#goddamnit i thought of homestuck

[wickedhellagoodtime]

#homestuck art #latula #latula pyrope #pyrope #home of stuck #art #digital art #pls I tried my best #not me being low key upset my dream Freddy didn’t get popular #I’m not mad you are #no but in all seriousness I’m just a bit upset lol #anyways have some art #not that anyone asked #goddamnit i thought of homestuck #homestuck #bingus #okay art

[thegoodthebadthealternative]

The Good, The Bad, and The Alternative: a homestuck fanfiction. Chapter 34, an excerpt:

"Well, that sounds better than no plan, I suppose," Kanaya agreed. "We'll take a table far enough away that you don't feel like we're hovering."

"And we'll keep an eye out for you going mister cool guy mode if you flub too many open and honest type behaviors," Vriska added.

"Goddamnit, you were eavesdropping." Dave sighed, swinging his legs up so he could sit on the counter sideways, able to see both of them. "Was there any part of this convo that actually stayed private?"

"I could lie if it makes you feel better," Vriska said, shoving her hand in her jeans pocket. She pulled out a crumbled fifty-dollar bill. "Is this enough to cover these clothes? Walmart shirts are fine for casual wear, but if I look super schlubby, I'll stand out more."

"Hmm, I think that works out to just enough," Kanaya lied, taking the proffered fifty. She grabbed the security magnet remover from behind the counter. "Dave, can you help her get the tags off?"

"Nah, she's being hella shady." He refused the proffered tool. "Vriska, you're not gonna go gossiping to John about my tragicomic ass behavior, are you?"

"Depends," she replied, idly fiddling with the magnet on her tank top. Casually, she added, "how sure are we that Jade isn't a succubus?"

Kanaya sputtered. "What?"

"Seconded. What?" Dave chimed in.

"Wellllllll, the logic seems pretty obvious to me." Vriska cleared her throat, flicking the security tag onto the counter, which she'd apparently worked free without the magnet remover. She looked up at Kanaya, addressing her directly. "So, picture this. John and I are making cupcakes, right? John's in this cute ruffled apron with flowers on it. Some banter ensues- Dave calls him a housewife, John threatens to withhold the goods if he doesn't quit the jokes, and next thing I know, Dave is literally begging on his knees, hands clasped like a groveling peasant as he praises John's skills."

Dave groaned in embarrassment. "I swear it sounded better in my head as I was doing it."

"Psh, I bet." Vriska waggled her eyebrows. "So. He crawls in close, like just barely out of dick-sucking range, and then they just stare at each other, leaving me smelling way too much information about the direction their thoughts were wandering. John's dad was in the room and the dude totally forgot, his pupils were blown like he was on ecstasy. Absolutely atrocious, he's lucky humans can't smell or see that kind of detail from the other side of the room." 

"Dude, no, he was just staring at my antics. He's straight." Dave shook his head. 

"Do you need me to spell out exactly what I was smelling?" Vriska asked incredulously, whipping her head around to stare at Dave. "Maybe he's just so fucking drawn in by your cool guy shtick that he thinks you're the straight one, so he isn't talking flirty or whatever. But the body keeps the score on that kind of stuff, and he can't hide the reactions happening underneath the skin." 

"But what does that have to do with Jade?" Kanaya asked, trying to draw Vriska's intensity back in her direction. 

"Oh, just that John's first favorite subject was Dave, pre-party. They did that whole rap thing against Tavros and Gamzee, I thought they were two, maybe three drinks away from a successful maneuver on the dance floor. But then Jade shows up, and suddenly John is-" Vriska crossed her pointer and middle finger. "Like this with her for the rest of the party, even though Dave nearly got his brain melted. It was fucking weird . Then he doesn't even stop by to say hi to us, not one, but two days in a row, because he's too busy in the morning getting ready to hang out with Jade? Makes me think, maybe she's pulling some heavy seduction magic."

For a moment, the trio were silent, absorbing Vriska's words.

"Are you a conspiracy theorist? Genuinely asking," Dave said, crossing his arms.

Do you think Vriska is blowing things out of proportion? Read on to find out!

The Good, The Bad, and The Alternative (449733 words) by Madam_Melon_Meow, sarcasticcelery Chapters: 34/? Fandom: Homestuck Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Nepeta Leijon/Equius Zahhak, Sollux Captor/Aradia Megido, Eridan Ampora & Feferi Peixes, Kanaya Maryam & Dave Strider, Rose Lalonde & Rose's Mom | Beta Roxy Lalonde, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider & Dave Strider, Beta Kids & Beta Trolls, Jade Harley & Rose's Mom | Beta Roxy Lalonde, Dad Egbert & John Egbert, Kanaya Maryam/Vriska Serket, Eridan Ampora/Dave Strider Characters: John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, Jade Harley, Becquerel (Homestuck), Kanaya Maryam, Vriska Serket, Karkat Vantas, Terezi Pyrope, Aradia Megido, Tavros Nitram, Sollux Captor, Gamzee Makara, Eridan Ampora, Feferi Peixes, Nepeta Leijon, Equius Zahhak, Virgin Mother Grub (Homestuck), Vriska's Lusus, Gl'bgolyb (Homestuck), Dad Egbert, Rose's Mom | Beta Roxy Lalonde, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider, Aurthour (Homestuck), The Condesce (Homestuck), Serenity (Homestuck) Additional Tags: inspired by Kim Harrison’s The Hollows, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Humanstuck, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Human Lusii (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Demigods, Vampires, multi POV: all beta trolls & humans, The Horrorterrors (Homestuck), Non-Abusive Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Violence, Magic, Aged-Up Character(s), the kids and trolls range between 16 and 20, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vriska Serket has PTSD, Memory Loss, Scars, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Plot Twists, Unreliable Narrator, Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider Are Not Related, Skaianet Laboratories, beta guardians are not alpha kids and troll parents are not ancestors, monsterstuck, Break Up, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ship Tags Will Update As They Become Relevant, Good Person Gamzee Makara, Suicide Attempt by Proxy, Dissociation, Victim Blaming, Abusive Parents, sexually active teenagers, Underage Drinking Series: Part 1 of Monsterstuck: Suburban Catastrophe Summary: Three years ago, on John Egbert's birthday, the world ended. Three years ago, Jade Harley and Vriska Serket vanished alongside billions of others. Three years ago, the apocalypse arrived, transforming everything and revealing much that was hidden to those who remained. Three years ago, the meteors (mostly!) missed Houston, and that's where John's headed today. In Houston, Rose Lalonde searches for washed-up traces of magic, warily overseen by Kanaya and her old friend Dave. In Texas, the newly dubbed "alternatives" maintain a newfound alliance with the humans they saved--and a wary truce with the Hunter forces that once kept all these creatures of fable and fairytale a secret from the world of man. And here, in Houston, the world is about to change once again. An urban fantasy monsterstuck AU featuring the beta kids, beta trolls, and their guardians. Updates every other Saturday!

#dave strider #kanaya maryam #vriska serket #karkat vantas #eridan ampora #terezi pyrope #pepsicola #eridave #monsterstuck #in control

[yandere-monoma]

WHOOO KYM 2 COMMENTARY while i stall on working on kym 7

lots to discuss about a chapter literally called 'the exposition' hjgkfsg. if you didnt know, the way ao3 multichap updates works is that you dont necessarily have to title a oneshot chapter but the second you update it, you really get shown the option to title your chapters. so it didnt actually occur to me that i needed names for each one until chapter 2. i believe originally i was going to use a similar system as kyd where every chapter title was a command a la homestuck. however, i wasn't really utilizing the commands in the same way, i didn't really end the previous chapter with one and the plan for the next chapter... technically involves a command but not one i wanted to spoil via the chapter title.

the current naming system came into existence probably 3/4s of the way or more into writing this chapter, once i made the realization that the fic was, in fact, going to be at least five chapters. at this point in time, the plan was the following: the introduction, the exposition, the climax, the ending, the epilogue. this changed even more as time went on and more chapter ideas rudely crammed themselves into my brain, though it helped the structure a lot, because giving me time to fill out the space between exposition and climax made my brain happy HJSKFG

so, moving on, the fun part about chap 2 is that it really establishes the 'narration' as its own living function, something that is vaguely independent of the story rather than just a tool to present the story with, that both voices the author's and the character's thoughts depending on who is grabbing for control. this isn't an aspect i planned when outlining the fic but it's definitely influenced by 1) how much fun i had reading the epilogues and subsequent epilogue flavored fics 2) my desire to find some way to one-up the first chapter despite the topic matter not being nearly as extreme 3) the impulse to add in another experimental element to the story, especially now that the more abstract and poetic style of the first chapter was being removed

it's also incredibly fun to play with, because every time i struggled with describing something or wondered how i could transition from one point to the other, i realized - oh! i can just make the narrator state that very thing. don't know how i'm gonna build up from the end of chap 1 to the narrative goal of chap 2 (rose's mkultra moment)??? let's just get that all out in the open, then! problem SOLVED

it ended up being a hugely fun choice that allowed me to inject some humor into what's otherwise just a big ole pile o' unrelenting angst. it also helped me take myself less seriously, which lent me even more creative freedom than usual, like. GOD. it really helped turn this piece into something so rewarding, it overwhelms me. goddamnit homestuck why do you have to be so good

i just rewatched butterfly effect recently, god. back to the future i've never seen though. time references haha get it cuz his aspect is still time-

speaking of time, this chapter was the first attempt to really try and describe a zeta kid's classpect without coming out and stating it. there's a few interpretations of different phenomena's in homestuck that point out the implication of classpect powers being active before reaching god tier, or even before entering the game (though, usually in a way that is incredibly weak, premature and subtle enough to be missed by the user). one of the strongest examples that i based this chapter on was something the epilogues described: the idea that rose's obsessive writing as a child was based on her light powers feeding her vague visions of her future character arcs and plotlines. i really loved that and wanted a similar sort of plight for dave. i'll go off about what his specific title is at the end of this chapter but it's really fun poking at it now and then

the multiple narrators? seriously??? bit was me realizing i had to add a Multiple Narrators tag on ao3 after this. at this point of writing, i had no idea if i would be visiting anyone else's pov besides dave's, though.

attempt at homestuckian humor GO

™️ jokes are so funny to me for no reason

wink wink hint hint this is one of dave's powers at work, actually!! so, dave egbert actually has a perfect memory. like, there is not a single thing he's ever forgotten in his life, if he's experienced it, he can recollect that knowledge. this power also extends to the imaginary, the subconscious, and the supernatural, ie: in the event that dave experiences any visions of the future, he will retain that information. likewise, he has memories of every dream and nightmare he's ever had. which is fun because considering he's a dersite and also a time player and also dave, he has a lot of them HAHA. more on that later

The two of you had hit it off instantly despite this, like you had known each other your entire lives, like any and every other relationship that had come before it had merely been a warm-up for the monumental connection that would spark instantly between you both. ... You’re pretty convinced she’s your soulmate. If not that, you’re at least assured by the fact that you’re absolutely head over heels in love with her.

sentences i had so much fun writing knowing how badly it's going to mess dave up to learn that they're actually related HA HA

Especially at the start, Rose was mysterious and she was hilarious and she was overwhelming, the brightest thing you’ve ever had the fortune of witnessing. 

get it because she's a hero of light get it she's the light of his life because shes a hero of light get it get it she's mysterious because her class mimics its opposite at the beginning of the story so everything about her pre-canon arc clings to void but she!! is bright! like light haha get i- 💥

see, reading sentences like this means i HAVE to at least write enough of their session to let dave both die and kill for his rose, like

also i need to write her killing and dying for him. well. killing for him. well.

killing.

perhaps just killing him. HAHAHA.

it is very fun to think about this because rose honestly just. does not talk about her relationship with dave much outside of mentioning that they're together. her narrative is so focused on the things that she wants the audience to focus on, so this was such a fun chapter to reveal the things she decided isn't important enough to ever let us in on.

like, she is so adamant that bro is the only important person in her life and the only person she loves, but she deeply cares about dave. she feels the same way, that they're connected in this way she can't pinpoint or name. and claiming him is exactly the right way to put it, because i don't think she knows how to acknowledge those emotions in herself, but she knows that she needs him with her always and wants him entrapped in a way where he can't get away from her.

i think rose is just incredibly attracted to what dave represents: safety, normalcy, the mundane, a reprieve from pain, but there are things about him that she just inherently gets. he's an outsider despite how much he attempts to fit in and i think there's something about that she relates to but also wants so badly to destroy and keep for herself.

also, this is a thing that belongs more in hcs than in kym specifically, especially because i imagine this taking place way earlier in their relationship, but bro absolutely knows about her relationship with dave. it isn't a secret. it's a thing that amuses him greatly. i actually imagine she shares a lot of details about him to bro, like allowing him this voyeuristic entertainment because dave isn't a threat to him, not really, and she shares every single one of her belongings with him.

in a perfectly pornographic world the two of them would spitroast the fuck out of him but this is a partially pornographic world that involves a meaningful plotline or whatever 🙄 smh

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

this part was incredibly hard to write. not because it was difficult or emotionally taxing but because i reached this unfortunate impasse i find myself at every now and then while writing a lot of darkfic where i struggle with... it's not exactly the impulse to project, necessarily, more just.... feeling forced through into inevitability of it? or maybe it's the reluctance to use personal experiences vs the knowledge that doing it can benefit your writing (but also can hamper it).

like, very hard to write about a self-destructive teenager with violent tendencies without being reminded of the time when you were a self-destructive teenager with violent tendencies.

that reluctance is born from a rant i'm definitely not gonna get into unprompted but i'll just say that it definitely complicated things HAHAHA. i've definitely gone through a 'i'm going through a psychotic break and i'm going to ramble out 7835963463 crazy things into this dm window because the person on the other side said i could' phase. i've definitely just. been insane and vomited so many words out and ngl for a second there in the final draft when i was feeling too lazy to get into Stream Of Consciousness mode i was very tempted to dig up an old vent post and copypaste those thoughts in for rose but ultimately i thought that was disingenuous and a betrayal of her character SO

a fun but unexpected surprise was rose sounding far more like herself during her drugged moments of honesty. it's especially fun because even in the future when she doesn't have access to any sort of drugs or contact with bro anymore, i don't think she'll sound this much like rose lalonde either. it's like in her desperate search to find more of her brother, she's really just found a core part of herself that she doesn't have access to in this universe

'Is there a mechanical soul within me?' there is and his name is hal hi hal

it is actually incredibly fun playing with typing quirk punctuation. it's actually a style i utilized a lot in chatroom roleplay groups yeaaaaaaaaaars after homestuck ended, very much inspired by tumblr ventblogging typing styles, crytyping and all that. the idea that someone's mental state can and should be reflected in their typing style, which is something you really only see in canon in a character like gamzee (i cant remember if other trolls drop the quirk in times of duress in canon??? i think karkat drops his as a joke about volume sometimes but that's it). i don't even know if it even really comes across as blatantly as it feels when i write it, but it's so fun to see the consistencies in a way a character types slowly but surely fall apart as they grow unstable

so the way this is designed, it's as if rose had a moment of finally being in touch with the core of herself, with what ultimately makes her rose (complete with proper punctuation), before slowly but surely lapsing back into ro-stri as she loses her punctuation piece by piece, and then ultimately devolving even more as she abandons her capitalization to type in a way that's reminiscent of dave but, more importantly, bro's typing quirk

'I think there are lives inside me/the life inside me is his' is so funny to look at in hindsight. this chapter was halfway finished before the pregnancy plot had even come into being, and this was only ever supposed to be a reference to the identity blurring she's experiencing, and this half-truth, half-delusion about being able to sense everything lil cal has injected into her and her brother. it is so STRANGE to reread it now knowing that it's become foreshadowing to her pregnancy, especially with that next sentiment following it:

'Sometimes I wish it was yours'. again, that idea of being soulmates, being connected with someone permanently. and, again, that idea of codependency, and rose being unable to express or understand love without that need to merge herself with the object of her affection. and again this was befORE the pregnancy plot was a thing so now every time i read this line i sit here hoping people dont interpret it as rose wanting dave's baby HGJFKGSGSG i swear im not into breeding i sWEAR

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭😭😭

DAVE IS SO CUTE I ALWAYS DIE REREADING THAT PART HE'S SO CUUUTE

also i struggle so SO much writing comfort scenes especially dialogue meant to comfort someone but this came out so easily. perhaps because it's a futile attempt and i didn't have to worry about the recipient of that comfort actually feeling soothed...? hmmm!

i have nothing to add to the romantic cannibalism confession besides :3c

i don't actually reread this chapter all that often anymore so finding this paragraph was lovely damn shoutout to this sentence that made me choke on my water as i was reading it cuz i was so distracted by how much i didnt remember writing this that i forgot to swallow and my drink just slid down into my lugnshjskdfg

then it is a series of letters in a language you wonder if she’s made up, that is somehow so cohesive in its chaos that you start to doubt even that. 

more horrorterror references as if the literal last paragraph wasn't enough HAHA

a very fun part of designing and outlining the killswitch au is deciding who gets what plotline. for example, does rose strider get to go grimdark because she's rose? or does jade lalonde get to go grimdark because she's the lalonde with library access to the grimoire? unlike the characterization formula, there isn't an easy answer to this one. i'm mostly just going with what's more fun narratively and what makes a better and more cohesive storyline for the verse.

either way, though, ro-stri still has a connection with the horrorterrors, simply because she's a dersite and because i love a character that is so utterly doomed that every evil force on the face of the planet wants to take a turn on them. what's better than this... getting psychologically gangbanged by every demon in existence...

DID YOU KNOW I AM SO VERY FOND OF DAVE EGBERT AND HIS LOVELY PAPA WHO LOVES HIM SO MUCH

i am also so very fond of a dave egbert who cries alone in front of his computer cuz his girlfriend makes him so very sad every night like poor baby does Not Sleep and its so cute gjkgs

'its just prose' annoys the shit out of me to see because i wrote a similar line in a published piece of writing a couple of years ago so i can't reread this without being reminded of That hgjfkg

i will never write a strider rap i have the highest respect for any author who can but it'll never be me

their dynamic kills me HJKGFGKGS peak toxic romance right here god i wish i could write even more of it... i need to write more daverose so fucking bad....

a fun line because 1) i rly enjoy dave's half-forced half-genuine emotional voyeurism it's just a rly interesting aspect of his personality to write and 2) it's fun to have a moment with dave e's specific brand of humor since it's not as long-winded as a strider's would be

i rly forgot so much of this chapter HGFKGSGS oh dave... i love you... i love writing you so much...

stream-of-consciousness style writing is really fun like you get taken to so many unexpected places in the process. generally when i go SoC style i tend to have a few goals i want to land and this image, dave watching over rose in derse, was one of the big ones

ALSO THE IRONY OF DAVE CALLING HIMSELF HER PRINCE WHEN SHE IS ACTUALLY THE PRINCE OF THE SESSION HEHEHEHEHE

the lil cal staring contest is also another big one. it's just such a fun image to allude to like goddamnit i wish i could draw. it feels like an image that i can't even really describe properly what i want it to mean because it explains itself and there's not much minutia to pry free, it's just. them. rose inexplicably and perpetually being drowned in this cancerous evil at a rate that not even dave strider got to experience.

lmfao shout out to me explaining his memory power earlier forgetting that i explain it in the chapter HJSKFG

oh well NOW I GET TO ACTUALLY DISCUSS HIS CLASSPECT

so dave egbert issssss....

🥁 [drumroll] 🥁

the MAGE OF TIME!!!!

and changing classpects actually did something incredibly interesting to the story. killswitch never would have worked as a simple homestuck rewrite, because i dont think swapping the guardians is something that can ever be simple. so it didnt make sense to keep their classpects exactly the same, because they wouldn't have the same personalities or the same backgrounds to craft those personalities, or the same issues that were born of their uniquely shitty backgrounds. it also didnt feel as easy as making rose a knight of light and dave an heir of time, etc etc. like, while rose is not insecure in the classic way that knights should be (it can be argued that the 'i am my brother' facade can count towards knighthood... but her role in the story and what it will turn into once she joins the game definitely brands her a prince through and through)

through researching for killswitch i ended up coming to this conclusion about sburb and how i approach classpect and hs narratives in general:

and because of that, it was super easy to reassign everyone based on what they've been turned into through the switch in their roles.

it also made for another easy characterization formula: their aspect represents their 'nature' while their class represents their 'nurture'. so all the zeta kids still belong to the same aspect while their class changes rapidly, though how close or how far it is from their original class really depends on their character

anyway, mage of time is an incredibly fun role that actually breaks the rewrite narrative almost more than rose's classpect does. as the mage of time, dave actually steals the cryptic psychic role from jade and john harley (though, i do have thoughts on that matter, because there is still going to be a benefit for them from having access to prospit, and that plotline will still be involved in some capacity... probably).

and it's a very fun, partially accidental discovery within the au that the zeta kids are all... just a tad more prepared to enter sburb than their predecessors. rose is completely aware of the fact that she's training for something specific and dave... dave knows that the game is coming. he doesn't know the specifics, he doesn't know that it's sburb specifically that will bring them all together, but he knows there's an it, he knows the day he'll meet all his friends in person will be a day for the history books, and he knows that rose is in danger and that he'll be able to help her in a way no one else can.

some mage of time thoughts, many of which inspired and/or describe dave egbert's storyline:

source

source

source

the above was probably one of the first interpretations i read and really what solidified him as a mage, my initial thoughts to his classpect and how it interacts with rose's was the following:

and it's just so fun GOD rly hope i get to write in his perspective more in the future

haha yeah if we ever get to it yEAH if i ever get off my ass and actually finish writing this wholeass au which i nEVER WILL CUZ I DONT WANNA WRITE 500K WORDS GODDDD IM NEVER WRITING A HOMESTUCK AU AGAAAAIINNNN

#fic: kill your masters #director's commentary #meta #verse: killswitch #rose strider #dave egbert

[skeksismars]

Guys I've been re-reading homestuck for a couple of days now, I'm on ACT 5 and I have some thoughts, not on the comic per se, but on the overall experience of reading Homestuck again after years. First of all it's kind of underwhelming. I remember clearly everything that happens, so the novelty factor is out, and the pacing is much more quick now that my english level is way higher. When I started reading homestuck I was just delving into english and Homestuck was basically an english boot camp for me, I was reading it at an incredibly slow pace, with Google Translate at my side and even still a lot of expressions flew over my head, like "irons in the fire" et cetera. It took me months to get to ACT 5, months that felt like years; heck, it took me one month to finish ACT 1, but on this re-read I had finished ACT 2 on my first day! There is also the factor of the music and art; on my first read I was fourteen and I was just exploring my artistic capability and developing a musical taste, and the art and music of Homestuck touched me deeply. I remember trying to copy the blocky silhuettes of the characters and Calliope's drawing style and some OSTs of Homestuck moved me to tears to say the least: sburb's theme, LOWAS's theme made me cry when John "ascended" and CASCADE was a motherfucking ephiphany.

The second thing (this relates more to ACT 5 than the rest of the comic) is the shipping. As I was fourteen on my first read all the changing relationships between the trolls were incredibly entertaining and captivating, I was on the edge of my seat trying to understand if a character liked another and if they would start a relationship together. Now I'm 22 and I see it as it really is: just some teenagers exploring their feelings for one another, something that is wasted energy to be taken seriously and should be experienced with a bit of lighthearted fun. As such I can't be taken in the drama of it all and so another layer of the experience is taken away.

I have been able to experience some entertaining however, some things new and some brought back to memory that I am able to enjoy still. One of these latter things is the characters. I still love them dearly and I love seeing my favourites interact and go through their character developments: John's arc (I love his little outfits so much), John's dad is and will always be the GOAT, Equius&Nepeta's interactions, Karkat's whole thing. As I am still on ACT 5 I don't know how I'll feel on future arcs and characters (ex. the 3 years gap on the ship and all the drama there and the alpha kids & trolls). As for new things I love being finally able to understand the wholeness of Homestuck without the aid of a translation device, I can FINALLY read it wholly and understand its subtleties and tones. For example, I never understood the davekat and johndave ships, EVER. It was because the subtext completely went over my head! Now I can SEE that Dave had a massive crush on John goddamnit!!!! And Jade had a crush on Dave!!! And I can understand Vriska and Tavros' relationship better! The first time it just felt like a giant mess.

I also love being able to understand the characters' psychologies, because before, due to the language barrier, it was really difficult for me to understand why the characters acted like they did. Vriska's whole mess, Karkat and Sollux 's self hatred, Eridan's need to be loved and DAVE'S GAYNESS I swear I hated being out of the loop like that. I JUST DID NOT GET IT. As of ACT 5 it's still kind of clowdy, he has made a lot of dick and gay allusions in his rap and some trolls have called him out on that, Rose too, and he clearly has a massive crush on John, but he's so deep in the closet the signs are still very mild for my brain to grasp. If I didn't know preemptively that Dave was gay as of now I would not get it.

This is all I can think about for now, maybe later I'll update this post with other thoughts :)

Anyway this as been my experience re-reading Homestuck as a 22 yo adult. Peace out

#Homestuck #thoughts about homestuck

[aquaticmatriarch]

I have nO regrets Over buying this. NOne.

#ic #aqui thoughts #goddamnit aqui #fantroll #homestuck #sketch art #i drew a meme im proud.

[april132009]

i really think homestuck should have utilized the fact that hal and dirk message from the same account much more than it did

imagine dirk trying to have a conversation with one of his friends only for more orange text to pop up like “Bitch ass monkey beans” and the recipient of the message is like. what the fuck dirk. and then he’s like it’s not me it’s the AR and then he starts arguing with hal and it’s just back and forth orange text arguing with itself and whoever he’s messaging is trying to decipher who the hell is saying what

even funnier if it’s earlier in the timeline when hal was just recently created and no one is familiar with him or his mannerisms so dirk and hal are just spewing shit in the same chat and they think he’s just insulting himself

like

TT: I don’t know. I let him have his way a lot, since I figure it can’t be all that chill to just be cooped up inside goddamn glasses, but still. This is getting out of hand.

TT: Gay gay homosexual gay.

TT: ...

TG: lmao what

TT: That wasn’t me.

TT: On a scale of one to ten, do you think gay thoughts.

TT: Oh my fucking god, can you not?

TT: Dick.

GG: I...

TT: Are you calling me a dick or are you being gay as hell?

TT: Yes.

GT: Who in the blazes is even talking???

TT: The Auto-R01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 11100010 10000000 10011001 01110011 00100000 01100101 01101110 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00101110 00100000

TT: Who the fuck?

TT: Goddamnit.

TT: This is an absolute mess.

TT: Can you stop typing here?

TT: No, YOU need to stop typing here.

TT: Oh my god.

TT: Change your text color already.

TT: No, fuck you.

TT: Wait, you’re making them think I’m you, goddamnit.

TT: Lmao.

and so on...

#charcoal and ck shut up /lh #it was simply inspired #homestuck #just think about what coulda been if this had been taken advantage of #glorious humorous pesterlogs #dirk strider #lil hal #hal strider

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-03-12

I have been told only a few things about the upd8 that just landed, over Discord by two people:

upd19 feat. 4,901,157 read it. now. note: the featuring note is accurate if in a different base than what you might be expecting

What the fuck does that even mean.

Okay Pretty good chapter.

...from another friend who VERY dislikes HS^2?  Oh shit.

I also glimpsed a post that may or may not have been about Homestuck at all at the top of my Tumblr feed for an instant that said “YES YES YES YES YES” in huge bold print.  I have no idea whether to be excited or nervous.

Okay, it’s not a Bonus update... let me comb through from an earlier page to be careful not to get a spoilerlook at the pagecount...

...huh.  That seems... like a conversation that would be up my alley, but not necessarily unique so far or worth all this crowing about.  I thought we were about to get Dirk-aliens with a full Horschestra backing... are we getting something else?

> CHAPTER 6. A Conversation Regarding Relevance

Hmmmmmmmm.  With the contrast between their reactions and this ominous buildup, there’s got to be a serious fun-twist coming.  Right?  --I’ll stop with that talk for the moment though.

space is vast. an unproductive statement, almost a tautology. [...]

Alright, that and the starry background are riffing the fuck off Star Trek.  Nice homage to Andrew’s roots.

the lives of the many are far too volatile and instinct-driven

Alt!Callie what the fuck are you doing.  This is intentional now.  You can’t play this off as “what’s a Star Trek”.

tautologies are, in general, reserved for stories. for narrative device. for finding new and inventive ways to tell an audience that which they already know.

God damnit she’s still doing it

neither of us ever able to convince the other of the righteousness of our stance. we were never meant to agree. it isn’t in our blood.

Blah blah overanalyzing classpect blah

when they scoff at my tautology ‘space is vast’, what do they really know? nothing. as far as any of them have experienced, space does not exist.

It’s still nice to see some real personality leak through on Alt!Callie.  We definitely know from her other self that she can develop quite a relatable and colorful one.  Have the years helped?

> ==>

dramantic pouse... ........

Also,

-look at that collar.  Damn, Callie, that is a collar

very few have stood and looked into the abyss, the true gulf of nothingness that spreads out around the single point of consciousness adrift in a constellation. all the combined weight of sentient endeavour would quail underneath that sheer, irresistible truth. the realization that they are so small, that the universe cares about their puny lives so very little. sitting in the glowing light of the stars this becomes even more apparent

In the official aspect quiz I never took the time to analyze, the aspects were put on a wheel where Space was a neighbor to Void, if I recall correctly.  I wonder how much those aspects engender feelings of goddamnit I’m doing it again aren’t I

...

are we out of orange juice?

Yesss let more personality Alt!Callie bleed through, more of it~

Wait, does Alt!Callie even taste through Jade?  Isn’t this remote control?  Is she vicariously drawing pleasure from Jade’s not-just-meat-or-candy mostly-human taste buds or?

> ==>

JADE: are you talking to me? JADE: because if you are i would like to remind you that i hate!! orange juice!!

OH FUCK YES!!! SHE’S IN THERE AND AWAKE!!! SHE STILL HAS AT LEAST ENOUGH AGENCY TO BE PRESENT AND ARGUE WITH CALLIE! YESSSSSS

no you don’t.

JADE: well i guess i never really had a strong opinion on it before JADE: but now i cant stand it!! JADE: its all you drink!

i like the pulp.

QUIT INADVERTANTLY FORCING SHIT ON JADE WITH NARRATIVESPEAK GIVE HER A BIT OF LEEWAY ALT!CALLIE YOU CONTROLLING--

JADE: its my body and i dont want orange juice! JADE: i hate pulp, and i didnt just make that up to spite you JADE: who wants strings in their juice?

i do.

JADE: ughhhhhhhhh

I have had friends hopefully fantasize about and/or therapeutically roleplay this exact situation with Jade breaking through and arguing with Alt!Callie’s control to make this all a fair bit more palatable but I didn’t dare to hope we’d get even THIS much

Maybe the HS^2 authors DO care about not leaving us wallowing in hopeless witness to the characters’ constant torture and existential turbosuffering!!!! :#D

i realize that jade’s situation is less than ideal from a characterization perspective, but i still politely point out that nobody likes a whiner.

Fuck you, this isn’t CALIBORN you’re trying to repress you asshole!  Leave Jade some AGENCY!!!!!  She deserves it!!

JADE: fuck you rude calliope inside my head!

YES EXACTLY

JADE: why dont you try being possessed by the spirit of some other version of a good friend of yours, and floated around a spaceship full of people you love JADE: unable to affect anything or say hello to anyone! JADE: then tell me about whiners!

i killed my brother and consumed him.

JADE: sounds like a you problem

Compromise and give her some agency finally come on compromise and give her some agency you red-text twatwaffle

i suggest to the witch that i have spent untold eons in the void between universes, waiting for the moment i would be needed to prevent the dissipation of reality as we know it. her appeals to emotion will not help her. i will remain unmoved.

Oh god damnit.

JADE: well i had to watch my boyfriend and my brother die in front of me on a tiny scaled version of a world that i shrunk for them! JADE: and then spend the next three years talking to myself, wracked with guilt that id killed them!

Oh. God. Damnit.  This had better not be where the Suicide trigger warning was coming from.  Are there going to be any characters left who DIDN’T emerge from this mess feeling suicidal?!?  (I mean if there were any understandable case it would be three years alone on the golden ship Jade but-- I mean COME ON, we have to discuss that in our FIRST GLIMPSE at her since the epilogues?!?)

> ==>

i remind the witch that my time was in the void, which is far darker and lonelier [...]

Oh fuck you don’t compare suffering as an excuse to COMPLETELY body-enslave and squash the agency of someone when you probably don’t have to.  You’re just doing what’s COMFORTABLE alt!Callie admit it.  There’s a way you could give her some leeway, I’m almost positive.

JADE: even if i had the powers of a first guardian, my brain still worked in modules of human pattern recognition! JADE: three years is a long time for a human teenager, i dont care how many of her molecules are made of a god!

(i love it when jade talks smart, that bit of the epilogues was a treat too, plz reveal more of the big brain on jade)

It seems Jade can’t see or quite understand the full import of there being a “narrative”.  Or THINKS she cant, because she still says:

JADE: your voice is impossible to read and i cant see your face

If she’s “reading” alt!Callie’s remarks, that means she’s breaking through to understand the narrative to SOME extent.  She might be one of the ones who learns to do that a little more and better in the future, especially with alt!Callie almost unintentionally training her to see it.

> ==>

Oh, good.  So A!C’s not above being considerate.  That’s a step in the right direction.

> ==>

D’aww, Jade conceding and trying to empathize like her usual self.  I appreciate it.  :)  --but Alt!Callie’s definitely in the wrong here.

JADE: but i think it is a very natural thing to be silly when you are used to being able to control your own body, but now cant

i will allow that, yes.

Thanks.  Learn some damned reason.

jade smiles. dave and karkat will always be a source of pain for her, a low ache somewhere in her center of gravity, but she is happy for them. she knows that there is really no other alternative for how to be. they chose each other over her, and they always will. they are the two people who matter to her the most in every universe, and that will not change, no matter how much she wishes it would, no matter how--

JADE: do you actually know that?

pardon me?

Oh, shit.

JADE: do you actually know that im doomed to pine over dave and karkat across every iteration of reality? JADE: like, can you actually see that? JADE: because youre a space player, like i am. JADE: i know that you are more powerful than me, but i dont think you can see other timelines any better than i can JADE: so i think you are just being dramatic JADE: for the “audience”, whatever the heck that means

i experience a moment of unease as jade looks at me. keeping her out of my thoughts is proving to be more difficult than i had first assumed it would be.

That’s a damned interesting question.  I was giving the narrative the benefit of the doubt, but given everything the Epilogues warned us about when it came to the narrators and alt!Callie’s occasional slips into her own bias, I really should have known better.

i had begun confident that i could keep her consciousness sleeping peacefully inside the shell of her body, tamed and quiescent, but she has proved to be more irascible than i initially gave her credit for.

JADE: heheh JADE: i have never been particularly tamable, and my consciousness is huge!

This might end up playing out more like my friend’s Jade-breaks-out roleplays than I initially assumed.  (What does she mean “huge consciousness” though?  Superpowered due to part-First-Guardian, like she alluded earlier in the conversation?  That never got much play before, so it’s great to see that potential realized here a bit...)

> ==>

...I’m a fucking idiot.  Of COURSE “huge consciousness” and the whole line around it was just an unsubtle double-entendre.  A small part of me actually wondered if it was and dismissed it as a clumsy reading in an instant.  How stupid am I?  Jade is the best.

If only this sort of thing worked on Cherubs.

> ==>

Yeah.  It really doesn’t.

...Alt!Callie, you are a fucking war-criminal for bottling all these double-entendres up where none of the others can appreciate them.

> ==>

JADE: you are a pretty tough crowd, evil callie JADE: but yes, i can hear most of what you are thinking to yourself JADE: it took a little while to separate it from my own thoughts, just like it did with dirk JADE: because thats what he was doing the whole time, wasnt it? JADE: controlling our thoughts JADE: making us believe things we never would, things he thought we SHOULD believe

Fucking excellent.  She’s definitely training herself on this shit.  The more people who have a harder time getting fooled by this nonsense the better.

jade knows all of this, i don’t have to tell her. she is a very bright girl, and even if she didn’t have partial access to my thoughts, she is good at compiling data and using it to fill in gaps. as she herself had rather licentiously mentioned, her brain is quite large.

C:

and all of these reasons are why i know i can count on her to be reasonable and realistic about her situation. i need a body to continue interfacing with this timeline, and her body is the only one that will do.

Dammit.  Trying to get her to logic her way back into keeping Alt!Callie in complete control.  That’s a tactic that will probably work.  :(

what about [kanaya], jade? she is a space player, it is true, but her powers are nothing compared to yours. for one, she isn’t god tier, and for two, she is dead. a living dead, but dead nonetheless.

Hm.  Are you saying she maybe has less relevance, less of an effect on her surroundings because she spent some of her “cred” on unconventional partial resurrection?  To the extent where she’d make a less influential vessel?  Hmm.

For that to even matter, you have to be planning to use Jade’s Space powers too.  Taking a far more active role in things than narrative beacon.

and a sylph’s specializations lie on a different end of the spectrum from my own. a witch is a far closer match.

!!!!!

Sounds like details of the classpect system that we don’t know will have relevance in HS^2, and we’re indeed gonna possibly get some actual new, clearer details about the system Andrew invented unlike the dearth of new info the Epilogues brought us.  That is... promising.

no, jade understands and sympathizes with my assurance that her body, and her body alone, will do for my purposes.

JADE: um...no i dont!

YES.  Jade is now officially immune to absolute command! :D :D :D

she does. after all, she would not wish this sort of state of being on anyone else, and especially not on one of her friends. jade may have undergone a lopsided number of narrative hardships in her life, but at least she is used to them. why spread that suffering to another?

What the fucking shit???  You’re using that on her?  You think it’ll WORK?!

jade understands and accepts her place in the story, which has always been to enable events to play out around her, just as it has been mine.

..........yeah Jade’s gonna bust the fuck out on the very next page, isn’t she.

What the fuck is Alt!Callie thinking, here?  Wasn’t the other Calliope the one to let us know that the Witch is one of the most active classes there is??  ...what exactly does a Witch officially do anyway, for Alt!Callie to think saying such a thing wasn’t dead wrong?  This sounds MUCH more like the sort of statement someone might make after breezing through Homestuck and confusing the old Jade (cough) for the person she grew up into.

And the fact that you’re phrasing this as a narrative command to try and make her forcibly THINK this way deserves you a smack in the non-literal depictive face.  Let’s see if you get one:

> ==>

Oh wow, no smack yet?!  That’s some restraint!

because what is a story, truly? nothing but a series of misadventures and connections, actions spurring reactions, tumbling into one another, over and over and over. with so many competing interests, clearly the story cannot account for all perspectives, for all threads? it would be laughable, childish, even selfish, to demand that they do.

in other words, not everyone will achieve a happy ending. this is a truth that jade had come to grips with a long time ago.

JADE: wait. JADE: stop. JADE: why are you saying all of this?

Ohh.  Because she still had even MORE smackworthy stuff left to say, to make the smack even SMACKIER, didn’t she.  Alt!Callie you asshole.  If this gets you kicked out of her almost entirely and jeopardizes the crew as Jade struggles to combat Dirk’s narrative influence on her OWN, then I’m fucking blaming YOU!  Do you realize how horrible it’ll be if Dirk gets to almost singlehandedly write the whole story around her and the others for the first section of HS^2 with only one or two characters aware and trying to mentally avert it??  We already TRIED that in the Epilogues!  It was awful!

jade’s body is my vessel, and it is through this realization that she will understand her true role in the story. her true relevance.

Go fuck yourself, Alt!Callie.  Read the audience a bit!

if i released my hold on her consciousness, there would be no guarantee that i would be allowed in again. therefore i cannot permit her the control of herself that she so desperately craves, and she understands that.

THAT’S your reasoning your used-to-surpressing-Caliborn ignorant--!??

JADE: wait. so...you could give me my body back, and then just hop back in when you need to?

in theory, yes.

JADE: then what the hell callie!

because i don’t trust you to cooperate when the time comes.

MotherfuckerTheMusical.mp4

(or real existing equivalent that’s just off the top of my head)

JADE: why not? JADE: i thought you said i was a reasonable girl with a huge brain!

you are, to an extent.

she is. but the truth of the matter remains that humans are capricious and emotional. and even jade herself can admit that she hasn’t been the most...committed example of her species in the last few years.

Oh my fucking god.  I know they’re trying to make this more satisfying when she actually DOES take control in a few panels, but, Alt!Callie, seriously, get more on your other self’s level!!!

> ==>

Yes, please >:O some more

moving from lover to lover, job to job, interest to interest. over the last few years jade had found herself listless, unable to settle and unwilling to commit to anything or anyone. she knows there’s nothing wrong with that on a moral level, but on a personal level she’s always believed that she could be more, could do better. be better. and now, because of this, she realizes that sacrifices must be made.

and that she, as a space player, is uniquely built for sacrifice.

JADE: yeah JADE: i guess youre right JADE: i have been such a silly little slut! JADE: hey callie

yes, jade?

JADE: oh my god, whats that!!!!

You are so fucking screwed Alt!Callie.

this space is utterly under my control. jade could control it too, if she had any access to her own powers. but with my grip around her cortex, there is no chance of that.

(Wait, there’s an extent to which this space is “real” and not imaginary?  Or does holding her space powers in check also mean keeping her imaginary space powers in check?)

Anyway, here comes the smack.  And, though Alt!Callie deserves this, I hope Dirk isn’t let in too often amidst the others as a result.

> ==>

Yup, poising to pounce...

> ==>

I thought there was a weird infinity symbol underneath them but it’s just two spotlights and a shadow cast by her head.

and here i make my first mistake.

No you made your first mistakes WAAAY earlier in this conversation.  And what you did to Jade in general.  She’s a hero/player for a reason, she doesn’t take stuff lying down forever.

but bringing her into a place where we can both physically manifest has left me, foolishly, vulnerable.

First, physically manifest?  This isn’t pure imaginationspace?  And second, she’s going to blame her polite concession to Jade for this and hold on even tighter the next time, isn’t she.  God damnit, not looking forward to that.  Alt!Callie won’t learn her lesson til the end, will she?  :(

her fingers tear at my throat, trying to find purchase. she won’t be able to kill me here, but it is certainly unpleasant, and not to mention slightly repetitive. we just saw this in the previous chapter, although this particular fight will not end as amorously as the last one did. so don’t get your hopes up.

JADE: who! JADE: are you talking to!

I really hope Jade ends up with full narrative powerOOOOOHHHH FUCK THEY COULD GO FOR THAT HUH

Dirk was able to become an Ultimate Self in his own body because it was the uniting of an irrepressible “self” that he always unbreakably represented.  The others had more trouble.

But Jade

has a BIG PART-GOD BRAIN as reinforced in the narrative repeatedly!!

Meaning that later, SHE could Ultimate Self without ANY PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCE.  :D

I was hoping Jade would end up with full narrative-dictating-and-reading power when she wants to use it, at some point, but I might’ve been aiming too low! :D :D :D

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay

Now all the playfully-horny omnipotent Jade fanfics are true, what that totally isn’t part of why I love this go ahead and admit she doesn’t deserve it

> ==>

Yesss flashy gif struggle against control!  (Though, not as elegant as one of Andrew’s might’ve been. Gotta say.)

> ==>

Blinky-eyes about to resolve normal-Jade-colored....!

> ==>

Wait, what?  I thought Jade was about to snap in and--

during the ship’s trip through space, there have been numerous experiments; modifications to the nutrition output of the various machines designed to create sustenance for the various species on board. i myself have been content with orange juice and synthetic proteins, but dave and roxy have both expressed longing for various ‘earth snacks’, and so the trials and errors began.

What the fuck?  I don’t even know where this is going if it’s punways.

Is there like a dog treat somewhere that’s gonna push her over the edge?  Where is this headed even.

> ==>

Wh...

WHa??????

the results were mixed. as roxy told us in a previous chapter, alchemized food all sort of tastes the same, although the visuals really help to bring about the flavor. and at the end of the day, isn’t it the journey that is more important than the destination? the stories you tell as you create the strangely flavored nutritional paste?

JADE: ????????????

Um??  What’s even going on.

so far, everyone’s favorite attempt has been a vaguely peanut-butter and chocolate flavored creation called "Rices'". nobody eats them really. they just sit in a bowl on the counter.

i’m not actually sure what the witch is trying to accomplish here.

Is Jade trying to humorously gross Alt!Callie out of her body with a candy she doesn’t like or?  But, “suicide threat”? Why joke--

JADE: you dont? JADE: really?

i don’t know what she is trying to accomplish, because surely she would not be doing what it appears she is trying to do. making such a meaningless threat.

JADE: meaningless? JADE: do you even know anything about the body you stole? JADE: shouldnt you have run some sort of psychic physical before you possessed it? JADE: its definitely what i would have done!

Oh SHIT.  You mean Jade has the same peanut allergy JOHN does?!?

> ==>

jade must know that i am well-aware of her family-wide peanut allergy. a story thread that has been extremely important and weighed in on in multiple parts of the narrative. how could i have forgotten such a key detail?

...yes, she totally forgot, but more than that.

I’m betting John is the ONLY one with a peanut allergy.  That Jade is USING that fact to bluff like hell.  :D

(Allergies aren’t usually inherited that way you alien!)

there is nothing remotely just or heroic about dying from self-imposed anaphylactic shock in the throes of a childish tantrum. at the most i’ll get a relaxing few minutes of sleep.

Is Alt!Callie bluffing now?  Even a resurrecting death could throw her off.

> ==>

FUCK YES JADE.

JADE: do you really want to risk it?

what are you talking about, jade? i just said--

FUCK YES JADE, BE A HUGE WITCH

(i say in the most witch-connotatively and non-classpect-related way)

JADE: i dont know, callie JADE: ive never really understood the rules that govern the death of a god tier, have you? JADE: it seems pretty arbitrary from where im standing JADE: who makes the decision whether or not something is heroic or just?

...that’s unclear. but it certainly isn’t you.

JADE: right, of course not JADE: but are you so confident that youre a good guy? JADE: are you sure that the alpha timeline WANTS you to be here?

...what.

JADE: youve done some stuff, callie JADE: im only saying you shouldnt be so quick to assume that me killing you wouldnt be just JADE: and that taking my own life to do it wouldnt be heroic

Even with JUST this one fucking situation Alt!Callie put her in, throwing off her control forever by dying would be shortsighted but HELLA JUST.  What Alt!Callie is doing to her is a crime.

Oh shit!?!?

> [S] ==>

What is this, HTML5?  *clicks play*

...for a second, I thought this was gonna launch into a huge thing with that clock ticking song from the Felt album.

Having Rose and Dirk’s colors competing here really reinforces that... Prospit vs Derse vibe that was feeding the whole this-is-the-basis-for-the-game’s-structure-and-the-birth-of-Paradox-Space theory more earlier.

> ==>

i don’t let the witch manipulate me. i refuse to falter in the face of her whispers. without my careful planning and swift action, the prince would have taken full control over this timeline. none of my friends could even begin to imagine the turmoil.

In the end, you’re ignoring what’s right and brave in this instance to instead do something EXPEDIENT, to the exclusion of trust and compassion when things COULD work out just as well without taking the worst actions -- which is textbook villainous.

> ==>

JADE: they arent your friends!! JADE: you took them from me!

Now isn’t THAT a way to put it. :D :D :D

Alt!Callie is sinning almost as badly as Dirk, here.  Viewing everyone else as characters in a story, the only way she’s ever viewed “friends”, and her as the not-so-humble narrator doing what’s best for all of them.  If she’s going to win against Dirk -- or if that victory is going to MEAN anything -- she will HAVE to realize that she needs to be different.

JADE: you keep saying that youre doing all of this for my own good, but youre just lonely! JADE: i know you are, because so am i!

Ouch.

Will Alt!Callie force her to swallow it?

JADE: you said that being a space player is all about sacrifice JADE: well

> ==>

JADE: bet

...I guess she really might have an allergy.

> ==>

Aaaand the candy drops.  A W A K E ! ! ! !

Yaaaaay Jade is BACK and we’ll get to see even more of her!!!

...please tell me on the next page she grabs the candy, noms it, and mentions she doesn’t have a peanut allergy after all.  That would be sweet.

> ==>

...

Nope, you just leave us on a sad.  Dammit, why do you gotta be all adult and showin’ us both sides in a moment of triumph, HS^2.  Shucks.

Anyway, YAY JADE!  C:

I am happy by this, if slightly too emotionally-rollercoastered by the past 24-hours to give this the full-rejoicing it deserves.  That, and worried about the openings Dirk will get because of this... joy now for potential frustration later, even if Jade tries her best to let Alt!Callie back in in-time.

See y’all next time!  And, uhm.  I guess I’ll comment on whatever other asks I promised to comment on another less-eventful day.  Keep reminding me and holding me to it though!

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots #(yes the past 24-hours includes witnessing everyone's despair at realizing the president is going to get our family members virus-killed) #Jade Harley

[adam-is-suffering]

What I know of the trolls (pt 2)

TEREZI PYROPE

- Deadass? I thought at first these were just her eyes and not glasses and I was about to up her on the ranks of “best of the best” 

- So she likes to interrogate? Thats interesting.

- She’s the one who people ship with Nepeta

- Aaand I remember her from a convo with my sister’s gf about her horns I think

- The server is obsessed with Terezi, they have all right to be

- Know what else is interesting? Apparently she hangs her stuffed animals out the window and I strive to be that chaotic as a child

- God she fights with her walking stick? Goddamn respect, I’m gonna guess she’s blind then

- Apparently she licks things to see? Power move.

- She has the biggest dick energy I’ve ever seen

VRISKA SERKERT

- Does she even need a take on her character? I’ve heard the discourse, I probably read it unknowingly before, I know how she works.

- I was shat on because I said Undertale’s Megalovania was from the game, and a Homestuck came up to me like “pussy, its Vriska” so yknow

- But I will sum up what the discourse said:

- She killed a few people, some are mad. But apparently others are apologists because of her upbringing and importance to the comic. And how she solves a big problem at some point to help others? But then she also killed, so yknow. I have no idea what to say about her until I read it, so I’ll keep this post fucking absent of opinion before I get mauled by hungry and starved Vriska discoursers.

EQUIUS ZAHHAK

- BRUH WTF IS THIS

- Who the fuck uses this as the first image after searching for his name YOU ABSOLUTE BASTARDS

- So this was probably the worst thing to happen so far and I havent even started. Fucking goddamnit.

- So this is saggy tits, he was the first character I was introduced to on the server. Best friends with Nepeta, the diamond thingy.

- God great just fantastic

- But imagine I didnt see this, then I would assume he just loved being strong and playing with his bow and arrow. I saw a few pieces of fanart, and his dad … his dad is hot lemme just tell you

- Man.. fuck. Did he trip? Is that how he died?

- Well at least I don’t know when this happens.

GAMZEE MAKARA

- Well youre crazy

- Or either you just got hurt, and you’re just trying to assure everyone that “I’m fine it doesnt hurt” in which case, of course, Gamzee. You look just fine.

- But I still think you’re a little crazy.

- And a clown (though probably a juggalo by the looks of things)

- Apparently clowns rule the government so hey, got that going for yourself

- I first thought he had a cow theme but was corrected of course

- This is a fave character of a few people, I think, while the others.. don’t like him? Understandable. Idk where I stand though.

- But I did read smth cursed on his character which I will not say bc even if I suggest this blog to be 18+, there’s still limits

- He also likes juggling

- Obviously what else did I expect from that? That he liked politics instead?

- And I think he drinks too goddamn it, theyre all alcoholics

- Someone is very passionate about making Gamzee seem less of a crazy troll but hey, I’d read that if I didn’t want to be spoiled more

ERIDAN AMPORA

- Okay who told you it was okay to ride a seahorse and hold a gun in the middle of a thunder storm while also being a fish who resembles that one guy from Danganronpa?

- A loser is what lol

- Nah real question, how are you even holding onto the seahorse? Like I get the saddle and the ropes, but the way its placed just seems like you can slip off at any given moment.

- Also people are putting him in dresses, idk if thats his interest or just a thing the fandom likes to do

- Honestly you never know tbh

- He’s literally just a hipster fish I’m not sure what else there is to say

- He gives douchebag energy? Is that what you want?

- Man, one of the tags on the search just says “Sad” are you okay fish Eridan? Do you want to talk about it?

- Oh and his brother Cronus? I just watched a video of him dancing shirtless and I haven’t been the same since

FEFERI PEIXES

- She can breath underwater, I can see that

- She also looks like she’s cute but hiding her trident behind her back ready to stab a bitch, probably thinking you won’t see the blatant weapon

- Thats what the evil look is for

- Maybe she’s that “im kind until ill stab ya” kinda gal

- Yknow, the usual

- I do like her skirt though, I think she’s the most colourful here. Everyone else is emo, especially Karkat

- Aw the squid in the back is cute tho

- Also why are you swimming with clothes and shoes in the first place? They waterproof?

- Idk much about her. Like there’s nothing at all. Why is there minimal info and art of this one lol?

#character info #homestuck

[gamzee]

I know I went off on numbers and the platonic model the other day but we can hop skip and jump over to the puzzle of identity just as easily, and that prompts me to revisit this platonic/fictionalist question. I mean I know I gotta do some more reading, and in theory all this quarantine time would be the best time, but I’m moody so let me just make a hypothesis now before I get around to it and see if my position changes later.

Hoooomestuck seems to come down on this idea that whether you’re good or bad isn’t determined by your actions or choices, (which are inevitable anyway,) but who you are “deep down” in your innermost thoughts and feelings which derive from an ultimate self, some sort of consistent, essential identity that superimposes across any and all expressions of space and time-- but actually I wonder in what frame of reference, or what particular system, any of this is actually true or useful. Maybe true in like, a particularly motivated understanding of modern, branded fiction-- but not at all true for real people in real life, and probably not even true for characters in the scenario of Homestuck where ultimate selves are undeniably real and certain expressions of causality inevitably futile.

I’ve never even been convinced that the unconscious (which is like, that’s the metaphor, right? I think?) is a great info-bank of truth in the way it’s been sold to me-- it’s not where The Good Shit gets buried and unearthed beneath the superficial, it’s any data that isn’t being accessed until it is, and is as rapid and inconsistent and fluctuating as everything else about a person. There r certainly patterns and causal relationships but identities and souls are handy illusions, nothing more. (Not to say repression or psychological damage aren’t real, I OWN a mirror, thanks.)

That’s the one thing I do kinda dig abt the epilogues, this implication that it’s all so absurd that maybe you’re the one in the wrong for taking it so seriously, (like okay, ya got me,) but we’ve kinda come back to going “no actually these are ALL motivated expressions of essential qualities of identity, they do not have validity in and of themselves but in an expression of that truth, they add to (and derive from) a sum” and hmmmm. Maybe you’re the one doing the adding!

Going back to Dirk-- goddamnit that fucker is back in here, is he? That’s what I get for leaving the door open. Anyway that’s what the Plato thing is about and the contrarian position is fictionalism, character arc spoilr’d, we can all go home. 

#....stuck

[terezis]

Love the TAZ horoscopes, but have you ever considered... IPRE/BoB classpects?

anon, buddy. friend. my dude, my guy. look at me. look at my url. look at my half-finished taz/hs crossover fanfiction. tell me i haven’t thought excessively about taz classpects. do you know who i am. that being said…

taako: heir of mind. “heir is a passive change class, focused on inspiring change in and through their aspect.” first of all, change. transmutation. second, taako and teaching. inspiring young minds. third, mind is all about choice and facade. tell me taako ain’t all about trickery and maintaining that aloof, distant persona of his. plus, classpects are also often assigned to challenge their players, and taako hates introspection, which i’d argue is real fuckin’ important to an aspect like mind.

magnus: knight of heart, no question. knight is an active protection class. magnus follows his heart and rushes in.

merle: my first impulse is to make him a page of life but myles transdavenport has made a strong case for blood player merle that i’m pretty into.

lup: goddamnit now i’m really rethinking everybody. i had her pegged as a rage player but hope might… fit her better? and hope is the opposite of rage so there’s still something there. like… her stubbornness, the way she rallies people to her side - the way she fought to save the robot world, her pep talk before the final showdown during the finale… how do we feel about witch of hope??? i can’t believe this. somebody please argue with me about this. what have i done.

barry: he’s definitely a destruction class, what with the whole necromancy-yolo-gonna-become-a-lich thing. that’s a given, i feel like. prince of heart? i was trying to avoid doubling up on aspects but it… works for him.

lucretia: i rly like the whole blood-as-bonds thing but… lucretia… is a light player. the journals, the voidfish, the way she likes to hold all the cards. wonderland and luck. rogue of light - she deals with the redistribution of information.

davenport: void is the obvious answer here, right? like, right? maybe doom? the doom players we’ve seen in homestuck’s canon have both been pilots, but i think there’s also something there with the whole, “leading a mission to save reality from an untimely demise” thing. escaping doom? heir of doom, maybe? or fuck, maybe breath? it’s all about direction; breath as movement and travel and freedom to follow your own path… he has that taken from him for a while… fuck. sylph of breath?? i don’t know anymore!!

kravitz: tfw discord collectively took the official quiz for kravitz and he got life as an aspect. i really like that. it’s funny but also good. bard of life.

also the thing abt taako and lup is that i could also see them as space and time players respectively, and i think that’s a really good dichotomy for the two of them as twins, but mind and hope also… fit their characters really well. you know?

#for all i talk about classpect i realized i never put my money where my mouth was and posted #my actual classpects for the gang #if you want the bob i can run thru my headcanons for those guys too #homestuck #taz tag #Anonymous #analysis #tazstuck

[virtual-crisis]

⭐Alpha Centauri⭐

Yes, you heard right, my..... Er, 43 followers [goddamnit my follower count on my main blog is the homestuck number as of writing]. I've started up a new story here, and this one's actually original [albeit dipping into a few fandoms, but it doesn't owe its plot to them]; this one's about an awkward college student that's roommates with an.... Interesting individual, to say the least. Stay tuned if this first part is engaging to you.

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Darkness. All I saw was the black of the void. It got darker in pulses for a few moments before growing light on one side. Why? Well, probably because my head was leant on my arm. I winced once more before lifting my eyes off my forearm—I’d dozed off mid toilet break… Lovely.

I groaned, sitting up. I wanted to check the time, but my phone was in my pocket, and my pajama pants were pulled down to my ankles, so I looked out the window. Solaris was pulling its lower half out of the horizon line off to the East, which meant I’d REALLY conked out, considering it was night when I’d sat down. Oh well, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about anything else having to “exit my premises”.

I stretched my arms for a moment before grabbing a long strip of toilet paper and finishing up on the toilet. After that, I skipped over to the sink to wash my hands, then headed back into my connected bedroom.

By this point, I realized while playing narrator that I should probably tell you who the Hell I am. Oops.

So, name’s Alyssa. I’m a college student at Boston University, studying software engineering with a minor in the arts. My parents encouraged me to make good use of my scholarship by going for a PhD, so I could get a really good, high-paying job relatively early on. At twenty-six years old, I’m on my third year for that doctorate, and I’m yet to see this path make itself a mistake. No dead end career, no crippling debt, none of that.

In the meantime, I’d gotten dressed: a pale blue t-shirt, with a blue plaid skirt and black shoes. Covering my legs was my favorite garment—A set of leggings patterned like a starry sky, with various blues, purples and greens under the white dots. Aside from clothes, I held a Hispanic complexion, a fuckton of freckles, and a glossy pair of blue eyes to go with my long, black hair.

As I fumbled around to get my backpack open and my phone inside, I walked myself through the past week’s lectures, mentally. Lots of boring C++ and script writing, but one can’t make the fun stuff without the bare basics.

Thinking on basics reminded me of food, so I closed my bag and headed to my dorm room’s kitchen, where my roommate was seated at the table.

Yeah, uh, my roommate. She was… Green. Bright green and glowing. Not unlike uranium, because that was exactly what she was.

While she had a form that looked human like myself, she was anything but. She said her parents call her a “uranium atronach,” but in layman’s terms, she’s a demon. From Hell.

Yes, I’m serious.

My hand reflexively went over my mouth and nose. “Hey hey, whoa, what’d I say about going all radio in the kitchen?”

The demoness—going by “Tyler” for her human guise—tensed up, pulling on the mask of a hazmat suit she wore in her “pure” form. “Oh fuck, right, I forgot about that,” she said, voice muffled by her mask as she glanced over to me. “Morning Ally, how’d you sleep?”

“Like a damn rock. I fell asleep in the bathroom.”

“Shit, that sucks. Maybe should’ve gone earlier….”

“Oi, I can’t control my ass like that.”

Tyler snorted, before chuckling under her suit. I stared blankly for a moment, before joining her as I went to grab a container of cup ramen to heat up.

“Alyssa,” she said, “do me a favor and never think before you talk to me.”

“Whoever said I did?” I quipped. “Now come on, I got dressed already. You go change into your flesh-suit-thing so we’ll be ready for class.”

Tyler sighed, getting up. “C’moooooon, I just put my mask back on,” she groaned.

“Oh hush, I took like ten seconds to wake up and get moving. That’s like, dangerously fast for me.”

Tyler broke out laughing as she stepped past me to leave the kitchen, and I laughed with her. Once she was out, I turned to the microwave, glancing at the ramen cup. “Microwave for three minutes”. Pfft. I set it to six to be thorough—never could trust the shitty appliances in these dorms.

Soon, a caucasian human girl came into the kitchen wearing a t-shirt for some dime-a-dozen death metal band and jeans she’d cut wear into herself with a knife. Tyler’s ‘human’ form, though she didn’t do a good job of staying inconspicuous with her ‘isotope-green’ mohawk flipped over on the side of her head. Like some dumb 2070’s cyberpunk hacker or something.

I stared blankly at her. “...What’s with the hair?”

She furrowed her brows, swatting a hand in my direction. “Stoooooop asking that every time I change.” she whined in annoyance. I just snickered in response.

Once my ramen was ready, I pulled it out and seasoned it to start eating. Tyler grabbed another cup from the fridge to do the same. I went ahead and headed into the living room, sitting down and flicking through channels aimlessly on the TV. Very little of interest, even on the cartoon channels. The cartoons were just a bunch of mindless pandering to kids’ amusement at randomness, and the rest was either boring news or inane soap operas.

“I wonder if that’s what it’s like to be schizophrenic.”

I blinked, looking over at Tyler. “...What?”

“...Y’know, hearing voices in your head. Or would ADHD be more accurate? Fuck if I know.”

I looked back at the TV, then her again. “...What the fuck?”

She shrugged, sitting next to me. “What’re you even on the cable for anyway? None of these shows are good.” she said, grabbing for the remote.

I held it away from her. “Nooooo, I wanna flick through them. If I watch youtube I’ll just be stuck there for hours.” I whined.

“But youtube’s actually FUN to watch. You get to see people being idiots for others’ entertainment!” Tyler whined back, putting one hand around my shoulders and trying to grab the remote with the other.

“You get that on these stupid shows too if you think about it enough!”

“But I thought you didn’t like thinking!”

“I- agh!” I yelped as Tyler toppled both of us over, flopping on top of me. Fortunately, whoever teaches demons about imitating humans doesn’t get skeletons right, or it would’ve hurt a lot more than it did in this instance. “Ugh… Get off me, fatass…”

Tyler huffed, shifting position to lie on top of me casually and snatch the remote from my hand. “Pff, or what, you’ll thump me on the head? No.” she teased. I rolled my eyes, shifting and struggling to get my legs up under hers since I was stuck there either way.

“...Whatever. Put on one of those ghost pepper challenge tags.”

“Ew, no, that’s a minefield of people like, hiccupping in really gross ways.”

“Not if you know the right channel.”

Tyler scoffed, leaning over to grab an Xbox controller off the coffee table. She used it to turn on and navigate our shared Xbox to its Youtube app, where we spent a good hour or two watching dumb videos of dumb people doing dumb things. It was amusing for the time being.

Eventually, Tyler’s alarm went off on her phone, signaling we had to get the hell out of our dorm and off to class. Tyler was quick to turn off the TV and urge me to get up, but I’d half dozed off underneath her, and my legs had fallen asleep.

“I don’t wanna go to school…” I whined.

Tyler rolled her eyes. “Hey dumbass, you’re already IN school.”

“Well I don’t wanna already in school……”

Tyler snorted in amusement for a moment… Before grabbing me by the shoulder and pulling me off the couch. “Come on you lazy ass, time to learn how to speak robot.”

I sighed in frustration, wrestling away from her and stumbling a bit as my legs got used to having to move again. “Ugh, fine. But what if I don’t wanna-”

Tyler put a hand over my mouth. “You literally asked to learn how to talk to robots.”

I rolled my eyes, pulling away from her again and turning to saunter out the door of our room. “Whatever…”

Class was uneventful. Another lecture on the inner workings of computer programs. I’d been taught a good bit of software engineering by my mom, growing up, but even she was reading the ‘For Dummies’ book on it. Something something binary, something something programming project, something something research on the developments of programming over the decades.

I elected to spend the afternoon dicking around with some old CD-ROM games that my parents had let us get a hold of to use for school stuff. ‘Us’ as in me and my little brother, Nate.

“So how do you think they programmed the shadows to move in real time? It has to generate a new silhouette texture on the ground every time the model is hit by a new light source.”

He’s about three years younger than me, so I act as his tutor. After all, he decided to take the same major as me, albeit minoring in culinary arts.

“I’m surprised it doesn’t drop the framerate when you pass between rooms, thinking on that. The shadow textures are probably really compressed, since you don’t have to worry about all the details of the actual character model.”

You can definitely tell the food-loving part from a glance—he’s more than a little chubby, same with me—though his real passion’s making new worlds through computer programming. Me, I just love turning reality inside-out through the possibilities of game design.

“Oh yeah, we were talking polygons in class last week. Maybe we should pull up a rendering program and get a closer look at it.”

Call us nerds, but we’re the kind of people that make games for people to be nerds about, so at the end of the day it’s a compliment.

“Nahhhhh, let’s go look for a video on the topic. There’s bound to be some cool stuff talking about atoms and pixels or some shit like that.”

Nate chuckled in response to my suggestion. “Okay, okay, I’ve got lessons on matter states coming up in science anyway.”

The afternoon went by as one would expect with two cheerful, get-along-y siblings like us. Of course in this, I neglect to mention my older sister, Paula. She might not’ve been there now, but she had recently finished her studies in social sciences, supporting us from three terms ahead. Nowadays, she’d be vacationing up in Europe somewhere, but Nate and I always enjoyed when she’d visit, and it’s better I mention her now than have it come as a surprise later.

Before long, we were listening to dubstep and collaborating to make a mock-up of a platformer game. It was a moth and beetle skittering and flying through the rafters of a rave venue. Lots of lights, lots of colors, and nice, complex character models to play with. Nate kept saying to make it run well in time with the music we listened to, but I complained that we’d need music of our own. He retorted that we weren’t really gonna publish it for money anyway. I said, “Fair point,” and we put in some of our favorite tunes and built levels around them. Man, I envied people with synesthesia- they’d have a field day fusing visuals and music for something like this.

As if I’d summoned her or something, Tyler proceeded to walk in on us. “Holy shit you guys, that’s like fifteen songs too many at once.”

“What?” I called, cupping a hand to my mouth. “I can’t hear you over the great-a-f music!”

“UGH.” Tyler grunted aloud, putting up her hands. “I’m supposed to be reading physics textbooks this afternoon!”

I immediately hit mute on Nate’s computer. He seized up reflexively, blinking several times in surprise. “Woah, what the f-” he cut himself off to shake his head.

“Alright, alright, go soak up the universe or whatever that prof’s got you doing.” I said in a slightly mocking tone.

Tyler scoffed, walking to her bedroom. “Yeah yeah, I’m soaking up a lot more than the universe, I’ll tell you that.”

I watched her disappear past the door, before looking to the clock on the computer. “Oh shit, I’ve got art class in half an hour.” I said.

Nate leaned back as he closed most of his music tabs and set the volume to low. “Time for me to go, then?”

I snorted, waving a hand. “Hey, miss Manhattan isn’t gonna possess you or anything—she would’ve done that to me long ago if she had any plans to, heh.”

He shrugged, switching back to his Notepad++ window to make notes on changes he was making to the program. “Eh, true. Maybe I can ask her for some suggestions here…”

“Ah, I wouldn’t bother her with it. She’s got a lot of nuclear shit to read about.”

“Oooh, I can go talk through atomic physics with her, then.”

I snorted again. “Hey, leave her alone, ‘kay? And don’t go eating our food either.” I said, getting up to go switch out notebooks in my room so I’d have my notes for art class—oh right, and my sketchbook. I didn’t use it much, but my professor would chew me out if I didn’t have something of the sort available.

In art class, a couple of my classmates I sat next to were muttering about how the professor looked like Bob Ross, lecturing about color theory. I was too busy blending neon rays and spotlights to bother with their gossip. While some of the others were painting dainty flowers and landscapes, I had dubstep coursing between my ears, translating to rave lighting painting colors on a white moth—a kind of bug I’d always adored—and marking charcoal over the negative space to give an especially blatant night atmosphere.

For a while, I could feel eyes over my shoulder. I glanced over, and one of the other girls was watching me put color to paper. She blinked, and waved at me. “Oh, whoops, didn’t mean to stare.”

I glanced away for a moment, then back to her. “Er, yeah, hey. What’cha want?”

She shrugged one arm. “Well, wanted to let you know there’s a game next week. Gotta practice tomorrow, and the captain’s been upset about you being late recently…”

I stared for a moment, before thumping my head on my sketchbook. Cheer practice. I knew I was forgetting something. Between all the academic stuff I was juggling, I was on the cheerleading team too, and oh god I did not enjoy the physical exertion. I’ve always been a lazy and sedentary person, but I direly craved the love and attention cheerleading could bring. Dad said it wasn’t a good idea for someone so averse to exercise as me, but mom said it could be a good way to get some activity in here and there.

“God, jeez, I forgot about it again, thanks for the heads up…”

“You really oughta get one of those calendar apps to remind yourself—all the rest of us use ‘em.”

“Yeah, but those take time to set up…”

“Well someone’s gotta take the time to remind you…”

I groaned. “Fine, fine, I’ll get to it when I’ve got a chance…” I muttered. That, of course, was a flat lie.

Both of us winced as the professor called us back to attention, specifically calling us two out for ‘gossiping’. Oops.

When I got out of class later, Tyler swung by to bring me to a restaurant for dinner. Nothing fancy, but it was a good quality pizza place, not some ‘drive-thru’ pizza hut. Tyler said she couldn’t tell a difference, but I for one actually had a stomach, rather than some boundless void concealed only by a sphere of whale blubber. Demons being ‘superior beings’. The one I lived with was a superior lack of standards for food.

“God, this pizza’s great. Imagine people COMPLAINING about this being unhealthy.”

“Right? Shit’s delicious, who cares how greasy or high calorie it is?”

I nodded to Tyler’s remark, glancing around. “Best part’s when they put pineapple on it. Real shame they don’t have that here.” I said aloud. I could practically feel people around us squirm.

“I thought you didn’t like-?”

I waved a hand at Tyler to shut her up, quietly shushing her. I motioned at another table with my eyes, where one guy had literally facepalmed Captain Picard style because of my lie about pineapple pizza. We quietly snickered with eachother.

I motioned a hand coyly at her after a minute. “So why didn’t you tell me about cheer practice tomorrow, jackass?”

Tyler rolled her eyes. “I already set my phone to ping you for class, I’m not your cheer team reminder too.”

I huffed, pouting and looking away. “Gee, I thought roommates were a thing to help eachother out.”

“You’re LAZY. El-ay-zee-why. When’s th-”

“I’m ALSO a straight-A student.”

“When you remember to DO your projects.”

“Which is always! I’m literally a professional procrastinator!”

“It’s not literally if you don’t make money from it.”

“Check the dictionary, dumbass, some idiots online got it changed to also mean figuratively.”

Tyler scoffed haughtily, rolling her eyes and going back to eating.

Fast forward a few days. I managed to catch a date with one of the jocks on the football team- him asking me out, surprisingly. I decided not to tell him I was leaning lesbian recently, ‘cause honestly, I was fine going either way. Though if it turned out well, I’d probably have to tell him… Well, nevermind.

The date was kinda boring. He wanted to hang out at a nice bar and grill, get a drink or two, a hearty course of burgers and fries. A great effort, considering the dumbasses he played alongside. I found it kind of dull though—only thing we could really connect over was football, me as a cheerleader, and him as an athlete. His main coursework was in economics, and mine was in software engineering, so neither of us could really make sense of the other’s intellectual interests in that regard.

We decided against talking through more… Recreational interests.

“Sooooo, how’d it go, succubitch?” Tyler said tauntingly when I got home. ‘Succubitch’—pretty obvious what demons like her thought of their lustful counterparts. Then again, she was a demoness of envy. And gluttony. But the latter’s obvious just at a glance—I call her ‘fatass’ for good reason.

“I told him it was a very nice time and that I enjoyed it.” I said, sticking up my nose at her.

“So you hated it.” she retorted, smirking and raising a brow.

I glared at her. “I did not! It was just… Kind of boring? He asked if we could go again some time, and I…”

“Spat in his face?”

I put up my hands. Tyler was sneering evilly. Even for her, this was excessively mean. “No! I told him to maybe look for a girl he can find more to talk about with!”

“Oooooh, he’s gonna be crying about that at the frat house~”

“Shut up!” I whined. Tyler just laughed.

#Alpha Centauri #I figure this'll seem a bit disorganized... It's kind of a chapter of 'mini-stories' cobbled together to paint the picture of Alyssa's life

[knight-of-heart-and-art]

==>

SO, I have written 5,556 words of Homestuck fanfic, from an AU where there's no Sburb, Cal is human and Dave's (probably-younger) brother. I suck so bad at summaries so just have a few warnings...child abuse is mentioned, Cal gets hurt pretty badly in this one, it does end well I promise. Forgive me any typos (or tell me about them; I hate typos.) This might be bad, I have no clue. I really enjoyed writing it and I hope you like reading it.

 CAL: dave  CAL: do you think bro hates us

  You stare at the message for a minute before even trying to think of an answer. He's not wrong, no; your older brother is an asshole and even though you never really actually formed the thought all the way before, you think that yeah, he probably hates both you and Cal. Not that you'd ever say that. But then again, you wouldn't have guessed that Cal would ever say it either, but here it is glowing orange on your laptop's screen.

  Something's up. Knowing Bro, something very not-good. But you still think for another minute and type out an answer to your brother.

 TG: dunno if i can disagree on that one man  TG: whats making you bring it up though

  He doesn't answer for a couple seconds, long enough for you to hope that this is something little and stupid.

  Nope.

 CAL: um  CAL: he threw me off the roof dave

  Goddamnit to fucking hell...you can't think for a moment for fury and fear. This is bad, so bad, worse than Bro's usual brand of fuckery, and you don't know what the hell to do. Other than ask a stupid question.

 TG: holy fuck cal  TG: are you okay

 CAL: no  CAL: no im not  CAL: i think i broke some things...

  "Fuck." You whisper it this time, trying to keep your hands steady as you type.    TG: ill be right there man

 CAL: please  CAL: dave i think im going to die

  That almost locks you up. You can't even think about that possibility, it doesn't exist, it can't...so you shake your head, typing four more words before shoving your laptop back and heading for the door.

 TG: you wont. i swear.

  Cal's outside on the ground; it's obvious that he tried to pull himself a little out of the way, managed to get over to the wall and half-lean against it, curling up on himself. Even before you get close enough to really see, you can tell that it's bad.

  He raises his head when you kneel down next to him and try to smile, but winces as soon as he moves, making a softly pained noise. There's blood and makeup smeared across his face, and oh god but he looks scared. "Hey, Dave," he says quietly.

  You're scared too. You can't let him see that. "Hey, Cal." You almost ask if he's all right, not because you think there's any chance that the answer will be yes but simply because you need to say something. Thankfully, you have enough sense to bite those words back and say something marginally less idiotic and more helpful. "How bad is it?"

  "I—" Cal shifts a little, blue eyes filling with tears that he blinks back. "...bad. My leg's not right, my ribs—Dave, it hurts..."

  "Yeah. I'm—" going to cry, but don't say that, don't think that. "Cal, I'm going to pick you up, alright? I'll try not to hurt you, but..." But you will. And you can see he knows that.

  "Dave, it's okay, just." He holds his arms up to you, gasping in pain. "C'mon. Please."

  This is so fucking bad.

  It's hard to find a way to hold him that doesn't seem to make anything worse. You end up cradling him awkardly, trying to move slow and even and not let his obviously-broken left leg move, trying not to put any pressure on his chest at all. He gasps when you lift him, clutching at your arm before shuddering and forcing himself to lie limply in your arms, squeezing his eyes shut as you carry him back into the house.

  He doesn't move at all until you set him down carefully on the couch. When you start to pull away he whimpers, opening his eyes to look up at you and grabbing at your arms.

  "Shh, Cal. It's okay." Oh god that's a lie. Such a lie. "It's going to be okay." That one isn't. You hope it's not. You blink behind your shades, pushing them up on top of your head with one hand before reaching to unbutton his shirt. "I need to look, okay? I'm not going to touch it yet, I swear."

  He starts to nod, but winces at his own motion and goes still again. "O-okay." Cal's still holding onto your forearms, panic-tight, and it's hard to fumble the buttons undone, but you're not going to ask him to let go.

  It takes you a minute to get his shirt open. When you do, you wish you weren't seeing this. There's bruising across most of his chest, deep ugly marks the color of plums and streaked with brighter red from where his skin's split open over ribs that don't line up right anymore.

  "I—" God, you can't fix this. And your voice wants to crack, break, stop altogether as you force your eyes up from Cal's torso to his terrified face. You swallow hard, reaching up to wipe some of the mess off his face before pushing him gently to lie down on the couch. "Cal, I'm calling 911, alright? They'll send an ambulance, come get you."

  "Us, Dave—they can't leave you here, he'll—" His eyes go wide at the thought, and he tries to sit back up, but you shush him gently, holding him down.

  "Yeah, man. I'm not leaving you. Promise." You slip your hand into his pocket, getting his phone and stepping out of the living room to the bedroom as you dial.

  Funny. They really do say, "911, what is your emergency?" just like on TV. Not that you let the lady on the other end finish her sentence. As soon as the dial tone stops, you're talking, keeping your voice low enough that Cal won't hear and reeling out the words faster and smoother than any rap you've ever done.

  "I need an ambulance, right fucking now, my—my Bro just pushed Cal, my brother, pushed him off the roof and he's hurt so fucking bad, I can't fix it this time and you need to come and get him, get us before Bro comes home—" You reel off the address, some part of you aware that you're not giving her an opportunity to ask the important-ass questions she must have, that you haven't taken a breath since you hit the call button, but you can't stop. Can't even slow down. "This isn't a joke, okay, Cal's hurt and I'm so fucking afraid that Bro'll come back and hurt him again, fucking kill him, please, just—just—"

  You're out of breath, close to tears and even closer to losing it. You need to get back to Cal, now. The line's still open and the operator's talking, but you drop the phone, biting down on your lip and taking a few breaths before you think you can look calm enough to not scare him worse before going back into the main room, kneeling down next to the couch, and reaching for his hand.

  "They're coming, man." You hope they are. No—if there's a God, he's got to hear you praying that the woman on the other end of the line took you seriously.

  He nods, and his fingers close around yours as he looks up at you, but other than that he doesn't move. You cant to just pull him him into your arms, hold him and sit and wait for someone to come and pull both of you out of this little piece of hell, but there's other things you still need to think about.

  "We, uh..." You have to swallow because your voice wants to crack; this isn't what you want to think about, even if you've considered leaving for years. "We're not coming back here, Cal. I told the 911 lady what happened, that—that Bro did this, they're not...is there anything you want to take with you? Tell me and I'll grab it for you, alright?"

  He nods again, very slightly, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth for a moment before he answers. "My—my makeup bag, please, my gold necklace, the...bear you got me forever ago, he's on my bed...I'm sorry, Dave." The words all come out in one rush, broken by quick hesitations, and you're halfway to your feet before the last one registers.

  "Hey, no." You stop, kneeling back down and taking his hands again. "This isn't your deal, okay? You did nothing wrong, he's a fucking bastard for doing this to you and you don't have anything to apologise for, this isn't your fault, Cal, I swear."

  "It is m-my fault," he says, and oh god his eyes are full of tears, if he cries now you don't know if you can keep faking that you're not scared for him. "I could have—should have caught the edge, fought back better—"

  "Shh." You say it as firmly as you can, laying one finger across his lips until he quiets. "No, man. You know Bro. He doesn't stop, just...puts shit off. If it hadn't happened now, it would've tomorrow. Or next week, a couple months from now, maybe to me or maybe to you. It could've been even worse. This is his fault, not yours, and this is the last time he's gonna get to do this to either of us."

  When you bring up the possibility that it could have been you that went off the roof—maybe should have been, although you don't say that—Cal's eyes go wider and he shakes his head, wincing in pain at the movement. He doesn't protest your logic, though, and when you pull your hands away to get to your feet he lets you go.

  In the bedroom, you grab your backpack, stuffing some of Cal's clothes and some of your own into it before adding Cal's makeup and necklace from the dresser, putting them carefully in the side pocket. The bear isn't going to fit, you can see that immediately; you'll carry it.

  Is there anything else? Anything you want to take out of this hellhole?

  Your laptop. Take that, and the charger and shit. Get your crochet hooks, at least one ball of yarn—Bro's always hated that you're better with yarn than soft fabric, that you can't or won't help him with the smuppets, and that alone is reason enough to bring the hobby along with you. Your shades—but they're already on you, always are, just pushed up on top of your hair at the moment.

  There isn't anything else. Just the few items you already chose, and Cal. That's all you want or need.

  You scoop up the bear, shoulder the bag, and go back to him. "You sure that's all?" If he says no, you have a little room, you can carry more.

  But Cal nods, and—to your horror—shoves himself up to a sitting position, face twisting and going dead white as the movement does something worse to already-fucked-up ribs. "I—Dave it hurts, it hurts, I'm going to die, I don't—"

  "Fuck, Cal!" Does he hear your voice crack on his name as you grab his shoulders and push him down as gently as you can? "Shh, okay, f-fuck, lie still, they're coming, I s-swear they are—" And that's not a wishful hope or a comforting lie; you can hear a siren from somewhere outside. "You're not going to die, just—l-lie still."

  Goddamn your stammer. Your own voice is betraying you; how can you calm him down when you can't pass for calm yourself?

  He's sobbing now, shaking and clinging to your hands, mascara making darker trails down his pale face. Even as you try to calm him, he's running a half-hysterical litany of panic, pain, and fear, telling you that he's hurting, he's scared, and he doesn't want to die, and you can't even tell him you don't want him to die either, you just have to keep promising him you won't even when you're terrified that he will.

  God, you're so scared.

  You can't help but cringe when the door bangs open behind you—you know it's probably people coming to help, but if it is Bro then you're dead. You might be able to slow him down a little, shield Cal for a minute, but there's no way that you won't both pay for it—but the hands that come down on your shoulders and pull you back from Cal are so fucking gentle, and the voice attatched to them is quiet and unthreatening.

  It's still hard to force your own rising panic down enough to listen. But you manage to do it, as two more men—paramedics, they'll fix Cal, they have to—push past the two of you and lean over Cal.

  "He's going to be all right, son, you just need to come over here and give them a little room to—"

  Cal screams, though, as you let yourself be pulled away, a high sound of almost pure fear, and suddenly your ability to think is totally gone. You lunge back towards him, ready to fight to keep him safe, and you probably would have tackled one of the paramedics if the man who's trying to calm you down didn't grab your wrist, hauling you back and wrapping his arms around you to contain you as you struggle.

  He's strong. Maybe as strong as Bro, definitely strong enough to hold you, but he doesn't use it to hurt you. Just holds onto you, waiting for you to stop fighting. And after a minute you do, going limp and listening to him again, not taking your eyes off the men who are currently trying to give Cal a shot.

  "It's all right, calm down...they won't hurt him. What's your name, son? And his. That'll make it easier for us to help you, you know. We are going to help you, that's why we're here—"

  "D-Dave." Your voice sounds wrong to your own ears. Shaky, and hoarse. "I'm Dave, h-he's Cal, fuckin' let me go..." Your eyes are blurry. So blurry. You think you might be crying.

  The man holding you loosens his grip, letting you slip away and bend down to retrieve the bear from where it fell, dragging one sleeve across your eyes to deal with some of the tears there. Yeah, definitely crying.

  "Okay, Dave. You need to come to the hospital with us, all right? Is there anyone else here with you?" His voice is still soft and calming, but you want to scream.

  "F-fucking Bro. He doesn't count, fuck h-him." You look back to Cal, and the two men putting him on a stretcher. He's still crying, trying to jerk away, but whatever they gave him is making him quieter and slower. "He—he did this, fucking left, I don't—I'm not leaving Cal, okay, you can't make me." They're carrying him out. You need to follow him, but the soft-voiced man catches your shoulder and holds you back for another minute.

  "Dave, calm down. It's all right, your brother will be fine. No one's going to try to make you leave him." He meets your eyes for a good five seconds before letting you go and pushing you gently towards the door. "Go on. Get up in the back with him. He'll feel safer with you."

  You want to thank him, you really do. But your voice is, for now, gone. So you nod, and you run after Cal, following the paramedics' path out the door and climbing up into the ambulance next to him.   If anything, he looks worse, makeup smeared across his face as he sobs weakly, but he quiets a little as you slip your hand into his and lean over him. It's hard to find a reassuring smile, but you force it onto your face for him.

  "Gonna be all right, Cal." It's easier to keep your voice steady when you're quiet. "I promise, man, you're gonna be okay. I love you."

  Whatever they gave him is strong enough to knock him out; his eyes are already glazed and half-shut. But he tightens his grip on your hand, and he whispers back to you before he goes all the way limp. "...love you, Dave."

  He doesn't let go of your hand. And you cling to him, tuning out everything else from the soft fur of the bear in your arm to the paramedics doing god knows what around you. None of it matters, except Cal.

  You lose a little time, maybe. Or the hospital's closer than you thought it was. Either way, all of a sudden the ambulence door is open again and someone is trying to get you to let go of Cal's hand.     And of course, they're talking. About how you need to let him go because you can't go into the operating room with him, how it's going to be okay and nothing else is going to happen, how you're both safe, and god you don't want to let him go but if you don't they can't fix him. And if you don't, they'll never stop talking. So you reluctantly release his hand, turning to the person who's talking to you.

  This one's a woman, tall and dark-haired and a hell of a lot less threatening than anyone else you've seen today. Her eyes are very green when you force yourself to look at her face, which reminds you that your shades are still on top of your head instead of over your own eyes where they belong.

  You could pull them down. Or you can just clutch Cal's bear protectively and keep looking at her, waiting for her to either mention your fucked-up eyes or look away.

  You choose the latter.

  She doesn't do either thing you expected, anyway. After a moment, she puts one hand on your shoulder, gently leading you a different way than they took Cal, into the building. "He's going to be all right, Dave," she reassures you, and her gentle tone makes you want to cry again.

  You won't do that.

  "He fucking b-better be," you answer her grimly, squeezing the bear harder. "You people—you n-need to keep Bro away from him, us, I-I'll kill him if I ever see him again..." Some threat—your skinny self against the man who's spent years proving he can beat the shit out of you, but you'll damn well try.

  "He won't come near either of you," the woman says soothingly. "You're both safe now. Can you come talk to a police officer? Tell him what happened? It's all right if you can't yet—"

  "Fuck yes I can." Bro would have knocked you across the room for interrupting. Doesn't matter. If you don't talk now, you don't know if you're going to be able to. "So long as it means that fucker goes somewhere I never have to see him again, I'll tell you anything you need to know."

  She blinks. You don't know what sent that quick wave of surprised pity across her face, unless it's your swearing. Maybe you should apologise for that...but she doesn't seem angry, and she doesn't wait for you to, just nods and guides you down the hall to a room with a man in a uniform that's supposed to mean safety but just kind of fills you with unease.

  But you still talk. He asks questions occasionally, writing shit down even though there's a digital recorder running on the table between the two of you, but mostly both he and the woman just sit and listen to you tell everything you can think of about what Bro's been doing to you and Cal for as long as you can remember. About ten minutes in, you're overcome by a choking, suffocating knowlege that they don't believe you, though. That Bro was right, all those times he told you no one would believe a kid like you. And you have to stop, despite yourself.

  The cop frowns at you—in confusion or anger, you can't even tell—and you struggle to get your breathing enough under control to get out another sentence.

  "I'm n-not lying." He thinks you are. He has to. Bro's the worst fucking person in the world, but he's never wrong about people. "I'm not, h-he—I—"

  You can't prove any of this. There's no reason anyone will ever believe you. You don't have proof.

  Except you do. You have yourself.

  You let go of Cal's bear for a second, tucking it to one side in the chair with you, and pull up the hem of your shirt enough to show the scarred lacework that Bro's made of your torso. There's nothing all that new, nothing fresh—he's been almost better than usual lately, at least with the physical shit, at least until this shit with Cal—but the marks are something tangible, something more than your words about katanas and puppets and other bad things.

  In the chair next to you, the woman makes a soft sound, but you don't take your eyes off the officer.

  His eyes went wide when you pulled your shirt up, but you can't really read what emotion is on his face—you're beginning to realize that while it's always been hard to read the microexpressions that are all that slips through Bro's mask of stoicism, it's just as hard to read other people's faces when they're not trying to hide anything.

  You're going to cry.

  You want Cal.

  You don't even realize that you're completely frozen there, breathing panic-fast and holding your shirt up helplessly, until the cop leans forward to reach for something under the table. You can't help but flinch at the movement, but all he does is extricate a box of tissues from somewhere and slide it across the table for you.

  "No one's questioning your story, son—"

  "D-Dave." You pull out a tissue and wipe at your eyes with it, not so much because you're actually crying as because you don't want to see them looking at you. "My n-name's Dave, please fuckin' use it..."

  God, you probably shouldn't swear at a cop.

  "...Dave. All right." There's a definite pause there, but he doesn't sound angry. You don't think. "No one thinks you're lying. Your brother—"

  "Cal." You keep worrying at your eyes with one hand, reaching down to pull the bear closer with the other.

  "Cal. His injuries speak fairly well for what happened. We just needed you to confirm what happened, all right? No one's blaming you."

  He believes you. And you didn't even know how scared you were that no one would until he told you he did—suddenly, you can breathe.

  And of course, the first breath is a sob, no matter how how hard you try to choke it back. At least you're already holding a tissue.

  One of them—you don't know whether it's the cop or the dark-haired woman—puts a hand on your shoulder, but takes it away when you twitch away and wordlessly shake your head. That isn't what you need right now, no, you don't want comforting touches unless they're from Cal, but he isn't here and you're not with him right now. His bear will have to be enough for this moment.

  And it is. But it's still a good few minutes before you can crumple the tissue into a wad and look up. "...s-sorry."

  He sighs, shaking his head. "It's all right. You did fine, Dave...I think we have enough here."

  It isn't until the woman comes over to offer you a hand up that you realize what he's saying. Yes, you can go. And no, you didn't fuck this up.

  You exhale shakily, snag another tissue, and let her lead you out.

  There are more people who want to talk to you, but at this point you can't really particpate in any of these conversations. You nod at their questions and you manage to look at most of them (and somehow, miraculously, no one says anything about the fact that your eyes are the color of blood, you couldn't handle explaining that right now), and maybe you soak up what they're saying even if you're not exactly listening—but really, this is just noise.

  Again, you lose track of time, because you have no idea how long it's been since this whole thing started. You just know that you're so fucking tired by the time that a second officer—a different one from the one who you told about Bro—leads you into an actual hospital room, this one with a bed.

  And Cal in the bed. He's unconscious, bandaged up and hooked to about a dozen contraptions and monitors, and they've washed all the makeup off his face, but it's him. And you can see the slow rise and fall of his breath even from across the room.

  He's okay. Or he will be, definitely. The man who brought you in is saying something, but you turn to him to ask a question that probably has nothing to do with whatever he's talking about.

  "You're not going to break us up, right?" Cal will ask that, as soon as he does wake up, and you need to be able to tell him that you can stay with him and not be lying or unsure. "He's gonna be okay, you're not going to make me leave him?"

  There's enough panic and fear in your voice that the man pats your shoulder comfortingly and looks at you with an expression that's probably also supposed to be comforting but, to you, speaks of a godawful fucking pity. "Don't worry," he says quickly, quite obviously trying to soothe you, "you two won't get split up. And you don't have to worry about your brother—"

  "Bro." You're pretty sure that's what he means. Not Cal.

  "Yes, your—uh—Bro. We already have a warrant out for his arrest, and just to be safe we're putting a guard on this toom." His hand is still on your shoulder; he gives it a reassuring squeeze. "Do you want someone to come sit with you two?"

   ...good question, but you find yourself shaking your head without even really considering it. "We're okay. I—thank you." Don't cry again. Cal's right there. You're okay.

  The man smiles at you, pats your shoulder one more time, and leaves, closing the door quietly behind himself.

  You take a good minute and a half to just stand over Cal, reassuring yourself that he's there. Yes, he's banged up; yes, he's unconscious and still looks so fucking tired without the mask of his makeup; but he's alive. And he's here. And Bro's not. And that's so fucking good.

  There's a chair in the room, a surprisingly comfortable one, but it's too far away from the bed and weighs probably more than you do. It takes you another couple of minutes of shoving and whispered cussing to shift it the few feet over (and it's not until you have it where you need it that it occurs to you that you could've just stepped outside and asked for help. Goddamnit.) The backpack of stuff from the apartment goes under the bed, you curl up in the chair and take Cal's hand and pull the bear close, and you close your eyes.

  He's still out, will be for awhile. And you're so fucking tired that it's only a few minutes before you are too.

  Usually you have enough bad dreams to wake you up or at least make sleeping a less than desireable experience, but today you get nothing but deep blackness. Maybe it's the quiet of this room, maybe it's because right now there's no reason to be afraid of shit, maybe it's because you've reached the limit of your availiable emotional expenditure for the day. Whatever it is, you needed that sleep, and you're thankful for it.

  Anyway, the next thing you're conscious of is Cal's hand tightening down on yours. It takes you a second to pry your eyes open, but when you do, you see that he's turned his head enough to smile at you.

  "Hey, Dave."

  "Cal." You can feel the grin spreading across your face as you squeeze his hand, leaning forward to settle the bear next to him. "Welcome back, man."

  "'m glad I am." He blinks, and shakes his head a bit, this time without flinching in pain. "Wait, no. I'm glad you're here, honestly."

  "Both are good, man. Hey, you want some more good news?" Tell him now, before he gets worked up enough to ask.

  "Mhm." He gives you a slightly confused look, cuddling the bear with his free arm. "Any of that'd be appreciated, yeah."

  "Three things." You hold up three fingers, ticking one down with each point. "One, you're going to be okay. Two, they're not even going to try to split us up, I asked. Three, there's a fuckin' warrant out for Bro and he's going to jail for this shit, Cal, I swear."

  Cal's eyes get a little wider with each piece of info, and when you finish he actually laughs, looking up at you. "Heck yes—Dave, I'd hug you but I'm scared I'll set things off if I move—"

  "Shh." You grin, and lace your fingers through his instead of just holding onto his hand, squeezing gently. "Finger hug."

  That gets another relieved laugh. "Finger hug," he agrees, squeezing back. You don't know when the last time you saw him so happy and excited was. "We're never going to see him again, Dave, right? He's never going to touch you again, either of us, whatever else happens he's gone and that's, that's—" Cal runs out of breath, leaning his head back and gripping your hand tighter. His eyes are filling with tears again and he's shaking just a little, but he's laughing softly and breathlessly at the same time.

  You lean forward, pulling your sleeve down enough to wipe the tears away before they can get a chance to fall. "Yeah, man, you're done with him, I promise...I might have to, like, go point him out in court, tell 'em that he's the fucker who did this, but we're done. And I'm staying with you, promise."

  He blinks when you mention that, working his hand free of yours and carefully pushing himself up to lean against the pillows. "...yeah. I could do that, testify against him." Before you have a chance to tell him that there's no way in hell that you'd make him do that, he adds, "Besides, I've, uh...been collecting evidence." Cal turns the bear over, picking at the seam in its back until it unravels and reaching inside. There's a soft crinkle of plastic as he holds up a baggie with a few memory cards and a thin sheaf of photos in it.

  "Oh my god, man." You take the baggie, sliding the pics out and leafing through them. It's very hard not to wince; Cal somehow got pics of Bro at his very worst. You shake your head and put them back in the bag. "I can't believe you have these."

  "There's more on the cards." He holds out his hand for the bag, and you give it back. "I-I copied them all off of his cameras, I had to look up how to do it on your laptop but I learned and...I've been trying to figure out what to do with them for awhile now."

  He looks like he can't decide whether or not he's allowed to be proud of managing this, but you know that you're proud of him. "Holy fuck, Cal—you're a fucking genius, you're amazing—" And another thought occurs to you, this one almost enough to freeze the grin off your face. "And goddamn but I'm so glad he never caught you."

  "He almost did a couple times." Cal nods, tucking the bag back into the hole and giving the bear an affectionate pat. "But he didn't know I could sew this well, so he never looked in here...I can't sew him back up now, though."

  "He'll get sewn up, don't worry." You pat the bear, then lean over to kiss Cal's forehead. "By the best doctor here, if I have anything to say about it. And I'm going to crochet him a hat, and get both of you fuckin' medals."

  Cal smiles in delight when you pat the bear, and blows you an air kiss as you pull back from him. "Really? You'd do that for Sir Tabor?"

  "Hell fucking yes I will. Make him a whole new wardrobe, any colors you want just as soon as I can get more yarn." You touch the bear again, gently, and reach up to smooth Cal's hair back from his face. "He deserves it, you deserve it...so fucking proud of you, Cal. Love you so much, you know that?"

  He nods a bit, pressing against your hand. "I love you too, Dave...I'm. Still a little scared, maybe a lot scared, okay?"

  "I know. That's okay." This time you don't have to fake the smile. "We're gonna be alright, man. I promise."

  "I believe you."

  And that's the best thing in the world.

#homestuck #humanstuck #cal and dave #as bros #no sburb #is this okay #I cant tell but I like it #fic #fancic #facfic #my writing #if youre the cal here I love you so very much my fren

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 14 - Candy Page 27

==>

Alright, back from a brief excursion.  I really, REALLY wanna fucking finish this.  I want to see ROXY UNZOMBIFIED goddamnit, or at least get a REASON for her zombification, even if it’s just some Dirk-like villain who just cliffhangers himself away like a fucking asshole.

Also, comment on John’s whole rant... I guess John DID kind of want to be important.  Or... well, not “important” per se, but rather at least impactful in his friends’ lives.  It feels like they’re all walking dead through their own unsolved problems, trying to put on a pretty face, and nothing he tries to do matters, even attempted kidnapping.  He feels as useless as Dirk THINKS he is, but he never really was.  Gosh, I wish he’d pulled off that absurd kidnapping.  Freeing people from this sort of thing is supposed to kind of be his jam?

Okay, reading the new page.

FUCK.  TEN YEARS???????

Pff, John’s kid and sorta!Vriska.  Yeah I can buy that.

Also I love how they type out “Harry Anderson” every single time as his full first goddamn name.

--God damnit, how is Gamzee still fucking things up ten years later?  Hasn’t someone considered killing him?

Karkat and Meenah, also unsurprising.  Too bad Dave has to die unsatisfied.  >:(

Hm... this sorta!Vriska also has a weird Capitalization Quirk for Important Words, huh?  --Oh right, Kanaya raised her.  That might do it.

Hm, eyepatch?

Alright, the world’s falling into chaos.  Did the world HAVE to fucking fall into chaos in BOTH TIMELINES where these supposedly-went-through-a-successful-journey heroes managed to eek out victory despite opposing reality’s greatest tyrant?  Pfuh.

--and right.  Alt!Callie reinforces the idea that even though this possibility “wasn’t canon” -- which... means Meat is?? D: -- that the lives within still matter when looked at within their own bubble.

JADE: while abstracted heavily, and fully freed from all forces of narrative gravity, these events still represent possibilities that slept within the hearts of all who reside here.

Mhmm, part of an extension of themselves, their uniqueness, their hopes and dreams and... whatever WHOEVER did to fuck Roxy over.  Jesus DICK what’s happened to her I need to know you’d better fix this.

And somewhere within that mess, John Egbert is the best man at Jade and Dave’s wedding. He lasts nearly two hours before he gets a ruinous case of the sniffles.

Maybe they worked it out into ALMOST full mutual love?  Even if Dave’s 70% gayness goes totally unsatisfied?  I mean, I can hope, right?  :(

Dammit, Jade, couldn’t you have done this properly?  :C

and everyone knows that John has lost his family to Jane Crocker.

What the shit?!???

What drove Roxy away was him being depressed and just an all-around huge wet blanket who was impossible to live with. John is totally ready to own the fact that he was a bad husband, but maybe not the fact that he was a bad enough husband to drive his wife to passively support a brewing genocidal dictatorship. She looks happier, though, whenever he’s caught sight of her behind Jane—Calliope faithfully at her side—in any of the propaganda broadcasts that Jane passes off as business press conferences. By the time Roxy finally cut things off between them, he hadn’t personally seen her smile in years.

WHAT.  THE.  SHIT.

WHY DID ROXY DO ALL THIS THEN.  WHY DID SHE OF ALL PEOPLE, ONE OF THE MOST FORCEFUL AND SMART AND COOL--- GUHHH SHE JUST VOIDED HER WILL JUST OUT OF OBLIGATION TO JOHN OR SOMETHING?????????? WHAT THE FUCK WHYYYYYYY

Characters choke.  Characters make bad decisions.  That’s fair.  Andrew’s said that before.  But John was VISIBLY RECOGNIZING HOW OUT OF CHARACTER ROXY WAS ACTING.  WHYYYYYYYYY DID IT HAPPEN, WHY SUDDENLY DECADES OF MISHANDLED RELATIONSHIP WITH ABSOLUTELY NOBODY POINTING OUT THE OBVIOUS WHAT THE FUCK.  AND ROXY WAS THE ONE WHO STARTED IT AND PUSHED INTO JOHN UNTIL HE ACCEPTED.  WHY.

WHY.

Read.  Calm down.  Read.  There had better be.  A FUCKING.  ANSWER.

Hi military rebellion leader Karkat.

KARKAT: OH MY GOD JOHN, STOP BEING SO FUCKING PATHETIC FOR JUST A MINUTE. COULD YOU DO THAT FOR ME? JOHN: i don’t know. that’s a pretty big favor you’re asking me there, karkat.

heheh

JOHN: i dunno. it doesn’t seem responsible, really... to dedicate my life to something so important when i’m in a place where i can’t even find the energy to think that getting out of bed in the morning is “important.”

Depression stuff, yeah.

John really needs a psychologist who isn’t just Rose.

pff, yifftrain.

That’s how the years pass. Faster and faster the longer it goes. 

What.  The.  Fuck.

We’re not going to get any answers are we.  Roxy just acted out of character for no reason, didn’t she.  This is-- no, Andrew’s too GOOD at this for that to-- I mean--  is there a big answer he’s just not telling us-- FUCK!!!!  D:

AAAAAAAA

This sucks.  This sucks this sucks this SUCKS.  But I’ll keep reading.  I have to know.  If I’m ever going to be able to stand, like, i dunno... homestuck rp i guess? i should probably keep reading.  and hope i recover.  eventually.

But that’s only part of it. Above this Earth, the dead cherub is still meditating, waiting for the day when she can have her own heroic apotheosis. Waiting for the day when she can confront the one she calls the Prince. And on this Earth, John is just waiting for the day that feeling finally stops. That feeling that he’s still waiting for something, and the even worse feeling that years ago, he missed his only chance to put an end to it. If you stand on a very high hill at dawn, you can watch your shadow move in an arc around you.

Yeah, reinforcing that John would be happier in the timeline where he did something and -- at least temporarily, since there’s hope of future revival -- “died” because of it, even if he wasn’t clear on why what he was trying to do even really mattered in the whole scheme of things.

...which is pretty weird when you consider the ending of Homestuck didn’t try to express that messa-- no, wait.  I guess it did?

Yes, everyone went to the post-victory planet to live out indefinite lives, but there WAS still the stage play.  Proving that John, at least, WOULD eventually step outside the happy ending to instead risk his life doing something important.  They earned both possibilities, really, to choose from at their will.

...Aren’t there another dozen pages or so left in this Candy segment, though??  Are we gonna follow their kids or something?

==>

...Okay so stuff still needs to happen here, plotways.  Good.  I think.

A flash above the clouds catches John’s attention: another ghost, falling down from wherever it is they come from. John follows after the light with an exhausted sigh. The novelty of dead trolls falling from the sky has really worn off over the years. But he might as well go warn the new arrival that they’ve landed in the middle of an imminent warzone. He sets down at the edge of the crater and peers through the smoke.

He recognizes the ghost immediately, because he sees a younger version of her almost every day.

JOHN: vriska?

Vriska’s face snaps up, eyes blazing. Eyes. Actual eyes, with expression, color, pupils, and everything.

JOHN: wait. you’re... JOHN: alive??

PFFFFFFhahahahah!

That’s pretty hilarious.  Vriska fell into the singularity and popped out here.

...Yeah, you can’t stand having missed the most “important” bit, can you.  Too bad.  You didn’t have the spotlight in the end.

==>

JADE: it is the one i have been waiting for all these years. JADE: we have run along parallel lines for what may as well be eternity, but my gravitational well has finally ensnared him. JADE: and now he is due to fall into this world.

Uhh, who?  Davebot or something, from the postscript?  Couldn’t be Gamzee, unless it’s, like... a different Gamzee.

“Chaos war”?  That’s a dramatic title.

==>

Hmm, reading reading...

Will Dad’s passing knock any sense into you?  Probably not.

...yeah, it wasn’t going to be that easy, was it?

Of course.  Of course Dad died saving the President.

Although, she’s going to assign fault to Karkat and then want to start a full bloody war over it, so, the opposite of having sense knocked into her then.

JANE: UGH! JANE: That... that fool!! JANE: I can’t believe that he would do this! JANE: How could he do this to me!?! JAKE: Janey... JANE: The human president could be anyone! JANE: My dad can’t be anyone but him!

Jane, you’ve become a real asshole.  :(

...Fuck you Gamzee.

GAMZEE: hEy. GAMZEE: Do YoU tHiNk ThAt MiGhT bE a BiT mOtHeRfUcKinG xEnOpHoBiC?

PFFFFHAHAHAHAHAAHAHhhh oh my GOD :’D

JANE: What? You think appealing to me with your disgusting little addiction is going to sway me?

Oh Jesus Christ that’s horrifying.  THAT’s what’s been going on.  I don’t want to visualize it, dear lord.

==>

Hahahah, catching Vriska up.  She’s practically curling up in a ball like Squidward in future shock.

PFFF PUTTING PARENS AROUND HER NAME SHE CAN’T STAND BEING IRRELEVANTIZED LIKE THAT

JOHN: i was supposed to go fight lord english, but i didn’t. so now we’ve gone beyond, like, the event horizon of canon. (VRISKA): What the fuck does that even MEAN????????

Wait, shouldn’t YOU know exactly what that means, Vriska?  Like, better than most people at least?

JOHN: all i know is that all of this is my fault.

:(

JOHN: it’s been turning around in my head like this for a while. i thought... JOHN: why does everything here fucking SUCK so much? JOHN: how the hell did we even make it from point A to point festering clusterfuck? JOHN: it doesn’t follow any kind of logic i understand, or any sort of basic sense i have about who we are as people... JOHN: and why? why have we all ended up so unhappy and... twisted up?

Yeah, a BUNCH of people have acted really goddamn out of character and it’s unclear why.

JOHN: i got everything i wanted. everyone got what they— JOHN: what i thought they wanted. JOHN: and that’s just it, isn’t it? JOHN: the more i think about it, i’m the only factor that matters to anything.

--What?!?  No!!!  You could SEE that this wasn’t what you thought they wanted right from the get-go.  It couldn’t have been YOUR imagination that this realm of alternative possibility was drawn from, could it?  D:

JOHN: whatever i did, or didn’t do, just... destroyed reality’s ability to, like, substantiate itself, or whatever. JOHN: like there’s a bug in the operating system of whatever force in this world that regulates cause and effect. JOHN: everything’s been unraveling. nothing that happens makes sense anymore. JOHN: and now i’m the only person out here who’s even real at all! JOHN: hahahaha.

That’s certainly an idea at least, that people started acting out of character as we went further from “canon”.  In fact, it’s kind of a slam at fanfics, maybe?  Acknowledging that they distort the characters by understanding them in different ways, sometimes, and.. hm.

(VRISKA): Hahahahahahahaha... Wow, I’ve never seen a guy get his 8ulge all the way down his own swallow chute 8efore! JOHN: wait, what? (VRISKA): Good fuck. Do you actually think reality gives that much of a shit a8out you? (VRISKA): Get real, Eg8ert. (VRISKA): It’s not like you’re me. JOHN: ok, well. JOHN: that’s fair i guess.

Heheheh.  ...Yeah, Vriska might pep talk him out of this self-deprecating theory of his.  Besides, I mean... is that the ONLY cause for this whole fucking situation?  That Roxy’s will got eroded to nothing arbitrarily either at random in a glitching non-canon timeline or because John kind of maybe thought something was going to happen and reality decided to run with it??

...heheh, “batterpanzers”.

I’m pretty sure caring what “c8non” is supposed to be is EXACTLY the thing you’re freaking out about, Vriska, whether you realize it or not.

Oooh, Gamzee.  Do we get to see Vriska kill him?

Yeaaah... redemption ain’t for THIS sp8der.  The ghost version of Vriska got the closest thing to redemption she’ll ever get; THIS version never learned any damn lessons and is not going to accept that she ever NEEDS to.  Also, you said her name in relevance-reducing parentheses.  Bad move.

==>

Yaaaay here’s the bunch of indigo blood we were promised!! :D

Where’s the nudity though? Maybe that’s coming.

He yowls as if he had actual testicles to be mauled, and for all anyone knows, maybe he really does.

It’s reassuring to see that while Andrew is more than willing to give us WAY too much genital detail in some cases throughout this epilogue, he still knows how to deftly exploit the parts of anatomy that still AREN’T explicitly characterized and remain intentionally vague for their impactful resulting humor.  :)

She lunges at Gamzee’s catastrophic face lips-first, and practically dives into his mouth, ramming her tongue into his

NOOO FUCK HE WAS ABOUT TO DIE AAAAAA D’:

FUCK  :(

Okay, back on to anything but this.

==>

Oh shit, double Vriska.  This might be bad.

...Phew.  Nice save, John.

JOHN: ha ha. yeah, right. because this is real life, right? JOHN: i guess reading narrative relevance into a bunch of dumb and totally random events is kind of lame and childish. ROSE: No, that isn’t what I meant at all. ROSE: By all means, apply a narrative to our lives. Up until a certain point, it would have been perfectly accurate to do so. ROSE: But not anymore. JOHN: because... it’s not canon, right? ROSE: Do you remember what I told you years ago? About the three pillars of canon?

Wuh-oh.

ROSE: As I explained to you on that morning sixteen years ago, there are three critical features of canon: essentiality, relevance, and truth. JOHN: yeah. ROSE: We have been untethered from the mooring of “truth” for some time now. ROSE: So while we, in our subjective experiences of conscious perception, feel in this moment that we have known each other for a very long time, technically it’s not true at all.

...Okay.  Okay.

So.  Were, like.

Roxy and Calliope affected by the, like... “untruth wave” of his choice not to go the hardest, because he made it in their vicinity?  And that turned Roxy into a hypnozombie with minimal apparent free will? :C

...Oh wow.  She’s thanking John that she got a chance to be happy in this side timeline, even if so many other people suffered.  Because of the fucking hell Dirk was about to unleash on her in the Meat timeline.  Fuck.

ROSE: In the silly wizard story I wrote when I was a child, ROSE: The realm most comparable to heaven existed in a state of subliminal conditionality, dependent on the inscience of the individual experiencing it. ROSE: Which is to say that it would cease to exist the moment you realized what it was. ROSE: And so, those with knowledge could never truly be happy.

Oh wow, huh.  Yeah, knowing you’re just in a fanfic kind of screws your appreciation for life around you, huh.  So John got fucked over a bit by his metatextual awareness.  :(

And... Rose was, like, cut off by his choice from her own metatextual awakening, maybe?  Hence her ability to appreciate a life somewhere disconnected from anything “canon”?

ROSE: But that isn’t me anymore. ROSE: I am blind against the veil of this world. ROSE: It’s all ambrosia to me. ROSE: I don’t care if it’s not true. I care even less if it’s not canon. ROSE: I have a beautiful wife who I love more than I thought possible, and a daughter who I am immeasurably proud of. ROSE: It can all be senseless, ephemeral noise that dissolves in the void. A whisper swept up by the wind before it’s uttered. ROSE: I’m still grateful to have felt this way.

:’)

Alright, this might be a pretty good way of accepting their potential happiness in different timelines as a potential substitute for Dirk’s mess.  I’m not sure HOW well I’ll be able to internalize it to stop the stomach cramps, but we’ll see.

We still have a little bit more left, though.  Next post.

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