#one more note: vriska shoes

[davejade-daily]

we return from sudden hiatus. please take this as an offering

sburban coffee pt 4

Jade hums quietly to herself as she fiddles with the lock. It’s a stupid lock. You have to jiggle the key in a certain way, while also holding the handle down and pushing against the door. Not great when you’ve got full hands. She has kicked this door many a time in frustration, and said some Karkat-worthy things to it. This door is her worst enemy. Click. Finally. The door whines on old hinges as she pushes it open slowly, stepping into the apartment. John must not be home yet, she notes.

She flips on the lights, illuminating the rather cramped but cozy room, and steps out of the doorway, carefully checking the surrounding area for pranks of any sort. You can never be too careful when living with John. She tosses her bag onto the couch (green, soft, had only cost them $300, and her favourite thing in the world). The room is kind of a mess, but that’s to be expected with how busy she is, and two boys living there with her. Granted, Jake is kind of a part-time tenant, but his presence in the apartment is... noticable, to say the least. Jade doesn’t mind cleaning, but these days she never has the time for it, and can only guiltily watch the mess grow. She steps into the kitchen, pointedly ignoring the dirty dishes beginning to slowly accumulate and contemplates the refridgerator. The options aren’t much, but, regardless, she grabs some old pizza, settling at the little bar-counter that takes up part of the wall to finish up some classwork.

A while later, she hears the door click open, and a crash that is probably John tripping over all the shoes at the door again. She leans back in her seat, glancing down the hall.

JADE: john. are you good?

JOHN: yes jade, i am perfectly fine.

JOHN: who put all these shoes here!!

JADE: you did. theyre all your shoes, john

JOHN: i really don’t think they’re all mine.

JOHN: how can they all be mine?!

JOHN: this one isn’t even my size! it looks more like yours.

JOHN: these are your stinky dog converse, jade.

Jade hears a thump, presumably John kicking the shoes aside.

JADE: i move mine out of the walkway!! like a normal person!!!

JADE: besides, im not the one who nearly died on them

JADE: operator error

JOHN: operator of what. am i commander shoe shoe now?

JADE: operator of your legs

JOHN: at least i’m not that guy. you know?

JOHN: vriska’s... friend?

JOHN: the one who lost his legs in a terrible, terrible chainsaw related accident.

JOHN: jade, be respectful of him. at least i have legs.

She can hear him coming down the hall on his aforementioned legs, and a moment later, he’s poking his head into the doorway of her room. Jade herself is attempting to write a hefty paper for her chemistry class. The work is fine – fun, even – but the pages and pages of words she needs to somehow summon from the depths of her brain? She could do without those.

JADE: hey!! how was your day?

JOHN: long. very long. longer than one of dave’s rambles.

JADE: sounds pretty long indeed!!

John flops down on the floor next to her bed, letting out the longest sigh Jade has ever heard. She bonks the side of his head with her foot, and he shoves it away, turning to face her and resting his head on his arms on her bed.

JOHN: some lady pinched my cheeks. she said i looked like her grandson.

JOHN: it took like 5 minutes to get her to leave me alone. it was terrible!

JADE: awwww but you do have such pinchable cheeks!!

She leans forward and squishes his face, giggling as he makes a disgruntled face that really only looks silly. John makes a loud noise in complaint.

JADE: DID YOU JUST LICK ME!!!

JOHN: maybe.

JADE: im never giving you another free drink again!!!!

JADE: youll have to pay. like a SUCKER!!

JADE: a CHUMP, EVEN!!!!!!

JADE: ill have karkat make fun of you the whole time too

JOHN: you wouldn’t!!

Jade just shoves John’s head away, resulting in a oomph from the latter.

JADE: actually, yes i would!!! and i WILL

John makes a face at her again, which she ignores.

JADE: oh! by the way, i forgot to ask but do you know if jake is coming in tonight?

JOHN: i think so.

JADE: i hope he gets here okay. i heard it was going to rain

Jade glances out the small window beside her bed. The city lights shine back at her, illuminating the many buildings and cramped streets. She’s always loved the view, having spent many a night just staring out the window, watching the cars on the streets and the few faint stars visible in the city travel across the sky. That very same sky is now full of ominous clouds, and rain does seem imminent.

She hopes Jake will be there in time for the party. The last time she’d talked to him, he’d mentioned that he hadn’t been sure if he’d make it.

They’ve just said their goodnights and gone off to their seperate rooms when the front door slams open. A tired but cheerful British voice rings out.

JAKE: Oi, is anybody home? Its pouring bloody buckets out there. I could fill a tub with how much water i seem to have absorbed!

There’s two loud thumps as Jake apparently tosses his shoes - into a wall? It’s dark. Maybe he misssed? There’s more kerfuffling as Jake manages to make more noise than a blind dog in an item-filled room.

Jade groans and slides out of bed, grabbing her glasses and stuffing her feet into her fluffy slippers.

JOHN: shut it jake, i’m trying to sleeeeep.

Jade stumbles over to her door, opening it and rubbing at her eyes as she walks down the hall, glasses-less and adjusting to all the lights Jake has somehow turned on within thirty seconds of stepping in the door. She puts her glasses on as she steps into the kitchen, her cousin coming into sharp focus. He gives her a goofy wave, smiling warmly.

JAKE: Jade!!

JADE: jake!!!!

They hug. Jake is wet and smells like manly british man smells. Jade pulls away after a second, slightly damp and makes a face in Jake’s general direction. She then notices a faint trail of wet footprints and internally sighs.

JADE: i thought you said you weren’t going to make it?

JAKE: I wasnt! But then some things happened and it started raining there too so i got off work early and was able to get a flight in just the nick of time!

JADE: thats awesome!!

JADE: do you uh, want to dry off?

JADE: youre dripping on my kitchen floor :(

JAKE: Oh! Uh. Right.

Jake shakes his head like a wet dog, spraying water everywhere. Jade yelps, as it was the last thing she could have possibly expected him to do. Well. Okay. She’s known Jake for almost her whole life; this is actually pretty in character for him.

JADE: jake!!!!!

Jake laughs and gives her a cheeky wink. She gives him her best glare, but after a few seconds, breaks down into giggles.

JOHN: what is going on.

JOHN: can’t a man sleep around here?

JOHN: hi jake, nice to see you at ass o’clock.

JAKE: Howdy to you too john!

He slaps John so hard on the back that there is an audible THWAP. Jake grins. Jade sighs, longsuffering and fondly.

JOHN: OW.

JOHN: as you would say, boy shitting howdy!!

JAKE: Nothing like a hearty slap to get the blood moving huh?

JADE: okay guys i think jake should take a shower and dry off

JADE: its great to see you!! but im really tired

JADE: if youre hungry theres food in the fridge

JOHN: how am i supposed to sleep after that strong manly slap?

JADE: just try john, im sure you can

JAKE: Roger that, miss!

JADE: jake

JAKE: Jade.

They make eye contact and stare at each other for a moment before going their seperate ways. John is making loud grumbling noises as he disappears into his room, with the occassional OW MY BACK. Jade is mostly sure he’s joking.

JADE: goodnight!!

#mod harley #mod strider #jade harley #john egbert #jake english #sburban coffee #au tag

[bjdlog]

*blows out dust*

I haven't been active here in aaaaaaaages...

Minor(ended up kind of longish) update: -My Frappzilla Delphini ("Telereuthe") will be shipping soon according to the artist's Instagram, I'm hoping I won't be hit with too expensive shipping but I've seen some ppl's examples and am prepared -I have two saving-for/in progress projects to be dolls of Jinx from Arcane: one is a DollZone Rory on a girl body and might be modded a bit if I can work up the courage to send her out; unfortunately, that has been put on the backburner for a bit until I find out how stable their new WS is via owner pics, or if Rory is at risk of discontinuation. -The other is a more-elaborate-than-before attempt to make Felis into Jinx full-time, rather than a cosplay as initially planned. This involves commissioning a wig (which I am still saving for, I was quoted $150 at one place), and possibly getting the Adyka Doll Flex body IF I can save up before it sells out in DD Flesh (which matches SMD milk and I've heard will be more compatible than I had thought), not to mention outfits and the like. I will not be altering her faceup. -Other thing to note there is I have found for sale a Jinx temp tattoo template for cosplay purposes and plan to contact the seller to find out if I can scale it down for my 2 personal doll projects! (This in the process of working on a cosplay of my own-- but that's non doll related shh) -All other doll projects involving new dolls are very vague thoughts atm (either no sculpt picked or sticking to current projects atm). Vriska is still on the back-burner unfortunately. I was hoping I had found a sculpt that would suit a mini-me/self-insert to go with my minis but the sculpt turned out to be 1/3 scale so no go there unless I can see it looking good with my Smart Dolls. Once Jinx in her forms are done I will be working on a mini-me, then Vriska, then other projects I've placed on the back burner. This does not include Telereuthe (who I will be working on in tandem w/ Jinx(x2) starting from when she arrives from Frappzilla) and Moira's customs which may be started before Vriska. Not to mention clothes for my current crew, new outfits and shoes, and whatever else I can fit in when I'm not saving for Big Things like the Flex body etc.

I'll also be aiming to get a new laptop at some point so that affects some things.

#ramblings #bjdlog #doll plans #long post #text post

[the-hs-etaverse]

State of the Etaverse 2: Electric Boogaloo

You might’ve seen my post last week in which I screencapped the Excel sheet I was using to make my class theory chart. In other words, I finished figuring out (more or less) the Class relations to one another. Made a post about class relations shortly after, too. :3

Next up on the classpecting agenda is a series of posts containing write-ups about each of the classes. They’re grouped by canonicity: the semi-canon classes are grouped together, the non-canon ones are grouped, etc. I’m about 30% done with them. I also have a brief aspect post in the works as well.

No further progress on Vriskas Anonymous. I did mention it to my mom the other day (though I described it as “eight diffferent versions of one character have a group therapy session”) and she thought the idea was really cool.

Lil bit of work done on the Eta rewrite. I briefly toyed with the idea of writing it all in second person but decided against it. Chapter 1 is still unfinished, although I am working on it as I write this.

Most of my creative time has been dedicated to Housesnared. I’ve been cleaning up my old notes, figuring out some more of the characters, and making a couple of sprites! Major major kudos to the FarragoFiction sprite maker for at the very least providing me with a good template which I edit to match my vision correctly :3

Here’s one friend:

[[ID: A sprite drawing of a Homestuck troll wearing a green vest, brown shirt, khakhi pants, and brown shoes. They don’t wear an identifying sign. Their hair is floofy and resembles a cat’s face, with a prominent bang in the front. They have cat-ear-shaped horns on the sides of their head, slit-pupiled eyes, and a hare lip with protruding fangs. /End ID]]

#state of the etaverse

[geodebiome]

happy late trans day taz community😳 (started drawing on tdov and then. died)

im basically king of taking justins goofs out of context just so i can make taako nb. bc im nb and i like him

(btw ^_^ tag as ship get blocked. and killed.)

#the adventure zone #taz #the adventure zone balance #tazb #taz: balance #taako #lup #taaco twins #i KNOW the main hc is their last name is taaco. but i disagree. #saw ONE hc once that taako got his last name from whats most important to him. which was back when he didnt remember lup #so taako taako it is :) #and then lup got back? last name is lup now. taako lup #lup taako and taako lup #tdov #trans day of visibility #transgender #nonbinary #i get super passionate abt these twins but i swear to god if anyone interprets this as ship art im gonna go monkey mode #one more note: vriska shoes #one MORE note: im nb but if anyone asks im a dude and thats how i see taako. gender whatever. call me he i guess fine #ONE LAST NOTE: #my art

[macklives]

session 92 end (bye 413...)

this session was so long but so fucking hectic what the fuck

im going to try and slim it down to its bare essentials rather than go on a full rant because im pretty sure i want to make a post later on about vriska’s characterisation (not anything about me liking her/disliking her, just an analyse on her life really, so it wont be too bias because thats not the point of an analysis. i also want to do one on aradia, been meaning to for a while... hmm... damn i havent done much analogies lately, and i THINK the last long post on a character i made was about davesprite??? so its been a fucking while. that being said, ill leave a lot of details out for this end of session notes so i dont just repeat myself later on. rather will keep to plot points here and then make character points in another)

alright

first we had a page or two where aradia confided in nepeta about her being dead which means nepeta is the only one to know this revelation. im pretty sure aradia confided because there was no other way around it, since nepeta was her server player, so it was inevitable. either way, aradia still put her trust in nep, which means, if you think about it, nobody else knows and nobody else ever will. and considering aradia asked nep to keep it a secret, it probably wont get explored by others until MAYBE later on, whenever its plot relevant, so everyone will be in the dark about it for a while which ill have to remember for future dialogue and scenes with aradia in them

then we met vriska

which, yes, is a meme. i may not have been on a lot of fandom platforms, but you cant escape some of the stuff that goes around the internet. even if you dont know undertale, im pretty sure you know of sans. or komaeda if you have/havent seen danganronpa. its just.. the memes, ya know? ive heard from many sources of the “vriska did nothing wrong” quote (even through mbmbam which??? WHAT) but since i didnt even know what it meant, i never explored it so then i never knew it was a homestuck thing. imagine my surprise...... i think even at the time, i wouldnt have known what homestuck was either honestly so it wouldnt even matter. i only recently learned about the fandom.... uhh, maybe half a year ago??? yeah, august, so my knowledge was slim but vriska is a thing ive heard before, which still shocks me

goddammit

anyways back to her

so her intro was something, we pretty much found out she likes DnD (a FANATIC in fact) and feeds her lusus the flesh of living trolls. which is fucked up. but i wont get too much into detail about that until i make a post about her life on alternia and the consequences of such. or maybe just alternia in general...?? or *both* heheheh but i feel i need more information before i go off on a tangent about that

then we met??? white text dude?? who is a major asshole but an asshole with insults that hURted, to think i felt bad for VRISKA when that happened. woah.

i said before, but... karkat, he cant really hit deep because his insults are just HIM and his way to express himself. like some people find it natural to just go “FUCK YOU” to show emphasis on a point, and thats just karkats way. he may do it so aggressively that it takes you a second to realize what he said, but usually i dont take anything to heart whenever he spurts out some insults. ive progressed to the point where whatever he says, is just “karkat” and not him trying to be actively mean. rather, its now funny whenever he does say anything SOMEWHAT creative, dude has an imagination that goes on for miles

but vriska?? she IS trying to be a bully, you can tell. but i feel theres something much more to that. like shes trying to prove herself and her “blueblooded” demeanours or whatever the hierarchy is. she doesnt want to show emotions so she makes herself a barrier by being mean is what i can gather from her conversation with kanaya. im pretty sure youre not supposed to understand her until its pointed out and rather see her as an “antagonist” at first, but yeah, her insults are more pitiful than anything and i also cant take her too seriously. i may not like her as a person but her character is interesting because you cant always have the goodie two shoes as the protags. it doesnt diversify the characterisation so i like vriska as someone who makes the plot work and it becomes more interesting since you have someone that makes it harder for the main crew to progress. a happy-go-lucky adventure with no trouble and no turnabouts would be boring in a way. so having a character like vriska, or like this new white text guy, it makes you stop for a second and realize oh shit okay, here’s where shit CAN go wrong and WHY. and i do especially like it when these bastards of characters somehow have more depth than being the “bastard characters”. kinda humanizes them in a way. doesnt mean you have to LIKE them continuously, but theyre humans (trolls whatever) in the end and every person has their own story whether its for better or for worse

for example, i like her being placed into the story, along with white text, by how its all leading to this “accident” and is slowly showing us hints on what happened, but in the end, it wont be until later that we know the full story. even if it was in the past, it apparently is very vital to the plot and shapes how the characters act in the future, so important aspects like that are to look out for. and usually they only occur when theres been some trouble within friend dynamics. so without these bastard of characters, plot wouldnt grow AS strong and i often keep that in mind when i explore a story.

anyways, I HAD A POINT TO THIS: so vriska and karkat are characters who are yes, mean, but it seems to be their personality, and the way they either show emotions and convey feelings (karkat) or make a barrier so they DONT show emotions to produce vulnerability (vriska), white text guy seems to mostly be out to be an asshole. he told vriska she was useless to sum it up but im not too sure if this is one of those “first dialogue” to mould out a bias opinion before we even get to the character themselves, but judging by how vriska and karkat played out, he surely means something bad and i dont know how to explain it. but i cannot base anything off from one piece of dialogue. i dont even know what else to call him other than white text guy so...... ill just leave that out for now, until we finally get his introduction

though, i do wish to mention, and will expand on, im not wrong when i say karkat and vriska are similar but in different context. sorry if youre favourite is karkat and you dont like vriska, or vice versa, but uhhhh their introductions are so similar its uncanny and the way they’re portrayed is the same except one is more on crack about the meddling, while the other is angry about the meddling. similar to how it was with karkat, we were introduced to vriska talking with someone we knew (tavros) whom she obviously didnt like, so obviously, from her point of view, she wanted to be menacing. like how karkat was menacing to jade because she wouldnt listen to his point... he got angry, so he lashed out. but us, the readers, didnt know that. we thought “oh god its this asshole” until we made it further in the story and started to warm up to karkat. it may not be the same with vriska, she may be a bully regardless, but you cannot tell me we moulded a bias towards her character as we did when we first read karkat. theyre both truly mean to other people, maybe both for different reasons, but i do want to point out the similarities and not leave that out. im pretty sure andrew basically gave us a conversation that formed our opinion of a character right off the bat rather than go into depth of WHY they did it, and how they are naturally without the conditions of the game. which, you can also see with vriska when she conversed with kanaya. andrew started off with a character who only appears to speak once, and makes you judge them from first appearance alone, without any explanation as to why they said what they said and how they are with other characters, let says. so you assume they were simply a rude character. now look how karkat turned out. so im guessing in homestuck, the first impression should never be the opinion you stick with until MAYBE 5 more conversations with that character (each one different)

OKAY done with the vriska introduction, now to slutquius

yes, hes kinda weird, i have stated that many times. i have no idea what to say about him other than he likes porn, he likes centaur dick which just so happens to be his lusus as well and if that isnt a red flag idk what is

he also likes his lusus milk, right from the udders of his guardian

fun times, fun times

my opinion of equius kinda.. differs. which i should really put in place the “dont judge by first impression” rule, because at first i thought he was rude with, then i thought he was hhh okay, because i understood why he was being so protective over nepeta and her team placement, since the people she was going to play with WERE dangerous. but if you think about it, both sides will probably put you in danger. it just depends on which ones you confide in more to protect your back rather than those which would cause trouble on purpose, in my HONEST opinion. so equius was a little overdramatic on that part, but i got what he meant. he was on the blue team and he didnt want to leave nepeta alone without him on the red. but then this session happened. and he went back to being weird again because of the whole porn thing, especially being so open about it like dude chill youre 13. but the thing is, then i felt bad for him because hes basically touch starved. to say that he could break anything he touches, i doubt people would go up to him for hugs. in fear they would be crushed to death by a simple hug. so im guessing hes rather lonely and doesnt really know how to interact because of this. so i felt sad that he had to live a life where he needs to be careful of everything he touches so it doesnt break randomly. see? poor dude. but then things got weird. and im pretty sure hes a masochist. so my opinion on equius is a fucking cosine graph

which brings us to the final point:

gamzee and equius’ conversation

i dont even know.....like.........gamzee was unaware that equius was using him for his own power play roleplay, right? gamzee knew it was a roleplay but it had had some.. idk.... obvious sexual implications? and i bet gamzee didnt really know that? he thought they were only venting out through a simple roleplay and trying to get closer because he originally thought equius hated him, considering equius flat out said “i hate you” and gamzee went “you tell me everyday and im okay with that” so.. gamzee probably wanted only to get closer to equius so he helped out his little problem which.. thats so sweet but i feel bad he was coerced into something he didnt get, especially since he was innocent enough to go along without knowing equius’ true gain

anyways, equius was getting off with the hierarchy thing. considering he’s “lower” than gamzee, and gamzee is surprisingly ...high on the spectrum??? so equius wanted gamzee to boss him around, because it felt only natural to him since he’s the “inferior one” and gamzee is The Big Man. like i get that, but it was written in a way that was so uncomfortable, that i wish i didnt. equius is just a weird character... hes not BAD per say, but hes... hes something alright

but im really liking gamzee. the two things which struck me in that one conversation, was the “i dont get why we should dictate people by the colour of their blood, i just see people as people” piece of dialogue and “i cant go around pleasing just everything so its alright if you hate me”

thats... so good, idk. i really liked that. i also really liked when kanaya said “youre dangerous but dangerous people are needed and are important because it shapes you” like <33 my fucking heart

god homestuck may be a tad on the weird side with some of its characters but it surely knows how to create great lines of dialogue

and that concludes the long 4 hour session i did, hope you all enjoyed it

with that, i rest

#homestuck #homestuck liveblog #hs92 #hs92 end #i wrote more than i should have but i had a lot to say #just you wait for those analogy/analysis posts

[thewebcomicsreview]

What’s that? I’m talking about Homestuck too much lately? Well, too bad, it updated and I’m-a livebloggin’ it. This chapter contains a content warning for child abuse and I’m thus putting the rest of this post below a Read More, though I’m live blogging and don’t know what the child abuse content actually is. 

Looks like we’re with Jane, so this might be the chapter with Yiffy in it! But probably not, because they’re gonna drag it out. Incidentally, since the rebellion consists of two max-level characters, four god tiers (John, Jake, Rose, and Jade), and now Vriska who is the 8est fighter 8y far, how does Jane even stand a chance? Good thing for her that she pre-emptively took a hostage! 

JANE: (I've always been pretty good at crying on cue.) JANE: (Could I try staging an emotional breakdown?) JANE: (That could work; playing to people's humanity.) JANE: (Or whatever is the more inclusive term.)

I do like that Jane, a genocidal human-supremacist dictator, is worried about being “inclusive” in her propaganda. I wonder if she’s starting to drift from Trumphitler into Nancy Pelosi, now. Also interesting: She’s apparently using Gamzee’s death for propaganda value, cool and all, but her superpower is literally raising the dead. I can buy that Jane would rather use her ex-boyfriend for propaganda than revive him, but won’t the people of Earth C have questions? 

DIRK: Dude, the bowl. JAKE: Hm? JAKE: Oh, right. JANE: What is it now, Jake. JAKE: I brought something for our guest as well. JANE: You mean the prisoner. JAKE: Y...es.

I realize that Yiffygate made the patreon rocket to the stratosphere, but I hope we’re not actually getting to see her so soon. It’s more fun to speculate. For instance, she’s apparently getting meals in a dog bowl. Is that because she’s literally half dog, moreso than Jade, and is feral in some way? That’s been hinted at a little, but it’s also possible Jane’s just tormenting her to be a bitch. As we saw when she was Crockerfied in Act 6, Jane’s got a bit of a sadistic streak in her.

Well, that was answered pretty fucking fast! Okay, let’s not click next just yet. If we’re only getting one panel to speculate, let’s milk it like a dying webcomic franchise: Preppy bording school outfit, but with cleats, so she’s apparently an athlete. Lots of pink highlights on her outfit (shoes/socks/tie). She’s got a black dog tail, but appears to have light hair? I like this design, actually, or what little of it we’re seeing. I was half-expecting Yiffy to be a full-on Deviantart parody, but I think the angle we’re going here is “a mostly normal girl, besides being part dog, who’s just been absolutely shit on by life and every adult she’s ever encountered”. It’s not her fault her name is Yiffany, y’know? She didn’t ask for this. 

Let’s see how right I am.

JANE: Well, go on then. JANE: She's over in the corner. JANE: Don't worry, she won't bite. JANE: I've seen to that already.

The fact that this chapter had a content warning for child abuse makes this read a lot more “Yikes” than it might’ve otherwise.

DIRK: Jake. DIRK: You put the food in a fucking dog bowl. JAKE: (It was all there was, ok???)

I feel like this is actually worse than if Jane put the food in a dog bowl to torment Yiffy.

I told you we’d fall in love with her. I told you dog.

....I don’t know if the MSPA art style lends itself to slightly raised camera angles like this, it looks like Yiffy’s face is 50% forehead. 

*Lore hat on*

Okay, first off, dick move electrocuting a child. That out of the way. Yiffy is communicating in wolf howls (she must be a big fan of Toast, from my webcomic Saffron and Sage!), but she’s also literally being electrocuted so lets cut her some slack. What’s more interesting is that her Awoos are in red. 

Vrissy shares a font color with Vriska, who she’s trying to emulate. They even use the same CSS class in the site code. Tavros shares his with Gamzee, his abusive uncle (and doesn’t have the same CSS class). Harry Anderson has a unique font color that’s pretty close to his dad’s, but isn’t quite the same (possible to make Harry/John chats more readable, whereas Vriska and Vrissy being hard to distinguish is the joke?). Yiffy, however, does not speak in either Jade’s green or Rose’s purple, she speaks in red. It’s a unique shade of red, I checked, and while it could potentially be in reference to Dave, let’s get real

Obviously, she’s the new Handmaid. This was obvious enough that I was making that comparison even before we learned her red text and rebellious personality. So I’m starting to see what they’re going for here (and, god help me, I’m starting to come around to Yiffany Longstocking Lalonde Harley as a concept). She’s not a one-dimensional joke of a character, she’s just a normal girl having a fucking rough time of it right now and also always. Speaking of time, red is connected to the Time aspect, which isn’t confirmation of anything but a little note to put in the back of your pocket.

Also to put in your back pocket, Jane’s the new Condesce and Yiffy’s the new Handmaid. The Condesce killed the Handmaid. 

JANE: You've been a thorn in my side ever since I agreed to enroll you at the academy, little madam. JANE: Back then, I was doing a favor for two old friends who made a disgusting mistake. JANE: I'm no longer going to play nice with you just because of your parents, however. JANE: That truce is over.

That’s some efficient expositing! 

Man, I really am coming around to this Yiffy thing, holy shit. I actually think her reveal last chapter was actively designed to get fans to hate the concept as much as possible, and not just from a Controversy Creates Ca$h kind of way (though that didn’t hurt).The entire fandom has been calling Yiffy a disgusting mistake for three weeks, and now here’s Jane doing it, and we’re being asked to consider this from Yiffy’s perspective: Given a stupid name as a joke, shunted off to boarding school by parents who were ashamed of her existence, repeatedly told she’s a disgusting mistake and tortured, even the fans all hate her on sight, and she literally hasn’t said a word yet! That’s....legitimately pretty cool writing, right there. A deft and entirely intentional juking of the fandom’s emotional state to get us to hate a character conceptually so that now when the comic’s trying to get us to sympathize with her it’s an easier sell because we feel a bit guilty. I dig it. Shit like this is why I still read Homestuck, it can be very clever at times, even now.

(Pierced ears, in case the punky aesthetic wasn’t obvious). Also, the page with a gif of everything going dark as Yiffy passes out has a black background, which is a nice touch.

TG: but seriously, do you? AG: Not really. TG: not even about... you know? TG: her? AG: No. TG: ... are you sure? AG: A8solutely. AG: What are you, my moirail? AG: Just leave it, Harry. TG: ok.

Then we cut to a chatlog (with the all-black background, which is just really nice here at selling the mood), and even Vrissy doesn’t want to talk about Yiffany.

AG: It was Cute, 8lright???????? AG: Or, at the very least, a 8*cketload less vomit worthy than everything else that Went Down with our parents.

She’s “vomit-worthy”

I think the update that introduced the Candy Kids was the most enjoyable, but this was, by miles, the best thing to come out of the Homestuck EU. It completely redeemed everything this comic did with Yiffy so far and made it all work. And this black-background-no-image gimmick, while simple, was shockingly effective at conveying the lonely empty mood they were going for (admittedly it probably helped that I was already listening to spooky music), and it’s something Homestuck had never done. This was....

This chapter was great. This was Act 5 great. Like, it’s literally just beating up a child for a whole chapter, but in terms of getting the emotional response they wanted, this is Homestuck at its absolute best. It wasn’t just “here’s a cute girl, let’s beat her up a bit for sympathy”, all the stuff in the last chapter, infuriating the fandom like nothing I’ve seen in webcomics in years, Jade’s dog dick, it was all for this. It was all to get us predisposed to fucking hate Yiffany Longstocking Lalonde Harley so that they could flip the switch and make us love her, make the very fact that we hated her so much part of the reason we love her now. No other webcomic would do that, no other webcomic would have the balls to do that. This is why I read Homestuck, this is why I’m still hanging on to this rock has the wave of cheating dog dicks keeps smacking me in the face. This is avant-fucking-garde, man. I’ve done a full 180 on Homestuck 2. I’m sold. I stan. I’m Homestuck trash again. 

EDIT

Oh, and Vrissy suddenly passed out mid-sentence right around the same time Yiffy passed out (hmmm!), and apparently she’s narcoleptic like Jade (hmmm!)

#Homestuck #Homestuck 2 #Homestuck 2 Liveblog

[dahniwitchoflight]

Candy 24-28

Yeah interacting is one way of putting

I think the closer Meat and Candy come to eachother though the closer they’re both gonna self destruct

“It will stay here for millions more years, where it will remain indefinitely on a barren, desolate Earth C, waiting to host a single cherub child, chained to its bedroom. But for now, it hosts these three.”

Alright so Earth C doomed to failure confirmed, it needs to be a barren desolate wasteland if it’s gonna be the literal planet for Calliope and Caliborn’s birth

oh my god.

That’s why Gamzee raised the baby cherub

what seemed so out of character for someone like Gamzee to do so long ago now makes perfect sense

He thought it was his role to raise Caliborn in that stupid ass LE/Dirk philosophy

Aww, Terezi’s dying ):

Aradia and Sollux are acting as Alltie’s like, double attendants?

Is that like, a flipside of Gamzee’s whole mirthful messiahs thing where he is on LE’s Side?

I mean, Aradia is pretty 8D and Sollux is pretty D8 as characters

That was a really good conversation from Terezi and John

It really does like, firmly solidify to me that Terezi and John retconning the fact that Vriska died to Terezi’s sword way back then was absolutely the incorrect way of handling things

it’s the cornerstone for how things have been ripped apart all this time since then i think

when it first happened, it was tragic and necessary and developed the characters into a certain way of being

Terezi’s got depressed and into a bad state of being, so now, we’ve been given the flipside and shown what would happen if Vriska had been spared in that moment

and the answer is

the same goddamn thing, Vriska leaves her, Terezi can’t get closure from it and her life spirals downward from there

except here were sort of shown what might have been her saving grace, an actual system of support from someone she cares about, and someone she can support in return

what an actual relationship is actually supposed to be

the reason why constant relationships didn’t solve her problems everytime she made new ones is because they were relationships built solely on whims, feelings, maybe some physical passion

but none of them actually offered any actual support or companionship

wanting to love someone really really hard and wanting to be loved by someone really really hard doesn’t solve your problems no,

but having someone to help you through those problems and work on them with you does actually help solve problems

I think that’s the key difference here in asking “which relationship would “”fix”” Terezi” the answer being the only actual two-way relationship she might have ever had

Channel change time for Karkat

and an alive Meenah, I forget how that happened in Meat but eh

anyway next page

“But if he doesn’t care that much, and there’s nothing to it, then why does he do it? Why does he seem to put care into the nonsense he badgers her with? He supposes he could ask the same of many features of his life. Why does he care? Why does he put the time in? When you can’t shake the feeling that nothing here has much intrinsic meaning—or rings as “canon,” to drop a term he has to admit has worn out some welcome in his vocabulary—how does one justify even leaving the house? “

that phrase there, “Nothing Here has much intrinsic meaning -or Rings as Canon” feels like a double meaning

on the one hand, John is saying nothing in this world feels like it’s actually real

on the other hand, the phrase can be read as “There are no Rings of Canon in this world” as physical objects

and we just got done seeing a page about the Life Ring

I wonder if those rings are not also imbued with some idea of not just Life, but canon?

and if that’s the case

maybe the two rings really are each half of what would become the house juju cursor thing

going on with the symbolic metaphor of two opposite objects mutually self destructing and creating something new

maybe when you destroy both rings by bringing them together, in the wake of their destruction would form the original plot hole - the cursor juju, a literal canon shaping hole in the plot

it’s kind of like the idea of two similar dimensional things coming together to make a higher dimensional thing, themselves seemingly being removed from those lower dimensions in the process

like, what happens when you fundamentally merge two perfectly identical 2 dimensional circles?

you get a singular 3rd dimensional sphere and no more 2d circles

so what happens when you merge two 3rd dimensional circular rings? 

a literal 4th dimensional “hole” in canon where they once were

that’s my thinking anyway

anyway back to John having a breakdown over Terezi’s death

man Candy sure is something, I can’t really decide which one I found more interesting Candy or Meat

I felt like there was maybe more to react to in Meat, but there’s interesting bits in Candy as well

oh damn though ten year time skip on the next page O.o

oh fuck we skipped the war and gone straight to the dystopian nightmare havent we

their curfew is 13 minutes after midnight??? that’s so odd, also that makes it either 12:13 or 00:13 however you look at it

oh look, It’s JohnVris 2.0

huh, Karkat and Meenah got a love story out of it too

Now I wanna see a photoshop of like, Big Boss or whathisface from metal gear but just like trollified and with karkat’s horns

So Candy is definitely representing this idea of a character’s potential for the kinds of story arcs they might have, no matter what ends up happening

John stepping into his dad’s shoes and becoming a loving husband and father

Karkat becoming a revolutionary against a twisted tyrannical planet

these individual story beats all fall in line with their characters and what they might have been, had sburb never have been involved in their lives in the first place, is what I think

Roxy pops out a baby and become a mom after having a romance with a dashing young man is basically Rose’s Mom Lalonde’s storyline

Rose eventually becoming a key figure in a rebellion on a tyrannical version of earth is the same story here on Earth C as it was in the history of Roxy’s original planet as HER Mom Lalonde

but its the context of the story that makes it different or not

but these core tenants of the kinds of things and choices all these characters would do doesn’t really change all that much when you strip them down into their simplest forms

so in a way, even though nothing here is canon, it’s giving the audience and idea of what the story would be like if it was canon, how characters might react or grow up to be and the potential they have for doing certain things

but doing that also takes away all the nuance and symbolism of why it’s relevant and important for each story, and context matters intensely

John seems to reconcile with Jade and Dave if he’s the best man at their wedding

and if Dave is marrying Jade and John’s here and their all okay and it’s being held at Jake’s mansion....

no their making it clear theyre siding with Rose and Kanaya, but not as much as they could be I guess

Damn Roxy, I expected better of you, really? But she’s honestly just trying to gravitate towards the thing that makes her personally the happiest, with no regard to how she’s throwing everyone under the bus, p selfish of her

and for real, she’s with the people she always considered her closest friends

Jake’s actually the one going against their grain the most, but that might be because the closest person to him is already dead, and then his runner up is viewing Jade as his alt universe grandma. his channel with Jane is ruined and well, Jake wasn’t close with Roxy or Callie

people just value certain relationships over others sometimes

damn this one ends on a really somber note though

extremely filled with nostalgia of missed potential

Candy is where nothing went right for anyone technically

Oh shit it’s real Vriska, who fell into the black hole in Meat yeah?

Yeah with the way shes screaming about needing to see what happens when you beat the final boss it’s that Vriska hoo boy

hilariously channeling the desperation of the people who read this when it first dropped no wonder though

I am noticing in Candy that despite more and more history being generated, I have less and less to react to

that one line though about what the passage of time must feel like to immortals, that feelings of what used to feel like a day now only feels like a couple hours, what used to feel like a week now feels like a couple days

time gets faster the more you live it

pretty soon a day will be but a blink of an eye for people like John

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy

[abundantchewtoys]

Homestuck Candy p17-23 (holy shit)

So, yeah, this baby coming up.

I wonder if there's going to be callbacks to Dirk's art for Caliborn in any form. ("jake no, what are you doing - to our baby?")

John can't erase this baby in any case, since no retcon powers.

I wonder if we're going to learn its name. I kind of like one of Blaperile's theories, that he would name a boy after his Dad... It would reveal one of those long hidden mysteries in Homestuck.

Otherwise... Liv? :P

Theresa, after Terezi?

---

Page 17

Oh wow.

OH WOW.

Yeah, now we're getting to the juicy bits.

The candy is turning into diabetes around John. Details about the past are getting vague for his friends, the harmony trumping the validity of their experiences. It's all turning out a lot more existential for John in this path than I thought!

"Harry Anderson Egbert", heheh. But yeah, John has a good point. He wants his wife to have some identity, but it's like she's ... malleable, or something. Everything shapes around each other and forms the least offensive shape.

On the one hand, I want to imagine Vriska Lalonde-Maryam and Harry as childhood friends, growing up together.

On the other hand, I wonder what there is in store for this John. He's lost his retcon powers. But he says Terezi is the only thing that still makes sense to him. So maybe, if he rejects this reality, he can escape it again?

It all is going to depend a lot on what Terezi has to offer. (Going by the assumption it really is Terezi, by the way, not an imposter.)

It would really be something if this John, a twenty-four year old now, crosses back into the Meat timeline. He'd be leaving a lot behind, and frankly, be a shitty husband and father by going through with it. But yeah, Meat John is dead, has been for some time.

Jegus, John keeps filling his own dead self's shoes. Alternate John who dated Vriska. (Okay, in fact, in that situation, it was more of an inversion as the other John continued his developing relationship. On the other hand, for Davesprite, alpha John must've felt like the replacement John in the beginning.) Post-Retcon John who was killed by Typheus. Even Poppop Crocker, when he met up with B2 Dad.

The Candy path is definitely shaping up to be quite suspenseful, all expectations be damned!

---

Page 18

Wow.

Jake's so much more mature here. I want to see more of this man.

So yeah, it had occurred to me that part of the reason Gamzee hooked up with Jake and Jane could be because he was somewhat thinking of a) the other Page he was attracted to, and b) the Hope and Life players in his session, who were close to him on the hemospectrum?

But... I hadn't imagined Gamzee being Jane's kismesis. But it works so well. Got to say, it brings back memories of him on her land during the session.

So Jake and Jane had a baby! The first cross-species naming, then. After Tavros.

It's remarkable, isn't it? Dad, GCATavrosprite, Jasprosesprite^2, Nannasprite, Nannasprite*2... They fell on the wayside, we have no idea what happened to them. The sprites could've dissolved, we didn't seem them in the official credits after all, only the extra possibly outside-of-canon snaps, explaining why Jake would name his firstborn after Tavros. But Dad?

As for Jade and Davekat. Wow. Well, I guess, I really want to know now whether this revelation is also canon.

Cause Jade is either intersex or trans now, after fusing with Beq. (Also, it might be a dog penis, but capable of transferring human DNA? *Shudder.*) I can understand this would make her uneasy in exploring sexual options with Dave.

Wow. Yes, it seems that things are, in a very different but equal sense than in the Meat path, very raw and heartwrenching in this timeline as well.

At the start of the page, I started thinking for a minute that Gamzee would also find something off about the timeline. It would have been something for him to join John in pursuit of relevance, truth and all that. But no, it was just to bait Jane, it seems. If anyone, it would be Jake who might go through something similar as John.

Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Still said to see Jake getting the small end of the relationship stick, once again. Boy has no luck in love.

It was interesting to get Jane's honest take on politics on Earth C. If she and the others had just been honest with each other, they might have been able to struck an accord. Alas, through Dirk's meddling, it was not to be.

Also, it was funny to have Gamzee refer to the 5000-year skip in sweeps. Yeah, that... That doesn't convert well.

---

Page 19

Wow that took a turn!!

I thought it might have been time for them to discuss their relationship. How Jade has turned into the third wheel stopping the Davekat bicycle from taking off.

(Those references to Jane and Jake, I could've gone about.)

But then.

Something hit.

I thought instantly it would've been the other Jade. A moment or two I thought an ecto baby or First Guardian infant, for these three to take care off in lieu of a biological child. But no.

It's really REALLY the Postscriptum Jade!! (Well, I hope it's her, and that the Postscriptum doesn't take place on Future Candy Earth C.)

She "escaped" the black hole, into relevance, the PS said. So... It seems... As if...

Dirk was very much wrong.

Candy Earth C is going to play an important part in what's to come, yet.

Unless this Jade has only come to lift some of the people here away, like the mentioned Blue Fairy.

But in any case... It seems Davebot and Aradia can't be far behind.

This idyllic fantasy, who's already shown cracks, is about to be shattered.

What hit Jade, though, it almost seemed like those shards from the Furthest Ring, though it was called massless, here.

---

Page 20

Wow.

So, this Jade is suffering from a metaphysical poison. Just like John was from Lord English's tooth. Only... This Jade went into the black hole, and last we saw she was okay.

Is it because she's back in the "real" world that it's affecting her now?

For a minute there I thought Jane and Kanaya and Karkat could actually *explain* their grievances to each other. But no, alas. Karkat, validly I must say, just exploded with everything he's pent up.

Gotta say, if the trolls are getting antsy in this timeline, just imagine how it was going to pan out in the Meat timeline! I'm reminded of the troll rebellion that was referenced in the non-canon snaps.

Also, of course. OF COURSE, these Vriska and Tavros would clash on their first meet. Everyone should've seen this coming.

If anything salvages this scene, it must be Jake being able to placate the two toddlers. It's that sort of attention that Joey and Jude deserved to get from their Pa.

It's interesting to note how Rose is no longer sure about their situation. Maybe that's the influence of this corpse and its heavily-dripped-in-canon origin.

Roxy keeps being almost a vanilla version of herself, although the intent to hold a corpse party is horribly in character for her. Still, she feels less *real* than the other characters, who all seem to be kind of recovering from their diabetes-filled state.

John and Roxy, and Dave, Karkat and Jade are in dire need of some therapy, in any case. It was nice to see Karkat telling Gamzee off though. And weird to see Jane and Roxy keep jumping to his side. Like, they have no idea of the history here, and seem to think anyone can redeem themselves if they try hard enough. It kind of shows how they're not really all that streetwise.

Oh, forgot to mention - John has a moustache now. A manly one. Dear god, he's gone full Sassacre :P

---

Page 21

WHAT THE SHIT.

WHAT THE SHIIIIT.

WHAT THE SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

Roxy was right. The chances of all of them coming together like that, with all the stuff going on between them, are so infinitesimal.

But then she got into labor, and I thought that was that.

But

But

So, Aradia and Sollux turn up, and when I heard Jade had the shard still in her torso....

It would seem that this Jade isn't Postscriptum Jade... Yet.

Aradia and Sollux found a way out of the Furthest Ring on their own??? And somehow ended up on Earth C without explanation. Just when last page I almost thought as if all missing trolls mentioned in the epilogues' ToC were going to end up appearing as babies to the characters.

Karkat and Jane are in dire need of an actual debate.

Rose's lack of a good consolation was hilariously described.

But of course, the meat (Meat) of this page.

Is that Alt Calliope found a way through the Black Hole into the Candy path, and sent Reload Jade's corpse through it.

And just like in the Candy path, alpha Calliope is scared off. But it bears mentioning that Calliope herself was acting kind of weird, and was weirdly absent for a lot of the pages. It almost seemed to set her up as the narrator of this path, trying to give everyone what she thought they wanted. The fact that she and Roxy "broke character" for a moment was one of the things pointing in this direction.

But now Alt Calliope is here.

The narration is about to force everyone to confront who they really are. For better or worse.

I wouldn't be surprised if this ends with Candy Earth C as the battlefield seen in the Postscriptum. But what does that imply for Meat Earth C, where Alt Calliope ALSO put her influence to work.

She may claim not to influence, but even when she retreated into the narration, the atmosphere wasn't just magically improved over there.

Aradia and Sollux talking with Gamzee was... weird, but funny. I wonder if they are supposed to have aged some sweeps in the meantime. We know Gamzee must be about 8.5 sweeps now, while Karkat and the other trolls are about 11 sweeps.

I guess it's time we learn what Alt Calliope understands under "protecting" a world. I don't think Meat Dirk is coming over there, though I'm unsure what his grand design really is.

---

Page 22

Oh my god.

what is happening.

So Alt Calliope's influence didn't really do anything at that point but upset the group.

And now a 3 year time skip took place. So... wow. They're all 27 now.

And the troll ghosts that were sucked into the black hole are appearing everywhere now. The government is going bananas, but in fact, it must all be repetitions of the same 24 trolls, how weird is that.

I'm sure that in due time, some human ghosts will be appearing too. But this is just getting ridiculous.

Karkat went underground and into the resistance. Jane, as the shadow president, is secretly maneuvering things to invade the troll kingdom. This was supposed to be the Candy path, I thought it was going to be all shits 'n giggles!!!!

I do like that John, finally, after years, is starting to realize Terezi doesn't share anything about her at all. He asked for a picture, which I guess is nice. But, just like in the Meat path, he's torn up about the girl that he didn't stay with.

This has "disaster waiting to happen" written all over it.

Calliope seems to hunker after Roxy, but she still doesn't act on those feelings. It's like a twisted inversion of the Meat path.

It's like, all the sugar we started with has been turned into energy, and the rush has dissipated, and now there's only a tummy ache.

---

Page 23

Wow.

What the shit.

I could only root for John and Tavros' relationship. Seems like the little man is very sharp for his age. Since Harry is into atomic clocks as well, it seems that the tradition of children being into adult subjects like philosophy and psychology and science, continues.

But alas, it was not meant to be.

John finally couldn't take it no more, he had to scream what he'd internalized for so long. But it turned into something really messy, towards Jane and Jade. All valid points, but by losing control he most importantly scared Tavros and Harry Anderson.

The reaction of the other people was so... empty, though. Non-confrontational to a fault.

And I agree with John, Gamzee has apparently set himself up as Jane's subjugglator.

For all that Alt Calliope was saying, she sure seems to have NOT used any influence, though. And things very much have gone to shit here.

It was very cool to get to know Tavros and Harry Anderson as people, though. Tavros is indeed a kind of brother, biologically, to John (and Jade, and a half brother to June and Joey) in appearance. But it's like, personality-wise, he's more like a sad but smart version of Tavros. While his speech is colored in Gamzee's purple, ugh.

And Harry Anderson... A prankster in the making, for sure.

So, what is Terezi going to talk to him about? Is she talking to him from the end of the Meat path, just before she left Earth C? Or is she talking to him just after the other John died. :(

I can say this: I didn't think for a millisecond I would get THIS attached to people from the Candy path.

#homestuck #homestuck candy #reaction #homestuck epilogues #john egbert #alt calliope #jane crocker #tavros crocker #harry anderson egbert #roxy lalonde #dave strider #karkat vantas #jade harley #jake english #vriska lalonde

[theorynexus]

56:   We continue, perhaps a bit later in the day than I might have liked.

Before we get started, I would just like to ponder something to myself:   What is Dirk’s actual motivation?   I had assumed that his decision to take over the narrative was just a result of the belief on his part that it was a natural part of his evolution, or that he was actually not doing it with a particular purpose in mind, but after Alt!Calliope accusing him of Megalomania became a thing, I guess I have to open up my mind to other possibilities.  It could be that she has simply observed him exploiting the capacity he now has in order to heighten his control over others (as was the natural result, considering his personality), but it might actually be that there’s something more. If I had to guess, it would be that (based on his conversation with Rose, and the statement about reality becoming congealed) he desires to prevent everyone’s lives from losing relevance and fading into an empty heap of incomplete thoughts and useless garbage. That is to say:  given the story was over, but in such a way that things were left unanswered, the story was incomplete, and the main characters were gods that would continue growing over time, it is conceivable that once Dirk reached the point where he could actually discern the narrative himself and saw that Hussie had essentially abandoned Homestuck (closing out the story in such a way that locked LE in canon and placed the early parts of Universe C/Earth 3′s timeline[s] outside of it), he had a crisis surrounding his existence as a fictional character, and wanted to take up Hussie’s role as a way to attempt the preservation of all of their lives, and the integrity of reality within their fictional (thus murky/fluid/malleable) world? Considering I know that Dirk is the first character with a “speaking” role in Homestuck^2, and that this is him writing a long letter (note:  I am now reminding you all that I accidentally very slightly dipped into it before I realized that it was not the Homestuck Epilogue[s]), I guess... maybe he eventually succeeds?  I mean, getting a continuation/spin-off would be one way to fulfill the “escape the destruction of Paradox Space by creating/traveling to a separate version of reality/world beyond its limitations” win condition that was one of the many possibilities that would mean the epilogue was satisfying in a narrative sense and not (entirely?) a Bad End.    Given the fact it’s on a different site, which could further emphasize this achievement, if that is the correct interpretation/guess to make about the later events which I have not read yet... congratulations, horrible person/Unreliable Narrator for theoretically saving reality for a time? I don’t know. That all seems uncertain and possibly a bit of a stretch at this point, and I feel like I’m cheating for including that accidental viewing into my analysis for the work I’m presently navigating.  I want to be honest with you all about my thoughts and experiences-- or at least as honest as I can be while ensuring that I don’t essentially post things stream-of-consciousness -style.  I do have certain standards of plausibility and coherence that I hold myself to, after all.  I want to keep this interesting and entertaining for you guys, just as it is for me. ... And finally, we get back to Terezi and John. I will not react to their entire page, this time-- or at least my intention is to not do so --but rather, only a half of it. That way this post won’t get as too terribly bloated.  ***irony rimshot ahoy***

Uuuugggh! John, can’t you tell that you’re killing yourself?!?!?!   Gah!

Tin of tobacco?  What, is Dad a chewer?   Certainly an int--- ooohhh, it’s pipe tobacco.  I see.  I wonder what sort of nutritional value there is in there. (Note: That’s two toxic substances she’s been eating for some reason.)

OH MY FRICKING GOSH!!! XD

Hmm. John presents an interesting question, just after this, with regards to her getting flavors from colors. Indeed, that is very much a form of synaesthesia.  That said:  Yeah, I know at least chewing tobacco can do that. Not sure about flakes of the smoking variety. I know that it can poison you to death if you eat too much of it.

Oh, hey, it seems that Terezi has probably noticed John’s confused+growing feelings for her. Neat. (And yeah, that’s what you get for talking with a Mind player. :P)

So great. So great.

...  I am pretty sure it has been more than a few years.  I guess the time in the Furthest Ring can be really fricking weird, though, and since Terezi said he wasn’t as old-seeming as she thought he would be, maybe the four of them somehow just got insanely lucky time-ways, which is... sortof ridiculous, considering Lord English’s time powers.  I guess it’s like Clover’s caveat that luck only bends so far as to not counter things that could be considered either lucky or unlucky, or neither in great amounts?     (Note: Clover’s defeat by Karkat happened because Clover thought it would be him “getting lucky” and falling into a Hearts, Stars, Horseshoes relationship with him. At the same time, it was unlucky because it was him being defeated. Thus, the power is shown to not only be weak against mediocre things like being hit with something that doesn’t hurt you [the only reason LE could get hit at all, probably, with the exception of his eventual critical sword wounds as the Green Sun Black Hole’s void influence grew], but also against things that could be described as either good or bad.)      LE getting opponents that are not massively crazy from being held enclosed for trillions of years without connections to the outside world could be considered lucky insofar as he has been constantly desiring and looking for real challenges for ages upon ages, at least as far as I understand things. Obviously, there’s the collective wills of all who have every been oppressed by him, and the prophesy of the Ultimate Juju being used as a weapon against him after its use by him to be considered, as well, but I think that there can logically be many sources playing into these sorts of outcomes. But yeah, I guess maybe it was seemingly eons for everyone else, but that little pocket of the Furthest Ring inexplicably only suffered a few years’ passage~

Hey, you asked for her to get real with you!  Don’t complain when her sincere reactions aren’t what you’d want! XD Also:   They’re totally going to run into something important while they’re not paying attention, aren’t they?

<3

Of course she’d put them on there. It was practically like using candy to bait a trap for a baby. NOW CLICK YOUR SHOES TOGETHER THREE TIMES AND GO HOME!!!

Sortof like the fight with LE, but you got lucky and pulled a Pyrrha out of your hat.

This should remind you of the fact that you can use your retcon powers to go save Vriska.   WHY DIDN’T YOU THINK OF THIS EARLIER?!?!?!!!    (Honestly, with his bleed+poison, it’s almost a miracle he’s thinking this straight, so I really don’t hold it against him, truthfully.   ... And yeah, self-blinded “F1X TH1S” Justice Terezi Pyrope was so fricking amazing, it’s almost unbelievable.)

***suddenly feels like I got my heart torn out and bashed against a hard surface by a time travelling robot for not remembering [S] Terezi: Remem8er. merged her memories of the two sides of the Retcanon Timelines***

Gah. This... this hurts so much.  ;~;

Huh. I thought for sure Caliborn’s circle drawing had “HUGE BITCH” in the center of it, and I was going to post that in relation to the Fat Vriska/Vriska being sucked into the black hole prophesy/foreshadowing, here, but it said, “FAT UGLY WHORE.”   Still somewhat relevant, but not what I was remembering, and thus not quite so connected as I’d like.    I guess there’s always her intro panel: 

#Homestuck Epilogues #Homestuck^2 #Homestuck Liveblog #Homestuck Spoiler #Vriska Serket #Terezi Pyrope #John Egbert #Dad Egbert #The Wallet #Green Sun Black Hole #Homestuck Theory #Thoughts #Stuff

[twitchesandstitches]

Alt Fleet Origins

idea i wrote up during my absent spell a couple months back; alluded to a few times and decided it was time to post it:

Consider this: the core group of the Fleet and thus the characters you might consider the central characters (Sierra, Terezi, Rose Quartz, Grimlock and Undyne) are the members of the generation that made the FLeet what it is, but they’re not the FIRST generation of the Fleet

They didn’t found it, but shaped it into what it is now, making them the heroes who defined the Fleet, gave it power and brought them home after ages of suffering and nomadic flight, but there is a lot that predates them

In short, it expands on the culture of the Fleet and makes it about more than just them!

This does require tossing out a lot of my original ideas for the Fleet’s origin and the foundations of the AU (Sierra discovering the Matriatrix and finding the other founding groups during the course of several adventures, building up their collective powers and creating the basics of the Fleet), but heck with it, some of the ideas I’ve had for this are SUPER fun and make a lot of sense within the AU

The actual founding generation goes back much further, perhaps an additional several hundred years prior to the birth of Sierra, who being the least difficult to map to realistic ages, makes a good barometer. The Fleet’s core ideas (it’s codes of honor, the way they handle things, and the basic social concepts) go back to the original founders, who banded together for mutual survival in a hostile multiverse where they were outcasts.

Most of the original groups are still represented here, but their ancestors are the ones who came into the fold first, so to speak.

(Greater detail and worldbuilding below)

I’m thinking there were probably no human members of the group, and came later; possibly humans are a bit of a rarity in this AU, at least in terms of population. Elves, dwarves, tieflings, they’re more common, but bog-standard humans are simply less common than you might assume.

The Homestuck contingent is represented by the troll ancestors: Neophyte Redglare as their leader, the Dolorosa, the Disciple, maybe the Executioner and the Signless. Additionally they had a large number of trolls allied to them, effectively they’re the Beforan versions of the ancestors (though giving them different relative ages for the sake of interesting divergence, like making Porrim a primordial vampire) until Beforus fell in ancient times, and the struggles of survival shaped the Beforus characters of the dancestors into the wiser but harder characters on par with the Alternian ancestors. While likely revolutionaries, these specific trolls were mainly just trying to survive without a homeworld, and being unwilling to take Condy’s ruthless measures to claim one for their own. Redglare would be the original wielder of the Matriatrix here, eventually passing it on to Sierra.

Because the troll kids (Terezi, Vriska, Feferi and the others) come later, presumably this means that you had to have access to all the troll ancestors genetics to get them. This might mean that, for a while, ALL the ancestors were part of the Fleet or had their genetics acquired somehow; this has interesting implications for Mindfang and the Condesce.

The Gems are, quite simply, the Crystal Gems. Possibly the core group (Rose, Pearl, Ruby, Sapphire, Amethyst, Bismuth) with additional crystal gems rounding out the population. They were also just trying to survive, and specifically avoid restarting Homeworld, the circumstances of the Crystal Gem Rebellion are way different here, and possibly unrelated to Earth, though it’s also quite possible that Homeworld was outright destroyed prior to those tensions building up into full revolution. The human characters, at the beginning of the Fleet, wouldn’t have been born yet. Lapis is off somewhere else doing her own thing, Peridot possibly hasn’t been born yet (???) and Jasper MIGHT have a servant of Rose before leaving to join the Stingers once they’re formed to amass her own glory, or else had no idea Pink Diamond survived.

The Transformers present an interesting possibility: maybe Grimlock is actually younger here? I like him having participated in the Autobot/Decepticon wars too much to have him been born recently, but if the war was more recent, that might play into things. I’ve implied that the Cybertron Civil War took place many eons ago and shaped history across the multiverse, but it’s possible that this can be fulfilled by the children of Primus carrying out the same narrative cycle repeatedly, with the Autobot uprising dating to, at most, a thousand years ago. This would make the Autobots SIGNIFICANTLY younger than usual, and also let me mess around more and make things even more AU.

An alternative possibility is having Transformers (And other long-lived beings that don’t mature physically) grow up as a response to emotional growth; they are prompted by life experiences to mature and change, but don’t do it in a vacuum. Thus, Grimlock and the other Autobots can be millions of years old but until they go through exceptional circumstances, they don’t change much over time. Leaning towards the former option of them simply being way younger than I normally do it, simply because I VERY RARELY make the Autobots younger than series average and it might be fun to mess around with that.

In any case, the founding Autobots would be a smallish group mainly led by Elita-1, Arcee, several others of note (Ultra Magnus, Jazz, ect.) and of course, Wheeljack and Ratchet, who are Grimlock’s parents. Grimlock himself may have been alive at this time, but he remained taciturn and withdrawn after the things he suffered, and doesn’t become a major player until later. The smallest in overall number, but the largest in terms of power. Most of those would, of course, be fembots.

The Undertale roster is largely unchanged, since they seem kinda long-lived anyway. They probably provide the largest initial population for the Fleet, because of the sheer diversity and monster girl possibilities they provide! Monster Musume characters would also be included in their numbers; specifically the monster moms. Toriel, as queen of the monsters and perhaps led by portents she believes the monster goddess, Mothra, has bestowed upon them, leads her people (the Undertale characters; the human ones and Deltarune characters are born later) to find a place to survive, and eventually bond with the rest of the Fleet.

Add in additional characters and groups as needed, with some provisos: no humans at all at this point, they come later. Secondly, this version of the Fleet is a large band of nomads, perhaps numbering several hundred at most for the first generation or so, traveling from continent to continent and then world to world via teleportation gates they discover, uncovering a mystery that eventually leads into the overarching conspiracy that the Fleet will later investigate.

They are thus a convoy, staying on the move from their enemies and just trying to survive. They have kids, mind their own business, but can’t help being heroes and getting a bit of a reputation; eventually they wind up being superheroes of a sort.

Redglare, as mentioned, is the first wielder of the Matriatrix for the FLeet. I dunno where SHE got it (found it? it was passed down to her by a mentor?) but she uses it in a very different way from Sierra; the modding and power-enhancing scene requires an economic base and adventuring capability the proto-Fleet does not have, at this point, but they are able to use some of its powers to begin changing themselves to stay alive and relevant. Possibly the first signs of hyper proportion power levels begins here. But no one has any idea how to use it, and as in the current time, must experiment: Redglare ultimately does not learn the specific abilities Sierra did, but combines its alchemizing abilities with her innate Mind powers to draw abilities from those around her, combined with the zeitgeist of the area around her and, in a sense, weaponize the narrative to randomly generate abilities and spell effects. She is ultimately far better at the subtle abilities and Sierra still falls short of living up to her skills. Redglare is the first champion and leader of the Fleet, the heroine they all adored, and leaves big shoes to fill. (Her fate is… open to debate.)

Eventually, there is a second phase around the third generation of children and the signs of the Matriatrix’s gifts imbuing them with hyper fertility and devouring/pregnancy powers so that the Fleet is associated with nomming themes and producing huge amounts of children. By this point they have multiplied by several hundred members, both taking in anyone who wants to join their merry band and reproducing… a LOT. Gems and Transformers have been changed to be able to have super pregnancies, but not to the one-woman population booms in the present. This significantly alters the dynamics for their people, since the difficulties of resources for making new Gems and Transformers is a major problem for reproduction; possibly something similar applies to trolls, as I imagine the mother grub not being a natural part of the reproduction, but akin to a biological cloning machine inducing inbreeding due to over reliance on it.

Around this phase, two things happen, in no particular order, but as a result, some humans enter the Fleet. Again, humans are a relatively rare and severely underpowered species, and possibly in the process of dying out. But their greatest place of utopian ideals and success is the world-nation of Wakanda, reimagined her as a massive ringworld inhabited by humans, robots and the creations of ancient humans. It is a distillation of Marvel, with the entire human population being mutants; powers are universal, and the older generation of BNHA characters also originate from here (All Might, Inko). The Fleet seeks shelter, and for some time, calls Wakanda home. This utopian wonderland becomes the Fleet’s first true stable homeland, and eventually the beginning of their spaceflights; eventually they can no longer remain after Wakanda is devastated by Evil, and the notion of Wakanda becomes a spiritual homeland they home to one day reestablish.

By this point, the clan social system that eventually replaces biological families entirely begins to manifest, growing out of the social structures of Wakanda and the factionalism present within the newborn Fleet itself.

The other thing that can happen before or after the joining with Wakanda; the discovery of ancient cloning facilities, in which humans played a part. Great mechanisms to produce vast amounts of cloned offspring lay dormant, but fully functional, and providing the Fleet with valuable lost technology that will become the basis for later bio-tech. The facility contains information on the twenty-eight hundred trillion different bloodlines of the many species recorded, among them human bloodlines that still have a claim to the last dynasties of Earth in its pre-Cataclysm hey-day, and the offspring of those bloodlines would have tremendous cultural influence due to their descent from the last great powers of their people.

The Fleet begins what will become a solemn vow to resurrect life whenever possible; eventually they will start gestating fallen species, but they begin by simply starting the machines back up and raising the resulting children on their own. Among these are the first human members to be born into the Fleet; these include the human guardians from Homestuck (Pop Egbert, Mom Lalonde, Grandpa Harley, non-abusive Bro Strider) as well as anyone explicitly confirmed to be human and born into the Fleet; of note, the human SU characters from an older generation, most prominently Greg Universe.

Additional time passes, more generations come and go, and the Fleet’s initial powers grow more advanced; rebirth via pregnancy becomes a viable technique though not as widespread as it will become, and extends life spans considerably. Hyper huge proportions and recreational modding become more common, and with Redglare’s increased control over the Matriatrix, the beginnings of the Fleet’s superpowers status beings.

Now we come to the birth of the ‘current generation’; the characters the AU focuses on. Sierra, the other TDI characters, and the Homestuck kids and trolls are born. (Analogues to the Beforan characters as they are in the dancestor bits are also born roughly around this time.) The human characters in question (mainly the TD and Homestuck humans like Jade, Roxy, Jane and John) are a mix of being born from the cloning processes and offspring of the human mutants. The trolls, though, are explicitly the biological children of the troll ancestors, even if they are not raised by them as per Fleet custom.

Thus, everyone effectively grows up as friends and have an established society that predates them, putting less of an emphasis on them as the sole heroes; they stand on the shoulders of those who came before.

Sierra winds up becoming a protege of sorts to Redglare, and Terezi, as her descendant, suffers a great deal of pressure to become as great as her, while Redglare does her best to just let her descendants have a happy, ordinary life.

At some point, though, Redglare leaves the story. However it happens, she passes the Matriatrix onto Sierra, when all expectation was that Terezi would continue her legacy. This causes a great deal of tension between the two, even though they are very close prior to this. Eventually it is repaired, but not without damage.

In her childhood, Sierra befriends Grimlock (Effectively being his human companion friend, in TF fandom terms), bringing him out of his gloomy shell and lightning him up a little bit into the hero we all know he can be.

Sierra’s discoveries, as well as those of her friends (most predominantly Feferi, who is effectively the mother of modding) and the leadership of their particular group begins to shape the Fleet into what it is, setting the stage for its current position as it grows and changes.

(This also means that Vriska, and perhaps a good chunk of the Stingers, were originally part of the Fleet, perhaps those who opted for personal gratification or glory over the Fleet’s heroic intentions.)

Some other consequences is that the Fleet initially grew gradually, slowly absorbing people into it over time and then growing just a bit faster at a time as the Matriatrix’s powers expanded into others… and relatively recently, their expansion went from a few worlds and a single fleet to multiple ones, and a MASSIVE population explosion that continues even to this day. This rapid expansion is clearly terrifying to most people and a serious threat to people who originally saw them as hedonist outcasts and rogues challenging tyrants.

The second one is a theme of building things over the course of multiple generations, but suddenly the plan is askew. Redglare, the seemingly immortal wielder of the Matriatrix, is gone. Her plans, whatever they were, are suddenly stalled and the Fleet doesn’t have a rudder; people depended on her and revered here, and Terezi and Sierra wind up having to take the reins and inspire people. Sierra the heart-felt champion and the one they adore, and Terezi winds up the one with a plan and purpose people can root for.

Things build up and expand from simpler roots, growing more complex and better than what their forerunners initially created. They might be standing on the shoulders of giants, but they’ll grow far bigger than their parents did.

(The metaphor is somewhat muddled by the fact that the Fleet’s stronger people genuinely regard ‘growing bigger than a planet and using your finger to destroy a kaiju’ as mid-tier feats, but the point still stands.)

#queued #crossthicc AU

[amicicidalgambler]

> Fondly regard Psii.

we put two manipulator friends that cant hide shit because theyre trapped in the wake of the s.s trickster anon in the same room, what happens next will warm your heart

amicicidalgambler

Shit I didn't tell you congrats EITHER how RUDE.

palteringcecutiency

!!!!!!

Gosh Vriska how could you be so rude~

I'm so wounded~~

amicicidalgambler

I'm a mean and terri8le person. 8ut really, congratul8ions.

palteringcecutiency

You are but it's the enjoyable kind!! It's like playing with explosives~ Probably not wise but super fun if you're careful about it~

amicicidalgambler

Oh no, my favorite kind of compliment, how dare you.

palteringcecutiency

Too late~ You're my friend and I like you~~ You're doomed~~~~

amicicidalgambler

Very doomed. How will I ever~ survive with this privilege put upon me.

palteringcecutiency

Probably with increasing dramatics~!!

Or with a tea party~ Were you serious about that?? 'Cause it sounds like fun~!

I can bring cats~ Or try to at least lmao~

amicicidalgambler

I was! It sounds so nice. I don't know where we could have it, though. It'd 8e nice to have somewhere quiet off on our own, 8ut neither the 8ase or Nadaya's are that.

palteringcecutiency

I know allllll sorts of quiet places over here~! I usually can't stand to be around people for long!!

But Fex would freak out so bad~ I can't do that to him :c ! It'd be like someone inviting another -Empress to here for me!! I think I'd break down even like this if that happened!!

amicicidalgambler

I mean, that and he'd kill me, painfully, and you're one of the people who pro8a8ly wouldn't want that!

Nadaya let me sneak out with someone to one of my old pir8 hideouts, 8ut that was ages ago, most of them have pro8a8ly 8een taken over. That or they would 8e dusty hellholes, and like, I know *you* won't 8e offended if I say I h8 old dusty rooms too much to clean those.

palteringcecutiency

He wouldn't kill you~ I wouldn't let him!! Because I am!! I'm pretty sure you're gonna piss someone off enough to get killed some night, but I don't want it to happen so soon!! I'd miss you!!!!

Ehehehe, you're right!! I'm not at all~ But it does make this harder, whoops~

If you don't have a place~ and I don't have a place~ and Zahhak definitely doesn't have a place~~ Maybe we should start asking friends if /they/ have a place!!

amicicidalgambler

...Would you? I mean, I know you can't really lie right now, duh, 8ut that's a lot.

And we should! I don't know who to ask first, though, most of my other friends aren't the recluse or hideout type.

palteringcecutiency

Uh huh! My Serket was super annoying on Beforus, but I met her on Alternia!!

I rammed her ship with Cronus's to escape, and when she found me hiding aboard, she let me live~! Mostly as a dig to Cronus, but then she helped me get better at lying and manipulating people and how to steal super duper well!! I really liked her, and almost stayed on her crew when she offered, but she was also a super cruel and awful person and I didn't want to die~

You're like a little her~ Well duh but like~ Not as experienced~ Way less dangerous, especially with your collar~ so we can just talk!! And play manipulation games~ And be awful people together where no one will get hurt so no one gets upset at either of us~~ I really value that~

If it wasn't such a bad idea, I'd teach you what I know!! So you can get better and better, I'm already weirdly proud of what you do now~! But!! I know exactly how badly that'd go!! So I haven't been~ Sorry~ !!

I should ask Makara!! Or Cro!! They leave the universe often enough, and they like squirreling shit away just in case!! Especially Cro~ Though I don't know if he'd tell me, I bet a lot of those exist because of me!! So Makara first~

amicicidalgambler

Oh man.

Oh man.

That's a lot.

Oh man.

Fuck.

I mean

That makes sense!

There was 8asically no way you wouldn't have ran into her eventually, I just had no idea you would've

Actually met her like that.

I tried to figure this out in my notes once 8ut I can't fucking REMEM8ER them like this.

8ut I remem8er wondering, 8ecause you sound like her!

Not like a lot 8ut there's patterns, I picked up that much.

This is a lot.

I kind of h8 it.

No I don't.

You're proud of me?

I kind of wished you'd teach me 8ut I didn't think

I didn't think you'd think a8out it

And I thought if I learned from the games you'd 8e proud.

Fuck uh,

Tricksters.

palteringcecutiency

!!!! This is so cute!!!! And I'm so delighted!!!! I can't stop grinning, even more than I usually can't!!!!

Hell yeah I'm proud!!!! Super proud!! I remember the last game we played~ I was so pleased with how persistent you were~ and I had to keep stopping myself from giving you advice~~ because you were so close~ If it wasn't me, I'm super sure you could've tricked someone into giving something away!!

I even thought about telling you you were right!! Since you did so well!! But I couldn't admit how much your fixing my quirk slip meant to me~ So I didn't~

I wish I could trust you to use what I teach you to be constructive instead of destructive~~ because that's what I did with mine!! Manipulation and stealing aren't black and white bad things!! I kept Kankri safe by seeing who in the crowd was giving off the wrong tells! And to get information about highblood plans without giving up any information about ours in return, without them noticing!! And I stole so we could eat~ or to get things away from people who would hurt others with them~~

I really really want to help you with all of that!! So people stop wanting to kill you so much!!!! And you don't have to isolate yourself forever just to stay alive!!!!

But I met your ancestor~ or at least her alternate~~ and I don't want to push you farther down that road any faster~ because then we can't be friends anymore~ :c :c :c :c I might even have to hurt you to keep people I love safe~ and I really don't want to~ :c :c

But!!!! That hasn't happened yet!!!! So we can have our tea party!!!! Cae got us a hotel room and ~everything~ so we can be in the opposite of a dusty old block for our tea party!!!! Which I'm really excited about!!!!

   amicicidalgambler

::::D

::::D!!!!!!!!

I mean, credit to you though, I knew I was making progress 8ut I didn't think I was doing *that* good.

And that's not 8ad! It's gr8! I've never 8een challenged like that 8efore, it was so good.

That's fair, 8ut like, damn if that isn't a hell of a pitch. Plus like, it's not like I've had much of a change of heart or anything haha no, 8ut I have ties I want to keep now, and protect with that kind of thing. Some people don't know what's happening to them until they're already dead, it's incredi8le.

So I can't promise much 8ut I don't want to do most of the shit that would keep us from 8eing friends ::::(

Especially not after this! This is the 8est, you're the 8est.

The tea party can't happen fast enough.

   palteringcecutiency

!!!!!!!! That's a really really good start!!!!

Like~ I'm never going to be a goody two shoes~ like ever~

Rules and laws register as suggestions at best~ and I put way more effort into damage control than say~ not breaking the law~ because that's /boring/~ (I've broken so many laws here Vriska~ So many~ Mostly for fun~ I'm not even sure how many because I've never bothered to learn them, whoops~!)

But!!!! That doesn't mean my keeping an eye out for Kankri and his followers wasn't a good thing!! That doesn't mean attracting anons away from hurting people and talking them in circles was less helpful because it only happened because I liked the hurt person!! And if you frame it right, people will never know otherwise~

Or~ well~ they kind of already know with you~ but~! You can frame it in believable and acceptable ways!! Without even /lying/, because protecting other people~ vulnerable people~! is a really good thing!! And I can definitely teach you how to do that without upsetting people~ And I will!!!! So you know what to do so we can stay friends!!!!

And guess what???? It can happen /right now/~ and it totally should because I really want to hug you!!!! This is amazing and I'm so /happy/!!!!

amicicidalgambler

Listen to me Psii.

Listen.

Listen listen listen.

I know you like Nadaya a lot so you'd already 8e doing this 8ut we need to protect him, it's important, he's important. He's not the only person for me 8ut we can 8oth help him since he let us in somehow.

It should! 8ecause I want to hug you too!

palteringcecutiency

/We really do/~

He's so oblivious~ and trusting~ It hurts me and scares me so much~~

But it's so much easier when you have other people too~! Ones that care just as much~ And it's just as obvious that you two are close~~ So we'll make a fantastic team!!!!!!

No one gets to be awful to him~

He's /ours/~

!!!! :D!!!!

> [coordinates!]

Zahhak's with me!! So I'll drag him to a pad right now!!!! And then you're getting the gumdrops squeezed out of you!!!!

amicicidalgambler

I'll 8e right there!!!!!!!!

#ooc #logs.txt #palteringcecutiency

[paragonrobits]

Can I ask for some Eridan/Vriska teaming up in a pirate FLARP against some foes if possible?~

“'We invite anyone who has the courage, the nerve, and thesteel, to plumb our dungeon of doom!'” went the note sent to everynaval FLARPer in the region, signed with only two signs, in lightblue and violet; respectively, the signs of the scorpion and thewaterbearer. “'If you have the might to win, dare... the MAUSOLEUMOF NIGHTMARES!'”

And Vriska smirked as dozens of unsuspecting rivals, each of themcontesting for a highly ranked spot in the regional FLARPingcontests, went straight into the vast labyrinth floating upon thesea, assembled from dozens of ships sunk by Eridan and Vriska, andthen raised up and mashed together. Trolls went in and then...

Well, they wouldn't come out. Their bodies did, most of the time.Sometimes. The point was to get bodies to feed to Spidermom andisolate lusii to feed to Feferi's lusus, but in any case the dungeonworked amazingly. Lured by the promise of treasure, people delvedinto the dungeon and ran afoul of the many, many horrendouslyunfair traps.

Years later, those who survivedthe Mausoleum would speak in hushed whispers of the horrible trapsthere. A sphere of annihilating energy housed in the mouth of astatue in a room set up to make you think you were supposed to openup the statue to solve a puzzle. A host of puzzles, dozens of them,each of which Eridan had flawlessly calibrated to kill whoever didanything in them, leaving behind their loot. No one ever got morethan a few rooms in, ever.

It would go down in troll history(which, to be fair, was on borrowed time at this point) as the mosthideous unfair, horrifically unbalanced and just plain meanpuzzle dungeons ever conceived.Even worse than the creations of 'What A Jackass' Jolstoni, themeanest puzzlemaker in all Alternia, who had taken the creed of 'allpuzzles should be super murdery' to a logical extreme, at least untilsome unknown fuchsia got bit by a cube puzzle he made.

Vriska yawned, slouching down thesteps of the dungeon's secret inner workings, going through secretpassageways to the treasury where they kept all the sweetloot they'd accrued from theirmany fallen foes. “What's up, fishface,” she said, clapping himon the back with her kickass robot arm. “I was thinking that maybetonight we could-”

Eridan held an arm out.Dramatically. His cape fanned out, covering her view of the treasury.(He had to stand on a table to block her view, so he clearly had goneto some effort ahead of time.)

“Uhh,” she said.

He lowered his arm. Vriska gaspedin horror.

There are many unspeakablyhorrible sights on Alternia. The pits where the culled are sent todie in their trials. The courts where the doomed are sentenced. Anyplace remotely near a fuchsia, at least until Feferi was born. Emptyfood preparation blocks. But there is nothing worse than the sight ofan empty treasure chamber atleast to a pirate-themed FLARPer.

“Our treasure trove,” Eridanbegan. “Has been stolen!”

“...Uh, yeah, I worked thatout,” Vriska said, giving him a look.

“Look, I've been up here fortwo and a half hours waiting for your dumb ass to get up and see thistravesty! Least you could do is let me get out my cool dramaticspeech.”

“You were up here for two and ahalf hours and that's the most you came up with ahead of time?”

“OKAY SHUT THE HELL UP andlet's get going, we have a treasure to reclaim.”

“HELL YEAH,” Vriska said,running off into a completely different room, popping off her arm andthrowing it at Eridan. It incidentally managed to smack him in theback of the head. She came back a few minutes later, dressed in asuper cool pirate-themed outfit that so happened to look exactly likeher ancestor's favorite outfit. Eridan was already dressed in hisoutfit. Also, she'd swapped out her robot arm for a giant pirate hookwith a built in cannon.

They high fived. They immediatelyregretted this, because you really don't want to high five someonewhen your hand is now a giant hook/cannon.

A short while later, becauseEridan had also prepared a ship ahead of time, their ship set out.They tended to go through a few dozen every perigee, and simply stolenew ships from defeated foes; this one had been looted from an armadaof trolls all arising in response to inflammatory comments Eridan andVriska had made regarding the latest editions of FLARP's needlesschanges to rules they didn't care for. (This sort of thing was prettycommonplace on Alternia; an entire planet of children from a speciesprone to wild mood extremes, without any adult supervision and withmysterious interferences to make them more bloodthirsty? It wasunavoidable.) This ship was the only one to survive; Vriska blamedEridan for being too trigger-happy with his weird ancestral lightningthingy. Eridan blamed Vriska for mind controlling people intoblasting each other without even waiting for a sick cameraopportunity.

This one had been renamed theRevengence Rising, forreasons that Vriska was unclear on. Eridan would only say that he sawit in a dream, borne to him by the terrible things he saw in hisdreams, and swept off dramatically.

The Revengence didn'tso much float as it insinuated itself through the water, slicingthrough the tides and the occasional smaller ship that ran afoul ofthe giant underwater ramming blades beneath it, raising a pink-huedflag. The pink of tyranny had only one meaning; there would be noprisoners, just as a true heiress left no survivors. Both Eridan andVriska were considering changing the flag's color, because since theyknew Feferi so well, they couldn't quite reconcile that with... well,her. (They chose to decide that Feferi was just super weird.)

They soon came across theirquarry, a ship low in the water from the weight of its treasures, anda very big ship at that, too. It had to be, to hold all thattreasure. Vriska seethed at the sight of it, her one good eyenarrowed and her fangs scraping against her lower lip. “I am gonnakick their ass! I am gonna kick the boat's ass!”

“Boats don't have those,”Eridan pointed out.

“I am gonna build it an ass soI can kick it!”

“Use shitty wood, otherwiseyou're gonna make it look better than it really is.”

“Shit, I wouldn't have thoughtof that. Good save.”

“It's what I do,” Eridan saidsmugly.

“Hey!” Vriska yelled into amegaphone, directing it at the ship. “HEY, YOU! TREASURE STEALINGASSHOLES THAT STOLE THE TREASURE WE STOLE FIRST!”

There was a pause. The enemy shipwiggled with activity. “What?” A faint, reedy voice called back.

“I said HEY YOU!” Vriskayelled.

“WHAT?'

“I SAID... goddamit, are weeven close enough for them to hear us?” Vriska turned to thelowblooded troll closest to them on their crew. “I said, are weclose enough for that?”

Karkat Vantas, roped into thisarrangement as a result of a complicated bet involved a largepineapple and the world's second-nicest hat he was trying to barterwith Equius for reasons unknown, rolled his eyes. “I don't goddamnknow. If they're constantly yelling about what you said, GEE, I DON'TKNOW, that's probably a pretty solid indication, huh?!”

“You're the worst cabin boyever. I don't know why Terezi recommended you.”

“I thought Terezi swore to killyou and eat all your shoes,” Karkat said.

“Eh, inbetween vows to make mesuffer for my misdeeds or whatever, she yells at me about how greatyou are. It's weird and sickening.”

“Oh. Wait she did... she didwhat? She talks about... me?” Karkat fell to the ground, staring atthe moons. “Inbetween acts of vowing horrible revenge? Oh... that'sthe most romantic thing I ever heard... I need to write poetry aboutthis.”

“God, this is sickening,”Eridan said, wrinkling his snout.

“Hell yeah,” Vriska said,shaking her head and unconsciously putting her arm around Eridan'sshoulder.  “Just plain weird.”

Eridan put his arm around herwait, with no conscious thought on his part. “This flush pining isjust embarrassing.”

“Yeah.” A small pause. “Didwe forget something?”

They looked up, and saw the shipsignificantly closer. A purple blood waved to them; Vriska judged himthe leader of the crew, if only because he had the biggest andfanciest hat. In pirate terms, he was so obviously the Leader. “So,uh, you were trying to say something to us?”

“Yeah!” Vriska drew hersword, and with her other hand, extended her harpoon. She got backinto character, as Eridan did the same. “I, the dread MarquiseSpinneret Mindfang, demand that you return my stolen treasure hoard!”

“And I, the fearsome pirateDualscar, demand your land-cursed BLOOD!”Eridan shouted, drawing Ahab's Crosshairs and pointing it in a waythat indicated he had every intention of just driving it intopeople's chests like a spear.

The captain considered it. “No.”

“Give us the treasure,”Vriska threatened. “And then we'll kill you!”

The enemy crew stared across thedeck. From the floor, Karkat said, “Don't you mean, 'or'?”

“We know what we said!”Eridan snarled. “And get below decks, you could get hurt if there'sa fight!” He paused, and trying to save face, quickly added, “And!And, uh. If you get hurt or somethin', Terezi will wear my skin as afancy cape! I don't want to become a cosplay!”

Karkat groaned and rolled belowdecks. “I'm going, I'm going!”

The enemy captain shrugged. “So,it's a fight you want, huh? Then, it's a fight you'll-”

“DIE DIE DIE!” Vriskascreamed, catapulting herself across the two ships, heedless of apotential fall into the sea. She landed with a sword right in thecaptain's neck, her hook through the first mate, and she twistedaway. Purple and blue bloodrained down around her, and with a swish of her long coat, she raisedher robot arm as her arm cannon unfurled, blasting out a flurry ofshots that tore open the side of the ship.

“You shits stay here and trynot to be failures,” Eridan said to his crew, and dove into thesea. A moment later, he erupted out from the other side of the ship.In his native element he was far faster and stronger, and leaped highinto the air, landing with each, Crosshairs down and through thechest of the first unwary crewtroll. He twisted aside, putting thebody in the path of a sword blow coming his way, and a blast from theCrosshairs toppled the mast over, onto another grouping of enemycrewtrolls.

Vriska was laughing now, swordand cannon akimbo, and Eridan laughed too, the both of them moving ina fierce frenzy through the crew. Swords and shields clashedtogether, bows strung out and fired only to hit crewtrolls used asliving shields, and as soon as Eridan was able to aim (though hepreferred the thrill and martial honor of a melee), they were wipedfrom the world, along with several portions of the ship.

Cannon blasts, piercing lightfrom the Crosshairs and the sheer ferocity of the pair, fighting backto back, ended the first in short order. Most ship boardings are overfast, and this was done in a matter of minutes. When it was done, theship was listing, too many holes in its side to keep on from... well,taking on water. Vriska and Eridan stood, back to back, cape and coatflapping in the breeze as they posed with their weapons crossing. Oneof the enemy crewtrolls, in exchange for his life, took a photo ofthem.

“So, uh, are you gonna dosomething about the ship?” That crewtroll said.

Eridan blinked. “What aboutit?”

“It's sort of sinking. From allthe damage you did,” the crewtroll said, with just a hint ofreproach.

“...Oh shit~!”Eridan and Vriska said. Vriska ran to the side and called out to hership, “Towing cables! Ready the hooks, you know what to do!”

Several modified cannons, on thebroad side of the ship, opened up and fired; massive hooks slammedinto the side of the ship and chains reeled it in, towing the largership closer to them and supporting it. It wobbled ominously, butdidn't sink.

Vriska sighed in relief. “Ourtreasure, and more importantly, my reputation, are saved!”

Eridan checked a small watch.“And it's not even second breakfast. God, butthis is gonna be a slow day, isn't it?”

Vriska twirled him close to her.“Day's still young, fishface. Bet ya we can get into more trouble~”

#homestuck #erivris #eridan ampora #vriska serket #eridan #vriska #my writing #fics #Anonymous

[utopianparadoxist]

Part #1: Flight of the Movie & Anime References

This section is pretty much setup for the next three essays. There’s a couple sections here that I have a fair bit to say about, but probably just as many where I’ll close out with some minor observations, or reference to someone else’s Good Post(tm).

What I think is important is noting the consistency and similarity with which Homestuck engages in meaningful reference. I just want you to have this list in mind as I flesh out the three truly impactful references I want to talk about in this series. 

So here’s a short list of cases where Homestuck outright leans on other stories to structure itself, with accompanying references:

1) The Game Over Arc - Plot Structure & Dragon Ball Z

We’re starting with Dragon Ball Z because the references here are relatively simple and straightforward, and they largely set up either pretty clear structural parallels, rather than thematic ones. 

The clearest of these examples is the section of the story that begins with the joke Arquius makes above. In case you don’t know, the “over 9000″ meme has its roots in this iconic, hilarious sequence from DBZ:

What’s notable is what follows. From the moment this joke happens, the very structure of Homestuck changes to following the loose structure of some of the most memorable DBZ arcs.

I’m no buff on the series, but the memories it calls up for me most strongly resemble the Namek/Freeza or Buu arcs, and expert DBZ consultant @alotofmomos (who hates me for writing this) confirms these are the arcs that most perform the particular structure Homestuck will now be mimicking. 

And what does that structure consist of? A particular mix of “pacing” choices, cinematography, and sheer scale of spectacle that I find hard to source to anything but DBZ. I can’t even think of other Shonen series that mix all these elements in quite the same way, though again, I’m no expert.

Some of these elements are:

A) Drawn out, massive power-up sequences:

B) Conflicts that carry out on planetary scales, and indeed often destroy the planets hosting them. 

This pretty much speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Do I really have to say some stuff to make it look like I’m doing anything other than pointing out some obvious goddamn parallels that blew my mind because they took me years to notice?

Alright, fine. I’ll say this much: I think it’s quite fitting that Homestuck would borrow from the DBZ playbook for the section of the story that illustrates the sheer mind-boggling scale of power our protagonists have reached. 

There’s very few stories out there that demonstrate this sense of mortals achieving such bonkers dominion over reality through sheer force of will, and the homage certainly hammers home the idea that these kids are Gods with levels of power we’ve barely scratched the surface of. 

But I don’t think there’s a big Narrative Payoff to this particular reference. Instead, I think what Homestuck takes from this is functional in terms of narrative. Because the most interesting things this narrative model adopts are structural.

C) Convenient plot-structure.

Namely, what we end up with is a bunch of characters grouped into disparate conflicts across the same larger “playing field”, separated by considerable amounts of distance--and thus, isolating them into distinct narratives.

As a natural consequence of this, the pacing slows down to an excruciatingly slowness, as we cut from conflict to conflict, each one progressing in small snippets of minutes or even seconds at a time. All of this is par for the course for Dragon Ball Z, particularly in the Namek saga. 

So what this provides us with isn’t a profound, revelatory moment of thematic meaning--but instead, an effective backdrop on which to flesh out that meaning elsewhere. In fact, this very arc does that like twice with two other stories!

So let's move on from this and take a look at a couple of character arcs whose resolutions are telegraphed by way of reference.

2) Terezi as Dorothy 

I don’t have too much to add to this, but it’s useful because in the eyes of much of the fandom, it’s already accepted. Check out madchen’s excellent post on the subject here.

The bottom line is: Terezi janks Jade’s shoes, and adopts the role of Dorothy in Homestuck’s symbol logic. This leads her home--to Vriska and their memories of growing up together, and ultimately to embracing her red feelings for her. 

Terezi’s resolution is one of two relationships resolved in the wake of [S] Game Over. Let’s take a look at the other. 

3) Jake as Buttercup

Don’t have much to say about this one either, cause I already wrote most of it. I will say I don’t think it’s an accident that the arcs to coincide here are Dirkjake’s and Vrisrezi’s, since the two relationships are in many ways direct parallels. But that’s another essay for another time. 

I have received some rightful criticism on my writing on Jake in particular, and this is a good place to clarify my position, however. I do not think it’s particularly “Good” or “Healthy” for Jake to indulge his own desires at the expense of Dirk’s (or Jane’s) feelings. 

My point has never been that Jake’s selfish behavior is inherently good--merely that Jake’s reasons for being in love with Dirk are his own, and not imposed to him from Dirk himself, or anyone around him. 

As with all things in Homestuck, the key is for Jake to grapple with the negatives in himself and come to balance with the tension between his own wants and his relationships with others. This is true of literally everyone in Homestuck.

And there’s an easier way of saying what I am getting at. Because Homestuck literally gives us a guidebook to understanding Jake and Dirk’s relationships to each other, as parsed in Jake’s head--a guidebook that provides context to their entire relationship. 

Just as you can read Terezi as Dorothy, so too can you read Jake as Buttercup. This is the crucial distinction I seek to make. In common readings of Dirk and Jake’s relationship, Jake acquiesces to Dirk’s pushy forcing of the relationship despite Dirk’s control issues. 

In this one, Dirk is a flawed but committed provider and protector, and Jake picks up on and begins internalize a belief that Dirk will always be there for him, prompting him to fall for him. This reflects the fundamental core of their attraction to each other. It does not present a solution to their communication issues. They both have to work through that and be more aware of each other’s needs. 

Now, The Princess Bride is a comedy action-adventure movie, but it’s also a philosophical fairy tale. Buttercup and Westley aren’t just in love, they’re in True Love, and the driving force of the movie is how Westley’s love empowers him to do anything it takes for his beloved. 

What’s more interesting is Buttercup’s relationship to that same love, and how it reflects on Jake. Buttercup has to struggle to learn how to believe in True Love, even when it seems difficult or even impossible. Along the way, Buttercup is even forced into an arranged marriage, and seemingly forsakes her feelings for Westley to avoid the consequences of being honest, a choice she then tortures herself over. 

A big part of her journey is learning to truly commit to not just Westley’s love for her, but her belief in that love as something both true and powerful. Something that can transcend all odds and obstacles. 

Which is. You know. Exactly what Jake does when he’s fully immersed in the power of his own faith. 

Now let’s move on, and note two more movie references that the comic makes outside of the context of this DBZ-mini arc.

4) Tavros as Peter Pan 

There’s not a terrible amount of depth to be drawn here, either. I think most people accept that Tavros is deliberately invoking Peter Pan in his narrative victory here, with the ghosts as his Lost Boys.  I will add, however, that if Peter Pan is the role Tavros is emulating in reaching his full potential, well...

Peter Pan isn’t exactly known for being Selfless, is he? He’s a hero, for sure, but self-centeredness is pretty much his calling card as a hero. To the point that Wikipedia claims that  

“In the play and book, Peter symbolizes the selfishness of childhood, and is portrayed as being forgetful and self-centered.” 

More fuel for the fire as far as my writing on Tavros as inherently self-centered in his building of the Ghost Army goes. Anyway, the fundamental reference is secured, right? I’m not really looking to make a Classpect argument here, I’m just compiling interesting notes. Let’s move on. 

5) Caliborn as Jigsaw

This one isn’t exactly subtle, either. I’ve already written quite a bit about how Lord English defines and dominates everything in the story of Homestuck, as have others.

Understanding Caliborn as a Yaldabaoth is one way to contextualize his power over the reality all the characters preside over, and we’ll definitely touch on that further in the next three sections I’ll be covering.

But one easy way to contextualize Lord English’s power is as...well...Jigsaw.

Like Jigsaw, Lord English builds a massive, highly controlled gauntlet that he exploits and terrorizes his victims through. The only difference is that Lord English’s dungeon is bigger than some creepy gray cellar. 

It is in fact, Literally Everything that occurs within the context of the Alpha Timeline. Every homeworld that every character originates from--except for, arguably, Beforus, which is still under his sway enough to be doomed, but also presented as borderline Eden-like by comparison to Alternia. 

While Yaldabaoth’s control seems very distant and abstract, Jigsaw’s is crystal clear and vicious. Everything the characters of SAW suffer is, ultimately, in the hands of the orchestrator of their misery. Their puppetmaster, so to speak. 

In the same sense, pretty much every single way the characters in Homestuck suffer has Lord English at the root of it--even the thing they do to themselves and each other as a result of cultural memes. 

Troll Violence, heteronormativity, quadrant normativity, and hypermasculinity--all are memetic structures that exist because Lord English himself disseminated them, in the context of Homestuck. They’re thought-traps rather than literal physical torture devices, but they’re torture tools all the same. 

And you can even see Jigsaw as a symbol for Lord English’s influence, since it is, after all, one of the primary differences setting apart Bro and Dirk. Dirk has no interest in the SAW franchise at all, whereas Bro makes a point of mocking Dave with it.  (thanks to @jadedresearcher for pointing this out, by the way!)

So yeah. Not only does SAW tell us a lot about the nature of Caliborn’s effect on our characters through the Alpha Timeline, it also acts as a mark for his influence. That’s...pretty much all there is to say on the matter.

For now.

That wraps up this little introductory round-up. Now I can get to talking about three of the biggest influences on Homestuck as a story: The Neverending Story (the book), Earthbound & Mother 3, and Gnostic Myth. Hope you’ll follow along with us over the next couple of weeks to find out more.

[Master Post]

[Patreon] [Hiveswap Discord]

Catch you on the flip side.

Keep rising. 

#Homestuck #The Princess Bride #The Wizard of Oz #SAW #Peter Pan #Tavros Nitram #Jake English #Terezi Pyrope #Caliborn #Lord English #Dirk Strider #Bro #Dave Strider #My MSPA Analysis

[gene-zane-strider-blog]

Comfort

Notes: this should have been moxiety more davekat!!! yay!! so i wrote this and now i am 100% stable again. @the90sfreshestdude i wrote this for you fam. i kinda took my own discomfort and put it on karkat... sorry bro ;w;

also can i get a clap for no proofreading?

Warnings: to much fluff tbfh

The moon glistens high above the horizon of the sea, the suns’ now gray tinted light reflecting off the dull blue water. Stars compliment the moon, surrounding the over-sized rock.

You keep your toes in the cold water, the waves sometimes barely touching your ankles. You have your arms wrapped around your legs, keeping them together. It was one of those nights, where Dave, Terezi, Vriska, and John where all hanging out along with you but when Dave showed up everyone was like ‘holy shit it’s the party gangster!’ and you got excluded.

Like normal.

Not to mention they were watching those god-awful horror movies, which freaked you out so much you went to your room after the first movie and cried your eyes out. They were simply too much for you. Maybe it was how every single movie started out with someone dying, or all the jump scares, or maybe it was even how loud Dave turned the TV up until it sounded like a damn movie theater, which you hated. Everything about Dave just being an overall dick and not ever asking what you wanted to do made you angry. It’s the minority vs. the majority. Who’s going to win? Obviously not you. Besides, who in hell would care about some mutant troll who was almost left for dead on Alternia, and after settling down on Earth, was left alone, with the memory of the game and torment he endured?

Defiantly not Strider.

No, no. Dave certainly didn’t go through the awful shit you did. He must have lived in a mansion, with millions of… maids, and butlers, and the most amazing and expensive furniture. He had only the most comfortable bed sheets, the largest bathroom, was homeschooled, and lived in a sparkling queen naure and god damn it you’re crying again.

“KK?” A voice rings out from behind you, making you jump up. Luckily, your tears fall into the waves and slowly lost their red color.

“What do you want?” You question. The ocean was your only friend. You keep on telling Terezi not to invite this douche over but she does it anyway.

Strider sits down beside you, taking off his shoes and socks, dipping his feet in with you. Quickly, you manage to get yourself to man up and stop crying like a wimp. “I want to apologize.”

“Apologize for what?” You speak, resting your chin on your knees and staring at the ocean.

“For… uh, have being such an asshole to you ever since we managed to stabilize on Earth,” Dave sighs. “You know, I’m still kinda traumatized from the game.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” You hiss silently.

“Don’t act like you’ve been trying to cope.”

You look over a little, straining your eyes. Just barely, though. Not to the point where it hurts, but to the point where you have to stop in a couple of minutes. “We’ve all been trying to get our fucking lives together, Dave. Why do you think I decided to live near the ocean? It’s pretty, and it reminds me of the way things used to be. Relaxing and calm. But those days are long gone now, aren’t they? We aren’t ever getting our old lives back, aren’t we? Wouldn’t you want to go back to when you were a wrig- kid?”

Dave looks over. You can see his eyes staring into yours even through his dark shades. “Fuck no dude. My childhood was awful.”

You bring your feet out of the sea and onto the sand. “Wh- what? You didn’t live in a luxurious mansion?”

“Hah! That’s a joke, right?” Dave crosses his arms.

You shake your head and he laughs. “Dude, I lived at the top of a shitty apartment complex and there were puppets everywhere. It was dirty, paint was chipped off, brick was exposed, and bro was hella abusive. It sucked.”

You stare, amazed. Everything you thought was just destroyed just in front of you. Dave’s hair looked lighter in the moon than it did during the day. It was a lot messier than you remember it ever being.

“… oh,” you look back at the sea, slowly extending your legs back in.

“I didn’t come out here just to apologize,” Dave sighs, running his hands through his hair. A slight smile comes to his face. “Heh, it’s really dark out here.”

You notice a bit of hesitation in his voice. “Is something wrong?”

Dave shake his head. “No, it’s just… really dark.”

“Then take off your glasses.”

He remains silent for a split second before popping up. “H-Heh yeah! I should ha- do, that.”

The blonde takes off his sunglasses and hooks them onto his shirt, revealing bright blood-red eyes. They shine like rubies in a flashlight’s glow, a subtle bit of burgundy in certain places.

You end up staring aimlessly at Dave, who eventually notices and looks at you. Both of you two end up in a staring contest unknowingly. Something about him keeps drawing you in, unable to pull away. Your thoughts run rapid, pointing out the small features in Dave’s face. Freckles dot the edges of his eyes and ears, and there is just a tiny bit of a shadow under his eyes, representing the fact that he still isn’t getting quite enough sleep. You haven’t either, but the last time you looked in the mirror, you were pretty sure you didn’t have any noticeable bags. Of course they come with age, but you and the others were still young; your mid-twenties.

Dave eventually scoots a bit closer. He closes the gap between you two ever so slowly, causing your face to heat up a little as he is literally centimeters away from your face. He leans in slowly, and your mind goes on red alert. Holy shit he’s going to k-!

“Boop.” He whispers as he softly touches your nose with his finger. You stare in disgust as a large smirk shoots across his face.

“I fucking hate you, Strider.” You growl.

“You love me.”

“Damn it Strider, I can’t go one second without you ruining me, can I?”

He laughs and slowly pulls you in, touching your lips gently. You fall into the slight grip he keeps on your lips, and you interlock your hand with the one he has on your cheek. He backs up for a millisecond before you go in for another kiss, surprising Dave (a little) and passionately kissing you back, breaking apart a minute later.

You shake your head and let out a small chuckle, looking back at the sea. “God damn it, Dave,” You comment as he laughs- that sweet, sweet sound of joy that he does so often around you.

You’re pretty sure you can get used to it.

#davekat #homestuck #dave strider #karkat vantas

[adrift-in-writing]

A Mother’s Legacy, Chapter 2

Set two years after the first chapter, a lot of time and a lot of events have considerably passed within Vriska’s life.

The plot takes place in modern day London, England and follows Mindfang trying to explain to her granddaughter - Selina Serket - the complexity of Vriska’s illness after Selina is unaware why her mother isn’t home some days.

Short and bittersweet with following a format I’m trying to get into.

It was in the evening, and the weather in London wasn’t particularly cold, nor was it hot. A cool breeze would occasionally pass by, and the clouds had obscured the sun due to set in an hour or two. Little Selina, merely two years old - a sweep in Alternian time - had been playing outside with little Spidermom. She had the white spider cupped in her hands playing peek-a-boo while Spidermom hissed gleefully.

Out in the distance near the house, Mindfang watched over the small child. Her laughter and youth brought her joy, but it was getting late. Vriska would not be home until a little later in the night; her monthly check-up for her illness was today of all days. After a few minutes, Mindfang chuckled and yelled out. “Selina! Get back in here, dear! Sun’s getting low...”

Selina turned around, eyes widening. “Mam!” She squeaked. Delicately, the young child held Spidermom in her hands to avoid squishing her to bits. Selina ran forward, almost tripping over herself in joy of seeing what she assumed was her own mother. “You’re home, mam!” She held up the little Spidermom for Mindfang to hold onto. She obliged, and chuckled as she let the spider rest on her shoulder.

After a few moments, Selina began tugging at Mindfang’s little pajama pants. She wanted a hug, and Mindfang chuckled. “Oh, darling Selina. You’ve still not seen the difference, have you? I’m your grandmother.” She picked her up and lifted her up. Almost a few seconds later, the young child booped Mindfang on the nose and giggled.

“But you two look so similar!” Selina had said. Not surprisingly, Mindfang closed the door and nodded. Without making them stand side-by-side, she and her own daughter would look near identical if not for the glasses and taller set of forked and hooked horns.

Mindfang nuzzled the child in her belly and Selina giggled further. Spidermom had gone elsewhere, moving down the cerulean blood’s arm to go hunt down an insect over in the distance.  “Your ‘mam’ is not home yet, lass. For now, enjoy grandma’s presence.”

The young child whined. “Aww! But she promised!” She pouted, but Mindfang shushed her and pressed her lips together.

“I know, sweetie. I know. But, my daughter is sick, and she needs to visit the doctor to get better.” Mindfang then stopped and lowered Selina down to her lap, ruffling the small child’s hair.

“But why is my mam sick?” Selina had asked rather quietly.

The smile on Mindfang disappeared. It was going to be hard to describe schizophrenia to a small child, let alone for her to even comprehend it. She pursed her lips and tried to formulate words. “Well...she...got into bad trouble long ago.”

“Is she okay?” The young child was curious at this point. It was vague, and rather confusing to her. Who could ever hurt her mother? This, too, was also a question that bugged Mindfang for some time. She simply nodded and hummed. Selina was still curious for more, and she had proceeded to ask her grandma more about it.

The question made her freeze in place just for a bit, before she relaxed and tried to make up a story. “Something terrible happened.One fine morning, all of her friends disappeared. She was alone, and very sad. She could still hear them sometimes, but they were never really there.” A deep sigh escaped Midnfang’s lips and she pondered. How can I make this kid-friendly but also not too serious? An idea popped up almost immediately.

“An evil and cruel being came to her doorstep one day and said it’s going to stay with her.” The taller Serket said. She was trying to beat around the bush and be delicate, biting her lower lip. “That...creature is still here. Sometimes it comes to her and makes her sad again.”

She took a small breather and remained silent for a bit. Selina was still innocently looking onwards, waiting on her grandma to finish. “It’s been living with her for 12 years now. Every time she gets better, it comes back even more cruel.”

Selina frowned and whimpered just a little. “No fair! I hope mam beats that evil monster!” The young child curled her fists up and growled, but it did make Mindfang laugh just a bit. “She has been beating it, Selina. Ever since you were hatched, she’s been beating it back a lot. You help her so much...you’ve no idea.” She smiled, and leaned in to give a peck on Selina’s cheek. “Such a good girl, supporting your mother in times of need.”

The little girl smiled a toothy grin, as if she had just heard the best news of her life. “Good! I hope it goes away. Nobody should ever hurt my mam!” She bounced up and down on Mindfang’s lap before the taller Serket proceeded to boop the young child’s nose for earlier.

“Your mother will be fine. She’ll be well, just you watch!” She tried to motivate her granddaughter, and for now it seemed to work. Selina cheered and then gave her grandma a small hug. Mindfang chuckled and stroked the nape of her granddaughter’s hair. “Precious little one.”

The sound of a door opened up, and Mindfang was the first to hear of it. “Speaking of...she’s home.” She grinned, revealing her own fangs. Selina’s eyes widened and she quickly jumped off of her grandma, yelling out ‘mam’ while running towards the door. The taller cerulean-blood followed suit, grabbing her Pyralspite cane and stood herself up. It had been about time her daughter returned home.

In stepped Vriska, a little tired but glad she was home. Her eyes were a little orange - signs indicating she was crying a little while earlier - but nonetheless she wasn’t now. She began untying her red shoes and put them in the drawer. The sound of her daughter calling out brightened her up, and before she knew it, the little ‘pitter-patter’ of Selina’s footsteps caused her to smile. “Well hey, if it ain’t lil’ Scuttlebutt! C’mere, you!” Vriska laughed and picked up Selina off of the ground. She smooched her cheek and brushed her hair, nuzzling the child’s nose. Her daughter’s delighted squees of joy made her forget about what happened earlier today.

Out in the living room, Mindfang slowly approached whilst holding her cane, twirling it around in her fingers. She knew her daughter had been crying. She could see it in her eyes, and without even saying a word, Vriska let Selina down. “Go upstairs, kiddo. I’ll meet you in a bit, and then we can watch Miraculous Ladybug like I promised!”

Selina nodded and then went up the stairs on her own. Vriska took off the other shoe and then her own mom poked her with the cane. “So, ‘mam’, are you ever going to adjust how she says mom?”

The Serket chuckled and shrugged. “Maybe. I could teach her this weekend. Gotta admit it’s cute, though.” Vriska walked to her jacket closet and hung up her jacket, leaving her with a tank-top with the Scorpio symbol on the front. “You’re probably wondering why my eyes are bloodshot, aren’t you.”

Mindfang nodded. “You know me all too well, lass. Did you see...her?”

Just a simple nod from Vriska. She sighed and shook her head. “She was there. First time in a year. She’s still legally able to see me during medical visits.” Vriska pulled out a list of documents and handed it to her mother to see.  “My illness is...slightly better, according to the doctor. Doesn’t mean jack shit when I have to see her again, though.”

The taller Serket sighed and rubbed her temple. This was not good, especially after what had happened the last time. “And what happened?”

“What do you think happened, mom? We argued. There’s nothing any different every single time we see each other now.”

“I know, but...what for this time?”

Vriska went silent. She stared at the wall in front of her and tried to remember what they were at each other’s throats for. It made no sense in her head right now. Whether it be her illness, or sheer tiredness of having to see her despicable face again, she didn’t know. She didn’t care. She brushed the hair with her palm and shrugged again.

“Her reckless attitude. Her incessant dealings with her new girlfriend. Trying to chide me; make me jealous that I’m not with her. Not like she gives a damn, she doesn’t even seem to remember we had a child together.” She muttered bitterly the last sentence. It made no sense to her, but the past is the past, and it should stay that way. She rubbed her mouth and shook her head again. None of that should matter today. 

“You know, it’s funny. We move to England while she still lives in the States, and she still bothers to try to berate me for what happened.” Vriska couldn’t understand it either, but again. None of that should matter to her right now.

That was all Mindfang needed to know for now. It wouldn’t make a lick of a difference if they’d continue this conversation on a sour note. She clicked her tongue and slacked her posture momentarily. “I suppose we’ll talk more about this tomorrow. I’m sure your daughter’s waiting.”

“And what about you, Aranea?” Vriska lifted up her chin and started heading upstairs, with Mindfang in tow. “What’re you gonna do for tonight? ‘cause I’m cooking later.”

Mindfang smiled. Her daughter hadn’t called her Aranea in a long while, so it was nice to hear her say her proper name. “I’ll join you later tonight. I need to take a look at these notes. Wouldn’t want Selina worrying, right?” She chuckled and stuck out her tongue at her daughter in a teasing manner. 

“No, of course not.”  Vriska laughed and went to her own room to get changed.  Her daughter had been sitting on the bed playing with a Marinette plushie whilst cackling. She thought herself as the next villain Ladybug would face, and it made the cerulean-blood chuckle.

Just for tonight, she wished it to go away. Just for tonight, let her be with her loving daughter. With a flick of a switch and a few keystrokes on her husktop connected to the T.V, the next episode of Miraculous Ladybug started and Vriska placed little Selina between her crossed legs.

#Character: Vriska Serket #Character: Marquise Mindfang #Character: Selina Serket #Homestuck #Homestuck fanfic

[vriskadyke]

in ch. 2 of 'stitwiib' part 2 of loec, theres a post about the appearances of the troll gods under a 'read more'. the descriptions ended up being really long (like, really, REALLY long) so i cut them for length; however, i did still write them, so here they are. these are also mostly a way for me to dump my hcs of what the trolls look like lmao.

image one, the knight of blood aka karkat vantas. he is a broad-shouldered troll of average height with short, slightly wavy black hair and small, nubby horns. he is sixteen years old and states that he will turn seventeen in june. he has on a pale grey turtleneck sweater with a dark grey cancer symbol on the front in black and is also wearing a pair of simple dark grey sweatpants without a care for the fact that he is literally at one of the most important press conferences known to the world. he has warm grey skin and downturned ears that seem to be a cross between goatlike and cowlike. his eyes have brown irises on the verge of red and have the typical yellow troll sclera, and his nails are painted black. he is frowning at the camera and is up on a stage, as this was taken during the press conference. 

image two, the sylph of space aka kanaya maryam. she is a tall and thin troll that easily towers over the others that we've seen. she has short black hair in a pixie cut and states that she is 16 years of age, though she originally stated that she was 'seven and a half sweeps' before correcting herself, saying it was 'habit'. she has tall, inward curving horns, and her left horn has a downward outward-facing hook at the top. she is wearing a short-sleeved black shirt emblazoned with the virgo symbol in jade, a purple sash around her waist and a floor-length red skirt. she has glowing white skin and elflike ears, with an industrial piercing in her left ear and a lobe piercing in both. both piercings are a butter-yellow gold. she is wearing jade lipstick and smiling politely. she has dark green irises and yellow sclera and is wearing jade-green nail polish. all the nails on her hands are clipped neatly short. like karkat vantas's photo, this was taken at the press conference, and she seems to have a far better idea of what the dress code for such an event ought to be.

image three, the seer of mind aka terezi pyrope. she is a wide, chubby troll of medium stature with straight but choppy black hair that reaches an inch or so below her chin and two straight horns that sit at an outward angle on her head. she is wearing a short-sleeved black shirt with a teal libra symbol. she has teal-tinged dark grey skin and relatively large downturned elflike ears which bear three black studs on each lobe. she wears somewhat angular glasses with red lenses. her eyes have no pupil or iris and consist entirely of red sclera (at least, from what is visible in the photo). she is brandishing a dragon-headed cane with red and white accents, probably her weapon of choice from the myths. she is smirking at the camera, gaze slightly away from the viewer. her nails are painted red. the background is of what seems to be a living room with dark gray metal walls- it cuts off around pyrope’s waist. this image was provided by dave strider. 

image four, the thief of light aka vriska serket. this photo is fairly blurry, having been taken while running, but from what can be seen serket is a tall, lean girl around 16 years old. she has long messy unbrushed black hair and wearing large circular glasses. her ears are large, upturned, and cowlike. both ears have a golden ear cuff and a single small lobe piercing. her irises are black with yellow sclera, and her left eye seems to have around 5-10 smaller pupils in a circle instead of one large pupil. she has two inward curving horns on the top of her head. her left horn splits at the top into two to form a 'U' shape. her right horn is similar to kanaya maryam's left horn, though the curve of the hook is not a downward crescent but an upwards one. she is wearing a black shirt with what seems to be a blue scorpio symbol on it, along with a blue coat that resembles a bathrobe and a red belt around her waist. this image was also provided by dave strider, who noted that he only managed to take one photo before vriska noticed and tried to smash the camera. 

image five, the maid of time aka aradia megido. this is an old photo, of a young girl around twelve years of age. she is a short, plump girl with wide hips and long, curly hair that falls to just above her waist. her ears are relatively small and more goatlike. she has large, curly horns on the sides of her head and is wearing a long-sleeved black shirt marked with a rust-red aries symbol. her skin is a pale grey tinged with a warm brown that name-that-color describes as 'hemp'. she has black eyes with yellow schlera. she has an indiana jones type hat on her head and is wearing a black skirt with holes and tears at the hem, which falls to her knees. she also is wearing a brown leather belt on her waist with a coiled whip attached on the side. she is holding a horned skull, which looks to be quite old judging by its bleached whiteness, in one hand. she is smiling beatifically and slightly creepily at the camera, revealing bright white teeth. this photo was provided by karkat vantas, who stated that sollux captor took it.

image six, the mage of doom aka sollux captor. captor appears to be around thirteen. he is tall and skinny, with two tiny pointed horns on each side of his head. his hair is straight but choppily cut, with uneven bangs in the front and two equally uneven strands of hair framing his face. he is wearing horizontally oval glasses, the left lens of which is blue and the right lens of which is red. he has a pointed, angular face and is quite thin. he is wearing a black short-sleeved shirt with a muddy yellow gemini sign on the front, layered on top of a long-sleeved white shirt with thin black stripes on the sleeves. he has a half-blue, half-red choker on his neck. he is also wearing black jeans that are rolled halfway-up his calves. he has mismatched socks, one red and one blue, and mismatched shoes- one is white and one is black. from what can be seen of his eyes, he has no pupil or iris, just like terezi- one sclera is blue and one is red. his nails are painted black. this photo was taken by feferi peixes and was recovered by kanaya maryam. 

image seven, the page of breath aka tavros nitram. he seems to be around twelve or eleven years old, and has a short mohawk, the top of which is dyed an orange-tinged brown. he has pale grey skin with the slightest hint of orange-brown, and is broad-shouldered and fairly short. he has large horns on each side of his head, emerging from slightly above his long, goatlike ears. these horns extend outward horizontally before hooking upwards at the end. he is wearing a black shirt with an orange-brown taurus symbol and a black jean jacket, as well as black jeans and socks with brown sandals (the audacity!) he has black eyes and yellow sclera, as well as a nervous smile full of sharp teeth. this photo was taken by aradia megido and later recovered by dave strider, who stated that megido had 'a helluva good eye for photos' and also informed the press that this photo was taken a few months before tavros lost the use of his legs.

image eight, the rogue of heart aka nepeta leijon and the heir of void, equius zahhak. this photo is of two people instead of one; on the left is nepeta, who seems to be relatively short. vantas stated that she was an inch or two shorter than him the last time they saw each other. she is wearing a blue knit cap with a white :3 face on it. the cap has holes on the top where her horns, shaped like cat ears, poke out. her hair is short, uneven and mussed, and her skin is tinged a particularly dark olive-gray. she is wearing a black shirt with an olive leo sign on the front and a long-sleeved trenchcoat in the same color, with one sleeve rolled up to show off her surprisingly muscular arms. she is holding up one hand and making a peace symbol with it. on said hand she is wearing a bagh nakh with a blue glove, the claws of which have been mostly retracted so that only the very tips can be seen. she is making a :3 face at the camera. 

on the right is equius, who is a head or so taller than nepeta. he has straight black hair that falls halfway to his shoulders and is parted down the middle of his head. his horns are particularly unique; his left horn is shaped like an arrow pointed away from his head. the other, however, is broken off near the bottom, and only a jagged stump remains. no one knew how the breakage occured other than that it had been an accident resulting from equius's strength. he is wearing a black muscle tee with an indigo sagittarius sign on the front as well as cracked rectangular black sunglasses. he has grey skin; unlike the other trolls, his skin is more pale indigo than it is grey. addition, he is visibly sweating; shining beads seem to have formed on his shoulders, neck, and temple. he is smiling, revealing a mouth full of cracked and broken teeth. the two are sitting on a couch together and are touching their middle fingers and index fingers together at the tips, forming a diamond (a common gesture of moirallegiance). according to maryam, who presented the photo, it was taken on their 'second sweep' anniversary of moirallegiance; they had been together for four years, ever since the age of nine. 

images nine and ten are of gamzee makara, the bard of rage. the first is of a twelve or thirteen year old boy with bushy hair that has more volume than length. it sticks out in tendrils, and from the top emerge two very tall horns that stick outward before curving in a little. these horns add a good six inches to his already prodigious height, easy. his whole face is covered in a sheen of white face paint that has been carefully and ritually applied; the only parts left untouched are a trapezoidal area surrounding his mouth, rounded triangles around his eyes, and two small circular dots on the far side of his eyes. he has half-lidded eyes and tattered, upturned ears that could be mistaken for fins at a distance. he is wearing a short-sleeved black shirt with a purple capricorn sign on it, as well as a pair of grey and black sweatpants and purple bowling shoes. he is smiling dopily at the camera and there are green stains around his mouth. this photo was taken a few months before the game by karkat vantas, who stated it was one of the 'few good memories he had of gamzee'. 

the second image is far more sinister [tw for mentions of death/corpses/necrophilia!]. in this photo, gamzee's hair is just as wild, but upon examination, some strands are crusted with various colors of dried blood. gamzee's makeup, which was so carefully applied in the first image, is now greasy and smeared across his face. his eyes are no longer half-lidded but are wide open and fixed on the camera. three long scratches run along his face, still dripping purple blood as he smiles at the viewfinder; all the dopiness of before is gone, replaced by the smile of someone who has killed before and will do it again. the decapitated head of tavros nitram is tucked under his arm, staring blankly away. worst of all, brown blood stains his lips. this photo was recovered from one of the 'husktops' (laptops) on the meteor and was taken by gamzee himself.

image eleven is of eridan ampora, the prince of hope. in this photo, he stands on the deck of an old-fashioned warship, posing for the camera. he seems to be around thirteen. eridan has wavy upswept black hair, with one of the teased upward waves dyed violet. he has very pale violet-tinged grey skin. his horns are particularly unique; they zig-zag backwards and along the sides of his head in the same shape as the aquarius symbol. he is fairly thin, and seems to be of slightly below average height. as a seadweller, he also has violet tinged fins on his face. he is wearing a purple cape with a large, billowy upturned collar and a black long-sleeved shirt emblazoned with a violet aquarius symbol on the front. he is also wearing black and blue vertical-striped pants and a blue striped scarf. he is frowning darkly at the camera and is holding a blue rifle that is loosely aimed at the floor. he evidently doesnt practice good trigger discipline, as his finger is on the trigger. this photo was taken by vriska serket, who threw it away; it was recovered later on.

image twelve is of feferi peixes, the witch of life. she is a moderately tall, wide and buff girl who seems to be around twelve or so. in this photo she is on the beach with one hand on her hip and the other holding a dark orange-golden 2x3dent with one end's prongs in the sand. feferi has lots and lots of wavy and frizzy black hair, wider than her shoulders and longer than her waist, almost touching her knees. she has dark pink-tinged gray skin, dotted with reddish-pink freckles on her face, upper arms, stomach, and legs. her horns, long, rounded, and curved in the shape of the peixes hatchsign, add at least half a foot to her height; they are fairly thick at the base and slim down as they go upward. she has two gills on either side of her face that are tinged pink, and both gills have holes that seem to be piercings. she is wearing a black swim top that bares her midriff and is emblazoned with a fuschia peixes symbol and a layered wrap skirt; the layers are a pale aqua blue and a bright green, lined with a pale pink trim on the borders. she has a golden collar necklace around her throat and two strings of pearls, one of which is pale blue; the other is pink. she is wearing a golden tiara studded with a fuschia gem and a pair of fuschia goggles. she is smiling brightly, revealing large, sharp white teeth. this photo was taken by aradia megido, and recovered from megido's laptop. 

image thirteen is of meenah peixes, the thief of life. she is a tall, lanky girl around nineteen years of age. she is sprawled languidly on a bench in a garden, arms spread over the back of the bench. leaning against the bench is a 2x3dent, much like that of feferi peixes' except for its larger size, brighter yellow hue and the increased space between its prongs. meenah has a mop of extremely curly black hair that seems to stop below her gills and continues in long black box braids which extend to her knees. her skin is a shade darker than feferi's, but has no freckles, and her horns are identical to feferi's, though they seem to be a few inchest shorter. her gills, like feferi's, are pink; they are pierced multiple times with a variety of different golden gill-rings, including a chain on each gill, three studs on each, and five total helixes. she is wearing a black crop top marked with the fuschia peixes symbol that hangs off her right shoulder, with a pink tank top underneath, and baggy black cargo pants, as well as fuschia sneakers. she is smirking lazily at the camera, revealing a mouth full of sharp white teeth. this photo was taken by the sylph of light, aranea serket, and was recovered by kanaya maryam. 

#fae.txt #homestuck #life on earth c #poet.txt #karkat vantas #kanaya maryam #terezi pyrope #vriska serket #aradia megido #sollux captor #tavros nitram #nepeta leijon #equius zahhak #meowrails #gamzee makara #eridan ampora #feferi peixes #meenah peixes