#8ut vriskas life had a lot in it what can i say!!!

[zahroreadsthings]

hmm vriska thoughts under the cut

putting this under the cut because it's going to be mostly incoherent rambling from someone who wasn't around for the vriscourse but i mentioned in a tag before vriska's actions followed a pretty simple pattern to me and i want to study her like a bug

like a lot of things boil down to

she gives the distinct impression that she had bad choices, didn't see a way out, and eventually decided to get comfortable (eg killing trolls to feed her lusus - she's not shown to have a problem with it, but also seems disappointed after her conversation with kanaya when she sees her lusus is still alive, and also doesn't take up karkat's offer to bring her lusus back to life)

i think this eventually devolved to her thinking she doesn't have control over her actions or their consequences at all, which in turn (ironically, given her whole thing) made her incredibly easy to manipulate (rolling her dice and determining she has bad luck she can't fight against, and then being exploited by doc scratch - he says at least once 'you'll do this anyway, i'm just telling you what's already been laid out'), which she uses to absolve herself of responsibility

which isn't to say she has no responsibility, obviously; the thing that pulls it all together is the way she exploits others she sees as beneath her. in her first few appearances i remember thinking 'peak white woman' - but obviously not just a white woman thing, i'm sure any member of a marginalised community knows at least someone else who's marginalised and tries to feel better about their position in society by exploiting people with less social/political power (side note: i also think she feels her position among the 'blue bloods' is precarious too; if terezi's comment to aradia about being a little too teal for their tastes is anything to go by that would mean her caste neighbour is also on thin ice)

and i'm sure her whole thing can largely be chalked up to her relationship with her lusus; in the best case scenario she fed her lusus of her own free will, and in the worst case scenario (if [s] make her pay is any indication of the power a lusus has over their troll) it's entirely possible spidermum had at least some direct control over vriska's actions

(which also means that if that is the case she's very new to making decisions without outside influence, and that's a skill we all develop) (and boy is she not doing great <3)

so personally, the question i kept in mind while reading act 5 act 1 wasn't 'did vriska do anything wrong/was she justified' but 'how much control over a situation does she have vs how much does she think she has vs how much does she pretend to have' because those are all wildly different

which is all to say, after reading this her decision to wake john up and claim responsibility for making him a hero makes complete sense

AG: Relaaaaaaaax.

AG: Listen, John.

AG: Regardless of what I did, he is already here.

AG: I know this consequence will 8e hard for you to accept, 8ut whenever you feel angry or confused a8out it, just repeat this to yourself.

AG: It should 8ecome your mantra!

AG: He is already here.

like. im sure she's trying to pass on the rules to john that she's lived by lol, I genuinely dont think she's able to comprehend a life outside of predetermination

[pesterloglog]

Vriska Serket, Meenah Peixes

Act 6, page 7841-7843

VRISKA: Ok! That little point of 8usiness is done.

VRISKA: Thanks for 8earing with me. Executing this whole strategy has turned out to 8e a really am8itious project!

MEENAH: nice watch dealie

MEENAH: how much that worth

VRISKA: How much?

VRISKA: I have no idea. I guess it depends on a lot of things, like the units of currency, the presumption of an actual market for it, its scarcity... honestly I just alchemized the thing quite easily, and some8ody else pro8a8ly could too.

MEENAH: god dammit that answer was too complicated

MEENAH: got a fuckin professor of economics over here

VRISKA: Are you saying you want to 8uy my spider watch??

MEENAH: na serk

MEENAH: spider swag aint my kettle of fish

VRISKA: I didn't think so!

VRISKA: Anyway, like I was saying, that takes care of that.

VRISKA: At this point I think we could use a de8riefing. Would you care to do the honors?

MEENAH: wat

VRISKA: Regarding the mission you were previously involved with, which I can only presume gradually fizzled out.

VRISKA: Securing this weapon, searching for a lost cheru8, and raising an army to defeat Lord English?

MEENAH: ooh right

MEENAH: man

MEENAH: T)(AT old thing

MEENAH: yeah i can debrief

MEENAH: i aint much a storyteller tho

MEENAH: much to the lament of my former bestie

VRISKA: That's fine!

VRISKA: I don't need you to dazzle me here.

VRISKA: I just want the fucking scoop.

MEENAH: thats why youre the top serk 38)

MEENAH: ...

MEENAH: .........

MEENAH: hey

VRISKA: What?

MEENAH: can i ask a kinda personal question

MEENAH: i mean not even that personal but whatev

VRISKA: Sure...?

MEENAH: how old are you

VRISKA: Uh,

VRISKA: Almost seven and a half sweeps.

VRISKA: Getting close to eight!!!!!!!!

VRISKA: I pro8a8ly sound like a fucking nerd, 8ut I've 8een excited a8out reaching that milestone pretty much my whole life.

MEENAH: 7.5 huh

MEENAH: i guess thats a lil more respectable

VRISKA: More respecta8le than what?

MEENAH: nofin

MEENAH: change of subject

MEENAH: that old ass mission...

MEENAH: so yeah we all piled in a damn pirate ship and sailed around the ring in this huge circle

MEENAH: english followed us and wrecked shit as he went

MEENAH: that helped us chart a path to the treasure somehow

MEENAH: like using black maps and junk

MEENAH: with like

MEENAH: cartographic calculations and scopes and fuckin sextants and whatnot

MEENAH: im not even sure how but that weird ass idea actually worked

MEENAH: we found the treasure

MEENAH: well YOU did

MEENAH: but you were also kinda goin nuts and driving everyone away from the crew

MEENAH: i stuck around though cause i didnt give a flying glub

MEENAH: aranea bailed though

MEENAH: she caught wind of that magic ring and i guess it got to her

MEENAH: the delusions of grandeur about being alive again and doing relevant shit

MEENAH: so she ollied out and stole it and made the most embarrassing mess of things i ever heard of anyone doin ever

MEENAH: she totally failed in whatever she was trying to do

MEENAH: got the ring ganked from her then died again

MEENAH: i never saw or heard from her ever since and tbh i dont really want to

MEENAH: that left just me and you

MEENAH: well OT)(-ER you

MEENAH: tryin to figure out what to do with this deadly box a treasure

MEENAH: basically we couldnt decide on anything

MEENAH: and were feelin pretty flat on the plan overall

MEENAH: so we just gave up and wandered off to do other shit for a while

MEENAH: and you... i mean she...

MEENAH: mellowed WAY the fuck out

MEENAH: which was actually sorta cool for a bit but also sorta...

MEENAH: k never mind that

MEENAH: we just kept bubble hopping for i dont even know how long

MEENAH: which got uh

MEENAH: reely boring after a while 38\

MEENAH: i never had the thump tortoise to tell her though

MEENAH: uh i mean until now

MEENAH: in fact i pretty much just forgot about the whole plan until you showed up

MEENAH: you made it sound pretty cool again so i was like

MEENAH: yeah im on board

MEENAH: and thats bassically the whole story

MEENAH: oh

MEENAH: yeah...

MEENAH: and that "lost cherub" part of the plan

MEENAH: afaik that was a bogus red distraction fish and she probably dont matter at all

MEENAH: guess thats everything

VRISKA: Good recap!

VRISKA: At least you 8oth had the presence of mind to hang on to the weapon.

VRISKA: Now it's up to us to use it.

VRISKA: What a8out this army though?

VRISKA: It still sounds like an important part of the plan to me.

VRISKA: Having just the two of us walk str8 up to Lord English, cold go88lefiend... that sounds like a recipe for disaster, weapon or no weapon.

VRISKA: An army of ghosts throwing everything they've got at him sounds like a gr8 strategy.

VRISKA: Like, a sort of 8uffer, giving us a little space to get ready to deploy the weapon when he seems vulnera8le.

MEENAH: yeah that makes sense

VRISKA: Do you think we pick that up where we left off?

MEENAH: man

MEENAH: dunno

MEENAH: that was one of the things that made us wonder if it was even worth bothering anymore

MEENAH: it was mostly this whole mind control stunt

MEENAH: apparently aranea was towing most of the load there???

MEENAH: then she peaced the hell out and got owned

VRISKA: I see.

VRISKA: Then yeah, this is going to 8e a little trickier than I thought.

VRISKA: Why don't we 8rainstorm on it for a while?

MEENAH: aight

[cornflowercanine]

god imagine having a life as eventful as vriska fucking serket. you do fucking 8a8y Trials and have to kill or some shit as a literal 8a8y and then fresh out of the g8 your mom+creature you zook33p for lets you know "i eat people" and youre like "whoa" and shes like "what are you w8ing for im hungry" and youre like "WHOA" and you fucking kill people while youre. you look like fucking this

you are this many years old. and then you make online friends with another girl who is that^ many years old and you m33t up irl to larp as your grandma. and also a fucking treasure chest from your gr8gr8gr8g8r8gr88grg88grr88g88g8gr8 grandma like falls from the sky into your yard or some shit i forgot a8out that and shes like a tur8o pir8 and has given you guides to get cool ass weapons etc and youre like oh shit anyway you larp and then you have a friend and aquaintance group of 12 fucking people and you have a comphet h88oyfriend at like 7-9 and you find magic dice and The Fucking Cue 8all Where Even Was It Like Darkl33r's A8andoned House??? Fuck If I Know and also you try to make doomsday devices cause you want the world to end (totally healthy 7-9 year old girl f33ling) and some cr33p is like you should kill your friends cause i know you will also im not manipul8ing you so you try to kill a guy while you are also still larping and it fails so a girl convinces a shitload of ghosts to scare the shit out of you so you possess her 8oyfriend to kill her (again remem8er you are all like 12 years old MAX at this point) and this makes your first larp friend really fucking mad so she indirectly half 8lows you up taking an eye and arm in the process and WHILE YOU ARE 8L33DING OUT HEAVILY you possess your attempted-murder friend to possess her mom to convince her to 8lind herself in her sl33p and right after that WHILE YOU ARE STILL 8L33DING OUT you message her like 'haha we're even now i'm so excited to 8e friends again what do you wanna do for our next game?' and then your gross neigh8or gives you medical attention somehow and a whole ass arm (he can make whole ass arms 8tw, he is also like 12 just in case you forgot) so none of you talk for like idk ranging from several months to may8e a few years idk until the guy who you possessed to kill his girlfriend, who you killed, found/made a game/virus idfr what they thought it was initially and it guarant33s the end of the world and youre like hell YES cause As Far As Youre Concerned The World Cant End Soon Enough!!! <- totally healthy 13 year old girl 8ehavior and youre desper8 to revive the girl you killed cause everyone h8s you now and youre alone <- totalyl healthy 13 year old girl rel8ionships 8ut it doesnt work and l8r she ends up 8eating you to near death flinging you into houses so hard they EXPLODE until you are 8l33ding out For The Second Time and the guy you tried to kill rescues ?? ??? you 8ut you 8eg him to kill you anyway cause youll get Cool Video Game Powers If You Do 8ut it doesnt work 8ut you still Literally Die so you get the powers anyway and uhh some other shit happens you make a universe i fucking guess 8ut then some dog guy is like grr so all your friends/"friends" have to hide out on the fringes of Your universe and then people from the universe you JUST made are playing the same game as you and talking to you a8out it somehow asking for help and you use this to try to make your first larpfriend from way earlier jealous and also the dog guy from earlier kills all your friends' dream selves (theres two of everyone 8tw) and like tears apart two planets and moons and a 8unch of other shit so everyones on edge and Your Larpfriend Isnt Paying Attention To You (worst possi8le case) so you decide to do shit that will for sure get her attention and kill the guy you tried to kill when you were like 9 8ut this freaks you out a lot so you vent to some guy (who you also just killed earlier 8ut hes fine) and reread some of your grandmas 8ook and then 2 other guys who just killed like half of your friend group in total do a face off with you 8ut then your ex-qpp (who also chainsawed the guy you just killed in half a while ago out of jealousy 8ut he was fine) who has her stomach 8lown the fuck out and is also glowing now and is a vampire chainsaws one of the guys in half and kicks the other in the nuts so hard he flies away and then punches YOU so hard you fly and youre like holy shit hot. and then you try to have an orchestr8ed face off with your first friend where you

percieve everything and fix everything 8ut it doesnt work and she fucking kills you. and also that is kinda not the end of the story you do a 8unch of crazy shit while dead 8ut anyway vriska did so fucking much from day 1 i would also die at 13 if my life was that 8usy, and also im def forgetting+misremem8ering some things here 8ut im not rewriting this lol

[spacialsojourn]

First Contact

------------Show Pesterlog ------------

New Message from: grimauxiliatrix

GA: Hello GA: My Apologies For Contacting You Seemingly Out Of The Proverbial Blue GA: But I Noticed That Your Username Is Quite Similar To One That A Friend Of Mine Used To Have GA: It May Just Be A Coincidence However On The Off Chance That You Might Know Her GA: Are You At All Familiar With The Name Vriska Serket GA: If Not Then I Apologize For Taking Up Your Time GA: This Is Just The First Time I Have Had Access To Any Sort Of Electronic Communication In A Couple Of Sweeps GA: Though If You Are Not Familiar With The Name Vriska Then I Suppose The Term Sweep Is Likewise Meaningless To You GA: Suffice To Say That It Has Been Quite A While Since I Was Last Able To Even Attempt A Search For The Individual I Am Seeking In An Online Platform GA: And It Is Either Very Fortuitous GA: Or Else Very Coincidental GA: I Personally Am Expecting The Latter But Hoping For The Former AG: Oh wow AG: I wasn't expecting any8ody to ever message this account ag8in. I haven't gotten a message here since AG: Wow, fuck, years ago at this point AG: Kan???????? AG: Are you here??????? AG: Are you Human???????? GA: You Will Have To Define What You Mean By Here GA: But Yes I Am Human

AG: Earth.

GA: I Have Been For Approximately Two Sweeps Now

AG: I mean that already answers my question and I feel like that was pretty o8vious in the context

GA: Possibly

AG: 8ut fuck, 4 years???????? AG: Where are you? Are you s8fe? AG: I mean o8viously you're not dead otherwise we wouldn't 8e having this convers8tion. AG: I've never 8een happier to see your prissy quirk in my entire fucking life this is am8zing

GA: I Am Still Trying To Reconcile Your Presence With The Wasteland Landscape I Have Been Trekking Through For What Feels Like Ages GA: But All Things Considered I Am Doing About As Well As One Can Be On An Alien Planet In A Body Not Ones Own GA: You Are Correct However GA: I Am Not Dead GA: Anymore GA: But I Was For A Short While GA: It Sucked Just As Much As The Last Time It Happened GA: Though It Was Much Slower This Time GA: So It May Have Actually Been Worse In Retrospect GA: And My Quirk Is Not Prissy

AG: Yeah the w8stelands fucking suck AG: Do you need assistance? I don't even know where the fuck you are 8ut I can send like........ AG: A caravan or something out to come get you. 8ring you 8ack to my Mansion and get you out of the fucking dust AG: Terezi's here. Sollux, too.   AG: No8ody else has come forward yet 8ut that doesn't mean they're not kicking a8out somefucking where AG: Did SkaiaNet respawn you? AG: And yeah, it is Kan. It's shockingly prim and proper for a mid-spectrum j8de8lood 8ut that's the least important thing we're talking a8out so try to st8y on topic, thanks

GA: It Is Not Prissy GA: Especially As None Of Us Can Be Considered Any Sort Of Caste On The Hemospectrum Anymore GA: Though I Must Confess To Being Surprised And Not At All Shocked That You Are Living In A Mansion GA: Again GA: Did This One Come With A Gigantic Spider Monster As Well GA:   GA: But No GA: Skaianet Did Not Revive Me GA: If Anything GA: They Were The Spark That Caused My Death GA: I Am Still Not Sure How I Managed To Revive GA: All I Do Know Is That I Am Some Sort Of Human Equivalent To Rainbow Drinkers GA: But I Am Not Sure If I Qualify To Be A Vampire As I Can Still Walk About In The Sunlight GA: I Do Not Know Where I Am Either If You Were To Try And Send Someone To Guide Me To You GA: The Closest Thing I Can Figure Out Is That I Am Somewhere That Is Yet More Desert GA: It Almost Makes Me Feel Hivesick For Alternia GA: Almost

AG: All Rust8loods all the w8y down 8a8ey AG: I keep w8ing for some8ody like Eridan or may8e even the 8atterwitch herself to come through AG: and just end up shitting a fucking cluck8east at 8eing stripped of their no8ility AG: It'll 8e hilarious when it happens AG: Oh my fucking god AG: Of course you'd 8e a vampire AG: That's hilarious. I mean, not the having to die to 8ecome one part AG: 8ut that the Earth recali8r8ion just went 'you know what? this ones a vampire'   AG: Regardless, there's no point in arguing 8ecause your quirk is just inherently prissy   AG: and I'm not the only person who thinks that AG: AND there's more important shit to talk a8out so I don't know why that's shoving a stick so far up your ass ::::// AG: Almost everywhere is desert. You're somewhere with internet though and that narrows things down AG: If we can't use landmarks to try and figure it out, I'll message Sol and get his ass on it AG: Oh AG: Also AG: I go 8y 'Spin' now

GA: I Will Admit That You Mentioning The Idea Of The Condesce Herself Coming Here And Finding Herself Reduced To A Red Blooded Human Has Made Me Smile For The First Time In What Feels Like A Perigree GA: Your Joy At My Vampiric Status Is Not As Endearing However GA: I Will Stand By My Statement That My Quirk Is Not Prissy GA: Your Quirk Is Simply Too Loose And Lax With Rules For Clear Communication GA: As For Why It Is Jamming A Proverbial Arboreal Rod Up My Waste Chute I GA:   GA: Admittedly Do Not Know Why I Am Getting So Defensive About It GA: It Just Feels Like I Have Not Had A Proper Moment To Rest Since I Revived GA: And I Am So Tired Vriska GA: I Am Tired And Angry And I Want To Just Find Someplace That Will Not See Me Run Out Of Whatever Settlement I Find As Soon As They Even Begin To Suspect That I Am Who I Am GA: So Forgive Me For Being Defensive Of Something That Makes Me Feel A Little Less Like Some Kind Of Unwanted Monster GA: I Would Think That Of Everyone In Our Old Friendship Circle You Would Be Able To Understand That Desire GA:   GA: GA: Spin GA:   GA: Why Did You Change Your Name To Spin GA: I Always Thought That You Had A Lovely Name With Vriska

AG: I'll l8y off of it AG: And nahhhhhhhh I've had to expl8in my quirk a8out a dozen times to people who don't know why I type like I do AG: It's pretty simple, hardly a 8arrier, 8ut then you've got Miss Crisp Annunci8ion over here   AG: 8ut whatever, it's fine, it's honestly the least offensive quirk that exists on Earth right now AG: No repl8cements, no shorthands, you get what you see. Refreshing since Sol is using ii's, 2's, and 0's which looks like hell AG: Humans fucking suck AG: Especially Humans who never experienced the G8me at all AG: Fuck them, 8unch of useless NPCs out here 8eing ******** and passing judgement they don't have the right to fucking pass AG: Let me come get you. If I can find where you are, you can have the fucking presidential suite to chill out in AG: I've got a good infrastructure here, there's electricity and running water AG: We've got our own water treatment plant for the mansion itself, as well as another couple for the rest of L8dy's country AG: We've got food, and shelter, we've got fa8ric8ion 8uildings and shit AG: You'll 8e s8fe here. Away from SkaiaNet   AG: Spin just....... fits 8etter, I guess. I've met a lot of my altern8s and I don't really want to associ8 with them AG: They all fucking suck lm8o

GA: I Had Nearly Forgotten How Much Of A Pan-Ache I Would Get From Reading Too Many Of Solluxes Messages In A Row GA:   GA: GA: GA: GA: I Cannot Tell If This Is You Trying To Hype Up An Otherwise Mediocre Settlement That You Have A Minor Role Of Authority In GA: Or If You Actually Have A Mansion With All Those Amenities And Are Sincere In Wanting To Share Them With Me GA: If It Is The Latter Then I Cannot Guarantee How I Will React GA: But I Will Take You Up On Your Offer GA: Even If It Is Not As Advanced As You Are Claiming GA: If Only Half Of It Is True Then That Is Still Far Better Than I Have Been Able To Gain Access To Since I Arrived On This Planet GA:   GA: And As Hard A Time As Myself Or Others Might Give You For Some Of Your Ethical Choices Vriska GA: You Should Not Be So Hard On Yourself GA: Not Even If It Is Not Technically You GA: All Alternates Are Shadows Of Ourselves And Who We Could Have Been Or Could Yet Be GA: We Have Been Getting The Shit Kicked Out Of Us Since We Picked Up That Accursed Game GA: Do Not Do SGRUBs Job For It Now That We Have Finally Escaped Its Grasp

AG: No AG: Kan AG: You don't understand AG: I am the QUEEN of L8dy's Country, Nevada. AG: It's a huge settlement with 8arric8ded walls, I think it was last year or the year 8efore we got the power grid 8ack up AG: It's funded 8y L8dy's Mansion, my live-in headquarters which also dou8les as a fucking kickass 8itching casino AG: We have a8out 20,000-40,000 people living here as permanent residents and more who come and go AG: There's tr8de, there's medicull staff, there's textile plants and industrial gardens AG: We have a standardized 8arter system AG: I've done SO MUCH p8perslogging and pulling myself up from my fucking 8ootstraps AG: I'm not 'hyping up a mediocre settlement' AG: You have to literally get into a vehicle to drive from L8dy's Mansion to the 8order walls 8ecause my territory is so large AG: We are one of the 8iggest non-aligned Encampments in the western hemisphere AG: I'm........ AG: I'm 8uilding an army, Kan. This pl8ce is fucking Huge.

GA: Vriska GA: Why Are You Building An Army GA: Did We Not All Go Through This Sort Of Thing Once Before GA: Do You Really Need To Seek Out Conflict Again So Soon

AG: SkaiaNet needs to 8e 8rought down AG: People are suffering 8ecause they hold ALL the wealth and ALL the resources AG: I'm not just going to stand 8y and let them 8ully every8ody into su8mission while the planet dies AG: and they MORE than have the capa8ilities to m8ke life more comforta8le AG: Yes I've 8uilt an army 8efore, that's why I'm the perfect person for this jo8 AG: I have experience with this shit AG: SkaiaNet has no IDEA what kind of enemy it's m8de in me AG: Also   AG: My n8me is Spin. AG: I've triangul8ed your loc8ion. AG: Do you want me to come get you or no?

GA:   GA: GA:

AG: Yes or no?

GA: I Am Thinking GA:   GA: GA: Will It Be You Who Picks Me Up GA: Or Some Random Underling Of Yours

AG: If you want me to m8ke the trip personally, I can t8ke a 8r8k AG: L8dy's Country won't fall apart without me for a d8y

GA: No GA: No That Will Be Fine GA: I Am Not Entirely Sure That I Want To See You GA: Until I Have Had A Chance To Clean Up

AG: God even in the f8ce of a post-apocalyptic w8steland you're still so prim lmf8o AG: I'll send my personal guard. His n8me's Seipher, I'd trust him with my life. AG: Are you in a s8fe pl8ce to 8unker down? You're a8out 7 hours out from where we're at

GA: Vri GA: GA: Spin GA: I Have Been Walking On My Own Through Swamps GA: Forests GA: Rivers And Open Fields Full Of Mud And Sadness GA: I Have Had To Bathe In Whatever Little Flowing Water I Could Find GA: And Do Not Even Get Me Started On Things Like My Clothes GA: Or All The Extra Features That Are Included With Being A Human In The Way Of Hygiene GA: Forgive Me If I Want A Moment Or Two To Myself Before I See Someone I Care About For The First Time In Almost Two Entire Sweeps GA: So That I Can Look And Smell Presentable GA: Rather Than Looking Like I Am Some Sort Of Bog Person And Smelling Like A Waterlogged Carcass

AG: You care a8out me? AG:   AG:   AG: lmf8oooooooo could you imagine, I had the strongest urge to send that and then NOTHING until my driver arrives there AG: God that would’ve 8een soooooooo funny AG: Yeah roughing it in the wilderness is fucking awful, I’ll have Seipher and K8 get you set up in your suite after you arrive and then you can just lmk when you’re ready and we’ll have dinner and a drink or something AG: I’ll see you then!!!!!!!! ::::)

——arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased Trolling grimAuxilitrix [GA]——

GA:   GA: GA: GA: But I Did Not Want To Be Done Talking With You GA: GA: ---grimauxiliatrix [GA] disconnected---

@betterthan777 @g4llowsc4l1br4t1ng @g0iinggh02t

[vriskaserketdaily]

Heya! Got a Vriska HC!!: She feels guilt about,, well everything that happened with Tavros, so she sometimes gives him lots of attention. If he's getting, say, talked over, she'll make a fuss about it for him to get everyone else to shut up, but she sometimes lazer focuses on him, so he's always her target in video games and snowball fights :0

this request actually made me really uncomfortable, because as both a vriska liker and a tavros liker i believe neither should interact with the other in any way ever again for the rest of their lives. i was motivated to write a drabble under the cut.

"I appreciate, what you're trying to do."

They were at a cafe, al fresco, the bouquet Vriska had sent to Tavros' doorstep on the table between them. Sorry for killing you!!!!!!!! the tag read.

Vriska hadn't known what to think when she got his text to meet up and currently had a mouthful of cranberry muffin in her munchifice. "Wh-"

"I understand that, somewhere, in that cold blue pusher of yours, you really are sorry for what you did, to me, when we were kids." He'd never grown out of that fucking falter in his voice, but at least he didn't stammer anymore. Small miracles. "But that doesn't change the fact that, you did it, to me, and it also doesn't change, the fact that nothing you will ever do, will make me forgive you."

Vriska opened her mouth to protest, but Tavros cut her off with a tone she had never heard from him before. "I get, that you were seven, and your lusus was shit, and on some level, you wanted to make me stronger---"

"You should be gr8ful---"

"But in reality, you made my life, nine different kinds of hell, for no reason. It wasn't because, we were best friends or anything, so don't bullshit me." He grinned at the pun, and there was a swaggering edge to his smile that hadn't been there when they were seven sweeps old. "It's not because, we were friends, and it's not because, we were pitch. I never hated you, not even when I tried to kill you. I just wanted you gone." He looked her dead in the eyes and said, with absolute conviction, "I still want you gone."

"8ut I'm different now! I found peace and I'm happy!" Vriska protested. "I'm a 8etter person than when we were wrigglers. I'm just trying to clean up loose ends."

"I don't care." And oh, the look on Vriska's face. Tavros continued. "I don't care, how good of a person you think you are, or how much you've changed. You are still, the person who hurt me, the person who killed me, and my friends---"

"I 8rought her 8ack---"

"That doesn't matter. I get, that the games we played were high-stakes, but you made it so, the stakes weren't fun." Vriska reflected that, yeah, most of the games they played---including the game---had mostly been fun for her at the expense of . . . gosh, nearly everyone else she played with. Too bad most of those kids were long dead now.

Tavros continued. "I get, that it brings you peace, or some sense of, restored karma, to try and make things right with me, but there is nothing you can do, that will fix things between us, and you being in my life, makes my life actively less peaceful."

There was a pause.

"The best thing, for both of us, the one thing you can do, is never see me again. You have other friends, and so do I." Vriska was about to debate that, but Tavros rolled on. "Please, Vriska, this is the last time, that I am going to beg you for something. Leave me, the fuck alone, forever."

Vriska sincerely doubted that this was the last time that Tavros was going to beg for something, but she reasoned that the inevitable next time would be even sweeter knowing he had said this. "Fiiiiiiiine," she promised, without even crossing her fingers behind her back. If he wanted to come crawling to her, who was she to stop him? She did have other friends who weren't nearly so lame.

Tavros locked her in that unnerving stare again before seeming to accept her apology. "Okay. And Vriska---" he released the brake on his wheelchair---"Suck it."

He was fully two blocks away before Vriska realized he'd left her with the bill.

"TAAAAAAAAVROOOOOOOOS!!!!!!!!"

[homestuckexamination]

Selfish Vs Unselfish

Jesus. Yeah I have nothing to comment here, I’m going to read this later when I haven’t just woken up.

You know the drill. Put it under ‘Read More’. A matter of perspective it can be, but there can be an objective truth to sort that out. Let me e x p a n d on this matter using Homestuck and some philosophy. And for those who missed the last ask on Active/Passive divide, please do remember that these labels are on a continuum, not strictly boxed categories. “UNSELFISH” or UNSELFISH - The passive classes lean more to this. How? By being group-oriented. Like support classes in RPGs, their asset comes mainly from a drive to benefit others. Roxy is one of the best examples of this. While she was passive-aggressive in her pursuit of romance, she is ultimately willing to put her self aside and bettering herself if that meant making sure the group stays together. She does this by, to quote Dirk, never turning the tables to make a talk about her when she knows her friend needs something.

TG: i was gonna say why i finally quit drinkin TG: i mean if you want to know GG: Yes. GG: Actually, once you did stop, it made me finally realize it was a problem for you for a long time. GG: And I didn’t say anything at the time, but it made me wonder if I wasn’t doing the right thing before. GG: By failing to point out you might have a problem? Or just going along with it and participating in lively banter any time you clearly had too much to drink? GG: Was I just being a bad friend? TG: nah it wasnt your responsibility to fix my shit TG: and anyway i think i made it hard for anyone to come at me like it was a real problem TG: i was always joking around so much and havin a good time like kind of overzealously so TG: that i probably just made people feel like a shitty wet blanket for even mentioning it

She wants to be of use to her group. However, the downside to this is that, as passively Roxy can be, she often needs them as well.

TG: and now dirk knows that too and for some reason letting him down feels like the worst part?? TG: which is equally lame and weak cuz i should care for my own sake not for how it makes a dude see me but it still just really bothers me ???

TG: i didnt want her to meet a sloppy embarrassing mess of a daughter

TG: even if she did like to drink at some point it was kind of a childish idea that doing so myself would make me closer to her or help us bond or whatever TG: anyway i think i might of overestimated her drinkin habits

How would you know if a class is truly passive when a character just been a really selfish a-hole through the story? It’s how they mainly rely on others as well. Let’s use Aranea as the main example of a selfish passive Sylph of Light that tries to emulate a Thief. Aranea says that Sylph is a healer type of class that involves boosting others, even excessively. However, while she claims that she merely wants to help and shepard the Alpha timeline by taking control of it, Meenah says otherwise. What Aranea has been doing is a self-aggrandizing act to get into the spotlight and not sit on the sidelines anymore, much like her fellow Serket. Like Kanaya, she is meddlesome. She asserts that what she does is for the good of all, even if that means doing something others would object to. They don’t want that. But, she does it anyway.

At first, she complies when the recipient refuses, but when it eventually comes to her ultimate takeover plan, everyone else comes second. She may believe that she’s just granting their wishes, but her underlying motive is ultimately selfish- albeit by excessively “helping” others for her own cause. Aranea failed to learn what Mindfang did:

“8ut as I sit here deciding what to do with the damna8le little sphere, I understand my error. It was not in failing to chart a course through future events to turn my fortune’s tide, even so many sweeps from now. It was in 8elieving the future was mind to know, and fortune mine to control.”

Now let’s use Rufioh and compare him to Roxy. Both of them are Rogues. Both of them are group-oriented characters that act selfishly from time-to-time. The difference is that Rufioh is more selfish. He’s extremely affable to the point of being a doormat to please others all while trying to be polite about romantic advances despite being a flirt himself. He’s reluctant to voice his own reason that he wants to leave his matespritship with Horuss. Sounds familiar? He’s the Jake of the love triangle. Rufioh cheated on Damara and never takes responsibility from it, focusing on Damara being a crazed scorned girl.

Passive players that fail to balance supporting others and fulfilling their own desires often end up being thrown in a loop. Forcing your solution solution on others for 'their own good’ is selfish. Your concern on how others perceive you may be sprouted from your own insecurity. Whenever you make a donation to the less fortunate, how can you be certain it’s not without the purpose of staving off guilt, doing it because it simply aligns with your moral code, or because it feels good? 

AG: I decided not to, 8ecause I didn’t want to 8e the one to make you sad about it.

AG: Was that selfish of me? I dunno.

It’s a gem to see volunteers whose instincts are to help people to make life more bearable, mind you. But they’re also doing that because they want to see them better and it’s often their own desire to do so and fulfill that dream.

ENLIGHTENED VS UNENLIGHTENED SELFISHNESS

-I’ve rambled on this a bit. Here’s a recap:

*Unenlightened Selfishness is… pretty much the archetypal self-centeredness that makes people jerks. It’s whenever you do something for yourself with little to no regard to other people’s desires. It’s the greedy shark hoarding all the treasure. It’s when you try to justify your actions with a perspective of “everyone else is selfish, so I’m entitled to be an asshole to everyone too”.

*Enlightened Selfishness or Enlightened Self-Interest is the opposite. It’s when you respect that everyone has their own wants and needs by compromising and coinciding them with your own. It’s like a deal. It’s the Golden Rule. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It’s when you do things for other people for the good you’ll get from it, even when the payment is simple politeness and being generally nice. Society expects each individual to benefit the community in turn by working. We work with the expectation that others work for us. Unlike the first, this form of self-interest benefits both parties. Another term is Selfish Altruism.

We see an exercise of selfishness burning brightly through Vriska’s arc.

(VRISKA): I’m not a loser though! (VRISKA): I LIKE who I’ve 8ecome. (VRISKA): I actually feel happy and good a8out my life for the first time in… may8e forever?? (VRISKA): Like, ACTUALLY good a8out my life in a way that feels real, instead of forced. Don’t you realize that’s what it was like for us? VRISKA: You don’t have a life! VRISKA: You’re DEAD, remem8er? VRISKA: I’m the one with the life! VRISKA: And I fully intend to use it in a relevant and constructive way to help 8ring an end to all the horri8le shit that’s 8een going on for way too long. VRISKA: Remem8er when you used to care a8out that sort of thing? VRISKA: No, o8viously not. VRISKA: All you care a8out now is 8ullshit hipstery fashion trends, feeling “happy”, and… whatever the fuck it is you’re doing here? VRISKA: Frolicking with some horses in an ugly field or some shit. VRISKA: Just a8solutely disgraceful. VRISKA: How could I have 8ecome so selfish??

Vriska is accusing (Vriska) for being selfish despite being selfish herself. Remember her popular hero quote?

VRISKA: I only ever wanted to do the right thing no matter how it made people judge me, and I don’t need a magic ring to do that. VRISKA: You don’t have to 8e alive to make yourself relevant. VRISKA: And you don’t have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero. VRISKA: You just have to know who you are and stay true to that. VRISKA: So I’m going to keep fighting for people the only way I ever knew how.

VRISKA: 8y 8eing me.

And a few panels after that, she does this.

VRISKA: OHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! VRISKA: OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! VRISKA: WE’RE G8ING TO LOOK AT WH8T’S IN THIS CH8ST RIGHT N8W!!!!!!!! VRISKA: DO YOU HE8R ME Y8U F8CK? VRISKA: I D8DN’T SCRAPE AND CLAW MY W8Y 8ACK TO RELEV8NCE F8R THIS SHIT! VRISKA: I’M DOING S8METHING F8CKING IMPORTANT! AND WHEN I DO SOMETH8NG FUCKING IMPORT8NT, EVERY88DY 8ETTER D8MN WELL PAY ATT8NTION TO ME!!!!!!!!

Sure, her resurrection got everyone’s attention, but also annoyance. A lot of their personal problems aren’t truly solved, just put on a temporary chokehold by someone with a stubborn, assertive personality. She’s taking charge so that her team won’t be in poor condition for the big fight, but also to, well, be in the spotlight. She doesn’t care how others think of her, she just wants to help… but also because it makes her important, even if that means overpowering her friends, including her moirail Terezi. Vriska’s the active counterpart to Roxy in both class and aspect. A positive part of this is that it’s easier for Vriska and other folks like her to be self-driven.

…

What am I getting at? It’s a matter of intention. Are they doing it to mainly benefit others? Or are they acting to benefit themselves? Even if it’s grey, there’s often a tint or shade that’s lighter or darker that makes someone lean somewhere. It doesn’t matter how they see themselves and how they perceive their own actions, it’s their motivation that defines the line. Accidents don’t count. It’s the will. Looking at one’s intention is a way to objectively sift through the blurriness of it their actions, even when said intention is subconscious. You can also simply take the Active/Passive divide on strictly class roles in terms of RPG abilities alone if you’re not keen on the personalities of the bunch.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Seeing as I don’t have a job right now (one week furlough), I managed to get a lot of writing for Saffron and Sage done today. Now I feel good! Time to ruin that with a Homestuck 2 Liveblog! Last time: Jade kidnapped “Yiffy”, much to Jane’s distress! No time for that, though, as we’re back with the Candyland Kids. 

HARRY: vrissy, i know this is a stressful predicament but i think that's going too far. HARRY: my dad believes in us. HARRY: and if he thinks there's something we can do, then there has to be a way!

Kind of interesting that Harry holds his dad’s opinion in such high esteem, considering that his dad has been AWOL pretty much his whole life.

TAVROS: Uncle john isn't to blame for this,,, HARRY: yeah, no shit tav. HARRY: this whole situation is because of YOUR insane hitlermom.

How the hell does Harry Anderson know who Hitler is? When did that conversation come up? This is a completely different universe! 

TAVROS: Is less sincere,,, than it is,,, an attempt to weaponize something difficult for me, TAVROS: In order that you can win an argument,,, with harry anderson,,,,, VRISKA: GRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! VRISKA: WILL YOU ALL JUST VRISKA: SHUT!!!!!!!! VRISKA: UP!!!!!!!!

A good example of why characters like John, Jade, Vriska, and sometimes Karkat are important in Homestuck or in stories generally. They actually do shit. 

VRISKA: Neither you nor your friends have anything really important going on. VRISKA: Your lives and your planet are a total 8ore! VRISKA: 8ut somehow John loves you anyway. VRISKA: Try and be fucking gr8ful for that every once in a while. VRISKA: Not everyone is so lucky.

Vriska please do not be pining for middle-aged John Egbert. You have literally half a dozen semi-official love interests (John, Terezi, Eridan, Tavros, Meenah and Kanaya), please don’t pick the one old enough to be your dad. It was already weird enough when Adult John got hot and bothered by teen Roxy in the epilogues, to say nothing of you fucking a middle-aged homeless clown in a bush.  

thespiansGlamor [TG] began pestering adamantGriftress [AG]

Oh, fuck you, Homestuck. It’s bad enough that Harry and Dave are both going to be referred to as “TG” in chatlogs, but now Vrissy and Vriska are both AG and have the same font color! 

TG: i've allocated the strife specibus with the scissorkind abstratus? TG: hm. TG: using this weird vocab and stuff feels... well, weird. TG: i'm not sure why, but it seems as though everything that's about to happen is that much more important now. TG: or maybe it already was, but i just didn't understand just how important until this moment.

One issue with wearing your metaphor on your sleeve as much as Homestuck 2 does is that thematically important lines become really obvious. 

I like how the triangle-shaped panel around Vriska escaping the crowd by simply walking into it is reminiscent of a magic 8-ball. That’s clever! 

VRISKA: Your society... no, your whole planet... it deserves to 8urn str8 to MEGAhell, and I'm gonna 8e the one to fly it there! VRISKA: I'm gonna shatter your paradise into pieces with my 8are hands and SHIT IN ITS GRAVE!!!!!!!! VRISKA: HOW'S THAT FOR A FUCKING ST8MENT! VRISKA: YOU GOT ALL THAT, JANE CROCKER? VRISKA: DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT'S COMING FOR YOU???????? VRISKA: YOU'VE MESSED WITH VRISKA: ********VRISKA******** VRISKA: ****FUUUUUUUUCKING**** VRISKA: ********SERK8T********

There’s some extreme Dungeons and Dragons energy here, where Vriska’s plan to escape a mob of reporters working for a totalitarian dictatorship run by literal gods is to simply walk outside and publicly declare her intent to destroy the world as punishment for its sins. 

And yeah, this is how that plan usually works in DnD, too.

Man, the next page is a wall of text, whereas in old Homestuck this’d be an animation. I get “fair wages” and “small budget”, but is still feels weird to see a big Strife scene merely get described with boring-ass words.

Fearing gunfire, the few paparazzi who aren't currently getting their asses handed to them by the world's angriest traffic cone start to trip over each other, diving for cover.

The world’s angriest traffic cone.

Far away, in her lair, Jane Crocker grabs the two sides of her computer monitor with enough strength to snap it in two. She can't believe what she's watching. Behind her, from a shadowy corner of the room, there is an agitated growling noise and the rattle of chains.

Is that Yiffy? Is Yiffy an animal? Please tell me Yiffy is not a person that Jade named Yiffy. 

....Actually, please tell me that Yiffy isn’t an animal Jade named Yiffy that is Jade’s child via sex with another animal that might be my breaking point.

Vriska alights on the ground, rakes her throat, quietly spits out a little wad of blue, and wipes her mouth unceremoniously. Tavros pats Harry Anderson tentatively on the arm. Vrissy tries to be badass and cough up something too but she doesn't really make it work.  

Vrissy::Vriska Vriska::Mindfang

It’s weird that John’s sprite is the same even though he’s middle aged now, but I like that his God Tier outfit doesn’t fit any more. Isn’t it magical? Ahh, who cares.

JOHN: this old thing is pretty uncomfortable in a lot of ways. JOHN: hm... JOHN: when we get a moment, maybe the two of us could brainstorm a redesign? JOHN: no pressure though. HARRY: !!!

Oh, that’s why! That’s cute. 

JADE: theres something i need to tell you

don’thavefuckedadogdon’thavefuckedadogdon’thavefuckedadog

JADE: john... i have a daughter JADE: shes almost harry andersons age JOHN: ... JOHN: ... JOHN: you have a daughter.

Named Yiffy?

ROSE: It was at this point that Jade came to me. ROSE: I could understand her pain quite acutely, and so... ROSE: I agreed to carry a child on her behalf. KANAYA: . ROSE: ... Without telling Kanaya.

Without-

Kanaya is your WIFE. You LIVE WITH HER. Even ignoring the question of why you’d keep 9 months of pregnancy from your wife, how? Kanaya would have been living with humans for years at that point and she’s literally in charge of reproduction don’t tell me she thought Rose just got fat for a while and then lost the weight really fast. 

ROSE: I'm... not sure why I made that decision. ROSE: I regret not telling Kanaya, of course. ROSE: But I can't say that I regret going through with it. ROSE: At the time, it didn't feel as though the deception was even all that prolonged. The whole affair was... short. ROSE: Purely physical, and nothing more.

ROSE: John, there isn't a father. ROSE: Jade and I are the sole parents of this child. JOHN: oh. JOHN: ... JOHN: OH. JOHN: oh i'm so sorry, i didn't th- ROSE: That's quite alright John, although you might like to direct that apology more towards your sister. ROSE: All I will say is that if you would like to take up the particulars with us, ROSE: Some *other* time, 

Actually, if John doesn’t know that Jade has a male dog’s genitals due to a fusion accident, I’d love to know what that all-caps OH means. What does he think happened, that Jade and Rose managed to have a baby? 

JOHN: so... how did you hide the pregnancy? ROSE: Oh, that was simple. ROSE: Jade's genes being, as they are, part canine, the gestation period was substantially reduced.

OH NO 

Yiffy is literally a furry, isn’t she? Moreso that Jade, she’s a full-on “Can be naked onscreen and it’s okay because she’s covered in fur” dog girl.

JOHN: i think i understand everything so f VRISSY: WAIT!!!!!!!! VRISSY: YOU MEAN TO TELL ME VRISSY: NOT ONLY DO I H8VE A SISTER VRISSY: 8UT YOU NAMED VRISSY: YOUR ****SECRET CHILD**** VRISSY: ********YIFFY********????????

Vrissy makes an excellent point. 

ROSE: We didn't call her Yiffy. ROSE: That would be a quite ridiculous thing with which to burden a child. ROSE: Her full name is Yiffany Longstocking Lalonde Harley.

Vrissy looks as though she is about to shit the belltower they are standing in, brick by brick.

ROSE: It was, in hindsight, a monumentally terrible decision acting as the final chapter in a long series of novels, each one full of progressively more terrible decisions than the last. ROSE: But that is the name that we decided upon.

Oh, wait a second. Vriska changed Vriska Maryam-Lalonde to Vrissy, and changed Harry Anderson to just Harry. So obviously she’s going to rename Yiffy to literally anything else, then rename Tavros, and then we’ve got a new set of four kids as Vriska leaves to do something else. That’s what going to happen, right? Right? Please? 

ROSE: You have to understand... this whole situation ended up playing out a bit like an ironic game of chicken between the two of us. ROSE: Something that far outstripped anything that the Strider fraternity could have produced in their wildest, most jpegged creative wet dreams. ROSE: But in the end that triumph of irony came back to bite us in the fucking ass, as irony is wont to do. ROSE: There was absolutely no possibility of us casually letting you all know that, by the way, we had had a secret daughter named Yiffany Longstocking. ROSE: At least, not right away. ROSE: But carapacian change-of-name paperwork is so complex and circuitous that, eventually, keeping quiet forever just seemed like the more reasonable option.

This is, even for Homestuck, monumentally stupid. You named your daughter Yiffany Longstocking as a joke and then kept the child secret because you were embarrassed. You two are awful fucking parents. You are the worst parents in the entire series, and that includes Bro Strider and the spider that made Vriska feed it children. 

And we’re literally at the point where the writing is bad and the joke is how bad the writing is. This isn’t enjoyable to read; you can’t make a bad B-movie My Immortal fanfic on purpose.  

Even now, Yiffy is likely being held at spoonpoint

I feel like “Jade and Rose have a secret daughter named Yiffany Longstocking” can be a joke or it can be drama but maybe not both at the same time. 

[calamitascalliope]

Vriska and Rose=====>Make Them Pay

My submission for @ladystuck2020​, written for @haruspeks​. You can also find it on Ao3 here. Enjoy!

From the day she was born, everyone knew Rose Lalonde was a peculiar child.

Most children, when brought into this world, scream and cry and generally make a huge fuss about things. Rose, on the other hand, made not a single sound as the doctor brought her out into the light. No screaming. No wriggling. Nothing.

It was so alarming that Rose was immediately placed into intensive care, fearing that her lungs had not developed properly. But after multiple tests and several weeks of head scratching it was discovered that no, Rose was perfectly healthy in every way. Aside from the strange fact that she never cried.

While this certainly made her mother’s life easier, a poor woman who was woefully unprepared for raising a child, it lead to a lot of concern as this pattern continued into Rose’s older years. When she began eating baby food, she never made a mess of things. When she fell over while learning to walk she shed not a single tear. When she became a toddler, she never threw a single temper tantrum.

On paper, Rose would seem like a perfect child. A child who never fussed? What more could a new parent ask for! In practice however, Rose was exceptionally unnerving.

It was on Rose’s thirteenth birthday that her existence took a turn from unnerving to terrifying. 

It had been a small affair. Some family had been invited, but all that really amounted to was her uncle Dirk and cousin Dave. Dave was what you would expect from a thirteenth year old boy. Loud, full of energy, and never staying in one place for too long. He was everything Rose was not.

As Dave tore a path through the living room, playing with a small toy bird he had brought with him, Rose sat delicately at the table, taking careful bites of her cake. Rose’s mother was chatting with Dirk on the couch, with Dirk having to occasionally tell Dave to not try and jump off of high places. It was a rather peaceful scene.

Until Rose was lying on the floor, completely unresponsive.

One panicked rush to the hospital later, and Rose was in a hospital bed, dozens of monitors hooked up to her small body. Her heart monitor was the chief among them. Every so often, her heartbeat would begin to beat sporadically, nearly tripling in speed for less than a second before returning to normal. It had been decided that these palpitations were what caused her fainting spell, but they were still trying to figure out why they were happening.

After a tense couple of hours filled with tests, tears, and nervous pacing, Rose opened her eyes and did something she had never done in her thirteen years of life.

She screamed.

Rose screamed with a fury far beyond her age, and began to violently try and tear apart the many apardi that was attached to her body. A panicked nurse rushed over to try and calm her down, to tell her she was safe, but Rose snapped at the woman like a mad dog. When the nurse tried to approach her again Rose kicked her in the stomach causing her to stumble backwards, doubled over in pain.

Rose’s heart rate, obviously high due to her sudden physical exertion, spiked higher than it had ever gone. Rose fell back in her bed, going unconscious once more.

After that they got permission from Rose’s mother to strap her down.

When Rose next awoke, she was her usual self. Confused at her location, but nowhere near the violent state she had exhibited earlier. A few doctors spoke with her, asking if she was okay and if she was calm. Asking how she felt. Asking why she attacked that nurse. Rose answered all the questions with her usual calm demeanor. All except the last one. To that question she simply gave a confused look, and said that she did not remember that happening.

The doctors were stumped, but Rose seemed to be doing fine. The palpitations had stopped, and while her behavior was not normal by any stretch of the word, she was her usual self once more. Rose was prescribed some medication that would hopefully stop this from happening again, and she was to make regular checkups to ensure that she was doing well.

Exhausted, Rose’s mother took her straight home. She held her daughter tight, trying her best to ignore how detached and cold Rose felt in her arms. She eventually fell asleep, but Rose did not. When her mother’s breathing leveled out, Rose carefully slipped out of her grasp. She planned to head to the kitchen to find a snack, but her plans were put on hold when she saw something that would change her life forever.

Floating lazily near to the ground was a small girl. Well, girl would not be the proper term. Sure she was small, and sure she had a messy tangle of long hair, but no one who saw this thing would describe her as just a girl.

Her skin was a mottled grey, flaky and ashen. She looked as if she was a snowman made of ashes. Her tangled hair was not just dark, it was the color of the blank night sky. The color of nothing. Sprouting from between her impossibly colored hair was a pair of brightly colored horns that clashed heavily with the darker tones of the rest of her body.

She had eight eyes, but they were not arranged in the way a spider’s were. Two of her eyes were in the places one would expect them to be, and the remaining six were placed in a circle around her left eye. The sclera of her eyes was not the typical white, but instead a bright orange, and her iris seemed to be missing in its entirety. Her pupils were slits, much like that of a reptile, and all eight of them were darting around the room sporadically.

Rose stared at this strange figure for several seconds, and a few moments later the figure took notice of Rose’s attention. She gave a cautionary glance behind herself, before turning back to Rose.

“You can see me?”

The creature’s voice was deep, and had a chittering to it that Rose could not fully understand. A good comparison would be trying to understand someone with a heavy Scottish accent when you have never heard of Scotland in your entire life.

“Yes.” Rose said, a bit hesitant. “Who are you?”

“Vriska. I think. How did I get here?”

“I’m not sure. Um, give me a second.” Rose turned towards her mother, and gently shook her awake.  “Mom?”

“Oh, uh, yeah?”  Rose’s mother woke up with a start, looking dreary eyed around the room.  “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Do you see that weird grey girl?”  Rose asked, and could immediately tell by the lost expression on her face that the answer was no.

“What do you mean Rose?”

“It was nothing, just a, uh, dream I had.”  Rose assured her, and within a few moments her mother passed out once more. Rose turned back to face the strange girl, Vriska apparently, who was nodding.

“So only you can see me. I guess. That is real fucking weird.”

“Your flippant use of crude language is....Interesting. Although not surprising given your situation. ”  Rose spoke with the voice of a sixty year old woman, and Vriska scoffed at it.

“And who’s gonna fucking st8p me? You’re the 8nly one who can see and hear me, so try it 8itch.”

“How did you say the eight with your mouth.”

“Fuck y8u that’s h8w.”

Rose paused, her rational mind slowly turning to try and fully comprehend this situation and figure out the best way forward.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be antagonistic.”  Rose said.  “It has been a weird day for me, and I’m assuming it has been a weird one for you to.”

“That is putting it lightly.”  Vriska’s words still carried a sharp tone, but Rose could tell that she was settling down a bit.

“I know your name, it is only fitting you know mine. I’m Rose Lalonde.”

“That’s a pretty long name if you ask me.”

“Well, it is usually just Rose. Lalonde is my last name.”

“What’s that?”

“Well,”  Rose was prepared to go into a long winded history lesson on the use of last names in ancient times, but she figured that she had better things to do.  “Never mind. So….What exactly are you?”

To that Rose received a lazy shrug from Vriska.

“Hell if I know. All I know was that I woke up inside of a tiny pink monkey’s 8ody and I felt extremely pissed a8out the whole thing. Then I passed out again and woke up here, talking to you.”

“So you have no memories about why you are here? None at all?”

“There is nothing 8ut my own name in my head.”  Vriska said.  “That and a lot of anger, 8ut I’m not exactly sure what I’m angry at. As we’ve been talking its been going away though so now it really is just my name.”

“Can you….Do anything?”  Rose asked, and upon realizing the vagueness of her question she clarified.  “I mean we know that no one can see you except for me, but can you interact with the world around you?”

“Dunno.”  Vriska contemplated for a moment, and then reached down to try and pick up a toy bird Dave had left behind in the panic after the party. Her hand phased right through it, but the toy trembled slightly. Almost as if it had been blown by a slight breeze.  “I guess the answer to that question is kinda 8ut not really.”

“To be perfectly honest, I am not entirely convinced that I’m not hallucinating right now.”  Rose said.  “I have just undergone an extremely traumatizing experience, my brain playing tricks on me should almost be expected.”

“Well I am very much real, 8ut I have no clue how I could possi8ly convince you. I can’t touch anything, and….”  Vriska paused for a moment, her eight dark eyes focusing on Rose much in the way a cat does when it is preparing to pounce.

Vriska pounced.

Rose jumped at the sudden movement, and was doubly shocked when she   felt her  . Vriska’s body crashed into Rose’s, toppling them both to the ground.

“Okay! You’re real! Get off!”  Rose said, but Vriska did not seem to be listening to her. Vriska’s eyes were still massive, all eight of them looking directly at Rose’s chest. Vriska raised one clawed hand, flexing her fingers before burying them into Rose’s chest.

There was no blood, there wasn’t even a wound, but Rose felt Vriska’s sharp nails burrow into her chest. Rose screamed, thrashing about to try and get Vriska off of her, but it was no use. While Vriska seemed capable of attacking her, Rose’s own blows passed right through Vriska. 

The screaming did alert Rose’s mother. The poor woman woke up with a start to see her small daughter screaming her head off and flailing about the floor for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile, from Rose’s perspective, Vriska was still tearing into her chest. The pain was gradually growing unbearable, and Rose was beginning to feel the room spinning around her as she grew faint. She was on the edge of losing herself once again when she felt her hand wrap around something solid.

No, wait. That wasn’t her hand. That was Vriska’s hand. Vriska’s hand had wrapped around something solid. Why had Vriska felt Rose’s hand?

Rose wasn’t in her living room anymore. She was weightless, floating in an empty abyss. She couldn’t feel anything, anything aside from the rhythmic pumping of Vriska’s own heart.

No, not Vriska’s heart. HER heart. Why did Vriska keep doing that?

No, she’s not Vriska, she’s Rose. Why was her mind all over the place, where-

The dark void around Vriska lit up into a brilliant gold, blinding Rose’s eight eyes. She saw a sigil, burnt onto the bottoms of her eyelids. A small sun. It was everywhere she looked. She could close her eyes for hours on end, but Rose could not escape it. It pulsated in time with her heartbeat, with their heartbeat.

Vriska and Rose woke up in Rose’s room, already tucked into her bed. It was dark, the small digital clock on the nightstand reading eight pm. 

“What….What happened?”  Rose mumbled, holding her head. It felt as though someone had smashed her head in with a hammer.

“I’m not sure.”  The voice came out of Rose’s mouth, but Rose was not the one who controlled it.  “Something in my head clicked and I just acted on instinct.”

“Vriska? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Not sure how 8ut now I’m, like, a part of you.”

“Why’d you do that?!”

“I dunno! Like I said, something just clicked in my head and I lost control.”

Rose swung her feet off the edge of the bed, and was about to stand up when the same sun sigil flashed into view. Rose her own body stand up from the bed as she was about to, and saw her foot get punctured by a knitting needle that had been thrown onto the floor.

Rose was suddenly sitting back in her bed, just about to stand up. Taking a moment, she peered down onto the floor and sure enough a knitting needle was lying there on the ground ready to stab her in the foot.

“Tell me you saw that too.” Rose asked.

“Uh, yeah? It would have 8een pretty hard not to.”

“Did we just see the future?”

“I think a more correct way of putting it is we saw what   could   have 8een the future, and then we changed it.”

“Were you able to do that before? Was that just a thing you could just do?”

“No! At least, I don’t think so, I,”

Vriska was interrupted by another vision, this time showing Rose’s mother walking into the room. As soon as it ended Rose leapt back into bed and pretended to sleep, getting into position just before the door opened.

Rose held still as her mother walked into the room, and gentle tousled Rose’s hair. She had likely heard Vriska and her talking before, and came in to check on them. Or, to check on her. Rose specifically. She didn’t stay long though, and before long Rose and Vriska were alone again.

“So what now?”  Rose questioned, her voice in a low whisper.  “We are now two people squished into a thirteen year old body, and we can sometimes see the future.”

“What’s a year?”

“Will this ever stop?”  Rose ignored Vriska, continuing with her worrying.  “Are we just stuck together forever? How did this happen? Why did this happen?”

“Okay, I think you are starting to panic. I can tell because it's starting to ru8 off on me. Come on, this isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

“And why not?”

“Well, for one you’ve got some gr8 company with me whenever you want it,”

“Oh, what a relief!”  Rose rolled her eyes.

“And two, you can see the future! Sometimes. How cool is that!”

Rose let out a yawn, and started to feel her body grow weary. Despite all the sleep she had gotten in the last twenty-four hours, her body was still begging for more time to rest.

“We can figure this out another time.”  Rose mumbled, already feeling her consciousness fade.  “Another….Time….”

The following day was school. Rose’s mother tried to insist that she stay home, but Rose wanted nothing more than a sense of normalcy to return to her life. She managed to convince her mother that she was completely fine, and that she just wanted to see her friends at school. It was this last part that convinced her mother to allow it. She had always been concerned about Rose making friends, and was worried that Rose was going through her schooldays sitting alone and silent. She was right to worry because that was exactly what Rose had been doing.

As they had been preparing for leaving the house, Rose ran Vriska through a few ground rules. Vriska was not to speak unless the two of them were definitely alone. Rose was going to handle all of the talking. Vriska found the rules annoying, and a lot of complaining and grumbling came from her, but she eventually promised to keep her mouth shut.

Rose sat in her usual seat on the bus. Three rows up from the back on the right side. It was snowing out, and Rose was sweltering in her oversized sweater due to the constantly humming heater just below her feet. Rose tried her best to deal with it as she watched out the window at the slowly falling flakes.

That was until her eyes flashed with another vision.

This one was short, less than a second in length, and by the time she processed what it had shown her the small wad of paper had already smacked her in the face.

It wasn’t painful, but it was extremely surprising. It probably wouldn’t have been that bad if she hadn’t been disorientated by her powers flicking on. Rose looked up to see a small group of boys giggling and holding an open notebook, a page evidently torn out.

Rose rolled her eyes and turned back to the window, but Vriska butted in.

“What the fuck are y8u d8ing?”  She asked, having the courtesy to at least keep her voice at a low whisper.  “Get them 8ack!”

“It doesn’t matter. If I give them attention they’ll never let up.”

“N8, if you don’t do anything it’ll show them that they can walk all over you.   Then   they’ll never let up.”

“That’s not,”

Another wad of paper pelted her in the face. Rose tensed, and then sighed.

“This isn’t worth it.”

“It most definetly fucking is!”  Rose could see the boys preparing another wad of paper out of the corner of her eyes. As she saw them prepare to toss it she could feel her heart racing in her chest, her muscles tightening as the sigil of light flashed in her eyes.

“ M a k e  t h e m  p a y .”

The sigil flashed brilliantly, and a lot of things happened at once. The boy preparing the wad of paper, a wiry kid with red hair, managed to give himself a papercut, and a pretty severe one at that. His finger began to bleed quite a bit, and his two friends pulled away from him to avoid getting it on their clothes. As this happened, the boy closest to the wall, a larger boy that Rose knew was on the school’s soccer team, placed his hand near the window of the bus. The bus hit a massive pothole at this moment causing the boy in the middle to bounce upwards and hit his head on the ceiling, and the window came undone and flew downwards, crushing the larger boy’s finger beneath it.

The bus driver noticed all of this sudden commotion due to the screaming of all three boys, and he pulled over quickly. He grabbed the first aid kit and ran to get them some help. All the while Rose sat in her chair, taking deep breaths as her heart rate returned to normal.

“Did….Did we do that?”

“I don’t….know.”  Vriska mused.  “It certainly felt like we did something. What are the odds all of that happened on its own? Right as we were freaking out and seeing shit?”

Rose looked around the bus. Everyone was either minding their own business with various projects or looking at the three injured boys. Everyone except for one person. A young girl with long, extremely curly hair and brilliant green eyes behind round glasses. This girl, despite all of the chaos, despite being able to do literally anything else, was looking directly at Rose. It was unnerving, and Rose looked away from her as soon as she was able.

“That girl….”

“What the fuck are you worried about? How could anyone possi8ly connect anything that happened back to us? 8esides, they had it coming.”

Rose sat in silence as the bus resumed moving, heading towards the school. Thoughts of the new power she wielded swirling through her mind, and the potential they could have going forward. While Rose sat in silence, thinking solemnly about the potential these new developments provided, Vriska did not work like that.

“Think about what we can do with this! We can get 8ack at anyone we want and there is no way we could ever be caught and punished for it! We could predict what people are going to do! Rose….With this power we could be gods.”

Rose could not see Vriska, but she could picture her smiling deviously at that. That was probably because she was also smiling at the prospect.

[gizoogletranslateshomestuck]

[A6A6I5] ====>

TAVROSPRITE: oHHHHHH, TAVROSPRITE: sNizzle,! 

VRISKA: ::::) 

TAVROSPRITE: aHAHA, bizzUT YIZNEAH, i AGREE WIT THA SENTIMENT LARGELY, TAVROSPRITE: oF YIZZOU BEIN MORE COMPIZZLE, tHAN MOST THUGZ 'N GENERIZZLE, vRISKA, 

VRISKA: It's your homie snoop dogg from the dpg. Thanks, Tavros! It's your homie snoop dogg from the dpg. 

TAVRIZZLE: }: Relax, cus I'm bout to take my respect.) 

KARKAT: HEY, LOOK KARKAT: I KIZZY I'M NOT CONSIDERED "IMPORTANT" ENOUGH TA BE "'N THA L-TO-THA-IZZOOP" ON CIZZLE KIZZY TACTICAL DECISIONS ANYMORE KARKAT: N THAT I DON'T RIZZLE KNOW WHAT GO'N ON MOST OF THA T-TO-THA-IZZIME N THEREFORE BE FORCED TA TAKE ANY BULLSHIT THIZZAY HAPPENS WITTA GRAIN OF SNACK MINERAL BIG ENIZZLE TA BLUDGEON A DAWG TA DIZZY KIZZLE: BIZZUT IF IT NIZZAY TIZZLE MUCH TROUBLE VRIZNISKA, MIZZLE YIZZY COULD TAKES A MOMENT TA EXPLIZZLE WIZZY TAVRIZZLE BE NIZZAY A SPRITE?! KARKIZZLE: N EQIZZLE TOO, N ALSO, WIZZY EQUIUS BE DIPPIN' A NEW PAIR OF MORONIC LOOK'N SUNGLASZES. KIZZLE: THIZZANKS IN ADVIZZLE so you betta run and grab yo glock!!! 

VRISKA: Sorry if yoe hav'n trou8le keep'n up wit tha times, Karkat. One, two three and to tha four. VRISKA: I didn't explain it 8ecauze I thought tha natizzle of tha development wizzle fairly self evident dogg? VRIZZLE: I'm a mutha fuckin 2-time felon. I mean, no offenze, 8ut I didn't hear anyone elze voic'n anizzle confusion. VRISKA: What a8out you, Kanaya. Dizzy yizzay think it was fairly self evident? 

KANAYA: I Thizzle It Was fairly Self Evident 

VRIZZISKA: Yizzeah. See???????? 

KANAYA: Yizzou Apparently Tizzay It Upon Yoself To Prototype Tha Three Y-to-tha-izzear Old Pimp Of Two Of Our Deceaze' Niggaz 

KARKAT: NO, I GOTS THAT! Snoop heffner mixed with a little bit of doggy flint. KARKAT: I'M NOT A FUCK'N IDIOT. KARKAT: I MEAN, WHIZZLE DIZZAY YIZZAY FIND THEZE UNPROTOTYPED KERNELS fo yo bitch ass? DIDN'T THEZE THUGZ ALRIZZLE BITCH THEY SESSION? 

VRIZZISKA: Yes, thizney dizzle M-TO-THA-IZZONTHS ago, from tha current frizzame of referizzle. 8ut dis be a VOID session, Karkat. VIZZY: I thizzay we talked a8out dis if you gots a paper stack? 

KARKAT: ?????? 

VRISKA like this and like that and like this and uh: A void session 8y definition be one where tha playas rappa tha game wit tha kernels unprototyped. VIZZY: As siznuch, it 8ecomizzles totally dysfunctionizzle. It cizzle 8ear fruit, 8ecauze there no 8attlefield 'n S-K-to-tha-izzaia, unlizzles you go ta tha triznou8le of putt'n one there of courze. VRIZZLE: Which tha Cizzle hizzy already diznone fo` us! Via "Grim8ark Jade", prizzle ta our arrivizzle. Quite considizzle of ha, really. VRIZZAY: Dis be aside from tha point though fo' sho'. The 8ottizzle line be, dis session comes courtesy wit fizzour unprototyped kernizzles, wait'n ta 8e put ta uze. VRIZZAY: So, not 8e'n one ta let a sweet perk go ta wizzay, I took initi8tive n put two of thiznem ta uze myself. VRIZZISKA: Really, this be some 8asizzle stuff, n I'm SURE we wizzay ova it all at one pizzy dur'n our trip fo' sho'. 

ROZE: Ya fuck with us, we gots to fuck you up. We did. ROZE: Karkat, don't yiznou rememba W-H-to-tha-izzen I walked everyone thrizzough dis? ROZE: I wizzle mak'n extensive notes 'n mah jizzle. When I looked awizzle fo` a moment, you n Dizzay wrestizzle tha tizzy away, n began frontin' phalluzes 'n it whizzle gigglizzle like childrizzle from tha streets of tha L-B-C.  

KIZZLE sho nuff: UM, MAYBE? Drop it like its hot.! KARKAT: I GIZZY THAT R'N A DIZZY SHOUTER. 

DAVE from tha streets of tha L-B-C: (a W-H-to-tha-izzat? dude lmao) 

KIZZLE so i can get mah pimp on: (WHAT, niggaz, better recognize? SHUT UP.) KARKAT: L-TO-THA-IZZOOK, A LIZNOT HAS HAPPENED 'N THREE YEARS. WE'VE ALL BIZZLE THROUGH... STUFF. KARKAT: Holla! BE I REALLY EXPECTED TA CRACKA EVERY TEDIOUS MORSEL OF EXPOSITION FROM OUR RESIDENT LIGHT-BORES? Fo'-fo' desert eagle to your motherfuckin' dome. 

VRISKA: Roze, git a lizzle of dis ungr8teful philistine! He dizzay dizzle our fucking acumen cuz I'm fresh out the pen. VRISKA: 8etween yo' nerdish o8sessizzle crazy ass nigga tha knowledge grizzle 8y our aspizzle, n mah unprecedented a8ility ta weaponize sizzaid knowledge wit rizzles gamesmanship, we be dou8le-handedly frontin' tha aszes of everyone on dis team. 

ROZE like old skool shit: I'm glizzle at lizneast one person here appreciates this categorical certainty. 

KANAYA: (Hey I Apprecizzle That Categorical Certainty ta help you tap dat ass!) 

ROZE: (Whiznom d-ya thiznink I was referr'n to? Real niggas recognize the realness.) ; Subscribe nigga, get yo issue.) 

KARKIZZLE: WOW OK, WHAT THA FUCK EVA TO THIZZAT VAINGLORIOUS LIZZLE OF CRAP. KARKAT cuz its a G thang: I'M STIZNILL SPOUT'N OFF HIZZLE! KARKIZZLE where the sun be shinin and I be rhymin': I THINK

VRISKA: Death row 187 4 life. That fine, Karkat! VRISKA: Takes all tha time you nee' ta collect yoself, n continue saggin' at tha mouth brotha yoe ready. 

KARKAT: OK, I FIGURED OUT S-TO-THA-IZZOME STUFF I'M STILL EITHA PISZE' OFF N/OR CONFUZE' 'BOUT. KIZZLE: YIZZAY SAY THIZZERE BE FOUR KERNELS HERE... KARKAT: YOU KNOW, WE *DID* LOZE MORE THAN TIZZY NIGGAZ ON THIZZAT METEOR. KARKAT: W-H-TO-THA-IZZICH REMIZZLE ME, I GUESS I SHOULD SAY... HI TAVRIZZLE N EQIZZLE, AGAIN??? FUNKY ASS TA SEE YOU GUYS BACK WIT US, SIZZY OF. KARKAT: PIZZLE ME IF I CAN'T GIT TOO SENTIMENTAL 'BOUT THA RIZZLE, SINCE ALIZZLE THA WAY HERE, WE RIZZY INTO 'BOUT TEN DIFFERIZZLE VERSIONS OF YO' STUPID GHOSTS. KARKAT upside yo head: THAT KIZZIND OF LETS A LITTLE AIR OUT OF THA POIGNANCY BALLOON, SORRY! 

TAVRIZZLE: One, two three and to tha four. hiznEY BIZZLE, } to increase tha peace;)  

KARKAT: DON'T WIZZINK AT ME 

ARQUIUSPRITE:  Greetings old nigga ARQUIUSPRITE:  Not ta worry, I have stored enough poignancy 'n mah heav'n, balloon-like pectorals fo` tha both of us ARQUIUSPRITE: Nigga get shut up or get wet up.  Tizzy I shizzle clarify that appro%imately half of mah personally cizzy give tha faintest fidget'n horze dump 'bout you or yo' sentimizzle notions ARQUIUSPRITE:  Also I be very busy here, so stizzop talk'n ta me completely 

VRISKA so show some love, niggaz! Hahahaha!!!!!!!! VRISKA: Oh dawg. Classic. Its just anotha homocide. 

DIZZAY: haha upside yo head...ha 

KARKAT: OK, THIZZAT WIZZLE WEIRD? 

DAVE: (um... yeah) 

KARKAT: AND SPEAK'N OF WEIRD, ONE TH'N THAT BUGS ME 'BOUT DIS BE... KARKAT: Im crazy, you can't phase me. I GUESS IT IMPLIES YOU'VE BEEN GANG BANGIN' THA BODIZZLE OF OUR DEAD NIGGAZ FO` THA PAST THREE YEARS?! KIZZLE: THAT A BIT FUCKED UP! Nigga get shut up or get wet up. EVEN FO` YOU. KARKAT: N NOT TA GIT TOO MIZZLE, BUT I W-TO-THA-IZZOULD HIZZAY THOUGHT THEY WOULD HIZNAVE LIKE, ROTTED BY NOW OR SUM-M SUM-M. 

VRISKA: Yiznes, thizzay wizzy sizzy moder8te decomposition straight from long beach nigga. V-R-TO-THA-IZZISKA: Im crazy, you can't phase me. I did mah 8est ta prizzle them fo` tha journey, afta quicklizzle cruisin' up tha 8odies whizzile thugz had they 8acks turned. 

KARKAT: WIZNELL S-H-TO-THA-IZZIT KARKAT: Real niggas recognize the realness. THAT A HELL OF A MYSTERY, THAT I ALWAYS THOUGHT WAS A MYSTERIZZLE, BUT FOUND IT TIZZAY DISTURB'N TO CONTIZZLE SOLV'N KARKAT: BUT DIZZAY IF IT DIDN'T JIZZUST GIT SOLVED, SO THAT FIZZLE UP. 

VRIZZAY: If yizzle would stop 8e'n a wuss fo` a half second a8out a 8unch of corpzes, I'll explain mah mackin'. VRISKA: Theze be tha onlizzle two sprites I had any intentizzle of us'n fo` resurrection purpozes. VRIZZISKA: I thought i told ya, nigga I'm a soldier. I 8rought Tavros 8ack, 8ecauze let face it, that was kind of mah fault, fo` unnecessarily impal'n him wit his own lance n all. VRISKA: It was mah responsi8ility ta make amends fo` that! So I did. You gotta check dis shit out yo. 

TAVROSPRITE: aWWWWWWWWWWWWW, yEEAAizzle- 

VRIZNISKA: Tavros, don't interrupt. 

TAVROSPRITE dogg: wHOOPS, 

VRISKA: Dogg House Records in the motha fuckin house. Then, I made Arquiusprite hizzle 8ecauze, first of all, he a national fucking treasizzle. Listen to how a motherfucker flow shit. VRISKA: Keep'n it gangsta dogg. Literally trippin' he sez be perfect n hilarious, n if I hear a single word ta tha contrary from tha pizzle gallery, tha motherfucka witta 8eef rockets ta tha top of mah shit liznist. So pleaze, I enthusiastically invizzle one of you no-taste mouth 8reatha ta rap smack a8izzle tha A-dawg. Make mah day! 

DAVE: It's your homie snoop dogg from the dpg. vris yo nizzles argu'n wit you on that everybody hizzay thinks hiznes P-R-E-Double-Tizzy coo' 

ARQUIIZZLE:   -->

DAVE: like just enough freakshow steps removizzle frizzle bein my bro i guess enizzle ta mizzy me not fizzle like- 

VRIZNISKA: Dave, diznon't interrupt eitha. VRIZNISKA with the gangsta shit that keeps ya hangin: No8ody allowed ta interrizzle me when I'm weed-smokin' up Arquiusprizzle! That thizzle rule like this and like that and like this and uh. 

TAVROSPRITE in tha hood: (owNeD!) (woW, oWnizzle,) 

DAVE: (oh stfiznu) 

VRISKA in all flavas: SECOND, thizzay homey be a fuck'n tactical genius. Yippie yo, you can't see my flow. VRISKA: Death row 187 4 life. Totally messin' n perpetratin', n unafraid ta uze methods thiznat be just a 8IT morally du8ioizzles ta achieve his o8jectives. I'm a mutha fuckin 2-time felon. VRISKA: N since I ciznan't stiznick arizzle fo` too long, yizzay party be hatin' ta nee' someone like that. VRISKA: 8esides, it seems like a really fitt'n f8 fo` Equius. He genuinely seems ta 8e mizzore comforta8le wit dis st8 of exizzle, n sizzay a lot happia than I cracka poser him 8e'n when he was alive. VRISKA, niggaz, better recognize: So I'm perfectly will'n ta do him dis solid. Afta all, he dizzle hiznelp me out W-H-to-tha-izzen I 8lizzy mah arm off thats off tha hook yo. So now we're sqizzay! 

ARQUIUSPRITE:  You M-to-tha-izzean triangular 

VRISKA n shit: What? Tru niggaz do niggaz. 

ARQUIUSPRITE:  Triangular 

VIZZY: Real niggas recognize the realness. I dizzle... 

ARQUIIZZLE:  It tha shizzle of mah clop dizzamn glaszes 

VRISKA: Oh. VRISKA: OH! They call me tha black folks president. VRISKA: Ahahahaha! Siznee whizzle I mizzean, guys? Freak y'all, into the beat y'all.? VRISKA: He a fuck'n rizziot ya dig? 

ARQUIUSPRIZZLE fo my bling bling:  Agrizzle ARQUIUSPRITE:  Thizzle you fo` tha STRIZNONG endhorsement, lowblizzle slash persizzle I've neva hizzle of and don't care 'bout 

V-R-TO-THA-IZZISKA so i can get mah pimp on: HAHAHIZZLE! 

ARQUIUSPRITE in all flavas:  I'll be finished mah work here momentarily 

JAKE, betta check yo self: Excuze me... JAKE: Killa arquius? J-TO-THA-IZZAKE so bow down to the bow wow! What exactly be you... do'n ta ha? 

ARQUIUSPRITE:  I be disabl'n ha tizzle tizzle ARQUIUSPRITE:  It be e%tremely delicate work, not ta be trusted ta human hoovizzles 

VRIZNISKA: Yes fo' sho'. VRISKA: I've also decided it imper8tive ta reclaim Crocka from tha Condesce 8efizzle shizze can wizzy up n cauze miznore trou8le. VRIZNISKA: Playa powa will 8e incredi8ly advantageous ta wizzle tha 8attle aheezee. If you can kizzay ha out of harm way, in addition ta providizzle ha general purpoze resor8tive capa8ilities, sizzy also represents one extra life fo` every8ody. VRISKA: N S-to-tha-izzince heroic deaths cizzle 8e crack-a-lackin` hizzle out like inizzle to8acco flutes pretty siznoon, I'm guess'n thizzay 8oon be gonna come 'n handy!

> [A6IZZLE5] ====>

[interviewswith-warfstachetonight]

Interview: Vriska Serket (11/20/19)

Interviewer: Wilford Warfstache (WW)

Interviewee: Vriska Serket ( @aquaticculler ) (VS)

Date: Nov. 20, 2019

Time: 12:33 AM - 2:33 AM (CST)

(*”8″ = “B” and “eight” sounds; I.e “no8ility” = “nobility,” “expect8ions” = “expectations”)

WW: Okay! I think I’m all set- now.. you were a blueblooded troll, correct? Did bluebloods have any set roles or expectations? (Like how jades were more or less all caretakers, from what I understand.)

VS: I was a cerulean, yes. Expect8ions were really just what you'd expect, nothing too out of the ordinary. Our caste was mostly just the troll version of "lower upper class", we had the 8enefits of wealth without the responsi8ility or expect8ions of no8ility

WW: Well, that certainly sounds like it’d be interesting..! Were there any, ah.. differences?, I suppose?, between the blues? (Ah.. teal, cerulean, and indigo, I believe?) As in.. well, like physical abilities and such, how some trolls seemed to have certain abilities that others didn’t.

VS: Yes! Generally speaking, teal 8looded trolls (apparently) could "S3NSE TH3 1NT3NT1ONS OF OTH3RS" -something my terezi said, once. Cerulean 8loods like me tended to fall into one of two categories, either we could mind control to a certain extent or we had higher strength for lack of psychic a8ilities, on par with an indigo vs the normal cerulean strength. I was in the former camp so to speak. Indigos just had a8surd strength, that's kind of their whole deal

WW: And you could mind control, you say? Did you do that often?

VS: Not particularly, it only worked on castes with stronger psychic a8ilities (Rust, 8ronze, Gold) and for the most part I had no reason to

WW: Ah, that’s fair, that’s fair.. was it something you had to train/learn? Or was it more of an.. innate ability?

VS:  At it's 8ase level it was inn8, 8ut when I was a little wriggler I pro8a8ly had to practice it to get 8etter at it, I don't remem8er much of 8eing a wriggler though, that was thousands of sweeps ago. Or hundreds. Or millions. Time flows weirdly in paradox space

WW: Oh, goodness gracious, what in the world happened to bring paradox space into it all? Was that something that happened then or a matter of ending up here?

VS: I died as a god tier, then woke up in paradox space. After what felt like a very long time in paradox space I woke up here missing a lot of memories.

VS: I do remem8er finding this place though, it was a dream 8u88le and it looked interesting. Didn't know it was one way only though, we are 8asically stuck here

WW: Well, that’s odd, hm? Ah.. what is a dream bubble, exactly?

VS: Simply put, pocket worlds in paradox space

VS: Less simply put

VS: Dream 8u88les are essentially pocket dimentions typically created 8y memories of whoever is residing in them, and those are scattered throughout paradox space. Apparently though, "inworlds" can also 8e found there too, though I am presently unsure if only certain ones are present, or if every8ody's are. I also do not have an explan8ion for memory loss while travelling certain dream 8u88les and not others, perhaps there are different types that can 8e distinguished. I did not put enough time into researching them while I was active in paradox space

VS: At least that's how I see them

VS: I do know that they transcend canons though! I met our meenah in paradox space, and her canon is wildly different from my own

WW: How odd! I wonder if that means they still exist in our world.. (oh! And you mentioned a, ah.. god tier? What is that?)

VS: A god tier is a s8ur8 mechanic, as a method to reach higher powers according to your classpect. You find your quest8ed, which is a stone 8lock with your aspect engraved, wherever you're destined to, and then you die on it and merge with your dreamself, and gain a 8unch of powers

WW: And what was your godtier, if you don’t mind?

VS: Here's where I differ the most from other Vriska's, I was a seer of life

VS: And I still am

WW: Oh? What are other Vriskas usually, then?

VS: Thief of Light

WW: And is that a huge change? (As in, like.. total opposites or something to that effect.)

VS: It's not total oppos8s, 8ut it is going from an active class to a passive class

WW: And I figure that would be a big change? (At least, in the sense of a shift from one to the other.)

VS: That one isn't a huge change 8ut it is sizea8le enough

VS: Classpects are still highly de88d to this day, with no one set system of explaining it all is agreed upon

WW: Oh, that does sound like it could cause a lot of confusion..

WW: If you don’t mind my asking, what does a Seer of Life do? Or.. what can they do?

VS: Well a seer is the passive understanding class, so I understand life, and I invite understanding through life

VS:  Though life as an aspect tends to more dou8le down on your class, from source examples

VS: So in my case I understand [a lot] and I invite understanding through [usually oversharing]

VS: It's a little 8it iffy

WW: Well, that sounds interesting..! What do you mean by understanding a lot?

VS: Knowing things, seeing things (metaphorically, literally we're 8lind as fuck), just in general. In my time on this planet I've studied everything from mathematics, to 8iology, to quantum physics, to cooking, to astronomy, ect. ect.

VS: Of course I'm aware of my own 8lind spots, I know there are gaps in my knowledge, lots of them in fact

WW: And you said you overshare a lot? Does that ever cause any trouble for you?

VS: Sometimes, 8ut I also know when to shut my mouth so to speak. Whether or not I do is another matter........

WW: Well, that’s certainly a relatable statement— Has there been anything you’ve found issue in learning?

VS: Human anatomy

VS: Dear god what is with these 8odies

VS: Programming is something we've collectively had issues with, 8ut we're okay at it now

VS: And any form of art that isn't music or writing

WW: Oh? Is there a form of music you prefer over the others?

VS: Violin was always fun

WW: Violin? Is that one that’s particularly hard to learn?

VS: It varies from person to person, 8ut it is considered one of the more difficult instruments. All instruments have difficulties in learning though, so it's hard to r8 one over another in terms of difficulty

VS: Instruments we've at least started learning to d8 are(in no particular order):

-Voice

-Trumpet

-Trom8one

-Flute

-Cello

-Viola

-Violin

-Piano

-Guitar

VS: Though we were only competent at:

-Voice

-Violin

-Piano

VS: I have never 8een good with the voice, personally

WW: Oh, gosh, that’s a lot! Were you doing more than one at a time?

VS: We did voice along piano and violin. Other than that, no

VS: Some of those we did for less than a year

WW: What’s the longest one you’ve done?

VS: 5 years of voice pro8a8ly?

VS: May8e longer

VS:  *We only did viola for two weeks 8efore swapping to violin, 8ut I'm counting it 8ecause I can still play it through violin skills

WW: Oh! Is there a difference between viola and violin?

VS: Viola's are similar to a violin, 8ut are larger and play lower notes than a violin. It's 8etween a cello and a violin in scale and size, and is played similarly to a violin

WW: Ooooooooh! Well, I didn’t even know those existed, heh— and you mentioned writing? Is that something you like doing?

VS:  I personally don't write often, 8ut Eva likes to write poetry. She's also trying to write a 8ook

VS:  I guess you can count this as writing though, I do love answering questions or going on lectures a8out things

WW: It does sound fun! Are there any particular subjects you like talking about?

VS: Quantum physics, Astronomy, and Philosophy

VS: All at once ::::)

VS: They're all connected

VS: Well everything is, really, 8ut those three are the most o8vious

WW: How so? 

VS: Well using quantum physics to explain certain aspects of astronomy, and how they rel8 has several different theories that we do not have the energy to get into right now, 8ut it is fun to use those to 8oth prove and disprove free will ::::)

WW: Disprove free will?

VS: Mhm!

VS: Certain theories of how the universe works ends up with us having no free will at all

VS: That everything is predetermined, 8ut at the same time having free will

VS: It's the theory that I su8scri8e to that eventually the universe will stop expanding, then contract upon itself, and then eventually another 8ig 8ang in exactly the same way will happen. At the end of the day we're just atoms and electrical signals 8umping next to each other in a specific way, like a game of pool with a good enough computer if you run the same shot over and over again the 8alls will end up in the same exact place, right? It's the same concept only applied to every single particle in the universe. That we've had this convers8ion potentially 8illions of times 8efore in the same exact way and we will have it 8illions of times again. Oh 8ut this is usually the end of my ram8le on the su8ject, this is missing all the material that leads up to it

WW: Well, that all sounds quite interesting..!

VS: 8ut we are tired so the condensed version of the ending will do

WW: That’s quite alright! I’ve never heard it before anyways, so I’m simply happy to learn something new!

VS: I'm glad to have presented you something new and interesting to learn

VS: I'll go over other theories at a l8r d8

VS: We seemed to have side tracked quite a 8it whoops

WW: Eh, it happens sometimes!

VS: Or I have rather hahahaha

WW: Hey, I think it’s still just as valid! It is something you’re interested in, after all!

VS: Alright next question~

WW: Hm.. well, did you have anyone you considered most important to you?

VS: During my time alive in my own 8ody, pro8a8ly terezi. In paradox space, meenah (the one I'm here with)

WW: What was your Terezi like? (If you don’t mind sharing)

VS: She was a sylph of doom, she talked 8out the inevita8le a lot, rules, limits, things I don't care a8out. She was also really strict, 8ut I liked her. I can't remem8er 8ut we were either flushed or pale

WW: What do those mean?

VS: M8sprit or moirail, respectively

VS: Oh you don't- okay

WW: Well, I know they’re types of romance!

VS: Good start! So

VS: M8spritship resem8les typical human romantic rel8ionships the most, it's not 1:1 8ut there's a lot of love

VS: Moirailegence is like the human concept of soul m8s, 8ut not like "I love this person" more "We need each other", you t8ke care of each other and keep each other pacified and calm. Stopping them from doing stupid things, or they stop you from doing stupid things (or try to, and then they're there to say "I told you so")

WW: Pfft- Well, I can think of more than a few people I knew who were like that.. but no matter, ah- you said Terezi was a.. Sylph of Doom? What does that entail?

VS: Sylph is the passive cre8ion class, they create for others, and invite the creation of their aspect

VS: In this case doom, which is all a8out rules, limit8ions, f8, ect.

VS: It is the oppos8 of life, which is generally a8out freedom, choices, and change

WW: So, does that mean that she created rules and such for others? (Or is that what you meant by strict?)

VS: To all those reading along who are versed in classpects, I am extremely tired and doing a terri8le jo8 of explaining things

VS: 8ut yes, that is exactly what she did

WW: Did you think they were patricularly fair?

VS: Some times I have to admit they are, 8ut I'm not a 8ig rules person. I like to passively oper8 doing what I do, and usually that falls within the rules

VS: If I can't do something, that just m8kes me want to do it more, until I can do it

WW: Had you two ever had any fights over them? (And ah, that is- a mood)

VS: Small tiffs, 8ut nothing major most of the time

WW: Well, that’s good to hear! And, hm.. what’s Meenah like?

VS: Meenah isn't from my canon, 8ut I met her in paradox space

VS: She resem8les meenah from homestuck itself decently well

WW: Would you say that’s a good thing?

VS: She's nice, a 8it crass at times, I like her

WW: Well, that’s good to hear! It can always be a bit frustrating when people don’t get along.. and- hmm.. who would you say is somebody you didn’t like in your canon?

VS: Tavros

VS: He was annoying as fuck

VS: I 8roke his legs though, that was fun

VS: (On that topic, I also 8roke joke's legs too!)

VS: Or jape or whatever his name was

VS: I didn't like him either

VS: 8ut tavros I just couldn't stand

VS: (And now he can't either hahahaha)

WW: Pfft- Goodness..! What happened to lead up to that?

VS: He was 8eing super annoying while we were playing flarp, so I introduced him to a scenario where there was a cliff, and there was my mind control powers, and suddenly there was a tavros jumping off said cliff

VS:  I wouldn't do that again, I've mellowed out a lot over the sweeps, 8ut I don't regret it

VS: Terezi got pissed at me for that one

VS: That was the only major fight we had

WW: Well, I could certainly imagine- but, ah.. what is.. flarp?

VS: Fantasy Live Action Role Play

WW: Oh! Were there particular things you could do? Or just whatever you wanted?

VS: GM (Game master)'s discretion (aka mine), 8ut for the most part you could do anything. Funnily enough it also had classes like in s8ur8

WW: Oh?

VS:  I don't have the energy to go over that, so let's wrap this up with any closing questions you may have and then we can continue l8r ::::)

WW: Ah, alright! I believe the only closing question I can think of is.. what, if anything, do you wish people would stop assuming about you?

VS: Stop assuming all vriska's are 8ad! I'm working on 8eing 8etter 8y human standards, it's annoying to 8e written off as a 8ad person just 8ecause "Oh she's a serket what do you expect"

VS: Anyways that's all the time we have for tonight, thank you for 8eing here, and thank you whoever actually read all this

WW: Oh, I’m glad to be here! Thank you for allowing me to! (And I hope you rest well!)

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, ch 29-38 (Epilogue 7)

Hoo boy, she’s back. *rubs hands together, cackles*

...actually having read the chapter that’s not a lot to get excited about. content note that this epilogue features a physical assault turning into a sexual assault, and then its aftermath and further violence, in chapters 32 and 37.

also like heavy depression and ennui in general

Chapter 29

...is so short it fits entirely on my screen.

Whatever alt-Calliope has been waiting for, hanging about on the asteroid, is here. Not ‘the Prince’ (i.e. Caliborn), but... someone.

Not Vriska either, we can presume, given the use of ‘he’ pronouns.

Chapter 30

Jake, laying it on rather thick, goes to Jane with bad news. Her father is apparently dead, having (supposedly) taken a bullet rocket for ‘the human president’ to save him from one of Karkat’s assassins. There is no body to dispose of, because his body was destroyed.

This has ‘obvious ruse to cover a defection’ all over it to me, but Jane wouldn’t see that I guess.

Jane takes this the prompt to escalate her war against the trolls to full-blown genocide - total war of extermination, shouting like a cartoon villain. Gamzee, the only troll present... jokingly calls this xenophobic - and turns it into a flirt.

Jane decides now’s the time to stop this whole hateflirting thing, and has her guards take ‘this troll’ off her bridge. To be executed with all the other trolls, presumably. Though he’s not dead on-screen yet.

It’s a very strange mix of cartoon-villain ridiculousness, ordinary ridiculousness, and like... the word genocide.

Chapter 31

Back to John and Vriska, with pretty much no time having passed. John gets her up to speed. Her reaction is predictable...

(VRISKA): ...

(VRISKA): ...

(VRISKA): That’s...

(VRISKA): Th8t’s the........

(VRISKA): Stupidest *F8CKING* thing I’ve ever heard!

Also she’s the (Vriska) in this scenario, because Vriska Lalonde was ‘here first’ lol

Anyway, Vriska confirms very definitely that Lord English is not dead, she was indeed on the battlefield, and she’d prefer to get back there. John brings her up to speed - by this point he’s blaming himself for the decision that broke ‘cause and effect’; everyone got what they thought they wanted and it turned out to be a horrific catastrophe.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, Gamzee - who is not, it seems, dead - shows up. He attempts to set this incandescently angry Vriska on the course of “redemption”...

Chapter 32

This chapter features Vriska beating the absolute shit out of Gamzee for... a whole lot of paragraphs. I guess everything Gamzee was all just setup for this.

This features a lot of named moves, like European-style Uppercut and Reverse Hangman. Probably a wrestling thing.

Which, well, I thought this was just going to be a fandom-catharsis, what if Vriska (avatar of People Who Like Vriska) fucked up Gamzee (avatar of Those People Who Like Vriska Dislike) really fucking hard, but I reckoned without V ‘lick the troll’s armpit’ and her sense for the perverse. tl;dr: Vriska beats the shit out of Gamzee, Gamzee gets horny for it, starts licking her foot; Vriska goes and starts a hate-makeout with him.

The existence of kismesisitude really fucks with any concept of telling someone to go and get fucked, huh. Literally no fucking clue what to make of this at this point.

Chapter 33

Rose comes to talk to John. At this point, it’s very clear that things are far from the rails of ‘canon’, whatever that means anymore.

It’s nice to have Rose back, to say some longwinded philosophical bullshit. She talks about happiness, by way of her wizard fanfiction: in short the implication is that knowing one is in ‘heaven’ destroys (the ability to enjoy) it.

ROSE: But that isn’t me anymore.

ROSE: I am blind against the veil of this world.

ROSE: It’s all ambrosia to me.

ROSE: I don’t care if it’s not true. I care even less if it’s not canon.

ROSE: I have a beautiful wife who I love more than I thought possible, and a daughter who I am immeasurably proud of.

ROSE: It can all be senseless, ephemeral noise that dissolves in the void. A whisper swept up by the wind before it’s uttered.

ROSE: I’m still grateful to have felt this way.

Glad someone isn’t miserable.

The chapter ends with a hug as the bombs go off, and John deciding ‘finality’ was always his to decide, now they are no longer part of ‘the story’.

Chapter 34

Back to Vriska Lalonde and Harry Anderson. Vriska’s involved in the war, although not taking it all that seriously at all. Apparently this Vriska is having a kismesis with Tavros, although rather tame compared to the Alternian version.

They have a fairly inconsequential conversation and then Vriska catches sounds of Gamzee, and goes to investigate... and comes face to face with (Vriska) hatefucking Gamzee, I guess.

Homestuck... was a mistake?

Chapter 35

Vriska POV chapter.

She’s having a meltdown over having just made out with Gamzee. This includes dwelling briefly on her own Awful Childhood:

She remembers the shame and excoriation of her childhood—the fear, the pressure, being coerced to do awful things to undeserving kids. All that embarrassing effort she spent trying to emulate her ancestor. She threw every bit of herself into the role, but in recent years reflecting on the charade has only made her cringe.

If this is going to be going through the same beats as Gamzee’s joke “redemption arc”, that would be something.

Anyway, Vriska furiously demands Gamzee not tell anyone - Gamzee, meanwhile, is starting to feel, more and more, that ‘he was taken advantage of’, that what just happened was sexual assault - that he’s outright feeling unsafe as a result.

I am really fucking lost as to what this is all “saying”, at this point. Is the point that, by making Gamzee out to be so reprehensible, we inclined not to sympathise when he’s sexually assaulted? To like, look out for those we hold to be disposable, to recognise that even shitbags can be harmed?

Perhaps there isn’t a conscious point.

Regardless, Vriska is so desperate to brush over what she’s done that she chokes him to death. He’s not a ‘real’ God tier, so she can just do that. Unfortunately for her, Vriska Lalonde is there to bear witness.

Chapter 36

Back to John, who is contemplating existentialism. Only for... Jake to arrive, having finally fled his horrific abusive relationship with Jane.

Love that letter J.

Anyway John is so apathetic now that he can barely bring himself to care about Jake more than ‘a sim stuck in a pool’, but he does manage to get shaken out of it by realising there’s a kid stuck in the equation.

Jake’s question... was I a bad person? Jake says he’s so used to letting other people control him, he never took responsibility when it mattered.

John makes a token effort to encourage Jake to look to the future - and Jake suddenly brightens up in a way that’s clearly suggesting something is still very much up. He invites John to dance.

It’s all a bit much huh.

But it’s enough to convince John that even if this Roxy isn’t ‘real’, he still ought to make up with her.

Chapter 37

Vriska [Vriska Lalonde] and (Vriska) [Vriska Serket] catch up, which means the text colours and the character prompts are quite difficult to distinguish.

Vriska Serket laments that John is an idiot, but holds power that the rest of the cast could never hope to have (his retcon powers etc.). Vriska Lalonde is dismissive.

Vriska Serket reminisces about the awful shit she’s done in her life - to Tavros, to Terezi, to the other Vriska who was, for a while, happy in the dream bubbles. She tries to convince Vriska Lalonde that this is bad, and not to be like her. She’s not very convincing.

But utlimately... they come round to talk about Terezi. Not by name, though.

(VRISKA): May8e that’s why I h8’d my ghost self so much?

VRISKA: Why?

(VRISKA): 8ecause I just had a sense.

(VRISKA): On some level I knew she was right. She was happy and honest with herself. And that’s what made her...

(VRISKA): A version of myself who was actually worthy of someone I cared a8out.

(VRISKA): Don’t get me wrong, we had a nice time for a few years living on that meteor.

(VRISKA): It was a good, sta8le pale relationship. 8ut that’s all it was.

(VRISKA): We couldn’t really connect in a deeper way 8ecause I was still... the way I am, I guess?

(VRISKA): Layers and layers of armor and defenses.

(VRISKA): And I had some mysterious feeling that weak ghost version of myself was always meant to form the kind of connection with her that I never could, 8ecause she didn’t have any of that stuff getting in the way.

At that point it comes out that Vriska Lalonde nicked John’s phone, giving Vriska Serket the chance to finally... well first read back their entire conversation, and then at last to text her.

Chapter 38

God this particular Epilogue is going on a bit huh! There’s only two chapters left for the final one.

There is also very little room for any sort of ‘resolution’. Of relationships, maybe... we might get to see Terezi and Vriska reunited at last. But the war and so on... are not going to be wrapped up in three chapters, though they’re not the point. The metaphysical weirdness is unlikely to receive much of an explanation.

It’s going to be a bittersweet ending, at best...

Anyway we open with Roxy, looking forward to meet up with John again. It’s nice to finally get a little Roxy POV.

John tries to explain his whole theory that the ‘candy’ choice has basically robbed everyone else of choice. Roxy meanwhile is rather back to her old self - perhaps she never left it. She won’t have any of it. She wasn’t acting like a doormat to John because of some metaphysical non-canonicity bullshit - that was just where she was.

JOHN: i just kept wanting to find ways to make everything make sense, you know?

JOHN: but maybe it just fucking doesn’t.

ROXY: i know we became grownups in a world built specifically n cosmically for us

ROXY: so i get wanting to find a pattern in everything

ROXY: but not everything has 2 b that deep

so then they move on and we finally learn a bit about where Roxy’s been at that’s not filtered through John’s perspective. It turns out that Roxy is our putative nb character I guess:

ROXY: i had all these conflictin thoughts abt how to be me in the first place

ROXY: like what it meant to date a beautiful skull alien

ROXY: sexualitywise and genderwise and person in generalwise

ROXY: for a while there i didnt know if i wanted ppl to think of me as a woman at all

But ultimately... she just drifted apart from Callie, and it wasn’t something she felt comfortable talking about with John.

I’m not going to just quote this entire chapter, but there’s some compelling, truthful stuff about Roxy’s self-conception around gender, how it changed when she got pregnant... obviously my experience of transness is in some ways quite a different one, but still.

Roxy speaks of like, the future to come, that she’s expecting to change in many more ways yet, that it doesn’t matter if it’s the ‘most true’ path, but it’s the one she’s on... it sounds corny summarised like that, but it feels a lot more real than Jake’s whole thing.

end of epilogue 7

so adulthood huh... adulthood is a fuck. being human in general is a fuck. fucked up that we gotta be a bag of seawater with a subjectivity and all that.

we’re moving to the end here. the struggles... the war and so on... it’s not really about that, they’re just set dressing. the point is just, what it is to live in a world as fucked up and pointless as this one, I guess. classic existentialism jazz. (editor’s note: bryn has not read an existentialist philosopher in her life, and the extent of her knowledge of the subject begins and ends with the videogame NieR: Automata.)

the struggles within that cycle...

[pesterloglog]

Aranea Serket, Gamzee Makara, Meenah Peixes, Vriska Serket

Act 6, page 6551-6559

ARANEA: OOF!

GAMZEE: HONK.

ARANEA: Just gr8.

ARANEA: What does she want THIS time?

ARANEA: Shello?

MEENAH: hey twerket

MEENAH: da fuck you think youre doin

ARANEA: I have no idea what you're talking a8out.

MEENAH: bullship

MEENAH: you went after the blue nerds ring

MEENAH: you wearin it now aint you

ARANEA: I couldn't say, Meenah.

ARANEA: I do like to wear jewelry from time to time, just like you.

ARANEA: It's certainly possi8le there is a shiny new ring on my finger.

ARANEA: So what if there is?

MEENAH: aranea so kelp me god

MEENAH: you need to take that shit off right now

MEENAH: throw it in a volcano or somefin and just come home

ARANEA: First, I would appreci8 it if you referred to me as Mindfang.

ARANEA: Remem8er how I've 8een trying to make that 8e a thing l8tely?

ARANEA: Second, I have no intention of discarding this ring, now or ever.

ARANEA: Wheels are already in motion, Meenah.

ARANEA: Irons are heating up as we speak!

MEENAH: wheels

MEENAH: irons

MEENAH: aranea what

MEENAH: mindfang what are you even planning

MEENAH: you gonna meddle?

MEENAH: you gonna meddle i just know it UGH

ARANEA: I am just taking some initi8tive for a change.

ARANEA: Has it occurred to you that it might have 8ecome a little tiresome for me to spend eternity as a 8oring no8ody while so many others got to play important roles in determining the f8 of reality?

ARANEA: Heck, you were 8arely dead for two minutes 8efore you started assem8ling an army!

ARANEA: Even my altern8 universe self got to lead an amazing life. Which is all well and good for HER........

ARANEA: 8ut what a8out ME, Meenah?

ARANEA: Water. 8oat. Me.

MEENAH: yo i feel you on that

MEENAH: trust me gurl

MEENAH: but you do realize youre makin a glubbin mess here

MEENAH: i mean you KNOW this shit aint like

MEENAH: part a the legit chain of events

MEENAH: you arent supposed to be there

ARANEA: Of course I know that.

ARANEA: Like I said, I have a plan.

MEENAH: W)(AT PLAN

ARANEA: I'm going to take over this session.

ARANEA: And then I am going to make sure it never 8ears fruit.

ARANEA: If I can stop this universe from 8eing cre8ted, then the young Lord of Time will never have hatched in the first place.

ARANEA: I won't merely 8e defeating an invinci8le foe. I will 8e erasing all the pain he has ever caused.

MEENAH: uh

MEENAH: serk have you lost it

MEENAH: you know all youre doing is making another doomed timeline where everyone dies right

ARANEA: Of course I know that.

ARANEA: Please, Meenah. Don't insult me. I've given this a lot of thought.

ARANEA: If anyone else attempted this, what you said would 8e true. 8ut I am not just anyone.

ARANEA: I am a very powerful Sylph of Light. I have had millions of sweeps to hone my a8ilities.

ARANEA: As one gifted with the aspect of light, certain outcomes will 8e prone to 8r8king in my favor.

ARANEA: And as an ancient, highly experienced sylph, I wield an unprecedented a8ility to heal.

ARANEA: A doomed timeline is really just an anatomical feature of a much larger organism. Like a capillary which comes to an end, 8ecause it has withered and died.

ARANEA: I 8elieve I will 8e a8le to heal this offshoot.

ARANEA: And with enough time and patience, I am confident I can restore its vitality to such a gr8 extent, it will effectively take over as the alpha timeline, thus reducing English to a lost footnote of paradox space.

ARANEA: Then the new alpha timeline will flourish under my immortal care. I will watch over it for eternity, assuring peace and harmony everywhere. There will 8e a new progeny of universes, and those universes will 8eget more universes, and each will 8enefit from my good grace. I will personally make sure nothing like the English mishap ever occurs again.

ARANEA: I mean, this is mostly theoretical, of course.

ARANEA: 8ut the most important thing here is that I am involved now.

ARANEA: It is vital to all our interests that I at least TRY.

MEENAH: aight

MEENAH: so you just totally flipped your think pan is all

MEENAH: got it

ARANEA: I appreci8 the vote of confidence.

ARANEA: Are we a8out done here?

MEENAH: no

MEENAH: so your timeline healing fantasy aside

MEENAH: your plan is to just waltz in there

MEENAH: an knock over the whole session

MEENAH: you do realize that means youll have to take down my grownup self

MEENAH: like

MEENAH: not to blow my own conch but she is arguably the greatest deadliest most stylin badass who ever lived

ARANEA: I am aware.

ARANEA: 8ut there is no one who is in a 8etter position to deal with her than myself.

ARANEA: After all, who knows you 8etter than I? ::::)

MEENAH: ok yeah but

MEENAH: you aint exactly shoppin for her mindfang

MEENAH: she got all these sick powers yo

ARANEA: It's like I said.

ARANEA: I've had quite a long time to refine my a8ilities.

ARANEA: I will have a few tricks up my sleeve.

MEENAH: man

MEENAH: this is gonna go so terribubbly

ARANEA: Meenah, I must say your attitude is a little surprising.

ARANEA: I thought you were typically gung ho a8out such audacious escapades?

MEENAH: yeah well

MEENAH: theres audacious and then theres bald faced flipping insmanatee

MEENAH: beside

MEENAH: did you ever stop and think about me

ARANEA: What a8out you?

MEENAH: you being alive again

MEENAH: all runnin around stirring up trouble while im still a ghost

MEENAH: im gonna miss you

ARANEA: I'll miss you too, Meenah.

MEENAH: will i ever sea you again

ARANEA: I really don't know.

ARANEA: When you're trying to do the right thing, there is always sacrifice involved.

ARANEA: Remem8er? That's why we all died in the first place.

MEENAH: i guess

ARANEA: 8esides. I'm sure Vriska would approve of my plan.

ARANEA: May8e she can explain my reasoning 8etter than I have.

MEENAH: um no

MEENAH: actually serket deuce isnt down with this at all

ARANEA: What?

ARANEA: She isn't?

MEENAH: nope

MEENAH: she thinks you bein dumb as a fuck

ARANEA: What did she say, exactly?

ARANEA: Were those her exact words?

MEENAH: dunno

MEENAH: this aint the serket twin message reelay service

ARANEA: Is she there with you?

MEENAH: yeah

ARANEA: Can you put her on?

MEENAH: no

MEENAH: no

MEENAH: call her yourself

MEENAH: NO

MEENAH: bitch dont touch my clam

ARANEA: Very well.

ARANEA: You have 8oth made yourselves a8undantly clear.

ARANEA: I will go it alone. 8ut that's what I was signing up for in the first place, I suppose.

ARANEA: Good8ye, Meenah. Take care.

ARANEA: Now then.

ARANEA: What to do a8out you?

ARANEA: Shall I continue to manipul8 you? Or will you comply with my orders if I decide to loosen my grip?

ARANEA: Perhaps the threat of 8eing controlled again will 8e enough to keep your capricious tendencies in check?

ARANEA: ........

ARANEA: I guess it's a risk.

ARANEA: 8ut you seem so serene and compliant.

ARANEA: Alright. I will 8e gracious, and allow you some free will privileges.

ARANEA: Use them wisely, my trusty jongleur.

GAMZEE: MOTHER FUCK WHO'S ALL THIS FRESH PIMP RYDA I GOT MY WICKED PEEP ON FOR SUDDENLY? IT'S A MOTHER FUCKIN NINJALICIOUS HO-TITTY MIRACLE JACKED UP IN THIS BITCH ASS MOTHER FU--

ARANEA: No.

ARANEA: Oh, wow. No.

ARANEA: You will not ever 8e speaking again. No.

ARANEA: Never, never, never again. Never.

ARANEA: Wow.

ARANEA: And I thought our Makara was awful. At least he had the decency to sew his mouth shut.

ARANEA: Anyway, I have wasted enough time dithering around with fools.

ARANEA: There is much work to 8e done.

[voraginous-blog]

==>Vriska: Visit Dave.

((Long log RP where Dave and Vriska talk about things and just be generally cute. @1neffabl3))

[10:21] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] arrives almost exactly fifteen minutes later, appearifying with a bag of sweets to go with their coffee. She looks frustrated and tired, but gives him a smirk anyway when she steps from the platform. --

[10:21] AG: I got snacks.

[10:22] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] turns quickly towards the platform when the transportalizer goes off, giving Vriska a small smile. Two coffee cups in his hands, he walks towards her from the kitchen gesturing one at her. --

[10:22] TG: i see. thank you. i forgot about the snack part. got two cups of coffee. you need cream in yours?

[10:23] AG: I'll drink it str8 this time. What did you want to talk a8out?

[10:24] TG: i just wanted to talk in person about the the stuff that we talked about. like the me being real thing, and the dirk thing, and everything pretty much. i just wanted to see you, too.

[10:25] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] takes her coffee with a heavy sigh, sipping it while eyeing him over the rim of the cup. --

[10:25] AG: It's not that deep.

[10:25] AG: None of it is.

[10:27] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] takes a sip as well, then another, exhaling nervously after swallowing the coffee. --

[10:27] TG: i know its not /that/ deep, but i still just wanted to talk about it. im curious. i know curiosity kills the cat, but satisfaction will bring it right back.

[10:27] TG: im the cat in this situation.

[10:27] TG: did you talk about this whole thing with sollux?

[10:28] AG: No. I only warned him like I warned you.

[10:30] TG: about whats going on in a day?

[10:34] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] brushes by him with a nod, her lips pursed when she glances back at him after sitting down on the nearer couch. --

[10:34] AG: Dave that's also not that deep.

[10:34] AG: Your 8rother is an asshole and he's messed with the wrong person. I don't want you thinking I'm trying to white knight you or something.

[10:35] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] purses his lips together in return, taking another sip of his coffee and leaning against the kitchen counter with his elbows. --

[10:36] TG: its a little deep. youre putting your life at risk here, you know? i think thats pretty deep.

[10:36] AG: It's not!

[10:36] TG: i dont think youre trying to white knight me. i just feel bad as us being together was the instigator for the fight happening, and part of me feels guilty. but i already mentioned that.

[10:38] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] scoffs at his wording, rolling her eyes over her coffee cup again. --

[10:38] AG: Now you're looking too deeply into it.

[10:40] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] rolls his eyes back at her, taking another long sip from his cup. He opens his mouth to reply, pauses, and shuts it, mulling over some thoughts in his head. --

[10:40] TG: how am i looking to deep into this?

[10:42] AG: He pro8a8ly.

[10:42] AG: Thinks that this will 8e some grand gesture of how humans are 8etter than us to 8egin with.

[10:43] AG: He's pro8a8ly just using you as an excuse so he doesn't look 8ad over it.

[10:43] AG: He o8viously h8s us, Dave.

[10:44] TG: i know he does. he makes it very clear whenever you guys deign to step on his toes about anything. i dont know why. hes ranted about it before but i never know what to say, or how to reply. i always have the words fall out of my throat when he talks about that kind of stuff.

[10:44] TG: if it was some grand gesture though, i dont think hed use me for it.

[10:48] AG: You think he's actually 8rave enough to just kill one of us to prove a point?

[10:52] TG: i dont think he would, but he might fuck one of us up real bad.

[10:56] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] crosses her legs, the cup resting in her hands against her thigh. The only sounds from her for a while are the quiet taps of her claws against the stoneware as she tries to keep it together. --

[10:56] AG: Dave I... listen. I really sincerely think he plans on just killing me outright and if he does, I pro8a8ly had it coming for taking his 88. 8ut if he does I really don't want you to do anything stupid.

[10:56] AG: You have to make sure Sollux doesn't.

[10:58] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] furrows his eyebrows with a long sigh and finishes the rest of his coffee, setting the empty mug on the counter with a soft 'clink' of ceramic on marble. He hesitates for a brief moment before walking over and sitting on the couch next to Vriska. --

[10:58] TG: i dont know if he has the guts to kill you outright, though. has it been determined if youre allowed to use your abilities?

[10:58] TG: i wont do anything stupid.

[10:58] TG: ill try to stop sollux, but i dont know if ill be able to.

[11:01] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] looks at him for a moment before dropping her gaze to the cup. --

[11:01] AG: I won't use my powers 8ecause I don't need to.

[11:01] AG: I already called him a coward for hiding 8ehind his god tier.

[11:02] TG: his god tier is probably the only reason he thinks he can take you at all.

[11:09] AG: I don't know.

[11:09] AG: I haven't even talked to Nepeta a8out it yet.

[11:10] TG: i think you should at least tell her its going to happen.

[11:10] TG: is it tomorrow?

[11:10] AG: I think the day after tomorrow, since it happened this morning in earth time.

[11:13] TG: then id tell nepeta tomorrow, if you can.

[11:13] TG: she needs to know.

[11:14] AG: I know.

[11:14] AG: 8ut I don't want her getting angry with me.

[11:15] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] shrugs, her lips pursed again. --

[11:16] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] shrugs at her shrug, putting his hands on his knees afterwards and fiddling with the fabric of his jeans. --

[11:16] TG: i think shed be more angry if you didnt tell her, or told her at the last minute.

[11:16] TG: i know that she probably doesnt want you to fight, but if you told her why she might be more understanding.

[11:18] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] scoffs again, softly. This time more to herself. He can't see the frown tugging at her lips through the curtain of her hair but it's deep and full of pain. --

[11:18] AG: How could he say things a8out you like that?

[11:18] AG: Do you even care?

[11:22] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] eyebrows furrow deeper at her question. It took him by surprise, that's for sure. He takes a few moments to collect his thoughts, his brain whirring at a mile a minute. --

[11:22] TG: i think at this point im just used to it, thats all. it doesnt even register until its too late, and im already upset.

[11:25] AG: Fight 8ack.

[11:25] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] speaks the words softly, almost nothing but a whisper. --

[11:29] TG: how? with words? with phsyical fighting?

[11:30] TG: im weak, vriska. dirk knows exactly what buttons to push to make me back off. i can try to fight back though ive just.

[11:30] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] pauses, closing his eyes thoughtfully. --

[11:30] TG: never thought about it.

[11:32] AG: You aren't weak, stupid.

[11:32] AG: Don't 8e a coward.

[11:32] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] looks up finally, glaring at him. --

[11:32] AG: I don't fall for cowards.

[11:36] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] falls silent at her words, eyes wide. --

[11:36] TG: fall for?

[11:39] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] clicks her tongue, standing suddenly. --

[11:39] AG: It's not that deep.

[11:39] TG: i know its not that deep but. just surprised.

[11:39] TG: i wont be a coward anymore.

[11:40] AG: Stand up to him then! Tell him you're pissed a8out what he said!

[11:41] TG: now?

[11:41] AG: Whenever.

[11:41] TG: soon.

[11:41] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] sighs. --

[11:42] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] looks over at Vriska with a worried look. He clasps his hands together and wrings them anxiously. --

[11:42] TG: i. in the morning.

[11:42] TG: i promise.

[11:42] AG: Don't do it for me. Do it for yourself.

[11:42] TG: im doing it for myself.

[11:43] TG: youve just given me the kick in the ass to do it.

[11:43] AG: Good!!!!!!!!

[11:43] TG: im. sorry.

[11:43] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] sighs. --

[11:45] AG: For what now?

[11:45] TG: im sorry for being like this tonight. i dont mean to be like this. im nervous about confronting him (as i always am), im nervous for YOU, im nervous about a lot of things. i just. can you stay the night tonight? you dont have to if you have things to do.

[11:49] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] blinks, her arms crossing under her chest. --

[11:49] AG: If you want me to I will. For as long as I can at least.

[11:50] TG: i do want you to. thats why i asked, silly.

[11:50] TG: you dont mind?

[11:50] AG: Nah. It 8eats sitting around in my quarters stewing all light.

[11:50] AG: Just.

[11:50] TG: you can instead stew here, with me.

[11:50] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] looks him in the eyes with a steady gaze. --

[11:51] AG: Don't read into it too much, okay?

[11:51] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] returns her stare, nodding at her request. --

[11:51] TG: i wont read into it at all. pinky promise.

[11:52] AG: Okay good. I wouldn't want you getting too attached right 8efore I might not 8e around anymore.

[11:53] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] smiles slightly, moving to sit right beside him. --

[11:53] TG: i mean, it might be too late for that, considering im asking you to stay and keep me company, but dont read into that too much, alright?

[11:53] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] returns her smile with one of his own, reaching up and freeing his hair from his ponytail, shaking it free. --

[11:58] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] chuckles softly, leaning over to wrap her arms around him tightly. --

[11:58] AG: I hope it isn't too l8.

[11:58] TG: too l8 for what?

[11:58] AG: Attachment.

[12:00] TG: i hope its not either.

[12:00] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] tentatively places a tiny kiss on her forehead. very tentatively! --

[12:01] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] glances up at him, a sincere smile stretched across her lips. He should consider himself lucky, being one of three people to have ever seen it. --

[12:05] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] smiles back when her smile stretches across her face. She looks absolutely radiant. His cheeks are tinted a subtle red in the dim light of his apartment. He places another kiss on her forehead, firmer this time. --

[12:09] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] laughs softly, reaching up to poke his nose. --

[12:09] AG: 8y the way.

[12:09] AG: You're too warm.

[12:14] TG: you like how warm i am. im like a sexy version of a hot water bottle.

[12:14] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] kisses the tip of her nose at her poking his! --

[12:19] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] rolls her eyes, shoving him away without much force behind it. --

[12:19] AG: Don't get ahead of yourself.

[12:20] TG: ahead of myself how! why are you booing me. im right! im the sexiest water bottle youll ever meet.

[12:20] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] winks! --

[12:20] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] scoffs loudly, throwing herself against the couch with a groan. --

[12:20] AG: Oh gr8, now he's putting on airs.

[12:21] TG: me? put on airs? how very unexpected! theres an impostor in the house.

[12:22] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] continues winking before breaking off into a fit of laughter. --

[12:27] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] groans as she slides off the couch onto the floor, acting as if she's dying from his antics. --

[12:27] AG: Gross, you're too much. I take it 8ack I'm going 8ack to the ship.

[12:27] TG: no you arent. my antics are just enough for you. this is the perfect primetime entertainment to fill up your night.

[12:28] AG: Oh no, I'm getting up as soon as I can gather the strength to go.

[12:28] TG: the strength?

[12:30] AG: I'm dying.

[12:30] TG: of?

[12:31] AG: Em8arrassment.

[12:31] TG: embarrassed? of what? how charming and wonderful and cool i am?

[12:31] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] slides down from the couch next to Vriska, running his hand through his hair with a smile. --

[12:32] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] pouts at him. --

[12:32] AG: You keep saying words I just can't quite understand.

[12:33] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] sneaks a quick kiss on her cheek. --

[12:34] TG: what words would you understand to convey how cool i am?

[12:36] AG: Ones usually starting with an N and ending in erd.

[12:37] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] plants her hand on his face, pushing him away gently. --

[12:37] TG: you cant trick me. that just means nerd!

[12:38] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] pushes him even farther. --

[12:38] AG: Exactly.

[12:39] TG: hey.

[12:39] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] blinks in surprise. --

[12:39] TG: did i say something wrong?

[12:47] AG: No you're just 8eing a huge nerd.

[12:48] TG: YOURE being a huge nerd. its huge nerd city right now, population us.

[12:48] AG: I shouldn't have 8een counted in this census.

[12:49] TG: you did because youre just as big a nerd as i am, if not bigger. our nerd auras rival each other in strength every day.

[12:50] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] groans again, hiding her face in her hands. --

[12:50] AG: Em8arrassing...

[12:52] TG: it isnt. no need to be embarrassed. youre among friends and fellow nerds.

[12:53] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] extends a hand out for her to take, if she'd like. --

[12:54] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] grumbles, taking it with a devious expression playing around her lips. --

[12:55] AG: Well if you say so.

[12:56] TG: whats that look for?

[12:56] AG: What look?

[12:56] TG: that look!

[12:57] AG: This is my regular face.

[12:58] TG: your regular face isnt as devious as this one.

[12:58] AG: So you say.

[12:59] TG: i do say! what are you planning, vriska?

[12:59] AG: Nothing!

[12:59] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] stands up, brushing herself off. --

[12:59] AG: Why do you think I have something planned?

[12:59] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] shrugs, looking up at her from his spot on the floor. --

[01:00] TG: a devious face usually means a plan, but i could be wrong.

[01:01] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] blows him a kiss. --

[01:01] AG: It might.

[01:01] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] blows her a kiss back with a smile. --

[01:01] TG: give me a hint?

[01:03] AG: Nope!

[01:03] TG: vriska! 8(

[01:03] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] stands up quickly, crossing his arms with a pout. --

[01:04] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] shrugs, turning away with a flip of her hair. --

[01:04] AG: You'll find out when you're older.

[01:04] TG: im plenty old, vriska. arent we about the same age?

[01:04] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] pauses. --

[01:05] TG: are you really leaving?

[01:05] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] glances over her shoulder, frowning a little. --

[01:05] AG: No I'm not.

[01:05] AG: 8ut I'm tired.

[01:06] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] nods, biting his lip, before gesturing to the bedroom. --

[01:06] TG: you can always go to bed, if youd like. i dont know if you use beds? some trolls do, right?

[01:06] AG: I do.

[01:07] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] offers her hand with sarcastic daintiness. --

[01:07] AG: Lead the way, sir knight.

[01:07] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] smiles and gently takes her hand, leading her towards the very soft, plush bed in the middle of his bedroom. A few candles are flickering on his bedside table. --

[01:08] TG: here you are, my thief.

[01:08] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] snorts, throwing herself into the bed without much thought. --

[01:08] AG: Ah sleep.

[01:08] TG: you want me to go to bed with you now or slide in when youre asleep? i can write until i hear snoring.

[01:09] AG: I don't snore!!!!!!!!

[01:09] AG: Do what you want, asshat.

[01:09] TG: you definitely snore. 8;)

[01:09] AG: I do not.

[01:09] TG: prove it! im the only one thats able to hear it right now, and boy, do i definitely hear it.

[01:09] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] smiles! --

[01:10] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] rolls her eyes, burying her face in a pillow as she flips him the bird. --

[01:11] AG: I don't snore 8ut you sure do!

[01:20] TG: proof! i need solid proof of this!

[01:21] AG: Oh no I just know you do. It's pretty 8ad.

[01:27] TG: i can 100% guarentee that mine is much more palatable than yours. youre sawing wood all night long, vriska.

[01:27] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] smiles, his tone teasing. --

[01:29] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] clicks her tongue, shaking her head against the pillow. --

[01:29] AG: You wound me.

[01:30] TG: im just teasing. we both snore at the same volume.

[01:30] AG: Or may8e neither of us snore.

[01:31] TG: hm. that could be the case, but then my teasing would have no weight!

[01:32] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] sits down on the bed with a soft sigh, running a hand through his hair. --

[01:32] TG: its sleep time for the both of us, i think.

[01:38] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] nods, glancing up at him. --

[01:38] AG: Good idea.

[01:39] TG: im full of them.

[01:39] AG: De88a8le.

[01:39] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] smiles lazily, mussing his hair with a yawn before leaning over and giving her a cheek kiss. --

[01:39] TG: no de88 here. just facts.

[01:39] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] turns her head at the last moment to make it a kiss kiss, and then smirks. --

[01:40] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] blushes! --

[01:40] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] pats the bed. --

[01:40] AG: Come on, I'm tired.

[01:41] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] nods, wiggling out of his shirt and pants to slide on a pair of pj pants, before sliding under the covers next to Vriska. --

[01:41] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] wiggles over to rest against his chest. --

[01:41] AG: Goodnight Dave.

[01:41] TG: goodnight vriska. leave me a note if you leave before i wake up.

[01:43] AG: I will.

[01:43] TG: thank you. sleep good.

[01:44] -- aquarelleGrandiloquence [AG] closes her eyes, dozing almost instantly. --

[01:44] AG: I will...

[01:44] -- tactileGrandiloquence [TG] smiles softly, giving the crown of her head a soft sleep before passing out himself. --

[gen-raven-blog]

As always, please reblog, reply, or like.

For anyone who can’t or doesn’t want to read it on AO3, the chapter is under the cut.

You name is Vriska Serket, and you are less than absolutely sure you can handle this new undertaking.

You were walking through the field after another session of FLARP, when you heard a piercing cry. After hurriedly calmly checking your surroundings to make sure it wasn't some lusus trying to score food for it's charge or was otherwise hungry, you began to examine your environment more closely, to locate the source of the sound. After a minute, you narrowed it down to a ditch covered in foliage. After cutting it away with a sword retrieved from your sylladex, you discovered what had caused the noise.

There was a small human grub - you can't tell its age, but you'd guess about 2 sweeps - laying on a mattress made out of foliage. It appeared to be sleeping, and without any sopor. What was it, dumb? Though, on the other hand, you don't really know much about humans, beyond that they were pets often only adopted by other nobles. Maybe they don't need sopor? Regardless, it appeared to be having a nightmare, judging by the small moans and screams it was making. The sound caused a new wellspring of pity to well up in your chest.

Being as posessed of iron will as you are, you squashed it. You couldn't take it to your hive. You had a hard enough time feeding your own lusus to act as one for another, after all. This conviction had lasted you a good few feet before the grub had let out another pitiful cry. ‘D8mm8t’, you had thought, and then went back and grabbed the grub up. It had stopped crying pretty much immmediately, causing much of the pity to vanish. ‘When it's not crying’, you can't help but think as you look at it, ‘its pretty cute, for a human gru8′. Then, you went off to find the scuttlebuggy.

Which brings you to where you are now: Driving home in the scuttlebuggy, human grub buckled into the seat beside you, and wondering what you had just done.

===> Skip to home already.

===> Skip to home already.

The road leading to your hive stops just shy of the cliff the hive is situated upon. Carpenter droids had long ago carved a staircase through the cliff-face leading to your hive to make travel easier. Normally, the staircase isn't that difficult to climb, but combined with all the work you did FLARPing tonight, and it's enough to cause you to be slightly tired by the time you reach the top. You pause for a minute, both to catch your breath, and to inspect the grub. It seemed to still be asleep - how heavy a sleeper is this kid? Is that unusual for humans? - despite the hours-long drive and walk up the staircase.

“Welcome to your new home, little gru8.” You say aloud to the small human clutched in your arms. In response, it lets out a small mewl that causes your bloodpusher to tighten with some emotion that you can only describe as similar to what you had felt for Terezi long ago, before everything had gone to shit. ‘They're 8arely a sweep or two old, and asleep, 8ut they're still almost as good at manipul8tion as me.’ You think as you walk up to the large cerulean-colored doors of your hive. You open them with your metal arm, the other, fleshy (Because, no matter how deep a sleeper the grub is, the cold metal would probably wake them up) arm clutching the grub. You stride through the entrance hall, up the central stairway, and into your respiteblock.

You aren't sure how human biology interfaces with sopor, so instead of placing the wiggler in the recuperacoon, you grab a splaysack, drag it over to where you could see it from the husktop, and placed the grub gently on it. With the human situated for now, and nothing else to do tonight beside give your lusus her lunch, which can wait for a bit more, you sit down at the husktop, turn it on, and begin to schoolfeed on humans.

> Human

Woah, way to many results. Let's narrow that down. What's the little gru8s most pressing need...

> Human food

A few less hits. You find what seems to be a credible site and click on it.

A pet human can eat and will eat lots of things! It can safely consume most of the milder foods that you would eat, but do be careful about heat. Humans can be susceptible to many of the diseases that lurk in raw meat.

Easy enough, you'll just have to make extra portions of whatever you decide to eat. You decide to search grubs themselves next.

> Human grubs

Only a few results pop up this time. You click a couple links.

The human reproductive process is very strange. Instead of a mother grub, human females develop the grub inside themselves. The grub spends about a third of a sweep developing, the human grub emerges from the female.

Weird. You remember certain subspecies of lusus reproducing similarly, and you think you remember reading about other races that the Empire had exterminated in some books Aranea had lent you. The other link contained information about human growth.

For humans, there is no clearly designated stage in the life cycle where they pupate. Instead, they will continue to get bigger, and will begin a stage called "puberty" when approximately six sweeps old. Through "puberty", the human will mature into a suitable candidate for another human to pail with. This stage ends after about two sweeps.

Hmm. If your guess about the grubs age is correct, then you should have about four sweeps to prepare for this and do more research. Judging by some pictures, you're new wiggler is a male human.

The wiggler begins trying to move around on the splaysack, only to find that's sopor-filled composition causes it to sink further into the 'sack. You roll the chair over to in front of the splaysack and inspect the wiggler closer. A mop of black hair covered his head, and overly long bangs blocked your view of his light-blue eyes in some places. You make a note to yourself to check out the human hemospectrum later. If they have one, that is. So far, despite similar appearences, trolls and humans appear to be completely different biologically.

"Hello, little gru8. Do you speak Alternian?" You ask the boy, softly as possible to avoid scaring him.

"Yes." The boy says, eyes looking around the room, apparently scanning his surroundings.

"Alright then. Do you have a name?" You ask next.

He shakes head no. You give a sigh.

"Well, we'll figure out something later. In the meantime..." You draw yourself up into a pose, and the yet-to-be-named wiggler lets out a giggle.

"I am Vriska Serket, your new owner."

[transformationstuck]

8etta than )(er

Vriska carefully crept through the red halls of Her Imperious Condescension's palace, looking for anything of value to steal. She had gotten it into her head that it'd be an excellent way of gaining fortune and prestige, and that the Empress would never be able to stop or catch her.

As of now, she had found her way into the respiteblock of the fish queen, and was rummaging through her personal effects for anything of value. And boy did she find lots. She'd have a lot of work cut out for her just trying to cram all this gaudy jewellry into her sylladex. Just to lighten that load, she worse some of it, even if it was far too big for her.

The Condesce was surely in for a sight when she made it into her respiteblock, only to find some young cerulean blood wearing lots of her gold.

Alternia's leader was briefly stunned, unable to believe that anyone would have the outright audacity to steal from her. Astonishment quickly turned to rage, however, as she stomped up to the comparatively tiny troll rummaging through all of HER precious belongings.

"an just what the S)(-ELL do you think you doin you little blue blood BITC)("

The entrance caught Vriska by surprise, and she turned to shoot a shocked expression at the Empress. For about eight seconds, she didn't even know what to do, simply kneeling in stunned silence, partly at the fact that she was even still alive. Then, she got what was either the best or the worst idea she had ever had, save for the one to rob the Empress, of course.

"Uh. I'm ro88ing you? What do you THINK I'm doing????????"

Vriska hoped refuge in audacity would save her life today.

It wouldn't.

The Condesce reached down to grab Vriska by the neck, effortlessly plucking her off the ground even with all the heavy jewelery she was wearing.

"i bet you think you funny huh, little mindfang jr here think she pullin a fast one on me"

The Condesce tightened her grip around Vriska's throat, ready and willing to snap her neck and just be done with it. Until...

"you know i got a better idea, somefin i been wantin to try for a while"

With that, HI)( promptly turned around and marched out of her block, Vriska still held in a vicegrip.

Despite being briefly flattered at the allusion to her ancestor, Vriska was far more panicked, struggling against the Empress and her grip, working frantically to free herself.

It was only after the Condesce had decided against killing her, at least on the spot, that Vriska realized she still had something at her disposal.

Coughing and attempting to get enough air to pull off a badass one-liner, she shot a strained grin at the Condesce and put her hands to her temple.

"Actually, I think you'll 8e putting me down now."

Was it beyond cocky to think she could use her mind control to bust down the will of the Empress of all trollkind? Maybe.

Did Vriska care?

Not even in the slightest.

Without breaking her stride, The Condesce glanced in Vriska's direction, her eyes briefly flashing as she easily deflected Vriska's attack, and just to show her who was in charge, shot off a psychic shockwave of her own at Vriska's.

"you aint got S)(IT on me"

Vriska screeched. She hadn't expected the attack to be very successful, but she hadn't expected such a powerful backlash, either. What the fuck had the Condesce even done to herself to be able to do that? Or was she always this powerful? It sure as shit wasn't public knowledge, either way.

"F8CK. Okay, point t8ken. G8ess that's wh8t I get for trying."

Striding through the hallways of her enormous sanctum, HIC finally arrived at what appeared to be her destination. A strange laboratory environment with all kinds of mechanics and fluids sprawled around the area.

The Condesce casually chucked Vriska into the center of the room, before locking the door behind her. Then she walked over to one of the operating tables, looking for something.

Onto the floor Vriska tumbled, as if she were a discarded ragdoll. She was still pretty hard though, and scrambled back up to her feet with little effort. To the door she went, attempting to suss out how to unlock it before the Condesce finished whatever she was doing. Surely it had to be possible, since she locked it from this side. Right?

Unconcerned, by whatever Vriska was attempting to do, HIC finally found what she was looking for. She held up a rather nasty looking syringe, filled with a greyish liquid, and grinned. Time for a little experiment. Turning to face Vriska, she slowly advanced on the troll, cackling.

"ayy blue girl you about to help me learn a lot about science, dont you go nowhere"

Vriska's frantic fiddling with the door only intensified as she heard the Condesce approach, until at last she gave up on the door and decided to do the next best thing.

She decided to run around the room and throw whatever she could get her hands on at the Empress.

Really, there were probably better things to do, including submit, but she was too panicked or too proud to consider them right now.

"oh i know you aint running when i told you not to"

Unflinching, HIC knocked aside everything that Vriska threw at her as she walked forward, drinking in the panic she could feel emanating off of her.

She entertained the chase along through the lab for a bit, enjoying toying with her prey, until she decided she had had enough and quickly seized Vriska's body with her telekinesis, forcing her to slowly float towards the queen.

Vriska thought she'd at least be able to keep up the game for awhile longer. Might've tired out soon, and definitely first, but she expected to be reduced to pulling shit out of her sylladex before she was captured. And when she was, it was via... Telekinesis? Since when could the Empress use telekinesis? This bitch had secrets up the wazoo, apparently. Not that Vriska could blame her, but she still hated it.

At length, she struggled against the psychic hold, to no real avail.

"Ugh, fuck! H8w are you DO8NG this???????? And what 8s that? Some kind of n8w super poison?"

"psh if ida wanted to kill you youd be dead already, naw think i can use you better when you alive"

With Vriska floating just in front of her, HIC held the syringe just up against her neck, to taunt her, to take in as much of her fear as she could.

"i hope you ready for a brand new you"

Though there was fear, Vriska attempted to mask it with a sneer and a glare. Still she struggled to move, struggled to reach out for a nearby mind, struggled to do ANYTHING.

"8rand new me? What the fuck are you 8la88ing a8out?"

"you just wait an see"

With that, she plunged the syringe directly into Vriska's thigh, injecting all of whatever the strange fluid was.

She dropped Vriska to the floor in a heap, her legs shaking from... something.

Down to the floor Vriska went again. She was getting pretty sick of that.

"Stop DROPPING me like that!!!!!!!! Yeesh."

Grumbling, she attempted to pull herself to her feet, hoping she could at least do this with dignity. Simultaneously, she attempted to steady her legs, and watched them carefully for any further developments.

A silence fell over the room as both trolls stared at Vriska's legs. Nothing seemed to be happening, even after a minute of the standoff.

The Condesce sighed. Another failure. Guess she'd just have to kill this little thief after all.

She lifted her hand to grab Vriska by the throat again until she heard a small crackling noise and looked down again. Vriska's comparatively little legs seemed to be... expanding.

"W8, hold on, l8ts talk a8out this!"

Vriska reeled back, too little too late, and held out her hands defensively. Only for her to notice that her legs were... Changing? She looked down at her expanding limbs and blinked.

"........Wh8t."

That was all she could say at the moment as confusion and fear wracked her. Where was this even going?

The Condesce cackled.

"oh we done talkin, now i get to play wit my new toy"

She grabbed one of Vriska's outstretched arms and yanked her up to the air yet again. Suspended in the air, she watched as Vriska's legs continued to grow, not just in height, but also changing shape, becoming tight and curvy and shapely, not unlike HIC's own. The legs were about twice as long as Vriska's torso by this point, having shredded her pants and giving her a bizarre set of proportions.

Vriska didn't really struggle much anymore. Perhaps realizing the futility of it. Or, perhaps, she was far more concerned with how her legs were developing, going from short and lanky to thick, long, shapely legs. Not too dissimilar at all to...

Well, that didn't scan at the moment. She didn't imagine the Empress would do anything like that intentionally. A length, she could only imagine she was being made older.

"Okay, lemme guess. Some kind of growth acceler8ion thing? Real effective at skipping over that childhood 8ullshit. I can sort of understand it. Not really liking it, 8ut fuck, not like you care a8out my opinion, right?"

"why would i wanna older version of you inna first place, you already a knockoff a mindfang an i damn sure dont need another her"

HIC reached another hand to wrap around Vriska's waist and hips, which paradoxically, both seemed to be expanding and shrinking at the same time, growing outward to match her legs, yet tightening up into an hourglass figure. Vriska felt the squeeze both from the change and HIC's hand.

"Sides, im way hotter then she eva was"

The pieces clicked together with those last words, and Vriska shook her head.

"What. Seriously? You're making me some shitty 8ody dou8le of you? I mean, not like I'm not flattered, really! 8ut that seems really stupid."

She was hardly flattered, of course. She didn't mind the new figure, and honestly, she kind of enjoyed the feeling of her flesh expanding and contracting. It was almost sensual. Exotic. But everything that came with it? Fuck no.

She only hoped the body would be all there was to it.

"you undaestimate how useful you gonna be to me, imma busy troll i cant do everyfin myself,

you gonna be a good me an help out, but dont get any ideas, im still the bass around here"

That said, it was getting harder to hold Vriska as her size continued to increase, but Hic managed to cup her hands around the blue-bloods tits and ass, squeezing and prodding them as they inflated out to match her own endowments.

Being let loose, if only slightly, Vriska redoubled her efforts to wriggle free. This didn't come before her chest and rear were enhanced, however. The feeling of flesh expanding, well disposing of what was left of her clothes, and growing all the more sensitive, brought a small moan to her lips.

"Oh my G8D, The whole 8ody dou8le thing was one thing 8ut this is just getting perverse!"

The slightest change in her tone went, for the moment, unnoticed to her.

"its all part a the show for me, you comin along just fine"

As Vriska continued to grow, she finally got too big for for HIC to carry in her hands. The Condesce once again dropped her to the floor, although this time she had less length to fall. Vriska's still oddly-proportioned frame scrambled slightly, only to stop once more as her arms stretched out on either side, growing into strong slender copies of HIC's own appendages. As all this continued, Vriska only grew taller and taller, as well.

Now on terra firma, (Alternia firma?) Vriska slowly pulled herself to her knees, looking over her new arms, slim and soft, but muscled and bearing strength. The stretching and cracking in her body was almost empowering, really. She could feel her physical strength mounting by the minute. She couldn't help but feel over her naked body, admiring the contours and size of it.

"I mean I GU-----ESS you're right, Though... Ugh, get O8T OF MY H8AD!!!!!!!!"

Feeling a creeping specter of the Empress passing over her, she sets her hands to her temples again, now applying psychic pressure to... Herself? Unorthodox, but it seemed to fight things back, if only temporarily.

"ayyy you likin that new power huh"

The Condesce grabbed Vriska by the mouth and forced her to look at her. HIC had to admire the Serket's determination. None of her other experiments had fought even half this hard against their fate. Still, the inevitable would come eventually, and she would be consumed.

"you gonna like bein me"

Vriska's horns, still relatively tiny on her much larger body, suddenly shot straight up matching the massive prongs that HIC proudly displayed, as her body continued to bulk up.

Their eyes met, and despite herself, Vriska couldn't look away. There was a strange twinge of familiarity in that gaze. Like looking into a mirror. Indeed, as her horns reshaped and grew, that'd only amplify. The pressure on her scalp, the dull ache of her muscles as they grew and strengthened.

All this culminated in a series of grunts and groans, as Vriska's control over herself began to rapidly decline.

"I........ yeah i guess youre right, its feeling nice already, not too different actually, but different enough, where it counts"

Vriska's already bushy hair grew out in a flash to resemble The Condesce's billowing mane. The Condesce grinned, as Vriska's face was all that remained.

"i wanna get a close look at this"

Lightly, being gentle for the first time of the whole experience, HIC used her telekinesis to bring Vriska to a standing position.

"i wanna sea 'you' fade away"

Vriska's face, the last vestige of her former identity, began to morph and reshape before the Condesce's eyes.

Slowly but surely, the change took place. Vriska's bone structure cracked and shifted. Lips plumped out. Eye color changed. Soon enough, her face was a mirror image of the Condesce's. A familiar smirk came to the clone's features.

"Whale, hope you enjoyed the show o g me, cause blueblood thief bitch is outta here"

The Condesce crossed her arms and laughed. What a success! Now she had effectively double the muscle behind her throne.

"good shit,turns out imma genius and beautiful as fuck both, good thing you know who the alpha whale is round here tho, wouldnt want us havin a problem"

The new Condesce scoffed, as if the suggestion were absurd.

"bitch please, you dont go makin another one a yourself an not expect her to turn into competition, fortunately i got the perfect cure for this predicament, sea not all a this bitch is gone, some thinkpan shit is still sittin around, and guess what i can do with it"

With a wicked grin, she combined Vriska's psychic acumen with her own, and attempted to force her way inside the alpha article's mind.

Old school HIC reeled back, not expecting the power that suddenly slammed into her brain. This was impossible! She was the real deal, not this copy she made herself.

"fuckin slick ass glubberfucker, thinkin you can take M-E!? you gotta nother, thing….urk"

Despite the psychic energy she was expending to fight back, The Condesce was being slowly surrounded by an unfamiliar feeling: helplessness.

The cloned Empress grinned, slowly moving toward her soon-to-be thrall, hips swaying almost hypnotically.

"shhh its aight gill, its ocray to admit you fucked up, youll be mine to do whatebber with soon, and youre gonna LOV-E it"

A well-manicured hand was put to the original's chin, and her gaze was tilted to meet her creation's.

The original stared at her oppressor as she struggled to maintain control of herself. There she was, herself, in the nude, taunting her, forcing her down in a way she had never even thought possible.

Reduced to begging as she felt her body fail her, she gave off one final plea:

"Please… stop… this aint how it was sposed to be"

Said oppressor simply shook her head and tsked in disapproval at this.

"man how pathetic, thought we were betta than this, ah whale~. ILL be betta than you ever were, dont you worry"

With a final kiss on the forehead, she gave her progenitor the final push into total obedience.

Drained of her power, and overwhelmed by her opponent, The first Condesce stood silently at attention. Internally she was screaming, agonizing over the fact that she had lost everything because of her own stupid pride. On the outside, however, she was stoic, waiting for her next order.

With that, the new Empress of Alternia snapped her fingers authoritatively.

"aight slave, first order a business is gettin me some jams to wear, cant go out naked like this no more, then were gonna plot out makin this empire bigger and betta than eva, or i am, you just be a good slave an do what i say"

With that, she confidently strode out to meet her new future.

-Discord Writers (an RP log between one of the discord users - transcribed.)

[amicicidalgambler]

> Acquire random dokis.

afflatedcazadora

god one highblood lifespan s33ms too much how do yall DEAL

amicicidalgambler

I wouldn't know, I'm not dealing.

A lot of it seems to 8e violence or art, though.Or 8oth.

afflatedcazadora

......much more relatable than im comfortable with LOL

amicicidalgambler

You're not anywhere near as 8ad as what I'm talking a8out.

I have no idea how high8loods on your planet survive, though.

afflatedcazadora

i dunno :OO by being snooty????

eridans younger than me so he cant say

amicicidalgambler

All high8loods are snooty. 8y my account all of yours should 8e 8atshit insane.

afflatedcazadora

i mean he has aggressive tendencies but thats what im here for???

so he can get em out with someone who agr33s to it :00

amicicidalgambler

I killed most of my kismesises so I guess that says something a8out my "aggressive tendencies."

afflatedcazadora

fkgdfkjh vriska n o

amicicidalgambler

Vriska yes.

afflatedcazadora

no!!!!!

amicicidalgambler

It was fuuuuuuuun.

afflatedcazadora

listen you know im ok with casual murder but if you kill your kismesis theres a pawblem with the relationship!!!

amicicidalgambler

Well there isn't a paw8lem anymore if they're dead.

afflatedcazadora

vris k a

amicicidalgambler

And some of them were self defense.

afflatedcazadora

thats diffurent!!

amicicidalgambler

And one of them I'm going to argue was very romantic.

Two of them, actually.

afflatedcazadora

how so????

amicicidalgambler

I mean one of them was killed during a dinner d8.

afflatedcazadora

by you though?????

amicicidalgambler

Yeah.

Got in a fight over her trying to 8etray me.

afflatedcazadora

yikes :((

amicicidalgambler

No, stop that.It was fun.

afflatedcazadora

thats not a healthy pitch date vriska

amicicidalgambler

It doesn't need to 8e healthy to 8e a good one.

afflatedcazadora

...no it really does

amicicidalgambler

Aw come on.

It was *fun*.

afflatedcazadora

its not good!!!

amicicidalgambler

And?

afflatedcazadora

i dont know!! XOO its not my pawsition to tell you what to do about it but im clawncerned!!

amicicidalgambler

Why are you clawncerned?

afflatedcazadora

its not a good pattern to get into

amicicidalgambler

Well that ship has already sailed.

afflatedcazadora

X((

amicicidalgambler

Look, I have two quadm8s right now that I've kept alive for almost half a sweep, that's the 8est I've done since I was six sweeps.

afflatedcazadora

and thats great!!!! just

k33p it that way please??

amicicidalgambler

I definitely won't kill Nadaya, and I don't even know how Mak's mortality works.

As much as he'd pro8a8ly like that to 8e his way of going out when the time comes.

afflatedcazadora

oh my god

amicicidalgambler

He's a clown. Intim8 ritual style murder sounds like something he'd appreci8.

afflatedcazadora

hhhhhh i guess

amicicidalgambler

> That is not something you need to daydream about while talking to Nepeta, stop that.

Alright alright, I'll stop.8ut still, my track record is improving a little.

afflatedcazadora

>V RI S KA

yeah it is!!

amicicidalgambler

If I get a moirail on top of this though that means it's the end of the world.

afflatedcazadora

i dunno getting you one might be good fur you :PP

amicicidalgambler

I haven't had one since I was six sweeps.

afflatedcazadora

and thats ok!!

just sometimes stabby people benefit from someone there to help :pp

amicicidalgambler

I think I've only 8een interested in one person since. And so I've heard.

afflatedcazadora

ooh ooh who is it

amicicidalgambler

::::P

Old flarp partner.

afflatedcazadora

oooooooh?? :33c

amicicidalgambler

She was a purple8lood, part of the church. She thought it was important to the gods to give help and violence in equal measure or whatever, 8ut she was only good at the second one. Since I was one of her main partners while we were part of the same guild, I got a lot of her attempts at the first.

afflatedcazadora

ohhhh boy

amicicidalgambler

She wanted to fuss over people she just didn't know how.

afflatedcazadora

i mean its kind of sw33t but at the same time im not sure another violent purrson would be the best pale match fur you :pp

amicicidalgambler

I don't get along with non-violent people.

afflatedcazadora

wonder why :PP

amicicidalgambler

There aren't even that many of them in the first place.

afflatedcazadora

there are plenty!!

amicicidalgambler

Name three that aren't a Zahhak or a Vantas.

afflatedcazadora

felides mom!!!

um

fuck

amicicidalgambler

Exactly.

afflatedcazadora

listen just beclaws i dont know them doesnt mean theyre not there

amicicidalgambler

That's not who I'd want as a moirail, though.

afflatedcazadora

i guess...

amicicidalgambler

It doesn't even sound that appealing in the first place.

I already get more than enough attention.

afflatedcazadora

yeah?? :33c

amicicidalgambler

Yeah ::::P

afflatedcazadora

shaaaaaare

amicicidalgambler

Share whaaaaaaaat.

afflatedcazadora

who is it

amicicidalgambler

Who's what.

afflatedcazadora

i thought you meant you were getting pale attention and im here fur the gossip!!!!

amicicidalgambler

No, I meant I get more than enough attention from my quadm8s.

afflatedcazadora

oh!!

amicicidalgambler

A moirail as affection8 as Nadaya would 8e way too much, and I don't think one that 8arely sees me is what you had in mind.

afflatedcazadora

mm...

i thought you werent into all the romantic shit tho

:33c

amicicidalgambler

Put that paw 8ack down.

What do you mean?

afflatedcazadora

:33c no

you said he was really affectionate and its supurr adorable

amicicidalgambler

Listen.

afflatedcazadora

oh im all ears

amicicidalgambler

First of all Nadaya is affection8 with almost anyone.

Second of all

afflatedcazadora

second??? :33c

amicicidalgambler

God.

It's so much more than that.

afflatedcazadora

uh huh??

amicicidalgambler

It's also stupid though. You wouldn't want to hear it.

afflatedcazadora

i 33333333% want to hear it

amicicidalgambler

Fiiiiiiiine.

afflatedcazadora

i counted 8 3s fur you and efurrything

amicicidalgambler

Fine!

I just

Eugh

I don't think I've loved anyone else.

Only him.

afflatedcazadora

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my godthats so cute kJSHfdjhhr

im gonna cry

amicicidalgambler

It's so *much* though.

afflatedcazadora

thats what being in love is all about!!!!! X33

amicicidalgambler

It wasn't even pleasant at first.

afflatedcazadora

ofurwhelming?

amicicidalgambler

Yeah.

Almost painful.

afflatedcazadora

yeahhhh

amicicidalgambler

I'm literally not made for this.

afflatedcazadora

youll be ok!!!

amicicidalgambler

It makes everything too complic8ed.

afflatedcazadora

how come???

amicicidalgambler

Do you really want to hear?

afflatedcazadora

mmhmm!!

amicicidalgambler

> This is...starting to feel slightly gay to you.

I mean. I don't know. I know I love Nadaya and it's not like what I've felt towards anyone else I've had in a quadrant, 8ut I don't know what those feelings are.

afflatedcazadora

you mean youre flipping on him or you dont know what you felt fur anyone else??

amicicidalgambler

The second one.

I don't think of them as not quadm8s 8ut I don't think it's love either.

afflatedcazadora

hmm

that is a tricky one

amicicidalgambler

Or at least that's what I usually think.

afflatedcazadora

i mean if efurryones ok with it then it should be ok

amicicidalgambler

Yeah. 8ut it 8others me.

May8e I'm over thinking it and it is love and Karkat's powers couldn't see everything.

afflatedcazadora

what pawers???

amicicidalgambler

Godtier powers. He can see rel8ionships 8etween people as strings.

I let him use me to practice changing them and he said anything romantic didn't look normal.

afflatedcazadora

thats so fucking cool im like incredibly jealous

but idk you could be right he might not know efurrything!

amicicidalgambler

It's all stupid.

afflatedcazadora

its not!!

amicicidalgambler

It is!!!!!!!!

I can't even decide if I agree with him or not.

afflatedcazadora

its not stupid its your life!!!

afflatedcazadora

and you can take your time, he doesnt get to define anything fur you >:00

amicicidalgambler

My life is generally stupid!

afflatedcazadora

it is NOT

amicicidalgambler

It is!!!!!!!!

afflatedcazadora

>:OO

amicicidalgambler

>::::o

afflatedcazadora

its furry impurrtant!!!

amicicidalgambler

What's furry impurrtant!

afflatedcazadora

your life!!!!!

amicicidalgambler

Well DUH 8ut it's also stupid!

afflatedcazadora

nuh uh!!!!!!

amicicidalgambler

Something can 8e important AND stupid!!!!!!!!

afflatedcazadora

maybe but not this!!!!

amicicidalgambler

It's DUM8 I'm a MUTANT without FEELINGS.

Mutants usually have the feelings department more than covered.

afflatedcazadora

im sorry X(( do you want me to go get nadaya??

amicicidalgambler

No I'm just ram8ling.

Sorry.

I'm not actually upset.

afflatedcazadora

you sure?

amicicidalgambler

Yeah.

I'm not good at self depric8ing jokes. Or honesty.

8ut I'm not upset.

afflatedcazadora

you are good at them this one was just a rare miss XPP

amicicidalgambler

::::P

8ut really, if anything I feel 8etter.

afflatedcazadora

:DD !!

amicicidalgambler

I haven't exactly gotten to talk a8out that.

afflatedcazadora

!

im honored :OO

amicicidalgambler

Pfht8thf8thfhth8.