#now that im an adult i look at her and terezi and i go yeah typical middle school girl behavior | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dahniwitchoflight · 5 years

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Candy 15-17

Alright I know this is supposed to be sad but this feel so ridiculous it’s funny

“He ventures a glance at Dave, who is at the front of the line carrying a smaller casket containing Dirk’s decapitated head. “

why is there a seperate casket for the head, that’s not what funeral homes do xD

“It would be absurd were it not so tragic, and possibly also predictable.”

“He looks at Dirk’s casket, sitting diagonally in a hole in the floor and popped about 13% of the way open.”

That’s a strangley specific number

Am I to take the imagery of something being diagonal as imagery for a “4″ and then complete it with the 13 to make 413?

Cuz is so, that’s heavy handed and ridiculous probably just as Dirk intended

“ROXY: and give it over to someone whos way more eloquent than me

Dave gets to his feet”

right because Dave is always so eloquent when it comes to delicate emotional matters lol

I don’t know why I’m finding this all so hilarious instead of tragic, maybe because it’s so melodramatic and in a way that feels scripted specifically by Dirk himself

ah, 3 quarters

3 1/4′s

413 backwards now

“or even worse that he was somehow cosmically fated to become that person no matter what he wanted or did to prevent it “

I’m noticing more and more every time the phrase Cosmically fated is used in some form of Homestuck media its always bringing to mind ideas of Doc Scratch, like he’s the one who said it actually or it’s said in reference to him

so, +1 point to DS = DS again

“Gamzee: I may not be all up and learned about his life, but I’ve got deep spirital connections to his death.”

yeah you sure do, and we’re not even talking about his decapitation right now aren’t we Gamzee?

This is actually a really solid point that the day “Dirk” died was the day his ultimate self got poisoned through the unholy merger that is Lord English/Caliborn/Gamzee/AR/Equius

So he’s probably been a bastard ever since Lord English started existing, which I mean “I am already here” blahblah means Dirk was very likely like this from the start potentially, but he was probbaly only really a bastard ever since Arquis got sucked into Caliborn/Gamzee

“GAMZEE: ThIs WaS nO cOiNcIdEnCe. It WaS a HiGhEr PoWeR gUiDiNg My PaTh.

GAMZEE: tHeSe PoWeRs MaDe SuRe ThAt I wOuLd Be ThErE, tO rEcEiVe A gReAt WaRrIoR’s FiNaL mEsSaGe, AnD rElAy It To YoU oN tHiS dArK aNd DrEaRy DaY oF dEaTh.

GAMZEE: HoNk!

The clown thrusts his hand somewhere beneath the waistband of his pants and starts obscenely rooting around. He retrieves a piece of paper, crumpled and soaked from the rain outside, and attempts to smooth it out over the lectern. The wet paper breaks apart immediately beneath his oafish clown paws.

GAMZEE: AwWw, ShIzZ. i GuEsS i’Ve GoT tO uP aNd WiNg It!”

yeah that note was probably the last shredded remnants of good dirk since there’s literally no reason to leave a sentimental note like that for his friends, makes sense Gamzee was guided by “a higher power” to grab it and make sure it gets relayed more like ruined to his friends

“KARKAT: THAT WAS HALF A HUNDRED WORDS TO EXPRESS A THREE LETTER SENTIMENT.

KARKAT: I’D SAY HE’S DOING FINE.”

What? How does “I’d say he’s doing fine” translate into “a three letter statement”?

Are they just hamfisting in the threes now or what?

“DAVE: i dunno dude thats

DAVE: a little fucked up actually

JOHN: you think so?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: dirk was a complicated guy

DAVE: dude obviously had reasons for doing what he did

DAVE: if you go back and just rewrite his decision

DAVE: thats like denying him his personal autonomy

JOHN: huh. i... didn’t think about it that way.“

Yeah if only they’d realize that what Dirk needs is a huge heaping helping of someone pushing back against his dumb decisions for once

Gotta give it to John though, he’s struggling against this drugged up haze so hard, he knows getting married to Roxy isn’t right and tries to think about that

but then he gets caught up in the drugged up candy haze and starts giggling, yeah you guys are gonna be happy alright, happy in a nice little drugged up stupor

lampshaded by John still reaching out to terezi despite being at his human wedding

Aww, trolls don’t have a concept of weddings? well, that makes sense but still

oh man it just keeps happening, this is supposed to be the story where John and Roxy get their love story, but all were actually getting is the faded echoes of what should have been which is apparently John and Terezi

oh god, Jane, jane why did Gamzee have to be your third partner, what the fuck even

I don’t wanna think about Gamzee about in relationships nope this is where I start getting uncomfortable

confirmed jade attempting Blackrom with Karkat, that’s interesting, and she’s bad at it too meaning she must not really have an interest in it

oh wow, she’s really just doing it because she thinks its what Karkat would want isnt she? Girl really is just desperate for love

“Three months later, John is still thinking about his last conversation with Terezi.”

See, this is how you know the JohnRoxy relationship is doomed/not meant to be

John Egbert, lover of Con Air and Nic Cage, has a loving wife and (probably) daughter and NOT ONCE has this narrative shown them OR made the joke, we just absolutely passed over the whole wedding and birth event in one fell swoop of unrequited feelings jam with another woman

Why is Roxy praying? That’s such a weird thing to drop as a small detail, who would she even be praying too?

“What’s bugging him about it is that Roxy didn’t seem to have any suggestions of her own.”

Yeah relationships built on social chameleon-ing aren’t happy for the chameleon either

Yeah John, little bit late to be having this sudden realization that you didn’t actually solve the problem (LE) by running away from it, even if everyone else has accepted that version of events

“ JOHN: you gave me a list of instructions and told me that i had to use my retcon powers to go back to a very specific point in time to defeat lord english when he was still just a kid. “

*THEORY INCOMING KILL BILL SIRENS ACTIVATE*

Wait, is that what Rose said at the beginning? No it isn’t, I remember the bit about John has to go back inside canon and defeat Lord English, I don’t think the method was ever fully explained though, nor the idea that he had to defeat him as a kid, it was never said he had to go back in time, just go back to canon

and that’s not what happened in the Meat timeline either! Nobody went back in time to defeat Caliborn when he was a kid, they just had the big showdown with LE exactly the way Rose is describing that went horribly wrong

this is practically screaming NEITHER Meat or Candy is the true version of events

Actually yeah, defeating Caliborn really IS the way this should be settled, because it’s also the way that Dirk get saved as well, can’t get his ultimate self tainted if the taint is destroyed before it ever comes into contact with him

also im rereading the prologue now, it’s is NEVER explicitly said that John has to go and defeat lord english’s child form!

She said “you have to go back to canon to defeat LE” NOT go back in time to defeat caliborn

and “you can’t recklessly attack his hulking adult form without the house juju”

not “you can’t attack him as an adult at all” but “you can do that WITHOUT the juju” and describes it being used in the same way that Vriska ended up doing in Meat

yeah, she never mentions any plan to defeat him as a child in the prologue, which probably means Rose only saw a vision of his defeat as an adult as well

It’s gonna be JOHN who gets the idea to go back and kill him as a kid, because that’s how he understood Rose’s instructions!

But this is great, everything is vaguely worded enough that it COULD be applied to a fight against a young caliborn too! but just hasn’t yet!

What if you take the empty cursor and fill it with a young caliborn? instead of unleashing a full one against an adult LE? which proves to be pretty useless in the long run despite Rose’s apparent clouded vision?

Rose even says herself its only purpose is as an empty vessel meant to be filled by something, talk about totally understanding yet missing the point, this is probably what she meant by being unable to see any path beyond the meat or candy routes, she couldnt see the possibility of using the juju on caliborn before everything goes down just like how it was used on John and friends to trap them in there in Meat!

It’s Caliborn’s destined time out spot! Removing him from Canon and from being able to influence it without needing to kill someone who technically hasnt done bad things yet but absolutely will in the future solving the baby adolf problem with Caliborn

Oh man, what if they even trick Caliborn on using it against himself? talk about an earthbound reference, defeat Gigyas (LE) by tricking Pokey (Caliborn) to trap himself in the "Absolutely Safe Capsule” (House JuJu)

Oh man back on the Candy train though John’s having an absolute breakdown, being infused with that canon retcon power seems to be the only thing preserving his ability to care about stuff beyond this happy drugged up paradise

Earth C has become Homestuck’s Ba Sing Se

“ He braces himself, as if splashing an imaginary glass of cold water in his own face, and reminds himself once again that he has a wonderful life. A perfect life. He’s HAPPY, god damn it.”

You really aren’t John, this is very clear, dousing yourself with some more Void to try and drown that out ain’t helping

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy

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abundantchewtoys · 5 years

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HS Epi: Meat p22 reaction

So, John was doing something vaguely relevant to the plot.

Does that mean that whatever that was in the wallet for him to find, wasn't relevant? Or did Dirk really skip to a point in the future in his narration? I'd think that if a living person was captchalogued in the wallet, that'd be plot relevant.

If so, I wonder if it's more than one. But we're not likely to catch up with both Aradia and Terezi in one go. Also, I doubt Vriska somehow captchalogued herself in this wallet to escape the clutches of gravity. Well, except maybe if after reverse engineering the code for the wallet, she also alchemized a regular wallet besides the 8-ball/wallet combo.

But that makes me think of something else. I wonder what the max storage space of the wallet is... If it's functionally infinite, they have a functionally infinite singularity of questionable intent that might be in need of cleaning up at one point. :P Though it's doubtful.

---

"You’ve been drifting so long that you’ve lost the ability to objectively judge time or depth or distance. It’s getting hard to think about yourself as an objectively limited being. The boundaries of your skin begins to thin and disappear." Oooh, is it the lack of milestones in that plane, maybe, that's causing this introspection? Or is it just part of his ascension to his ultimate self?

"If your perception expands beyond the meat sack of your body, then are you really an individual anymore? Why shouldn’t we become gods? Why shouldn’t we become one God." Sounds like something Dirk might say - I know, funny because Dirk IS saying this, in John's stead. Alternatively, if Alternate Calliope is really malevolent, this might be her motivation to devouring everything ever. She wants to become UNIVAC.

"You scrunch up your nerdy face and furrow an eyebrow. It seems you aren’t enjoying this train of thought." John's intrusive thoughts are next level.

"Sorry, dude. That’s what’s on my mind right now. I’m having a phenomenological debate in my third ear that’s way more popping than your little hero’s journey into the belly of a quarter-life crisis." For a minute I thought he meant he was debating this with Kanaya, but he put her on hold so I was like: :? Then I realized he said "third ear", I guess that's something akin to the mind's eye, in that he's currently using the narration for his internal monologue.

"It turns out you don’t have time to worry about the voice inside your head, because you hear one outside of it." Ooh! Someone living, one we expect to be out here? And there Dirk goes, burying John's emerging awareness again, for a moment.

"At first you don’t think it’s real." ... Please don't be Alternate Calliope.

"MEENAH: yo blue guy MEENAH: get the shell down here"OOOOOH! She's alive!! ... Well, no, she's still dead, but you know. She survived Lord English, and the Black Hole. Girl's really got spunk. So, that brings her back in the running for candidates for John to give the ring to. ... Speaking of. Did John just, like, shrugged off Lord English's tooth, or is the poison still in his body?

I'm glad we saw her, it means that more people could have survived that were around before the battle (alive or dead), as well as the B2 kids that died during the battle! But uh... What even is still sustaining their existence? I mean, the dreambubbles were created to house them, only Sollux was able to leave through mumbo jumbo class/aspect magic.

"Your whirl around, upside down. You look up, then down. There she is." Hah, yeah, no point of reference, no gravity, so indeed, she could have been every where, relevant to him, that's also why she shouted "down here"!

"She’s clinging to a random server beacon, looking a little the worse for wear but still grinning. You float on down to greet her." Tsssh, she located the server running the LE code??? What could they even do with that, anymore. (How did it even survive.)

At least, I'm guessing it's that server, not the server hosting Rose's walkthrough. :P

So yeah, uh, that server was connected to Doc Scratch's study. In the Green Sun. ... Has it become a non-letal shortcut to Alternate Calliope now?

"JOHN: thank god. i was beginning to think that no one else was alive. MEENAH: im not alive" Hah! Ba-dum tssh.

"JOHN: oh right. sorry. JOHN: i’m glad to see you, is what i meant to say. MEENAH: same MEENAH: i fuckin guess" Yeah, not many of her friends will be left, probably. If any.

"She narrows her blank eyes. Her mouth twists into a frown. Not quite a concerned one, but close enough. You’ll take it." Is she noticing John has become an adult? ... Or yeah it might just be general concern, the situation is alarming enough. I wonder if she knows about Vriska? And what that exactly means to her, 16-year-old Vriska probably being dead for good.

Oh boy, but this is so cool, she's got potential for just as much as the Condesce, who had ties to Lord English. I wonder if she'll be instrumental in the final stages of the epilogues, if Alternate Calliope ends up being the/a end boss.

Can't shake the idea I'd like her to end up on Earth C, but then she'd not have a good role to play in a utopia, I think. But then what is her role in the story from here on out, exactly.

"MEENAH: damn buoy ya look like S)-(IT JOHN: yeah, i know. JOHN: i suffered a mortal wound, and then i threw up on myself." He didn't get better so much as that he walked it off.

"MEENAH: waterboat lord english MEENAH: he bite the bullet or what JOHN: yeah he’s... JOHN: he’s pretty fucking dead. MEENAH: whale MEENAH: theres that at least

There is definitely that, at least." Must feel like an anticlimax to Meenah too, probably. She wasn't around to see the guy bite it that was responsible for their own universe being forced to be scratched.

"You were kind of hoping you’d discover a survivor you could have an actual conversation with. Not that you aren’t glad to see Meenah, but you don’t /know/ her, and she’s not who you were really looking for." Funny how Meenah grew on John so much, what with how she ran him through on at least two occasions. I was thinking at first John was looking for Vriska, but that's just an automatism, a left over from when John still felt something for her. Of course, I forgot about Jade.

"That reminds you. JOHN: hey, uh... JOHN: mee... JOHN: fish? JOHN: (christ.)" Is that supposed to be a fish pun in her name, him using one cause he knows she likes them? Or is it that Dirk may remember Meenah's name (hearsay, in his case, since he's post-retcon - then again, ultimate self), but not John. :P

"JOHN: have you by any chance seen jade around? MEENAH: who da fuck is jade"PFffff, hah! Now she gets a chance as well to broadcast her ignorance in the names of the people in the other parties. 'THEY'RE ALL NAMED CARLOS AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED.'

"JOHN: i mean, REALLY? JOHN: you don’t know jade?" The time she spent a lot of time dreaming in the dreambubbles was before the A1 trolls ever became relevant. On the three year trip, the indication seemed to be they just met a lot of A2 ghosts from alternate timelines in their dreams.

"JOHN: jade’s like, a big deal? JOHN: i thought you were kind of important too?" Well, different circles. Top of class vs. top dog on the play yard.

"MEENAH: you didnt even know my name dog" He knew you were an alternate to Betty Crocker, though. :P

"You’ve never been accused of having stellar people-reading skills. But even you can tell the look on her face says it all right now." Well, just be glad he isn't Jake, or even a death glare wouldn't suffice.

"JOHN: wait a minute. JOHN: do you even know MY name? MEENAH: uhhh" Pfffff, hah! Actually, valid question. What with how she referred to even her friends by last name (okay, that's because they weren't revealed yet), and had all those nicknames for them (and Karkat and Aradia)... Maybe she's just really bad with names.

"MEENAH: like MEENAH: joke? MEENAH: joke somefin" Wrong bespectacled nerd, but I can see why she'd mix them up. :P Close enough, though!

"JOHN: joke is my biological father. JOHN: i mean JAKE! JOHN: jake is his name." No, I think jokes might actually have fathered you. :P What with how he's a trickster and all.

"Halfway through this exchange, Meenah pulls out a small, clamshell-shaped accessory kit, and begins to file her nails." This is starting to turn into an awkward schoolyard conversation between classmates that don't really know each other.

"She almost dislocates her jaw by yawning the moment you mention Jake." Which is funny because Jake could've dislocated her jaw when he pounced on her when he thought she was past Condesce. :P

"You decide to do her, as well as yourself, the favor of completely ruling out the possibility of eliciting any valuable information from this person." No, Dirk, I do think she still has an ace up her sleeve, even if she doesn't even know it yet. But at least maybe now they'll acknowledge the server?

"MEENAH: i aint moved from this floatin hunger trunk lookin piece of shit since i got my bass kicked" Hah, yeah, it does look like a fridge, in Andrew's art style. :P

"JOHN: well, you’re the first i’ve seen too. MEENAH: oh" I wonder who she might have wanted to find, besides Vriska.

"JOHN: so what’s your plan now?" Don't think she has any left, now. You'll have to lead, Johnnyboy.

"JOHN: you just gonna hang around here, in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing forever? MEENAH: thats what ghosts is most good at aint they" It wasn't what she set out to do, initially, though! She hates inertia.

"JOHN: you don’t have to stay here. JOHN: i can take you back with me, to my planet." Aha! It would have all sorts of implications, of course, since she didn't "win" by any measure. So the victory state would not account for her presence. It won't happen just yet, of course.

"Meenah stares at you for an uncomfortably long time. She looks you up and down, like she’s making certain calculations. On the one hand, spending infinity clinging to a fridge-like space computer circling a black hole sounds like a drag. On the other hand, will her coolness and street cred be able to survive any prolonged association with this dumb blue nerd? That’s what she could be thinking, you think. You hope not though, because if true, it would hurt your self-esteem." I give Meenah more credit than that - her attitude is part of a facade - but she could indeed be thinking exactly that. On the other hand, she might actually genuinely not know if he's "fo' real", one, and two, what she'd even do on his planet. ... Also, is John really asking a girl over to his place? He truly IS an adult. :P

"She finally appears to make up her mind. MEENAH: naaah" Hah, as if it's a drag for her. And what's her motivation then?

"MEENAH: ok for one thing genius MEENAH: im dead" Well, that's not a problem, though she wouldn't know. John still has the Ring of Life with him. But I wonder what the other reason is.

Hah, Blaperile points out that Meenah at one point told John specifically not to give her the ring, cause she didn't like how she turned out as Condesce. Right, she might think living is no longer her thing. Which is hilarious for a Life player. Still think John might make the proposition.

Also, she thinks she might not fit in with the others, but she doesn't have to worry. They're all disasters, one and all.

"MEENAH: i wont even last on your planet ill just like MEENAH: fade away or some shit MEENAH: i dont know what happens to ghosts in real places actually but ima guess it goes somefin like that" See also: what ever happened to Aranea after Game Over. :P

"MEENAH: anyway while you was floatin there i came up with my own plan" ? There's not a lot of options here, really. The Black Hole... Mugging John... Lazying about...

"JOHN: what is it? MEENAH: cmere MEENAH: gonna whisper it to you" Option A) she screams. Option B) she mugs him for the ring. Option C) she'll stab him again, assuming he's another hologram self.

"You lean in rather credulously, and bring your ear toward her cupped hand. MEENAH: (nerd)

You pull back, unamused by the prank. What is this, you think. Fucking amateur hour?" Hah, chances are high she just swiped the ring. Or the wallet. Once a Thief... But heheh, still funny how Meenah likes to prank. Seems like Condesce and Sassacre really found one another. :P

"MEENAH: reel cute you wanna be my savior blue boy MEENAH: but the fact is you already helped me out MEENAH: got everyfin i need from you MEENAH: sea ya round sucker! 38)" She putting the ring on now? But uh, she'd spawn on Earth C, right? Or right there?

"She’s laughing her ass off. Before you can react, she jams the button down on the beacon and opens the server. She jumps into the hatch and the door snaps closed behind her." ... What! WHAT??? ... She's not in cahoots with Alternate Calliope, is she? She might just be trying to defeat the end boss herself. At least, if the server still leads to where the Green Sun used to be.

"Oh shit." ... It doesn't lead to Dirk now, does it?

"I think I know what just happened. You might want to check your pockets." So, if she took the wallet and not the ring, that means what's inside the wallet is relevant to the plot!

"Sure enough, it’s missing. The Ring of Life you stole back from Aranea has been re-stolen. Bitch just picked your pocket. You got played, man." Wow. So she's actually decided to go through with getting resurrected. ... Although it could actually be for Alternate Calliope, but then what would even the implications of her resurrection be?? It would be a parallel to how Condy worked for LE. But if there's two alive Calliopes that ended up on Earth C, I suspect there might be an impersonation at one point.

Yeah, so if both wear a Ring of Life/Void... Maybe that'd have funky repercussions as well. Not to mention they're both versions of the same "ultimate self" - although 'our' Calliope's not a god tier, there might be a bleedover again, like with Jade. But Alternate Calliope might want to dispose of Calliope, if she wants to become the only version of them. Then again, she did specifically tell her other to go and enjoy life.

---

I wonder if it'll become relevant at any point that having everyone in the dreambubbles follow you would supposedly grant you the boon of resurrection. Since there's so few people left out here, it seems like it could have become a feasible thing to do. In fact, it might be that this is represented by Alternate Calliope's resurrection, if events really play out like that: Meenah might be the only other ghost left. Unless there are still the other A2 ghosts we're missing, from the character list.

#homestuck #upd8 #reaction #spoiler alert #homestuck epilogues #homestuck liveblog #john egbert #meenah peixes #alternate calliope

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twitchesandstitches · 5 years

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Aradia’s Playful Ghost Rampage

It was that time of year again, the very favorite-est season of Aradia Megido, Burgundy Goddess of Death and Secrets, and a prime time for giving mortals a healthy bit of a fright.

Even in the distant eons as a mortal herself, before she and her friends had ascended to divinity and reshaped the cosmos into a more pleasing design, she had loved the fall. Small wonder that when they had worked into localized religious variants of their creations to make holidays that pleased them, Aradia had chosen to invest into many cultures a sense of liminal time for the fall; an idea that it was when the lands of the dead and the living touched again. And others just found that time of year kind of ominous, which suited her fine!

Aradia had something of a tradition. Every year, on this time, if there was nothing else for her to occupy herself with, she would descend to the mortal world with as little power as she could use in order to actually fit near them, and give them the best scare she could!

Sometimes, the others joined her, but not this year. At least, not yet. Aradia left the halls of the gods, knowing that Terezi Pyrope, the top goddess and leader of them all, was giving her a grin and totally having Karkat watch the proceedings. That just encouraged Aradia to smile, and decide to put on the best show she could, off the top of her head.

She seemed to disappear to them. She simply willed herself to dissipate into the multiverse, and focus her essence to her target: a city on a nice little world in one of the less excitable universes, in an mild cross-section of the multiverse. At least, the bits of it suitable for mortal life! She had a hard time going to the immortal realms, owing to her connection to death and time (which were not things that most immortals really understood or experienced) but she would get there eventually and surprise them good. And perhaps seek out all their interesting secrets. But that was for another time.

Universes rippled and politely shifted away as Aradia descended from the divine plane that she and the other divinities occupied when not incarnated on the mortal realm somewhere. She was pretty good at working out how to keep her divine power without having to incubate it as a regular mortal for a few dozen years or so, but with her etheric mass as big as a couple universes, there was a lot of Aradia to push on down.

She compromised, leaving the vast majority of her power behind, to draw her back when she had her fun. It was so tiring to do that she almost free fell, out of control, with most of her just flying away.

Oh no, I lost too much! She realized as she became minuscule, shrinking away to a tiny microscopic fraction of her true glory. She was dwindling,, becoming so tiny, so… helpless… She tried to muster her courage, and not think about it too much. It would only be for a short while, of course! That made her feel a bit better, and it helped to suddenly be oriented properly by her arrival in the world.

She estimated herself to be at less than five percent of her usual power. The shrunk down, hands off version of her she became in the mortal world, anyway; she’d never been this tiny, not since before she ascended to godhood. She scowled, not liking this massive reduction; still, it was only for a short time. She put a lot of effort into these pranks, after all. Still… Vriska would tease her about it, she knew it, and she’d have to make her pay somehow.

Even down to a tiny fraction of her power, her mere presence did things to the world. A wave of ghostly pressure raced out, making leaves fall and grass move without wind, windows rattle and doors open and close all on their own. It set up, in every part of this world, a perfect spooky ambience!

Aradia didn’t do that deliberately but she certainly didn’t mind. And she might have claimed otherwise later on.

Upon the little world she chose to mess with, here and now, the epicenter of her shockwave as she entered local reality came from a city, ordinary in all respects, and they soon found their view of the sky blocked. Far above them, the sky darkened, and for a moment they wondered if clouds had twisted up to block out the sun. It grew darker still, taking on solid form, and they saw something vast, too big to be properly seen. A vast curvature, rising from somewhere just out of view, looming high over everything, something massive and blunt extending over and pointing right down at them.

Translucency faded away. What seemed to them a vast pillar became solid and moved, rising up… up. Moving with a terrible ponderousness, as inevitable as the movement of continents, and the people below saw the vastness behind it, the same deep dark color of an adult troll’s skin, and there were more pillars behind it, folded up organically, and as it moved above them, they realized, with a shock, that it was a massive hand.

And with a marvelous sense of drama, there came the rest of Aradia Megido.

Her face appeared before them, looking as large as the moon; for all they knew, it might have been bigger. (It wasn’t, not now.) Broad and cute and beautifully alien. Her massive, brown-red lips were quirked into an impish smile, and beside her vast cloud of hair and the imposingly huge spiked ram-horns curling behind her head, they could make out nothing else. They could barely see her at all; she was so large that they were but barely perceptible specks to her, and only her divine senses permitted her to make them out at all.

The whole city stopped, and for miles around, entire countries halted too, and to a soul every single person gaped at the terrifying scale of the troll goddess descending upon them.

Aradia said nothing, just smirking. She waggled her finger teasingly, floating above the ground and slowly lowering her hand just like a mean child about to do something awful to an anthill. And as she lowered her hand, everyone had a sobering thought mingled with sudden horror; they were the ant.

Aradia let them hold that thought, savoring the tension rising up below her. She let it build, and build, just like a balloon floating up.

Yes. That’s it. ...Here I come.

Once again, her finger waved above the city, and then she thrust it down the vast hoof-like nail extending from it as broad across as the entire city. There should have been a vast dust cloud as her hand struck, sinking down and into the earth, and nothing could have withstood the impact of something so massive and so strong.

Below her, everything was complete chaos; cars ran desperately, people fled in terror, many people built up pillow forts in their fear and hid beneath the blankets, and the finger deliberately lowered, into the city, down to her knuckle-

By this point, miles of pitch-dark flesh moving through buildings and people without so much as disturbing a mote of dust. She was phasing through the concrete and steel and plastic compounds, and all the living things within, seemingly as immaterial as the air.

Over the course of a few minutes, people slowed. They stopped running, came to a stop and looked at once another with mounting expressions of embarrassment, mortification and even glowering anger. Cars stopped, people climbing out and poking at her hand and staring when they just moved through it. Even some bugs did that very thing, flying about and trying to avoid the teasing wall.

“GOTCHA!” Aradia boomed, drawing her hand back. In an instant, she moved away from the city, floating back, back, going high up into the air. She giggled again, far away that they could make her out. A broad burgandyblood troll woman floating up, her belly heavy and helping to support breasts massive even for notoriously buxom trolls, her hips wider even than her shoulders and her backside projecting out like a very impressive shelf. Thick seemed a poor word to describe her.

She grinned again, making finger guns at the city. “I got you good,” she said, winking to show no harm meant, and she flew away into the Earth, to find another city to mess with.

This time, she was gonna pretend to boob slam them. And then maybe the next one, she’d pretend she was going to swallow the whole city whole!

She giggled, just thinking about it. Distantly, Aradia’s friends watched her through divine perceptions, and there was a gloomy scowl from Karkat Vantas, the Red God of Bonds and Friendship. “Do you think we should… I don’t know, get her to quit that?”

Terezi Pyrope, the true goddess in charge of the new cosmology, Teal Goddess of Justice and Motherhood (as her extremely gravid frame made very clear), placed a claw to her lips. She grinned fiendishly. “I say we join her!”

“Yeah, okay, good ol’ mortal freak out. I’ll get the googly eye masks.”

“Sweet! ...Those are scary, right?”

“Fuck if I know, probably.”

“Sweet.”

#/#//#///#////#/////#queued #fics #my writing #aradia #homestuck #repost #i believe this was originally a request and it might have been a seed for the 'HS characters being incarnate gods' theme in my AUs?#also large aradia is always good

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blatherkatt · 6 years

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

Chapter 33: Declarations

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

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Implied/Mentioned abuse, mentions of terrorism, death mention, injury mention, depiction of an emotional breakdown, trauma aftermath; Illustrated; Pesterlog

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

— carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tipsyGnostalgic [TG] —

CG: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

— tipsyGnostalgic [TG] is an idle chum! —

CG: FUCK YOU, I CAN SEE THAT FOR MYSELF, YOU PIECE OF SHIT PROGRAM. I’M GONNA FUCKING YELL ANYWAY.

CG: I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO PICK ME UP AT NOON. IT’S LIKE, 1:30 AND YOU STILL AREN’T HERE, WHAT GIVES?

CG: IF YOU GOT KIDNAPPED, TOO, I SWEAR TO FUCK I’M PERSONALLY PUTTING THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN FAMILY UNDER PERMANENT WATCH.

CG: I’M NOT ABOVE SITTING ON YOU ASSHOLES IF THATS WHAT IT TAKES.

TG: okay first off i know youre like a literal alien but heres a protip for ya:

TG: general human earth etiquette is to not text people who you know are probably driving?

TG: its like a whole thing

CG: WHY

TG: idk probs because texting while driving’s a great way to fucking crash lol

TG: anyway!!

TG: yeah im real sorry about that mom fucking rang me up like

TG: hi im at the airport come get me!

TG: out of fucking nowhere because everything has to be a fucking hassle with this woman

TG: so i had to go get her

CG: WHY THE FUCK WAS SHE AT THE AIRPORT?

TG: because fuck me is why

TG: and THEN shes like

TG: ooooh i gotta do some mysterious whatthefuckever errand at some mall out in the middle of nowhere

TG: so now im sitting in the parking lot waiting for her to get back which might be a while because her bad leg’s been acting up lately

TG: and thats why im not there yet >:(

CG: WAIT. WAIT, HOLD ON, I’M CONFUSED.

CG: BY “MOM” ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RACHEL? I DIDN’T EVEN THINK SHE HAD A BAD LEG.

TG: nonono

TG: ray is like. dirk and dave and rose’s mom

TG: i dont call her mom i just call her aunt ray cuz shes not my mom yknow

TG: my mom is aunt ray’s sister

TG: aunt ramona? they talk about her?

CG: OOOOOOH. YEAH.

CG: THE WOMAN WHO WRITES THOSE SHITTY SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE BOOKS KANAYA LOVES.

TG: hahaha yeah her trashy shit is great

CG: SHE’S HERE?

TG: apparently!!!!!!!!

CG: I’M SENSING SOME BITTERNESS.

TG: ugh its fine she just always does shit like this

TG: womans always gotta make a fuckin entrance even if that means not telling anyone shes coming

TG: and its goddamn annoying as shit!!

TG: but its fine i get it shes here to help out and we are kinda all hands on deck

TG: speaking of tho i heard something about kanaya not coming along after all?

CG: NOT YET, NO.

CG: SHE’S BEEN TALKING TO ROSE, AND APPARENTLY DAVE’S BEEN PRETTY UNEASY WITH THE NUMBER OF NEW FACES AT THE HIVE.

CG: HOUSE. WHATEVER.

CG: TEREZI’S PROTECTION DETAIL HAS HIM KIND OF ON EDGE, I GUESS?

CG: SHE’S GONNA COME AROUND LATER PROBABLY. AND MIGHT END UP STAYING WITH PORRIM AND KEEP IT TO VISITS, AT LEAST UNTIL THINGS SETTLE DOWN A BIT.

CG: SO IT’S JUST ME FOR NOW.

TG: ooooh yeah geez i bet

TG: poor dave :( :( :(

TG: i gotta tell you and mom some uh. serious shit about him when i pick you both up

TG: id pass it on here but its probs better if i just tell you face to face?

CG: OH, WONDERFUL!

CG: MORE NO DOUBT HORRIFIC NEWS REGARDING DAVE.

CG: I CAN’T WAIT. THIS PANIC ATTACK’S GONNA BE ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS, I CAN JUST FEEL IT!!!

TG: :(

TG: tl;dr hes not in great shape but hes getting better but theres some stuff we gotta go over

TG: jfc mom what the fuck are you doing its been ages

CG: SO WAIT. SHE JUST HAD YOU DRIVE HER OUT SOMEWHERE AND WALKED OFF ALONE?

TG: yeah

TG: woman can take care of herself just fine so like im not worried??

TG: but still, like. cmon woman!!! whatever it is hurry up a little

TG: it cant be that important we got places to be

In terms of location, it was almost an outlet mall; somewhat detached from the nearest city and surrounded by forest. It was mostly all one building, positioned in a dip in the ground next to a clear stream, and these features had helped make it a serviceable fortress during the invasion, although Derek had regularly complained that he’d have preferred a site that held the high ground. Still, they’d made do; the roof was high enough that one could see for quite some distance, the stream offered fresh water, the trees provided decent enough cover during skirmishes, and the walls were thick enough to turn away most weather and weapons. It hadn’t been much, but it had served well enough as home for six years for around threescore ragtag survivors-turned-fighters.

Out in the surrounding forest, those who hadn’t survived that conflict still lay buried in pitiful graves marked only with a stone or a chunk of wood. There hadn’t been time to properly put anyone to rest; it had been risky enough for two or three people to slip out during a stretch of quiet with a shovel and a body. They simply hadn’t been able to afford to have any sort of formal burial, not with the threat of an attack constantly looming.

Even so, even so…

Derek had picked a spot he would remember.

In life, the oak tree would have been the kind people would have thought of as a monarch, with branches spread wide and gnarled wood ancient and strong, holding children in its branches as easily as if they were made of nothing; but the tree had already been dead by the time the invasion started, a great, ancient, dried-out husk. Even so, decades later, it still stood, its branches reaching toward the sky, the other trees forming a circle around it as though too respectful to come too close. Mushrooms and trails of greenery crept about a quarter of the way up the ancient trunk.

At its roots, a rotting wooden spar stuck up out of the ground. This, too, had been reclaimed by flowers, grasses and mushrooms, decorating the splintered and decayed timber with dark summer greens and pale white-and-lavender blooms.

Derek Strider, down on one knee with his sheathed sword held in his right hand, sighed. Of course, the trouble with having to bury the dead so hastily meant that there’d been no one to look over the graves, so it was to be expected that it be in such disrepair, but even so, seeing this one choked out by the invading flora was…

It wasn’t right.

Overhead, the ancient branches rustled slightly, and the raucous calling of a bird broke the silence. Derek narrowed his eyes and ignored it, tried to write the disrespectful noise out of the scene.

The crow seemed to have other ideas. The bird lighted down on the wooden grave marker, red eyes fixed on Derek’s face. It flapped its wings a few times, cawing incessantly. Derek scowled, unsheathed his sword, and struck —

The blade passed through the bird with no resistance whatsoever. The creature’s body split in two, bloodlessly, as though Derek had cut through smoke — it even looked like smoke, like a cloud cut in two by a passing jet. As Derek looked on, uncomprehending and with a growing sense of dread, the bird’s body seemed to pull itself back together, a video played in reverse, and the bird’s accusatory squawks started up again as though nothing had happened.

Derek was on his feet in an instance, stepping away from the beast, and as he did, he happened to look up…

Perched on nearly every branch of the old tree were ravens. Unlike the crow, they were all silent, and aside from the occasional shifting of a foot or tilting of a head, motionless. Scores of staring animal eyes bored into him.

Derek had never been a superstitious man, but nor was he the sort of fool to ignore the truth his own eyes showed him. He’d spent six years fighting alongside a witch, and seen enough to learn that some things really couldn’t be explained away as coincidence.

Had it been anyone else, he would have responded to the sound of footsteps approaching this site with a furious attack; even Ben knew better than to disturb him here. But when he whirled to face the intruder, he froze.

She’d aged more since he’d last seen her than he would have expected. Hints of silver streaked her hair, and she leaned heavily on her gnarled black cane. A faint breeze stirred the black fabric of her dress, playing with the light shawl laying across her shoulders. The crow had fallen silent.

“Put that thing away before you take someone’s eye out,” said Ramona, nodding nonchalantly at Derek’s sword.

Derek narrowed his eyes, and did not respond aloud, instead choosing to slowly and deliberately slide the sword back into its sheathe. Only after his left hand had returned to his side did Ramona nod and continue.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now we can talk things over like reasonable adults. Mind you, I ought to do the world a favor and wipe you out right now,” and Derek took a slow, deep breath at that, as she continued, “But I’d prefer not to desecrate your brother’s grave by staining it with your blood. I respect him far too much for that. You, however, have somehow managed to exceed all of my worst expectations to a nearly unfathomable degree, as of late. I’ve held off on this confrontation out of respect for the past, but I can see now that this was a mistake.”

Derek shifted. “Everything I’ve done has been to protect our damn planet, Ramona,” he started, but was cut off.

“Really?” she said, “Well, then. I’m not about to attempt to ask you to cease killing trolls, as we both know that would be pointless, but I would very much like to know how exactly burning your own son alive plays into your grand battle strategy?”

“He…he turned on us,” Derek said, through gritted teeth, “He forced my hand, left me no choice!”

“He is a child!” Ramona snapped. “And you, of all people, should know better! If you really must follow this path of self-destruction to its end, fine, but he should never have been involved!”

“I—”

“And in any case, you had a perfectly good sword on hand, I’m sure. If young Dave really did need to die, you could have executed him with minimal pain, but no, you wanted him to hurt, to know he was dying and to fear you and suffer as he passed. How do you justify that, Derek? How does anyone, especially a child, deserve anything of the sort?”

The eyes of the ravens and that damned crow still drilled into him. He could feel the stares on his back, but kept his eyes locked on Ramona’s, refusing to back down.

He wasn’t going to take back what he’d done. There’d be no guilt, he’d done nothing wrong except overreact a bit. It was justified. That…that boy wasn’t Dave. Ramona was using the name like a blade, but she’d not win that way. He didn’t deserve the fucking name, didn’t deserve to have anything to do with Dave, he never would have let Rachel name the kid that if he’d known he was going to grow up to be such a pathetic, useless little coward.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said.

“No, I suppose you don’t,” said Ramona, folding her hands over the top of her cane. “I’ve a fairly good idea, in any case.” She sighed. “The war is over, Derek. The time to put aside this violence and misery is long since behind us. Our children do not deserve to grow up as we did.”

“The trolls are still here,” Derek spat.

There was a long silence. Ramona sighed again.

“Fine, then,” she said, “So be it. Do as you will. Chase violence as long as you like. But if you come near my family again, I will consider it an act of war.”

She turned, and he was tempted to take the bait, to try attacking her while her back was turned, but he held still. It was infuriating, knowing what a pointed insult turning her back on him was, knowing that she knew he would not risk attacking her—but she was right. She was much too dangerous.

“Come along, little one,” she said, abruptly. The crow rose off the grave and flew to land on top of Ramona’s cane. If Derek had cared to pay any attention, he might have noticed the crow look back at him with something like regret in its eyes, but Derek was already far too lost in his own thoughts.

As one bird, the ravens took wing, dispersing in all directions, leaving him alone again.

The trouble with trying to go from Alternian to English was a multifaceted one, to be sure, but so far the most obnoxious piece of it that Karkat could see was the tendency of guides on how to speak English to simply use the closest Alternian equivalent as an English word’s translation. More and more, the two languages were notably extremely different, and while he could speak English well enough that he’d never had any serious problems, there were any number of words that he kept tripping over as a result of a translation being extremely unclear and culturally misleading.

Witches, for instance, were clearly something very different on Earth. The Alternian word that was translated to English as “witch” was, like most Alternian words, a series of noises in the ‘click and growl’ family that most humans lacked the anatomy to create, and generally refered to certain lowblood prophets and healers in Alternian folklore. They were those who lived away from society and who, through some lucky genetics and convenient psychic powers, were able to fend of drones and effectively disappear from the world at large’s knowledge. They kept to themselves, sought to harm no one who didn’t attack them first, offered shelter to the weak and the hunted, and as such were always portrayed as utterly despicable beings in fiction, as no writer with any sense of self-preservation had dared to portray such reckless treachery under the rule of the last Condesce. There might have been some changes to the lore under the new one’s rule, but things like that changed slow.

In any case, they certainly weren’t anything like the old woman in a shawl who was sitting next to Roxy in the front of her car.

She was dressed all in black, for one thing. Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear much black. Some Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear all that much clothing at all, really. Most seemed to belong to ancient religions that weren’t particularly fond of shirts.

Ramona was definitely magic as shit, though, Rachel’d been right about that much. Was that all a witch was on Earth, just someone with magic? Fuck, if that were the case, then probably like at least a third of all trolls were witches by Earth’s standards. Then again, maybe magic was another poorly translated word? English didn’t seem to have a word to separate “things that we (read: trolls) know exist, like psychic powers and psiionics and ghosts and chucklevoodoos,” and “things that are super fake and don’t actually happen ever and make no sense.”

Whatever. In any case, Ramona didn’t look at all like Karkat had expected, and when he climbed into the back of the car, she didn’t react to his presence with anything stronger than an amiable nod. She seemed to have her mind on other things, and was largely silent at first.

Roxy wasn’t; she immediately piped up happily as Karkat swung open the door with a “Hey, man! Sorry about taking so long! Can you, uh, do me a favor and check on Jaspers? He’s in the carrier behind Mom, Rose asked me to pick him up while she and Aunt Ray were gone. He’s been missing them a lot, all staring out the window and kneading his blanket and shit, and he’s not a huge fan of car rides.”

“He’s asleep,” Karkat said after glancing into the little crate.

“Awesome. Alright, buckle up and we’ll get this damn show on the road.”

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on—”

Karkat tilted his head as the car’s radio abruptly changed from quietly playing some human pop song over to something much louder and completely different. Ramona stifled a snort as Roxy stabbed a button, switching the radio back to the previous channel.

“No, thank you,” she said, glaring. “Christ, the fuck is with this thing today, I swear to god.”

“I suppose it may simply be getting into the spirit of things,” said Ramona with a smile. As the car pulled away from the curb, she turned back a bit to face Karkat. “It’s Karkat, isn’t it? Rachel’s been sending me any number of emails with updates, and from the sound of things, you’ve been rather instrumental in bringing young Dave back into the fold, so to speak.”

“…Into the what?”

“It’s a figure of speech, meaning in this case that you’ve helped us return him home as well as helping him to adjust to being there,” she said. “For which you have all of our heartfelt thanks. Ours is perhaps not the most functional of families, but it is ours, and as I’m sure you’ve seen firsthand, ripping away a piece of it the way Derek did has had some very painful consequences for all involved. We owe you a great deal.”

“Yeah, man!” Roxy said. “And from what Rose has been telling me, you were kind of a big part of why he finally spilled what he knows. Which, he did bee-tee-dubs, which means he’s off house arrest finally, so that’s good—”

“—And a partridge in a pear tree,” the radio crackled.

“What the fuck? It’s August,” Roxy scowled. She turned the radio off altogether as Ramona glanced hurriedly out the window.

“Speaking of Dave,” Karkat said, hopefully before anyone got distracted again, “Roxy, you mentioned that there was something that you needed to say face to face?”

“Right, shoot, yeah,” said Roxy. The car turned onto the long road that led eventually to the Lalonde hive. “Okay, so, like. There’s definitely some shit you should know before we get there, but I wanna preface it all real clearly by saying that Dave’s okay, y’know? He’s got a lot of healing to do, but the doctors said that as long as he’s looked after and we change bandages and shit and he gets plenty of rest, he’s definitely not in any danger anymore. He’s…weak, but he’s not like gonna keel over at any moment, okay?”

“Not actually making me feel any better, Roxy!” said Karkat. Oh, boy, with a preface like that…

“Well, fuck, I tried, I guess. Uh. So, Dave did get hurt…pretty bad, and there were some other complications—oh, for fuck’s sake!!”

“Watch me, watch me, hey, watch me, watch me!” The radio was louder than ever. Ramona’s hand flew up, poorly hiding a grin.

Karkat leaned around Roxy’s seat to glare at her.

“What the fuck, Roxy,” said Karkat.

“I’m not doing this!” Roxy said, waving her hand wildly. “I swear to fuck, I wouldn’t! I really do need to pass on some shit about poor Dave, and the radio’s never done this before? It’s been acting up since a little before we picked you up, keeps changing on its own and shit, augh!”

She fought with the controls, but the song stopped only for a moment before getting even louder.

“Why the fuck do you humans even have this obnoxious song?! Who listens to this?? It’s literally just some squawking wiggler screeching for its lusus’s attention!”

“I mean, I kinda love it for that honestly, it’s terrible and stupid and wonderful, but like, come the fuck on??? What’s with this thing?! Now is not the time!”

“Ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass—“

“GOD, that’s even worse!!” Roxy yelled, slamming her fist down on the dashboard. “Fucking stop!!”

“That’s enough for now,” Ramona said, almost murmuring it.

The radio turned off. Karkat and Roxy both turned a suspicious eye on Ramona, and with equal simultaneity, decided to drop it for now.

“Anyway,” Roxy said slowly, “What I was trying to say is, um…Karkat, do you know what it means for someone to ‘flatline?’ Because, um. Dave kinda did, for like, a minute and a half.”

Karkat shook his head, realized Roxy probably couldn’t see him with her eyes on the road, and said, “Uh, I have no idea what that word means, no.”

“Well, um…”

“It refers to a heart monitor indicating that the heart has ceased beating,” Ramona said. “The machine indicates activity with a line which shows peaks and valleys, and it goes flat when that activity has stopped, thus, ‘flatline’. The organ we call a heart serves an equivalent function to what trolls call a ‘blood pusher’ or a ‘pump biscuit.’”

Karkat felt for a moment like his own pump biscuit had stopped.

“Shit, Mom, when did you get so good at translating to trolls?” Roxy murmured.

Ramona shrugged. “I’ve made efforts to reach out,” she said. “The war ended, after all, and since we’re allies now, it doesn’t hurt to learn about each others’ cultures.”

“His fucking—What?!” Karkat screeched, unable to keep the harsh buzzing whine out of his voice. God, that was such a moirail noise, and any other time he’d have yelled at himself for not keeping it under control, but not now, not when… “His fucking blood pusher stopped and I’m supposed to be calm!?!”

“They got it moving again!” Roxy said. “He’s okay now, the doctors said it was going strong! It was, um, mostly just exhaustion, they think? Like, the burn wounds could’ve killed him on their own, sure, but they got on those quick enough that if he’d been healthy to begin with he probably wouldn’t have been so bad off? But between ten years of, you know…and just, apparently he hasn’t been eating enough even while he’s been back with us? And Ray’s gonna get on his ass about that, but, just—look, the thing is, Dirk doesn’t know about this yet, and Aunt Ray’s asked that we try to keep it that way, and I don’t really get why but I think she has her reasons?”

Karkat was definitely hyperventilating, oh fuck, oh fuck—Ramona’s hand reached back to touch his own, snapping him out of it.

“It’s fine to be worried,” she said, gentle. “I promise you, though, it is as Roxy says: he’ll be fine given time to recover and the safety with which to do so. He’ll be alive when we get there.” She sat back in her chair, turning towards the road again. “As for Dirk, I suspect Rachel is waiting for things to settle down before breaking it to him gently. He is, for better or worse, very like his father, and Derek handled his brother’s death poorly, in large part because at the time we could not afford to mourn. Rachel probably wants to make sure that Dirk does not feel he has to force himself to be strong when she tells him.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Roxy muttered. “Anyway, the main thing about that is that he’s not got a lot of energy right now, so don’t…take it personally if he just falls asleep on you sometimes? Especially with the painkillers he’s on, apparently that’s a side effect, too. He can walk short distances, but he gets wobbly quick and needs help sometimes, so there’s that too.”

“Fuck,” said Karkat, softly.

The next ten minutes of the ride were carried out in tense silence. This was broken by the radio once again bursting back on and blasting the ass song again, at which point Roxy threatened to pull over and smash the fucking thing to smithereens.

By the time they actually got to the fucking house, Karkat felt like his soul was going to vibrate right out of his fucking body with impatience. They had yet another delay in the form of Terezi’s protection detail—Terezi herself wasn’t there, but some officers were, and they insisted on knowing about any weapons the three of them had as well as names, and went in to check with the family while making them all wait outside by the car. Karkat already had his fucking bag in hand, he was ready to go, but no, they had to go through this tedious procedure! Sure, it was probably a smart move, and when he was feeling a little more sensible he’d be more okay with it as it was the sort of thing that probably would make them all feel a bit safer (especially poor fucking Dave), but right now the were a pain in the ass and he was going to fucking explode!!! If they didn’t!!! Let him get in the fucking hive!!!!!

Rose stepped out as they were still talking to the police, and for the first time in his life Karkat was unspeakably happy to see her. She quickly confirmed to the police that all three of them were in fact expected and trusted by this household, and then gently let Jaspers out of his carrier. The cat immediately yowled and threw himself into her arms, kneading at her shoulders and rubbing his face against hers, and it all would have been super cute if Karkat didn’t have his mind on other fucking things.

“Come on in,” Rose said, nodding towards the door. “Dirk’s on the couch and Dave’s in Mom’s room, as neither of them can handle stairs right now and Dave needs his bandages changed at least twice a day. Karkat, do you—”

She was talking to air. He was already in the fucking door.

And then had to face the fact that he’d never actually been to Rachel’s room. Fuck. Rachel was coming up the hall, though, and a slightly bewildered young human (wait, fuck, that was Dirk, what happened to his hair? It looked so weird hanging down like that instead of spiked up) was sitting on the couch with an Earth husktop on his lap. Roxy pushed in the door with Ramona right behind her, dropped a heavy wheeled bag right next to the door, and immediately launched herself at Dirk, who gave a startled yelp as she did so.

Rachel rested a hand on Karkat’s shoulder as she passed him, rushing up toward Ramona throwing her arms around her shoulders. The two shared a long hug, and Rachel kissed Ramona’s cheek.

“God, I’m so glad you’re here,” Karkat heard Rachel murmur, before Rose tapped his shoulder.

“I was asking if you knew where Mom’s room is,” Rose said.

“Uh.”

“It’s down the hall to the observatory, but you take a left before you get to it. Make sure to make plenty of noise on the way over, Dave gets really jumpy when he’s the only person in that room. He can’t block the door since we need to be able to come in and out, and it’s got him a bit on edge.”

Karkat nodded, unable to get any words out past the lump in his throat. He more or less just dropped his bag on the ground and pushed past, zooming around toward the room indicated. Dave looked half-asleep when Karkat pushed the door open, and waved as he sat up with some effort.

God, the photo Rose had taken didn’t do justice to how fucking bad he looked. There were bruises across his face and neck turned a weird greenish-gray but still dark against his skin, and bandages everywhere, his hair was a mess (although that might have just been from sleeping). He was in some oversized shirt with an Earth hoofbeast on the front that was probably Dirk’s judging by the size, and Karkat had no idea why Dave had it on but right now he didn’t care.

“Hey, man, uh. Shit’s been crazy, huh?” Dave said with an awkward grin. He didn’t have his shades on either, which made sense if he’d been sleeping, except they weren’t on the bedside table (which did instead contain a nearly empty glass of water, several bottles of pills and salves, and a first aid kit from which clean cloth bandages overflowed).

Two weeks of emotion boiled over all at once. Wordless, Karkat stomped across the room and grabbed Dave’s stupid fucking shirt in both hands and tugged him close.

“It was three days, Dave,” Karkat hissed.

“Wha—?”

“Three days! And you got yourself fucking kidnapped by a terrorist on day goddamn two!! What the fuck, Dave?!” His voice was threatening to abandon him, but Karkat forced it right back into place by sheer willpower. This tangent would not be fucking stopped, hell no. “I take my eyes off of you for two days, and you get yourself into shit again! What the fuck!!! Do you have any idea how-how fucking agonizing it’s been waiting for news?! And you’re just sitting there like ‘Oh, hey! What’s up?’ What’s up is my foot up your waste chute, you hopeless fucking—!” Okay, nope, his voice was leaving after all, actually. He felt tears roll down his face, and he should’ve been more worried about that, but Dave already knew about his blood color and he was the only troll in the house right now, so, fuck it, fuck it all! Helpless, he tugged Dave closer again, letting his face press against that stupid shirt, claws still twisted into the fabric as he sobbed.

“Holy shit,” Dave muttered.

“I was so fucking scared,” Karkat gasped. This was pathetic, they weren’t remotely a couple, Karkat had no right to be this worked up and he knew it, but…Dave wasn’t exactly pushing him away, either, was he?

“I’m sorry, man, I didn’t even…It wasn’t planned this time, it just sorta happened, and Dirk got hurt, and I…”

“I’m not actually angry at you, despite having so much right to be that legislacerators everywhere have preemptively declared me innocent. I’m just fucking screaming for the sake of it, dumbass.”

“Oh.”

The awkward pause that followed was filled with only the sound of Karkat’s weeping, which, fuck, he was probably too fucking embarrassed to tell him off. Except…Dave’s hand lifted up to rest gently against Karkat’s back, so, maybe he didn’t mind that much? Was that wishful thinking?

“Sorry for this,” he said, just in case, as he pulled away a bit. “It’s really fucking embarrassing, I know, I just…”

“It’s cool, man,” said Dave. Then, with a wink, he said, “I know you got your massive Strider homocrush, it’s only natural—”

“Dave, I swear to fuck, injured or not, I will pummel you into dust with a fucking pillow, don’t test me!” Karkat snapped.

Dave snorted. “Hey, man, it’s fine, everyone’s allowed to be a lil gay sometimes with their friends, it’s only natural.”

“I’ll ‘natural’ you!! Motherfucker, I spent the two weeks worrying about your wellbeing and you come at me with more of this bullshit!!”

Dave cackled with laughter. Karkat rolled his eyes and sniffled. He feigned annoyance as best he could, but, God, it was such a relief to hear Dave laugh. Rubbing a sweater sleeve furiously across his eyes, Karkat pulled back, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the bed. “Okay, but seriously, what’s with the shirt?” he asked, gesturing at the floating head of the hoofbeast. It wasn’t even a joke or a drawing. It was just…a straight photo of a hoofbeast’s face, with no text or explanation of any sort. What the fuck??

Dave glanced down, and snickered. “Oh, shit. Uh, yeah, we needed something that’s easy to get me in and out of, since the bandages on this fuckin’ burn need to be changed like, a lot, not to mention the gross-ass cream they have us slathering all over it on the regular. We tried a button down, but the buttons were kinda chafing, and like…who the fuck wants to ruin a fancy shirt with gross burn juices, right? And Dirk’s shit is more comfortable, and this one’s big enough that it’s real easy to take off even if I’m high on the damn painkillers.”

Karkat winced slightly, but decided not to comment. The scream from the video echoed somewhere in his think pan. “Where’re your shades?”

“Bro fuckin’ stepped on them or something, man, I dunno. They fell off at some point, and they were already cracked before all that, and Terezi just found pieces. Which fucking sucks, I mean God dammit, those were a gift from John. Shit sucks.”

“John?” Karkat tipped his head.

“Yeah, he’s like, an old friend of mine. Have I not mentioned him to you? Whatever, he, uh.” Dave scratched at the side of his head. “He was an online friend from before Bro started doing the, uh, raid shit, and I kept talking to him and another friend, Jade, for a while afterwards even though I wasn’t supposed to?”

“Jade’s name I remember,” Karkat said.

“Haha, yeah, yeah cuz I told you about…anyway.” He cleared his throat. “I guess since Dirk’s college is starting up again soon, not that he’s going for the first couple weeks with his leg and a fucking concussion, but, it’s starting up, and John’s sister goes there too, and he’s gonna come with so we’ll be able to hang out for a bit? Which is fuckin’ rad, I haven’t even talked to the guy in three years and we’re finally meeting in person.”

“You want him to be here? While you’re this badly injured?” Karkat yelped.

Dave blinked at him like he’d just grown a secondary head.

“I mean, yeah?” Dave said. “Like, yeah, I’m not in great shape and I guess it’ll be a lil weird for him to see me like this, but I’ve missed him.” Before Karkat could press the question further, though, Dave yawned. “Ugh, fuck, I wanna keep talking, but I’m…halfway to falling asleep, shit.”

“Oh,” said Karkat. He got up, ready to leave. He wanted to stay, wanted to curl himself around Dave’s obnoxiously lanky frame as best he could and protect this fragile idiot human from the entire universe, but…it wasn’t his place, was it? No.

“You leaving?” said Dave, rubbing at his unbruised eye.

“You said you wanna sleep,” Karkat said.

“Right. Uh. Could you, like…fill this back up for me, then, I guess?” Dave said.

“…Sure,” said Karkat.

He was…still confused, but Dave was tired, so he didn’t press. But he couldn’t wrap his head around wanting a friend around while he was so injured—well, he’d wanted Karkat around, hadn’t he? He’d seemed happy to see him, aside from the, uh, yelling. Still, it didn’t make sense! Every troll knew as a small child that the only people you could trust when you were injured were your lusus, your moirail, and maybe your matesprit! Anyone else might take advantage of the weakness and kill you, that was just basic logic! But Dave didn’t even seem to be thinking about it.

And…and yet, come to think of it, Roxy’d been awfully forthright about how bad Dave’s condition was. Hell, she’d heard it from Rose, who seemed like the one most likely to know not to spread that weakness, but the humans were all sharing it and passing it around. It wasn’t just that they didn’t seem to care who knew that Dave and Dirk were injured, it was like they wanted people to know.

And as he filled up the glass of water in the kitchen, he watched as Roxy and Dirk talked on the couch, as Dirk told her that he’d passed on the news of their condition to Jane already, that Rose had told her and Dave’s friends, and it just kept going. Everyone had to be up to date on the fact that both brothers were injured and vulnerable, and yet…

“I hope the flight wasn’t too long,” Rachel was saying to Ramona.

“Nothing would be too long right now,” she said in turn, blowing gently on a cup of tea that Rachel had just poured her. “Times like these, we all need to do our part. I know I might not be able to do much, mind you. My leg’s been acting up something fierce, as of late, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

Something clicked. All at once, the curtains pulled back and Karkat saw the whole picture—saw maybe not what it always was, and certainly not what the Lalondes achieved on any sort of regular basis, but what it was supposed to be, how it was meant to work.

On Alternia, everyone lived in constant competition. Trolls had to be strong as close to all the time as they possibly could, or at the very least find a moirail who could, because otherwise their society wouldn’t particularly care much if they died. That just meant they didn’t deserve to be a part of the gene pool or to contribute to society. If they were injured badly and left vulnerable, it was seen as normal for others to take advantage of that weakness and exert power or outright kill a rival. It was how they survived so long, or so the cultural narrative had so long stated: by this competition, the strongest survive. Nevermind that this survival was built on the corpses of uncountable trolls who didn’t make the cut, it Worked.

As a result, trolls had been bewildered just as Karkat had by how humans as a species managed to be so frail and yet so reckless and to still survive, especially when they didn’t exactly have the kind of numbers that trolls did. Humans lacked the numbers to be expendable, lacked the strength and toughness that kept Trolls alive, and yet they looked Death in the eye and pointed and laughed, and pushed themselves to extremes for no purpose other than to have some warped idea of fun. It was a question that had lingered around his consciousness for ages; how the fuck do humans even work as a species? How had such a seemingly doomed race not died off yet?

The answer that hit him now, as he watched Roxy help Dirk stand up and balance himself on a pair of crutches, was that humans didn’t have to be strong all the time, and that was the magic of their little social units, their families—they took care of each other. No one person had to be good at everything, or so good at one thing that it could keep them safe in any situation. It didn’t matter that their skin was thin or that they weren’t particularly strong or fast, they always, always had others around who would pick up the slack, others who would come even across oceans to offer what aid they could in times of strife; they weaved together all their strengths and weaknesses into a fabric able to withstand just about anything. Fuck, no wonder they’d wanted Dave back so badly. The Lalondes may have been less a tapestry and more a patchwork quilt, but it was still their quilt, and Dave was a part of it….

He felt a near-agonizing pang of envy that he didn’t have a quilt of his own. Humans might have been stupid about a lot of things, but this…this they’d gotten right.

“Fucking water? Is that really the best you could think of? Fucking dumbass,” Dave muttered to himself. God. This was stupid. This was all really fucking stupid. He couldn’t even deal with being alone while he was asleep, for Chrissakes! Too scared of nightmares of a big mean dog, like some fuckin’ little kid.

Yeah, he was tired, but he really, really didn’t wanna be alone right now, was the thing. Not with that fucking troll-drug-induced nightmare lingering around the edges, waiting to chase him down again at its first chance. But. Like. Karkat was kind of right? Bros don’t watch each other sleep, that’s fuckin’ creepy. Like. Okay, so maybe they’d done a bit of that way back when Karkat had been kidnapped, but they didn’t have a choice back then, and anyways they mostly slept at the same time during that experience, which was super different from just asking his best alien friend to fuckin’ hold his hand so the bad dreams wouldn’t get him. Fuck.

So he’d asked Karkat to refill his glass, even though he wasn’t thirsty right now, because it was an excuse to make Karkat come back, at least for a few more minutes, and they could talk for a bit, and maybe Dave’d stop being tired, wouldn’t that be rad.

Karkat came back in looking really thoughtful. He handed the glass over, and Dave took a sip to try and look like he hadn’t been 100% bullshitting there, and mumbled a thanks as he set it down. Then, just as a thought, he jerked his head toward the rest of the bed—it was a big king-sized one, probably left over from before the divorce and Mom had just never downsized or whatever, so there was a lot of space to Dave’s right—and told Karkat he could sit down if he wanted, Dave wasn’t gonna, like, pass out right this minute or anything, haha.

Karkat stayed quiet, which was fuckin’ weird, but he did sit down. He stared at the sheets for a minute, and then spoke up suddenly, saying, “I think I get it.”

“Get what?” said Dave.

“Why they wanted you back so bad,” said Karkat. “I mean, way back when you were first arrested. I kind of fought with Dirk over it at one point, because my only experience with the word Dirk used for why you should be with him was fucking Strider. And also I think I get why this shit all works, for humans in general. I mean, I’m probably just saying obvious shit, but it’s not how trolls work, we don’t take care of each other, not like this.”

Dave tipped his head.

“I mean with the whole fucking family thing,” Karkat said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been trying to get it this whole time, but this shit’s used to justify so much bullshit with you humans, and I think I get it now, and why it’s so fucking important to you as a species.”

Dave snorted. “Dude, it’s not that big a thing—”

“It is, though! It just seems normal to humans because it’s how you always work, but, Dave, I’m serious, back on Alternia it’s every troll for themself. Maybe you have one person who has your back if you’ve got a moirail, maybe some are lucky like me and have friends who are actually consistently on your side and won’t take the first chance they get to kill you or fuck you up some other way, but we definitely don’t have a whole cluster of others we can just fall back on any time we’re met with something we can’t handle alone.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Dave started, but Karkat just kept going. Apparently he’d had some sort of fuckin’ epiphany in the past two minutes.

“It took me so fucking long to get this, but I get it now! You know what I don’t get, though, is why the fuck you ever tried to convince me that Strider is part of your fucking family.”

Something in Dave dropped like a stone.

He’d…had a similar thought, really. Repeatedly. Multiple times, over the past week or so. He’d been kind of trying to avoid it, because every time it popped up, he got really stressed out.

“And don’t give me any of the bullshit about being ‘related’ or what the fuck ever, I don’t wanna hear it,” Karkat kept right on going. “I still don’t get why you humans care so much about that. The whole point of this family thing is that you all take care of each other, not that you’re related or whatever! Your aunt’s here, did you know that? She flew across an entire fucking ocean just to make sure she could help out you and Dirk! What the fuck did Strider ever do for you?”

It was a good question. And the answer, of course, was: aside from trying to kill him, do you mean? Hahaha.

Karkat was still talking, but Dave wasn’t really hearing him. Fuck, this had been a mistake, he should’ve taken his chances with the fucking nightmare dog. That was better than this old song and dance with his own thoughts.

The facts were pretty simple. He’d operated under pretty clear logic when he went up against Bro: We’re family, so he loves me, so therefore if I ask him to let me leave and explain that I really can’t deal with this, he’ll let me go. Except, Bro had tried to kill him, which meant that…

That was as far as Dave ever got. He couldn’t think any farther than that.

He felt like…like the next thought should be obvious, but he couldn’t make himself think it. It was too big—not so much a square peg in a round hole as it was trying to cram a grain silo into a pinhole, and the thought threatened to overwhelm and destroy him, so instead of thinking it, his brain kept rejecting it, the effect being like a broken record skip-skip-skipping, over and over, repeating the last thought he could get to before the Big One, because he couldn’t not think the Big One, either…

It was so fucking stupid, it was just a thought, why couldn’t he…

“Hah, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess I was always kinda wrong about this shit, wasn’t I?” Dave said, unable to stop the sardonic laughter bubbling up in his throat. “I mean, fuck, no wonder it took you so long to get, I probably gave you the wrong idea. My dumb ass was convinced he’d never try to kill me, cuz we’re family, and, well, here we fuckin’ are!”

Skip, skip, skip—

Karkat was still talking in stuttered phrases in the gaps of Dave’s own flood of words, looking almost scared, but Dave didn’t comprehned any of them, and anyway, the ranting had started, there was no stopping this shit now. “Like, what the fuck was I even thinking, right? I really thought that was gonna work, that somehow he’d just let me go if I asked, like a fucking idiot! Haha, what a fuckin’ dipshit, right?! And here I was thinking he—” Frantic laughter bubbled up, overtaking the words, not that more would’ve come, that next thought was just too big. Was he crying? Fuck, Karkat didn’t need to see any of this shit, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t think

Skip, skip, skip, skip, skipskipskipskipskipskip—

It wasn’t Karkat’s fault. It really wasn’t. He might’ve set it off, but the storm had been building up for days, now, and it broke hard, sweeping Dave up in a torrent of just wordless mental screaming. He couldn’t think the next thought. He couldn’t. But the thing was damming him up, and he couldn’t ignore it anymore, and he was stuck in the middle and left to just completely melt down and dissipate into the flood.

A sound like a cicada crossed with the creakiest horror movie door ever to creak ripped through the tides, and suddenly Dave found himself tugged into a full body hug, wrapped up in four limbs with his face pressed into a thick sweater. The touch dragged him out of the flood and onto dry land, brought him back into now before he even knew what was happening. Karkat’s whole chest was vibrating with some intense cricket-cat hybrid purr, and this should’ve been so embarrassing but he was so tired and so lost and it was fucking comforting, so who the fuck cared. Who cared anymore. It was all bullshit. He could be embarrassed later.

Too soon, Karkat seemed to have the same thought, and tried to pull away. “Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t—fuck, I’m so sorry, this is really presumptive and I know you aren’t even into boys,” he babbled.

Dave groaned, wrapping his arms around Karkat’s chest and pulling him close. “Dude, if you try to make this about alien romance right now, I swear to fuck,” he gasped out between harsh sobs. Christ, he was going harder than Karkat did like twenty minutes earlier, what the fuck.

Karkat paused. Good. It meant his warm arms were still there. “Dave, I…I mean, this is troll romance, this is textbook moiraillegience, and I shouldn’t just be throwing myself at you because you had a moment of weakness, no matter how bad I, uh.”

Dave sniffled, wracked his brain for a moment…Karkat had explained this stuff about a million times, which one was…”That’s like…the bros quadrant, right?”

“The what.”

“The one that’s, like, platonic and shit.”

“…Yeah?” The cricket-purr started up again, cautiously.

“We fuckin’ kinda do most of that shit already, don’t we?” Like. Yeah. He wasn’t gay. That was still a thing. But Karkat was warm and solid and real and Dave was fucking exhausted and didn’t want to be alone, especially not when he felt right now like he was wrapped in safety. “Please, Karkat,” he added, because why not beg. He was already at maximum pathetic, there was no digging this hole lower, fuck it. “I really don’t wanna be alone right now, just, please don’t go.”

Karkat was quiet for a long moment, but finally, the cricket-purr went back to full volume and Karkat’s arms tightened around him.

“Okay,” Karkat said quietly. Dave let out a breath he’d barely known he’d been holding and went back to crying.

“We’re going to have to talk about this later,” Karkat murmured, which put him at about normal volume for anyone else.

“Later, then,” said Dave, and let himself finally fall the fuck asleep.

#dave strider #karkat vantas #davekat #roxy lalonde #longpost//#u BET UR BUTT THIS OENS GOIN IN THE DAVEKAT TAG #ITS ABOUT TIME #fanfic #fanfiction #calmvsstormfic #calmvsstormchapter #katt does a writing #jkdfsgfjhsfjshf not the best start to a relationship but like its something #lord this got long.#why tf did i think 32 and 33 would ever fit into one chapter.

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journeysintowebcomics · 7 years

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Homestuck Liveblog #170

UPDATE 170: Dave Gets His Epiphany

Last time Hussie had decided it was time to pour even more dialogue onto the readers, since last time it hadn’t been enough, hah! Ten different dialogue options – presented linearly, in a subversion of how this usually goes. So let’s continue with what may or may not be the last chance these characters have of talking to each other before the fights.

So I heard that hovering over the options one already cleared would show images, and that was right! There are images. It seems Dave and Dirk continue just...lying around awkwardly, and Vriska and her ghost are arguing while Meenah fantasizes about varied stuff. There’s more than can be done, although the very next option is Roxy being alone. She’s still trying to create the matriorb. Calliope is sitting right in front of her, in silent support role. Roxy channels the universe and Alternia’s complicated state of matters, and...

Well! Mission accomplished! That was easier than I thought it’d be, even with Calliope’s silent help. I suppose there wasn’t more time for delaying this any longer. Kanaya is going to be immensely happy the troll race will be resurrected now. This was a short detour, completely devoid of words but with a significant development – at least to complete quite some part of Roxy and Kanaya’s arcs and goals in this story.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Roxy and Calliope leave right when the bizarre combination that is Jasprosesprite arrives to hassle Jane for a while longer. I’m crossing my fingers this’ll be quick and painless.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Miss me Rose? JASPROSESPRITE^2: Did you know I love you?? Weird thing for me to say and you to hear, probably! JASPROSESPRITE^2: I inherited the adoration our cat had for you, which now strangely is directed with the exact same intensity at myself, because I'm you! JASPROSESPRITE^2: Funnily enough this manifests itself in a particularly acute form of narcissism, which is something we were already sort of afflicted by, and so was our cat by the very nature of the sort of animal he was! JASPROSESPRITE^2: The bottom line is I'm pretty twisted up inside in all the most beautiful ways and it's wonderful. ROSE: It really isn't.

Haha, okay, that one was actually pretty funny. She’s not wrong, Rose, you do tend to have slight traces of narcissism in your personality. Guess that all the increased narcissism in this sprite is what makes it have absolutely no brain-mouth filter, what with having an inflated sense of the self and what one says. Being a cat can’t help that either.

Now that Jasperosesprite made the customary hassling towards Rose, she gets straight to business about the battle plan. She has to arrange with Jane how it’ll be done, after all. This is achieved by taking Jane away without even giving her a moment to prepare. There’s someone she needs to meet, somebody in Jane’s planet.

Ah, true, the denizen. The New Wonderkids’ session was rather lacking in information about the denizens, especially since this session was meant to do pretty much nothing. Given Hussie’s track record so far, I’m almost completely sure that Jane’s talk with the denizen will happen off-screen and the characters will talk about it once it’s done, so...no more option than waiting until this is done!

Damn it , I have been bamboozled! Well played, Hussie, you had me fooled, I admit it. This could be good, though, not everyday you meet a senior version of yourself that’s dressed as a clown and...is the mother of your father. This is time-travel-gone-wrong levels of weird.

Aw, come on, Hussie, I wanted to see this! But nope, just when Nannasprite got in front of Jane the section ended and went to the next. Oh well. I’m really hoping I’ll have the chance to see how this goes, but I’m not going to hold my breath over it. The scribbled images of what the rest of the options are doing show John and Terezi discussing how Rose could have a black romance status with, uh, a version of herself. Yeeeeeeah no, let’s not do that. Doesn’t seem healthy – just ask Karkat, it’d be a headache.

About Roxy and Calliope, they just arrived to what I think is Jade’s planet, and Calliope is told to stay with Jade. I had completely forgotten Jade is still asleep. It’s once again said that it’s nice to have Calliope around. And...that was it! I just summarized around six or so pages in this very short paragraph.

I think that goes way beyond the realm of kismesis behavior Rose...and out of the realm of sanity as well. Stay away from any copies of the Sassacre book, resist the temptation. Anyways, Dave and Dirk are still here. Going to try to talk again? They’re focusing more on the battle to come than on anything else. Hah! No progress on the heartfelt conversation front, apparently.

DAVE: hes got lord english powers tho

It could be a way to know how well a fight against Lord English would go, then. Sure, Union Jack is completely different, less bulky, has no time powers, and presumably has one single personality in that noggin of his instead of being a weird amalgamation, but it’d be a way to see if they are ready to fight against Lord English. Think of it as having training wheels on your bike.

Swords can’t help you solve problems with people, who’d have thought. Dirk and Jake are the closest example to how someone who has spent their formative years alone and without the presence of people around would behave: with no social skills at all. Jade got very lucky in that regard, she is very well-balanced for someone who grew on an island and only had a dog for company. Then again, her Dreamself must have been of help, the Prospitians must have helped her have some people skills.

DIRK: ... DAVE: ...

Nothing has changed here.

It takes a few pages more before Dirk takes the plunge headfirst down the emotional cliff, with all the grace of a novice. It does get the conversation going, mostly about how this isn’t how he pictured the meeting going.

DIRK: Maybe you'll think it's weird that I idolized some version of you that I never knew.

These two are much more similar than they each realize. Their upbringings aren’t that different, heck, I’d say that Lil’ Hal fulfilled the role Bro had, just with less sword attacks. Other than that it was pretty much the same, an isolated life with an aloof person/glasses in the vicinity. Come on, Dave, admit you idolized Bro. That’d be a great step towards turning the page in your life and bonding with Dirk, you can do it!

DAVE: ive got to say DAVE: meeting you DAVE: its not rockin my world here DAVE: or upending any paradigms or whatever DAVE: listening to you and looking at you DAVE: it really really just DAVE: reminds me of him

Close enough! I’m a bit downtrodden there was no exchange of words between Bro and Dave so I could have a reference on how similar this actual situation is to how they got along. I imagine Bro wasn’t that different from Dirk.

DIRK: Things, between you and me, from your perspective, um, DIRK: Are we like, not cool? DAVE: ..................

I’m not sure if it’s telling or not that there was no ‘yeah’ or similar quick response.

DAVE: i didnt fuckin like you that much ok?

...

...okay, that isn’t how I thought it’d go. I suppose there’s a difference between idolizing and actually liking a person. Good for you for saying it aloud, Dave. It must have been very difficult to say to anybody, even more to a version of your brother.

After a sequence of images meant to show how little time passed between Dave going “I don’t want to talk about it” to “okay heres what im saying” he finally starts...and boy is it tough.

DAVE: i dunno why my friends got to have adults around who cared about them DAVE: they complained bitterly about stuff so i guess i convinced myself they were all in the same boat as me DAVE: but thats not how it was

That’s pretty much how kids and teenagers are, they complain and don’t realize sometimes such complaints aren’t about things as bad as they could be. Leaving behind such behavior is part of growing up. Dave didn’t realize how badly he was being treated, though, he just saw no difference between his life and the lives of the rest of his friends – at first.

DAVE: so all thats left to do is look back and try to put the pieces together of my first 13 years DAVE: and all i can think is what the fuck WAS that?! DAVE: i dont come away with the impression i used to try convincing myself of, that he was like "mysterious" or "stern" or "aloof" DAVE: the only feeling left is this insane impression that i was raised by somebody who fuckin HATED me

...hated you? Hm...honestly? I don’t know. Bro’s way of raising Dave had a lot of things wrong, and I really don’t know how to interpret it. I’m interested on knowing how other people interpreted it. Would you mind telling me your thoughts, everyone? I really don’t know what to think about this.

Dirk actually sounds horrified about what he’s hearing. Perhaps he doesn’t like the thought of his equivalent doing this all?

DAVE: it took years to deconstruct it all and put it back together to understand how fuckin mad i should be DAVE: and in particular how stone cold deeply uncared for i was my whole life DAVE: like... being merely "monitored" by a violent robot

Haha...you know what this brought to mind? What went through my head right when I read this part?

TT: Don't worry, that's normal. TT: Upon activation he goes into Stalking Mode. GT: Stalking mode?? TT: Yes. He will stalk you in the jungle and strike when your guard is down.

It’s exactly that. Dave pretty much described the robot Dirk made and sent to Jake. It’s pretty much the same in terms of how Dave was raised! Wow, Hussie, did you do this on purpose? I think you did this on purpose! Dave may as well have been raised by the brobot thing, and just like Jake – who dreaded encountering it and once he had to fight it didn’t precisely have loads of fun – Dave now doesn’t want to fight. He wants to avoid this fighting thing, and hates that he has to be the one to grab the sword and slay the villain.

You seriously screwed up here, Bro.

Dave even brings up that maybe things would have been better if Lil’ Cal hadn’t been around. Maybe! The influence of Lord English can’t be an ingredient in a healthy household – even more since part of Lord English is once another version of Dirk. Hah! Life sucks for the Striders. It’s...it’s rather depressing, actually. I wonder if at the time they had to cram Caliborn into the puppet Dave realized what Lil’ Cal was. Even if he did, I doubt he’d have any kind of reaction when anyone was nearby, but at that moment I imagine many things clicked in Dave’s head.

Would Bro have been any different if that puppet of the damned hadn’t been around? Uh...I dunno. Maybe it really was a poisonous influence of some sort, influence Dirk was lucky not to have. It’s all up to interpretation, I’d say.

I think now that the epiphany is complete I can stop the update and continue next time. This, though, this is exactly what I was hoping the Striders would do, that at least one of them would unload this heavy emotional baggage, and it’s for the better! I’m glad it’s actually happening.

Next update: three updates

#homestuck #homestuck liveblog #webcomics #liveblog #webcomic liveblog

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blaperile · 5 years

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Homestuck Epilogues - Meat - Page 11 (Epilogue 2 Page 3)

#Homestuck #The Homestuck Epilogues #Meat #Epilogue Two #John

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dahniwitchoflight · 5 years

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Candy 22-23

hmm, interesting, so 5 minutes of Terezi time equals about 2 weeks of John time?

What’s the math on that, how many minutes are in a week? 10,080? Neat.

what’s that divided by 5? 2016?

so time is moving almost 2000 times faster for John than it is for Terezi?

a Day for Terezi is literally 5 and a half Years for John by that Math.

All of John’s conversations have been happening over the course of not even 2 full days for Terezi so far, and by John’s estimation that she only ever messages every year or so

that turns out to be like, every 260 minutes for Terezi?? If my math is correct? (525,600 minutes / 2016 = 260 minutes = 4.333... hours)

4 and 1/3 hours.

oh my god, Terezi and John talk literally every 4 hours and 20 minutes that’s hilarious they turned 413 into a 420 weed joke that’s amazing

I wonder if Terezi takes his convo’s seriously or just think it’s an extended prank that their both neck deep in at this point? I mean, they joke with eachother a lot and he literally messages her what seems from her point of view, literally every 4:20 (Trolls understand weed jokes because I said so and because it’s funny)

Does he ever send her pic’s of what they all look like as adults? Does she think it’s badly like, photoshopped or something like what she used to do with Dave?

Or does she really know? Either way is interesting to be honest

Wait, did Gamzee make out Jake’s/Jane’s son Tavros?? Why is John so nonchalant about that?

or is it a different Tavros???

I’m confused, or maybe not, John’s going straight into a line that says take Tavros away from his family. what the fuck is Gamzee doing.

So I guess this is what happens to all non canon timelines? They get torn to shreds by the inevitable cosmic background blender that is the giant black hole thing in Meat?

Oh god Jane made a crockership, yeah we’re in the nosedive of all of Jane’s unsavoury tendencies made manifest

we don’t need a tiara here, this was carefully manifested and nurtured to happen by another guy who all fell into the worst version of himself

Sad to see karkat and dave seperated too, but interesting karkat finally got fed enough enough to lead a resistance

this friend circle is really going down the shits

but then again, kind of was to be expected, i mean, it’s not like they were all actually friends, there wasn’t really much of an extended friend circle for the alpha kids. its a stretch to even say John and Jane were close friends because they didn’t really have much interaction with each other either

Jane and Jake is pretty much a lost cause, Dirk is dead and also encouraging her downfall, and Roxy is totally accepting of everything around her for better or worse, and Calliope and Jane were never close not to mention Calliope seems content to just follow Roxy everywhere

there’s literally no one actually close enough to Jane to have an actual “i care about you’re my friend” conversation with that would actually feel genuine, so it’s kind of inevitable she’d end up like this in this sort of situation with no one to help her steer her course

John’s getting desperate to feel some sense of reality again, that picture of Terezi is almost like an anchor in the storm

he’s only attached to his reality because of his personal investment into it, like he’s too deep in it now to ever escape, not because he really truly cares and is happy I think but because he’s put so much effort into making this all work

Also damn, he’s really gonna kidnap Tavros, but i mean like, I don’t blame him if apparently his sort of father clown figure has been making out with him as part of a religious cult nonsense i hope im interpreting that wrong but he literally says PBandJ again and says Tavros, so like, who else could he mean

Fake redemption nonsense finally going down the toilet where it belongs

but damn, John’s gonna start a war I can see it now, this is gonna pop Jane’s cork and for all we know she could easily use it as an excuse to attack trolls by blaming the kidnapping on them

You know what is so interesting about this though?

Jane was raised by the condesce, and feared alternian society like it was inherent to trollkind

but here she is displaying that same tyranny in the name of humanity, it does a good job of showing this bullshit isn’t inherent to any person or race

but man, it is ironic how much of a mini Condesce Jane is becoming, complete with her own Grand High Blood too, while fighting what she probably considers tyrannical trollkind

It’s cute how Harry talks in a lighter Roxier shade of blue though, unfortunately due to the name I can imagine anything except Harry Potter being their actual child, Harry Anderson as a figure means nothing to me even though I know the reference and the picture that shows up in Homestuck I get the joke

Maybe it’s because it’s also Roxy’s child and she always had a thing for wizards so

Tavros talking in a dark purple is less endearing, because it so clearly shows that despite supposedly being a product of love between Jane and Jake, Gamzee as a weird third interloper has entirely taken over this family

Gamzee being the auspistice for Jane and Jake doesn’t sound good. Weird that he’s seen as like an Uncle figure too. This family is messed up to hell.

mmm.. I don’t think Jake and Jane are in a kismesis...

*UPSETTING CHILD ABUSE CONTENT AHEAD*

I don’t like how uncomfortable Tavros seems to be with an uncle figure taking him up to his bedroom im getting all kinds of bad child abuse vibes, not from john god no but like, Tavros seems so expectant of something to happen and that’s not pairing well with what Gamzee has apparently been doing

“Tavros sighs, his facial expression unchanging. He looks resigned. To life in general, as well as whatever it is he’s expecting from this particular situation. Wait... what is he expecting from this situation, having been led away to a secluded part of the house by an adult? What has he been taught to expect?“

I don’t like this. John please kidnap the child. Even though it’s going to start a war.

No I don’t like where this is going this is getting a big gigantic NOPE for me

Oh fuck okay, so it hasn’t happened yet, big relief there

but almost, still warning sirens going off in my head because

“JOHN: TRAIN you???

TAVROS: Yes,

TAVROS: In matters of combat,,, philosophy,,, life,,, love,,,

TAVROS: I suppose to behave the way a mentor does, as he sees it,,,”

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT GAMZEE BEING A DIRK GAUGE

Is “Combat, Philosophy, Life, Love” just like symbolism for the four shitty ingredients of Lord English symbolically mixed together? Like yeah they don’t all sound bad when you put it that way but really it’s like

Combat = Physical Abuse = Caliborn

Philosophy = Religious Cult = Gamzee

Love = Obsession = Equius

Life = Dominance and Power = Dirk

Every shitty part of the LE soul combo contributes something bad to the whole

uh oh, they’ve been found out by Jade

Jade’s not exactly gonna throw him to the big bad wolf, but is she just gonna disagree with his actions? Or is she gonna try to stop him.

or argue? argue’s good, sure, not really but sure

Everyone knows Jane’s gone to shit, but everyone’s too cowardly to stand up to her and tell her she’s wrong

oh shit, speaking of

oh, well, that didn’t go how i wanted it to

John got so close to saying something that could break through to Jane, but Karkat was right, she couldn’t get her head out of her ass long enough to listen to what was being said to her, and instead immediately jump to conclusions about what she thinks people are talking about

she probably think everyone hates her suddenly because of her political ideas and thinks its ridiculous thats everyones getting so mad at her for it, head so far up the ass she should be turning into a fourth dimensional pretzel by now

even though this could have all have been avoided if someone just had enough bravery to nip it in the bud, so instead of angry raze the ground retaliatory action she could have just been embarassed and angry in the personal and then gotten over it in a few weeks

but nope, genocidal war in the works now

oof

just big oof

gotta say though, I’m sitting practically eating gigantic mounds of popcorn at the drama (Besides the one part that was implying gamzee was sexually abusing tavros before they made it clear he wasn’t, I could do without that one honestly)

other than that though, loving the drama, feel bad for the people getting the shit end of the sticks though

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy

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abundantchewtoys · 5 years

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HS Epi: Meat p11 reaction

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing happens.

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

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

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

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

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abundantchewtoys · 5 years

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HS Epi Meat, p13 reaction

I suppose it is time for John's therapy session. :p It'd be interesting seeing Rose do real one, not one stuffed with jabs and such. Though, it would hardly be a private conversation on account of all the jelling involved.

Sad to say that there is no way out of there for them, apart from the preordained timeline, it seems. It'd be nice if they could stick it to Paradox Space one more time. But the house seems to be more isolated from canon in such an extreme manner, in barring even retcon powers from being used.

If John started talking about his feelings and how he came by it, though, in a way that would mirror the first hours he had those retcon powers. Adrift on his personal timeline (though it also included other people's), steerless.

Also, I hope from their subjective viewpoint, it isn't quadrillions years before the four of them resurface, obviously. In fact, I hope it's mere hours.

And that John may fix his glasses, or realize he doesn't need them any more, like Spider-Man.

"> Be John again.

It seems as if you’re attempting to be John again, with the expectation that we might spend a little more quality time with him in his cubicle of misery and self-loathing. You guessed we might really start to unpack his depression issues. Get to the bottom of all that. Well, nice try." ... Pfff, what, is the house barred from us viewing it? Why then did we see the start of their captivity? ... Is it because they weren't yet banished to the Furthest Ring?

Well, the good news is that if that's the case, we're in for a time skip. The bad news is that we're once again skipping a salacious bit of plot, but well, it's the epilogues, not the everything-logues. (And Homestuck was already not that keen on showcasing every little tidbit of conversation & interaction, anyway. Leave some for the fan artists, ey?)

"John can’t be here right now, because he’s stuck somewhere in the harrowing nexus between canon, post-canon, non-canon, outside canon, and fanon." Pfffff, ah, so he's so very unstuck his state has started following the uncertainty principle. :p

"He also can’t be here right now because, for the time being, we’re done wasting our breath on such a sad loser." yeah right.

"It’s well overdue for the true hero of this tale to take center stage.

> Be Vriska."PFFFF XD WHAT. No way. Vriska??? She's taking the POV?? Well, I hadn't expected that.

Guess we're being post-retcon Vriska, since that's the Vriska still intent on relevance at all cost. Also, apparently it's a Vriska that would hold John in disdain now, if the narration is to believed. Guess it is because he's been slacking off for seven years.

I suppose we'll be her some time right before she went to confront Lord English? Or, you know, it could be we're being her as she's stuck in a stalemate with him, as the Furthest Ring is sucked into the Black Hole around them. Just before the house spits out the kids. If they're really in a stalemate, that'd be a nice mirror to how Aradia was stuck holding Bec Noir back for a while, in the troll session after her ascension.

Though I wonder about the things the humans can do once they're out. They're not any more equipped to handle an adult Caliborn than before, eggsword not withstanding. Unless their stay in the house juju gave them all retcon powers or other. I can see them whisking away Vriska & Davepetasprite^2 & Aradia (if they're near), to regroup and create a new plan of attack.

Even though it'd be nice if they're already capable of handling LE, just imagine Vriska's reaction to her ultimate weapon failing. :D

So, ready for self-indulgent, self-agrandizing megalomaniac monologuing? I guess we are.

"Lord English stands before you in all his time-eating, universe-ending glory."IT IS TIME. TIME TO SEE HOW THIS SCENE CONTINUED. I'm psyched. I suppose there won't be any dialogue with LE, he's pretty much refrained from talking to anyone except the Handmaid. Though a "GIRL. YOU THERE. GIRL." wouldn't be out of place right about now.

"now you’re presiding over a whole host of ghosts ready to throw themselves once more into the maw of this final battle." Ah, right. The army wasn't entirely evaporated by LE, it stands to reason almost every ghost joined the army, so the ones sucked into the Black Hole were probably ex-members.

"You know that this isn’t your battle to win, but you are definitely the sign of the tide turning." Well, what do you know, for once she doesn't see herself as the main girl. Guess she thinks of the house juju then as the real 'winner'? Not Alternate Calliope?

"you deployed the white, house-shaped juju from the red chest. It grew to an enormous size, slammed down on whatever was passing for the floor in this esoteric battle environment, and a door materialized on its surface."OH RIIIIIIGHT. The door! I remember now. So that's gotta be the way out for the four, right? I suppose there's going to be some magic bullshit involved, where every kid sees a door inside their own separate room appearing, it leading out to the same exit location, namely right there in the dreambubbles. So, wait, I'm confused, didn't the door like face LE? Guess we'll just put it on Vriska "stealing" a peek of that viewpoint while being safely on the other side, using Thief of Light powers.

"You now stand off to the side looking especially pleased with yourself, waiting for the legendary weapon to unload itself toward the hulking tyrant." ... Ah. She thought she could just sit back and let whatever's inside do the dirty work for her. Guess she's about to be enormously let down. :p Also, confused at adult John.

"You’ve now got two bitches of either gender at your side: your main girl Meenah, who you stole from that embarrassing past version of yourself that you owned so hard you bet she’s probably /still/ crying. And Tavros. Not just any random ghost copy of Tavros, of which there appear to be thousands. Your Tavros, specifically, who’s been pathetically trailing after you like a lost barkbeast since you showed up." Ah yes. This is really the Vriska way of thinking about the world. For one, it isn't actually /her/ Tavros, since this is his pre-retcon ghost, the one that was once part of Tavrisprite. So, like, it's (Tavros). For another, Meenah wasn't stolen, she came willingly, nor did (Vriska) in the end remain crying.

... Hmm, so if Vriska assumed this Tavros to be hers, did she think she killed Tavros again? On account of creating GCATavrosprite, who was very unstable last she knew?

"It looks to you like the complete obliteration of space and time, the end of all things, the disintegration of literally thousands of ghosts." So... Yeah, they're sitting this one out and letting the ghosts keep LE at bay until the house juju finishes unloading.

"And no doubt your admirers out there would love it if you described it all in painstaking detail, but you’re not an executionist. You just call it like you see it, and what you’re seeing right now is pretty awesome." Sorry admirers! Vriska's not an executionist. An executioner, sometimes, but not the other thing.

"Kind of an overworked character design, you think to yourself. If someone showed you a drawing like this on their FLARP sheet you’d probably be obligated to immediately kick their ass." I'd like to have seen that, though. Vriska talking some sense into Caliborn about his OC. :p

"There’s a lot going on, from his vein-popping muscles to his eight-ball eyes to his pirate leg and his ostentatiously bright, gold pimp cane." Oh, right, the eyes were stuck in 8-ball mode! We assumed it had to do with him having become vulnerable, but that remains to be seen. And, uh, didn't Spades Slick have his cane last we knew? ... Hmm. Weird. Then again, during Collide we saw the weapon getting duplicated through Terezi and Dave's fraymotif, let's say it glitched something else too.

"MEENAH: im goin back fin MEENAH: you comin vris VRISKA: Of course!!!!!!!! VRISKA: But give me a minute. VRISKA: I want to SEE." Ah, okay, they were catching their breath, is more like it. So, is Vriska waiting to see the house unload, or is it like Blaperile thinks, she wants to see Meenah in action? If the latter, we'd get some insight into what she sees in the mini Condesce. Also, whether it has any foundations for a stable relationship at all.

Gotta say, I don't think we saw Vriska & Meenah use a fraymotif together yet. Maybe now would have been appropriate.

"This is what you always felt you were destined for, somehow. Standing at the end of the universe and seeing how it all goes down." I thought that was what Aradia always wanted though. :p She'd hate that, the thought of having that in common with Megido.

"Tavros is clinging to your arm like a little crybaby, while crying, you assume" Meanwhile, (Tavros) is probably thinking he's bonding, or something. :/

"You crane back your neck and:

> Watch Lord English put a crack in reality." Hmm, I think he might be trying to crack this part of the Furthest Ring same as before, though. Wait, yeah, if he does that, that's the cue for his circle being completed, and then the Black Hole will come through!

"You thought maybe he’d do something stupid, like punch the sky with his gross, throbbing muscle arm? But all it takes for him to shatter the roof of existence is a single, ear-splitting roar." Yeah, LE roars to crack through dimensions, it's Superboy that throws punches.

"Get smashed in the head?

It was so fast and dark you didn’t see it—the shard of space-time that split off from above and hurtled toward you. Your body rocks back, whiplash fast, and you nearly keel over. You’re still standing though, and laughing." Guess it's a good thing she's so high up on her god tiers, I suppose.

"That’s what you were doing when Lord English put a split in the fabric of reality. You were /laughing/, not crying. It doesn’t hurt at all." Pffff, okay then. It would've been a humane gesture, but she doesn't acknowledge she's capable of it so neither will I.

"TAVROS: vRISKA,,, aRE YOU OKAY?" Well, I don't think getting knocked in the head could've made her any MORE unhinged.

"Your eyes spin. All eight of them." ... Right, her eight pupils. That must be a freaky field of vision she has.

"It’s not a big deal though. Just a scratch. It’s fine fine F8NE." Well, a confrontation with the limits of her own immortality has been long overdue, after all see how long it took (Vriska) to come to terms with it! Leave it to Vriska to engage full Black Knight mode when she's injured. "It's just a flesh wound!"

"Why is broken space-time so sharp? Like splintered obsidian. Feels like it barely grazed you, and yet..." I don't suppose this could be weaponized AGAINST LE some how, right? Just saying, we already have Space & Time player in the backstage, waiting to go. And a fraymotif that perhaps failed to kill Bec Noir but might still be able to do something on a Time player.

"Everything around you begins to spin, and you’re not sure if... you can’t /quite/..." Wow. She's going to pass out and miss the house unloading? Didn't see that coming!

"the broken-glass sound of the ceiling of space splitting into hundreds of shards of potentiality." So the Furthest Ring is an inherent well of potential, like Skaia? Guess that it's due to all the aspects being interlocked out there.

"You wipe your bloody hand on the leg of your jeans and sneer with rage. You won’t go down so easily." Psyche! Guess she's just mad now. The gloves might be coming off. Will she try to steal his luck first?

"VRISKA: You’re so intolera8le! I... I need to........ VRISKA: Tavros, g-go. Find... f8nd Meen8h." This. I like seeing that moment when Vriska falters, and learning about all the ways she reacts to it.

"you’re distracted by something in the corner of your glasses. Your Trollian alert is blinking. There’s a message from Terezi." Pffffffff, wait what?? Talk about interrupting an important moment to check your mail! Wait, but, this is probably Terezi post-victory, right? 2 years into Vriska's subjective future? Oh wait, right, Terezi also sent her a message right before her Mindy thing, I almost forgot. If my theory is correct, then Terezi forced her ultimate self from coming together in that instant. I wonder if afterwards, she has some words for Vriska. Words of advice, or words of the heart, now she knows all about the Game Over timeline. They were supposed to have become moirails, but it didn't seem like either was doing too good of a job of it, before.

"You suddenly wonder if it’s been years from her perspective, waiting for you to respond, given how time moves differently out here. Were you too preoccupied with your incredible heroic exploits to notice?" Well, at least it provokes some reflection into Vriska, thinking about Terezi. I'm kind of reminded of someone checking their Gmail after not having logged in for years, only to find messages of old friends that were never answered. That's a special kind of embarassment, even if you are technically blameless for not responding in time.

"keep both feet planted firmly... whoops." Did the cracks reach her underfooting?

"You try to regain your footing, but you realize you aren’t in danger of falling over." Well, she CAN fly, as a god tier.

"You understand what’s happening. It’s the black hole."DUN DUN DUNNNN. Can't escape such a paranatural cataclysm on fairy wings. There's suddenly something more dangerous than the time mobster on the battlefield!

"Your hand goes wide and your fingers close around empty space as you reach impotently toward the glowing symbol of everything you ever believed you were meant for." Eeesh, could it be she's actually going to get sucked in before anyone can get to her?? It seems the kids are supposed to be LET out, they can't exit themselves. It reminds of how Karkat was reaching for the door just as Bec Noir entered their session, just a moment too slow.

"Another black shard of space-time hurtling through the void. It collides with your chest, right at the place where your ribcage connects, and sends you spiraling ever faster toward the deep, dark maw of infinity." ... She's been hit right about were her Light symbol is, isn't she? Where in the Game Over timeline, Terezi stabbed through her back out her chest. Guess you can't run from some circumstances in Paradox Space.

I wonder though, if this could be the end for post-retcon Vriska? Wouldn't have thought it possible before, but she's in dire straights. But then, what? Game Over Vriska finding a way to access her memories, having another go in her stead? She's dead though, somehow I think ghosts are exempt from reaching ultimate self awareness, no matter how much they have been seen changing outwards and inwards from when they were alive. ... Well, to be fair, John still has that ring on him, that he's bound to be giving to someone, it could just as well be (Vriska)!

"A black hole is something not even a god tier player can survive, you suspect. And even if one could, you highly doubt there’d be any clawing your way out of its event horizon and back into relevance. Not this time." ... That WOULD be a highly efficient way to get rid of Lord English, if we can be certain he can't blast his way out.

"finally you lose all sense of composure. You flail, spin, and flip in helpless little circles like a bloody rag doll, and you begin to scream." Wow.

"> JOHN: Emerge from the juju." Uhmm. They're going to be just too late, right? Guess Vriska and John never really got their synchronization in order, it was just the same way for their planned d8.

But, if Vriska wouldn't be around, how would they even know the slightest bit of what's going on here from first sight. Can't see Meenah or Tavros sharing valuable tactical information.

Maybe John will go zap her out of need first. ANYHOW. Guess we're finally doing this!

"The first thing you hear is a tiny scream getting sucked into oblivion. The voice is familiar" ... Wow. That's. A harsh way to go for anyone. Guess Vriska managed to put all the pieces in place, though At the Price of Oblivion. Unless it's a dreambubble ghost he hears instead, this is Exit Vriska. I do wonder if even her memories can be saved from the black hole.

"It’s not just a crack in your ears. This crack goes all the way down your spine. You almost don’t react to it because it’s so familiar. Around you, a cacophony rises up like steam." Oh boy, are they under attack, or is the crack just the previous one LE started, further moving underneath their current footing?

"DAVE: oh shit DAVE: its really popping off out here" Well, that's one way to put it. :P Guess it might be time to, uh, "drop it like it's hot while the pimp's in the crib", Dave. Okay, and maybe John just has crack-fatigueness from having heard it in his dreams so many times before.

"You can’t see anything but big, bright smears all along the horizon. You fish the two halves of your broken glasses out of your pocket and hold them up to your face." This is so unheroic, and yet I feel for John in this moment. Needing glasses really sucks on occasion.

"You can feel it now. The moment reality yawns too wide and snaps in half." Le moment supreme is nearing. Though, to be fair John, your reality has already split, into Meat and Candy. :P

Now, as for Vriska. I don't suppose her death, if she dies from the experience, would have her see resurrected elsewhere in the dreambubbles? I mean, okay, I guess it wouldn't really count as heroic, since it's more like a death from natural causes, no matter how unnatural they are in actuality. So that would mean she just gets resurrected over, and over, and over... Eesh.

Is it bad that I have 'Remember Me' from Disney's Coco stuck in my head now? Cause it's basically all Vriska ever wanted, to be remembered for her greatness.

#homestuck #upd8 #reaction #spoiler alert #homestuck epilogues #homestuck liveblog #vriska serket #at the price of oblivion

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