#belatu kadros

[bonesandsalt]

Log Day 98 (Thursday, October 1, 1925)

The Christophers are arguing, and I’ve been strictly warned by Shader to stay out of it. Joshua is angry that Chrono failed to protect Rosette, and that she made the contract with Chrono. Rosette is angry because Joshua is angry about Chrono. She’s also angry because Joshua appeared to defend my actions.

(He hadn’t, really. He attempted to mediate between myself and Rosette while we were arguing. She took the attempt badly, and they started arguing. When I attempted to intervene Joshua took it badly, and Rosette took it even worse because Joshua said, “Master, go away, let me handle this.” So I left to Rosette screaming at Joshua about not needing to be handled and that Joshua wasn’t my slave.)

That was two days ago, and I am tempted to toss them both into the nearest water collection tank. They have both settled into a sullen sort of silence and glares, so at least it’s quieter. I don’t see how mediating between them would have been a bad idea, but I am willing to respect Joshua’s request that I not interfere.

Shader is continuing the broadcasts, and has actually been in contact with various small communities. We’ve also picked up some broadcasts by remnants of the Magdalen Order. They make dire pronouncements about trusting the advice of demons. They’ve been generally offering assistance, but very little in the way of information/education. There have also been a few direct threats that I’m going to have to address at some point.

Shader wants to drop radios. I don’t think we have the resources to make as many radios as she would like. She’s also scheduled music and other audio programming, as if she were running a radio station. Joshua seems enthused by the idea of a radio station, Rosette bemused.  

(Shader is still in contact with Kadros and his allies, which is not as upsetting as I would have thought. One of his allies is a defector of Physician rank, and he’s apparently willing to tutor Shader.)

I am continuing the harvest of the garden rooms, and the chicken flock is doing well.

I have been debating acquiring horses. The garage we used for a stable is still intact. (Mostly because of Genai, he was ridiculously fond of the creatures.) We won’t be able to find gasoline for much longer, and while we could alter the truck and van to run on other fuels, it might be more economic to use horses. On the other hand, I would have to teach Joshua and Rosette how to ride.

Rosette approached me during one of my rest periods. I was in the music room, playing with a ragtime composition I’d been working on intermittently, and I think she was drawn in by the music. “You play the piano?” she asked sounding startled.

“No, Rosette, it’s a player piano,” I said, turning to face her.

She flushed. “I thought you were Joshua.”

“Were you looking for him?”

“No, just exercising.” She looked a little upset, as if remembering she was angry both at Joshua and myself. She glanced at my notes and the music. “I didn’t think you’d play the piano.”

“I play several instruments,” I said. “Clarinet, guitar, organ, piano.”  

“Why?” She asked.

“Because I like music,” I said patiently. “And because the only way to amplify and direct as much astral energy as I needed to raise Pandaemonium was through the Oratorio I composed.”

Rosette snorted. “Oh. You composed that thing? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it was so overdramatic and stuffy...”

I admit to being stung by Rosette’s comment. “I really don't think you're qualified to critique my music, Miss Christopher,” I said.

“I don't need to know how to play to know what something sounds like, do I?” Rosette asked.

“I mean, I'm questioning your musical taste, if it exists, and your bias,” I said.

Rosette glared. “I have musical taste!”

“I doubt that,” I replied. “Also, you’re biased.”

Rosette made an indignant sound. “Okay, I’m biased, but I do too have musical taste!” She named bands and singers, and we somehow ended up discussing music for the next hour.

Joshua had an asthma attack this evening, possibly exacerbated by dust (he was cleaning air filters) and pushing himself too hard and insisting he was fine. Rosette fussed, Joshua snapped, and then Shader went off into a tirade. “Asthma is not psychosomatic, it is not a mental illness, and if it were a mental illness it wouldn’t make Joshua any more or less fit than any other human.” She then went into a thunderous rant about human medicine with side trips into her feelings about eugenics and Social Darwinism that left the Christopher siblings staring.

“Shayshay, I thought we were supposed to let the Christophers sort each other out,” I say when she finally winds down.

Shader glared at the old nickname, her ears back and tail twitching. “Don’t call me that,” she snapped.

“Shayshay?” Rosette asked.

“Shay means ‘busy’ in a ‘really curious and sticking your nose into things’ kind of way,” Joshua explained. “Like a little kid.”

“Joshua!” Shader protested indignantly.

“She was really active as a child,” I said. “Chrono and I were given the job of watching over her in hopes of keeping us out of trouble and learning responsibility. She was about six, we were about ten.”

Rosette looked baffled. “It’s really hard to imagine you as a little kid.”

“He’d look just like Chrono, Rosette,” Joshua said.

“I know, but still,” she said, frowning. “It’s just really weird.”

“They were great big brothers,” Shader said. “When they weren’t making up stupid nicknames.”

“Stupid nicknames you earned,” I said.

“Urgh,” Shader said. “I’m sorry about the outburst,” she said. “I found something out about something that happened to a friend a few days ago. It was pretty bad, and you two kind of reminded me of it.”

Joshua apologizes, Rosette asks about what happened. Joshua points out that whatever it is, Shader might not want to talk about it. This almost starts the arguments back up again, but Shader interjects with, “No, it’s okay Joshua. It was something he told me about, but I don’t think it’s really private, just awful.”

“And we reminded you of it?” Joshua asked.

Shader nodded. “Kind of? I mean your situation and his isn’t really similar but just…” She makes a gesture with her hands. “The concept that the sick or crippled are a waste of resources. The way people get locked up in attics or worse. People being sterilized because ignorance and a lack of resources is the same as being mentally limited because if they were intelligent they wouldn’t be poor.” She took a breath. “And I’m going to start ranting again.”

She took another breath. “Okay. Once upon a time there was a family of sorcerers who were very rich. They very strongly supported various eugenics laws, and then something terrible happened. Something was very wrong with their son. He stopped speaking, he became overwhelmed easily, he stopped making eye contact. The slightest of changes in daily activities could upset him. Since he had previously seemed to be precociously bright, this was very upsetting to the family. They wanted to hide this strange illness because it would be a scandal to have a child like this.”

“It probably would have been better for them to lock him in an attic or put him in an institution somewhere and forget about him than what they did do. They used sorcery, and began controlling him like a puppet. Spells to make him act ‘normal,’ a demon to pull the strings and make him seem like the bright little boy they remembered him as. And it seemed to work, and they almost forgot about the spells and how they had imprisoned their son in his own body. How they turned a demon into his nursemaid. Then the world ended, and the spells broke.”

“The demon broke free?” Rosette guessed.

“No, they both did,” Shader said. “Galley and the demon broke free, and neither of them remembers what happened to the family, but they are pretty sure there was a fire, because Galley was badly burned.”  

Rosette looked horrified, so did Joshua. “Are they okay now?” Rosette asked.

Shader nodded. “Yes. They’ve been through a lot, but they’re better. They have friends, they have a community. But I’m still upset about it, so I’m sorry I blew up.”

“Kadros’ allies?” I asked.

Shader nodded again. “Two of them, anyway,” she said.

“You’re getting along with them very well,” I said.

She shrugged. “They’re nice people, even if Kadros is a Pursuer.”

[othercat2]

This Just In

Teen!Bel is a precious button. He is actually a cinnamon roll and could actually kill you.

So! Due to a cosmic mishap, Commander Bel from the Space Navy AU has been swapped with Teen! Bel from the main game (or a version of him). After adventures in the dark bowels of the ship, TeenBel befriends a random madtroll who had escaped from the clown cathedral ship that had been recently docked to the Sunslammer.

Bel is currently Cleverly Disguised as a recent transfer from the clown ship. The dork has been working several shifts because no one has thought to send him home to get some goddamn sleep, and Teen!Bel has not thought to mention it. Given a) Bel’s natural jumpiness around adults b) His current age c) His apparent inability to mention when he slept last  the crew is going to have many horrifying theories about Teen!Bel’s “past” on the Horrifying Clown Ship of Horror.

They are all going to be verging slightly pale at the kid by the end of the week.

[artbyifer]

I spent quite a bit of April reading Boat Trolls. Kudos to @jumpingjacktrash, @roachpatrol, @vastderp, @rainbowbarnacle, et al.

I am especially enjoying Bel and Erskin chasing eachother around like dorks.

Anyway, here’s a Bel I used as a test for my new water pens. :)

[scloutier]

OC Meme: 19, a silly hat.  I promised Jesse a picture a while ago of his fantroll and the recent hatchling, so here is Belatu with a very silly hat, and Dira with a very stylish one. (Admittedly, the style is ‘out-of-date uncle of Hill Kyri iron-mining tribe, unmarried, working out of tribe’ but that’s a lot of style to put in one hat!)

[othercat2]

Boat Troll Dream

I had a weird, confused boat troll dream featuring a standoff between Cloris Galley and Bel. LL might have also been there but as I said, the dream was confused, and Bel was the Hemostuck Bel, or at least he had feathers in his hair. Galley was main universe Galley and Cloris tried to get into his head but was able to accomplish exactly jack shit because Galley just made comments about ships and the Sunslammer’s ex-crew and captain and his head was full of static and random digits. Cloris tried to get into Bel’s head and attempted to mock him because of the feathers, but Bel was not impressed and made fun of her clothes.

Then I woke up. This dream would have been very cool if it hadn’t been one of the confusing ones that I don’t remember clearly due to a lack of plot.

[scloutier]

Another cut-paper valentine.  I tried out coloring behind it, as well, this time, since colors are kind of important to Homestuck fan trolls.  Valentine is for Jesse and Luka, trolls are Belatu Kadros and Enkidi Galgal.

[splickedylit]

Go on a tour, see the view, look up at the spires--sure, you'll enjoy yourself.  But climb that spire, just you and the stones and your bare hands?  That view you've earned.

-human Belatu Kadros, probably

hey jumpingjacktrash, is this the humanstuck you were looking for? :D

[askcrossfirehurricane]

[just jotting down an idea in case i want to draw it for realsies later]

[vastderp-placeholder]

i dreamt hussie uploaded part of the boat troll log as april fools update for homestuck. it consisted of galley having a shitfit and a picture of an ~7 sweeps old bel looking out onto the sea all solemn-hero-like waiting for the oncoming storm. with a towel-cape. just thought it might amuse you.

OH GOD OH GOD THE POOR FANDOM AHAHAHA

[othercat2]

>Heat and Clockwork: Consult with fellow godhead

another teeny hemo!boat troll godchat

[terminalGodhead (TG) is chatting with curiaGnosis (CG)!]

 TG: so this guy is literally lucky to be alive

 TG: because literally cut throat politics

 TG: and bel likes him and i generally have a bel gets what he wants policy

 TG: though usually not without the usual godly irony thing

 TG: bel is usually a good kid though and doesn’t trip the screw you over now button

TG: though in this case the screw you over button is pretty much the same button

TG: as the lets get this miracle romansu party started button

TG: because holy shit that guy is a mess

[curiaGnosis away message: ARE YOU GOING ANYWHERE WITH THIS?]

TG: hes a hikkikomori tool but i think i ship it

TG: but thats pretty much outside my purlieu so i thought id bring it to the expert

[curiaGnosis away message: AND YET YOU NEEDED NO APPROVAL FOR BEL<>PANCHO]

TG: thats different okay bel<>pancho is everyones otp they are the best ship but this guy is a shipwreck and will wreck bel and i dont know if it will be the good wrecking yet or not

[curiaGnosis away message: NO THEY ARE BETTER TOGETHER THAN APART]

TG: that is in no way mysterious and weird

[terminalGodhead (TG) is no longer chatting with curiaGnosis (CG)]

 ((very tiny i know i wanted to do commentary on the Revenge Thing but couldn't find the muse.))

[mainframemastermind]

Locating the source hardware does not look like it’s going to be an option, not in the timeframe you have. You’re a signal analyst, not a magician. They’ve likely used a variety of encryption methods across several different proxy routes to evade the scanning algorithms so well. It might not even be just one troll. Their posts and the resulting activity lit up your watchlist monitors but any attempts to trace it were lost in the VPN firehose. Of course that means the Empire can’t detect them either. They already have the know-how, now it’s just a question of whether they’re looking for contributors.

You briefly consider what you have to offer and what you’re looking for in return. You have the hi-jacked communications satellite with off-world contacts, but that’s too risky to play up front. You have the private network centered in the polar region that lets you communicate outside of Imperial awareness, but unless they have a hardline connection to one of the portal nodes it’ll have to go through Imperial territory anyways. There’s always your custom trollian plug-in and streamlined data crawlers as a goodwill gesture. With the fleet of dormant servers you’ve bred and your main computing block, you also have crunchpower rivaled only by the Imperial Network Operators.

You hope this person is as devout as they sound. It’s certainly not something you can pass up. A loyalist sniffing around for someone to take the bait and give up info wouldn’t be posting on such a large scale that would get them outed as well, would they? Script kiddies looking to impress don’t go poking around in activities that could accidentally label them a traitor. An advantage of living in such a paranoid society. There’s no 100% guarantee, but you don’t live on guarantees, just faith.

You compose your initial message with as much tact as you can muster.

Hello. You’ve raised quite an interesting discussion, and it looks like you want the whole planet in on it. That might be a bit risky if you plan on continuing in the same mien. They’ll start knowing what to look for, and they have much more power behind them than you think.

Make of that what you will. If you’d like any assistance, feel free to contact mainframeMastermind.

788.209.34.6:45113

key: QmV0YVBob3MyLjcxMU5ldHdvcmtMb2dpbg==@gl7Vk2*9x0a@QWRtaXNzaW9uIExldmVsIE9uZQ==

You give them the address to connect to one of the low-security nodes you use for outgoing traffic and the authentication key to open the port. This one in particular scans incoming packets for interference or anything that looks remotely like an executable. Slow, good for only text and small files with an embarrassingly high latency you’ve been working on, but they’ll be able to download the trollian upgrade and contact you from there. Once you’ve established a rapport then maybe you might hand them the metaphorical keys to the city.

You could send the message to every instance of the poster you’ve been able to pull up as a display of bravado but you’re not looking to engage in a bulge-waving contest. Especially if this is not a solo act like you suspect. No, you sort the instances by timeframe and send the message off to the account of the very first post. You invoke the symbol of the sacred flame for good measure. Godspeed. 

[threezoz]

Been catching up on boat trolls and I just realised why Bel sounds so familiar. He is exactly like my moirail. The way he awkwards and is proper and a huge dork. 

[vastderp]

The Last Helmsman

Prince Bel: Helmsman, lowblood, starship… no name you could give yourself would surprise OR frighten me. I love whom I love.

Galley: Well, that's a very nxce sentxment, but when X get rexnstalled xn a warshxp and X start blowxng up rebel strongholds…

Prince Bel: I LOVE WHOM I LOVE.

[siveambrai]

Anyone know what type of gun Acre’s Battery actually is? There are only two image references and they don't really make any sense when compared?

I need to know for....  reasons.