#She and Karkat’s moirallegience means everything to me

[mint-flavoredd]

🌈I DREW MORE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE FANART🎊

This story makes me so happy.

They sleep a lot in this story, so I wanted to draw what that might look like. I hope I did good-

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 13/4 - 2

Yup! The Alpha timeline offers a novel solution to the problem of Sylladex capacity. If the Captcha index only needs to be consistent in the Alpha timeline, then it doesn't have to worry about reserving index space for every possible item.

If this is how things work, then the Sylladex isn't predestined, per se - it's enforced. Everyone has a finite set of objects that they're allowed to captchalogue, and if you pick up anything else, your index is invalidated - and your timeline is pruned.

You could still call it predestination, if you were so inclined, but that's only partially accurate. It's more that you're coerced into 'choosing' one particular destination - or else.

I'm loving these voice headcanons. Scratch as Emperor Belos is inspired.

What the hell? That's amazing.

Based on my (admittedly limited) experience with web administration, it's not all that surprising, either. Hacks like this are shockingly common.

No worries! The vast majority of followers don't actually interact with these posts' notes, but I still assume they're reading them. Just a quirk of Tumblr's norms.

My best guess is that the drones would arrive when the troll is on the cusp of adulthood, shortly before they leave Alternia. That would give them as much time as possible to form potent relationships - which would, in turn, give the Empire the most potent wrigglers.

I still think it would motivate younger trolls, though. I mean, if all single people are executed at eighteen, you might feel a little pressure to enter the dating game early.

Never forget the Der-sayer incident.

Rereading it, Karkat scans as sad, angry, resigned, confused, lonely, and trying to bottle up an avalanche of "FRESH RAGE."

I think we're both half right, here - he's drowning in a tide of pretty much every negative emotion imaginable.

Thank you!! We triple-checked, and it seems like Tumblr ate the first half of this ask :(

Much appreciated, though!! I love that metaphor for coming up with scattershot theories.

Oh, that makes sense. Can't believe I missed a Hussie pun, but that one was a little harder to notice.

This makes it sound like the universe is tethering her to life, just as she tethers it. What is up with this lady?

That's true! I'm pretty sure it's both.

I'd always imagined Equius as being pretty tall. They're all the same height in sprite art though, so I think it's another case of sprite art being non-representative.

I'm withholding judgement on the Meowrails until we get more interactions between them. Their early conversations were a little worrying, but it's possible that Hussie hadn't fully fleshed out the concept of Moirallegiance at the time. We'll see how they interact now that how their quadrant works has been expanded on.

[ Problem sleuth is still hosted there😁- C ]

It still seems to work for me!

Oh, fun! I guess John's birthday does sort of fall into a half-pattern with the others.

Still, it would have made more sense for him to be in a line with the other Players - his Chumhandle doesn't match theirs, either, so maybe John's just a weird case.

Thank you! I feel like this sort of analysis can only really be applied to fictional characters, though. Everything a character says or does is the result of a deliberate choice made by a writer, and I can use my knowledge of that fact to frame my analysis.

In real life, though, people just say shit - often for no reason, or for reasons they don't understand themselves. People are a lot more complicated than even the most well-written character, and understanding them requires a whole different skillset!

Someone also posted Hussie's author comment about this. It's been years since I watched the movie - and if I recall correctly, it was also pretty meta itself. Maybe I need to watch it again, as reading material for Homestuck.

ferretlady97 submitted: talking about the book commentary reminded me of something i was gonna send you when the troll black queen took off her ring but forgot "Note that when she takes the ring off six orbs are filled. Three players from the blue team have entered the session, and three from the red team. Aradia was the second of the blue team to enter. Nepeta was third. Aradia's entry is when the frog mutations took effect on the ring-wearer. And then an interval passed before Nepeta's entry. Which means the queen actually spent a decent amount of time looking like a frog, deliberating whether or not she could put up with this for an entire game session. Ultimately, she couldn't hang in there. But this does imply she at least tried." i just think it's funny thanks for your time

The language used here - the fact that she couldn't 'put up' with her transformation into a frog, and couldn't 'hang in there' - seems to imply that doing so harms her in some way.

All the frog symbolism is still a closed book to me. What exactly does Bilious Slick represent or symbolize that Derse hates so much?

[ you got another ask about LOLCAT but it has classpect spoilers so I'm saving it for later - C ]

I suppose that could work - but then again, it seems that 25% of all Lands have some association with water, so it can't always represent Life. I do want to come back to this later, though, when the Classes and Aspects are better defined.

Send away! It'll be a while until I use them, though.

I appreciate it! That's a minimum bound that I'd have to pick up the pace to reach, at this point.

Hey, what can I say? I'm here for a good time, and a long time. >:)

I keep forgetting that LOSS is a references to a fanfic. I associate it more with you, the LOSS Anon!

If she can't, she's definitely phrasing things in a misleading way, trying to imply that she can. The Tavros scene is arguable, but I really can't think of any other way to interpret how she talks about the Consorts, unless she's straight up lying - and she really doesn't do that much.

Vriska 100%s the game, but skips all the cutscenes?

...yeah, I can see it. Every side quest is another chance to win!!!!!!!! >::::)

[nonbinarygamzee]

was talkin about this earlier on twitter but i hate word counts. anyways man despite being the only i guess Ship i am really invested in, gamkar falls soooo short for me 90% of the time because people want to boil everything down to Gamzee needing redeemed, or at the very least to the both of them needing to apologize for something when just.... no? karkat does. their friendship was nothing positive for gamzee she was just too nice and trusting and avoidant to ever Do anything about the fact that he routinely treated her like shit for not conforming to his standards of what a functional or good troll should look like.

and its so weird to see people who LIKE karkat want to declaw him so bad and pretend there was some deeper meaning to why she would stop giving a shit about him than that his establishing of their moirallegiance was for the sake of serving others and not her, and that he was always a mean asshole to her. why do people come out of it with such a consistent reading of gamzee being abusive or manipulative towards karkat behind the scenes when we have 0 canon basis for that.... (dont answer i know exactly why) but want to erase every explicitly abusive abd nasty mean spirited thing karkat has ever done. you guys dont even like him!!!! thats who he IS for the run of the comic! eat the hell god damnit!!!!!

[hoarder-of-stories-27]

So all I know about Homestuck I've osmosed from being on the internet, whereas you've actually read the thing, so I would love to get an expert opinion: I've been thinking Murderbot and Mensah are moirails. Do I have my pale shipping goggles on sideways? I would love to hear any thoughts you have to share about a Murderbot and ART moirailegence!

!!!!!!!!! *excited happy flapping* I would love to infodump about connections between the two things I’m currently special-interest-ing on, thank you.  (This got really long, whoops.  The short answer is “yes, I think both Mensah and ART are Murderbot’s moirails.”)

Okay, so, moirallegiance in Homestuck is a kind of relationship meant for people in a really violent society.  One partner is supposed to pacify the other.  From the comic:

A reasonable human translation would be the concept of a soul mate, but in a more platonic sense, and with a more specific social purpose.

Trolls are a very angry and violent race. Some are more hot-tempered and dangerous than others, to the extent that if left to their own devices, they would present a serious threat to society, or even to themselves. Such trolls will have an instinctive pale attraction to a more even-tempered troll, who may become their MOIRAIL. The moirail is obliged to pacify the other, to function as the better half. The two partners in a strong pale relationship will serve to balance and complement each other's emotional profiles, and thus allow their other relationships to be more successful.

The more dangerous partner also tends to protect the pacifying one.

A lot of people in the Homestuck fandom use a looser definition of moirallegiance, where it’s less lopsided and there doesn’t have to be a one-dangerous-person-and-one-calming-one dynamic.  Basically just queerplatonic partners.  I think both Murderbot/Mensah and Murderbot/ART fit into the official definition, though!  From Network Effect:

I could say it was an accident, I’d meant to take him prisoner and he had tried to get away and— 

Dr. Mensah would never believe that. My accidents were spectacular and usually involved me losing a big chunk of my organic tissue or something; she knew I could stop a human without hurting them, without even leaving a bruise, that was my stupid job. 

She would never trust me again. She would never stand close enough to touch (but without touching, because touching is gross) and just trust me. Or maybe she would, but it wouldn’t be the same. 

Fuck, fuck everything, fuck this, fuck me especially. 

I opened a secure comm contact to Mensah and Senior Officer Indah and said, “I’ve caught a GrayCris agent in the Port temp housing block.”

Dr. Mensah wasn’t even there and that guy wouldn’t be alive without her.  And from Exit Strategy:

I could take over the ship’s SecSystem before this human with the temptingly large familiar projectile weapon could blink. I could get that weapon before that human could blink. I wanted to do it, and it bled through into the feed.

Mensah turned, gripped the collar of my jacket with both hands, and said, “No.”

(...)

I sent, You have no idea what I am.

She tilted her head and looked more mad. I know exactly what you are. You’re afraid, you’re hurt, and you need to calm the fuck down so we can get through this situation alive.

I said, I am calm. You need to be calm, to take over a gunship.

Mensah’s eyes narrowed. Security consultants don’t get their clients into unnecessary pitched battles for control of their rescue ship. She added, Because that would be stupid.

She wasn’t afraid of me. And it hit me that I didn’t want that to change. She had just been through a traumatic experience, and I was making it worse. Something was overwhelming me, and it wasn’t the familiar wave of not-caring.

Fine, I sent. I sounded sulky, because I was sulky.

I hate emotions.

“Good,” she said aloud.

That’s... heavily reminiscent of the Karkat and Gamzee scene (arguably the most important portrayal of moirallegience in Homestuck).  And obviously Murderbot protects her.  Yeah, they’re moirails.  :D

Murderbot and ART don’t fit quite as easily into the comic’s definition of moirallegiance.  I thought at first that ART would be the dangerous one.  I mean, it is dangerous.  (They both are.)  But Murderbot’s usually the one who needs to be calmed down and kept from going through with its bad ideas.  There’s this (from Network Effect):

I was desperate. I sent privately, ART, tell them I need to go alone. Back me up. 

ART said aloud, I concur, it will be safer if SecUnit is accompanied by two certified survey specialists. 

Why am I even surprised. I sent privately again, ART, you asshole. 

ART replied, only to me, It is safer. I’ve lost my crew, I won’t lose you. 

Amena said, not helpfully, “Your face just got really weird. Are you all right?” 

No, it was confusing. I was confused.

And while Murderbot 2.0 did end up happening, ART was against it until it was absolutely necessary.

I do think Murderbot and ART could be considered moirails!  Especially if you use the looser definition that’s basically QPPs.  Still, I like “mutual administrative assistants” better than anything else for their relationship.  :D

I hope that answered your question!  Sorry about how long it got.  (Wow, I wish I could use this energy for things that aren’t my special interests.)

[homespork-review]

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 3

TW: """funny""" sexual and physical assault of a child by another child, extreme bullying, extreme ableism, a very brief discussion of shipping characters outside their canon sexuality.

CHEL: We get some implications of the part of troll culture we ended on last time when a slightly baffled-looking Nepeta, watching through the viewport, updates her SHIPPING WALL. Instead of hearts, some of the hypothetical pairings she’s painted are marked with diamonds. What this means will be explained shortly.

I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy to hypothetically matchmake your own friends, but I’m pretty sure the other trolls know at least that the shipping wall exists if not exactly which ships they’re in, and they do live in a society in which it’s stated later that mating is mandatory, so it would indeed be helpful to have at least emergency-doable matchmaking done well in advance and they might appreciate the help.

I’d like to take a moment to note a ship at the bottom row, left of centre; GA/Tavros. Hussie, on his Formspring, later said that GA was “obviously” a lesbian, or anyway was only interested in women, which doesn’t have a specific term for it in troll culture. It’s actually hard to tell going by what’s shown in canon, because she only displays specific interest in girls except for in a complicated case we’ll discuss later, but trolls are supposed to be bi-normative, plus it’s not like the male selection here is particularly inspiring, so, yeah, the evidence we actually see isn't conclusively "obvious". The fandom, knowing this, systematically harass anyone who even muses vaguely about the possibility of shipping her with a boy, even if they don't know about that Word of God. This is why I’m wondering whether the trolls knew about the shipping wall, because if they did, we can presume GA didn’t care. For the record, I’m sex-repulsed ace and have in fact written about.my own imaginary persona fucking (admittedly fucking an opposite sex clone of herself, it was a complicated injoke) and my reaction to someone else writing it would depend on context and reason, so I can imagine her reacting similarly, but not everyone would. A similar thing with a canonically gay male character explicitly on-screen not caring about hypothetical shipping of himself with girls comes up much later; he’s not a troll, but his upbringing was troll-influenced (long story).

BRIGHT: Harassing people over the ships they make content for always baffles me. It’s not like fanart/fanfic for a ship which contradicts canon has any effect on the canon, and playing around with character dynamics (often in a pornographic manner) is a major part of fanfic.

CHEL: On top of all this, gender and sexuality are really shaky concepts to even try to apply to a species which reproduces hermaphroditically. On this side of the fourth wall it’s obviously because Hussie is a not-very-reflective cisgender heterosexual man, and didn’t think about it any further than “girls wear skirts, right?” Plenty of people fanwank up possibilities for how it could happen on the other side. I think we may have to make a “What The Fuck Is Alternian Biology And Sociology” post or two separate from the sporking at the very end.

Discourse discussion over! Next page, we see some of the relevant terminology used in troll culture, though we still don’t get any explanation of what any of the words actually mean, which is a tad annoying for new readers. The context is a discussion between Karkat and Vriska about getting her into the game.

BRIGHT: Specifically, Karkat wants Vriska to get Tavros into the game, leading to this exchange…

CG: WHY DO YOU EVEN HATE HIM, IT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS. CG: IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD PITY HIM. CG: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PARALYZED HIM. AG: I know. I don't really understand it. AG: It's just a really special kind of h8! It never goes away and it doesn't make a lot of sense. CG: THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD TIME TO BE CONFIDING IN ME ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OF BLACK ROMANCE BUT OK. AG: Oh god, what? CG: I MEAN IF YOU'RE REALLY IMPLYING TAVROS IS YOUR KISMESIS I THINK YOU'RE BRAYING UP THE WRONG FROND NUB. CG: BOTH PARTIES HAVE TO HATE EACH OTHER EQUALLY, I MEAN LIKE TRUE HATE. CG: MAYBE YOUR FEELINGS COME SOMEWHAT CLOSE TO FITTING THE BILL BUT I DON'T THINK HE CAN HATE ANYONE, IT'S WEIRD, HE'S KIND OF BROKEN IN THE HEAD.

Finally, our long-awaited introduction to troll romance!

And the introduction is an effective one. We now know that there’s something called ‘black romance’, that it concerns hate, and that one’s black-romantic partner is a ‘kismesis’. The conversation also flows naturally and fits the characters having it, rather than being an awkward as-you-know infodump, although brace yourselves, there’s one of those coming up. Thirteen is about right for kids starting to have romantic feelings and being confused about it, not wanting to talk about it is pretty normal, and Karkat lecturing people at a good opportunity is absolutely in character.

Karkat goes on to lecture Vriska about the emotions involved in different sorts of romantic relationships, and wow, it really says a lot about troll culture…

CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDNESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

CHEL: It’s never really clear if this is just Karkat’s idea of it or if this is how trolls actually work biologically. Trolls do use the word “love” later on, so I always interpreted it as “pity” being a euphemistic term because “love” in such a warlike and oppressive culture could be exploited as a weakness. Fandom has played it with their love actually being based on a weird form of sympathy/seeing the other as needing protection, which is also plausible.

FAILURE ARTIST: I have played with the pity thing before but in retrospect Karkat is the only one who seems to see it that way. Maybe this is all his fake deep teenager view of romance.

BRIGHT: Vriska makes a performance of how bored she is, but Karkat’s on a roll.

CG: A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. CG: HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER, SEE I THINK THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. AG: Oh???????? AG: I hope you know I already wore out some good note-taking pens today. All the pens. AG: All of them. CG: SEE, MY HATE IS LIKE A FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENT BECAUSE I'M AWARE OF THESE PRINCIPLES. CG: I COULD HATE A HOLE IN PARADOX SPACE ITSELF, STRAIGHT THROUGH TO A NEW REALITY FRESH FOR THE HATING. AG: Hahahahahahahaha, you don't even know how much I'm laughing at this. CG: BUT SEE, YOU'RE TOO HEAVY ON THE HATE SIDE, OR AT LEAST YOU PRETEND TO BE WHICH IS MAYBE WORSE. AG: You aren't reading anything I say are you? You just want to talk and talk and talk. CG: AND YOU THINK YOU'RE HATING UP EVERYONE HARD WHEN YOU'RE REALLY JUST BURNING OUT THAT ENTIRE EMOTIONAL HEMISPHERE. CG: IT'S LIKE LUKEWARM HATE. PRETENDER'S HATE, WITH NO COUNTERPOINT AT ALL. CG: AS SUCH THERE'S NO REAL SUBSTANCE TO YOUR HATE, IT'S LIKE A CARDBOARD MOVIE PROP. CG: WHICH IS WHY YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN, KIND OF LIKE TAVROS'S BUT ON THE OPPOSITE HEMISPHERE I GUESS. CG: OR MAYBE YOUR BROKEN BRAIN LED TO THE IMBALANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DON'T KNOW. CG: WHATEVER THE CASE IS, YOU'RE KIND OF EMOTIONALLY SCREWED, SORRY TO SAY. CG: YOUR HATE'S TOO DULL FOR A PROPER KISMESIS, IN MY OPINION. CG: AND I DON'T SEE ANYONE CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO BE YOUR MOIRAIL HONESTLY, UNLESS THERE'S SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BOTHER PITYING YOU. CG: AND LANDING A MATESPRIT? HAHAHAHA! CG: SERIOUSLY, LIKE THAT WOULD EVEN INTEREST YOU. CG: BASICALLY ANY FEATURE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL PROFILE THAT USUALLY MAKES SOMEONE VIABLE IN THE REDROM DEPARTMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FRIED. CG: YOUR BLACKROM POTENTIAL'S PROBABLY TOAST TOO.

Whew.

So now we have ‘kismesis’, ‘moirail’, and ‘matesprit’ as terms for romantic partners, as well as the concepts of black romance, red romance, and ‘moirallegiance’ as the relationship one has with a moirail. Troll romance is not going to get any less confusing for a while.

If Karkat’s grasp of psychology strikes you as amateurish, there’s a reason for that: He gets all his knowledge from romance movies.

AG: Hey asshole, stop watching movies for girls.

I think that’s another strike against the ‘girls are the dangerous ones on Alternia’ argument. Romance movies, per this exchange, are both female-coded and seen as inferior -- Karkat defends his viewing choices by saying they’re INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY, but Vriska isn’t buying it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 42 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 33

CHEL: I’m not sure an interest in the workings of romance should be a socially gendered thing in a society where, as it turns out, you have to have an acceptable romantic partner by a certain time or die. You’d think most kids would be trying as hard as they could to learn and put into practice everything they could about it, and you’d also think there’d be better information for them than romcoms.

BRIGHT: Has the mate-or-die part come up yet? I’m not sure when Hussie thought of it.

CHEL: I don’t know if he’d thought of it yet, but it does come up very soon.

BRIGHT: Karkat then moves on to the original reason he contacted Vriska -- he needs her and her mind powers in the game, because he’s just run into a double agent called Jack.

Over on the next panel, Karkat is still talking to Vriska, but he’s glancing back over his shoulder at Jack Noir. His hand is covered in blood, which keeps cycling through a range of colours. The blood, it transpires, is because Jack stabbed him. Karkat is amazingly calm about this.

CG: HE'S COOL, IT'S FINE I DON'T REALLY MIND THE STABBING, IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. CG: WELL OK I'M PRETTY SURE HE MEANT TO STAB ME. CG: BUT I KIND OF THINK THAT'S LIKE CG: THE WAY HE GREETS PEOPLE? AG: This game is so stupid. CG: IN ANY CASE I THINK HE'S PROBABLY ALL STABBED OUT.

This would be ridiculously chill even from someone who isn’t extremely cagey about his blood colour -- and it’s not that Karkat suddenly doesn’t care any more, because as soon as Vriska says she’ll ask Terezi or Jack what colour he’s bleeding, he tells her that he’s out of Terezi’s range, Jack is sworn to secrecy, and Sollux (who’s incommunicado) is the only one who knows how to make Trollian’s viewport feature work. (Given we saw how easy it is to use earlier, I’m surprised Vriska doesn’t try to figure it out herself.)

Over on the next panel, the viewer is now Jack, a few minutes prior to this conversation. Contrary to Karkat’s protestations, Jack stabs him because He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He is curious when Karkat cares less about the wound and more about Jack seeing his blood colour, which is apparently some freakish mutation. Jack looks at his knife…

CHEL: While it’s not a realistic depiction of the colour, recall that this is the shade of red used in-comic to depict human blood. This reveal probably isn’t a surprise to anyone by now, if you’ve encountered fanart, and honestly it wasn’t a huge mindblowing revelation on my first read before I knew, but I do think it’s a clever little “aha, THAT’S why!” moment. Skilfully done.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

BRIGHT: Awww. That’s kind of sweet.

This little interchange gave rise to the ‘Stabdads’ fandom phenomenon, where Spades Slick is envisaged as Karkat’s father-figure. In Homestuck canon, it’s dubious how much affection Slick has for Karkat. He seems more irritated by him than anything else, but that’s about on par for how he treats the rest of the Midnight Crew. On the other hand, it clearly makes a massive impact on Karkat. We’ve seen how important blood colour is on Alternia and how insecure he is about his own; his sudden rush of fellow-feeling towards Jack is understandable, even if it does make him way too forgiving about having been stabbed.

CHEL: Karkat and Jack shake hands, and proceed to be in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Doodling on the defaced parking ticket from earlier, they draft OPERATION REGISURP.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

Yeah, it actually happening is skipped over with one paragraph, but that’s probably a good thing with all the complexity already going on, and we do hear more details about it. First, we’re reminded of the existence and functions of the Queens’ Rings, the magic rings the queens of Derse and Prospit have which give them traits and powers from whatever the players put in their sprites. The trolls have put their lusii in their sprites, except for Aradia, whose lusus died long ago, so she got in the sprite herself. The Queen could put up with getting bits and pieces from eleven hideous monsters (well, ten hideous monsters and one adowable little fairybull thing oh my gosh it’s cuuuute) tacked onto her, but what she absolutely won’t stand for is the other thing Aradia put in her sprite…

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

Recall that AR thought of the hieroglyphs in the Frog Temple as “illegal pictography”. We’ll find out later why the Black Queen has such a revulsion for frogs, it’s important. But the important part right now is that she took the ring off. At the time of planning it’s in the ROYAL VAULT.

We briefly see a moment in the future of the Black Queen wrapped in rags, just like the human sessions’ White Queen, wandering the desert as the BANISHED QUASIROYAL, and the caption notes the plan was a success.

However, Doc Scratch appears in the desert in front of her, and it’s noted she was given a new purpose. This, it seems, is the origin of Snowman.

FAILURE ARTIST: I would like if there was some canon Homestuck material expanding on this REGISURP plot.

BRIGHT: Same! It sounds really interesting. One example of Homestuck’s idiosyncratic pacing, I suppose -- we spend pages and pages on trivial alchimeter nonsense, but skip over something more meaty.

CHEL: The Red Team work on that, while the Blue Team battle their own session… or so they think. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve all already figured it out, but the trolls hadn’t just yet. They note that their prototypes are affecting the opposite team’s underlings, and the readers are shown Alternia’s two Frog Temples, one near Aradia’s home and the other near Kanaya’s, each with six pillars outside (one seems to have five, but the sixth is hidden behind the building). Superimposed on each other, the pillars make a full ring of twelve.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal. In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Wow. Same session all along. Really? Huh.

This is what Aradia’s been so mysterious about. She knew. We’re provided with a handy diagram, in case we haven’t been able to keep up.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it.

(I just noticed, the Blue Team are the Derse dreamers and the Red Team are the Prospit dreamers. Neat!)

The reader’s attention is drawn instead to the Aquarius and Pisces symbols in the top left, belonging to characters we haven’t met yet, and the narration promises we’ll learn about them soon. Drawing attention again to GA’s Virgo symbol, the narration muses about her.

It will probably be quite some time before you get to be her. It could very well be pages and pages and pages.

Naturally, we jump right back to her.

GA’s intro is long, so we’ll take it piece by piece.

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM.

The Sanskrit name for Virgo is “Kanya”, and it’s also the name of a town in Japan. “Maryam” is the Arabic version of “Mary”, as in Jesus’ mother. It may also be a reference to Marya Zaleska, the title character of the movie “Dracula’s Daughter”.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of its rays. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY, sculpting your trees to match the PUFFY ORACLES from your dreams. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which conveniently is the weapon of choice for those who would hunt the HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD which crawl from the sand at sunrise to feast on the light and the living.

Couple things established here; trolls are not only nocturnal but actively harmed by their planet’s sun, and undead beings other than ghosts exist. Said traditional weapon for hunting them is a chainsaw, which we can see lying against her bookshelf, a reference to the Evil Dead movies.

It would be convenient if you actually hunted them, but it is of course far too dangerous, every bit as suicidal as attempting to poach the terrible MUSCLEBEASTS who roam at night. So you indulge in your bright fascination with the grim through literature. Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

Rainbow drinkers are, as discussed later on, troll vampires. I don’t think shadow droppers are ever expanded on, but they might be zombies or werebeasts. Troll goths, apparently, are the reverse of human goths, dressing in bright colours and staying up in the daytime, which makes sense for a species who can only safely go out at night.

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Recall that the Mother Grub is required for troll reproduction.

You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be, and your unique hive is equipped with a great supply of advanced technology to accommodate your interests. The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since. You know the ruins and the hive and everything here that is not sand and rock originated from the world of your dreams. You also know that one day you will visit this world while you are awake. That day is today.

Like Jade, Kanaya has been awake on Prospit for years, and the technology in question is Skaian in origin, so that’s how she knows what’s going on with the game.

Kanaya is prompted to equip her chainsaw, which promptly turns into a lipstick in a Problem Sleuth reference. Like Jade, she has a Wardrobifier, set to randomise, which suddenly turns her black shirt and red skirt into a red leaf-print dress. She takes out the lipstick.

You can choose between your trademark jade or black. Even though a troll's lips are naturally black. But they can always be blacker, and a lady with a true sense of style knows this.

She goes with green, her dress turns into a blue kimono, and she’s messaged by someone with a fuschia Pisces symbol. This person, named cuttlefishCuller, turns out to be rather excitable, greeting her in all caps and following it up with Glub glub glub glub glub!

BRIGHT: This conversation is pretty sweet, with some friendly joking about CC’s quirk (they stick hyphens in front of their capital Es) and mention of their Collapsing And Expanding Bladder Based Aquatic Vascular System. There’s another mention of moirails, with CC saying they’ll have to join the game late to keep an eye on theirs.

It also turns out both CC and Kanaya are having some premonitions of what’s to come! Kanaya is seeing visions in the clouds of Skaia, the same way Jade does, but CC hears whispers from a mysterious ‘she’ who needs her voice keeping down. It’s implied to be CC’s lusus, as both Kanaya and CC are aware their lusii are going to die soon.

Kanaya hopes to be with her lusus as she dies, but looks out of the window to find the Virgin Mother Grub has already passed away, apparently of natural causes.

CHEL: The Mother Grub was seen briefly before; it’s a moth-like creature with a huge fat body the size of a bus, with wings too small to ever lift it, horns the same shape as Kanaya’s, and a skull-like head with big lips. The skull on Terezi’s Doomsday Scale was, we can tell now, a Mother Grub, except quite a lot bigger - presumably a breeding Grub.

BRIGHT: Kanaya changes back into her original outfit, and goes down to live up to her end of the bargain… which entails slicing a hole in her lusus with her chainsaw and pulling out a round object covered in spikes the colour of trolls’ horns, called a Matriorb. Kanaya stores it in her sylladex; she’s using a CHASTITY MODUS, which locks each card away, and the key will serendipitously be discovered when it’s time for the card to be unlocked. These modii are getting more and more esoteric.

Kanaya proceeds to have a conversation with her own moirail, Vriska, which we already read earlier.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

Yes, yes it is. (Spoiler: It’s not that confusing once it’s explained.)

Kanaya doesn’t have long to dwell on the conversation, as she’s contacted by caligulasAquarium, someone with a violet Aquarius symbol who she doesn’t seem to think highly of. It rapidly becomes apparent why.

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin GA: Who CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

CHEL: Trolls are supposed to come bi/pan as standard, so why does he need to specify “girl crush”? I wonder if Hussie hadn’t decided that yet when he wrote this part, but I’m not sure.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 34

CA’s gender hasn’t been revealed, but let’s not kid ourselves, we know from how he’s talking that he’s a dude. Nice Girls certainly exist but they don’t tend to get portrayed as so whiny in fiction, plus CC comes off as very girly, and that leaves us with six boy and six girl trolls. Balance and opposites and counterparts are a running theme throughout Homestuck. Not that there can’t be nonbinary characters, as some show up in Hiveswap; just that there would most likely have to be an even number of them, split evenly between the groups of players. Fine by me as a nonbinary person with a thing for balance and even numbers of my own.

Also, note that we’ve seen this guy, or at least his hand and foot, before. This is the litter-hater in the bowling shoes.

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

BRIGHT: Oh hey, another troll romance term! ‘Auspisticing’ is the last of the lot, don’t worry.

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

Funny words aside, Hussie does a good job at laying down context for what auspisticism is here; we now know that it involves mediating between two parties who dislike each other and that it’s a form of black romance. Meshing worldbuilding naturally into the dialogue is something Homestuck does really well at times.

Anyway, CA is trying to get in contact with Vriska because he asked her to make something for him and now she’s blowing him off.

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

While CA is obviously a douche, there’s something funny about how over-the-top he is about it and how utterly oblivious he is to the idea that Kanaya might have a problem with a device that would kill all landdwellers, although the humour is inversely proportionate to how likely he is to pull it off.

CHEL: Maybe I’m strange, but I think he’s adorable. I get the impression of a small kid trying to puff himself up to adult size.

BRIGHT: There’s also more romance talk, and this next bit is one I find interesting:

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

I’m going to take a step back from Homestuck itself for a moment and talk about kismessitude as it’s portrayed in fandom. People tend to envision it in a variety of ways -- some see it as a BDSM relationship, some as a way of pushing a rival to be better, some as just straight-up hate-sex -- but most depictions show it as something that only affects the two people involved.

Here, though? CA’s talking about kismessitude as something that’s potentially really damn dangerous, to other people besides those involved, and cites history as a backup -- implying it can really be that dangerous, and it’s not just a teenager’s flight of fancy. (Although, that said, CA is clearly using this to try and get Kanaya in a relationship with him, so how sincere he is is questionable.)

CHEL: Later on we do see a little bit of one of the historical cases he might have been citing. We’ll discuss it more then. Also, I do like him saying “sunny” instead of “gloomy”. Makes sense!

Kanaya tells CA none of this matters, and he sneers about the “purity of the bloodline”. That’s an… uncomfortable turn of phrase, especially since he’s speaking to someone not covered by the “purity” standard, but since it applies to aliens and it’s in a society where that’s hammered into its inhabitants it’s not a Problematykks issue. Kanaya tells him it still won’t matter because their race will be wiped out entirely, and his reaction is remarkably understated:

CA: huh CA: wwell ok HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 11

CA says he knows Kanaya doesn’t lie except to herself, surprisingly perceptive for one so puffed-up otherwise. CA might be smarter than he’s letting on? He asks if her clouds told her that; that was the reader’s assumption too, but she says no, she has a different source. Uh-oh. We know what the last source of information was, and it cost Vriska an arm and an eye-sevenfold. CA’s own clouds “hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities”, so we can guess she’s Prospit and he’s Derse. He goes back to nagging her to tell Vriska to talk to him, and when she continues to refuse he poutily steps off.

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

Kanaya denies this, and CA says everyone knows, including Karkat.

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience CA: wwhat CA: wwhoa wwait wwho GA: Never Mind CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today CA: wwhat did she say CA: or glub or wwhatevver

They’re talking about CC, if it wasn’t clear. Kanaya, in a callback to John’s comment to Terezi, facetiously tells him that she talked about Longing To Touch You Indiscretely and That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You. CA, flustered, picks up that she’s teasing him, and she tells him the truth, that CC’s just concerned as a moirail.

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

I’m going to comment on this attitude in a bit more detail when we get a clearer explanation of what moirallegiance actually is. CA leaves her with some arc words.

CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

Kanaya heads back to her room, planning to emphatically not meddle but help her friends, and consults her source; it’s fortunately not a Doc Scratch-related one at all. It is, in fact, Rose’s long-forgotten GameFAQ, saved on a server floating in the Furthest Ring, to which Prospit’s clouds directed her. I have to show you the panel for a moment though…

I’m sure there was a way we could see the screen without having it facing away from Kanaya who’s supposed to be reading it.

You can only assume this took place a long time ago. This race is likely ancient, preceding yours by millions of sweeps. Maybe billions! You like to try to imagine the adventures of these players. Were they successful in repopulating their race? Did they manage to protect their matriorb and hatch a new mother grub? Could they hold it together, or were they torn apart by the complex social dynamics, the matespritships and moirallegiences and auspisticisms and kismesissitudes that will surely plague your group along the way? You have little doubt they succeeded with flying colors.

Oh dear, dramatic irony. Kanaya fantasises about a troll version of Rose, thinking she must have been the leader of this supposedly long-ago group.

And yet they appear to have been the only of their kind to have risen to the challenge in a session stacked heavily against them.

Huh. So is this just because Kanaya can’t find more information, or are the four kids in fact the only humans who successfully got into the game? Picking four specifically white-coded kids to be the last of the human race due to supposedly their own competence is… not a good choice. And why the hell couldn’t other people succeed? This strikes me as more of the whole theme of “nobody matters except the people we’re focusing on”. A good lampshading of video game tropes, but in a literary story, that’s the opposite message to everything I’ve ever read, and it’s a creepy one.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 43 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 12 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 35

BRIGHT: I thiiiiiiiink it’s at least implied later on that there are other sessions going, it’s just that each session is a closed loop of players so we don’t see the others...although if that’s the case, does that mean Earth’s getting hit with meteors from multiple Skaias?

CHEL: That over with for the moment, we cut to Tavros’ house as you take your place as the PAGE OF BREATH in the LAND OF SAND AND ZEPHYR. Vriska, his server player, gets down to the business of building up his house towards the Gate…

… entirely out of staircases.

AT: i THINK THIS, iS, AT: pROBABLY MEANT TO ANTAGONIZE ME,

Okay, this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m crying with laughter at his expression and that line.

It’s more disability slapstick, but here the point of the joke comes off as being more that Vriska is a jerk and Tavros’ reaction is really understated than any reasonable person being supposed to assume Tavros is wrong for not being able to climb stairs. Emphasis on “comes off as”, unfortunately. I’m still gonna give a Problematykks point, and further experience with Hussie’s attitude to disability has soured the joke somewhat, even in just the next couple of pages.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 44

BRIGHT: Vriska tries to get Tavros to crawl up the stairs, first by telling him that he promised not to be boring anymore and then by saying that she’s trying to help him get stronger. She caps off the rant by demanding that he apologise.

AT: oKAY, AT: tHANKS, i GUESS, AT: bUT, AT: sORRY FOR WHAT, AG: For 8eing crippled, you ass! AT: yOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE, AT: fOR BEING PARALYZED, AG: Yes. AG: Say you're sorry. AT: i DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, oR bORING, AT: bUT THAT'S RIDICULOUS, gIVEN, AT: uH, tHE CIRCUMSTANCES, AG: 8ullshit! AG: It's something called 8asic decency and civility you fudge8looded 8oor. AG: Now get down on your useless wo88ly knees and apologize. AT: nO, i DON'T WANT TO, AG: >::::O

Vriska, what the fuck.

Tavros is really great here. He’s obviously not comfortable fighting with Vriska, and repeatedly tries to redirect her into building him ramps instead of engaging. But, at the same time, he holds his ground and doesn’t let her push him around, and won’t let go of solid hard reality in the face of Vriska trying to emotionally manipulate him.

FAILURE ARTIST: And yet people still call him a wimp.

BRIGHT: Vriska retaliates, because of course she does, by grabbing his wheelchair with her cursor and shaking it about. If Hussie left it at that, everything would be unobjectionable, at least in terms of narrative voice. Instead, well…

Now she's done it. She has awoken the mighty inner fury that is... RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CHEL: It just occurred to me to mention that the name Rufio comes from a character in the movie Hook, the leader of the Lost Boys after Peter Pan left, played by Dante Basco. Tavros’ mental image of him is a reference to that character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dante Basco did read Homestuck, with hilarious results as we will see.

But unfortunately, Rufio is not real. He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made up friend, the way fairies are. You continue to be sad and alone.

BRIGHT: Eurgh.

Let me be clear: Tavros having no further recourse to deal with Vriska’s abuse beyond his visualised self-esteem is a problem for the character, but it’s not necessarily a narrative problem per se. Escapism is a thing. You could get a decent character arc out of Tavros learning better ways to deal with harassment he can’t escape. It is a narrative problem when the narrator mocks it and makes him out to be pathetic for even trying it.

CHEL: I’d consider this to be just Tavros’ own thought process, but, sadly, this kind of narrative sneering at him carries on throughout Tavros’ presence in the comic and the fandom seems to buy into it. Tavros gets a lot of hate for reasons which mostly boil down to him being a male abuse victim; there’s a feeling that he should “try harder” to fight back, despite him being physically disabled and a member of a caste out of sight beneath her on the social ladder and legally permitted to be killed by her on a whim. Might that count as a point for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM, for Huss and the fandom not taking the social dynamics into account for why Tavros can’t defend himself?

BRIGHT: I don’t know if it’s fair to count against the fandom when we’re reviewing Homestuck proper, but we can definitely count against Hussie!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 36

CHEL: It’s also notable that the common fandom interpretation of Tavros is as Hispanic-coded, at least partly due to his Spanish username, and of Vriska as white-coded. That’s probably not helping.

Since Hussie appears to expect us to agree with Vriska that this is funny, I’m adding another to these as well.

ALL THE LUCK: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 45 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 3

BRIGHT: What’s weird about this whole mess is that Hussie doesn’t — yet — try to say that Tavros should be trying to get stronger; his disability is fully acknowledged. I feel like this kind of mockery is usually accompanied by the attitude that disabled people should just get over their disability, but Hussie’s clear that Tavros can’t. Which means he should do...what, exactly?

CHEL: Not have let Vriska disable him in the first place, presumably. Never mind that, you know, she has mind control powers so he didn’t really have a choice in that either. That is, however, an argument Vriska fans actually make. Apparently some of them actually blame him for not flying when she threw him off the cliff, which… well, unpowered flight is a thing that can happen in the comic but he certainly couldn’t do it then.

BRIGHT: ...Apparently I retain the capacity for surprise at how awful people can be. The fuck?

Back in the comic, Tavros fortunately does have one other means of recourse. Back in her hive, Vriska is suddenly prodded in the back with a flying toilet, courtesy of Kanaya.

GA: Just Presenting A Floating Reminder That Tavros Will Need Plenty Of Inclined Surfaces For His Ascent AG: That's silly. I made so many ramps, you wouldn't even 8elieve it. AG: I specifically decided I wanted to 8uild something ugly and 8oring. It is now the land of ramps and yawns. GA: Hes Reported Otherwise AG: That lousy snitch! May8e I should take his computer away so he can't go crying to fussyfangs anymore. GA: Maybe I Should Upend This Load Gaper Over Your Head AG: No, don't! GA: Im Still Learning The Interface GA: It Could Happen Accidentally At Any Moment AG: I'm only trying to help him. ::::( GA: Think Of Another Way To Help

CHEL: Did I mention Kanaya is my zodiac troll? I can only long to reach her heights of awesome. Of course the ability to levitate toilets would kinda help.

BRIGHT: Vriska heads down to her treasure vault and retrieves a pair of ROCKET SHOES. The captchalogue code for these is ‘PSHOOOES’, which amuses me greatly. Vriska sends the code to Tavros, who combines it with the code for his wheelchair to create a flying wheelchair. Now that is a good use of alchemising!

CHEL: Awww!

Tavros flies up to the Gate, and we cut back to him later on, leading an entourage of communed-with imps and ogres to move obstacles and help him solve puzzles. Using his skills well, I see! In another set of ruins the imps load jigsaw pieces of rock into a frog-shaped alcove,

Things, however, don’t continue to go so well, because Hussie hates this poor kid. I do not mean that facetiously. Statements he’s made elsewhere imply he has a hell of a lot of contempt for several of the characters he created, which I don’t understand at all. We’ll go into this after Act 7, but I get the sensation that the characters are merely tools to show off the complexity and meta references, which are the parts he really cares about.

BRIGHT: It’s not unknown for authors to dislike characters they wrote; the great Terry Pratchett reputedly hated his character Rincewind. The key difference is that in Pratchett’s case, the audience couldn’t tell. Hussie, on the other hand, tends to make his disdain pretty obvious, to the detriment of the story.

CHEL: That’s a point. Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes, too. He didn’t, however, set up situations solely to shit on Holmes in his books.

BRIGHT: I think that’s the key. I’ll forgive a multitude of failings as long as the author seems to be treating the characters fairly. That doesn’t mean that good things have to happen to them — plenty of bad things can happen and I’ll enjoy it — it just means that the author has to...respect how the character feels and would behave, I guess.

Of course, respect is Hussie’s antithesis, so.

Also, nothing so far has shown Vriska to be anything other than a (granted, entertaining) bully. I wasn’t around while Homestuck was updating, so I’m not sure when her fandom took off, but it has to be later than this, surely?

CHEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t around till about mid-Act 6.

What was I on about? Oh yes. Tavros is interrupted by Vriska again, who bitches him out for doing things the boring way and seeking the boring lore.

AG: The minds of your consorts are very soft and impressiona8le. AG: As easily manipul8ed as all those imps you've 8een 8ossing around. AG: I have picked apart their tiny little lizard 8rains and seen through all the smoke and mirrors of their riddles. AG: I have gotten to the truth they are guarding. The great 8ig mystery 8ehind this planet. And you know what it is, Tavros? AT: nO, AG: It's 8ullshit! AG: Meaningless, 8oring, fanciful 8ullshit wrapped in flowery poems to keep you guessing. AG: It all leads to one thing anyway, and that's what we should put our attention on. AG: Real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold. AG: They cheat, Tavros. AG: It is time you learned to start cheating.

Interesting theory. Tavros thinks befriending his monsters instead of killing them is cheating, and Vriska grudgingly agrees but is annoyed he isn’t killing anything. She claims to have designed a better and more challenging quest for him; he asks after her own quest, and she says she has time because Kanaya’s busy.

AG: Which is just as well 8ecause I was starting to get nannied HARD. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 37

Strange word choice for a species raised by animals, but okay. Vriska sends Tavros a map to the next Gate, and he sets off in his little rocket chair. Little does he know.

You proceed through what seems to be your second gate, into the LAND OF MAPS AND TREASURE. The THIEF OF LIGHT lies in wait.

In a callback to our last meeting of Breath and Light players, Tavros crashes through Vriska’s wall and is left hanging upside-down in the rocket chair from the large cobwebs across the room, while Vriska sleeps on a pile of broken eight-balls. Doesn’t look comfortable, but trolls rest in worse places later. Vriska wakes, and Tavros falls head-first onto the floor.

Here is where it gets incredibly uncomfortable, and we have to show it in detail to assign points properly and so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so if you have any sexual assault, ableism, underage, mind control, or victim-blaming triggers you may want to skip this part. No clothing is removed but it’s very unpleasant to read and the attitude toward it is worse. Seriously, this is Taklamakan Zoo levels of bad.

(This heading below’s not part of the comic, I just put it there so you can skip. The sequence ends with the piece of fanart of Kanaya looking at the sideways screen.)

~*THE ASSAULT STARTS HERE*~

Vriska sits up. She’s wearing a very short strappy white Tinkerbell dress with her sign on it, and what look like over-the-knee socks, a commonly fetishised style of clothing. I remind you these characters are supposed to be thirteen years old. The dress is also the same as the one worn by the fairy in the artwork on Tavros’ desktop background. I don’t know if Vriska had seen that or not.

FAILURE ARTIST:

To be fair she’s just in an actually-more-modest version of what Peter Pan’s sidekick/love interest wears and the socks come off as more dorky than sexy.

Oh my! It appears Pupa Pan himself has flown through your window while you were asleep. How exciting! Surely he is here to take you away on the adventure of a lifetime. He is more dreamy and heroic than you ever imagined. But what's this?? It seems the legendary Boy-Skylark has misplaced his shadow. He is looking EVERYWHERE for it, to no avail. He is having a devil of a time, what with being paralyzed from the waist down and all. He clearly needs your help.

CHEL: Vriska is prompted to Help Pupa find shadow, and approaches Tavros with a nasty-looking grin on her face, while he lies on the floor, gritting his teeth in noticeable pain.

Pupa! You truly are a silly goose. Your shadow has been trapped underneath your useless torso the whole time! Honestly, where else would it be you stupid sack of shit?

Charming. Vriska proceeds to kick him in the head, or at least nudge him with her foot, while he lies unresponsive.

Of course, the secret to reuniting with your shadow is to get up and walk around. And play and dance and frolic! Your shadow will surely join in your gaiety. But it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in this young man's future. ::::( Unless...

Everyone knows that just a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again. Everyone knows this because it is in the classic tale, PUPA PAN. Young Pupa flies through the window of a fairy girl's respiteblock, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly, even though she probably already knows how to fly. Because she's a fairy. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many sweeps thereafter. To be honest, you hardly know a damn thing about Pupa Pan. But you do not care.

Pupa remains as pathetic and useless as ever.

FAILURE ARTIST: The story just keeps mocking Tavros for being disabled.

CHEL: Not to mention for being interested in fairies. Because how dare a boy have a gender-nonstandard interest, or a young teenager enjoy whimsical escapism from an increasingly horrible and guaranteed-to-be-short life.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 39

I might be projecting because the fandom has made me loathe her, but it honestly comes off like Vriska dressed up like this in the first place less to seduce Tavros and more to make sure she thoroughly ruined his favourite thing to hurt him further, especially if the narration is supposed to be things she’s actually saying to him.

The stardust did nothing! Probably because it is just glittery powder with no magical properties whatsoever and is basically bullshit. Because in case it wasn't clear, magic isn't real, and neither are miracles. OR It could just be that Pupa has failed to have a happy thought! Your duty is clear. You will have to MAKE him have happy thoughts. Vriska: Make Pupa have happy thoughts.

He certainly doesn’t seem to be having happy thoughts now. Notice his expression, what we can see of it, looks terrified, he’s trembling, and let’s recall that he’s paralysed from the waist down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s of a far, far higher caste than him, legally permitted to do whatever she wants to him, including killing him if he tries to resist. It’s kind of gone back and forth on, but higher bloods are a few times stated to be a lot stronger than lower bloods, and if they work like humans, they’re in puberty right now, a time at which human girls tend to get taller and stronger sooner than boys. Again, it’s gone back and forth on, but a common interpretation is that female trolls are stronger than male trolls in general and/or have the social power advantage. Let’s also remember that, even if none of those factors apply, Vriska has mind control powers. There is no point here at which Tavros has the advantage, nothing he can use as leverage on her. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she does.

BRIGHT: We’ve also been explicitly shown that Vriska has little to no respect for anyone else’s autonomy if she finds it inconvenient, and that Tavros is her favourite punching bag, and that his ability to stand up for himself when she gets going is extremely limited.

CHEL: Despite the odds stacked against him, Tavros struggles against the kiss forced on him, and when Vriska pushes him back, doesn’t respond with anything but a look of horror, though she appears to expect him to, as a flickering heart-spade with a question mark over it appears between them. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be the thought process of him or her or both.

Vriska hurls him onto the floor with some force...

… and activates her mind control, causing little hearts to light up in Tavros’ eyes.

BRIGHT: Vriska has used her mind-control powers on Tavros before, and when it happened she walked him off a cliff. There is basically no way that her doing it again isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for him, above and beyond the inherent horror of losing control over one’s body.

I’m inclined to think that forcibly altering his emotions is worse, though. Being paralysed was bad enough, but Tavros knows what happened and he knows how he feels about it. Making him fall in love with her is just…on one level, it’s a horrible assault on his autonomy as a person, and on another level, it’s tailor-made to make him doubt himself and believe the encounter was something he wanted.

FAILURE ARTIST: I hadn’t thought that he might now consider the encounter as consensual, which would explain his later reaction.

CHEL: Tavros paws at her legs, making kissy faces, and she looks vaguely concerned. Note the background still depicts wavy blue rays coming off her, showing her power is still active.

Looking defeated, she drops the control and dumps him on the floor again.

I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be thinking in this last panel. Is she feeling guilty? Is she disappointed that he didn’t like her under his own power? Has she just decided he’s too useless to be worth the effort? Any could be true.

BRIGHT: I read that as disappointment that even when he ‘liked’ her, he didn’t act the way she wanted. (And the way Tavros acted is kind of disturbing. ‘Mindlessly pawing at someone’ is not what I’d expect from him if he was legitimately attracted to someone.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The common interpretation these days was she was realizing she wasn’t into boys which okay that’s good for her but she should feel more bad about molesting him.

CHEL: That also makes no sense, because she shows interest in multiple boys later.

I’m also not entirely sure if Vriska had the intention of actually raping Tavros here (in the standard way, I mean, as one could argue that mind control is a form of rape), or just making out with him. The fact that she dressed up in vaguely fetishy clothing isn’t making it look good, though. Yes, she’s very young, but traumatised kids in particular have been known to lash out sexually like that. It’s a way of reasserting personal power, and I imagine it would be more prevalent in a society with no sapient adult supervision. While there are mitigating circumstances involved in their social situation and Vriska not really having ever had a chance to learn better, that doesn’t make this not a horrible thing to do, or not traumatising for Tavros.

BRIGHT: The clothing could potentially be down to Vriska wanting to look ‘adult’ without fully understanding why it looks adult. That does come up sometimes with teens — they want to experiment with clothing because that’s how adults dress, not because they want to look sexy, or they might dress a certain way for dates because that’s the social model they have for How Dates Work.

And if I read it like that, this basically looks like Vriska having the date equivalent of a dolls’ tea party. Which says volumes about how she views Tavros’s autonomy.

CHEL: Good point. Though honestly it would say volumes about same either way!

BRIGHT: I said earlier that Vriska is better than Equius at recognising when other people’s desires conflict with hers, and she is, but that doesn’t mean she respects those differences. She just recognises that they’re there, and overrides them. This is a prime example of Vriska viewing Tavros as something between a chew-toy and a prop. First she kicks him around and terrifies him, then she expects him to be able to get over those emotions at the drop of a hat and respond to her advances — and, moreover, she wants him to respond in a certain way, which Tavros has zero way of knowing. This is the first time she’s shown that sort of interest in him, unless her earlier behaviour was the Alternian equivalent of pigtail-pulling.

...I think maybe that was in fact Alternian pigtail-pulling. Or at least Vriska’s version of pigtail-pulling.

CHEL: That’ll actually make more sense, once we explain what the spade symbol means.

Okay, how many counts does this cover?

ALL THE LUCK: 12 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 31 CALL CPA PLEASE: 26 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 55 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 13

It also occurred to me during this sequence to think again about how Karkat contemptuously swears at and hangs up the phone on the injured Tavros. This, at first glance, seems to be very much at odds with the “cranky but caring” impression we’re supposed to have of Karkat… but it fits precisely with Hussie’s opinion of Tavros and how pathetic he is for allowing a much more powerful person to permanently disable him. I know at the moment it looks like I’m not separating the character from the author, but it’ll become clear as we go that that is what he thinks.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 14

Why didn’t we start a FUCK YOU, HUSSIE count?

BRIGHT: It would have ended up longer than all the other counts combined.

CHEL: The actual assault is over now, but there’s one more picture of it. The ramifications must continue to be discussed, so tread cautiously. The actual act is over now, though.

Said ramifications come pretty quickly. Kanaya, having dealt with getting herself into the game and prototyped her own lususprite, decides to check on Vriska.

Ideally she has not gotten herself into too much trouble. And ideally the dramatic irony has not gotten so thick you could draw a dotted line on it with a tube of lipstick and cut it in half with a chainsaw.

Of course, she sees the exact moment Vriska kisses Tavros.

(Fanart source has now been deleted, sadly.)

~*THE ASSAULT ENDS HERE*~

Humorous art aside over, let’s watch Kanaya’s reaction in more detail. She angrily looks at a copy of the Tinkerbell dress, which she presumably sent the alchemiter code for rather than the actual item to Vriska, hence why she still has it.

So THAT'S why she had you make this dress for her??? And you just went along with it like a sucker. Argh, you are such an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Karkat, Kanaya is presented as the caring one, the protective one. The “mom friend” of the group. And yet, she looks at this, in which Tavros is clearly frightened and struggling, and her reaction is to be mad that Vriska didn’t want to wear the dress for a date with her. I’m not sure whether this says more about Hussie’s opinion of Tavros or the social system of Alternia or both, but it certainly says a lot.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 56 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 13 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 15

BRIGHT: Kanaya has had to corral Vriska on Tavros’s behalf already! Possibly more than once! She has all the information to realise that this is abusive, even leaving aside Tavros’s reaction! Sure, teens can be self-centred, but even so this is egregious.

CHEL: Kanaya’s Grubsprite comforts her and she throws the dress out the window.

Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

Yes, I’m sure Tavros thinks so too.

Charles: "I know Sir can be prickly, but you have to understand he had a very terrible childhood."

Klaus: "I understand. I'm having a very terrible childhood right now."

-A Series of Unfortunate Events

[miomediator]

Homestuck - Heart and Mind

Inner self and outer self

Content/trigger warnings: Heart: blood, decapitated heads, flashing colors, eye strain

Mind: flashing lights, repetitive looped gif

Very veeeery long thread!

Heart

I’m going to be honest, this is the more head-scratching (ha!) symbol of the 12, in my opinion. While the others immediately (or take a moment to) make sense, this one confuse me. Sure, it’s a cartoonish representation of a pink human heart.

The problem isn’t the main shape, but the right side of it. Beside the fact that it’s more original and eye-catching than a filled heart, why this gap, this wiggling line? But let’s proceed in order and take a more general approach first.

It’s a pink heart on a darker purple/pink background. The left side is filled, while the right side looks like a tail that coming in or out the shape. We’ll get into it a bit down below.

In pop and universal culture, people has always been show this embodiment of the heart. While many theorise about when and where it came from, a stable origin was registered during the Middle Age, as a pear.

Here’s an exempt of the theory:

“Historically speaking, the first known depiction of a heart shape, which can be vaguely considered as a symbol of love, was made in the 1250s. It appeared in a decoration of a capital letter “S” in a manuscript of a French romance called “Roman de la Poire” (Romance of the Pear). 

This miniature depicts a kneeling lover who offers his heart to a lady. This heart shape is similar to a pine cone, and it is held upside down (not in the usual position of the heart shape that we know today). Researchers only assume that the pine cone-shaped object is a heart because its part held by the lover is hidden. The name of this novel is “Romance of the Pear,” so the object may also be a pear.”

The earliest depiction of a heart symbol as a symbol of love in a manuscript of the “Roman de la Poire.”

[Mio’s note: Roman actually means novel in french, and isn’t necessarily romantic. Though I guess it is in this context.]

It is interesting, in this paragraph the heart is both referred as pine cone-shaped and pear-shaped. The latter is extremely funny, has it reminds me of a famous fanon HS meme “Well this has gone completely fucking pear-shaped”, attributed to Dirk and the decapitation joke. He, in fact, never really said it in Canon.

If we indulge this banter, the pear-shaped heart would symbolise things that took a disastrous turn, and so negative and stressful elements such as anxiety, adrenaline (negative in this case, positive in others), heart pounding, leaving a weird and unpleasant sandy taste on your tongue.

But I digress.

What we actually need to focus on is that:

A fruit, the pear, has been associated to a love gesture, like a gift to express romantic affection to someone.

The pear is upside-down, as the text point out. Which is curious and worth mentioning.

“the pine cone-shaped object is a heart because its part held by the lover is hidden”. So what is important it’s what is inside it, and so inside your heart. Which perfectly echoes with my subhead: Inner self.

The article continues, with Guido whom also depicted his version of a heart:

“Guido da Vigevano, a 14th-century Italian physicist, made some anatomical drawings of a heart that are very similar to the descriptions made by Aristotle. These depictions, along with the presumption that the human heart is connected with emotion and pleasure, transformed the heart shape into a symbol of medieval love.”

After this, a picture shows Charity incarnated as a woman, giving her heart to Jesus. While I won’t dwell on the religious implications, it is a metaphor of showing care and compassion to someone. Giving them a bit of your time, patience, and heart. In an extreme case, being completely devoted to someone in a strong way. 

Heart-bound fellows, despite the fact that they are concerned about themselves, are very people-oriented. They deeply want others to feel well and happy. Hence the expression being ‘kind-hearted/big-hearted’, and ‘work you heart out’. They put a lot of themselves into their hobbies, which they are passionate about.

After this, the article introduce the playing cards, implying that Guido had an influence on the decision to show a heart among the symbols:

The playing cards are even more relevant to this analysis, as their modern symbol are present in Troll romance. Here, the ‘clover’ is an acorn, the ‘spade’ a leaf, perhaps ivy, the heart is even more like the one we know nowadays, and the ‘diamond’ surprisingly is a small metallic bell. This set is dated from ~1540.

[Sources: this site about the origins of the red heart]

That was a (very) quick look at the evolution of the heart symbol.

I could go on and talk about Valentine’s Day, but it would be paraphrasing the site, and we have much more content to focus on. I invite you to take a look at said site and do some research of your own if you are interested about this peculiar bit.

Let’s go into more direct Homestuck content.

During the adventure, we are introduced to three Heart-players. Nepeta Leijon, Dirk Strider, and Meulin Leijon, in appearance order.

They all have interests related to feelings and love.

Nepeta has a shipping grid of her own friends on her cave’s walls and seems to be proficient in moirallegiance, a quadrant that require to be invested and devoted to their partner feelings. She had a crush on Karkat that she never confessed. Karkat knew but never worked the nerve to do something about it.

Dirk is engrossed by romance and smut, unashamedly draw his friends getting frisky (in a borderline-obscene way), is passionate about the projects he works on (work his heart out, sometimes literally). He was (and still is) madly in love with Jake. But by being overbearing and socially inept their relationship crumbled (while not being the only reason it didn’t work out).

[I love talking about Dirk, but I’ll do my best in this analysis to properly and equally split the content between Nepeta, Meulin and him] 

Meulin not only love shipping, she also gives directly advises to her friends, and acted as a matchmaker. She shipped several of the alpha trolls but according to Aranea, she focused on how cute a couple would be, instead on how and if their dynamic would work out. Her matespritship with Kurloz was cut short when he yelled in his sleep, deafening Meulin in the process.

Meulin talking about shipping the human teens, transcript from the Openbound game, part 2

The most obvious element they share is that they are zealous and unlucky in love. One would say it depends on the class, personality or aspect. They seem all correct assumptions to me.

Nepeta was the first to be presented as a Heart-bound character, the Rogue of Heart. So, logically, the design of the Heart symbol could be inspired by her.

How, you ask. Let’s take a look to Nepeta’s sign.

The ‘Leo’ sign, in human culture represents the constellation of the lion, with the circle as their head, and the loop as the body and tail.

Now looking back and forth to Leo and Heart: Heeeey! It’s quite similar. Can you see it?

Alright, that’s a good start. So the right side is like a tail. Let’s dig and look around Heart/heart. Heart is synonym of soul. Its symbol is a pink blood pusher. For humans it represent romantic love, our only ‘official’ quadrant. A red lover for trolls is called a matesprit. Sprit comes from esprit, which is the french word for spirit. So matesprit is a soul mate. But this term is used for another concept in Homestuck. A spiritual guide during the player journey: a sprite.

The link between the Leo and Heart sign is getting stronger. The circle as the head, the wiggling line as the body and tail. The sprite is a living spirit, a floating soul present in the physical plane. So the right side, the tail, is bound to the left side, the head. Meaning the soul is bound to the body. Oh. But what if it was detached from it? Yeeep, you know, I know, they know. This is why and how decapitation come into the picture.

Beheaded Dirk and Roxy hit in the stomach, from the [S] Dirk: synchronize

Jasperosesprite^2 prototyping Nepeta’s decapitated head in Jake’s kernelsprite

A kiss on the lips, which is seen often as a romantic gesture, is one of the resurrecting mechanism within SBURB/SGRUB. It transfers the soul from the ‘original’ body to the dream self, turning the latter into the main body. Separating the head from the rest of the body amounts to take away the soul, while throwing the head back (or any part of the corpse) into a kernelsprite recreate the link between the two. 

 A kernel is: 

“ a computer program at the core of a computer's operation system with complete control over everything in the system. It is an integral part of any operating system. It is the "portion of the operating system code that is always resident in memory". It facilitates interactions between hardware and software components.””

Source: Wikipedia

It’s a brain that bound the soul to the body, and is the core of the system, controlling it. So basically, the digital mind made in SBURB. One display among the several ones of the Heart/Mind duality.

So wait, if the head in this case is the soul, and looking back at medieval picture at the beginning (dude kneeling in front of a lady offering a heart) then Dirk sendificating his head in [S] Dirk Synchronize/Unite is really a romantic overture toward Jake (sacrificing a part of his self then Hal prompting him to kiss Dirk’s lips). Same for Jasperose resurrecting Nepeta by using her head. Damn. You two are smooth operators in the most disturbing way.

Another personal theory in my mind, is that pink ‘tail’ could represent how a person use and interact with their aspect.

Nepeta, as a Rogue, remove or give personality, passion and feelings to someone. 

For example she could appease a friend by removing their frustration. In contrary she could also give passionate feelings to someone who needs them. Such as in Ni no Kuni! In which the protagonist Oliver takes a piece of somebody’s soul (what is called emotion or virtue) to give it to someone who needs it. Those people are referred to “brokenhearted”.

So the wiggling tail would be something introduced or take away from the soul.

Dirk, as a Prince, has shown having the power to completely remove someone’s soul from their body. 

And for that, he doesn’t like his abilities, exhibiting him as a ‘cartoonish villain’ like Voldemort (splintering his soul into horcruxes) or Xehanort (putting part of himself in the Organization members). Though he could remove and grab one of his friend’s soul to save them from a close death. See the fan comic Double Death of the Author by The Lifetime Channel on MSPFA, and the fan fiction Defragmentation by Katreal on Ao3.

In this case, the tail would represent the soul being slowly removed.

Meulin, as a Mage, have an understanding of people’s strong feelings, especially romantic ones. 

Her ability is to read, feel and use her knowledge to help her friends figure out who is better suited for them. Meulin’s powers are similar to a diviner, allowing to form or break a couple. Perhaps with practice and reaching the God Tiers, she could even perceive red threads of fate which bound two lovers regardless of the location and time. The manga Bound Beauty (sorry, no english Wikipedia page) features a young lady with the ability to see those strings, usually invisible to the eye. She uses it at her advantage to coach her classmates, in exchange of money.

In this case, the tail would represent the red/pink thread of fate, coming not from the pinkie, but directly from the soul.

Heart-bound recommended Lyricstuck: What do you want from me by Pink Floyd

Mind

Watch as I make as much Mind puns as possible :p

This one is easier to read, which is also why it will be difficult for me to write a substantial section about it. Let’s start with the obvious.

It’s a vivid teal on a bit darker green background. Same as the Heart aspect, it’s more likely that the palette has been inspired by the first revealed character related to Mind: Terezi Pyrope, from the Teal caste. The shape is composed of an orb surrounded by three hook-like tails connected to the center. What effortlessly come to mind (ha!) is an organic cell, from the brain.

Picture source: https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/784048616363923971/

Neurons allow and facilitate informations to navigate in the brain. 

It’s:

an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses.

Source: Wikipedia

Information goes from a neuron, through a synapse to another neuron. An idea leads to another, connecting bits that turns into the big picture. The Mind aspect seems to share the concept of data with the Light aspect. The differences are that Light focuses on the most fructuous parts, ones that lead them to victory, while the Mind-bound works with choices and a mindset, in a more wide range, then narrowing the paths.

Terezi using her vision to s33 what action leads to which outcome, searching for the most fitting one.

Rose insisting that Kanaya come along the 3 years ride, while explaining and guiding Kanaya to make her narrowing her vision of “victory”.

So both Seer treat information, just not in the same way. 

The outcome still remains ”I want to advance toward a certain reality and I help others to reach it as long as they follow my instructions”. The inconvenient blind spot (sorry for the involuntary pun) is that they hardly can use those abilities for themselves. Either we don’t witness it on-screen, or they barely do it in the first place (a good example is the retroactive continuity during the GO timeline).

But let’s end the Seer detour here. Back to the Mind aspect itself.

We have a whole system going on in our own head. When I try to look for something, if I don’t find it directly, then I turn to something related to said information. Like an indirect research on the internet. If we don’t pay attention and don’t try to understanding our mind, as well as others’, we just end up being frustrated and lost.

The thing is you make your own world, with every action, decision, it creates a new path full of possibilities. The words you say or keep to yourself, acting or staying put, it all matter. Grasping and managing to own it, and you’ll have a better grip on your reality. It’s not my Aspect, I do have trouble making decisions and take responsibilities, however everybody needs to go through it.

The within interacts with the without, the mind to the outside word. We are always worried about how others perceive us, what kind of depiction of the self we convey. So we desperately put filters to the point of exhibiting falsehood of a personality. While introspection is observing ourselves, extraspection is perceiving things that are outside our mind. Hence the outer self, complementary to the inner self.

Terezi perfectly get how people work, and can manipulate them with ease, in contrary to Vriska whom doesn’t want to and go for mind-controlling them. Joke’s on her, her ‘mind’-control is proof that she fails in this peculiar category, since Terezi doesn’t need any psychic powers to convince someone to do and give the info she desires.

The big contrast contrast between Vriska and her, is that Terezi looks and determine what matters or not, while Vriska force the odds to be in her favor, shamelessly stealing fortune from others. She doesn’t even want to understand or try, she is a cheater and proud of it.

That was the link and differences between Mind and Light.

Let’s take a look at the Heart/Mind duality again. Both seem to share a connection with electricity.

Terezi gazing at the sky of her planet, the Land of Thought and Flow

It’s no secret that the connection between neurons are often compared to electronic chips. Cables canalize and facilitate electricity’s flow, to power devices, to link ideas and data. Or just used as raw energy.

Brain-not-so-ghost-anymore Dirk trying to rip Aranea’s soul

Lightning seen from a building roof on Dirk’s land

While the electricity for the Mind symbol refer to synapses, for the Heart/heart, also called blood pusher, would allude to cardiac nerves.

Bec Noir preparing the Red Miles to be thrown at the Genesis Frog

Instead of thoughts, it’s blood that navigates in the ‘roads’.

For the Heart-bound, the lightning represents the chaos that are emotions and sensitive intuition. While for the Mind-bound the lightning is order, reasoning and cold logic that strikes to bring justice, whether said justice is deem fair or not.

Let’s talk about a famous movies series in which among the core themes resolve around the Mind/Heart duality: The Matrix

Each building, tree, person are made with an inimaginable amount of lines of code

The Matrix spoilers ahead!!

If you’re not familiar with this trilogy (or haven’t watch it in a while), here’s the plot:

//Thomas A. Anderson is a programmer for a big software company, and in parallel is Neo, a hacker that illegally provides contraband programming. Agents in black suits caught up with his activities, but in truth approached Neo because a renowned hacker, Morpheus, enemy number one according to Agent Smith, contacted the programmer. After offering to clean his criminal record in exchange of helping catching Morpheus, which Neo refuses, the agents violently implant a snitch in our protagonist.

Neo wake up in his bed, believing it was all but an awful nightmare. Appearances are deceiving, as ‘dream sequences’ are layers on layers on reality. The resistance group calls him again, setting a rendez-vous under a bridge to help him and answer his questions, if he is willing to cooperate.

After a lot of hesitation, snitch removal, and the insistence of one of the member, Trinity, he finally accept and follow the group to go meet Morpheus.

There, Neo is given a choice, The Choice if we’re going with Homestuck comparisons: 

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

Morpheus, Matrix (1st movie)

By choosing the take the red pill, Neo accepts to unplug himself (literally) from his ‘reality’ and see the truth: the world he lives in is all but an illusion, a huge program that is the Matrix, blinding humans to a make-believe 1999 year, used as living batteries, harvested and enslaved by the machines. Humanity is in ruins, and a war between people and machines has gone for a whole century.

Morpheus tells him that they believe he’s ‘The One’ and he has the power to stop the war. From the real world, Neo will train to reinforce his mind, going back into the Matrix and fight different enemy programs. While constantly being undergo introspection, looking for what to believe, who he is, questioning his values and acts.\\

From there I’ll go back and worth to Homestuck and the movies to point out the similarities and support my choice.

I’ll begin with the Mind aspect first:

Millions of human beings are plugged, treated as programs that have a function, along with providing a great amount of energy to the machines. Stuck and having their body atrophied, their brain is connected to the Matrix. The program control everything of their life and vision, from their status in society, to their physical sensations.

"What is real? How do you define real?" asks Morpheus to Neo. “If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." As I quote farther above, reality is something that isn’t there, but rather something you make. With Morpheus’ quote, my interpretation of the Mind symbol being neutrons and synapses is consolidated.

After being blinded by Vriska, Terezi way of ‘seeing’ shifted. Slowly, her perception of things changed and she grasped on a new light her reality.

She didn’t need eyes, but expanding her mind and freeing herself from the vision that clouded her. Navigating inward and outward, understanding what she felt, her inner self and outer self, back and forth. But it wasn’t perfect, no, she had and still is working on it, as she can be blinded by either cold logic or passionate feelings. Neo and her have the same weakness, they both are in love and it obstructs their mission. The dilemma is exhibited in [S]: Flip, where she has to choose between letting Vriska go, exposing the whole team to Jack, or killing her to protect her friends.

Terezi, on the path she let Vriska go

Vriska in her ancestor outfit, fitting Jack in one reality

A painful sacrifice is needed to be able to go forward, a reality in which most of them survive and has a chance of winning the game. A necessarily path that she regretted.

Neo with the Architect in the secret room, the screens displaying the different paths his reactions could take (Matrix: Reloaded, second movie)

In Matrix, Neo has to reach the source of all the program to reinstall the previous version of the code. The first time, he has a small range of opportunity, only a few minutes gap to access a secret room that would allow him to reach the source, among the city of machines. There, he encounters the Architect, a program whom function and personality is based on the creator of the Matrix, and have a chat with him.

Six others chosen ones preceded him, and all failed to accomplished this mission.

Why? “Choice. The problem is choice” answers Neo. Because unlike the Architect, Neo is a flawed human being. He can’t just brush off his feelings, he’s in love with Trinity. The latter despite asked not to join him plugged herself back into the Matrix allowing him to get safely into the secret room. With that, she exposed herself to an inevitable death. And so Neo took the door that lead to his lover, enabling within him a miracle that resurrected Trinity. 

Here was a couple of paragraphs about the dance between duty and love, cold logic and passion.

I’ll continue with the Heart aspect:

I talked about love and romance until now, but let’s take a look at another side of the Heart. The identity.

After taking the red pill- Neo turns his head and gaze at a mirror.

It’s shattered. The symbolism here shows that he’s lacking a part of himself, something that scratch him without being able to put his finger on it. Soon, right before his eyes, the mirror mends itself. Because he chosen the truth, the path that would lead him to understand and find himself.

The mirror is of course, a reference and call back to Alice, mentioned shortly before by Morpheus. No no, please forget about any cartoon, especially Disney’s version of the story. And focus about the sequel book: “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There”. It’s a curious, deep and tricky book. I would know, I read it twice and I’m still confused.

But I’m sure of one thing, the adventures of Alice has always been about introspection. First in chapter 1, Alice imagines for fun that the mirror in the living room lead to a parallel world. Like Neo, she touches the mirror and engages into a journey. In chapter 3, in order to cross a giant life-sized chess board (UH HMMMM UNCANNY!) she takes a train. 

“There she forgets all nouns, including her own name. With the help of a fawn who has also forgotten his identity, she makes it to the other side, where they both remember everything. Realizing that he is a fawn, she is a human, and that fawns are afraid of humans, it runs off (to Alice's frustration).”

Source: Through the Looking-glass (wikipedia)

[going through the book itself would have been too long]

The train might symbolize the course of life, or a part of it, in which an identity crisis occurs for Alice and question what is and what does it means. I’ll even say that this temporary memory loss put aside all differences and precedences, perhaps reflecting a class hierarchy, between Alice the human and the fawn, or the rich lady and the poor.

Back to Matrix.

Later in the movie, our programmer encounters a woman called the Oracle. She can see some events according to her grasp on human psychology, but never beyond a choice that she cannot understand, not even hers. The Oracle isn’t here to predict the future (even if she can), but to assist and guide those who picked the red pill. She does sound like a Seer of Mind :]

Upon meeting her, she asks him “do you think you are the one?” to what he respond “honestly I don’t know”. She then point behind him, toward a mantra hanged above the threshold: Temet nosce, which means “know thyself”.

The introspection will continue through all three movies, a wild tango between certitude and doubts, self that leads to a choice, from a choice which leads to who he is, the two are intertwined and indivisible.

In Matrix: Revolution (third movie), the final battle between our protagonist and his alter ego take place. Rain is pouring, thousand and thousand of copies looking down at him, the sky is dark, and Agent Smith step away from the crowd, so the fight begins.

Remember the paragraph about the lightning? The sky in this scene is quite reminiscent to Terezi Land’s electric atmosphere, and even more Dirk’s, has his planet is covered be countless empty green buildings in ruins.

The scene portraits perfectly the confrontation between order and chaos, good and evil, selfless and selfish. I could go on and on but I think y’all got the concept, and I nicely fill an even bigger word quota, with the two aspects balanced.

Source for the screenshots: Fancaps.net, here and here

Mind-bound recommended Lyricstuck: Dog days are over by Florence and the Machine

[drake-the-incubus]

Tried writing from my iPad, this is just some personal feelings on a character I felt could have had some more development. Or in which I’ve given Eridan depression.

Fandom: Homestuck

Warnings: Self Harm, Possible Abuse, Depression, Mentions of Genocide, Murder and Death mention, Loss of Reality, How to not deal with depression, Ableist type assistance, Characters mean well, Self-Depreciating thoughts. 

Characters: Eridan, Feferi, Sollux and Karkat

Notes: This was based off of a roleplay I did and my feelings with it. The narrative choice not to use his name is important. I’ll cross post to AO3 later and update this blurb.

I’m…

I’m alone…

I’m alone aren’t I?

Aren’t I all alone right now?

Alone right now, floating.

Where am I floating?

Where am I?

Where?

What…

What happened?

What happened…

To me? To them? To the meteor? To Jack Noir?

To us all.

Killed…

I was killed. I killed her.

Why am I so dead inside?

Why is it so numb?

I heard revving.

Fef? Feferi… she’s dead. I killed her.

Kanaya…. I killed her. She killed me. She was dead, she’s not dead, she was dead.

She glowed.

Everything is screaming, everyone is screaming.

Its silent.

I’m screaming.

—

Eyes shooting open a young troll gazed up at the Alternian Sky, the hues growing as the sun rose. He had been napping by the ocean, on the beach.

Panic overtook him as he looked over his body, pulling up his shirt, and staring at unmarred grey skin.

Running a hand over his midsection he felt sick to his stomach, taking a shuddering breath and closing his eyes. He remembered Vriska in orange. Gamzee bleeding. Kanaya glowed. They all lived together.

He killed Feferi.

A dream, it was a dream, right?

He gazed out to the ocean and saw it rife with blood. Blues, greens, browns, violets, purples.

A massacre.

That wasn’t right, if there were too many dead luscii then Fef’s wouldn’t be fed properly and it would kill all the lowborn trolls, and then Fef would be upset and he needed to fix this how could he fix this-

He did this.

His fault, his fault, it was all his fault.

He dug his clawed hands into the sand and screamed. Tears falling down his face as he was abandoned. Alone.

He killed his father, his friends, his species, he destroyed everything.

He was hopeless.

What a worthless prince of hope he had become.

—

Time had no meaning, the sun wouldn’t continue to rise as he stared at it, and he didn’t move. He was a horrible excuse for a troll, he would have been culled long ago, he should have been.

Feferi was dead because of him. Sollux, Kanaya and the matriorb were also gone.

He broke every bond he ever had.

Who was he kidding, WHO ever cared about him.

No one could love a monster. No wonder Karkat screamed at him, and called him such horrible things.

Of course he was nothing more than a-

The sand looked different.

—

He stared at her, eyes wide opened, confused, horrified, and defeated. Hers were white. Why were they white. Wait no. Maybe he could do something, make it up to her.

He stood up, sand falling from him in slow motion as he took a deep breath.

One apology, just admit what he did wrong, he could do that. For her at least.

“Hey… Fef… Feferi.” His voice wavered. He felt the tell of tears in his eyes as he quickly wiped it away before she could turn.

Her head snapped to him, staring at first in confusion.

Then in anger.

With a scream of anguish she tackled him, hands raised over his head, ready to bring them down on his face, anything.

He laid there, waiting for the strike. He deserved it. It was deserved, so why did he feel a tight sensation in his chest. Closed eyes were the best way to deal with this.

His eyes opened when instead of a punch, she rested her hands on his chest. Tears falling from her face, before she just crawled off of him and laid in the sand.

He went to offer his cape, but remembered he discarded it to… how could he.

“Feferi… I’m…”

“How could you Eridan? How could you… why did you kill them?”

He was taken aback, then closed his eyes. Of course.

“I didn’t mean to… I didn’t… I wasn’t…”

“You didn’t mean to? We’re DEAD! Gone! You killed us!!”

“I…” He looked down, and then back up. She was gone.

No… looking at the sand, she wasn’t there at all.

He cried.

—

Walking across the beach was weird, suspended in time, but never staying together. It was changing from his crimes to peaceful. Only never near the murderer.

Of course.

He didn’t deserve the beauty of the water.

He deserved to be dead.

—

She stood there, in the distance, he didn’t say a word, he couldn’t.

She stood there.

Was she ever there at all.

—

Staring at her, he had to do a double take. The same spot, every time. Was this Heaven or hell. Given what had happened, he could only say hell.

A punishment inflicted upon him for how horrible he was.

That gave him too much credit.

He wasn’t important enough to even receive divine punishment.

Walking over he had a mission.

Talk it through, admit his faults.

Die again.

A long shot wasn’t hard for him, he was a marksman.

However having abandoned his rifle, perhaps it would be.

“Hello…” That was courteous, beautiful. Any troll should be pleased with such a greeting.

Maybe not. He killed her in cold blood. He shouldn’t have killed her.

“No hard feelings, right, Fef?”

Feferi turned, and stared at him. Her eyes watered, before she lunged at him with a scream. Tackling him to the sand and straddling him. Once fist clenched around his shirt as she raised her fist. She brought it down only to stop at the last second and clench his shirt, giving a soft sniffle.

“Hi…”

Fighting his instincts for the hundredth time since waking up, he stared at her in confusion. Why didn’t she hit him, he deserved it. He deserved to be screamed at and hurt. This wasn’t normal.

“So… uh…” He was being awkward. Couldn’t he just fucking be a normal person and apologize. She deserved it, couldn’t he just open his stupid mouth.

“Fef, I didn’t… This isn’t what I meant to happen, I didn’t think it would and I certainly didn’t plan for it.” Excuses. Is that all he was good for?

“I wasn’t thinking right and things kept happening… and I killed you.” Her silence was killing him. He should have run. Why did he think he was good at anything, why didn’t he just abscond. What kind of monster talks to their victims.

“Eridan, shut up. Stop it.” She wiped her tears. A contrast to his dry eyes. “Why pretend that none of this happened on purpose, it’s stupid. You hurt me, Kanaya and Sollux… and it’s my fault.”

His heart broke as she continued.

“If I hadn’t run away from my responsibilities and decided to play the game, none of this would have happened. I discarded my responsibilities, like keeping you at bay, and now we’re stuck like this.” She rolled off of him and lied in the sand, looking at the coloured sky.

Guilt overwhelmed him, he felt awful, this hurt more than a punch. He deserved it. He could have just not been a shitty troll and she’d be happy. He stopped being flushed for her, but not soon enough, despite being long ago. He’d blame Sollux but he knew otherwise. The true person at fault.

“We’re not moirails anymore. It ended so long ago, and even if I had different intentions, it’s done.” Pain lacerated his heart. He was over her, but he hadn't recovered. One thing hadn’t faded, the pain of seeing her hurt. He always hated it. “Fef, I shot YOU. I killed you. We both know whose fault this is. I was a moron, I killed you and now I’ve trapped you here. I’m to blame. You deserved a break from me. I wasn’t thinking, but if it helps, Kanaya killed me, and was glowing… I swear this magic shit needs to stop.”

“I shouldn’t have fought you back.” He softly spoke. Feeling that to be true. He never should have fought back. Feferi should have killed him. He deserved it.

Taking one last glance at the sky, she sighed and looked at him, staring at his pathetic look, he thought.

“This is both our faults. I never thought about how ending our moirallegiance made you feel. I wasn’t only thinking of myself and that was wrong of me.” She looked away briefly, before looking back to him. Those white eyes a haunting reminder of how horrible he was.

No, she was wrong, she was so wrong and she didn’t even know it.

“I know how hard it is for you to say sorry. Especially when I don’t think either of us actually are.” She looked back at the sky. “There’s no point dwelling on who is or isn’t an idiot, we both are and were, but at least we’re not alone.”

She was wrong. She wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t deserve to be with someone, no matter how much he wanted to be. He hated that he made her feel this way, to put herself down.

But he couldn’t console her, he wasn’t sorry for anything but killing her. A monster like him couldn’t make her feel better. He could even justify killing her on his head. He deserved to be dead, she didn’t.

“Fef… you… You shouldn’t feel this way. You shouldn’t be dead, or at least, stuck with me.” He rolled onto his side to look at her better.

“I would go back and spare you if I could…” He twisted the rings on his fingers, looking down. “Sol too, even if I don’t think he deserves it. I mean it. Feferi, I mean it when I say I never intended to hurt you or kill you. I do care.” Something in him felt so heavy and he felt tears well up. “I’m not flushed anymore, and I think that’s a good thing, but I care.”

He took in a shuddering breath, tears falling down his face. “I didn’t think it would take dying to realize you were right.” He sat up, looking at the sky and stretching. What a useless thing for a ghost to do, but he felt a bit better doing it. “I’ll point out that I deserved to be hit, and I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

Closing his eyes he hugged his knees closer. “It was for the best you ended it. I do want you to be happy. Just… at that time I wanted to be the reason why.”

“I was angry. But punching you wouldn’t have solved anything. I still care about you. I do appreciate you trying to make me feel better.” She sat up as well, pulling one knee up and leaving the other overstretched, gazing over at him.

She shouldn’t care at all about something like him.

“You don’t have to lie to me about Sollux either. I know you didn’t like him.” She glanced down at her feet, sighing. “We weren’t going to work out anyway. I reminded him of who he liked, and it hurt, I’m still sore over it. It was probably the best we ended up this way. I probably would have been culled by the Condesce anyways.”

“What never!” Scoffing he crossed his arms, bringing his legs down and looking at her, “you would have been the best empress there ever was. And if Sol couldn’t see how great you are then he didn’t deserve you. You’ve always said there’s plenty of guppies in the sea, shore-ly you would have found your match.” He knew his fish pun days were numbered but he wanted to make her smile.

She didn’t deserve the pain she felt.

She did nothing wrong.

“Reel-ly Fef. I mean it. As a… potential friend,” he didn’t think it was right to call himself her friend after killing her, “I really think that. I know I don’t deserve to call myself your friend, but I want to change that. I want to deserve it. I want to deserve calling you my friend.” He gave a small laugh, “besides, on the whole punching thing, it would have solved the whole not being punched at all.” He looked at her. “Though how can you change the empire if you were culled, Nope, the Fef I know would have won and become the next empress. Leader of the Universe, and you would have changed everything for the better. We also were heading to god hood.”

—

Vanished. She too vanished. Was it his brain telling him to forgive himself instead of seeking forgiveness, or to give up because she’d never stay.

She stood there in the distance.

He turned away.

Voices called his name.

—

A chainsaw revs, he heard it get so close.

It missed.

—

Waking up, he panicked, looking around and sliding off the couch. He went into the lab, seeing the fuschia on the floor.

“ED woke up.” Someone called out as he stared at the ground.

“Great, the stupid seadweller woke up, give a prize, he’s lucky to be alive.” Came a grating voice, before a short troll walked in. Karkat. “Staring in enjoyment?”

His heart sank as he looked at him, then at Sollux. The other troll was… alive? His eyes looked fucked up. Karkat looked upset.

Swallowing he dug his claws into his hands, letting violet drip onto the floor. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… I should have been a better troll…”

He knew their gazes were filled with hate as he turned around to walk away from the pair. Expecting them to call him as he was. He didn’t want to see it, he wanted to hide, he didn’t have his cape.

“Did you… just apologize? What the… Eridan Ampora, you fuckup of a troll, turn the fuck around and get back here.”

He didn’t listen, but didn’t expect the strong and painful grip on his arm, knowing Karkat drew blood, he didn’t turn to him.

“ED stop.” Finding out it wasn’t Karkat that grabbed him, he looked over in shock.

“Sit down. We need to talk.”

Numbly he sat in his chair. The two looked down at him, judging him.

“This isn’t the meteor.” Sollux started off with.

“Hey! Don’t tell the idiot that! We worked hard to recreate this place and you just give it away?!”

“Hey, KK, shut up. Look at him. He’s near tears.” He pulled Feferi’s goggles off, revealing his red and blue eyes, before putting his glasses on. “You’re ten sweeps old. Grow up.”

He looked at Karkat closer, noticing he was taller, and had the distinct mutant red eye colour. The culling drones would have killed him by now.

“I don’t care if he is! He ruined the session. He murdered people! Why are we bringing horrible people back to life, huh?! When did this happen Captor?!”

“FF asked us to.”

“I don’t care! He’s awful!”

He couldn’t take it anymore. Like he should, he dug his claws deep into his arm.

“You’re Right.” He muttered, knowing they wouldn’t hear. But they did.

The silence that came afterwards.

Sollux stared at Karkat before pointing at the door.

The mustard blood sat down in a chair and stared at him with disgust. It was obvious.

“You’re a piece of shit, you know that?”

He went to open his mouth to agree.

“Keep your mouth shut ED. You hurt her, so many times, you never gave her emotional care and you only ever cared about yourself. But so did everyone else. No one really gave a shit about each other, and we all were fighting. You, Feferi, Tavros, Nepeta and Equius died. You didn’t kill me, though I was half dead.” He sighed. “And FF told me about the dream bubbles. She remembered all of her times there. You said you were sorry and regretted it.”

He looked down in shame.

“She said you did your best to make her feel better about everything. And you’re right, it’s not her fault, it is yours. If you didn’t kill GA and the Matriorb you’d have lived.” He snapped his fingers to get the seadweller to look up. “And yet, one thing bothers me. Fight back. You fought back with FF. That’s why you deserve to die. Bullshit Eridan.” He cocked his head. “You’re alive now.” He used his psionics to prevent him from digging his claws in further. “We went through a LOT of trouble to do so, so you shouldn’t kill yourself.”

“Just stop I don’t-“

“Want to hear this, too bad. Someone has to. You fucked up and the first solution was to blame everyone else, now you’re sitting in self-pity and self-hatred and you can’t tell me that you’re not trying to be your own shitty Kismesis. By the way our Quadrants weren’t right, fishdick.” He tapped the back of the chair, staring at him. “Feferi told me you would be upset when you woke up and asked me to talk to you. I-“

“Don’t bother, I don’t need your help So-“

“Would you shut the fuck up and wait for me to finish?!” He snapped bearing his teeth and eyes starting to spark.

Taking a deep breath he looked him in the eyes, “look, stop this self-hating bullshit. You fucked up but you’re not going to get anywhere with anyone by focussing on what a piece of shit you were.”

He couldn’t help it, he couldn’t. It was awful, he couldn’t take this anymore, and cried. Feeling pathetic.

“Eridan. She forgives you. Not in the way you want, she still feels uncomfortable about talking to you.”

“She shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Why?! I killed her-“

“Terezi killed Vriska and they’re matesprits, or something like that.”

“But that’s not-“

“You’re being a moron. Look. I’m going to be honest, I am just talking to you because of Feferi. I don’t want to talk to you, not because I hate you, but rather our petty bullshit is a stain on my life. You won the fight, she attacked you, and you killed her. Self defence and whatever.”

“That’s-“

“You were going to do something awful, did do something awful and died for it. Your anti-landdweller bullshit was fascist and genocidal. We all hated it. However you were a kid. So my advice, Eridan. Grow up. You’re alive, deal with it. I’ll come find your dead ass and beat it if you don’t. You’re not a monster, Gamzee is more of one and he’s still Gamzee or the clown.”

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Apologize when you’re not a self-hating prick who looks like you’d let me kill him.”

“I… that…”

“It’ll happen. Just catch up in age and wait.”

—

Eridan opened his eyes. He was on the beach. He was dead. He killed his friends.

He wasn’t going to dwell on it.

Thousands of years of self-loathing was finally enough.

[othercat2]

fic: two for mirth 49/?

Coming back up is slow. Everything is a blur, soft focus. The walls of a hospital room appearify, white-beige, and no window. He can hear footsteps, voices outside the room but it feels like he’s under water. There’s an entertainment screen that’s showing some wiggler progam that he has just enough wit to feel vaguely indignant about. There’s a chair by his bed, and curled up in it in a way that can’t be comfortable, there’s…

“Dave,” Karkat says. His voice rasps and he can’t seem to do more than a creaky little whisper.

Dave stirs, seems a little confused himself, then almost falls out of the chair as he scrambles upright. “Karkat,” he says, voice too loud, and also painfully relieved. “Hey, you’re awake,” Dave says in a more even tone, obviously trying to cover for almost falling over. He moves in closer, caresses Karkat’s cheek. “You’ll do anything to avoid meeting the family, huh?” Dave smiles a slight, shaky little smile that makes Karkat’s bloodpusher stutter with entirely flushed pity.

“That’s exactly what happened,” Karkat says, smiling in return. “Water?”

“Why settle for water, when you can have AJ?” Dave says, and comes up with a sealed bottle of apple juice. He raises the bed a bit, opens the bottle. With some fumbling and some assistance from Dave, he’s able to take a sip.

“Is Jade all right?” Karkat asks after taking another sip.

“You took most of the bullets,” Dave says. “One went right through you, and got her in the gut, but she’s otherwise okay. Apparently has a subjugglator girlfriend now, but fine.”

Karkat makes a confused noise, not quite able to wrap his mind around it, or form words to question it.

“Yeah, I don’t know either,” Dave says. “I literally don’t know anything at all, except for what’s on the news, since I’m not actually next of kin or a quadrant and the only reason they let me stay in here was because they thought I was going to fly off the handle otherwise. Want me to call the doctorturer?”

Karkat hums at that, then gathers together enough of his scattered brain cells to reach up, and pap Dave on the cheek. “No flying off handles,” he says, and frowns.

Dave’s laugh has a decidedly watery sound to it. He presses Karkat’s hand to his cheek, then kisses Karkat’s palm. “Okay, sure. I can do that.”

“News, then doctortur,” Karkat says.

“You sure you’re going to be able to be awake for it?” Dave asks.

Karkat hums and frowns at Dave. He glances meaningfully at the screen, and Dave laughs and comes up with the remote. It takes some searching before they find a news segment handling the assassination attempt. The news reports that the snipers had been caught, and that his moirail was on his way. He tries to tell Dave to get a hold of Eridan, but he’s asleep before he can put the words together.

He’s a little more clearheaded when he wakes up. He learns from the nurse and the doctor that he’d been shot several times in the in the back and the gut. His aeration sponge had been hit; two had gone through his digestion tubes, and one lodged itself in his hip. He’d lost a lot of blood, and there had apparently been some problem finding him a donor. (Absolutely no surprise there.) A subjugglator named Leonis Myrmic apprehended one of the shooters; police caught the second five days later. Karkat had been out of it for more than a week. It seems that Jade had been targeted by a racist group with an intense hatred for the repatriated. Aside from informing the police, Jade hadn’t done anything about it.

Awake, things become extremely busy. He has to talk to the police investigators, and then Ampora. Eridan is shaky, angry and swearing to cull the (human) security detail, who had missed the shooters. “I’m pretty sure culling is illegal here,” Karkat says.

“I’ll have ‘em extradited,” Eridan says immediately. “That is, if Makara doesn’t go after ‘em first.”

“Gamzee isn’t going to cause a diplomatic incident,” Karkat says.

“He flippin’ is a diplomatic incident!” Eridan shouts.

Eridan’s moirail, expression serene, reaches up and quite brazenly paps him. Eridan’s fins flutter win embarrassment, but he settles. “I’m sure the Emissary knows his moirail’s mind better than you, love,” Gernuk says affectionately.

“What mind,” Eridan and Karkat accidentally chorus.

“Seriously, Eridan,” Karkat says, half a beat after that. “He’s grown up a lot.”

“To be the whimsical head of a cult of murderpranking loonies,” Eridan mutters. “All right, it’d be a bad idea to keep him away, anyway.” He glares. “But if he culls me because of this outrageous fuckery, I’m haunting your ass, is that understood?”  

“He won’t cull you,” Karkat says, a little exasperated.

Later he hears from Jade, and strangely enough, Leonis Myrmic. They come to visit from across the hall, Jade in a four wheeled device being navigated by Leonis It’s a little strange seeing a Subjugglator pushing a four wheeled device, let alone seeing one with diamonds in their eyes for a human academic-activist. “So, make up dinner, to make up for being my meat shield?” Jade asks after talking around the situation.

“Well, for not telling me you’ve been getting threats,” Karkat says. “Or might be in danger of getting shot by crazy human ‘racists’.”

Jade waves her hands in an exasperated gesture. “Crazy racists are a thing that happens!” she says. “I can’t cave and let them take over my life!”

“You woulda lost yours, sugargrub, if the Emissary hadn’t played ‘meatshield,’” Leonis says.

“You were there too, Lee!” Jade says. She tries to twist around to look at Leonis, and then freezes with a distressed sound, arms cradling her abdomen. “Owww.”

Leonis immediately squats down at the side of the chair. “So I was. You need me to get a doctorturer?” She asks.

“No, just sore,” Jade says. “Stop fussing at me, you’re worse than Dad!”

“Knew there was a reason I liked that damn dog,” Leonis says.  She rises to her feet, and smiles, at Jade, and then oddly at Karkat. “With all the arguing we do, I never expected to come up pale as bone for Jade. I guess he was let to see a punchline when the Mirthful said, ‘Bitch, someday you’re gonna fall in some quadrant with a heretic and Imma gonna have the biggest damn laugh about it.’”

“I’m just glad you didn’t get shot yourself, though honestly, who wears bioarmor to an academic conference!” Jade says, patting Leonis on the arm with a fond little grin. The affection definitely appeared to go both ways.

“Ninjettes who are ready to throw down for the faith,” Leonis says immediately. “And a good thing too.”

Leonis gives a thankfully unrhymed account of directing someone to call 911, then hunting one of the shooters down. (“One motherfucker was already out of range, but I set loose a most holy terror and got the other.”)

The conversation wanders for a bit, and then Jade says. “Okay Lee, you actually have to tell him. ‘Cause he definitely doesn’t remember you!”

“Well damn,” the Subjugglator says.

“Tell me what?” Karkat asks with a frown.

Leonis sighs. “So, a long time ago, I was all being schoolfed on the old Highblood’s flagship. And I was pissed off that the Highblood surrendered to some heretic who was in a moirallegiance with a jokeblood mutant. And I caused shit with the little motherfucker and he near put me through a wall and I gotta strip tore off me afterward, not for losing, but for fucking around like that at all on account quadrants are motherfucking sacred serendipity, even if it’s a fucking joke, especially if it’s a fucking joke. Then I got sent on a most mirthful and holy quest to learn shit and talk about what I learned and made friends with another jokeblood heretic who followed the Signless Cult. And I meet you again and I think, aight, Imma make up for being a nasty little bitch, and I’m sure you’ll know me on sight and fucking hate me but my sister goes, ‘I bet you it’s all in the past for him and he doesn’t remember,’ and now I owe her dinner and a movie, my treat.”

“Oh, you can afford it!” Jade says.

Karkat laughs a little. “Well, I remember a lot of fights, but not necessarily with who.” He tries to remember the face, and the makeup but can’t quite. The clue is the little gap between her front teeth and the arched nose. And yeah, he remembers her now. He isn’t angry, and he doesn’t hate her. He remembers putting up with her bullshit and the fight and someone coming in to mediate. “You changed your face a bit,” Karkat says, meaning her ‘holy face’ or the paint she was wearing. “You thickened the eyebrows and added opposing crescents under your eyes.”

“The face I was using when I was a kid was pretty basic,” Leonis says. “I changed it up while I was wandering around like the do-gooder mendicant from an adventure serial except all scholarly.”

“Well, I’m not sorry you got in trouble, but I don’t hate you,” Karkat says. “And even though I was pretty pissed at you then, it was a pretty long time ago. I’m glad you were on hand to provide back up and help, so we’re even, I guess.”

“Good, now shake and let bygones be bygones!” Jade says.

She is very insistent that they shake on it, so they do. 

==>

<==

[isroselalondebisexual]

What about ASPECT trollswaps? So Rose Serket, John Nitram, Dave Megido, and Jade Maryam *Jade Maryam the Jade blood wow*

Heehee! Jade Jade sounds fun ^_^

Rose Serket, raised with moderate wealth and a piece of shit spider lusus. I think Rose would start out killing other trolls for her, but hate it, and would resent being forced into doing someone else’s dirty work. I think it would… probably eventually result in Rose killing her lusus, to be entirely honest. She can kill people on her own just fine, she doesn’t need Spidermom to protect her, she doesn’t want Spidermom around telling her what to do and forcing her to kill people who she doesn’t know and who very very likely don’t deserve to die just to feed some lazy spider who’s too awful to go get her own food. Definitely a traumatized girl, as it goes. Angry, resentful of the world and life in general, puts out a “cool n deadly” persona that is also “i’m smarter than you, I’m tougher than you, I’m cold and aloof and untouchable, don’t fuck with me” when in reality it’s mostly just constructed out of her trying to find a sense of control in the world, and not wanting to have to deal with people being mean to her. She’s moirails with Jade, who tries her hardest to gentle Rose down and remind her that she’s just a kid, that life’s not fair and that cruelty should never be the norm. Rose starts out resenting her, resenting her “help” that Rose is certain Jade is giving with disdain, but Jade is no quitter and Rose wants to be loved, wants that assurance that she’s valuable and there is kindness in this life for her, and the two of them end up with an incredibly strong moirallegiance in which they help and love each other, despite a hard and rocky start. They tell stories of how it was difficult, but worth it. She’s still the Seer of Light, so her role is still to foresee the most fortuitous outcome, which she throws herself into full-throttle, converting her anger and resentment with the world to the relentless pursuit of the Light, of making things go RIGHT for once, seizing the control that her role allows and delighting in the way that she can now affect her reality, things are no longer being done to her, but she’s got the power to change the timeline with her sight and her actions and her words. Probably wants to solve all the puzzles and treasure maps on her own, and grows frustrated when she can’t just magically foresee the solution. The solution is “ask your friends for help you dumbass” and so she must begrudgingly ring up John or Jade or Dave to come help her with this goddamned treasure map, pirates are stupid anyways, who came up with the theme for this planet it’s dumb why are there compasses in the sky that doesn’t even make sense grumble grumble. A pissy, ready-to-stab-things-with-needles kind of girl, a bit of a know it all and a bit of a showoff, untrusting of other people’s intentions but ultimately brought around by the love of her sweet moirail and eventual-alien-soulmate-Kanaya. So, pretty close to canon Rose, just angrier and with a different origin story.

John Nitram, a soft, relatively poor boy with a lusus who thinks the world of him and encourages him to do his best, but be careful around danger. John’s probably gonna end up a little more skittish than we know him to be, less likely to walk into situations assuming they’ll all work out. His lusus has always loved and taken care of him, but Fairybulldad is a prey animal and that means you don’t really fight your way out of things, you either run or you bring the situation down away from danger. He jokes around, compliments people easily, is quick to laugh, just in general he likes it when the air around him is kept light and friendly, and will work to keep it that way with his own breezy and friendly demeanor. He and Dave are the greatest bros to ever bro, and everyone keeps wondering when the two of them are finally going to just GO PALE already, it’s so obvious to everyone except the two of them. Mutual pale pining? Mutual pale pining. Defo. John probably gets a huge kick out of being able to commune with animals, and will DEFINITELY make them do stupid shit for kicks. Dave has had so many birds fly in through his window at random, inconvenient times. So many. Curse you Nitram!! John laughs it off and to be fair, Dave does really like birds. John also has like, a million friends that he can just sorta cuddle with at any given time. All the meowbeasts and barkbeasts love him. All of them. Is very likely scared of Rose, who is a very cold midblood and like, constantly furious. Danger that way lies. Jade keeps telling him she’s actually a sweetie deep down and John isn’t quite sure if he believes her, so he and Rose have a relatively distant friendship until the Game happens and John gets to interact with her regularly and he finds out that yeah, she is really cool, and she’s FIERCELY loving of her friends, she’s just really really really fucking intense basically all the time always. The two end up hitting it off, just, later in their lives than they did in canon. As Heir of Breath, his role is still one who must embody freedom, freedom from the shackles of their old society, freedom from the restrictions placed on the various castes, and freedom from his own neuroses, which are as multitudinous as ever. Naturally, he cannot accomplish this when acting on his own, and the four of them must still work together to bring out their own best qualities, and each others’.

Dave Megido, lowest financial station but with a cool Kangaramdad who does, by all known accounts, love his child. Probably has a sort of “time is money” kind of outlook and a “spend it while you have it” motto for finances, the fanciest thing he owns is his camera and he loves it to bits and pieces and he takes pictures of everything, starts up a whole series that’s just about documenting beauty in the day to day life of himself and his neighbors. He’s got a HUGE warmblood following, people like him who enjoy seeing great things in little moments that he’s somehow managed to capture on film. He loves it because Dave, as always, Craves That Mineral Validation, and also it’s his own way of fighting back against the system. He doesn’t really think there’s a whole lot he can do, but he CAN do this, and it’s what he likes and it’s how he does it. Has a super big fucking huge giant pale crush on John who always takes the time out of his night to make Dave smile and remind him of how important his friendship is to John and Dave looooooves him he’s the beeeeeeest. The two of them grow up not too far from each other so they hang out regularly and play around and are children together and Kangaramdad and Fairbulldad get along well and it’s GREAT. Dave has a somewhat-normal childhood, as much as “normal” can possibly be on a planet that repeatedly and constantly tells you that your life means nothing and you’re going to die soon anyway. Probably maintains his fascination with death and dead things, probably still has a “dead things in jars” collection, and it’s very likely because he lives in a society that really requires Dave to reconcile with the concept of death and think about it often. It’s always right there, looming behind the corner, and he can ignore it and be scared of it or he, being a child, can engage with it in a frankly weird, but ultimately progressive way. As Knight of Time, his job is to protect the alpha timeline and foster its happening, so he still winds up seeing his own dead body a lot and he still has to be VERY METICULOUS in the time loops he creates, and it’s nasty and awful but he has John around. Tbeh, I think Dave might just forgo his planet’s quest entirely and hang out on John’s planet. Do some puzzles, crack some jokes, like they usually do, only this time in a weird magic Game that is apparently birthing a new universe. He and Rose very likely poke a lot of fun at each other, sorta nudging at “how far can I push” but also “ahaha, I am aloof and unbothered, you cannot rattle MY bones” so it’s just this weird, vaguely antagonistic friendship where they both REALLY like each other and are glad to be friends but sometimes they just can’t resist being little shits. He and Jade are also good friends, Jade making sure Dave is okay and checking in pretty regularly and Dave sending her things he knows will brighten her day and making sure she feels like one of the cool kids too, because she is cool, he thinks she’s so cool and really looks up to her as a person and as a friend and is really glad that he knows her. Eventually Dave meets a surly alien named Karkat and falls ass over heels in love with him and it’s DUMB and JOHN HELP WHAT SHOULD HE DO and oh god is he pitch for Karkat??? Flush???? Should someone come mediate them??? Is he pale for Karkat??? What’s going on he’s feeling so many things for this awful, stupid, beautiful dumb hilarious compassionate-yet-selfish boy John help Dave’s going to die of alien-gay. John pats his shoulder and smirks at him, and then proceeds to relentlessly tease him for his crush on an alien.

Jade Maryam, raised middle class out in the middle of FUCKING NOWHERE (again), with a lusus who loves her. Probably ends up pretty well adjusted, all things considered. She has to fight off zombies, so that’s something, but she gardens and she does her sciency stuff and she’s awake on Prospit and friends with the chess people, so really her upbringing is nigh-identical to that of canon, but this time with a guardian of pretty high intelligence, compared to all her friends’ custodians, instead of a magic dog. The violence of Alternian society probably makes her a little more prone to physical violence as a response to her anger, and she likely has like a million and five rifles, but ultimately I can’t see a whole hell of a lot of difference between Jade Maryam and Jade Harley. Still the Witch of Space, whose job is to bring about the new world and alter the whole of the universe for the good of the people residing within it. Good pals with her friends, dating Rose in pale and acting as something of an anchor for them all, the reliable, solid member that they can all fall back on. Idk if I’ve talked about this often but I associate all of the kids with certain elements and I’ve always pegged Jade for earth. She’s grounded, solid, and focused on growth, and I love her

[caederet-a-blog]

>Karkat: Hit your head against the wall repeatedly.

@8rawling @merrygams

8rawling What if I ask you what the reasons are in priv8te.

caederet I MIGHT ANSWER.

8rawling Then what are your reasons.

caederet EMOTIONAL BULLSHIT.

8rawling What.

caederet I DON'T KNOW, I THINK I MIGHT HAVE SOME FORM OF CALIGINOUS INTEREST IN YOU? BY WHICH I MEAN I LITERALLY DON'T KNOW, I'M NOT JUST SAYING THAT TO AVOID SHAME OR WHATEVER.

8rawling I The Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........ Well, I'll just let you rumin8te on that... forever. Convers8tions were a mistake.

caederet GOOD PLAN. I AGREE. FUCKING, FAREWELL OR WHATEVER.

8rawling Goodlight!!!!!!!!

Yesterday at 11:03 PM

8rawling When you say every night, like... How long have you, y'know????????

caederet FIRST OF ALL I MEANT EVERY NIGHT AS IN EVERY NIGHT YOU BOTHER ME WITH YOUR ASININE DRIVEL. I HAVEN'T BEEN PINING OR ANY OF THAT BULLSHIT. SECOND OF ALL I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. WHEN YOU'VE BEEN AS SEXUALLY AND ROMANTICALLY REPRESSED AS ME ALL YOUR LIFE, A LOT OF SHIT GOES TOTALLY UN-ANALYZED.

8rawling Aw, I only 8other you 'cause half the time I find you more entertaining than the usual shit on my dash. C'mon. Fascin8ting though. Do you remem8er that time Kanaya thought you had pitch interest in me.

caederet WHICH TIME. SHE'S MY MOIRAIL, SHE KNOWS ME BETTER THAN I DO.

8rawling What do you mean which time. I thought there was only one time.

caederet I THINK THERE WERE A COUPLE TIMES SHE VAGUELY TEASED ME ABOUT IT.

8rawling Wow. Am I allowed to tell her she was right. I was going to send her a screenshot of your message tonight anyway. 8ut she didn't get 8ack to me. So I might as well ask since we're here.

caederet NO I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO BE THE ONE TO TELL HER ABOUT MY STUPID SHITTY EMOTIONS.

8rawling Ughhhhhhhh. 8oring. Fine. I'll do my 8est to not mention it. I still can't 8elieve you were serious. It's just like, a small thing, yeah????????

caederet I'LL SEND HER A MESSAGE ABOUT HOW TERRIBLE I AM LATER. WHO KNOWS!!! CERTAINLY NOT FUCKING ME. MAYBE I SHOULD ASK KANAYA, MAYBE SHE'LL KNOW.

8rawling Really? I mean, like. Mmmm. I'm not one to judge on having a hard time with emotions. Kanaya'd have my head for that sort of thing, pro8a8ly, haha.

caederet WAS THE PART WHERE MY MOIRALLEGIANCE WITH KANAYA IS THE ONLY  ROMANTIC CONNECTION I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO HAVE WITH ANOTHER TROLL IN MY LIFE TOTALLY LOST ON YOU.

8rawling Hey, it's the same for me. Kanaya's the first person I've trusted with... anything, really, 8esides my crew. I actually always thought you seemed a little 8etter emotionally connected than me? 8ut I guess not.

caederet I'VE SPENT SO MUCH TIME SUPPRESSING EVERYTHING AND BEING LITERALLY DENIED THE RIGHT TO CONNECT WITH PEOPLE ON ANY LEVEL THROUGHOUT MY ENTIRE LIFE THAT I WAS FRANKLY NEVER ABLE TO LEARN WHAT FEELINGS ARE.

8rawling So yeah, it was lost on me. Ah.

caederet NO, I'M REALLY NOT BETTER AT THAT THAN YOU. I'M GREAT AT PARSING OTHER PEOPLE'S SHIT, BUT MINE IS INSCRUTABLE.

8rawling Hahahaha. Me too! I can read every8ody's thoughts and feelings 8esides my own. It's hard. I have my own reasons for emotional difficulties 8ut I'm, uh, sorry that I didn't pick up on your situ8tion that well.

caederet NO IT'S FINE I WAS NOT IN ANY WAY AT ANY POINT ATTEMPTING TO COMMUNICATE ANYTHING OF THAT VEIN TO YOU.

8rawling Then why ask if it was lost on me.

caederet OH, WAIT, I GOT CONFUSED.

8rawling ????????

caederet SORRY, I THOUGHT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT MY FEELINGS SITUATION AND NOT MY INABILITY-TO-RECOGNIZE-FEELINGS SITUATION.

8rawling Oh. It's fine, I'm tired and didn't phrase stuff well, pro8a8ly.

caederet ME TOO. THIS IS WEIRD.

8rawling May8e. It's 8etter than when you're 8usy calling me an imperialist or something over literally nothing. 8ut I can leave you alone now if you want.

caederet I DON'T CALL YOU ANYTHING FOR NO REASON. BUT IT'S FINE.

8rawling Then why did you call me an imperialist.

caederet I DON'T REMEMBER THAT WELL. GIVE ME CONTEST. *CONTEXT.

8rawling https://caederet.tumblr.com/post/159726568279/i-never-said-it-was-imperialist You were talking a8out your political views. I think. I don't know, I didn't really care. Either way: I'm Literally a pir8te.

caederet OH THAT WAS JUST A SNAPPY RETORT TO YOUR CALLING ME A DINGUS.

8rawling Karkat Vantas I will punch you into the planet. I have 8een holding a grudge over it this WHOLE TIME. Fuck you. Don't call me that as even a retort again.

caederet OH. OKAY, GOT IT.

8rawling Thanks.

caederet NO PROBLEM. I WON'T PRETEND IT'S NOT. UH. A LITTLE NICE TO KNOW I CAN HAVE THAT EFFECT ON YOU, THOUGH.

8rawling What. ????

caederet FUCK. YOU KNOW, LIKE. PISSING YOU OFF THAT MUCH.

8rawling That is... the worst sentence I've ever read in my entire life, and I've had to read some real wild shit. Like, old troll civiliz8tions who kept 8athroom Logs for every little thing that had mysterious stains on them. And yet, this topples those 8y leaps and 8ounds.

8rawling I h8te knowing that telling you that pro8a8ly just makes you happy. I am disgusted? This is the worst? Goddamnit.

caederet OH SHUT THE FUCK UP. WHAT, YOU THINK YOU'RE SUCH HOT SHIT THAT I'M SOILING MY FUCKING PANTS OVER MY ABILITY TO NOTABLY IRK YOU?

8rawling Yes.

caederet IT WAS JUST AN OBSERVATION THAT I REGRETTED THE MOMENT I SENT YOU'RE NOT.

8rawling Yes I am. I'm gr8. I love... me.

caederet YOU'RE NOT! HONESTLY, MY BELIEF THAT THERE IS THE CAPACITY FOR BEING "GR8" SOMEWHERE WITHIN YOU IS THE MOST GROSSLY OPTIMISTIC THING ABOUT ME. WELL I'M GLAD SOMEONE DOES. WAIT I CAN'T SAY THAT. I HATE THAT PEOPLE LOVE YOU.

8rawling Why? Do you even know what I really do?

caederet BECAUSE I FEEL THAT IT GIVES YOUR MASSIVE EGO A CONCRETE BASIS. YOU'RE A PIRATE, RIGHT.

8rawling I go to old civiliz8tions and ruins and save old literature and artwork from rotting away. I also steal that sort of stuff from people, mostly rich folks who 8uy important works as a source of their vanity. And then I put, uh, what I Can into my li8raries around 8eforus, with some of it kept away in annexes for scholars. Mostly to keep the Empire off my ass with the more "scandalous" materials. The rest is kept in my priv8te collection on deck. It's all stuff that would get my life's work razed immedi8tely, 8ut I felt was still important to save. I am a pir8te, yes, 8ut I only oper8te within the 8ounds of the Empire 8ecause they have enough material to have my head on a stick, and my deals keep them from doing that.

caederet THAT'S COOL, I GUESS.

8rawling You guess.

caederet I MEAN THAT IS ACTUALLY PRETTY COOL, I GUESS.

8rawling ::::)

8rawling Would you want to see the priv8te collection sometime. I'll let you keep a few 8ooks if you like anything you see.

caederet I'M A LITTLE CONFUSED AS TO WHY OH. OH, UH. YEAH. SURE, I GUESS.

8rawling Okay. Just let me know when. I won't 8e at sea for a while yet.

caederet OH, WELL I'M FREE ALL THE TIME BUT NOT SO PRESUMPTUOUS AS TO MAKE PLANS VERY FAR IN ADVANCE. WOULD SOMETIME IN THE NEXT FEW NIGHTS WORK.

8rawling Monday? I can work out a deal with the guy who's letting me stay in his residence to use his transportalizer, pro8a8ly.

caederet I DON'T NEED A TRANSPORTALIZER AS LONG AS YOU AREN'T DIRECTLY UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES OF THE EMPRESS OR SOME SHIT.

8rawling Trust me when I say I definitely am not. Especially right now. That'd cause more than a few pan aches for me. See you then. ::::)

caederet ALSO THE TRANSPORTALIZER HERE IS PRETTY SHADY AND YOU AREN'T WORTH GETTING MY ATOMS SCATTERED ACROSS SPACETIME IN THE FORM OF A VERY FINE KARKAT DUST. I'LL DRIVE THERE. THAT EMOTE UNSETTLES ME.

8rawling (;:::

caederet MAN, YOU'RE LUCKY I'M A RECKLESS THRILLSEEKER OTHERWISE I'D BE WORRIED ABOUT HOW YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY GOING TO SHANK ME AS SOON AS I SHOW MY GRUBBY FACE AROUND THERE.

8rawling I have no reason to do that. Do 8e wary though, the village I'm in is a pir8tes' haven.

caederet AND?

8rawling Many of the people here will gut you if you even just look at them funny. I would know, I've lost crewm8tes here over the most petty of disagreements.

caederet SOUNDS HOT, I LOVE DYING.

8rawling Ooooooookay. Either way! Sounds like a plan. I gotta try to get some rest, so. Goodlight.

caederet COOL.

[agenderidan]

Another duel

fandom: Homestuck

characters: Eridan Ampora, Sollux Captor, Karkat VAntas, Kanaya Maryam, Feferi Peixes

warnings: idk canon-type violence? i guess? its not explicit or anything

synopsis: Eridan’s and Sollux’s duel from murderstuck times that goes a bit differently.

a.k.a. a drabble build-up to a shitty joke. probably ooc as fuck.

wordcount: 1287

'Fin! You can get yourshellf krilled, sea if I care, because I'm not mediating between you!'

There was much more emotion in Feferi's voice than her words indicated, and, were Eridan not as used to her abuse of nautical puns, he would have had a hard time deciphering just what she meant to say.

As if she were trying to compensate for this, the girl turned away, her beautiful, beautiful long hair following the motion dramatically and falling over her shoulder. Eridan tore his eyes from the magnificent mess of locks that he used to (but would never again) brush and braid, and focused on his challenger. Showing the cocky bastard how wrong he was for picking a fight here took precedence over gawking at his ex-moirail, no matter how captivating she looked when she was angry.

(He did not silently scold himself for this reaction. This was not the reason their moirallegiance fell apart. He was not at fault.)

He did not need to look at her to know that she left the computer block, as she made a point of stomping loudly before disappearing with a loud sound from the transportalizer. Ugh, and she called him dramatic, when she pulled shit like this. He was not even aware one could do something akin to making the door bang on the way out while using that machine, but look at that.

Eridan could not say with certainty that Captor rolled his eyes at this outburst, them having no visible irises and all that, but there was a subtle move to his (stupid, infuriating, pretty, disgusting, freakish) four-horned head, and he thought that he heard an annoyed huff. As much as he did not wish to, he could relate to that feeling.

Ugh. Way to make a scene of this. Who cared if she wanted to step between them or not! Not everything had to be about her. Besides, it was not him who started this fight, how dare she insinuate that it was to get her to break off the quadrant she may or may not have with the pissblooded brat. Like she even knew how to mediate between people. She'd be more likely to just stand there while the other two leaves of her club fought, and then kill the winner for being too mean.

'So are we going to duel, or are you just going two stand there, prince?' The yellowblood seemed to lisp even harder on the last word, priinthe, just to piss Eridan off.

'Bring it on, mage,' he all but growled in response, fingers closing around his ma- science wand.

The duel was, in his opinion, not much of a fight. Sure, Captor's reflexes were rather good, and he did not lack in the sheer force of his optic blasts, and sure, it might have had been enough before, when Eridan's weapon of choice was the legendary-but-much-more-cumbersome Ahab's Crosshairs. But now, he was holding on to a wand, a more precise tool to channel his power through, and he felt it rising to match Captor's  power.

And, as he knew well from the dozens of history books he had consumed in his lifetime, when powers were matched, the fight was decided by strategy. Had Captor put more thought into the duel, he would have used his psionics differently, binding Eridan's movements instead of just trying to fry him on spot. Of course, that way he would not be able to blast him simultaneously, but, in a restricted state, even the landlicker's measly physical force would be enough to incapacitate him. Eventually. With enough hits. Many, many hits from his small, bony arms.

As it was, the lowblood was, how should he phrase it... hopeless.

It felt almost disappointing to see his skinny body fly into the wall behind him and slide down, leaving a faint yellow trail behind.

It did not feel satisfying, either. It probably had to do something with the fact that Eridan did not mean to fight him this time, and that his goal, getting Fef to join him and therefore saving her from certain death at Jack's hands, had failed. Oh well. She made her choice. What was the next point on his plan again? Ah, right. He was supposed to «take care» of the matriorb just like he had promi-

He did not get to finish that thought, interrupted by a sudden pain in the head, as something, or, rather, someone, struck him across the horns, and everything went white.

'What in the fucking hell is wrong with you?!' Karkat yelled. Or did he just say it? It is so hard to tell with his volume control issues... No, it definitely was an angry scream this time, judging by the red tinting the yellows of his eyes, he could see it now that the noise cleared out. Ow, this did not help his newly-acquired headache at all. He pushed himself up from the floor — when did he collapse? - To  find Karkat and Kanaya looming over him, weapons equipped.

'Kar, please, not so loud, your voice's makin' me feel like shit,' he complained with a slur to his voice. It was definitely Kanaya who struck him, Kar wouldn't have the strength to turn his grey matter to grey liquid in one blow. He shook his head, readjusting to his surroundings. His wand lay at some distance, broken in two. Yeeah, he might have gone overboard. A bit.

'Good, that's what you should be feeling like, you dimwitted backstabbing piece of trash!' He was trembling, Eridan registered now, sickles shaking in his hands, and, if it were not for Kan holding him back, he might have ended up with a fresh slashed wound. Oh fuck, were those actual tears in his eyes?

'Kar, please, calm-' he started, pressing a hand to the side of Karkat's face, just to have it slapped away.

'Don't you dare tell me to calm down after you fucking KILLED SOLLUX!'

His words were like another, even more painful slap. Did he really?... No, it was not possible, he just- He did not plan to- He was not thinking-

'No w-way,' he stuttered, his eyes darting to the wall, where Sollux's corpse- body- lay in the same position as before. 'He isn't dead, is he? He's probably just uncos- uncn- fuck! He's probs just knocked out,' he finished, giving up on pronouncing anything that had more than three syllables.

Karkat's posture relaxed a bit, something Eridan couldn't put a finger on flashing in his eyes.

'You didn't check,' he said, and it was not a question.

'Forgive us for trying to prevent more of our friends from dying at your hand,' Kanaya replied icily. She definitely spent too much time talking to those humans, picking up their human sarcasm.

They gave him nasty side-glares as all of them approached their new wall ornament. Kanaya gave Captor's cheek a light slap, but he did not hurry to wake up, the lazy asshole. Karkat's attempts to find his pulse did not seem to bear fruit, either, from how hard he was frowning. 'Mow- move,' Eridan muttered, pushing Karkat out of the way, 'I got this. I read about it somv- in a book, you gotta hold a mirror to his nose, see if he's breathin'.'

He took off his glasses and held them up to Captor's nasty face, careful not to let them actually touch it. It was enough that he'd be getting landie breath on them.

'Well?' Karkat pried, as Eridan pulled the glasses back and inspected them for fogginess, squinting hard. Then he squinted harder.

'Fuck if I know,' he confessed, handing the spectacles to Kanaya.

'I can't see shit without those.'

[maybeimkin]

Main timeline nepeta memories (with Vriska memories in there)

I put together this memory list with the help of my lovely meowrial’s( @sugar-and-spite )memories as well! Since I don’t have many memories of my own I made this pretty much quirk free just because it’s easier to read that way (except for quotes from my moirail, those are directly copy pasted)

More info may be added! Edits are marked by two asterisks **like this**

the relationships I remember just as a tldr type thing before you get in ♏️♦️♌️, ♊️♣️♌️♣️♒️, ♌️♥️♍️, ♈️♥️♊️. ♏️♥️♒️♥️♓️(polyamory, started like the comic with ♒️♠️♏️ and ♓️♦️♒️), ♐️💔♈️ (one sided on equius’ end), ♊️♠️♒️ (after my death, potentially in the dream bubble?), ♍️♦️♋️

Humans:

Dave- my trans buddy! Dave was trans and I was agender! We talked about what gender meant in our culture and what it meant to be trans!

No memories yet for the others :(( sorry

- Trolls:

meulin you were brought back instead(with? Idk it’s not clear) of aranea and you were killed by gamzee

Aradia- mixed feelings about her, she killed vriska (my moirail) but vriska came back as Godtier… Vriska also killed her pre game I believe? Similar to the comic Vriska also had a pitched crush on her **flushed relationship with sollux**

Tavros - Vriska cared about him but only in a platonic way, she did a lot of mean things to him but she felt she didn’t have a choice

I don’t really remember him but I think we got along?

Sollux- Vriska and him were either kismeses, ex-kismeses, or had a black fling

All I remember was auspicing between him and eridan After I died him and eridan pitched, both were later killed by gamzee, I’m not sure when though

karkat- Vriska had a slight flush crush on him when she was younger, I’m pretty sure I had one too? Nothing happened between any of us I’m pretty sure…

nepeta (me) - I don’t have too many memories but my appearance was similar to that of the comic? I’m pretty certain I had a different shade of blue though, to match my moirail Vriska instead of my friend Equius I was agender I’m pretty sure I never got into FLARP even though I wanted to… Vriska and Equius didn’t approve, but I did still role play a lot! Especially with Vriska :33 **I also died because of gamzee protecting Vriska and was made into a Sprite by feferi**

Kanaya - **my tall gf! We actually got together because I was trying to set her up with Vriska! (I believe you asked me to ^^“ since I was telling you about everything and all that) well through all of my attempts (I don’t remember specifics but I definitely stood behind a tree with a communication device as you talked to Vriska to help you along… That’s the sort of things we tried) and along the way we just kinda fell in love, I would love to talk to you again!**

Terezi - Vriska had very strong feelings for you! She says the line that reminds her of you is “you wanted her in every quadrant like a desper8 fool” the last words Vriska said to you was a mixture of “I love you” and “I’m sorry”

I don’t have solid memories about you but I do think we were friends! And I’m fairly certain we rped together! I also think Vriska (after a retcon) took your place to fight gamzee when he snapped??? She knew you would die and I think she died a heroic death because of it?? This encounter also lead to my death since I either died protecting my moirail or died attempting to avenge her

Vriska- my moirail! In her words: “I remem8er talking to the humans, and I vaguely remem8er cre8ting 8ec Noir.” I’ve already found her and a lot of her relationships are talked about in the other entries

Equius - he was a good friend of mine but we never got together in a pale way (that spot was taken~) Vriska found him kinda creepy but he could be sweet at times! I did have to take him for a peg when he started acting racist( bloodist? Castist?) He made aradiabot like in the comic He also hit Vriska with her own arm? Which I don’t remember so idk if I ever knew about that… I may be a little bitter about that :// but I still miss him as a friend **new memory: you used to misgender me a lot (I used they pronouns and you called me a her and… I have one possible memory of you using “female” in a fight about it when I was correcting you… You went away for a bit, I assume you thought about things because soon after you came back calmed down and apologized…. After that you did your best to use my pronouns! Vriska also called you out on your casteist ideology at one point which may have lead to the hitting her with her own arm debacle?? Idk** **also a good memory that horned after the misgendering incident! I lifted you up as a show of my strength!!!! Probably one of my cuter memories tbh**

Gamzee- may or may not have been kismeses or ex kismeses with Vriska (or she may have had a black crush) He killed Vriska, me, meulin, eridan, and sollux

Eridan - I don’t remember much about you other then being the auspicious between you and sollux and after I died you two went pitched and you and sollux were later killed by gamzee, I’m not sure when though you were also a very important part of vriska’s life so I’ll use her words to describe you!

“Eridan and I had our little 8lack romance during our FLARPing days just like we did in canon, 8ut it just… fell apart so fast. We were 8oth trying to live up to who our ancestors were, and totally disregarding who we were, and how we felt together. Sure, we heckled each other, 8ut we were never really violent enough for a full-fledged 8lackrom, you know? So then, either sometime on the meteor or after we all died, Eridan and I ended up in a committed polyamorous rel8tionship with Feferi. He and I sort of vascill8ted 8etween kismeses and m8tesprits, and it worked out so much 8etter that way, once we weren’t lying to each other and ourselves a8out how we felt. The two of them really completed me, and I miss them more than anyone else.”

Feferi- I’m pretty sure we had a good relationship and a good friendship! You also were the one to bring me back from the dead by putting me in a Sprite!

You were also very important to Vriska so I’m going to use her words to describe her relationship with you “I swear, she was the light of my life. At first, there was a lot of tension 8etween the two of us and Eridan, since she clearly liked me, and they hadn’t worked out their moirallegiance/m8tespritship yet. I remem8er a lot of stolen kisses on the 8each, hoping he wouldn’t find out, and feeling so guilty a8out it. It was such a relief then when we all started vascill8ting. I helped her talk out all her pro8lems with him, and she helped 8oth of us understand what had gone wrong with us initially. She and I were usually just flushed, although when Eridan and I went 8lack, she’d occasionally auspistice for us. And she vascill8ted 8etween flushed and pale with Eridan. It was a 8it of a weird rel8tionship as far as troll romance goes, though, 8ecause there were a lot of times where all three of us were flushed together. I mean, weird or not, though, we all loved each other, and we were so happy together.”

[hskin-memoryhub]

For the original post that has any edits here the link: https://maybeimkin.tumblr.com/post/155416470022/main-timeline-nepeta-memories-with-vriska

Everything beyond this is basically copy pasted from my memories post

I put together this memory list with the help of my lovely meowrial’s( @sugar-and-spite )memories as well! Since I don’t have many memories of my own I made this pretty much quirk free just because it’s easier to read that way (except for quotes from my moirail, those are directly copy pasted)

More info may be added! Edits are marked by two asterisks **like this**

the relationships I remember just as a tldr type thing before you get in ♏️♦️♌️, ♊️♣️♌️♣️♒️, ♌️♥️♍️, ♈️♥️♊️. ♏️♥️♒️♥️♓️(polyamory, started like the comic with ♒️♠️♏️ and ♓️♦️♒️), ♐️💔♈️ (one sided on equius’ end), ♊️♠️♒️ (after my death, potentially in the dream bubble?), ♍️♦️♋️

Humans:

Dave- my trans buddy! Dave was trans and I was agender! We talked about what gender meant in our culture and what it meant to be trans!

No memories yet for the others :(( sorry

- Trolls:

meulin you were brought back instead(with? Idk it’s not clear) of aranea and you were killed by gamzee

Aradia- mixed feelings about her, she killed vriska (my moirail) but vriska came back as Godtier… Vriska also killed her pre game I believe? Similar to the comic Vriska also had a pitched crush on her **flushed relationship with sollux**

Tavros - Vriska cared about him but only in a platonic way, she did a lot of mean things to him but she felt she didn’t have a choice I don’t really remember him but I think we got along?

Sollux- Vriska and him were either kismeses, ex-kismeses, or had a black fling

All I remember was auspicing between him and eridan 
After I died him and eridan pitched, both were later killed by gamzee, I’m not sure when though karkat- Vriska had a slight flush crush on him when she was younger, I’m pretty sure I had one too? Nothing happened between any of us I’m pretty sure…

nepeta (me) - I don’t have too many memories but my appearance was similar to that of the comic? I’m pretty certain I had a different shade of blue though, to match my moirail Vriska instead of my friend Equius I’m pretty sure I never got into FLARP even though I wanted to… Vriska and Equius didn’t approve, but I did still role play a lot! Especially with Vriska :33 **I also died because of gamzee protecting Vriska and was made into a Sprite by feferi**

Kanaya - **my tall gf! We actually got together because I was trying to set her up with Vriska! (I believe you asked me to ^^“ since I was telling you about everything and all that) well through all of my attempts (I don’t remember specifics but I definitely stood behind a tree with a communication device as you talked to Vriska to help you along… That’s the sort of things we tried) and along the way we just kinda fell in love, I would love to talk to you again!**

Terezi - Vriska had very strong feelings for you! She says the line that reminds her of you is “you wanted her in every quadrant like a desper8 fool” the last words Vriska said to you was a mixture of “I love you” and “I’m sorry”

I don’t have solid memories about you but I do think we were friends! And I’m fairly certain we rped together! I also think Vriska (after a retcon) took your place to fight gamzee when he snapped??? She knew you would die and I think she died a heroic death because of it?? This encounter also lead to my death since I either died protecting my moirail or died attempting to avenge her

Vriska- my moirail! In her words: “I remem8er talking to the humans, and I vaguely remem8er cre8ting 8ec Noir.” I’ve already found her and a lot of her relationships are talked about in the other entries

Equius - he was a good friend of mine but we never got together in a pale way (that spot was taken~) Vriska found him kinda creepy but he could be sweet at times! I did have to take him for a peg when he started acting racist( bloodist? Castist?) He made aradiabot like in the comic He also hit Vriska with her own arm? Which I don’t remember so idk if I ever knew about that… I may be a little bitter about that :// but I still miss him as a friend **new memory: you used to misgender me a lot (I used they pronouns and you called me a her and… I have one possible memory of you using “female” in a fight about it when I was correcting you… You went away for a bit, I assume you thought about things because soon after you came back calmed down and apologized…. After that you did your best to use my pronouns! Vriska also called you out on your casteist ideology at one point which may have lead to the hitting her with her own arm debacle?? Idk**

Gamzee- may or may not have been kismeses or ex kismeses with Vriska (or she may have had a black crush) He killed Vriska, me, meulin, eridan, and sollux

Eridan - I don’t remember much about you other then being the auspicious between you and sollux and after I died you two went pitched and you and sollux were later killed by gamzee, I’m not sure when though 
you were also a very important part of vriska’s life so I’ll use her words to describe you!

“Eridan and I had our little 8lack romance during our FLARPing days just like we did in canon, 8ut it just… fell apart so fast. We were 8oth trying to live up to who our ancestors were, and totally disregarding who we were, and how we felt together. Sure, we heckled each other, 8ut we were never really violent enough for a full-fledged 8lackrom, you know? So then, either sometime on the meteor or after we all died, Eridan and I ended up in a committed polyamorous rel8tionship with Feferi. He and I sort of vascill8ted 8etween kismeses and m8tesprits, and it worked out so much 8etter that way, once we weren’t lying to each other and ourselves a8out how we felt. The two of them really completed me, and I miss them more than anyone else.”

Feferi- I’m pretty sure we had a good relationship and a good friendship! You also were the one to bring me back from the dead by putting me in a Sprite!

You were also very important to Vriska so I’m going to use her words to describe her relationship with you “I swear, she was the light of my life. At first, there was a lot of tension 8etween the two of us and Eridan, since she clearly liked me, and they hadn’t worked out their moirallegiance/m8tespritship yet. I remem8er a lot of stolen kisses on the 8each, hoping he wouldn’t find out, and feeling so guilty a8out it. It was such a relief then when we all started vascill8ting. I helped her talk out all her pro8lems with him, and she helped 8oth of us understand what had gone wrong with us initially. She and I were usually just flushed, although when Eridan and I went 8lack, she’d occasionally auspistice for us. And she vascill8ted 8etween flushed and pale with Eridan. It was a 8it of a weird rel8tionship as far as troll romance goes, though, 8ecause there were a lot of times where all three of us were flushed together. I mean, weird or not, though, we all loved each other, and we were so happy together.”

~~~~ Me and Vriska are looking for everyone (we are also both adults btw)