say we learned the world was fully deterministic. We’d still hold people accountable for their actions, wouldn’t we?

Like, if a precognitive murdered someone, and their argument was that ‘the murder was always going to happen’, would we really just let them walk free?

What if you did let them walk free, and they went on to murder more people? Are you not even going to try to stop them?

What if these murders are ‘inevitable’ precisely because you’re not trying to stop them?

#2244 #homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5 #s20

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wak-after-dark · 4 years

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Still not able to come up with an argument about the Epilogue treating Gamzee (the murderous corpse molester) better than Jade (sat around for 3 years with depression only to have a dog dick and then be abandoned by her friends) huh? Guess you're just an idiot and willingly sucking Hussie's dick for a job at Whatpumpkin down the line. Maybe write some incest porn like IPDG and you'll get hired.

Wow get a load of this guy.

Okay I should probably just delete your comments and not give you the time of day, but you’ve been periodically sending me this kind of ask, and I really have to ask, do you really, really believe you’re someone with some sort of Moral High Ground right now? Like I’m not even defending the Epilogues as masterpieces or trying to shove them down people’s throats. I am literally just enjoying the content the WP Team put out and talking about it, and you come to my Inbox, to spew this accusatory nonsense and flinging insults. If you can’t read the Epilogues in a positive manner, and think they’re dogshit, sure, go ahead, but you’re like, trying to act like I’m some sort of brainwashed sheep and you’re trying to make me see the light. Also “Still not able to come up with an argument“ very passive-aggressive there, I have talked about the Epilogues, my opinions and takes on them, and how I feel about the way they deal with characters at LARGE here, if you haven’t bothered to look for the info, and the several responses to some of your asks, then don’t blame me for it. But sure. Let me talk about every single point you JUST mentioned here like some sort of big Masterpost, and when you don’t agree with my point either way, stop fucking harassing me on Anon, seriously you alone have been making me consider turning anon off entirely, which all things considered may just be the healthiest option I could consider, but here I am!

Okay let’s begin with Homestuck proper. Gamzee is a Villain. He’s framed as such, people have constantly shown backlash against his character because he’s got fans that would like to see him redeemed, since a good chunk of his story happens with him brainwashed or mind-altered in some sort, but every time he’s shown to go back to doing awful things and killing people. He abuses Terezi, kills Karkat, and gets killed by Kanaya in return in one Timeline, and in another he gets locked up in a fridge, ends up in Caliborn’s planet, and trying to serve his Lord just gets beaten up, shot, left half-dead, until his final appearance in which he gets cut in half and absorbed into Lord English. Then, the Epilogues happen, and he becomes the butt of a joke about undeserved redemption arcs. His very existence in Candy is a joke that he’s not worth redeeming, actually, but tries to force himself to ‘seem’ like he has, despite ruining Dirk’s funeral, making Jake and Tavros’ lives miserable, supporting a Fascist ruler, taking advantage of a potential minor, and it all ends up with him being choked, killed, and his corpse being used as a Weekend at Bernie’s joke. Like... Is that really what you consider ‘good treatment of a character’? He gets away with a lot of bullshit, but he’s like. Constantly, and consistently, shown to be unpleasant, gross and awful. Like. He’s an awful person, and a comic relief, that does fucked up shit for most of his appearance, and I am not sure how any of this can be read in any sort of positive light. I’ve seen Gamzee fans MAD at how much he gets shat on.

Meanwhile, let’s take Jade. A huge theme of her character, sadly, is loneliness and isolation. I dislike that, like many Jade fans. She’s forced into depressingly helpless situations where she lacks agency or control over her own body, or the situation she’s in, and it’s shown affecting her greatly. I want my girl to be happy as well. So when the Epilogues came, and had her getting Callie-possessed, that was bad, it was like, AGAIN she gets the shaft. I want her to be happy and do what she wants to do and be badass with her powers! But- Oh wait, none of that is what you’re complaining about!!! You keep insisting on the Dog Dick instead of any of the genuinely heartbreaking things that happen to her. Jade has a dog dick. It is mentioned once in the entire Epilogues. It mildly affects her desire to have a child with Dave, but she doesn’t even shown herself that broken up about it, and had been looking about potential alternatives, even having Rose as a surrogate. There’s not a single joke made in the Epilogues about her HAVING a dog dick, nor any sort of isolation that happens as a product of her genitalia. Is it a weird choice to canonize that headcanon? Yeah! It kind of is! But this is also a reality where Obama and Dirk make out. And if someone is uncomfortable about Jade having a dog dick, or doesn’t like her being more openly sexual, then that’s fine!!! If they have a transphobic read on Jade, that’s fine!!! You can dislike it, and Homestuck, and the Epilogues, and the writers! But I, as a trans woman myself, and one who’s horny on main a lot of the time, liked the freedom Jade expressed to just do whatever she wanted with new partners on Earth C, and her seeming acceptance and lack of conflict at just, having junk. She does fuck up with Dave and Karkat, because she pushes them a bit too hard, specially Karkat, trying to use the Quadrant System to insert herself in a Black relationship. In Candy, this culminates with political tensions breaking Karkat away from the triad, which is bad for everyone involved. But in Meat, Jade states that they can tell her to just stop and she will, because she genuinely likes both Karkat and Dave, but their feelings are too deeply bottled and complex to just come to light. Does this put some tension in her relationship with them? Yeah! Does this ISOLATE her from her friends? No! Karkat and Dave DO still wanna hang out with her even if she’s a bit too much. John and Jade apparently chat online a bunch, and Jake seemed to have a good relationship with Jade before the whole Jane thing. She is close enough with Rose and Kanaya that Rose considered the surrogate mother thing. She has friends and ties! The major things that happen to isolate her is, Karkat leaving- Caused by Jane’s rise to power- Dave dying- Caused by Ultimate Self Timeline Shenanigans- And being possessed by Callie- All things outside of her control. I want her to get her agency back, but beyond that, her, as a person on Earth C, was not abandoned by her friends, and your obsession over her dog dick as a root of her issues and the bad stuff that happens to her says more about you than about the Epilogues in my opinion.

Guess you're just an idiot and willingly sucking Hussie's dick for a job at Whatpumpkin down the line. Maybe write some incest porn like IPDG and you'll get hired.

You know what? Yeah I would love to have a role at WhatPumpkin. Because I’ve seen the people working at it do other things, and I’ve seen their passion for Homestuck. The people currently doing Homestuck love Homestuck, and this is not up for fucking debate. As for the incest porn thing? Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you, and a thousand fucking times fuck you. Once again, trying to get some stupid moral high ground mentioning incest. “Oh look at me, I am criticizing someone for something they wrote years ago”, is how you actually sound, and that’s only on the surface. V from Homestuck was never confirmed to be ipgd. V got harassed, and ‘doxxed’ by dubious sources and, I believe, Kiwifarms shit was going on at that time, so that was extremely shady and shitty. And the result of them being equated ended with ipgd being told to kill themself because of old fic they’d written, which, GUESS WHAT, was actually a critic to the way Incest was extremely popular in Fanfic back then, written by ipgd themself, a god damn survivor of that same bullshit they wrote about!!! Congratulations! THAT is the kind of bullshit people like you pull. You just cling to some idea of what’s right and wrong, and end up hurting real people that’ve gone through real shit, instead of considering nuance to your actions and thinking that, HMM, PERHAPS I SHOULD NOT HARASS SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET BECAUSE THEY DID SOMETHING I DON’T LIKE OR HAVE AN OPINION I DON’T AGREE WITH! But nah, let’s go send death threats to people we don’t like, riiiiiiight????

My fandom wish for homestuck 2 is the characters are treated with respect but since every single one of the new authors hate women and only want dirk and jake as well as Dave and Karkat to fuck on screen while Vriska gets comphet child raped by gamzee why bother lol.

Like, I don’t even know what to say. Have you seen like... The rest of the work the WP Team is doing with Homestuck stuff? Addressing actual issues? Doing right by the characters? Acknowledging their fucked up stuff while also showing them in positive lights? A good chunk of the Team, too, is queer? Like if they were all cis straight dudes I could see your complaint but they just. Aren’t??? At all???? Even Taz, who’s probably the biggest Dirk-Jake fan around, absolutely wants the best for other characters, yes, Jade and Rose included, you are just too jaded and blinded by your perception of the Epilogues. Vriska and Gamzee... Yeah that’s iffy. I am not going to defend that, whether it was a mistake with the ages or it was just Gamzee being more awful, that was extremely nasty. There’s also like, suicide and abuse and dictatorship in the Epilogues though. All of this shit that happens is awful, but also it’s not PROMOTING it or saying it’s a good thing? It’s... Fucked up. Comphet though, I dooooooooo want to elaborate on that, because, while I do like the reading of Vriska as being more into women, she does show a near-consistent fascination for Nic Cage and, then, ARquius as someone with a similar aesthetic? Like don’t get me wrong, Vris-Rezi is absolutely the way to go and the healthy thing for Vriska, but also I am not 100% sure if you can gloss over every single one of her relationships with guys as Comphet? (Compbi? Since it’s Trolls) Not to say it justifies anything with Gamzee, that was just nasty. But I feel there’s nuance to talk about Vriska’s sexuality.

Hussie doesn't like his fans or care about Homestuck, how you can read the Epilogue and say the opposite it honestly insane and a complete bold faced lie. Any author that cares about their work would read someone demanding a character be given a dog dick and say no. Any author who cares about their work and their fans wouldn't have released such a purposely bad and painful epilogue and then demand payment for a resolution. Just give up. That's the moral of Homestuck. Give up. It's pointless.

Nah man, you’re just jaded and hurt and projecting. Hussie and the WP Team love Homestuck. It would’ve been so fucking easy to just stop doing Homestuck and move onto something, not even release an Epilogue. It’s like when Homestuck ended. People accused Hussie of a rushed ending with Act 7 back in the day, of disliking Homestuck and the Fans, of having just wrapped it up quickly, but like... If you want to wrap Homestuck up quickly... There were a million fan theories and endings out around that would’ve been so much simpler, easier and basic than what we got. The fact we got Act 7 and all it entailed, the shit the characters go through the Epilogues, of course a lot of awful shit happens, but like... Precisely? If you’re tired of doing something, you just wrap things up. You don’t set up new plot points and mess with the characters and push a new narrative outlook on something. This is the work of an experimental team that still do love the content and characters. Again, you return to the fucking Dog Cock like it’s the biggest sin the Epilogues commit. You haven’t even mentioned Jane’s fascism a single time, but you’ve mentioned Jade’s Dog Fucking Cock like fucking twenty times. Who the fuck cares about what sort of junk Jade has, the Epilogues themselves barely even care, it’s mentioned in the passing and it hardly affects a THING at all. You ask me how I can ‘read the Epilogues and see the opposite of what they say’, and I ask you the exact same thing, because despite all the awful things that happen, Rose and Kanaya keep fighting against tyranny in Candy. Kanaya realizes she’s been brainwashed and chases after Rose because she’s NOT giving up on her wife. Roxy explores their gender identity and finds new things about themself. Karkat gets to live his rebel leader dreams in one Timeline, although with a bitter split from Dave, but ends up together in a proper relationship in Meat. John’s arc in Candy about feeling isolated from a world that seems fake, before realizing his nihilism has hurt the people he cares about and wanting to fix it. Jake’s morale of ‘better late than never’, working up the courage to take Tavros away from Jane- And in HS^2, working as a double-agent trying to sabotage Jane from within? Jane’s been shown at her worst in candy, but in Meat she’s shown to still be redeemable, and that’s exactly what the team’s aiming to do, too.

Like... I can see all the bad stuff that happens. And I find the reactions of the characters to these awful situations are interesting, and the political conflict among friends and the pushing forward in such a dark situation, resonates with me, personally, and some of my own experiences? Not to say, the Epilogues are a Game Over scenario? They are a low point. HS^2 sets up to be the high point. Like... When Game Over happened, a lot of people were like “Welp, Hussie just killed everyone, lol, guess he just got tired of Homestuck”, despite the Retcon Powers being there as the obvious solution. Epilogues, lots of shit happen, and similarly there’s still like a hundred ways to build up from there to a satisfactory resolution? Storytelling can have low points you know. It hurts when it’s characters you care about, duh, specially when it plays into the weaknesses they already acknowledged but fell into again despite themselves. I see why so many people would dislike them and take a more negative vibe from them than they actually convey. But I am still baffled as to why people like you feel entitled to shit on the WP Team and send harassment and insults to people who do enjoy them. You’re not helping anything. You’re not doing anything good. You’re just being a dick.

As for the “demand a payment for a resolution”, they didn’t demand anything? I will be the first one to say that I don’t like the Extra Bonus for 5 bucks, and think it would be better if the Bonus got released like, a month or two after it has for Patrons, an ‘early access’ scenario like I do with my Patreon. And I hope they change this. But aside from that??? The Patreon is optional to support the creators because, it’s not just Hussie, it’s a big team, and they’re also using the Patreon to help them with other projects like Pesterquest and Hiveswap, because we live in a capitalistic hell world and need money to be able to pursue passion projects. The main updates every month- And twice a month starting February- Are completely free for people to read, still, the paywalled content still circulates around the community despite being paywalled, and other paid projects like, Pesterchum, for their scope and the amount of fun they’ve given me, they’re super cheap and worth it.

You ask me how I can ‘see the opposite the Epilogues say’, you tell me that I am an ‘idiot sucking Hussie’s dick for a job at WP’, you act like I am scum and brainwashed and there’s literally no reason why I should ever like something you don’t.

You know what I am though? I am happy and excited about the things I’ve been given! I am happy with the representation I’ve seen the Team push lately. I’m happy with the way the characters have been treated in Pesterquest and have high hopes for HS^2. And I am interested in the events of the Epilogues, while acknowledging that of course a lot of fucked up shit happened in them.

Back when the Epilogues happening and I was reading them, I was reading Candy at like 4 AM and was LOVING the fucked up-ness of the Timeline and wondering what may happen in Meat. I got a PM from a friend asking me to make a channel in a server I’m in, to quarantine Epilogues Discourse, and was genuinely confused as to why there was Discourse going on. I went through the rest of Candy and Meat with some dread waiting for some ball to drop and something to turn really controversial, and I finished them still enjoying them? Obviously there was a lot of awful shit. Obviously there was a lot of things people wouldn’t like. Obviously they were tales that likely alienated a chunk of the Fandom that was looking for a happy ending. But honestly, the unbridled fury and subsequent harassment of people over them is just plain embarrassing. It was confusing then, and it’s even more confusing now, well over half a year since their release, and still sending random Tumblr Blogs this kind of bullshit.

So there you go! All of your questions and your bullshit, answered! Now let’s get this out of the way: You’re not going to like my answer, you’re not going to agree with a majority of what I just said, you’re not going to CARE about any of what I just said. Spare me the fucking asks and anon hate. Just move on and do something productive with your time.

#Homestuck #Epilogues #Discourse #HSE #After Dark #Anon Hate #Long Post #Longpost

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