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mmmmalo · 5 years

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Jade & Bec

[This is an experimental post, exploring the threads between Jade & Bec, which will be updated regularly unto some semblance of completion.]

Are you familiar with the concept of trolls as manifestations? Cool, awesome, here’s a strange edge-case:

Tavros informs Jade that he prevented her death by commanding Bec to redirect a bullet into a villain’s heart. Jade informs Tavros that the “villain” was in fact her Grandpa, and Tavros attempts to defend his misguided heroics with the dignity of a wounded puppy dog. The strangeness: if Tavros is manifesting for Jade, why is he explaining Bec’s motivations for killing Grandpa? After all, Tavros directed Bec to do something Bec was already going to do – both of them are concerned with Jade’s safety. One might conclude that Bec (like Tavros) misjudged (not really) the danger presented by Grandpa (Harley). However, the manifestation of Tavros implies that these motivations also apply to Jade, despite her vocal insistence that Tavros is wrong.

What gives? Here’s a possibility broached in the second half of the conversation:

What if Bec is Jade’s imaginary friend? Tavros’s inexplicable manifestation for two parties would then be explained as voicing the thoughts of a mind divided. This would mean Jade shot Grandpa, albeit with several psychic buffers.

I realize that this would contradict the birth of Bec seen in Jade’s dreams, and that’s certainly not something to be ignored -- but then the trolls acting as psychological manifestations would likewise seem to contradict their existence as alien entities. The uncanny dissonance comes with the territory of dream logic, maybe.

Another reason to think Bec may have always already been a part of Jade: in the same way that cherubs seek to rekindle a primordial union, the kids in Homestuck universally aspire to a reunion. When John seeks to reunite with Dad, their separation analogous to the scratch on Dave’s record, an emblem of his fractured sense of self. John’s distance from (his image of) Dad is met with anxiety, and the urge to unite with that image drives much of his behavior throughout the story. Critically, a consequence of conceiving of this union as a re-union is that John fancies himself as having spawned directly from Dad’s image. (x)(x)(x)

As her riveting anthro treatise indicates, Jade similarly wishes to unite with Bec. The creation of Jadesprite corroborates this, as does the eventual realization of dogtier!Jade. But what could it mean for Jade to think of this as a RE-union? There’s certainly the sense in which Jade romanticizes shedding the trappings of civilization and embracing animal instinct, which can be conceived as having preceded humanity as we know it. In that sense, Jade could be said to be “returning” to a state from which humanity ostensibly divorced itself.

Put in familial terms, you might say humans are descended from beasts. Thus phrased, Jade being raised by a dog seems like a very apt metaphor.

Bec being Jade’s creation would admittedly invert this sense of who is parent and who is child, but there’s precedent for that sort of thing. The metaphor rich soils of Alternia has an upper class defined by the lower class trappings of Juggalo culture, after all. At this point I only want to establish a starting point for considering what it would mean for Bec to have already been Jade.

Main topics for future additions:

Why would Jade want to shoot Grandpa?

What are we to make of Bec’s powers if he is an extension of Jade?

(and of course, further justification for either of these questions being asked)

[5/3/2019] Topic: Jade & Lightning

First, a comment:

zenosanalytic

the parent stuff seems pretty easy, considering that it's de riguer in Homestuck for kids to be the parents of their parents

so like: Bec would both be a creation of Jade, and her primary parental figure. The different would be that, whereas with the B1s&2s it's a literal genetic link, with Jade and Bec it'd be more role-based.

...'difference' rather -__-

Thanks -- that’s further reason to regard that twist as a non-issue, except insofar as it may evince confusion on Jade’s part.

To get into the subject of why Jade would want to shoot Grandpa, it would be worth it to review and reevaluate stuff leading up to this. Namely, Jade’s fear of lightning.

When John entered the Medium, he had several near-falls: slipping on a staircase, launching into the air with his new Pogo-Hammer. Each encounter with the possibility of mortal descent was followed by the appearance of large ogres, who begin their assault after John looks down into the abyss. The ogres are physical manifestations of John’s abstract fear of heights, a fear which began with his fall from the slime pogo, and which Sburb stoked by placing his home on top of a huge spire. (Or perhaps it would be better to say that heights are the aspiration, and falling is the fear)

Subsequent encounters between kids and the monsters on their planets can be similarly understood as reactions to fears exemplified in some early trauma. Rose slams an ogre face-first into the oceans of LOLAR, which reminds her of the drowning of Jaspers. Dave gets his neck slit by an agent, which is an echo of the decapitated apartment building suspended over a bloodpool of lava, itself an echo of the fracturing of Dave’s identity from fraternal emasculation. In each case, the challenges posed by the game are directly sourced from some psychological fixation.

In Jade’s case, the appearance of her first imp is triggered by an aurora that bears a striking resemblance to lightning, giving a fairly direct indication of Jade’s fear. What’s more, the form of this manifestation is a callback to Bec’s first appearance! Naturally, this could be explained as simple callback reminding us the imp has inherited Bec’s powers via prototyping. But insofar as the imp is a manifestation induced by the image of a thunderbolt, the sequence suggests that Jade’s fear of lightning is closely associated with Bec.

There are precedents for this connection: one is rooted in the idea that the sylladex is itself a medium for the abstract expression of thought. When Jade attempts to draw her Eclectic Bass back into her Pictionary Modus, she instead captures the ghost image of Johnny 5, a sentient robot. This error is not a random occurrence, but rather a short circuit of mental association. Eclectic is two letters apart from electric, and Johnny 5 emerged as a consciousness due to a lightning strike, like a metallic Frankenstein monster. Immediately following this error, Bec appears and zaps Jade back to her room. – the dog is somehow both the interruption of this line of thought and its culmination.

The invocation of Frankenstein allows us to make some sense of the earliest iteration of this pattern: a pumpkin carved with the visage of Bec nearly awakens Jade when the reader tries to drop it on her head. 4 points:

John covered his walls with clowns and rude epithets; Rose scrawled frantic permutations of MEOW; and Dave drew SBAHJ. Each instance involves the kids expressing some kind of subconscious fixation or fear: John and his social anxiety, Rose and the echoes Jaspers’s swan song, Dave and the fever dreams within his art. There are no comparable drawings on the wall of Jade’s home, nor in her room on Prospit, but rather than concluding that Jade is an outlier to the trend, I would contend that Jade carved the face of Bec onto the pumpkin in her sleep instead. This again indicates a dread for Bec buried in Jade’s mind -- or rather, that Bec is an expression of some unspoken dread?

The pumpkin drop is echoed in drunk!Rose’s account of Newton’s mythic realization of the law of gravity. Rose says the proverbial strike of apple-to-noggin is symbolic of inspiration, the sudden intrusion of an idea. The same can be said of the pumpkin as a symbol: recall that the gift that inspired Jade to begin gardening in the first place was pumpkin seeds. So that which threatens to awaken Jade is the idea of Bec, again situating the scene

That the “reader” executes the drop is not arbitrary. It is crucial to the structure of the scene that the impetus for this attempted inspiration comes from beyond the fourth wall, for reasons I will elaborate upon in due time.

The inhabitants of dream bubbles are at times referred to as the dreaming dead, invoking the age old metaphor of death as a long sleep. The corollary is that awakening is akin to coming alive. As the allusion to Frankenstein via Johnny 5 might suggest, the flash of Bec-associated inspiration from beyond bears the possibility of no only awakening Jade, but of bringing her to life.

More lightning talk tomorrow.

[5/6/2019] Topic: Grandpa Harley

Let's skip to the end (and sort out the messy filler afterward): Jade's fear of lightning seems to be linked to a sexual assault at the hands of her grandfather.

An early hint comes by way of another reference to Johnny 5. Having alchemized the thunderstruck robot, Jade finds herself swarmed with notifications from the manifest Eridan. The Prince impresses upon her Ahab's Crosshairs, a weapon which had been previously established as a phallic lightning bolt (x). Knowing that the weapon will somehow make it to her grandson* Jake, Jade muses on the question of who she might have kids with. Eridan in turn balks at the thought of "pink wwigglers comin out a your owwn personal torso" -- a turn of phrase that obviously alienates us from childbirth, but also presents us with the image of worms or maggots wriggling in Jade's body. Rot blends with an image of fecundity, like the scarabs in the Mummy. We don't have the tools to make sense of this overlay of death and birth quite yet, but we will return to it. For now, consider this scene as a collage whose elements we cannot yet organize.

The more overt indication comes via Clubs Deuce. Recall when dream!Jade beat the snot out of CD for stealing the queen's ring, only to reveal that back in reality, Jade's dreambot was beating the stuffing out of dead!Grandpa? The juxtaposition suggests that Jade's violence towards CD in her dream is a displacement of some latent aggression towards Grandpa. Much later, just before Cascade, there is a payoff of sorts for this linkage: another lightning aurora hovers in the distance as Jade prepares for the scratch, and it triggers the return of CD. He drops in from the sky and kills Jade with an explosion of foam, knocking the Genesis Frog into the Forge in the process. The foam is ejaculatory, and the depositing the frog where it may gestate prior to its final descent/ascent to Skaia is an insemination. We infer that CD is playing the role of Grandpa in this display.

In response, Jack kills the shit out of CD, just as Bec killed Grandpa. The retaliation has echoes elsewhere. Recall the gag in which Hussie riffs on the end of the Neverending Story: he rides a white dog-dragon and avenges himself upon some bullies with a blast of stupid green dog barf. (Aside: it is out of the current scope, but worth noting that Hussie and Falkor respectively bear emblems of influence by Vriska and Lord English) The sequence is a silly mirror of Becsprite's annihilation of Jade's imminent meteor (the seed) with an immense blast of green fire. Entry sequences tend to involve some esoteric depiction of a character's trauma, and in this case, the meteor directly represents the "bully", Grandpa. (And perhaps to a lesser extent, bullies like Karkat, who in their own way posed a violent, intrusive threat to her (emotional) well being)

The entry meteor's threatened impact with the earth is but one example of the colliding celestial spheres that seem to haunt Jade. In Descend, Jade's reverie in the golden city is cut short as Jack severs the umbilical chain connecting the moon and planet (child and parent), sending the moon careening into the Battlefield below, crushing Jade. As with the meteors that swarm Skaia like sperm upon an egg, the child-status of the moon renders its crash akin to a seeding. A subsequent collision is more direct: Jake's Hope field versus Jade's green fireball. The entire grimbark scenario was triggered by Jade catching a glimpse of Jake's banana hammock (though of course, on a plot level the transformation was triggered by HIC's mind control). To drive the point home, Jade bemoans her inability to detach her focus from Jake's undies as they duel. As Jade is overpowered, the collision of Hope and Space comes to resemble the visage of Doc Scratch -- this unsettles due both to Scratch's pedophilia, and the way that the mind/body blocking of the scene reinforces the sense of domination from Jake to Jade. Adding insult to injury, the defeated Jade is crushed to death by a long white tower.

All this would seem to have been foreshadowed by Dave's comment on the earth being under assault by planet fucking Jupiter; the invocation of Zeus connects his comically absurd doomsday scenario to Jade's fear of lightning.

Next topic -- motifs connected to imbuing inert matter with the breath of life, and how they relate to Jade's sense of agency.

#utterly insufficient but that's the point #to be continued #homestuck reread 3 #jade #bec #jake

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catflowerqueen · 5 years

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Weaving Threads, Part One

Okay, that... took a lot longer than I thought it would, and I didn’t even really get to the part I was planning to get to. Hm... Ah, well, I can write the continuation for it later.

You can consider this a sort of “fix-it” for the Homestuck Epilogues, if you wish to do so, though that isn’t exactly my intention here. I actually enjoyed the epilogues, despite how sad and disheartening they were at some points, and consider this to be my way of allaying those feelings, if only a little, while simultaneously weaving them into a larger narrative I have been in the planning stages of for... I guess at least two years, at this point? Perhaps even longer. Maybe even since the Omegapause... which is a rather scary thought.

I can’t actually promise a swift continuation to this, as I have other obligations as well, both in my writing and my life in general, but I am hopeful that I will at least be able to get this small story done and out soon.

Oh, and if you’re confused by what’s going on and who’s POV this is, that’s intentional.

Feel free to leave questions in my inbox, though, again, no guarantees on swift responses.

The clouds obscure the moon behind you as you alight silently upon the ground, still on your toes, before slowly settling your feet fully on the grass. You take a moment to appreciate the fact that your godtiered state allows for the use of your wings to be optional when it comes to flying, as it has enabled your journey here to be silent and your presence unnoticed. While you would normally be disappointed by the lack of the dramatic flair that swiftly pulling in your gorgeous wings as you landed would have afforded you, right now you are too busy relishing the air of mystery that surrounds you. Unlike some people you know, you actually have class and can enjoy the subtleties and challenge of remaining unnoticed and not receiving immediate credit for or acknowledgement of your actions.

Especially when the payoff will include the eventual realization of the hand you had to play in events, and the slow, delicious, dawning horror that the people involved were completely at your mercy; you could have done so much more, so much worse, and there is not a single thing they could have done about it had you chosen that course of action.

There are reasons people often fear you the most out of your little group, despite your general passivity.

But you digress.

After the customary moment of marveling the atmosphere, both the physical and the metaphorical, you creep quietly towards the camp your prey has made. You would be surprised at the young godlings’ foolishness in committing the classic mistake of falling so hard into revelry and smug assurances that their future plans are foolproof, despite the many, many, times their past plans had gone so pear-shaped by the end if not for the fact that you, unfortunately, are acquainted with their future selves and the circles of stupidity they don’t even try to pull themselves out of most of the time. Instead, they actively try to pull others into them. And those attempts end up succeeding a lot of the time, and then infecting those poor, unlucky, drawn-in souls with a propensity for creating stupidity circles of their own and then repeating the exact same thing over. And over. And over. And they already caught your “family” in it long before you were hatched, and mildly infected you as well. Unfortunately.

But tonight, as you kneel down behind the young Seer and place your hand upon her forehead—careful not to wake her, or scratch her with your claws—you get the chance to actually give someone a little push to break those circles and form newer, better ones. But not ones that are any less stupid, seeing as you, to reiterate the point made above, about stupidity drawing others towards itself and then repeating ad infinitum, are currently smack dab in the middle of a stupidity parade at this very moment. And the fact that it is a stupidity parade is an immutable fact, that you are stating for the record. But, to your chagrin, it does not mean that actions necessary for the continuation of the alpha timeline are not taking place here. Also to your chagrin, you cannot deny that you are, at least a teeny bit, enjoying the thrill that comes with knowledge that you and your powers are the only ones who can set events onto their proper course, nor can you deny your enjoyment of the challenge that comes with doing so discreetly, with none the wiser until things come to their full fruition.

You may not be a time player, but you love seeing time loops stabilize and fall into place while paradoxes resolve themselves. You consider these things one of the marks of a well-crafted narrative, at least for certain genres, and there is practically nothing you love more than well-crafted narratives.

Even ones which would lead to your non-existence, you acknowledge, as you let your powers flow into the Seer’s mind, opening hers and allowing you to see the fragments of an offshoot timeline that you’ve now forced her to witness and then subconsciously analyze with her own powers. You watch as her face crumples and she whines a little in obvious emotional discomfort, and you lament that those timelines can never become alpha. Such despair… how seamlessly they fed into each other… how well they showed the subtleties and character of those involved… but, alas, it was never meant to be.

As you remove first your hand from the sleeping Seer’s head, then yourself from her vicinity, and finally your feet from the ground, you ponder yet again over the recurring notion that your habit of mourning over the non-happenings of events and timelines which would result in your being Doomed and/or dead and/or non-existent all while acknowledging the fact that you do actually like being alive so that you can have the chance to mourn them is a large part of the reason that most people you are vaguely aware of consider you to be—pardon the vulgarity—completely shithive maggots.

Well, that and the way that you can easily quantify most of your doomed selves’ “losses” as landslide victories for a multitude of reasons beyond their necessity to lose in order to preserve and further the alpha timeline, and that you can do it in such a way that no one ever perceives such quantifications as indicative of you being a sore loser. Which you really are not: you genuinely and truly believe that most, if not all, of those so-called “losses” were in reality victories, and you can use logic to prove exactly why you are correct in thinking so.

But all that is beside the point. What was done tonight is done; with any luck, it will be enough to set things on their proper course. And as you alight once more upon the ground after having finally found your transportation once more and given her a pat on the head to get her to stop pretending to be asleep before retrieving a fish from your sylladex to give her incentive to to actually bring you back to the correct time and place you left, you can’t help but smile deviously in anticipation for when your actions and the reasoning behind them are finally revealed to everyone else. You look forward to leaving their frantic messages with no response, and their questions forever unanswered.

…Or at least unanswered by you, since you are sure that your sister or “niece” or someone will eventually take pity on them and explain. Or get annoyed by their badgering and explain. It’s always a toss-up between the two when it comes to dealing with the consequences of your actions, really, since heaven knows you’re never going to deal with them.

>Rose Lalonde: Wake up

#homestuck #fanfiction #homestuck epilogues #spoilers #stars not constellations #weaving threads

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blatherkatt · 7 years

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Title: The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You Know [Homestuck]

Chapter 18: Wiggler-steps

Summary: There were two kinds of trolls who went to Earth: rich shitheads with too much money and free time, and desperate assholes who couldn’t survive on Alternia, even with the best efforts of the young Condesce. Karkat hated the planet almost immediately, but with his home planet too dangerous for mutants, he really didn’t have any choice but to hide out on this weird little diurnal planet. At least he’d be safe. Or so he thought, right before blundering his way into an accidental friendship with the son of an anti-troll terrorist.

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Mentioned/implied abuse

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

It had been two days since Dave was supposed to go back to Bro, since Kanaya’d been hurt and all that, and Dave was still fucking reeling from the aftermath. Or, more accurately, the lack thereof.

Like, seriously, what the fuck.

He was definitely still feeling guilty as fuck about it, but…everyone else seemed to have gotten over it? Dirk was sorta making him nervous and being as stoic and hard to read as ever, but for all the times the guy looked pissed off (well, more like annoyed, but years of living with Bro had taught Dave that on that face, annoyed meant pissed), nothing had ever come of it. Rose was being really gentle, lately, fuckin’ asking him if he was okay like all the damn time, and he’d never tried saying ‘no’ to her yet, but he was starting to think it might actually be okay to do so. He was still experiencing whiplash from how quick she’d turned that conversation about The Kanaya Thing around, fuck. Mom hadn’t even talked about any sort of punishment, Kanaya seemed totally okay with everything (aside from being generally vaguely bewildered about the whole vampire deal, which was totally fair), even fuckin’ Terezi had let him off the hook with a warning.

And…then there was Karkat. He hadn’t done anything either, except for a good dose of the silent treatment. Dave suspected that was mainly because he hadn’t actually talked to Karkat about it yet. Wasn’t super looking forward to doing so, but he was gonna do it. Right the fuck today. Time to clear the fuckin’ air, get this smoggy conflict shit outta there so we can all fuckin’ breathe.

Karkat was, at present, down on the couch in the living room, watching some troll movie on his troll computer. Dave swallowed hard, and walked over to Karkat.

“Hey,” said Dave. Great start. Awesome. Fantastic way to start an apology.

“Hmph,” said Karkat. His ear flicked as Dave dropped down next to him on the couch, but his eyes remained trained on his laptop.

“So,” Dave said, scrambling to keep his train of thought reigned in enough that he could actually put words to it, “like, for the record, in advance, if the answer is gonna be ‘no, fuck off, never talk to me again, you have screwed the pooch so hard the furries have fully embraced you as one of their own whether you like it or not, get the fuck away from me and never talk to me again,’ that’s totally fine and I will shut the fuck up and be out of your hair, but. Can we, like, talk? About shit? ‘Cuz I, uh. Probably owe you an apology. I mean, you and everyone, but most of them’ve already heard it, and their responses have been, uh, kind of fucking weird, honestly, but. Ugh, I’m fucking this up already, Jesus Christ, there’s no end to this verbal fucking flood, the levies have already broken, just start breakin’ out the inflatable rafts and start blowing, and not in the sexy way —”

“If I say yes, will you shut up?” Karkat groaned.

“…Uh, I mean. I’m asking to talk, but, uh.”

“Okay, how about this, then: what’s the point, Dave, skip the impossibly unending torrent of words, ditch the fucking flotation devices altogether, and cut straight to what you actually came down here to say. Please.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what, exactly,” Karkat said, his voice flat. His eyes were still trained on that movie. Some troll on screen was barking something really mean sounding to another in Alternian in the middle of a really violent looking makeout session. At least, Dave thought it was a makeout session. The two might have actually been literally trying to suck each others’ faces off. Dave shuddered, shook his head, and tried not to look. Fuckin’ troll romance shit, Jesus.

“Well, do you want the list in alphabetical order, or…” Dave trailed off, let the joke die before it had a chance to drop its pants on stage. Wasn’t funny, and Karkat clearly wasn’t in the mood, judging by the stony look in his eyes. “…Everything, I guess. Uh. I’m really fucking sorry for getting Kanaya hurt, she seems really okay with it and…thanked me, for some reason? Which was almost as confusing as what Rose did, but whatever. I’m…sorry for taking advantage of you being a really decent dude, way back when you caught me sneaking in, too. That was…that was kinda scummy of me, even if I thought it was necessary at the time.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Karkat said. Dave suppressed a flinch. “I trusted you, Dave! I thought you were just doing something harmless like feeding an animal or something, and it turns out you were putting all of us in danger! Kanaya’s…” Karkat’s voice choked, and he turned his head further away, clutching at his arm. “She’s basically my best fucking friend, and I almost lost her. I fucking gambled on everyone’s safety, just letting you sneak out like that. I should’ve told someone, but past me had to be a stupid fucking idiot with giant diamonds in his eyes about it.”

“I…wait, diamonds? Fuck it, nevermind, weird alien expressions can wait.” Dave shook his head. “I know it doesn’t really help anything, but honest to God, I never meant to…I was gonna just go quietly, that way no one’d get hurt and I’d be out of everyone’s hair —”

“ExcUSE ME?” Karkat yelped, turning back toward Dave with his eyes wide, angry, and watery, but Dave wasn’t done.

“—and everything could go back to normal, but that last night was so fucking peaceful that the thought of going back to having to constantly be on full alert sounded so fucking exhausting and I couldn’t stand it, and I knew that I’d waited too long to tell you guys for everything to just be okay, and, and I thought everyone was gonna be pissed at me over it, which they kind of were but not nearly as mad as I expected, and, and —”

“Dave,” Karkat hissed, grabbing Dave’s arm and making him jump, “Holy shit, you’re gonna work yourself into another panic attack. Breathe, dumbass, watch your breathing.”

Dave took a deep breath, tried to talk again, and was immediately silenced by a gray hand slapped over his mouth.

“No. Stop. That’s enough. I think I get the idea. You made a mistake. I’m not as mad as you think I am, calm down.”

“You’re not?” Dave said, as the hand pulled away, hating a little how hopeful his voice sounded. He was like a fucking dog perking up at the tiniest bit of praise, fuckin’ ridiculous.

Karkat sighed. “Yeah. Call me the biggest pan-baked maggot spawn this side of the fucking galaxy, because I’m accepting your fucking apology on account of knowing you only did what you did because you’re scared and Strider fucked up your think pan and because I…really like being your friend.”

Dave blinked.

“It’s because I hate myself,” Karkat clarified. “I hate myself, and deeply enjoy my own misery in constantly dealing with you and your incessant bullshit and how you are just fantastic at being the biggest pain in the ass.”

“Uh,” said Dave.

“And what I’m saying I guess is that I’m really glad I know you and you’ve made moving to this godforsaken backwater rubbish heap of a planet a lot more bearable even if you did make this one catastrophic fuckup and you clearly fully get that you screwed it up and won’t do it again, so please stop talking about yourself like you’re a fucking burden on the lives of everyone around you when really you’re not. You are, at worst, kind of obnoxious and prone to making stupid mistakes, which, fuck, I’m guilty of that shit, and you know what let’s change the fucking subject before I embarrass us both any further.”

“Uh.”

“Dave, words.”

“Can I have like a minute to process?” Dave said.

“No. Fuck that. The less of the horrible vile sludge I just let escape my stupid mouth you manage to filter through your think pan, the better things will be for the both of us.”

Dave stifled a snicker at that. “What, and ignore that basket of warm fuzzies you just gift wrapped and delivered at my door? Bro. What kind of asshole do you take me for?”

“The kind who apparently cannot be decent enough to allow an accidental, humiliating outpouring of affection slide. Yes, I have shamed myself to a greater extent than ever before, and you noticed. Can we please move on.”

“That was gay as hell, dude, I’m fuckin’ swooning over here.”

“Rose, there’s a good subject to swerve the fuck over to and leave this train of conversation a distant speck in our memories. What did you mean when you said Rose’s reaction was weird?”

“Oh, you’re not getting out of this that easy, man. I think I need to reflect a little longer on how much my good buddy loves me—“

“DAVE WHAT DID ROSE DO. I AM CHANGING THE SUBJECT.”

“Fine, Jesus, you big killjoy,” said Dave. “Uh, she like…she mostly just yelled at me for a while, actually? And then she like…took my shades off, and just…did a total fuckin’ one-eighty, said she accepted the apology and…said she was sorry to me, like. She said she overreacted and…just walked out after that? And I’m kind of freaking out about it to be honest?”

“….Seriously? What the fuck?” said Karkat. “I mean, great, awesome, I’m glad, but what the fuck? Are we talking about the same Rose here?”

“I, well, uh…” Dave ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, like, I was expecting…you know. No one’s really tried to actually punish me for what happened. Rose fuckin…Let me hang out with her, like, all day yesterday. Wasn’t angry at all, nothing. And…I mean, I definitely fucked up, right?”

“Dave, the fact that you fucked up is so undeniably a fact that scientists have not even bothered to write it down, because it is absurdly obvious and utterly inarguable. It is one of the most core and unchanging facts of this universe. You fucked up hard.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Dave said. “But. I mean, all I’ve gotten is a bit of yelling, and Rose fuckin’ apologized for that. Hell, even Terezi just like wagged a finger at me and said to not do it again.”

“Which, by the way, next time you sneak out,” Karkat said, “I’m not keeping it secret. The entire world will know.”

“There won’t be a next time, you got my word on that, dude,” Dave said. “Not if I can help it. Lesson’s been learned. But also what the fuck? Why is everyone being so nice about it?”

Karkat snorted. “Dave, I still don’t get how family works, and I can tell you that they’re definitely not going to fucking attack you over what boils down to an honest if deeply misguided mistake. You thought you were doing what you were supposed to right up until the end, you were never malicious, and they get that. Even Rose, apparently.”

“…But I fucked up.”

“They forgave you for that,” Karkat said. “It’s fine. Do better next time.”

“But. But….” Dave drummed his fingers against his leg. “I just. I mean, yeah, they’ve been saying that no one’s gonna hurt me, but. Fucking…” He threw his arms up and sat back with the most confused, irritated noise he could muster. “Fuck’s sakes, man, if they won’t even come after me for this, then what the fuck have I been trying to stay out of their way for?”

“I mean, you don’t have to do that,” Karkat said. “Rose has literally been trying to tell you that you can come out whenever you want.”

“Fuck,” said Dave. “I know I probably sound like a fuckin’ idiot right now, but. Just. Nothing makes sense anymore, what the fuck.”

“Nothing’s made sense to me since I moved to this planet,” said Karkat. “You’re on your own figuring this shit out. Good fucking luck.”

“Thanks,” said Dave. “You’re a real pal. Super helpful, Karkat.”

“I aim to please.”

Dave snorted. Then, he paused, glanced away a moment, and said, “So, like, just to be totally clear, though…we’re cool, now, right?”

“You’re so far from cool, your heat could power an entire fucking planet for a millenia. You are the antithesis of cool, Dave Strider. But yes, things are alright between us.”

“Alright, second question,” Dave said, allowing himself to lean back against the couch. “What the fuck are you watching?”

“The title’s too long for me to recite right now, but it’s a fucking classic, and I will not stand for your usual brand of culturally insensitive bullshit —“

“Why did the little one just make bedroom eyes at the guy who just kicked his ass?”

“It’s fucking blackrom, dumbass, they’re flirting.”

“That’s not fucking flirting, it’s a goddamn cage match. All they need is the fuckin’ leotards and some secret identities and — oh, I’ll be damned, one of them is actually wearing a leotard.”

Karkat slammed his finger down on the button. “Excuse me, asshole,” he snapped, “This is a beautiful fucking story of the darkest of whirlwind romances, it is a beautifully tragic of star-crossed hatred the likes of which your kind could never create!”

“Sure we could, man,” Dave said, grinning. “That shit’s on, like, every Thursday, I think. World Wrestling Entertainment’s got you covered for all your muscular-dudes-in-tight-revealing-clothes-hitting-each-other-and-grunting needs. Totally one hundred per-cent Not Gay groping, wrestling, and general squirming around on the mat guaranteed or your money back, complete with a totally bullshit nonsensical storyline just for the hell of it.”

“You know what, I changed my mind, friendship over,” said Karkat.

Truth be told, Karkat hadn’t quite fully forgiven Dave just yet. Nearly losing Kanaya had been a blow, even if she had been okay in the end. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to be all that angry with Dave, either. He maybe was uninclined to trust Dave completely, but he did understand why this particular mistake had happened.

And as furious as hearing Dave admit to essentially feeling like he was a burden to them all, he couldn’t claim that he wasn’t once again in the exact same shitty floating contraption.

Dave was right about one thing — there was no way Strider wasn’t going to try something again. Karkat couldn’t bring himself to fully trust Dave to be honest if such a plan did happen, but even more than that, he was disgusted with himself. He’d been basically useless, relegated to watching the fucking doors, and even that he’d almost failed at. The first hint of trouble had sent him scrambling away to safety. He was still every bit the fucking coward who’d had to flee his entire planet.

Next time, he wanted to be ready.

The first step in achieving that plan, though, was to find either Rose or Dirk, and asking either of them for help was not a prospect he was looking forward to. Rose would no doubt be exceptionally smug about the whole thing, lording the fact that he needed a little bit of assistance with one single thing over his head, and Dirk…fuck, Karkat still didn’t blame Dave for being scared of the guy. He wasn’t quite the oppressive presence Strider had been, but he was still something of a ghost. Also, Karkat had no idea where the fuck his room was, so Rose was probably his best bet.

Rose, at least, was in her own room. She was working with her knitting again, and had evidently been talking to Kanaya. She continued to do so, in fact, even after Karkat cleared his throat to get their attention. Apparently, whatever trashy book they were intensely whispering about was pretty fucking engrossing, because he had to clear his throat again before they looked up.

“Am I interrupting something?” Karkat said. “I’d hate to cut short an important debate on the merits of the adventures of blood drinking, or whatever the fuck you two talk about.”

The girls shared a look, and Kanaya, to Karkat’s surprise, excused herself, tapping her hand on Karkat’s shoulder warmly as she passed.

“We were talking about you, actually,” Rose said, putting her yarnwork aside. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you, and wanted to ask some advice on how to do so.”

Karkat pricked his ears. “Talk to me about what?” he said, tipping his head.

She bit her lip and looked aside for a moment, tapping her fingers as though collecting her thoughts. “Well, first and foremost, I suppose I should apologize,” she said.

Karkat’s jaw dropped. Rose, too? It was only a couple hours since he’d talked to Dave! “Holy shit,” he said, grinning, “Between you and Dave, I must’ve hit the fucking apology jackpot today. It’s about fucking time I got some proper appreciation around here.”

“Ha ha,” Rose deadpanned.

“Okay, but seriously, for what exactly. Be detailed, I wanna enjoy this. Rose Lalonde admits she was wrong.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “While I probably deserve at least some of your smugness…No, I probably deserve all of it, actually. I really have been in the wrong here.” She looked at Karkat, her eyes serious. “You were right about Dave. I know that now. You were trying to tell us how to help him, and I was so caught up in my own assumptions about him and my petty jealousy that I didn’t see that you were always only acting in his best interest, nor how much I was hurting him. I’ve already apologized to him for it, and I’d like to extend the same to you.”

“What took you so long?” Karkat gloated. Yeah, this was pretty fucking nice.

“The aforementioned jealousy, mostly,” Rose stated. “I was so frustrated and bitter over you being closer to Dave than I am, you knowing him better, that instead of trying to fix things, I took it out on the both of you. Neither of you deserved that.”

Karkat’s brow furrowed. “Of course I know him better than you do,” he said, “I had an extra week to get to know him compared to you guys. Not to mention I literally spent that week living in the exact same fucking horrific situation he’s been through. Even with that, I still don’t know the full weight of the crushing behemoth’s foot that is the shit he’s been through, but I’ve at least seen enough that I can fill in a few fucking blanks. I have the advantage! Why the fuck would you know him better?”

“Because he’s my twin!” Rose huffed, frustration strong in her voice. “He’s — we’re supposed to be — I can’t stand feeling like my own twin is a complete stranger, and seeing a literal alien having more of a relationship to him than I do is a bitter pill to swallow.”

“…You two look nothing alike, though,” Karkat said. “What the fuck does looking similar have to do with knowing him, anyway? I mean, that’s what that word means, right? That you’re like. Mirror images or whatever?” It was a word he’d seen come up sometimes in human media, and he’d guessed its meaning through context, but no troll he’d met had been able to actually translate the word that made any kind of sense to him. But clearly this was important to Rose, and therefore probably a concept he should understand for Dave’s sake, at least.

Because Dave definitely did want to have a relationship with Rose, Karkat knew. All along, she’d been the one he’d been most excited to see again, even back at the space station; Karkat still remembered how Dave’s face had changed visibly, even through the shades, back when he’d seen her on the aircraft they’d arrived here on. And if what Rose was looking for had to do with this weird twin thing, then Karkat would try his best to make some sense of it.

Rose, judging by her thoughtful sigh, also understood that this was not going to be an easy topic to speak about. “How to explain the significance of twins to a species with no concept of siblings, hm.” She tapped her finger on the counter several times, eyes narrowed in deep thought. “I know Dirk and I aren’t the greatest examples, but typically, with siblings, there’s a connection that’s…hard to really describe and quantify. Kanaya’s described some sibling interactions she’s run across in books as seeming ‘pale,’ but from my understanding of those relationships in your kind, comparing moirails to siblings still leaves a great deal to be desired. Siblings don’t have to be close, necessarily, but there is a sense of…of relying on each other, I suppose. By virtue of sharing the same situation growing up, theres a deeper understanding of one’s home situation than could be gained by just about anyone else. There may be fights, and Dirk and I certainly don’t often get along, as you’ve no doubt noticed, but at the end of the day we do love each other, and there’s…an underlying understanding, beneath it all, that some day we may each be all the other has.”

She looked at him, waiting for a response. Karkat wasn’t sure he had one. He couldn’t make head nor tail of any of what she was saying. Pale, but not pale? Rose and Dirk sure as shit weren’t remotely pale.

Rose sighed. “Okay, let me try coming at it from another angle, then…Imagine someone who is not exactly a moirail to you; you wouldn’t necessarily tell them everything, they aren’t your confidant or the one you’d go to first when you need to calm down, or, I don’t know, maybe for some people they would be, some siblings are very close indeed. But for all siblings whose relationship is a healthy one, when things are really bad, when you’re at your worst and don’t know what to do, they’re the one you think to turn to for help. Granted, that’s more family in general than just siblings, but it’s the same idea.”

“I don’t…” Karkat paused. Actually, now that he thought about it, he did kind of get that description. It pretty much summed up his feelings on, well, Kanaya. Terezi and Sollux too, for that matter, not that he’d admit as much to their faces. Or to Kanaya’s face. Fuck if he was saying it to Rose, either, this shit was embarrassing. “…I think I get what you’re getting at,” he said instead. He tried thinking of his very private feelings on the other trolls in context of what Rose had said earlier, then — what it might have been like sharing a home with them growing up, how that might have changed things.

Living with Terezi or Sollux would have been awful, actually, but the time spent sharing a house with Kanaya so far hadn’t been so bad, he supposed. And her presence here had definitely been a source of comfort in a way that was decidedly not pale. He didn’t feel the need to cuddle up to her and talk about feelings, but it was nice knowing that she had his back.

“Right,” said Rose, “And then when you have twins, there’s an entire extra level of that. There’s all sorts of folklore in different cultures about twins, about them having special abilities to sense each others’ condition, about opposites, so on and so forth. Make of that what you will, I personally can’t say for sure if I know there’s much truth in it. But what I do know is that…just by virtue of being the same age, the shared experience aspect increases so much. We, Dave and I, what I remember of those first years when he was still here…we were nearly always together. Not always by choice, we certainly didn’t always get along, but we…we would have taken our first steps together, we almost certainly started talking at around the same time, and we…we should have gone to our first day of school together, too, but then two weeks before that started, he decided that he wanted a child after all, and whisked Dave away, and I…we…had to face the world alone.”

Rose’s face contorted with a mixture of immeasurable fury and a deep sorrow, and her voice dropped to scarcely more than a whisper. “Even now, the man isn’t finished stealing from us. We should be graduating and going off to college at the same time, in a couple of years, but now? Dave’s missed ten years of school. I don’t know if that means much to you, but trust me, it’s a lot. More than he could hope to make up. And after what I saw a couple days ago, how frightened he is, I suspect Mother’s decision to homeschool Dave whenever he is ready was the right one. I don’t think he could handle the stress of a school environment. So we can’t graduate together, we can’t learn to drive together, we didn’t get to struggle through our first crushes at around the same time…We’ve missed so much, and we’ll keep missing some things, and I hate it.”

She looked at Karkat very hard, in a way that almost made him uncomfortable. “I can’t say it doesn’t still burn me, that an alien, a complete stranger to our family, was the first person he decided to trust.” Her eyes softened. “But after how fearful I saw him, I can’t keep letting my pride keep me from doing wha the needs of me, and the fact is, he does trust you, far more than any of us, and if I’m to repair what’s left of our relationship, I’m going to need your help.”

Karkat thought for a long moment.

Yeah, wow, that was…a lot to process. So much of this felt alien to him still, but he could sort of imagine how deeply important this sort of thing could be to a species that put so much emphasis on their tightly knit social groups.

(In truth, while he didn’t fully understand the concept, it…appealed, in a lot of ways. The idea of not having to face the world alone, of having a group of people you could always trust to be there to support you in times of need. If that was what this whole…family thing Dave had insisted was so important in defending Strider was really about, then…that made a little more sense.)

“Well, fuck,” Karkat said, finally. “I think I got like, maybe a third of that? Chalk it up as another stunning pain in the ass courtesy of cultural differences, I guess. Tell you what, though,” he said, and oh, this was a good segue. He got some fucking respect, and now he could turn it into a way of asking for help and not being mocked for it. “I’ll accept your apology and agree to help you figure Dave out, if you help me with something.”

“Of course,” Rose said, blinking. “Anything. What did you have in mind.”

Karkat took a deep breath. “Do you have someplace where I could practice fighting?”

#karkat vantas #dave strider #rose lalonde #homestuck #davekat #longpost//#fanfiction #fanfic #calmvsstormfic #calmvsstormchapter #katt does a writing #sorry this one took so loNG #next time: rose and dirk cannot be chill for even five minutes #roxy doesnt deserve this. why are her cousins like this.

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digdeepergravedigger09 · 7 years

Text

So I was tagged both by @naferty and @imaginestarkquill about this ... post meme thing. It took a while because of some certain questions. And also I talk a LOT. It’s just a thing I do. Talk a lot. Get into a tangent. I may have taken this way too seriously. One of the questions also contain a certain aspect of myself that I really dislike about myself. I tried to answer honestly, but I have to admit I am very defensive and I’ve qualified a lot of things trying to excuse myself. I answered it as honestly as I would on a personal blog that this is.

Also, gross insect death.

Rules: answer the questions in a new post and tag 20 blogs you would like to know better!

A - age: 25... 26? I’m not entirely sure. It’s hard to remember when you’re one year older than your birthdate says you are apparently B - birthplace: Korea C - current time: 3.46 PM D - drink you last had: Water E - easiest person to talk to: It depends on what I want to talk about. I usually talk most of everything with my mom, and all that I don’t want to talk about with her, with my bf, and all that I don’t want to talk with either of them, with @deredana. F - favorite song: For the longest of time, it had been Chrystalanthemums from the Homestuck Album 1-4, but these days I’m in love with Hey Judy by Julie Robert from the Event [0] Soundtrack.

Continued under Keep reading.

G - grossest memory: Grade 7. First biology class of the year. Sat next to this kid who had a plastic folder/bag. Very sturdy, holds textbooks. There was a fly in the room, and apparently it sat on the table, before this kid with the bag. He slams it on the fly. Apparently, the fly tried to take off, but its lower... half... got crushed by the folder bag. Apart from the disgusting black mess that was the fly, there were.... white... tiny... things. That were crawling everywhere. Just... tiny, tiny tiny maggots crawling to every which direction. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I’m still scared of hitting/killing flies that I will just run away from them instead of swatting them away. I don’t want to look at flies, I don’t want to think about flies. H - horror yes or horror no: Horror no. Just no. Thriller is fine, but horror is no. I - in love?: In love what? Am I in love? What is love? Baby don’t hurt me No but seriously, everything that people say about “love” seem to be accepted to be all simultaneously accurate and incoherent mess of contradictions. How can you know the “love” you say is the same “love” I feel? I know “love” can be felt in differing intensity, but how would I know, in the root, that they are the same feeling? I can’t tell if I am “in love” because I don’t know if what I’m feeling is love. I don’t understand whatever feeling the world’s literature describes love to be, it’s all nonsense. I think I’d prefer the phrase “extreme fondness” over “love” to be honest. “Love” is such a loaded word. But yeah, I guess I am “in love” currently, with someone. J - jealous of people?: Yes. I’m a jealous and envious person. I hate that I can’t be 100% genuine when I say I congratulate people for succeeding, especially in areas where I myself want to succeed. I don’t actually hate the individuals themselves, I don’t think. But I do get resentful - I know that it is irrational and petty and ridiculous and just overall it says a lot about what person I am - when I am not the best/better. I think I got it down to a point where I will have a constant, low undercurrent of envy and resentment under my skin, but I like to think that I do a good job on not outwardly hating the people themselves for their success, at the very least. And I know this might taint some people’s perception of myself, that I may be lying to them about me being happy for their success. I’m not lying about that part; I really am glad they are getting a good thing in their life. But if you don’t believe me (and I don’t blame you, after everything I’ve written), don’t mind the selfish person being jealous. You got your success because you worked hard for it, or if it was a lucky break, but it was your well-deserved lucky break. K - killed someone?: Only in my dreams. Wow, that sounds wrong. I mean nightmares. But also dreams sometimes. I kill a lot of people in both my dreams and nightmares. That’s not a better answer. L - love at first sight or should I walk by again: I don’t believe in “love” at first sight. I prefer the understanding that “love” comes after years of stable, familiar relationship where you can accept everything of each other. So, no, no love at first sight, nor walking by again would help. M - middle name: I don’t have a middle name. N - number of siblings: I’m an only child. O - one wish: To have enough money to not have the audacity to make up an excuse to pass by any people who ask for help on the streets. To have enough money that I made on my own, to not be a burden on my parents or on my significant other. To be self sufficient and more, to be able to be generous without feeling guilty and facetious. P - person you called last: My boyfriend. Q - question you’re always asked: "How’s life?” “What will you do after you do (this thing I’m currently doing)?” Everything is going horribly, thank you, and I have no idea where my life is headed currently. But I’m trying to manage everything. I appreciate that you’re trying to help, and they probably will help in the end, but right now as I hear that question I am filled with anger and resentment and everything that pops into my head is venom and vitriol. Unfortunately I don’t get asked many questions that don’t have to do with things I hate to think about the most. R - reason to smile: Healthy, happy animals. People who enjoy their lives. (I’m envious, but I’m also happy to see others be happy and passionate about their life and work. I don’t know what that’s about either) S - song you sang last: As in Karaoke? It’s been so long - 낭만고양이 by Cherry Filter, I suppose. Gosh, it’s been ages. Just by myself? Art is Dead by Bo Burnham. U - underwear color: Navy and Black. V - vacation: I might go to where my parents are for like a week, once everything is over. X - x-rays: What do you want from this question? I don’t understand. Have I ever been x-ray’d? Yes. I think most people would have, at least once in their lives? Y - your favourite food: Noodles. All noodles. Instant noodles, Udon, Ramen, Gooksoo, Pho, Bun Cha, Spaghetti, Phat Thai, Bun Bo Hue, etc and all that I may not remember. With few notable exceptions: I don’t like Korean Soy noodles, and I don’t particularly enjoy vermicelli, unless cooked in a very specific dish. Z - zodiac sign: Virgo

I do have some certain people I would like to get to know better. I have a feeling many of you have already done this - it’s been a while since I got tagged too, so. But if you haven’t, please do? @reioka @tonystarktogo @saved-by-the-notepad @westbrookwestbooks @feelingsinwinter @deredana @beir @bloody-bee-tea and any of you who might want to try too, consider yourselves tagged!

#I don't like the J question #It really just pulled me down to a place I don't want to be #I'm bitter about most of this tbh #I'm trying to be better #personal #I changed the answer to that question a lot #a LOT #it feels a lot more PG than it was before #so I feel better about tagging people onto this #squished bug story #gross bug story #gross bug #it took me a while #because I was toning things down so I could feel comfortable tagging people #I talk a lot #as I usually do

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