#‘take Aradia’s hand’ do you WANT HER?!?!?!?!?!?!

[jollyhunter]

Lucky Cat

⋆ ˚｡⋆ COUPLE Dean Winchester x f!Reader, Soulless!Sam mentioned

⋆ ˚｡⋆ WARNINGS Dean’s POV, Takes place around early season 6, Angst, Dean and Soulless!Sam mentioned, eventually Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Reader is a hunter who had left the hunter life like Dean after Sam 'died', No use of Y/N, English isn’t my native language

⋆ ˚｡⋆ SUMMARY Dean really didn't want to pull you back into this job, but with Sam's 'soul' problem, he's left with no other choice but to ask you for help. Unfortunately, as always, he will regret that decision. (I'm sorry, I suck at summaries, might edit it later)

⋆ ˚｡⋆ WORDS 2,3 k

⋆ ˚｡⋆ J/NOTE Moodboard is done by the wonderful @chevroletdean for their 500 Follower Celebration ! I hope this entry lives up to it. :D Congrats once more, dear! You deserve it all and much much more!! ♡♡♡ Big shout out to @ambiguous-avery for helping me with this! Thank you so so much again! I for some reason struggled a lot with getting to the core of this story, and now I might just continue this fun idea :D

The crescent moon grins down at Dean, its light barely enough to paint the outlines of crosses stretching across the horizon.

Dean’s back slumps against a tombstone, then slides down along it until he hits the ground. His feet are planted into grass. Hazy as the fog lingers between the graves and licks at his limbs like hungry souls.

‘Queen of the Witches - Freer of slaves - Glorifier of the oppressed - Daughter of Goddess Diana and Lucifer’. It all sounded like the perfect solution to your ‘Soulless-Sam-Problem’, when Dean and you had stumbled across the lore books about the Goddess of the Moon, Aradia, a couple of days ago.

And honestly, all was going well. You’d gathered all the ingredients thanks to Bobby’s support through the phone. Located a witches boneyard somewhere at the arse-end of the world while you'd made sure Sam was on a goose chase.

You made the hoodoo. Successfully summoned the Goddess.

So far so good. Fucking finally. No curveballs so far.

Until she had Dean pull a card from her deck, urging him to, ‘Bet your lucky star in exchange for your brother’s soul’.

Now his gaze travels up to the silver curve which has been mocking him like the Cheshire cat ever since he made that damn deal.

“You goddamn idiot,” Dean rasps out. His face tilts down, eyes locked onto the trembling card in his hands.

“Why’d you even come-“ Why the hell did you drop everything the moment I called? You idiot should’ve stayed away from me and this goddamn life like we’d agreed…

His thumb trails the golden letters edged into the black paper. “The World,” he scoffs the name out loud. Bitter. With a tinge of sardonic. Not like you’re his whole World without him realizing it.

He slides his finger pad further up and across the intricate illustration. Careful, reverend. Like he’s afraid he might break the white lines which depict you.

You’re sprawled out, like you’d been knocked unconscious and decided to take a nap inside a golden frame – that is, the image of you – or perhaps it was you-you? The Queen of Witches didn’t really give him much to work with.

“Damn it…” I shouldn’t have called you. You shouldn’t have come. Why are you so goddamn stubborn? … Why do you even care so much about me and my crap?

Okay, here’s the thing about you and Dean; You always talk back. But not the ‘sucker punch to the gut’ kind of talk back. But the ‘I’m here for you’ kind of. The ‘talk to me’. The ‘I’m not gonna judge you, promise’. The kind, Dean didn’t know how to deal with.

You’d ask, “How are doing?”, he’d reply, “I’m fine.”

You know better. Of course you do. ‘I’m fine’ is the equivalent to ‘I’m too broken to open up’.

So you try once more. “Dean, c’mon. Talk to me…” He on the other hand brushes it off more aggressively this time. “I said I’m alright, okay?”

This is the point where Sam would go ‘yeah, okay.’ and drop it. Maybe because he knows better than to push him. Maybe because he knows Dean will only clam up more and eventually lash out when put on the spot. Maybe because he’s just learned to accept his older brother’s stubornness.

You know all that, too. But the big difference is; you continue nonetheless.

“Dean,” you’d sigh his name, for some reason which is beyond him, still patient, even though it takes all of your nerves to not shake the emotions out of him. “Please. I can see that you’re not doing well. You know you can tell me anything, right?”

How can you be so damn caring? I’m literally a walking-talking broken time bomb.

And since you’re not raising your voice, that’s usually the point where he’d start to yell. Accompanied by a warning finger pointing your way. “I swear to God, if you ask me one more time to spill my guts, I’ll forget my manners and deck you.”

And guess what? You’d still fuckin’ pester me.

Even on our drive to this godforsaken graveyard you didn’t miss a chance to make me want to strangle you — to just make you shut up. You were meant to help me get Sammy’s soul back, not bare my soul to you.

He hated the way you saw right through him. The way you read him as if he was an open book even though you were one of the people he wanted least to see behind his facade.

And right now I wish for nothing more than your annoying voice. Prodding and pestering me about my emotional constipation.

Anything.

One word.

“C’mon, sweetheart… don’t do this to me…” he whispers. Voice hoarse. Raw.

Please.

But illustrations don’t answer prayers. And neither do regrets.

His hand trembles. Clenches. Fingers curled around the edge of the black tarot card. It dents under the calloused palm closing around it - then gets tossed through the air before it hits the ground between his feet.

“Son of a bitch!” he rasps out, the curse like a rip through the air before it sinks into the empty, silent night.

His empty hands are now both shaking. He drops his head. Face buried into his palms to steady them. To hold himself together.

But at this point it’s like he’s trying to hold a sinking ship together. Worst is, he’s not the captain. He’s the ship. He’s the one who failed the crew. Their only ground. When he breaks, everyone drowns.

Problem is, as of right now, not many are left for him to keep afloat.

This is my fault — I should’ve — I shouldn’t have asked you for help. It should’ve been me, not you.

“Why didn’t you just stay away from me…”

He pushes his fingers between his strands of hair. All the way back as he buries himself deeper.

I should’ve listened more to you. Every time you tried to make me spill my guts — you never gave up on my stubborn ass and I just —

A strangled sound wrecks through him. Muffled by his hands and barely loud enough to rip through the unspoken grief. Hanging heavy between the tombstones.

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry - I’m so goddamn sorry - I-

He rakes his fingers down. Until the hair caught between them is pulled taught. The heel of his palms press into his stinging eyes. A poor attempt at damming the tears that threaten to break free.

“You wanted to know whether I’m fine..?” he murmurs. His voice is low and broken. Breath shudders as the raw admission forces its way out now. “You want the truth? I’m far from fine. Sammy’s gone. I’m left with his Terminator version driving shotgun with me and he freaks me out to the point that I’m sleeping with a finger on my colt’s trigger. Lisa and Ben are — they’re better off without me. I should’ve never even showed up on their doorstep.”

He pauses. Bites back a soft sound close to a sob. His voice suddenly drops to a raspy whisper, the sound of it taking on an edge of anger. Driven by disappointment and helplessness.

“You wanted me to open up? Fine. I’ll talk. I –… I’m afraid, when I’ll let someone in, I’ll shatter and you’ll be the one picking up the pieces. And– And that’s not supposed to be your job. I’m the one who’s doing the fixing. But truth is…” — his hands slip off his face, his rolled up eyes water and his lips press together to fight his tremors — “I can’t — I —… I am beyond repair, sweetheart. But the only thing that kept my messy mind together was—“ his voice cracks when he sheds a single tear. Squeezes his eyes shut as he wipes it away with the back of his hand.

“Damnit… please… I’m begging you,” he croaks.

His hand reaches for the card on the ground. Desperate. The way he’d reach for the closest bottle of whiskey if he could. The grip on it tightens, his thumb digging into the centre of the paper where your curled up form is edged into.

“Talk to me —“ he pleads your name.

…

“What’s the matter?” Dean jumps to his feet as the voice pops up next to him. He whips around. Eyes narrowed at the familiar Goddess.

“What do you want?” he growls. His free hand reaches for the colt while the other holds onto the only thing left of you and instinctively pulls it closer to chest.

Aradia’s perched on a large tombstone as she tilts her head down at him like an owl, “If you crumple her body’s vessel like that you’ll crack her bones.”

“What?”

“The card, you snivelling monkey.” She waves a hand his way. Dean stares at her. Befuddled. She sighs and rolls her silver glowing eyes behind her glasses. Hops off the tombstone like a school girl as she prances over to him with her pretty golden shoes.

“You’re clearly not as emotionally dense as you make yourself out to be.” Dean’s eyebrows furrow and he whips his colt up which makes her stop in her tracks.

“Shut the hell up and get her back!” he demands, his voice deep and still hoarse. Aradia cocks an eyebrow, unimpressed.

She steps up to him, her blond, curly hair bouncing with every step. Way too close for Dean’s taste as he backs up until his knee pits hit a tombstone.

She leans in, corners curled up into a sweet smile. Dean’s lips twitch in response. Not good. Way too close for a skeevy mother of all witches.

Her index pushes the barrel aside. Her piercing gaze boring into his.

“Now, now… we don’t want to put any unnecessary holes into our contract.”

Dean narrows his eyes. But he knows she’s right. The witch-killing bullets would hardly be enough to make her flinch. Reluctantly he lowers the colt to his side.

She nods approvingly.

Her long fingernail trails along his arm, runs down his chest, and Dean’s hand curls into a tight fist around the gun’s grip. The anger flickers through every muscle that jumps under the force of his clenched jaw.

“Keep your damn germs to yourself.”

A chuckle skips off her pursed lips. “One would think you’d be a little more grateful. I’m willing to make you a new offer…”

She taps his nose - he startles, open-mouthed, a row of appalled curses forming on his lips - but she silences him when in the same motion her finger flicks against the edge of the card still in his hand.

Fucking hoodoo.

Sparks fly off the corner, like she just struck a match… with her oozing black-gold-glittery fingernail. His eyes widen as he watches in befuddlement, how your pictured form begins to squirm into the card nook while the burnt upper corner spreads in slow-motion.

Well. At least you’re moving. Means you’re still somewhere alive in there… right?

She snaps his attention from the now smouldering edge back to her.

“Want her body back and another chance on a certain someone’s other missing part?” The Goddess asks, then smiles knowingly as she continues, “Then find your lucky star.”

My lucky star..? Like Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars?

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” But she ignores him and turns on her heels. Dean’s desperation grows, mixing with anger as he bellows after her. “Hey! At least tell me what I’m looking for!”

She stops, turns to face him as she pushes her glasses back before she gives him that look his teachers always would.

“Oh but that’s part of the lesson, Winchester. Be grateful for it.”

“Hold on– Damn it!” Dean curses out loud as she vanishes into thin air right in front of him. Colt still gripped tightly in one hand, the card with you on it in his other.

He looks down at your image. How you’re cowering in one corner as the card smoulders at the other, almost imperceptibly, like a silent countdown. His teeth clench, cursing inwardly this time.

“Hang in there, sweetheart…” he mutters before he carefully shoves the tarot card into his jacket’s inside pocket.

Dean makes his way back to Baby, which is parked at the end of the narrow path of the graveyard. He wants to fish out the car keys from his pants pockets – when his eyebrows furrow in confusion.

“What the…” he pats down his front and back pockets. His green eyes widen in panic before they snap around the place in search of them.

Across from him and his Impala, sits a black cat on one of the square tomb stones. Its tail flicks as their eyes lock.

It greets him with a soft, muffled meeeow.

Then Dean’s focus is pulled down to the creature’s open mouth.

There it is. Hanging from between the feline’s teeth.

Baby’s keys.

“How did you –” his breath catches in his throat when it tugs the keys back between its jaws.

“Whoa- o-okay, okay, easy… c’mere kitty, kitty…” he holds his hands up in a placating gesture while he takes a slow step towards it.

The cat startles, then begins to chew on it. Dean instantly freezes up.

“Don’t…” he warns and perhaps his tone came off a tinge too aggressive, “Don’t you friggin’ dare –”

Gulp.

Dean’s face drops. “Oh you gotta be kiddin’ me.”

The next moment he lunges for the black cat. It tries to leap off the tombstone and make a break for it but Dean is quicker. He scruffs it, ignoring its hissing and thrashing.

Then shakes it like a Polaroid picture.

“Spit it out!” he yells in a mixture of panic and disbelief, “C’mon! Spit it out! Gimmi back my baby!!”

But the key’s long gone to the belly. The cat meows desperately while being rattled left and right, your golden eyes searching his in vain.

Damn it! Dean, it’s me!

EDIT NOTE: For anyone who saw my side note in brackets and was scratching their head 😂… It was 5 AM and I was dead on my feet when I posted this and forgot to delete it. Lmao I’m sorry, please just ignore all my weird wording and typos I haven’t found yet 💀

Dean Tag List:

@aylacavebear @jc-winchester @ambiguous-avery @bettystonewell @lyarr24 @ladysparkles78 @v1v1-3 @maddie0101 @livya99 @supernotnatural2005 @Ms-kayla-readinglover @youdontknowe @zepskies @waynes-multiverse @123passwort @lamentationsofalonelypotato @my-stories-vault

@champagnepoets @salemslostwitch @chevroletdean @multiversefanfics @toxicfataldestiny @sunnys-struggles @kimxwinchester @nesnejwritings

[artificialcaretaker]

HERE’S HOW WE CAN STILL WIN GUYS-

[thewertsearch]

@krixwell asked: I think it's general theory summary o'clock. Broadly, what are your expectations for the rest of Act 5 and its ending?

I'm a little late answering this one - but hey, better late than never!

I can't predict the rest of the Act anymore, but I can try and predict the ending. Here are my predictions for what'll happen in Cascade, organized by character.

Rose & Dave

The Derse twins, who have dispatched DD together, meet Aradia at the Green Sun. The Tumor detonates as planned, but Aradia is able to save them somehow, possibly by spiriting them away with time travel...

...or, by telling them how she cheated death.

Aradia was able to resurrect herself without a backup body, from a pedestal hidden within the moon of Derse; the very moon the kids are currently piloting. Doc Scratch has already hinted that Rose might ascend on 'another quest bed somewhere', and I think this is how she - and Dave - could do it.

If Rose and Dave died destroying the Sun, it would almost certainly count as Heroic – but that doesn't actually matter. If the twins die on Quest Slabs, they won't die as God Tiers - they'll die as mortals, and resurrect as God Tiers. They should reincarnate safely, as the Sun collapses for good.

The Meteor Crew

To be honest, I don't think the trolls will have much of a role to play in the endgame. All the action is happening in the kids' session, and now that the Scratch has started, they can't even contact that session.

In any case, these kids are planning to follow the Green Sun's explosion to a predetermined rendezvous point. I'm not sure how they're going to get there - but Kanaya is a wielder of the Space Aspect, so maybe it's her time to shine.

...I mean, shine even more brightly than she already does.

Jack

After he absolutely kills CD, Jack is destined to travel to the troll session, but I still have no idea how. Perhaps the dimensional instability created by the Scratch will start to rip holes into other sessions, and he’ll be lured into one? Who knows.

I'm as stumped as I ever was. Only one way to find out, I guess!

John

Once he's triggered the Scratch, this kid's going to need an out. He'll need to make himself scarce in order to avoid being erased...

...or, perhaps he won’t. Perhaps, as the Heir of Breath, he’ll be able to use the Breeze to conceal himself from whatever force is destroying the session, the same way he hid his scent from Jack.

Either way, he'll probably be fine, while the same cannot be said for...

Jade

The greatest of Fs for our girl. Jade's been killed in an extremely tense situation, without leaving much hope for her resurrection before the Scratch.

The Sprites are still around, but I don’t know how they’d revive her- like, sure, Nanna has a healing beam, but I don’t think she can heal death. Plus, Jade made a Choice with Echidna to locate her Final Frog - and it seems that accepting a Choice will inevitably lead you to sacrifice your life. If Jade's death was immediately undone, would it really count as a sacrifice?

I don't want to call it too early, but... it isn't out of the question that Jade is gone for good. Especially when she's already got a replacement, waiting in the wings.

Jadesprite

I think it's genuinely possible that Jadesprite could take over Jade's role as one of the 'main' four kids.

She's about to lose her First Guardian powers, but she should still have time to fulfil Echidna's request in her realself's stead, simply by shrinking the entire session, and teleporting it to the Furthest Ring, where her allies can captchalogue it. Hell, this would be easy for her.

I really, really don't want Jade to be dead. But, well... she made a Choice.

The Endgame

Finally, we see the consequences of the Green Sun’s destruction, which I’m sure are as cataclysmic as they are unexpected. Rose realizes how badly she was played, as Scratch's full hand is finally revealed. All of Paradox Space shakes from the impact. Scratch and Snowman die, and English consumes the troll universe.

Everyone meets up on the exiled Lands, and they resolve to travel to the reset session, once it’s spawned.

Act 6?

After we're done, I’m hoping for the Guardians-as-Players to get the Hivebent treatment – by which I mean, I’m hoping Act 6 gives us the full story of the Scratched session, right from kid Nanna standing in her bedroom. It’s also possible, though, that we’ll join their session in medias res, as our protagonists' teenage parents face hitherto unknown challenges in a new Medium. I'll talk more about my specific predictions for the Guardian session in their own post, once Act 5 has fully concluded.

The adventure continues, as the kids slowly realize that English, and the Paradox Space twisted to suit his ends, is the true enemy, and they begin to make plans to confront him directly.

[conceptofjoy]

Hi I don't understand what you mean with the jake code posting, can you explain what you mean? I am SO close to getting it but my brain refuses to understand

ok so forgive me for not being able to pull every source for what im gonna say, because theres like. a lot lol. so jake's role as The Supreme Father Abraxas, parallel to LE and scratch simultaneously is symbolically represented by both his green and white colors.

lets start with this earlier panel as a baseline. jade sleeps while her bed post transmits data for her awake dreambot to act out/execute tasks

this formula is switched up through out the comic a ton, but focusing on jake (and dirk), there is a lot of confusing ways this manifests.

you can see the same language is used in "the prince is awake. your shit is wrecked/the brobot is awake and active".

where dirk receives information from varies, but it all ultimately funnels in from AR's suggestion for the executable Dirk: Talk to alien. he then gets pointers from callie to listen to the outer gods which then leads to all that happening. brobot "zombie(s) the fuck out" when jake smashes his shades in the flash, so where is his input coming from?

fast forward to when jake gets knocked the fuck out. peep the way the glasses part of jake's computer is a dead 8 ball black and the bed posts aren't on. ok why the fuck did brobot zip off. sure it's a dream, but AR didn't exist then and- "No offense but I kind of get the same smartass vibe from you as i do from the responder." oh okay.

one more thing.

blue team derse, and red team prospit. while jade is green, her dreaming self is ALSO a representation of the bedpost. when her dream self dies, her dreambot explodes (same shit with aradia). jake's dream self is dead, but dirk's dream self is blue. brain ghost dirk is red and is also jake's proxy dream self. which is an insane thing to say. this also explains why hal and bgd have an overlap of knowledge they shouldn't be able to know about, and bgd's ability to become alpha dirk when dirk becomes unconscious. <i could elaborate on that some other time

WHY THE FUCK IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE. jake's green. he's an empty (page) punch card that can be filled with any lines of code to be made into something else.

in the void, everyone has white eyes, parallel to hussie's white eyes. the void is made up of dream bubbles that remix everyone's experiences and becomes stages for the dead to create what they want. JAKE on the other hand, can just do that shit within the story, overwriting everyone's fucking authority when he's doped up on hope. he can do literally anything as long as he manifests it by narrating it, and has the conviction to do so. but within homestuck, he takes preexisting code he's able to get transmitted to him (bgd), and runs it through his own terminal (himself)

[kat-of-seventy-seven-roses]

Homestuck Mythical Creature au / Cryptid Au

Very tempted to make an ask blop :p need to see if anyones inch rested

thought processes under the cut (bc some choices are wild)

Johns a pooka, an irish fae trickster who shapeshifts into animals. his favorite form is the bunny. john and jane are both fae, so their pranks range from harmless to mentally scaring to life altering. absolute chaos grimlins. dirk is also an irish myth, so he knows them well and is often trying to get them to not ruin the local population of humans. so they do pranks on him insted. john loves to steal dirks head and hide it places.

rose speaks to the eldritch horrors and is slowly becoming one herself. she wants to become a litch.

Dave is a harpy! a very chill one who doesn't tend to sing with his full chest, so people dont start crashing into his doorstep. dave dies in some magic accident that caused davesprite to rise up from the ashes. but dave harpy is ALSO fine no ones really sure how. may have been roses doing.

Jade is a werewolf obv. but shes also a witch and has formed a coven with rose and roxy.

Jane is ur avrage fae faerie/sprite. her favorite fae rule to get people to break is "dont eat their food."

Roxy is both a cat who is also a wizard i need not elaborate

Dirk is a headless horseman. not to be confused with THE headless horse man. thats another dullhan with a well paying halloween gig. dirk is often subject to losing his head, so he made a magic pumpkin to pilot the body when this happens. he does have a very large and scary but beautiful horse.

Jake is the bigfoot. and one of the most well hunted (and well travled) cryptids. thus, his friends often make jokes of not ever seeing him except in blurry images. its not his fault hes very large and loves to travel! and is also not very photogenic...

Aradia is a monthra!!! however she made a deal with a devil and became a ghost... not sure WHY yet or why it kills her. but it does. its all in her plan or smth, but that doesnt stop sollux from being very upset that hes the one that has to take and keep her soul. she is reserected later by the coven, still soulless but it doesnt matter bc her soul is in good hands and thus she still feels it. shes much happier now.

Tavros is a minotar self explanatory he is a small minotar, tho. a mini minotar if u will.

Sollux is ur run of the mill soul for potato chip demon. an excuse to give him twin tails and horns. him an kitkat gave me the most trouble! but then i went with a solkat devil angel motifi and im kinda attached t9 it now. even if its sorta a cop out. i simply couldnt find twin creatures that werent gods or children of gods. nor any crab creatures...

Karkat is an angel. he WAS human notably he was human for awhile even good friends with kanaya before he died. he never found love but helped so many with theres that he became an angel that was a lot like cupid. thus he was a small angel incharge of match making and also likened to a baby and hes very much NOT happy about this. it pisses him off, solluxs often gives him a hard time. about it. (extra angst is that kitkats also really fucked up about never knowing what love felt like but having to give it to others. and he has it in his head that that means he never will know, bc no ones matchmaking the matchmaker. but theres a song he hears everyonece anwhile by a stray harpy that makes him feel a lot lighter.)

Nepeta is my go to cat creature a nekomata. a two tailed cat yokai.

Kanaya is a vampire. obviously.

Terezi is a dragon! still blind! still licks. but can now transform and has wings, very scary. shes basiclly just her lusus lmao.

Vriska is a spider lady. i have arachne here bc its similar, but shes not arachne the myth proper. shes just a spider with the top part of a woman at the head. A Jorogumo a spider lady yokai and is basically actually what im picturing.

Equius is a centar and fuck if i ever have to draw him....

Gamzee is a clowwwn, just a clown, just a silly lil guy. What do you MEAN clowns arnt mythical creatures??? what do u mean u saw him under ur bed when you were a child? u must be mistaken. as a nod to ICPs boogieman. when gamzee is not high as a kite and is just a clown, he is one of the most terrifying and unkillable creatures known to children kind.

Eridan is a selkie. basiclly a mermaid but part seal. personally, I'd like to make him part seahorse. but not in the hippocampus way. i chose this bc he can shapeshift, thus he pretends to be a high elf sorcerer, yes he does get dunked on about this.

And finally, Feferi is a siren! who happens to be able to become very VERY **VERY** BIG. she doesnt lure people to drown them but she DOES love to keep live captives in cages :)

[mari-thesapphic-lady]

Hmm, I think (it's an idea for now) I'll kill another one of Agatha's children, just to keep her sharp.

AKA this draft that made me cry;

-

It shouldn’t be like this, Agatha thinks, watching her daughter slowly lose her light in her eyes. Aradia’s body is between her legs, her head resting on her chest, her breathing shallow and raspy. Her daughter murmurs about things being okay between her mothers.

That now they could be happy, be together, like it was before, and like she wanted it to be forever.

Rio... Rio is beside their daughter, her fingers gripping the girl’s hand tightly, her knuckles turning white, while her eyes are filled with pain, a pain that Agatha knows, but not in the brutal way that Rio ended up knowing.

When Nicky died, it was peaceful, Rio was gentle and took him in a moment of peace.

Aradia was bleeding to death. Each drop of her blood became a Tiger Lily that bloomed in the earth. It's almost poetic, the flower that gave her name, had adorned her grave. Agatha runs her hand through her dark curls, her blue eyes meeting her mother’s.

“Mama.” Aradia calls, not in that bright, cheerful tone she’s used since the day Agatha first saw her, small, lively, a little whirlwind of magic and smiles, just three years. She's far from the figure Agatha has become accustomed to. Her voice is shaky, but a faint smile spreads across her lips.

“Shh, shh, my wildflower. Mama's here, mami's here, spare your strength.”

Aradia's voice is low, almost inaudible, very unlike her sister's. Agatha can still hear her youngest daughter's screams, echoing in the back of her mind.

Abelia screamed with hatred dripping in every word, "It's your fault! This is your fault! You live in this damned mourning of yours, that you didn't even realize you were killing us! You killed my twin! Why, mama?! Why were we never enough for you?!"

Agatha's body trembled as those words echoed again, Abelia's brown eyes always returning to her mind, filled with tears and reflecting with anger. An anger that Agatha didn’t see growing in her own daughter.

Rio placed a hand on Aradia's cheek, wiping away the tears that were streaming down her face. She brought her daughter's hand to her lips and kissed her fingers.

Agatha sees Death lower her head, her shoulders shaking — her daughter, the one she carried, the one she gave birth to, is dying, and there’s nothing she can do. She can only wait, wait so she can take her soul to a better place.

Their daughter, ever stubborn, ignores her mother's request, and tilts her head up, her eyes meeting Agatha's again.

“Ey, mama. I’m sorry,” she says slowly, “I’m so sorry that, I couldn't be, the little boy you, love so much.”

[mindfang-srevenge]

Homestuck Trolls and Which TMA Entity They're Most Aligned With: A List By Static, with the STRONG NOTATION that this is not a diss track, just a general summation of thoughts

Karkat— Extinction. He's the mutation that heralds the end of the world. He's the mutation that dooms the world. His existence inspires the fear of the end of society, and the question of how that society could rebuild.

Vriska— Web. A gimme. Spider8itch is gonna spider8itch. She's literally got manipulation powers that-- if she would use them correctly-- would constantly invoke the fear that her friends had no free will, and were just following her orders.

Aradia— End. She takes on the job of reaper for the entire universe, there's no way her very presence doesn't inspire at least the knowledge or vibes of death in her friends. She's the ferrywoman of this universe, and more than that, she's an archaeologist. She takes an active interest in the dead and the gone. This girl's unnerving, and I adore her for it.

Sollux— Desolation. A man who's had everything taken from him, and taken from him again, and taken from him again. First with Aradia's death at his hands, then when he's killed trying to get his friends into the game, then when he gets incinerated by Jack, then when he's blinded by Eridan, then when he gives it all up to propel the ship across the yard, then when he-- you get the point. Sollux continually inspires, rather than the fear of death, the fear of total and utter loss. It's probably something to do with the Doom aspect, y'know.

Terezi— Eye. She who knows all, she who 'sees' all. She's adept enough at this job to be able to trace both the past and the future, to understand exactly where things went wrong even if she doesn't have the power to fix it herself. Good at predicting outcomes. All of these are eye traits.

Gamzee— Stranger, both because of the circus aesthetic and because of the fear of the 'other' that he inspires. He walks like their friend, he looks like their friend, he even kind of sounds like their friend-- but is it really him? Are they supposed to trust him, especially after what he did? There's something wrong here, there's something wrong about him, and he's a Stranger aboard their ship.

Eridan— Slaughter. He's constantly fulfilling the trait of 'mindless violence', after all, whether he's killing landdwellers or shooting angels or even killing his friends. He shoots first and asks questions later. He's actively thinking about genocide at almost all times. This man is a menace.

Nepeta— Hunt, which feels a little obvious. She's the stalking purredator. She's constantly RP'ing as a creature that would like no better than to play a lovely little game of cat and mouse. If she got more screentime and/or things to fight, I'm sure we could see many more examples of this in-text.

Equius— Lonely. Nobody really seems to like this man? I mean, for obvious reasons- he's kind of a creep-- but he lurks on the edges of the friend group, moreso even than Gamzee or Eridan. If he didn't live immediately next door to Vriska I'm not sure anyone but Nepeta would know him. He probably speaks to his robots more than any other troll, and he doesn't seem to particularly want to speak to anyone but Nepeta? Every conversation is so stilted, so formal, almost as if he doesn't know how to talk to people even if he did want to.

Feferi— Vast. Look, as a seadweller, she's a little more connected to the depths than most-- but she also can't leave the depths, forcing Eridan to do her hunting for her. Her lifespan is implied to be near-endless, judging from )(IC's. She's trapped on all sides by endlessness.

Tavros— Buried. Much in the way that Feferi is trapped by an expanse both around her and within her, Tavros is trapped on the ground despite his wishes. He's buried at the back of his friend group, the butt of the jokes. He's also figuratively buried by his self-doubt, which feeds into his role as Page. I feel . . . incredibly bad for this man.

Kanaya— Corruption. It's the Fear most associated with the bringing of new life, which both as a jadeblood and the protector of the Mothergrub Egg, she's deeply in tune with. Her lusus is also a winged bug-thing (mothergrub, shut up). Kanaya herself is a parasite on the other trolls, because she's a rainbow drinker.

[interrogatormentors]

BOOK 2: EVENT 6: Prosecutor's Gambit

One step out of the shower and Sollux already thought of two hundred different reasons why he should turn back from his intended course. Even after the water had scalded the blood and viscera from his flesh, his skin still felt tacky. Only when Aradia grabbed his wrist in a firm hold did he realize he’d buried his claws into the bandages covering his bad arm, trying to dig through the gauze to the healing flesh below. He could still feel stomach acid biting at his skin after digging around for any souvenirs left behind. “...The Surgeons have replaced blood with corrosives before,” he said lamely, but uncurled his fingers all the same. “I should go check.”

“Your skin looked the normal amount of messed up because you never get moonglow when we changed your dressings,” Aradia replied. She let Sollux’s wrist go as they continued walking down unfamiliar halls together. “Your beautiful bone structure will not get acid-washed unless under my supervision or permission! You’re making excuses.”

“Making excuses implies–”

“That you’re scared?” Aradia cocked her head, the slow blink of her lashes almost audible as Sollux pursed his lips. “The big bad interrogatormentor is trying to skedaddle, it seems like. The Sk’dadler, they’ll call you.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“Good thing you’ve got freakishly long arms, then, even if one’s in a sling!” Aradia’s expression fell back into one more serious, the smile dropping from her eyes before it left her lips. “You need to do this. Interrogatormentors found the base, looking for you, and you can’t afford to be on the defensive right now.”

“I’m not the only target. What if they decide the homicidal time bomb is more trouble than it’s worth?”

Aradia reached up, grabbing one of his ears in a sharp pinch that sent a shock down his spine. She grinned, tombstone teeth bared in even rows as she gave him a disciplinary shake like a naughty woofbeast and not a loaded gun. “Then I get a free show as not getting your intel blows up in their faces.”

“They’re your people too. You want them to fail?”

“Our people deserve to fail if they won’t listen to you, Sollux,” Aradia said. She let go of his ear, metal fingers lingering a moment on his jaw as if she couldn’t tell he was moments from biting after manhandling him so carelessly. “A rebellion is all about risks, and you’re one that Karkat and I will take over and over again.” She raised a finger up, and Sollux snapped his mouth shut after starting to protest. “I wish you weren’t so hard on yourself. I saw you. Some things never change. You’re not getting pity points by saying you don’t deserve attention! Karkat might hand those out for free, but I won’t.”

Sollux avoided Aradia’s accusatory scowl, focusing instead on trying to hunch his shoulders in and minimize himself as they passed a random rebellion member who stared openly as they passed. His bad shoulder no longer clicked in its socket, discomfort now localized to his reconstructed hand.  “You’re both too good for me.”

“So many ears and you still can’t listen. Cliches won’t appease me–you have to come play in the dirt with me.” Aradia stopped outside a door, the only one in the hall that had a keypad. She entered in the code with her hand slightly cupped to shield it directly from Sollux’s eye before heading into a room that was thick with voices and agitated pheromones. Sollux himself hovered on the doorway, hesitating. Aradia and Karkat had ruined him; fear wrapped around his neck like a snare that he could not kick his way out of.

“...cannot afford to rush things. Insisting like you are–” Kanaya said from her seat partway down a long table, while Feferi massaged her temples with her eyes closed at the very head opposite the door.

An indigo interrupted her by raising his fist with full intent to slam it into the table, only for Nepeta to fling herself from the opposite side and worm her way under the approaching fist. The indigo’s hand faltered a millimeter above her skull, and Nepeta demurely batted at the quivering fist with the expression of a smug meowbeast knowing it had gotten away with pilfering the pantry. Equius, then, Sollux surmised. The hand came to rest on Nepeta’s face, and she gnawed at his steel-sculpted fingers as he spoke. “Waiting begets complacency. That pissant convinced us–Nepeta, please, some decorum would be appreciated.”

“Apurreciated but denied!” Nepeta chirped. “Quit being a shitsand dirtscraper first.”

“A shi… A–” Equius blustered.

Next to him at the table Vriska fucking Serket made an audible gagging noise, leaning as far as possible on her seat without falling backwards by some misbegotten miracle. A flicker of spite scurried up Sollux’s spine, itching at the wrist around which Aradia’s makeshift bracelet and urging him to remove it to psionically yank the chair completely out from under the smarmy cerulean. She opened her mouth to speak and every muscle in Sollux’s body tensed, a yellow film creeping across the edges of his vision like sickly clingfilm as his pusher began thundering panicked fury that he thought interrogatormentor training had long since locked away. A tunnel yawned open and stretched before him, and Vriska burned bright at the end of it as the walls threatened another cave-in like the one she’d coerced him to bury Aradia under so many sweeps ago.

A hand burst forth from the rubble and alighted upon his clenched jaw, and though it held none of her old warmth the prosthetic digits could not disguise Aradia’s touch. Sollux inhaled sharply through his nose, and the room’s occupants went silent just in time for him to reorient himself with Aradia’s hand at the center of his focus. He curled his uninjured hand into a fist to dig his nails into his palm to further ground himself and prevent this brazen display to fluster him, but to his dismay Aradia sussed out his usual tricks and quietly unfurled his spindly digits joint by joint. Sollux was forced to acknowledge the whole table without a lifeline of pain to shield his emotions, and even Karkat sitting opposite a startled-looking bronze with sweeping wings joined the mass of people pinning him down with their combined gaze. 

Eight people filled the eleven seats arranged around the table, as Nepeta’s abdication of her throne to menace her moirail table-surfing style meant the ninth stood temporarily empty. A twelfth chair covered by a dusty sheet brooded in a neglected corner. No evidence of the dust being disturbed surrounded the shrouded chair–one of the two missing members from the foundational core of rebellion leaders was expected to return, and the fact bronzeblood Tavros Nitram sat between Feferi at the head and Gamzee on his right at a table otherwise following a hemospectrum adherent seating chart told Sollux all he needed about who that was.

A familiar click of the tongue against teeth echoed around the room, and Sollux couldn’t help the way his ears flicked back behind him to try and catch further evidence of Pozoia’s imminent approach before he registered Terezi as the source. The tealblood bared her teeth in a knife-sharp grin, blind eyes boring holes into Sollux’s exposed throat from behind her shades. “Well, well, well, the rabid attack woofbeast of the Empire rouses from his daymares just in time for his trial. Have you got a tight grip on Appleberry Blast’s leash there, little bell pepper?”

“I mean, this could just stay a discussion,” Tavros said, raising his hands in a placating gesture as Karkat started vibrating in his seat. “I don’t think antagonizing–”

“Tavros is right,” Feferi said, also holding out a hand to Karkat. Tavros grimaced, but otherwise allowed the interruption. “We weren’t getting anywhere. Should we take a brief reefcess so I can glub with Aradia here?”

“You keep speaking our language and then managing to say absolutely nothing,” Terezi said, rapping her cane arythmically against the surface in front of her. “Say what you want to say before the jury!”

“Oh my gooooooood, you really are a broken record,” Vriska groaned, craning her head back towards Terezi. “Little pipsqueak wouldn’t survive a second in your wigglerfeed courtroom, this is true, but you can’t just bulldoze your way into that kind of snoozefest. We all deserve to participate in ripping that loser a new one for barging in on us.”

“Every drama needs a peanut gallery,” Terezi snipped back, and Vriska scoffed. Feferi smiled tensely, but her eyelid twitched.

“Sollux can speak for himself,” Aradia said shortly before the fuschiablood could speak. “And he’ll do it at the seat we saved for him.” She slid her hand down Sollux’s face to lead him by the wrist around the table to the two empty seats, located between Nepeta’s vacated seat and Karkat. The mutant’s claws were currently digging into the table with a creaking of metal that had Equius automatically doing a glance over of his own place at the table with hooded eyes. Finding his section undented, he took a sip from the glass Nepeta handed to him before she slithered back across the table to her proper place. Everyone else had water, a few pitchers sitting in the middle of the table to refresh them, but cloudy white swirled within Equius’ glass. The liquid left a gritty film on Equius’ lip that he dabbed away with the back of his knuckles as he made direct, glowering eye contact with Sollux as the latter rounded the outskirts of the room with Aradia. Powdered milk, then. 

Sollux didn’t blink, muscle memory snapping him up into an interrogatormentor’s posture while his shoulders and head dropped by a few degrees–a predator two steps removed from a wild howlbeast sizing up prey as it stalked through the flickering shadows of a dying campfire. Equius’ nostrils flared a bit and Sollux mimicked him instinctively, head cocking very slightly to the side and down. He adjusted his gait and shifted his weight forward so he stalked silently alongside Aradia upon the balls of his feet and towered above the seated trolls he passed behind. Kanaya watched him ghost along out of the corner of her eye, and even Vriska tensed across the way when an interrogatormentor’s shade passed before her. 

Sollux remained steadfast as friends and conspirators now flinched with every purposeful twitch of his ears, his own eyes stinging as he needled his gaze into the bloodshot eyes squinting accusatorily at him behind cracked frames. He couldn’t back down now. Equius' chin dipped down by an increment, a refusal to relent and a hair’s breadth from a goring posture. Sollux stayed the course and copied him in an almost simultaneous motion. Equius wore his heart upon his sweaty bicep–he never could resist the predictable chorus set in the siren song of blueblooded posturing even through text. Here and now, Sollux had to win this highblood’s obvious challenge, the call to submit as he should by virtue of the swill in his veins. He couldn’t show weakness in this moment, not to anyone, not with what was at stake and nestled in his pocket. One of the many globules of sweat beading the indigo’s hairline rolled down his crooked nose, dropping into his cup.

The surface tension of the milk broke with a soft plip that echoed in the silent room, and Equius’ fist clenched around the glass. Slivers of silver traced their way up the cup in a delicate network of straining material. Nepeta ducked under the table, while Vriska and Gamzee on either side of Equius raised their hands protectively in practiced tandem. Sollux stopped in place and braced even as Aradia tugged insistently at him, his eyes watering and blinking wide as Equius rotated his shoulder in a clear bid to throw the rapidly splintering glass leaking milk through his meaty fingers directly at Sollux’s vulnerable ganderbulbs. Sollux stood firm. He couldn’t blink. Not now. Not yet.

Tch. Equius blinked and looked down the table, and the broken stalemate freeing Sollux to cringe away from the tongue click behind Aradia’s shoulder as if to shield himself in her unruly curls. Vriska tittered behind her hand, casting a smug expression to the repeat offender next to her. Terezi sniffed but did not so much as tip an ear the cerulean’s direction to acknowledge the attention, instead leaning forward in her seat towards Sollux’s approximate location. Her tongue flickered out from between her dagger teeth–a musing, reptilian probing of the cortisol-charged air as she tried to gauge his response to her stunt. Sollux held his breath to stifle the way his breath shuddered out from his lungs, falling back on Rapard’s training in suppressing his stress pheromones after repeated trips to the ice bath. The cold crept along his brainstem, freezing his panic into a knife he no longer knew how to wield against himself. It pressed up against the back of his eyes, a migraine slanting along its serrated blade with glacial inevitability.

Aradia managed to get Sollux moving again with a hand on the small of his back, and the instant he stepped into range Karkat clung to his good arm. The scarletblood ushered Sollux into the seat right next to him as he growled deep in his throat across the table to the cadre of coolbloods gathered together, ears pinned flat to his skull. He kept side-eying Sollux however, for all his bluster just as thrown off by Sollux’s presence as the other trolls around the table. Bewildered irritation flashed across Feferi’s face despite her best efforts to maintain a smile, but Aradia ignored this and the way Sollux leaned back very slightly in a toothless attempt to distance himself. Instead she simply brushed some clinging dust off of the seat to Sollux’s left before sitting there herself.

Nepeta wormed her way up from under the furniture to squiggle into Equius’ lap, plucking the cup away from him and chugging what milk remained before flurrying his sweat-sticky cheek with furious pitter-paps. His scowl softened, granite melting to ashy marble for a moment. Something twisted deep in Sollux, wrenching his intestines into knots that sent bile bubbling at the back of his throat, and he tugged his arm free of Karkat’s hold. 

Finally, Aradia broke the awkward silence. “Right! Let me fill in the blanks here for you, Sollux. We’re still on the topic of if you can be trusted.”

Kanaya lifted her eyes to the ceiling as if praying for patience, while a few other trolls shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Feferi’s tense smile dropped. “Aradia–”

“Don’t ‘Aradia’ me, Feferi Peixes,” Aradia snapped back. She lifted her head, chin up just enough to maintain a level of respectful civility while not yet exposing her throat. “This isn’t about me! Let Sollux defend himself. He actually has something important–”

“Does he want to?” Feferi tilted her head very slightly back all the same, hollow of her throat exposed to Aradia in a genuine bid gesture of appeasement to soften her query’s bite. She waited, fins fanning her face. Terezi clicked her tongue again in the background, and Sollux’s pan reset once again as he scrambled to put the right words in place only for them to die in the cocoon.

Gamzee leaned forward. “Come on, then. No need to be all motherfucking shy, my spindly little blade-brother. Long as you keep your motherfucking sparks under control I don’t see why everyone’s gotta be so wound tight. I’d like to see if you’ve still got your chops when it comes to motherfucking chopping. We got a few tough nuts we need to motherfucking crack, so let’s see if you break first.”

Sollux forced his jaw to unclench. “If I got to work on your prisoners you wouldn’t have anything left of them.”

Feferi sighed as a good number of the others tensed, dry gills fluttering in the recycled air. Her chin lowered. “He’s been through a lot, Aradia. I didn’t even minnow he was awake yet. Don’t you think this is a bit cruel?”

“Cruelty is a bit subjective here, is it not?” Kanaya asked, addressing the ceiling. She lowered her eyes, lips pressed together in a thin line. “Sollux proved himself very capable when he managed to hack into our network in order to contact you.”

Sollux bristled, leaning forward and opening his mouth–it hadn’t been hard, really, considering that he’d coded the network to be his mirror back before the helm–only for Karkat to pipe up then. He hadn’t looked at Sollux since the latter had pulled out of his grip. “Do I need to fucking remind everyone that he got absolutely fucking wrecked for it? How much more do I need to rub the solid facts in your face like a mistrained woofbeast for you to remember? Do I need the fucking receipts? The literal scans of his nearly deboned nub? You were all on board for extracting him in the first place, and you were all made thoroughly aware of the many potential risks of rehabilitating him, and you committed with a merry fucking by your leave as you left me and Aradia to reassemble the expansive jigsaw that is our erstwhile companion now returned to us. What could have possibly changed now? We’re talking in such tight fucking circles that it’s going to catch my bulge in a vice and leave me fucking hurling up putrescent bloodclots by the trough-full before the night’s over.”

Gamzee’s head bobbed very slowly, and he yawned once before drawling out, “Sir Motherfucker was found elbow-deep in interrogatormentor gore, that’s what motherfuckin’ changed for those gathered here this light-lean night.” The purple swayed in place, tilting from one side to the next with the same inconsistent timing as his shifting opinions. He leaned his head in his hand while an index finger idly swirled the grease paint at the corner of his mouth into a tight smile-spiral. They’d all been arguing in this room for a while for his sealant to fade enough for him to do so. “Looks like he tried to motherfucking dance to the empirical drumbeat behind your back without knowing all the steps and panicked when it broke bad.”

Vriska splayed her fingers on the table as she leered at Karkat. “Was it behind his back though? Drama queen bee had to get his cuff off somehow.”

The knife twisted into Sollux’s eye socket, infuriated headache spiking further pain through his pan. Karkat sputtered, saying something that Sollux didn’t catch. Vriska had rolled her eyes in response to the mutant, one good eye and one cybernetic settling their disrespectful arc to lock Sollux in place. Cobalt threads of mindscourging tried to worm their way into his corneas like parasitic hookworms. Confess embroidered itself across the back of his eyelids, just in time for yet another trigger-click of Terezi’s tongue.

Sollux flung himself from his seat, catching his chair with his good hand as he vaulted onto the table and attempting to fling it over his head with his forward momentum. Vriska cursed under her breath and raised her metal arm to block the incoming projectile. Karkat let out a startled yelp, grabbing onto Sollux’s ankle, and while Sollux managed to kick him away the chair’s clumsy trajectory still wobbled wide. Nepeta hissed and rolled off to the side  as Equius stood. One huff and a settling of his weight, and Equius threw a haymaker that rendered the chair to fragments of wood that rained down around him in a swirl of sawdust.

Equius pointed at Sollux, hair falling into his eyes as he snarled, “You see this? You see how the little brute shows his true colors after I pressed him with such strong–”

“You pressed him?” Vriska said, an indignant flush rising up her cheeks. “Leave it to the muscle pervert to talk a biiiiiiiig fucking talk about knowing his damn place beneath the ladies but taking credit whenever he can.”

Equius sputtered. “I wasn’t– No, you know I. Um. Underneath. Hgkkhg.” Nepeta emerged from the aether again, holding a towel that she proceeded to drape around her moirail’s shoulders. She stuck her tongue out at Vriska, who squinted with a sneer blademeowbeast-style as she wiggled her fingers at Equius.

 “Hhhhng,” he continued helpfully as he attempted to stem the flow of sweat by dabbing at his face.

Karkat squeezed something akin to a scream from between his teeth. “Great, now he’s going to get his wiggly-sproutsmear all over the floor. We are going to drown in vile milk-scented blue slurry for perigees and it will never fucking escape the crevices of my very thinkpan without a generous amount of abrasive cleaning solution. Great! Always grateful for you, Vriska, you are a credit to the fucking team, are you happy now?”

“Yes,” Vriska purred.

Karkat let out a peal of frantic laughter. “Hooray! By the Helmsman’s necrotic left globe, we are not about to support women’s wrongs here–”

“Just did, little buddygrub.”

“—especially not after you clearly provoked, fuck, both of them. Let it be known by the present fucking peanut gallery that it was very, very pointedly masterminded by our resident spiderbitch! Fuck me sideways with the business end of a rust-infested leafscraper if you resent my heretical sludge so fucking much, Serket!”

“Ew, no.”

“Shut up. Sollux, get down from there. You’ve done enough.” His voice cracked a little bit, shaking the frost from Sollux’s rage and leaving him quivering. Sollux retreated, dropping to a knee to clamber down from the table with his tail between his legs, but Terezi rapped her cane on the table and hopped up onto it.

“We eat off of this,” Kanaya said, a long-suffering sigh drawing her mouth into a resigned frown. 

“The memory of feet isn’t going to throw me off a delicious ration cube,” Terezi said. She advanced on Sollux, a familiar prowling that echoed the stance she’d never seen–the way Sollux had circled the table mere minutes before to menace Equius. “Besides, we’ve got a more important task! Permission to treat this as a formal court hearing, oh Heiress of the Planets Above and Below?”

Feferi looked between Terezi and Sollux, worrying her lip with her teeth as her attention lingered on Sollux. “Shore, why naut? Does everyone agree to the terms that would fintail?”

Murmured assent rose from the trolls assembled around the table, with Karkat and Aradia being the main oppostion, and Terezi clapped her hands together once the votes came in. “Then allow me to formally thank you so much, first witness Sollux Captor, for taking the stand. Welcome! To!” She spun in place, brandishing her arms wide before lowering her cane to point somewhere above Sollux’s right shoulder. “The trial of Karkat Vantas!”

The table erupted with protests, but all the bluster washed over Sollux’s head. His knee creaked as he continued half-kneeling, but Terezi’s words lay outside expected parameters–his synapses fired against nothing and locked his limbs in place. Vriska rolled her eyes with an audible clicking of the prosthetic in its socket and stretched out her leg as she let out a squeaky yawn. She kicked out her foot against Terezi’s elbow, tipping the cane down to point past Sollux to Karkat proper. Terezi hummed, a disharmonious grating against Sollux’s aural canals, waiting for a lull before lifting her voice to slice through the din.

“In this corner, shoulder to shoulder with the Heiress and a lemon-sour flight risk sits the defendant Karkat Vantas–” she said, rotating in place to address the entire table. “--who is formally charged by my client Vriska Serket–”

Vriska scoffed. “I’m not paying you.” 

Sollux’s lip twitched up to flash a fang at her. “Get pro-boned then.”

Terezi cackled, ruined eyes squinted into ruby slits as Sollux withdrew at last to his seat. “Ah you forget, Appleberry, working pro bono implies I’m doing this for a public good.” Vriska let out an offended gasp in the background behind Terezi’s back as the latter continued on. “So we will see where the coin flip lands.” She waggled her head back from one shoulder to the other to accentuate her next few syllables. “A-ny-ways, client number eight–”

Tavros whispered behind his hand, and Sollux’s ears twitched to catch him as he said, “...a bit forced isn’t it?” to Gamzee who nodded to an imaginary beat with his eyes closed.

Terezi continued. “—accuses the defendant of aiding and abetting the Empire against which we all fight by facilitating former Interrogatormentor Sollux Captor’s escape from his psionic cuffs by providing him…” She trailed off, holding a hand out to prompt Vriska.

Vriska shrugged. “The key?” 

“The key. Interesting.” Terezi’s needle-spiked sneer widened. “To do what? We have a means proposed, not a motive–and so the interrogation must continue!”

Sollux sucked in a harsh breath and held it. Karkat finally found his voice, a snarl deep in his throat warping his words into guttural grit. “Don’t think I’m not onto you, Pyrope,” he said, side-eying Sollux. “You seem to operate under the assumption that I am as dense as I was as the pathetic, malformed grublet of six sweeps. I am not! And I swear to the malformed baabeast you’ve coerced into gutting itself to try and tug its dripping pelt over my fucking ganderbulbs, back off before I shove that cane of yours through your nook so far up your throat you’ll be tasting ripped up genebladder and red cane for a whole perigee.”

“Thought you were over trying to be onto me, little shoutnub,” Terezi said. Karkat screamed into his hands, almost drowning out the tealblood’s boisterous peals of laughter. Vriska booed as Terezi pulled a scuffed coin from her pocket, flicking it head-over-tailways between her fingers. “I don’t need much longer anyways.”

The heels of Terezi’s eye-searingly red boots clicked on the table as she advanced on Karkat. She rustled around in a pocket, whatever objects she was retrieving gently clacking against each other. Behind Terezi, Gamzee cracked an eye open as a baggie of mismatched pills plopped onto the table. A few capsules escaped their plastic prison, spinning out haphazardly. One rolled to the edge and Sollux cupped his hand, catching it before it dropped out of sight.

Terezi’s ears, already at an automatic angle, flicked forward when no telltale click of pills hitting the ground reached them. She sniffed, turning her head. “I now call the witness Sollux Captor to the stand. Share with the court your findings.”

Sollux snorted, but took a cursory look at the nondescript pill in his hand. He lifted the pill to his lips, but Aradia’s hand shot out to stop him before he could bring it properly to his lips. He made direct eye contact with her as his forked tongue flickered out, closing the gap and making brief contact with the pills surface. His nose wrinkled up, and he flicked the pill back onto the table with its fellows after Aradia relinquished his wrist. “That one’s a mood stabilizer. I don’t know what the others are. They’re all illegal as fuck.”

Terezi let out a noise that mimicked a very loud incorrect buzzer. “Eeeeehrrrrrt! So close, buddy. You forgot those things are dual-purpose. Rookie mistake. Super right on the illegality front, though. You would not believe the red tape surrounding those things.”

“I’m not your buddy.”

“From buddy to buzzkill, okay! Well, little buzzy beeboy–”

“I had a bee-powered rig. Doesn’t make me like bees.”

“Those fuckers are annoying,” Karkat muttered under his breath.

Sollux blinked, looking over to him. “Are?”

“We! Are! Getting! Sidetracked!” said Terezi, punctuating each word with her cane slamming down into the table. 

“You took us on the detour first, Terezi,” Feferi said. “Please get to the point.” Her attempt at a civil, apologetic smile audibly creaked against itself as she gritted her teeth.

 “The point, Bubblegum Fishstick, is that Docterror Dzuvir informed me that even with my status as the once and future prosecutefence he wasn’t allowed to state who took this cocktail of antispasmodics, painkillers, and a mood stabilizer that has a secondary function as an anticonvulsant.” Terezi made a point to peer over her glasses, blind eyes almost making contact with Sollux’s. The lilt to her voice dropped, leaving behind a barren plane of judgement as she nudged the pill bag with her foot. “But I think that paints a pretty picture, doesn’t it?”

“Quit your convoluted as fuck pan-games, Pyrope,” Karkat hissed. “As riveting as it is to watch you verbally wiggle-wank yourself to fucking completion in front of whatever dead god that peers through the fucking veil in one last final act of voyeurism that it deigns to share with everyone gathered here, you’re just spewing loose information like a headless cluckbeast spasming for the masses. Why do you even fucking have–”

“A lot of bluster from the accused who happens to oversee the vast majority of our supply and personnel chains, including being the one to make judgement calls on the allocation of medical supplies. I found those pills in your block, Vantas. Very incriminating, isn’t it?” 

“I’ve never seen those before in my fucking life,” Karkat said. The words caught in his throat, and if Sollux didn’t know better he’d think the scarletblood sounded afraid.

“Neither have I.” Terezi’s now-toneless drone echoed in the room, ringing in Sollux’s ears. She crouched atop the table in front of Karkat, for all intents and purposes focusing on him, but her tongue snaked out to moisten the corner of her mouth closest to Sollux with her ears pricked in his direction as well. “Blind jokes aside, I have been patient. In the eyes of a proper Imperial court, I’ve been positively kind! I gave you a lot of grace, but such attempts to defend one’s self and speak in court is categorically banned here as it would be in the Alternian Court Circuit. Social convention steals from the law with impunity and those assembled voted on treating this as a proper hearing. You think anyone here respects your opinion right now?”

“The responsibility falls to the witness,” Sollux said. Everyone turned to look at him except for Terezi, who rocked on her heels with returned giddiness.

“Wait, sorry, hold on,” Tavros said, brows furrowed. “I thought that uh… Well, he’s the one we’re worried about, right?”

“Yeah, why the hell does he get a fucking opinion?” Vriska added.

“Bunch of pish-posh applesauce over here,” Gamzee drawled. He lolled his head back, blowing a bubble of spit through a gap in his teeth before popping it with his tongue. “You motherfucking voted to let her play legislacerator. Let the motherfuckin’ flames climb your wretched frame upon the pyre you motherfucking built.”

“Aaaaaaagh! That doesn’t count!” Vriska screamed. She leaned over, basically climbing over Equius’ back to smack furiously at Gamzee’s shoulder. Tavros bared his teeth to the gums, canines in the light of Vriska’s cybernetic eye, and let out a wicked hiss to Gamzee’s left. The noise seemed to surprise all involved, culminating in Vriska settling back into her seat with a sullen glower. Tavros kneaded at his breastbone with a faint expression, as if favoring an old wound.

Terezi’s laugh rose an octave. “So true, worstie! This is my court, my witness, and my client-slash-victim! Can you be a good girl for me and keep your tongue behind your teeth until I need to put some holes in it, blueberry bramblemite?”

Vriska’s ears flicked, and she casually flipped her hair to the forefront to disguise the way they flushed blue at Terezi’s words. “Two-faced slitherbeast,” she muttered, pointedly avoiding looking up as Kanaya snorted.

“I’ll take it.” Terezi yawned wide, teeth snapping together like a cholerbeartrap on the start of her sentence. “So.” She advanced on Sollux again, flicking a pill towards him with the end of her cane. “Had enough time to identify the user?”

The pill pinged against Sollux’s nose. He didn’t flinch. “Former Interrogatormentor Vitzii Pozoia.”

“Former?”

“Imperial protocol when an interrogatormentor is compromised is title stripping and a culling order.”

“Hm.” Terezi clicked her tongue a few times, each time spiking Sollux’s blood pressure. Aradia’s lip curled a bit, mouth open enough to drink in the stress pheromones oozing from Sollux’s neck. She reached out to put her hand atop his, but he instead raised it to bat away another projectile. Said pill-pelter continued speaking. “So what do these little morsels do, anyway?”

“Address neurotoxin-induced brain damage of the motor and sensory cortices, is my guess,” Sollux replied, refusing to acknowledge Vriska mimicking his snaggle-toothed lisp under her breath. “Listen, I have–”

“You’ll answer all questions posed to you before proceeding, witness. Is there no way to mitigate an interrogatormentor’s death sentence in the eyes of the Empire?”

“Successful information extraction might do it, but it’s a stretch. At this point he’d need a life to exchange for his.”

“Why is that?”

“He’s been gone too long. His condition would be a risk in the field if he ran out of what he needed and they already had his replacement waiting in the wings when you all took him. The Empire needs proof of concept.”

Nepeta leaned forward, whispering something in Equius’ ear. He peered over the edge of his glasses to Feferi first and then to Sollux before letting out a soft rumble of approval to his moirail. Tavros smoothed out a crinkled wing filament, also shooting furtive glances to Feferi and Sollux both.

Terezi bobbed her head. “Fascinating. Would denying him his medication serve as an appropriate motivator to drive him back to the arms of the Empire?”

“No. We were told upon starting our training that all our quadrants were either culled or placed in protective custody to eliminate attachments. He’d know his matesprit was here at some point and the Empire wouldn’t be able to close that gap.” 

A sick suspicion bubbled in him and he tried reaching into his hoodie pockets for the paper within so he could be done with this whole affair, only for Terezi to wipe his pan again with a disapproving click of her tongue. She sounded so much like Pozoia, infuriatingly so, and the noise eliminated all of Sollux’s rational thought as Terezi continued uninterrupted. “Moirail too,” she said dismissively. “Your point is noted, witness, but I’m not sure how firm those bonds he has are.”

“A lot of losers around here like to simp for lost causes,” Vriska grumbled, still sulking as she swirled a finger along the rim of her water glass.

“They certainly do,” Kanaya said with a sigh, but the resigned tilt to her eyebrows spoke more to some inner frustration than an attempt to build onto Vriska’s attempted barb. 

Sollux’s eyes glazed over. He didn’t want to listen to this inane chatter. He simultaneously didn’t want to maintain this discussion of the trolls who’d made his life a living hell, perpetuating the guilt and hurt that every troll victimized by the Empire held in their slurry-spun genetic code in a circular chasm of chromatic trauma. The long-dead Ualona clung wetly to his lapels, sputtering out, What did they promise you? The Empire had upheld its end of the bargain while he served as an interrogatormentor–Karkat hadn’t found himself in its clutches. Whether that was due to his own ingenuity or the pact he’d made Sollux didn’t know, but he no longer held interrogatormentor status. Did the Empire find a method by which to sway one of the last bastions of his sanity? Would Karkat deny a seasoned interrogatormentor instructor medication and send him into a withdrawal-fueled manic breakdown? 

Worse scenarios carved icy channels up his spine–Sollux had proven himself a successful agent of the Empire, tormenting rebels within his brig in a twisted haze of helmsman conditioning-tinged megalomania exacerbated by a lack of stability and a support network. He still remembered their wailing and his own desperation to lash out, to make something hurt like he hurt, and his programming filled in the blanks. Would Karkat comfort him with one hand and set his worst nightmare upon him with the other? He’d seen Karkat cursing about getting shipments past Imperial blockades enough. He’d eliminate the risk of exposure by ridding himself of the need to smuggle an illegal medication through checkpoints and the vengeful shadow of a friend with one platonic duel with enough careful orchestration. 

Terezi’s voice swam through the thick fog Sollux’s head swam with. “A counterpoint, then. Would said denial, coupled with a promise to return said medication, finally solidify his allegiance to the rebellion?”

Sollux choked down a mass of bile and mucus balling in the back of his throat. “Not. By itself,” he gritted out. “He’d need external motivation.”

“A push. An inciting incident. A trigger to the loaded gun in his thinkpan.”

“Sure.” 

“Such as, for example, a troll freshly sprung from the Imperial crèche starting to nose around his safe harbor?” Sollux did not respond, and Terezi cocked her head to the side. “I do remember Vantas not long ago in this very room arguing for your solo ventures to the exercise room so you could what, do physical therapy?” 

Equius let out a derisive bark of near-laughter. “I expressed my doubts about the validity of that request. The sardonic, layabout twinArmageddons, shedding his erstwhile dependence on his psionics to do his bidding in favor of becoming a gym squeaker? It is an insult to those of us born with actual strength and valor.”

“Hey, that’s not fair to Karkitty,” Nepeta said, lightly bapping a chagrined Equius on the knuckles. “He wouldn’t do that to Pawllux.”

Gamzee waved his hand in a flippant, circular motion. “Nah, nah, it’s because she’s tugging your motherfucking chains to pump her ego full of hot air. Switch the names around, wrap them around, affix the nameplate proper ‘round the neck of the dirtbound hangman in our motherfucking midst. Captor didn’t motherfucking know about the bayou-bopper rotting in the next wing until we all started biting for his rehabilitation to pick up the motherfucking pace.” He leaned forward, eyes wide open for the first time the whole meeting. “We start fiending for a motherfucking miracle in gore-gold finery to nab us an opening aboard the Imperial fleetschool, and bam!” Gamzee’s words, climbing with every syllable, finally peaked into a roar that thundered with ancestral malevolence.  A sing-song whisper followed, half-buried underneath the echo still rolling through the room. “The two powder kegs paint their sanguine music on the blockwalls and the victor sits in pieces that our resident spitfire gets to coddle back together into one loyal, obedient, battle-hardened piece of tantrum-split pottery to act as our skeleton key. We should be motherfucking grateful we get to grind his gold-grit marrow into the lacquer ourselves.”

A creeping terror gnawed at the nape of Sollux’s neck, bringing with it the insidious idea that Karkat had something to do with this after all. He couldn’t figure out Gamzee’s angle, twisting as it was in eldritch spirals of conflicting motivations. His interrogatormentor training failed to find purchase in the purple’s paint, microexpressions slipping off the slippery surface of Gamzee’s face in a field of black and white. He hated that he could see the logic there. Karkat hid his social cunning in layers of bluster and expletives, ensconcing himself defensively in petty, vindictive vendettas that bit any hand that struck at him or those he cared about. The leap wasn’t far, that a desperate Karkat backed against the wall would throw his best friend into the fire in the hopes he’d emerge with loyalty and affection restored. They’d both tormented each other, casually and with frivolity, and threatened worse on many an occasion. They’d grown into themselves and apart, and for all his talk of memory to ground him the seed of doubt sprouted–did he even know Karkat anymore? 

The room filled with bickering, everyone’s voices clashing up against each other. Sollux tried to listen, tried to grab onto anything that sounded like words, but understanding slipped through his fingers in a silvery stream. He couldn’t pick out a consistent tone of condemnation or support, no line drawing itself in the sand Gamzee had strewn all over the proceedings. He dimly registered movement, scenes flickering like a faulty projector’s slideshow against his eyes as he disassociated–Terezi lambasting Gamzee for snatching away her grand reveal, Feferi standing up in attempt to clutch the last threads of democracy her co-conspirators seemed intent on unraveling with bickering, Tavros chewing his nails down into nubs. 

Uncertainty burned holes into the canvas stretched over Sollux’s ocular cavities until all that remained was Karkat, his own eyes wet and wide and pleading. He didn’t remember turning to look at Karkat, nor crowding all his limbs into his chair with the grace of a grotesque scrambling for a perch without purpose atop this harlequin cathedral’s facade. Ruddy tears bubbled from Karkat’s saline expunger ducts, spilling forth without a need to blink. He didn’t blink. A false crier would blink, screw up their face and nose, rub their face, something, but Karkat’s apparent misery flowed from him without effort. He wore terror well, soft cheeks wet and quivering and flushed with frantic and heretical warmth, but Sollux had no way to identify the source of his despair. Innocence, or the realization of a plan unraveled?

A metallic glint streaked on Sollux’s periphery–a coin tossed high. Scratch up, scratch down, light catching on uneven edges and dents, and with a ping Terezi’s cane made contact with the coin on its descent. It ricocheted towards Sollux and he ripped the psionic-dampening bracelet from his hand. He’d trained for many grueling hours to stop projectiles even before his time as an interrogatormentor and he needed to prepare for further threats.

Tchhht! 

A final tongue click sounded in synchronicity with the resurgence of the damned crying mercy, the doomed caterwauling in full force. Sollux recoiled, the coin striking him square in the forehead. In that moment fear coalesced into a jagged spike of iron centered on the impact site, radiating psionic energy and dripping with cerulean and yellow ichor. He saw Vitzii Pozoia standing over him with his makeshift spear as he fell onto his back, he saw Rapard cracking his knuckles in a cloud of freezer vapor, he saw Juyere and Rosmer and Ophlia and Ualona staring balefully at him from the depths of their sunken sockets. The figures all bled together in a pulsing amalgam of misery and condemnation made flesh.

Psionics whipped around his head, lights swaying and flickering to the beat of the sobbing half-screams tearing out of Sollux’s throat in harmony with the full force of his personal doomed choir. Disembodied hands snatched at anything they could reach as he thrashed in and out of range, sight and hearing and touch blending together in a catastrophic storm of hellish, psionic synesthesia. He couldn’t sort between the physical and the ethereal, alien voices suspended in bloody bubbles leaking from his eyes and lips and entombing him in a column of monolithic petrichor. Shadows surged forward as his psionics chewed through Sollux’s connection to reality, recoiling only when wood and metal creaked as chairs surged to encase him in a protective shell. He could hear his teeth hatching, enamel falling to dentin to cementum settling back in his lungs each time he inhaled.

A lighthouse kept a steadfast vigil on the cliffs of Sollux’s despair, foghorn sounding in the dark. Sollux sucked in a breath and lurched upright, a horror-movie snap to his spine as his limbs dangled in the wake of his psionics doing the brunt of his work. He fell into Aradia for a moment, scrabbling for purchase, and she didn’t flinch even as his psionics burned surface streaks of Lichtenberg figures along her face in the wake of his clawing fingers. She merely let out a roughshod purr, pressing her burning cheek to his. She filled half his pusher with her earthy pale pheromones, but it wasn’t enough. Hands came in pairs and so Sollux dove for the other, colliding with Karkat’s chest as he sobbed hysterically. 

Karkat’s hand lowered atop his head, psionics dissipating from the static shock of hair flying around Sollux’s ears in its wake. Sollux bit down on the redblood’s palm but Karkat did not pull away, staying still until Sollux relaxed his jaw. Karkat did not hide the wound, and before impulse control could catch up to him Sollux licked the treasonous beads of crimson away.

The coin unstuck itself from the surface of Sollux’s forehead, spinning out across the table. It spiraled once, justice’s face with a score across her eyes grinning at the ceiling. Another spin and the coin glowered at the ground, unmarked and pure. Sollux hid his face in Karkat’s neck, sneezing as rather than the typical gentle pheromones he was met with an explosion of pale signals fired out of the other troll’s scent glands like a gun. He sagged into Karkat, effectively tranquilized and shuddering as Aradia pressed her temple to Karkat’s and wrapped her arm around Sollux’s chest to keep him flush to her. She breathed, deliberate and forceful, and once they all breathed in unison she eased them all into two seats between the three of them.

The coin settled. Justice scowled up at the silent room, unblemished dismay painted across her metal features. All the trolls in the room had backed away from Sollux after his outburst, the remaining chairs haphazardly strewn about by the brief psionic squall in a makeshift blockade around Sollux and atop the table proper. Terezi popped out from behind her chair with a fearless crow of delight. “The coin has delivered its final verdict–the guilty has proven his innocence before the court!” She puffed out her chest, gesturing wide at the table. Her arm swept past the coin. “Karkat Vantas is acquitted of all charges against his personal character and blah blah blah, you all know this wasn’t who this trial was for.”

“Oh, wow,” Kanaya deadpanned. She fetched her chair, dragging it into place and settling back down. “No. I cannot believe this shocking turn of events. Color may return to my cheeks.”

She was drowned out by Vriska cutting in with a shrieked, “What?! You!”

“Teehee,” Terezi said, fighting back an actual laugh as she plucked her own seat from the mountain of wayward furniture.

“You maniacal, insensible fuckgavel,” Karkat said faintly, with no small amount of awe in his voice.

“Apologies for the deception, cherry tart, but I needed to pull out all the stops to interrogate an interrogatormentor! Especially with how the whole deck of cards almost combusted considering how the one-troll cough-syurp brigade decided to blow my load for me.”

“Always happy to give a motherfucker a handy,” Gamzee said. He sniffed, looking down his nose at Terezi. “Don’t blame a motherfucker for getting bored.” 

Terezi flipped her hair in Gamzee’s face, plopping into her seat and kicking her feet. “You didn’t notice the like, nine thousand holes in my line of questioning? I did find the pills in your block, technically, but only because Dzuvir was looking for you on his way to fuss at his loser moirail and shove pills down his throat.”

“You’re picking those up, by the way,” Karkat said with a sharp tone, pointedly ignoring the apology. Terezi’s ears briefly flicked back, but neither of them let their guards down. Karkat shook the moment away and continued. “What did he want?”

“Something about checking in about Riarra’s mission. Pozoia’s climbing the fucking walls about him being gone too long or something. I think he can suffer a little longer.”

“Mmrmmrmgmgl,” Sollux gurgled into Karkat’s barrel chest. He tried to lift his head, but the adrenaline crash proved more powerful and rendered him a overcooked noodle.

“Sure, sure, whatever you say,” Terezi said absently.

“What have you proven here, seaxactly?” Feferi looked equal parts relieved and frustrated as she spoke. “You put this entire counchil in peril! Look at the state of Sollux, the poor fin. This isn’t reely a point in our favor to make shore he’s on our side.”

“Eh, he’s a fucking adult, he can handle it,” Terezi said. “What did I prove? Our worries were his sparing of Pozoia was a fluke, and he only scrambled for help from rosewater carp over there when he got in over his head. That, and that he’d reach out to the Empire after lulling us into a false sense of security, especially since he found you so easily.” She began counting on her fingers. “He doesn’t think Vitzii Pozoia was acting on Imperial orders. This was a personal moobeast butcher-slab between them. A dull milk-solid condiment spreader was found on the scene that he used to break from his cuff, confirming my sources’ observation that he’d stolen the implement a while back.”

“You… You knew this the…the whole, uh…the whole time?” Tavros’ words stutter-stopped with an increased frequency, exasperation plastered over his face.

“Yurp.”

“Don’t fucking… ehm–yerp? At me?”

“No, yurp. You gotta drop your jaw. Anyways, yeah, absolutely. But if we keep him under the tightest security, how are we going to see what he does when he thinks our guard is down?” Terezi smiled demurely as Tavros opened his mouth then closed it again. “If he wanted to kill Pozoia from the get-go, he’d have freed himself without breaking his wrist into… How many pieces, Feferi? You fixed him up.”

“Two, nautureely,” Feferi said from behind her hand. A telltale, upturned crinkle at the corner of her eyes betrayed her otherwise contemplative expression. 

 “Naturally.” Terezi inclined her head to Feferi. “So that confirms that he wasn’t acting on the Empire’s orders–you heard it from him. Pozoia has a culling order by virtue of his prolonged stay with us, not to mention a condition that any propaganda-gorged soldier would volunteer to get shot behind the shed about. An interrogatormentor acting in full capacity would have had his psionics primed and ready to cull.” She gestured at Sollux. Sollux peered back at her from underneath Karkat’s jaw, too exhausted to interrupt. “After interviewing the moirail of Vitzii Pozoia, and reviewing the footage we extracted of Captor’s schoolfeedings, I isolated an external tell common among those lucky cull-dodgers suffering absence seizures–a tap of the tongue as consciousness returns. Said noise is enough to trigger an involuntary psionic meltdown from Appleberry here, but notice something in particular.” 

She leaned forward. “An agent of the Empire, faced with a cripple and a dissident, directs their rage outwards. They handle things independently, especially if they’ve got as much raw firepower as he does. We got a nubbin of Captor’s power on our tongues–Pozoia should be ash.” Her expression sobered. “Most of you did not watch Captor’s interrogatormentor schoolfeeds. As my eyes, Kanaya, share your opinion of the torments Captor and his unit at the hands of people such as Pozoia featured in those archives”

Kanaya’s lips pursed. “Death is a mercy for those involved,” she said with a vitriolic hiss.

Something rattled inside Sollux’s ribcage, a bemused fluttering at how disgusted someone he’d attempted to disembowel when last they met sounded on his behalf. He started shaking, horns sparking painfully, and Aradia caressed his face before slipping the psionic bracelet back around his wrist. 

Terezi nodded, running her hands along the interlocked chair wall. “My panmeat should be spattered across the ceiling after I repeatedly bonked that cholerbear on the snoot, but the explosion pulled in, it shielded… On Alternian soil and in its airspace, cowards survive skirting the shadow of the culling knife and the oppressors thrive along its blade. We need someone that can dance along both.” She took a breath. “Now, are you going to share with me why you smell like blood and formaldehyde, Appleberry?”

The rebel council turned in unison to Sollux, and in that moment he balked. He started shaking again, saliva started to pool  in his mouth as nausea rolled through him. Aradia slid her hand down his torso, still purring but with purpose now. Sollux acquiesced to her silent direction, rolling his hips back against her in a gradually relaxing stretch and giving her the gap she needed to pull the folded paper he had tucked within his hoodie pocket. He’d shoved it there after extracting it from a protective capsule embedded in the brainstem of the troll that had shattered his awakening’s peace. Equius made a strangled noise, sneezing helplessly as Karkat’s overwhelming pheromones finally made their way over. He sat on the ground hastily rather than wasting time extricating a chair. Nepeta poured her own glass of water over his head.

Aradia’s cut her purr short, unfolding the paper as she leaned forward and smoothing it face-up on the table. As everyone craned over to look Terezi reached her cane forward, fumbling briefly before catching her coin in the crook of its draconic head. She kept its orientation steady, licking its surface before letting out a self-satisfied hum. 

“Oh. Oh, no,” Feferi said, picking up the paper. Creases riddled the surface of the revealed bill of sale, distorting the dead-eyed visage of Golese Riarra, the matesprit of Vitzii Pozoia, as he held up his own hex code on a placard in front of his bare chest.  His mop of hair was now absent, instead shaved in preparation for the helm. 

“What is it?” Terezi made a grabby hands for the paper, but Feferi instead passed it to Kanaya who flipped it over and lifted it to her nose. “Someone let me get my tongue on it. I smell–”

“Blood?” Kanaya said, disdain dripping off the single syllable even as her pupils dilated. “What gauche little pretender writes in blood these days?” She paused, scanning the paper. “Pretenders. How romantic.”

Yellow script clung to the paper like a scab, a cheery invitation in a near unintelligible surgeon’s scrawl: 

“Kuluya Juyure, Sollux Captor, Ophlia Davrot, Trisia Avarae, Vitzii Pozoia, you’re invited to the memorial dinner of Golese Riarra aboard our vessel, the IIC Reanimator, as he takes his place amongst the stars in service to our Glorious Empress! Dress Code: Black Tie. Coordinates carved into the seventh vertebrae. Plus ones encouraged. It’s not a corpse party without a crowd.

Forever your loyal compatriots,

The Surgeons

Underneath the shared title Rosmer Leywet had inscribed his swirling signature with the dull bronze blood of Zesaim Exeria, while her jagged signature was written in oxidized olive.

“What is it?” Terezi repeated, frustration mounting.

“A fucking trap,” Karkat said.

Sollux took a shuddering breath. “I’m not the key to the fleet. KK isn’t wrong, but this is an invitation to an interrogatormentor-grade cruiser and that is, especially one with room for…” He counted silently. “Ten. Ten guests.”

Terezi blinked, and then clapped her hands together in delight. “The trollcops ride again!”

Vriska let out a frustrated scream. “Trollcops! Aren’t! A! THIIIIIIING! Stop trying to make it a thing!”

“If Karkat and Aradia won’t give up on him, neither will I.” Terezi smiled again, soft this time with only a hint of teeth. “Welcome back, Sollux.”

[chickennoodlegloop]

I've written out all the lyrics to the equius parody of baby got back. (I like big bots)

D - -> I like big bots and I cannot lie

You lowbloods can't deny

When a girl walks in with her iron base and those rivets in your face

You must SWEAT

Have to stop and stare cause you notice that bot was BUFF

Chrome shining in the moonlight

Mechanisms wound up so tight

Megido, I want to repair you

And then ensnare you

Other highbloods tried to warn me

But I need you to come and scorn me

Hey, redblood, steel skin, you want to be more than friends?

Well, command me, demand me!

Cause I know you understand me!

I see you breaking

Well I'm done with faking

She's iron, steel

And the only thing left that's real

I'm tired of other trolls saying they don't like how I roll

Take any battlebot and ask them that

She has to have batteries in the back

So robot (yes?)

Robot (yes?)

Did your hardware make the cut? (Oh yes!)

Well, scold them (scold them)

Scold them (scold them)

Tell them what is what

My baby's a bot

(Lowblood poise with a highblood booty)

My baby's a bot

(Lowblood poise with a highblood booty)

I like them cold

And metal

When I just can't settle

I can't help myself

I'm acting like trash

That's when I need to clash

I wanna feel your whip

And mmm!

Crack it

Mmm! UGH

I'm not talking about candies

Cause licorice is for dandies

I want your fury, strong and unyielding

I don't want any shielding

Zahhak keeps sweating

Wanting you or betting

So I'm looking at machines

Pint sized tin cans that can't stay clean

You can have your cans

They couldn't handle a real man

And to all the soulbots, I want your hands upon me

Your wrath upon me

I must tell the truth when I say I want you (MNRGH) until the break of dawn!

Soulbots never steer me wrong

Too many fools don't like this song

To forbid you

Or quid you

While I do nothing but permit you

Because I'm STRONG

And I'm B100

And inside, so are you!

So, soulbot (yeah?)

Soulbot (what.)

If your good at tying knots

Then come back, reverse the flow

And everyone will finally know

My baby's a bot

My baby's a bot

D - -> Oh... Yes, this is going quite well

D - -> But, um, Aradia, do you think I-

D - -> Could you pass me a towel? Perhaps I...

D - -> No? Oh... Well uh...

D - -> Okay then

D - -> So your cyborg has a warped core

With adamantium plating in store

Well, that plating isn't needed

To score

My stallion don't want none unless you've got bolts, hon

You can install upgrades or patches

But please don't lose those bolts

So mechanics want to make you sleek, and say that bolts are weak?

Their lowblood ways just rend you

And I've got to move quick to mend you!

So, Sollux says your cold

Well, that slime needs to be told

Of your iron fist and stern disposition

He should go back to fishin'

The tin cans made by Strider

Your weaker than the spider

Give me a soulbot so I can make my soul hot

Feeling hits me like a bow shot

Some lowblood went and said

That we could never become red

The talk is low and crude

I know you'd never be that rude

So soulbots, if your fist is cold and you want me to do as I'm told,

Dial 1-900 ZAHHAK

Put your mark upon my back!

My baby's a bot

My baby's a bot

D - -> ...Okay... S-Seriously Aradia, I need that towel

[starsci0n]

In which Vriska “apologizes” to Aradia. Vriska seems take this better than the alternative (death). Couldn’t be bothered to finish it, unfortunately. Maybe someday.

cw: abuse, dub-con, sadism

Blood. Rich Cerulean Blood soaks into the land’s warm colored dirt. Warm…

The joints in her hands creak, the sound of Aradia’s metal teeth grinding together is ear splitting. This inhospitable body, with its animalistic desires, she finds it utterly despicable and finally she gets to have the reason for it all on her knees in front of her.

Serket tries to clamber to her knees, dirt crunching in her digits. Aradia has already begun to raise her hand.

To finish it.

“W8! W8!” She coughs out, spitting up more of her putrid blood from her bruised lips. For some reason, Aradia hesitates.

She wants to see where this goes, where Vriska is so desperate as to beg for her to wait.

“Wh8t d8 y8u even w8nt? 8n…8n 8p8l8gy?” Vriska’s pathetic whining isn’t even worthy of a response, they both know it too. Aradia’s fickle patience is waning. It’s a show hardly worth watching. Power fills her hand once more, Vriska feeling herself lift off the ground, a vice grip closing around her ignorance shaft. "8nyth8ng..." she wheezes out. Aradia swiftly lets her go, letting her figure thud against the ground. Satisfying. Very satisfying.

The pitiful thing that once thought herself big coughed out her own tooth, spitting it out just to look up at Aradia with something that seemed akin to appreciation. It was hard to tell with how well beaten she was. Her one good eye had been swollen nigh shut, her lips cracked and bloodied, and her cheeks swollen. And it still wasn't enough for Aradia. Vriska needed to know how it felt to be subject to someone else's ire. She had to know what it felt like when someone went too far...Is that what she was telling herself? As if she wasn't amused by this for the pure fact that she liked seeing her groveling before her. "I'll do...anything." She said finally, the weight of the offer fully settling into her chest. "and that is supp0sed t0 interest me?"

"You haven't killed me yet."

“and y0u keep giving me reasons t0 regret that!”

And suddenly a weight of pity was simply forced upon her. It was...crushing. As if the weight of the world was trying to impress red feelings onto her for this... "little WRETCH!"

Aradia stomped closer, each step cracking the very earth beneath them. Vriska's wide eyed shock apparent, there was no better moment than that; Anything else was surely fatal. The steel crafted troll's hand gripped Spinneret's horn, pulling her up off of the ground slightly, kneeling proper before her victor. So close to... "is this what y0u wanted?" Aradia muttered pressing her face into her skirt, despite its appearances, it appears to be a steel colored fabric. Someone had clearly covered their bases crafting her body. As Vriska's face pressed into the soft cloth, her cheek allowed her to feel...warmth. Soft warmth. More than just her skirt, but her. Her being, as if she was always meant to comfort despite her cold blue blood coursing through her...admittedly skillfully crafted body.

Aradia couldn't wait anymore, even her soft breathing was growing ragged, desperate. She hiked up her skirt, her dripping nook glittering in the slight amount of light afforded to it. Vriska couldn't help but look up incredulously. "anything, right? lets see h0w ready you are for anything..." She whispered, forcing her face against her plump lips. Just the contact alone was enough to force her to hunch. Aradia hadn't even realized it before but this body was much more sensitive than the one she had been born into. Someone was hoping to over compensate. Despite her own shuddering, she kept herself upright, even as Vriska found herself more...agreeable. Lips pressed to hers in utter devotion, their tongue lapping at her folds, zeroing in upon her clit in a desperate attempt of pleasing Aradia.

Vriska's own head had been consumed by arousing yet morbid thoughts. With a swift tug of her horn, Aradia could snap her neck, easily, without breaking a single sweat. She most certainly wouldn't give a damn either, she could feel it without even reading her mind. The thought...doesn't terrify her. Why doesn't it terrify her? Why can she feel her core warming up, her eagerness growing, her desperation only intensifying as thoughts of her disposal crowd her mind. Aradia continues to press Vriska's head betwixt her thighs, fingers coiling into her hair and light tremors running along her body. If she were to be honest she had half a mind to start to reinforce her body with her- Forget it, it doesn't matter. The mechanical maid's bulge began to unsheathe itself at Vriska's erratic lapping, "Barkbeast..." Aradia muttered to herself while trying to shove herself past the girl's lips, filling her mouth up with nothing but spite driving her forward.

[gaphic]

hi im really interested in your hot takes on the classpects. as i was reading through that post about how homestuck is about breaking or following the narrative my first thought was about how this probably leads to a very different interpretation of the classpects than ive usually seen, but im not sure if im familiar enough to think it all out myself - and then i saw you mention offhand you have Hot Takes about it so. color me curious?

YOU ARE QUITE RIGHT IN THAT ASSESSMENT!

ok here's my take: it's literally Not That Deep. sburb is an incomplete RPG, not a deity or a greater consciousness. it doesn't actually know what is good for the players personal development. it is entirely skin-deep.

this is reflected in the performatively hollow echeladder mechanic, and in the sprites- who, lest we forget, are NPCs. that's why they're so 'mysterious.' they exist only to keep players on track, and 'the following quest objectives are HIGHLY PERSONALIZED to help you reach your full potential! great answers await you!' is a line written to serve that purpose. jaspersprite drops the facade a little bit and reveals he has no idea what he's talking about, the game is just making him say it

in keeping with this, classpects are not determined by people deep interior selves. they are determined by surface-level observations and by party optimization. the game generates a handful of possible classpects based on traits like 'bookish,' 'pirate' and 'cheerful,' then cross-references that with balanced team builds. the alpha session, being less complete, lacks the party optimization algorithm

Roxy is a do-good hacker (criminal) who uses an appearifier, she's a rogue who makes stuff appear out of nothing. Dirk carries on about being a leader and being toxic, he's a prince who destroys souls. Jake is weak/insecure and ignores reality, he's the 'untapped potential' class with the power to imagine things into existence. Jane is the only one who seems a little less literal, and I suspect that has to do with the Condesce, since she was the one who released the sburb alpha. Condy is a life player, therefore Jane is a life player (plus, she has that penchant for foiling assassination attempts, avoiding death) and she's a maid because Condy wants a handmaid

Aradia robs graves, Dave collects dead things, Caliborn is into murder, time is the death aspect. Callie, Jade, and Kanaya are all artists, space is the creation aspect. Karkat fantasizes about being a member of the royal army and he's obsessed with his blood, he's a knight of blood. I could go on but you get the point lol. classpects are superficial and depend heavily on what balances well, not your personal truth

likewise, I think your average '[closest object to you] + [current weather condition] = your sburb planet' type meme is pretty much exactly how the sburb planets actually work. they're not 'designed to challenge people' beyond the literal quest challenges

i think this reading immediately clears up a lot of apparent inconsistencies in the comic, like how Dave's planet is his own personal hell while Vriska's planet is her own personal heaven. the game doesn't actually know how they feel about these things or what would help them grow

[rogue-of-heart-classpecting]

what would a maid of heart or an heir of void be like?

MAID OF HEART

The maid is someone who has been controlled for a long time until they suddenly become free. They switch the narrative and become the one who chooses what their aspect is and does. They are a powerful commander of their aspect. Before, it seemed like it was all laid out for them, like Aradia being instructed by the dead on what actions to take to start the game. They dutifully do their aspect’s bidding at the instruction of someone else. But eventually, when the time comes, they break free of whoever is controlling the aspect’s narrative and they decide what the aspect means from then on. Aradia is a bit distant from the group after she god tiers. She’s incredibly happy though. Creepily happy. She bends time to her will, and wields it like a thread; like a lasso. She moves people and things around as she pleases.

A heart player… oh, we all know how heart players are by now. Their core of function is their emotions, their feelings of right and wrong, their love for others. A maid of heart… was instructed in their very soul. Someone tried to tell them how to think, and feel, and behave, and it worked. For a time. This person obeyed the rules, and was shaped into someone they didn’t recognize. But… once they rise to their challenge… they will have to overthrow their controller, in their heart if not in a more literal way. They will realize who they truly are, and discover that they’re capable of more than they thought they were… and it’s ok to be capable of those things, and to want those things. It’s ok to be who YOU want and you choose. And they can become one of the most powerful players in the end. It’s like Mulan. Yeah.

HEIR OF VOID

Heirs are… accepting of their aspect from the start. John was super excited to start sburb and went along with anything thrown at him, in breath-player style. Equius finds value in the stupid racist system. He engages in the futile act of building and breaking robots. He also is supposed to use archery as his weapon of choice, but since they always break, he just uses his fists. None of this ever bothers him and he accepts this meaninglessness. Mituna, the heir of doom… his life fucking sucks. He apparently did some huge doom-thing and “inherited” doom… in this case “””doom””” being an intellectual disability. Hussie sucks. Everyone mistreats this guy and he just accepts it and goes along with it. Yeah. Hussie sucks. The heirs also all inherit their aspect— mituna becomes physically (brain) weakened. Equius is completely erased from the story and only returns as ARquius, who isn’t really him. John is able to escape the narrative and gain “true freedom.”

An heir of void COULD be like equius. They could suck hard and be creepy and like horses a little too much. They could also be like roxy though. They could like fantasy, and maybe fake magic or sleight of hand, making things disappear… they could love paradox and puzzles but not care about solving them. They might like knot tying or something. Equius loves doing shit that is totally counterproductive or doesn’t make sense. He builds stuff TO break it. This person could find meaning in doing and undoing things. They could hide stuff… they could also constantly be losing stuff. The important thing is that doesn’t need to bother them. They embrace meaninglessness and darkness and question. Even if they don’t realize they’re doing it, which is how the heirs we’ve seen typically act. They embrace their aspect effortlessly without even noticing.

[seeds-of-life-daily]

how far does your seele rei au diverge from canon :0 if I may ask

Thank you so much for asking this !! Well, I gave it some thought, and I wouldn't say it would stray too far from canon, but some big changes would be made. One of which being, well, the main thing. That Rei gets raised by seele. I covered some of the changes it would make to Rei and Kaworu in this post I made a bit ago, but after giving it a bit more thought, I wanted to note down a few more changes I would make to canon in this AU. One of which, probably the biggest divergence in this au, is that Rei doesn't get forced/conditioned to take such a maternal and feminine role. Other than the usual maternity stuff that comes with having the soul of a progenitor, she wouldn't have to experience it with the intensity they do in canon. They also won't get sexualized, since that was another thing that I really disliked in Evangelion. Not to go off on a little tangent here, but when talking about canon, I really think Rei never really wanted to take on that kind of role. The femininity was something they were made to feel like she had to do. She was taught it meant to serve, to be complacent, to fill a role, and to mother. Whenever I think of Rei and femininity my mind always goes to that one Aradia gender meta, since the parallels between the two are insane, and it just voices basically most of my thoughts. In the seele!Rei AU I like to think that Rei's more self-expressive. Being reserved, but a helping hand because she wants to. I think they would also take part in their interest to learn more. We don't know too much about seele, but since we know they probably let Kaworu have access to music and human culture, I think Rei would also have the opportunity to indulge in more books, the internet, and so on. Also, since Rei isn't a clone of Yui here, she won't be subjected to Shinji's Freudy antics as much. She would still somewhat look simmilar to Yui, but this time not made from salvaged remains. Now, another thing I would change is letting Kaworu develop more as a character. In most adaptations of Evangelion, we only see him mainly interacting with Shinji. In this AU, he will not only have Rei as a sibling, but I plan to make him interact with Asuka and Misato too. I think a talk between Kaworu and Misato would be really interesting. Especially when she finds out he's an angel. Imagine meeting the kid that got created, and half of the population, including your dad, died because of that. An interaction with Asuka would be similar. Imagine meeting the guy who's here to replace you if you get worse at piloting. They would eventually get along, but at the start, I can definitely see some conflicts going on there. Since Rei's with seele here, they have both seeds of life in their custody, so it would be even easier for their instrumentality plans. While it's true that Lilith's still in the NERV basement, and Adam's still getting kidnapped (angel-napped?), seele can at least be sure that if one of them dies, at least there's another vessel to work with. (Speaking of which, what would happen if two instrumentalities happened at once? Maybe seele didn't think that Adam, in her embryonic state, could be enough to initiate one? Maybe they were too focused on the Dead Sea Scrolls that they never bothered to think of it?) While we're on the topic of instrumentality, they would totally try and rebel against it this time. After spending a good amount of time at NERV with the rest of the Pilots, I think they would attempt to go against the whole "everyone becomes one in the big primordial soup ocean" plan. Those are just the major changes I would make, but overall? Yeah, it would be canon-divergent, but it would still follow most of the happenings of canon.

[thewertsearch]

Honestly, this is a bit of a lucky break for WV. If Jack knew he was in possession of the White Ring, he’d have been Exiled to the afterlife, instead.

Also: good evening, Grandpa Harley.

Fun fact: across the entire universe, you and a handful of very unfortunate astronauts are all that remains of the human race.

PM seems to have found her Exile Station fairly quickly. By the time WV found his, his garb was weathered and dusty, but hers is still in pristine condition.

Was PM just lucky, then? I suppose it would be a lot easier for her, because she could see her station from a distance.

I was originally going to jump straight into Jade's next section, but now that I'm actually assessing the other options here, they're all intriguing as hell.

What, then, do I want to learn first?

What the hell is up with Gamzee? Is this old conversation with Tavros really a flashback? If it's taking place in another Dream Bubble, does that mean he did die off-panel?

What, exactly, is Aradia’s goal in traveling to the Green Sun? Could she actually have a plan to help the Strider-Lalondes escape their fate?

Does Doc Scratch really do his own housework?

...on reflection, that last question demands the most immediate answer.

[luminousbravery]

Hcs with Aradia or Dave with a fellow time player s/o? Specifically one with attachment issues and is touchstarved (this totally isn't self indulgence at its finest) your writing is lovely!! It makes me smile every time I see it

i'm so glad!!! i wasn't entirely sure what type of time player to go for, so i made it kind of vague. i hope you enjoy!

ARADIA AND DAVE WITH A TIME PLAYER S/O

DAVE

I think that Dave would absolutely adore having a time player S/O

Like, he'd SO be into doing crazy shit with your time powers.

Together, of course.

Like, I think that Dave would like to go around time with you just to prank your friends.

OR, perhaps, Dave and you would start a time prank war with each other.

Going back in time to fuck with a past Dave.

On the other hand, Dave going into the future to play a prank on the older you. (It'd dawn on future you immediately that you, in fact, got got.)

You two probably create a time paradox or two, but it's probably fine.

ARADIA

Oh, if you think Dave would have a blast, Aradia has that x10.

But she isn't going to be one to play around with your time players like Dave might.

No, Aradia prefers to remain on the safer side of the time adventures you two have.

I think that she would enjoy to go time sight seeing with you, however.

All of your dates with her end up being in a different time period.

Just to take in the view together.

She wouldn't want to mess anything up, though.

But the time-dates with her are quite romantic.

[davekat-sucks]

can you tell me what you actually find interesting about meenah if you don't mind? because i genuinely never got why people called her that, i think she was fucking boring and one dimensional, a worse vriska clone.

i think *HIC* was interesting, or at least had the potential to be. but when openbound came around and hussie had porrim say the genocidal tyrant did nothing wrong and was the victim all along just because she was a woman, and the fandom ran with that explanation, she died to me.

i wish meenah could have been shown to be more like HIC, like making her be hemocasteist as fuck, frame her as the wrong one for bullying damara and being a condescending bitch to everyone plus using the ghosts in the afterlife as meatshields, and grooming karkat and vriska. not making her the leader of her session, and rewarding her shitty behavior by making her be in a relationship with karkat and reviving her, all because hussie and the hsbc had a fendom fetish and liked mean evil bitches.

She kind of was like HIC in teen form. Some may also think her fighting against Lord English was sort of the Condesce's own way to get back at him for being a servant. Though HIC wants power, being LE's servant isn't something she would want in the long run. She is one of the few characters to even be active by Act 6 since Rose and Kanaya are just lesbians, Dave is doing fuck all, Terezi is getting abused by Gamzee, Karkat being depressed, and Aradia just watching from the sidelines as she takes the role of Dream Bubble guardian despite it was FEFERI who made said Dream Bubbles happen in the first place. The rest of the Dancestors like Cronus, Mituna, Latula, etc; are all useless. The only exception was Aranea because Vriska clone, Damara & Kurloz because their ties to Lord English's plans. There was no other main character to take lead because Hussie is a hack writer that can't even give people like Jade Harley proper character development and thinks little of John Egbert. The Alpha Kids have their own drama in their session and that situation is a whole mess in itself. Calliope could have been interesting if she was played up as another antagonist too like Caiborn. That she represents the toxic side of the good fandom. But the narrative, Hussie, and fandom insisted that Calliope represents the right side of the fandom. And for the most part, though she would have conversations with the cast like Roxy, Jade, and Jane, she's not one to take charge or action of doing something. It's everyone else that does her work as she plays the victim. It's an easy way for her to get her hands clean. At least Meenah had attempted to rally some allies to fight against LE, went with Vriska and the others to check out the treasure that could help beat him. Some jokes by Meenah too during Openbound were funny and that's outside of fish puns. Calliope, nothing about her is remotely funny.