#drone season

[drone-season]

Sign up for Drone Season 2024! (an 18+ event!) Signups close July 21st! Make smut! Get a smutty gift! Help Nepeta fill her wish list!

[lildogie]

[Continued on AO3]

Title: Karkat Calls Shotgun Pages: 14/14 Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Gamzee Makara/Karkat Vantas Characters: Gamzee Makara, Karkat Vantas Additional Tags: Moirails With Pails, Drug Use, Drugged Sex, Frottage, Mouth Kink, Biting, Oral Sex, Face-Fucking, Sopor Slime, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Aged-Up Character(s), Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Teeth, Fan Comics Summary: Karkat has a Drone Season exemption, thanks to the good offices of Gamzee and some of their other friends, but the sound of drones in the distance still has him on edge. Gamzee and a pie help him chill out.

[birchbow]

I’ve been thinking about drones and just the whole logistics of it all. They’ve got to pick up two contributions from every troll? One after another? So presumably the pails get filled ahead of time. Would a troll have enough time to help out more than one pitch/flush partner if there’s an odd number of trolls total? Or is someone just SOL if they’re on a ship with an odd number of trolls? Oh hell, on the dark carnival there’s sometimes prisoners - and jeez, what about them?? Ah this got kind of dark and now I’m second guessing sending it, but I’m curious about your thoughts, feel free to ignore if you like!

These ARE the questions lol. I've been hammering away and I'm putting together a theory I will call the Tax Fraud Drone Theory and I am figuring pieces of it out as I type this at two AM, lol. CW of course for drone-season/fuck-or-die related discussion because: terrible bug aliens from hellmurder planet.

tl;dr, drones are a basic system that expects to hit up trolls in tribal/village numbers and slowly, methodically iterate their way through. Their system isn't evolved for modern trollish community structures, and often won't have the storage capacity to hit every single troll or couple (especially in a whole city) before they head back to the Mother Grub--so you can gamble and get by with one quadrant. OR even dodge them completely, but the contagious effect of their pheromonal presence will make you real sorry if you do! Further extensive rambling under the cut.

SO: a concept.

The basic function of drones is to follow the pheromonal/scent trail of trolls to a population center and go down the line demanding donations. (Theoretically, hitting different areas of the planet in waves, always coming and going, so the whole population isn't incapacitated at once.)

in situations that would have been natural when trolls were first established as a species, drones would largely find you living in groups ranging from a small travelling clade to a manageably village-sized collection of hives, SO:

In those circumstances, the drones could simply progress logically from iteration to iteration, prioritizing people who haven't contributed and then starting over with the people who have had the longest break since their first contribution, until pitch and flush contributions have been collected from everybody and/or the people who can't keep up have been culled.

(Presumably people who were near the start of the chain and already checked both boxes sometimes find it in their heart/spades to flip pitch or flush with an unlucky straggler, although that's risky if you don't genuinely think you can summon up a compatible enough match to satisfy the drones)

This is part of the reason drone pheromones send trolls into such an altered state, because odds are good you'll have to be in the mood for a hot second while the drones work their way around your community, and also will have to fuck several times.

Plus, I could imagine it's not unheard-of on-planet for one drone to finish up and then another one to show up a day later, attracted by the increased number of trolls and their much "louder" pheromonal signature! If we assume the drones are a semi-sentient purpose-driven messenger evolved to serve the Mother Grub (which I do haha) it's not like they would have a database.

(Drone pheromones would also function as a sort of indirect, auxillary means of reinforcing their purpose--not having quadrants to bone down with when drones are around is harshly physically/ mentally taxing and even if you managed to evade them and/or lock yourself up alone, most trolls will be fucked up enough they'll end up culled shortly afterward anyway.)

While trolls can't produce drone pheromones themselves, they're triggered by it to involuntarily produce a similar substance, which is notably incredibly "contagious" to other trolls around them, so even one drone in an area can have far-reaching ripple effects of Horny Time

BUT: Even prior to the Rebellion of Beasts, in semi-modern Alternia, trolls often lived in much larger cities than the drones' basic biology and capabilities could iterate combinations for, and so they would just continue to fill buckets from the next "fresh" troll they caught a whiff of, preferentially alternating pitch and flush, until all the drones dispatched to the area had reached capacity.

THUS: while it's still crucial to have strong quadrants filled if you want to be relatively safe, not every troll will be necessarily be demanded to consummate both, but WATCH OUT

Basically in the same way that you COULD falsify your taxes, but you could get audited at any time and then you're fucked, you CAN go into drone season with just one quadrant (or even no quadrants at all if you're feeling incredibly lucky and live in a super crowded area). BUT if the drones happen to get to the end of a chain of quadrants and end up next door, and you're the nearest relatively "fresh" troll they sniff out, you're dead meat.

It's also possible to physically lock yourself away from the drones but it requires heavy fortifications--it's also wildly illegal and grounds for immediate culling, and fiercely policed by the community, since every troll that tries that shit makes it that much harder and more deadly for everybody else.

If you get caught by your neighbors building some kind of panic room or something you are IMMEDIATELY under intense scrutiny and you BETTER be seen out and about every single drone season. Or a neighbor is likely to take things into their own hands and take you out of the gene pool themself.

While usually the exponentially-increasing privilege of the hemospectrum makes higher bloods exempt from shit like that, the exponentially decreasing physical numbers of colder bloods means that a different kind of social pressure is leaning on highbloods, a more noblesse oblige expectation that you'll do your part to keep the ruling classes populated with fresh blood from powerful couplings.

That said, a rare few especially powerful or crucial members of the empire can be ruled exempt by the empress, which basically just means she says explicitly that you get to build a bunker and lock your door when the drones come around--along with one or two other trolls For Your Health.

The Grand Highblood, a handful of seadwellers from her court that don't tideally suck, and any especially competent imperial generals of the various divisions of her army tend to fall under exemption, although she'll revoke it off-handed if you fuck up, so there's a lot of impetus to stay on top of your game.

In modern Post-Rebellion Alternia, trolls out on the farthest warfronts have increasing amounts of time between drone seasons, because the drones have to fly out from Alternia, track down ships and then fly all the way back. This is one of the many ways the empire encourages people to get way the fuck out onto the frontlines.

But they could still show up at any time, including to ships actively on the war front, so like. you better watch out you better watch out YOU BETTER WATCH OUT YOU BETTER--

In cases like the Church Fleet as I've written it, where there are prisoners present on-ship, it's just kind of expected that their lives are going to hornily suck absolute shit for several days while the drones are on-board, but the fortifications to keep prisoners secure also do keep the drones out.

In pursuit of not having prisoners die prematurely of dehydration and exhaustion, which is a very real risk if you're just locked up by yourself alone during drone season, I'd guess a lot of ships with prisoners just kind of throw them in groups into cells with extra food/water supplies and come back to pick up the pieces after the drones are gone again.

In some ways, a better way to spend the drone season than most free trolls, because you're locked up and don't have to worry about the drones! But also: kind of a nightmare hahaaa @_@ And also you're still a troll prisoner so like. You're going to die eventually anyway.

It's not good! But like, what about the Alternian empire is tbh. Hell society of the murder-bugs.

Bonus concept I'm chewing on: pheromone trails are a workable sollution on-planet, but basically impossible to follow all the way out into space--the reason the drones can find you no matter how far away you run to set up a colony is that the Mother Grub and her drones actually folded the Glb'golyb into a symbiotic relationship early in Alternian history/troll evolution. Her psychic connection to every troll in the empire means that they can get general positioning data from her and then hone in by smell when they arrive within direct sensory range. The Mother Grub gets to fulfill her purpose, and Glb'golyb basically farms trolls and lusii for food, taking her tithe of flesh from the Mother Grub's worker bees trolls (the general population).

[crouton-knight]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Homestuck Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: John Egbert/Karkat Vantas Characters: Karkat Vantas, John Egbert, Original Troll Character(s) (Homestuck) Additional Tags: Kingdomstuck, Nook Fingering (Homestuck), Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Biting, Food Porn, Alcohol, Drone Season 2024 Summary:

Your name is John Egbert and you just lost your job. Also, this weird troll just bought you dinner and is trying to rizz you up by insulting you.

My drone season fill for this year! I forgot it was time to post lmao.

[pangrams-n-palindromes]

Really happy to live in a world where Eddie Diaz hooks his sunglasses through his little shoulder loops

[kidokear]

Have you seen the Murder Drones Episode 8 teaser???

I saw that part with Uzi and her gun

And I thought that it was a minigun version of it that her tail was helping her support it or something. I honestly thought it was like-

[peacockrulz]

Comic I made earlier this month. Based on a convo w/ a friend :]

bonus:

Can you tell,,,shes my favorite,,,,

[dragons-hoard-of-fandoms]

It's like they're doing it on purpose at this point.

[drone-season]

[ BEGIN IMPERIAL TRANSMISSION. ]

Greetings, CITIZEN_NAME . As you are of REPRODUCTIVE AGE, Her Imperious Condescension has impersonally summoned you to contribute your ADEQUATE GENETICS in the upcoming DRONE SEASON.

The pail collection schedule for YOUR_LOCATION is as follows:

June 30: Signups open 

July 21: Signups close 

August 3: Assignments go out 

August 27: Deadline to default, prompts released, Sloppy Seconds opens 

September 7: Fills due, deadline for pinch-hitter signups 

September 14: Collection opens 

September 21: Authors revealed, Sloppy Seconds collection opens 

September 24: Sloppy Seconds authors revealed

Begin locating a suitable concupiscent partner immediately. And always remember:

"if youre a sorry ass dork w)(o cant get any t)(en we fuckin krill you"

[ END IMPERIAL TRANSMISSION. ]

[lildogie]

Title: Slap Your John Hancock across the Dotted Line Chapters: 7/7 Fandom: Homestuck, Hiveswap Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Grandpa/Bro, Darkleer/Bro, GHB/Bro, GHB/Darkleer/Bro, Alpha Dave/Bro, GHB/Darkleer  Characters: Bro Strider, Darkleer (Homestuck), Grandpa Harley, Alpha Dave Strider, Tagora Gorjek, Mom Lalonde, GHB  Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Alternian Colonized Earth, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, genetically modified humans, Colonialism, Gladiators, Public Sex, Exhibitionism, Power Bottom, Switching, Vaginal Sex, Large Insertion, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), large bulge, Cervical Penetration, Oviposition, Impregnation, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Come Inflation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Polyamory, Wake-Up Sex, Kink Negotiation, Enthusiastic Consent, Virtual/Contractual/Actual Enslavement, Threesome - M/M/M, Trans Male-analogous Sci-Fi Anatomy (Bro), Nook Fingering (Homestuck), Vaginal Fingering, Oral Sex, Belly Bulge, Belly Kink, Oviparous Trolls (Homestuck), Xenobiology, Size Difference, Purring Trolls (Homestuck), Sibling Incest, Surrogacy, Fight Scene, Body Hair, Nipple Play, Kissing, Belly Expansion, Consensual Somnophilia, Dirty Talk, Muscles, Bodily Fluids, saliva, POV Third Person, Semi-Ironic Use of the Word "Daddy", Sex Work, Brief cameos by other characters - Freeform, legalese, Size Kink Summary:

Earth has been an Alternian colony for centisweeps, and the human population has been extensively modified. Some of those modifications serve the reproductive needs of an oviparous species deployed far from the nearest Mother Grub capable of incubation.

Ambrose Strider, one of history's greatest human gladiators and current Earth champion, doesn't need the cash he could earn by incubating a big shot's clutch. But there is one thing all his fighting accolades and prize money haven't been able to buy him, and for that, there's very little he wouldn't do.

[woof-squiggles]

hey guys you know that one trend

[umblrspectrum]

like half of a frame redraw

[hiredpencil]

This is my second fill for the Drone Season Exchange! Featuring DaveKat. A little outside my wheelhouse it explores cannibalism and the act of eating as devotion.

Illustration below the cut, it is not safe for minors, featuring nudity and blood.

[thunderstomm]

The more I think about the finale of A New Wish, the more I can’t help but think it’s going to play out as a tragedy. That Dev & Hazel will be cemented as rivals, or their friendship will be a bittersweet “what could have been”.

Dev is a tragic character. He is a product of his environment, and he acts accordingly. And those actions will almost definitely have consequences. I can’t help but wonder “what if he loses Peri”?

Would really hammer in the fact that fairies and wishing cannot help every kid.

Magic hasn’t exactly been good for Dev, it’s been making him worse with every new piece of information he finds out. Dev makes a lot of empty wishes, chasing a fleeting feeling of happiness, because the only thing he really wants- his Dad’s love -is something he can’t wish for.

I think the finale is going to be Dev’s moment of “flying too close to the sun”, and we’ll see him fall. He’s offered a supporting figure, and it’s still not enough, because it’s not the one he wants.

And as a result, he loses everything. His fairy, and his friend. And even after all that, he’s still not got his father’s love.

(Regarding Hazel’s rule free wish- I feel like it’ll be used to save Fairy World in some regard.)

This is all theorising, and I could be proven wrong ! I would LOVE a happier ending for Dev, because I do think he deserves friends, and a support system. Perhaps they could explore that in a second season, if we end up getting this tragic route.

[pangrams-n-palindromes]

It really was Peter behind that door

[narujenreacts]

Who else wants to join me? c:

Also, I just want to let you all know I'll be doing a livestream on my YouTube channel on the day EP8 premieres. I'll be starting 4hrs prior and for each hour I'll be holding a giveaway for ONE piece of MD merch of the winners choosing. Then after EP8 is done I'll continue streaming so we can all talk, rant, cry about the episode and MD as a whole together. c:

We also have a Discord server that has a dedicated MD section! One of the channels is even called "md-venting-and-coping-circle" lol.