#i prefer ' i want dave and rose to fuck ' over ' i want dave and rose to fuck and this is a disgusting ploy by hussie to make me feel bad

[lesboygamzee]

" why do i want these siblings to fuck even though i know theyre siblings? is this hussies fault? "

[homestuckreplay]

PUPPET WARNING: Dave’s Bro Facts Roundup

(page 567-574)

9/1/2009 Wheel Spin: being silly :3c Verdict: Do Not Be Silly Here

9/2/2009 Wheel Spin: Captchalogue Lore Verdict: Do Not Captchalogue These Things

It is worse in Dave’s house than it is in John’s or Rose’s. Hovering over the infinite abyss of clouds and getting pelted with baby meteorites are both preferable to whatever the FUCK is going on at Dave’s place. I think that John’s dad and Rose’s mom are both complex people with a lot going on in their own lives that their kids don’t see and I think Dave’s bro is the story’s cartoon villain before we’ve even caught a glimpse of him.

This is some unfathomably off the wall shit, so against my will because I do not want to think about him, here’s a list of what we know about the mysterious Strider brother (cw for mentions of sex crimes).

Owns a large collection of puppets, including nude Smuppets, puppets of celebrities, marionettes, and a ventriloquist doll named Lil Cal

Takes Lil Cal out on gigs (p.447)

Moves Lil Cal to various locations in the apartment, making it appear as though Cal is moving himself (p.564)

Keeps puppets in kitchen equipment such as the microwave and blender, preventing their being used for food (p.574)

Makes thousands of dollars every month by running an adult puppet website (p.460)

Maintains a variety of other websites, all of which he claims are ironic

Keeps webcams switched on around the house, possibly using the footage for his websites, which may feature his underage brother (p.570)

Is a gamer, a regular reader of GameBro magazine, and signed up as a beta tester for Sburb but has no intention of playing (p.314)

Owns a large amount of technology including an Xbox, flatscreen TV, computer, speaker system, turntables and mixing gear (p.455, 562)

Password protects his computer (p.456)

Sleeps in the living room (p.447)

Owns a lot of weapons and explosives, which he keeps loose in the kitchen, blades out (p.567)

‘always getting on [Dave’s] case’ about weaponizing his sylladex (p.386)

Carries a sword around the house, which is a sign of trouble to Dave (p.562)

Draws comics, which may focus on dark and violent retellings of children’s media (p.565)

I think most people would agree that this would be an unpleasant person to live with, and someone who should not be taking responsibility for a child. Dave appears genuinely scared when outside of his room. Even without making any inferences at all, the house is a physically dangerous space – but there are a lot of clear implications made by the facts above that suggest illegal activity, neglecting a dependent’s basic needs, and exposing a child to pornography, which is a really unpleasant association for a character and an extreme choice for a writer to make. Hearing that before even meeting Bro has closed me off to liking him or even seeing his ‘good side’ and I expect lots of other readers will be the same, even if that reaction wasn’t the author’s intent.

All this to say, it’s actually kind of simple when your problems are an imp ten times your size climbing up to your house. That’s a very clear and actionable goal compared to whatever Dave’s been going through for as long as he’s been living with this guy. I am really interested to know what role the main characters’ family members will play in the story once they are all playing Sburb – John is clearly determined to save his dad despite complaining about him before beginning the game, so there could be a reversal of this with Dave, where he realizes that he doesn’t want to save his brother and goes against the game’s intended path.

[deckerstarblanche]

CSSNS 2024 Entry!!!!!

Hello, friends! After a year and some change, I’m finally back with the conclusion to “An Offer She Can’t Refuse.”

I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 3

As soon as he cracked his eyes open the next morning, Killian knew she was gone. With a frustrated groan, he glared up at the stucco ceiling and flipped over onto his stomach, pressing his face into her pillow and feeling like a fool.

Really, he should have expected this from the beginning. Knowing Emma, her heat had probably finished sometime in the early hours that morning, she took a look at where she was, and who she was with, and bolted.

It’s not like she would go to me as a first choice, he thought to himself. And so Killian closed his eyes, allowing him to feel the hurt and the anguish and the pain, until he stuffed them back down into the part of his brain, where he’d stored all of his worst thoughts about himself for so many years.

And it did hurt, a lot. He knew, deep in his gut, that they were supposed to be together. Her shell of self-protection might be too tough to crack, though. For him, Emma Swan – her laugh, the intoxicating sweet scent that he would be able to pick out blindfolded – would always be his ideal. Now that he had had the chance to actually be with her physically, Killian felt like he’d been granted access to heaven for three glorious days. How could any other woman compare?

Pathetically, he hoped that one day they could still be friends.

When he finally set foot back inside the dorms, the clean, familiarly blank scent in the air confirmed that the filtration system was running smoothly. It was almost as if the past three days had been neutralized as well, leaving only a possibly ruined friendship in its wake.

“Jones? Where the hell have you been?” David asked, concerned etched on his face as Killian entered their room, aggressively tossing his backpack onto his bed.

He narrowed his eyes at David’s suspicious tone, hackles raised. The other man clearly knew something, probably from Emma herself.

“Did you not get the update from your girlfriend?” Killian sneered, unable to resist recklessly channeling all of his pain and anger toward his roommate. “After she got what she wanted, Emma chewed me up and spat me out! Well, I don’t want to talk about it, and I’ll know that you're lying if you tell me otherwise…”

David’s surprise quickly morphed into hostility, and he rose from his computer desk. “What exactly are you accusing me of? Are you gonna cry because a woman finally rejected you? That’s why you don’t fuck around with your friends!” he roared back, forcefully pushing Killian in the chest.

“She needed it– she begged for it, Dave. What kind of a self-respecting Alpha would I be if I said no? It doesn’t matter if it’s your best friend or a complete stranger, right? You’ve got some experience with that yourself, don’t you, eh?” he said crudely, shoving David back as soon as he regained his footing.

“What the hell does that mean? If you want me to kick your ass, say one more thing about Mary Margaret…” David replied in a growl, putting his fists up.

Killian laughed, ready to hit something, preferably David’s face. “Listen, I’m done with every Omega at this school, especially Emma Swan. I’m not the simpering asshole she seems to think I am, and she can come apologize to me if she wants to go back to being ‘just friends.’” he sneered, building a wall of his own ego around his fragile heart.

David put his fists down, hands angrily balled at his sides.

“Fuck you, Jones. If you don’t have enough sense to fight for Emma, then you don’t deserve her!” David thundered, hurling the door open and slamming it shut behind him so hard that the wood nearly cracked off the hinges.

———-

About an hour later, after he had cooled down from his argument with David, Killian heard a hesitant knock on the door. Hoping it was Emma, but unsure, he got up to open it. There she was, standing awkwardly in front of him, shoving her hands in and out of her pockets.

“Killian, I came by to apologize. My leaving wasn’t your fault. I was a coward, so I’ll understand if—” Emma began, but he cut her off, shaking his head.

“No, you don’t get to do that— slink off like everything has been said. I was hurt that you’d left without a trace, and I let that morph into anger. A man’s ego is a fragile thing, Swan…but I want to be a better person than that,” he told her, his blue eyes locked on hers with a penetrating gaze.

Taking a deep breath, he continued.

“Emma. The truth is, I care deeply for you. I have since the first day we met, so when you said that friendship was all you desired, I made my peace with that. But after what we shared last week, I knew that watching from the sidelines would never be enough.”

Killian looked away as soon as Emma did, color rushing to his cheeks. He readied himself for rejection: that speech, no matter how inauthentic it would sound about another woman, would definitely have anyone else melting in my arms, he thought to himself, barely suppressing a chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” he heard a small voice say, and he looked back at Emma, whose eyes were glittering with what looked like tears.

“Nothing, love. I’ve said my piece, and now I’ll give you your space. Hold on, why are you crying?” he asked her cautiously, furrowing his brow.

“I’m not crying, you idiot, I’m just emotional over what you said– there’s a difference!” Emma replied with a watery chuckle, raking her fingers through her hair.

Killian decided to throw caution to the wind.

“And what was it that I said? I want to know so that I can say it again,” he told her, summoning up his most rakish grin.

Emma rolled her eyes, but he knew from the way she blushed that things would be ok for them— maybe even better than ok. She hadn’t spurned him, and she hadn’t stormed out.

“Killian, I care about you too. I cared so much after our…um, time together last week that I freaked out. Big emotions are tough for me, you know that,” Emma admitted, stuffing her hands into her coat pockets.

“I do know that, Swan. I think that’s why we’ve worked so well as friends— we’re both godawful at expressing our feelings,” he began, drawing a few steps closer to her. Emma looked at him with wide eyes, like a deer in the headlights, but he wasn’t going to be put off by that anymore.

“Emma, I’m going to tell you something that I’ve never shared with anyone else before,” he murmured, close enough now that he could tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. She was so attuned to him that she gasped at the innocent contact, making him smile.

“Being with you was the most intimate I’ve ever been, with anybody. I don’t want to go back to the way things were before, and I don’t want anyone else in my bed but you.”

Terrifyingly, Emma was silent, her gaze dropping away from his and going to the floor. Killian felt like his heart was pounding loud enough for her to hear, and that humiliation was imminent.

“Emma, I’m—” he began, but she looked back up, a huge smile lighting up her face. She flung herself forward into his arms, pressing her lips to his, kissing him with what felt like years of pent-up emotion. Then, she pulled away, almost reluctantly.

“I don’t wanna talk. I mean, I know we have a lot to say to each other, but not right now. Just kiss me, ok?” she said breathlessly, tearing off her jacket. Killian barely had time to agree before she nearly jumped into his arms, the force of her excitement knocking them over onto his bed. Clothes were shed quickly, and soon enough he was hovering over her, admiring her golden hair as it spilled out over his pillow.

After one more searing kiss, he rose up, sitting back on his heels as he stroked his hands down her thighs. Emma shivered violently under his touch, as a rush of slick coated her inner thighs from the fairly innocent gesture.

“Oh Killian, please do that again,” Emma sighed, opening her knees wider. Surprised, he let his hands glide from the tops of her thighs all the way down to her knees, watching rapturously as she thrashed beneath him. Every attempt she made to raise her pelvis, to seek him out, was caught by Killian’s firm but gentle grip as he grounded her to the mattress.

“Do you think you could come just from this, love?” he asked, breathing harshly, as it was taking every ounce of his self control not to sheath himself inside her pulsing cunt.

“I…I’m not sure,” she admitted, opening her eyes as she reached up, grabbing the hair on the back of his head to smash her lips against his.

Emma’s kiss was electric and confident, and it made him thank whatever higher power existed in the universe that she’d given him another chance. When she finally tore her lips away, he felt dizzy with anticipation.

“Fuck me, Alpha,” she commanded, grabbing the nearest pillow and shoving it under her ass. Killian’s eyes lit up with amusement at her take-charge attitude, but he was soon distracted by a small warm hand shooting out to stroke his rock-hard length.

“As you wish, Emma, always,” he purred, and without another thought, he plunged in, savoring the feeling of being inside of her again.

They matched each other stroke for stroke, and as the room filled with the sounds of their frantic coupling, Killian realized that it was her first time fucking him with a clear head. She was choosing him, and not out of any desperation.

He was determined to make it last as long as possible, so after a few more thrusts, he rolled them so that Emma was on top, her long hair surrounding them like a curtain. She yelped in surprise, but quickly gained control, setting her own rhythm as she clutched at his chest.

“I seem to remember liking this view of you in particular,” he teased, reaching up to gather her hair with one hand while kissing up the long column of her neck.

“Is that so?” Emma asked breathlessly, moaning as he hit a spot deep inside of her, pinpointing it so he could press up into her as many times as he could. “Fuck, yes… keep going right there, please!”

From the way her inner muscles fluttered against him, he could tell that it wouldn’t be too much longer before she came, so he kept his pace brisk, giving her exactly what she needed. Moments later, Emma exploded, shouting his name as she clamped down like a vise, spasming multiple times. He’d felt it during her heat too, but never with anyone else.

“So fucking tight you are, Emma…so gorgeous when you come,” he praised, murmuring in her ear as she came back to herself, dazed and sated.

“You’re the gorgeous one,” she mumbled, “all of the girls on my floor talk about you like a sex god.”

“And what, pray tell, would you tell them after all of this time we’ve spent together?” Killian asked her playfully, nudging his erection against her inner thigh.

“Hmm…well, I’d definitely mention your impressive stamina,” she quipped, pumping her hand up and down his shaft.

“And then I’d tell them that they’d never find out for themselves because you’re MY Alpha,”

The sound of those words coming out of her mouth set Killian’s libido on fire. Quicker than lightning, he flipped her over on the mattress.

“If I’m your Alpha, that makes you my Omega, does it not?” Killian thundered, using a tone that their kind referred to as uniquely Alpha. While it may have been used in the past to force Omegas to submit, contemporary couples used it to spice up bedroom play.

“Yes!” she squeaked with delight, lifting herself up to hands and knees.

“Then present for your Alpha,” he ordered, slapping her on the ass. Immediately, she knelt, pressing her chest down as she sank further back onto her heels.

“Is this what you wanted, Alpha?” she asked sweetly, playing along with the game, which was about mutual consent rather than domination.

“Bloody perfect,” he growled, easing himself into her channel inch by inch, trying to prolong the moment they gave themselves to each other.

They were both so keyed up, emotionally and physically, from the events of the day that Emma cried out almost immediately, unable to stave off a powerful orgasm. Killian held on, pumping into her with determination to satisfy her as much as he could.

“I want your knot, and if you’re really an Alpha, you’ll give it to me,” Emma faux-jeered from below, all a part of the game.

“Are you sure you can handle it?” Killian bit out, watching as drops of his sweat beaded on her back.

“You fucking know it!” she shouted, clenching down on him as encouragement. It was an almost primal moment, the two of them acting on instinct instead of emotions; and moments later, he was coming, locking their bodies together as streams of cum filled her womb.

It took awhile for them both to come back to Earth, floating in a haze of post-orgasmic bliss. Killian felt her sigh contentedly, burrowing a bit closer as he covered them in his downy comforter.

“I’m so glad it’s you, Killian,” Emma told him sleepily, looking back so she could kiss him one last time. He smiled into her neck, gathering her into his arms with a feeling of completeness and affection.

“I couldn’t agree more, love.”

[davekat-sucks]

Fun fact about troll sexuality and alternian society just thought I'd drop because I saw your post while browsing the tags: depending on how you look at it, in earlier troll pages (roughly before 2500) it seems to suggest that trolls do in fact have some concepts of sexuality, but by the time of Karkat preference for hag over fag (2547), they're effectively cut out of the narrative.

Kanaya doesn't introduce herself as a lesbian but does have symbolic associations: rainbowdrinking, forbidden romance, things that scream 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈, especially when explicitly established after her initial interactions with Rose (narratively, not chronologically, because time in homestuck is a fuck). We can say that's just for the audience's sake, for who a character being attracted to women would've been notable and thus symbolically important. Where it gets interesting is with Eridan's first pesterlog with Feferi where Feferi acts kinda like a not-homophobic parent™ by loudly appending her statement to include the potential for same sex attraction. By doing this, it suggests an element of what we in wokeville call heteronormativity. Otherwise you'd just say "any lucky troll," right? But no, Eridan's attraction to ladies is taken as a given, but his attraction to fellows is an afterthought, in caps, with "380" emoticon to make it even more exclamatory. Funnily enough it retroactively paints Eridan's casual acceptance and encouragement of Kanaya's crush on Vriska in a very funny light. Eridan may be, well everything that Eridan is, but he doesn't think twice about people being gay.

The alternative explanation, that would make it so that alternia as a society truly has no systematic heteronormativity, is that Feferi is straight (has a fetish for men, as you would put it) and just because she metaphorically lives in a bubble, assumes everyone else is too. Eridan killing the only strictly homosexual and heterosexual trolls is the act of a bisexual supremacist presumably. Look at the bisexual flag. Remind you of anybody's fashion choices??? And who in the room does he spare? The person with the theme of twos (bi), and the one with ♋ as their symbol, the most bisexual of the positions.

Idk a lot of the last bit is just joking around. I just think it's neat how not concrete the early pages were about alternian society, but you can tell pretty precisely where in the comic that the worldbuilding has to be locked in.

What do you mean about the HAG/FAG cut out from narrative? Like the whole future self talking to the present not talking to them again? It's true that the only other appearance of FAG is on this page. We never heard anything about future Karkat or anyone else talk to the present/current characters by Act 6. I thought Feferi acting the way to Eridan when they were first seen pesterlogging each other was just her establishing her status as a fuschsiablood troll, the highest in the hemospectrum. True she is the type that wants to change Alternia to something less violent, but it doesn't escape the fact she is still using her privilege like the other highblood trolls, to dictate what is right and wrong. And in her case, her top position says nobody can say she is that wrong less they be culled. Nothing about it was her being like a not-homophobic parent, whatever the fuck that is. Doesn't help that Eridan is mostly seen talking to only Jade and Rose. Trolls that had supposedly talk to of the opposite sex is Nepeta for Dave (according to Alterniabound), Tavros and Rose, Kanaya and John(when he was using Rose's account to prank her), Vriska (for John), Terezi (John before moving onto Dave), Karkat (for Jade), Aradia (to Dave in Dream Bubbles), and Gamzee (to Rose if you count in the Dream Bubbles where she spotted him and didn't do shit to him). Sollux is seen to have interacted with Dave but only to show that he was the one who inputted the earlier commands (calling Dave an insufferable prick for Dave's intro). Equius talked to Dave because he mistook him for a highblood cause he had major training under Bro, not seeing anything abusive about it. Feferi interacted with Jade to only tell her she died and nothing came of it despite that it was Feferi herself who said and believed that the Beta Kids would be the one to help out and suggested it to Karkat. We don't know if Eridan had spoken with Dave or John. We can assume as Dave has Gamzee as his favorite troll and has roleplayed with Nepeta, but it's up for speculation on what their interaction is like and how each character feels for the other. Of course, it's not stopping anyone from shipping EriDave or JohnEri. I also think Alternia and trolls thinking humans having many names of sexuality labels, is suppose to be an ironic joke since these are the same trolls that are in a polygamy relationship and determine it by QUADRANTS. Basically, all the trolls who acknowledge or are into quadrants in some form (like Nepeta, Karkat, and Eridan), ARE HYPOCRITES. If it's not trolls being -phobic this or fetish that, then it's the fact the trolls believed their methods are superior to stupid humans.

[callmearcturus]

dumb fallout AU, first scene, includes drugs, ref to sex work, and peril

In the long list of terrible fucking situations Dave and his sister had found themselves in, Dave was willing to admit this one was the worst.

The Mojave Wasteland was an open bar of dynamite-fetishists, Old World fascists, laser-armed robots, hyper-aggressive wildlife, and landlords. Together, they'd survived it for years, greasing the edges of the world to slide out of every scrape they wound up in, coming out smeared in desert dust and smiling. They were invincible so long as they had each other's backs.

Until Dave woke up in an abandoned work tower in Quarry fucking Junction.

He knew he was in a bad place because the smell of the desert had been exchanged for the smell of chalkier sediment. The dirt was wrong here, and Dave was halfway to a panic by the time he got his hands under himself and hauled himself up off his face.

"Rose," Dave croaked. His throat was sandpaper dry. He dragged his tongue over his teeth, trying to work up any saliva. There was a vague medicinal tang; he'd been drugged. They'd been drugged. "Rose, wake the fuck up."

The small room they were in was rickety, swaying slightly in the night sky as the Nevada wind buffeted them around. Getting his hand on the edge of a window, Dave pulled himself up and peered out.

They were high. Two or three storeys up easy. All around them was white stone and machinery. Prowling around on the white stone were motherfucking goddamn deathclaws, hunched and horned and clawed.

Dave's heart pounded in his chest, pushing nauseatingly against the lingering sedatives in his system. "Oh fuck, oh shit what the fuck, Rose, Rose Rose Rose." He lowered himself down to the floor again, out of view of the window and grabbed his sister, shaking her.

Rose's eyelashes fluttered and her eyes behind them rolled like a crapshoot. Something was up, and when Dave looked her over, he saw an empty syringe on the floor next to her arm.

Oh that fucking Med-X happy cattlelord. That was right, Dave and Rose were trying to pull a con on that fucker. He must've figured it out and decided to punish them by, what? Leaving them to be torn to pieces in a deathclaw den?

"Shit, shitshitshit," Dave said, sitting up with his back to the metal sheet wall. "Why the fuck did he only get you high out of your fuckin' mind? You aren't going to feel a thing. This is bullshit." He took a breath. "I could use someone to brainstorm with right now, sis."

Rose's head rolled, her eyes open. No one was home yet.

Out of morbid curiosity, Dave patted himself down and discovered his gun was gone. So that way out was off the table too.

Out of all the ways to go, Dave didn't want it to be deathclaws. Or cazadores, honestly. He didn't want to be killed by terrifying Mojave wildlife. He so preferred to be shot. Or heat stroke. Or choking on a cherry stem. Or being run over by a security bot. Anything.

Hissing out a sigh, Dave got up and looked around. The tower they were in only had one way down, a long ramp down right into the quarry. And the way out would be probably a two minute sprint across the dusty stone.

If he were alone, anyway. Dave looked down at Rose, who wasn't up for running anywhere.

"Fuck," Dave sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. So there wasn't a ton of options here and the ones he had all sucked. A lesser man would lay down and cry.

Dave sniffled, rubbing his eyes once, then looked around.

There was a radio. It was set into the metal wall, near the console. His eyes skated over it the first time, because who cared, more Old World shit laying around.

Then, he remembered that people actually wanted to, like, get the quarry up and running again. The NCR wanted to repave some roads or whatever the fuck. It was the deathclaws that stopped the mining. Quarrying. Whatever.

Keeping his head down, Dave grabbed the mic off the hook and tentatively pressed the buttons on the radio.

With a tired hum, the display lit up.

"Oh my fucking god, yes. Lady Luck flips a face card." He got closer, hand on the dial and started turning it, listening to the dead fuzz of empty air as he looked for a useful channel, anywhere someone might be listening.

Eventually, there was a low pop, and a different type of fuzz. Pressing down on the mic, Dave said in a voice as loud as he dared, "Hello? Mayday, hello, S-O-S. Is anyone receivin'? Someone out there wanna pick up the other tin can and pull that line taut, I could use some help. I got an injured lady here and a whole mess of trouble." Nothing. Dave ground his teeth together. "If anyone is getting this, say anything. I will make it worth your while. My sis and I, our daddy's with the Gun Runners, I will get you as many caps or dollars you want—"

There was something other the line, and Dave took his thumb off the mic immediately. The voice that answered him was scratchy and tired. "I don't think that's true. Were you lying about being tragic orphans?" The voice paused for just a moment. "Wait, what the fuck am I saying, you both would have said anything you needed to. Of course you were lying about being orphans."

"Holy shit, ranger man!" Dave said, then clapped a hand over his mouth. Now that he knew the frequency was good, Dave slumped down to the floor next to Rose, keeping the mic in his fist. "God, I gotta be fuckin' quiet. Hey there, you're the ranger who resolutely refused to sleep with either of us despite, I think, many very kind offers."

"Vantas," the voice said over the line. "The name was Vantas, alright, jesus."

"NCR Ranger Karkat Vantas, callsign Cancer, I remember you just fine, don't you worry about that." Dave pulled some of Rose's hair away from her sweaty forehead. "Hey, so, where you at?"

"How the fuck did you know—" Karkat sighed over the airwaves. "This is a monitored channel. I can't tell you that."

"Okay, well, are you anywhere in the vicinity of Sloan because if not, you need to break out some pen and paper, I'm gonna dictate my last will and testament before we're shredded by deathclaws. Dealer's choice."

"Death— what the fuck, where are you?"

"Sloan, the quarry, keep up."

"Why the fuck are you in an active deathclaw nest?"

"Some guy didn't like what we were sellin' and was way less polite about it than you. Nobody out here got your West Coast charms, California boy." Dave took a breath. "Rose is whacked out on Med-X, she and I are in a crane tower thing, there's claws all around. Any ideas?"

"Fuck me, goddammit. I was going to be off duty in twenty fucking minutes," Karkat said. "Keep your fucking head down and wake her up. Be ready to run when you get an opportunity."

"What kind of opportunity?" Dave asked, already starting to slap Rose's face lightly.

"I don't fucking know yet, but it'll probably be loud. Bye."

"Good luck," Dave said, unsure if Karkat was still listening. Putting the radio up, he focused on waking his drugged out sister up. He'd seen her do The Charleston after two bottles of wine, Dave knew if he could get her going she could at least run in the direction he pointed her in.

He had no idea what the fuck was going to get them out of the junction in one piece. Maybe if they had, like, three rangers and some shelling ordinance, that'd do it. What one guy from out West was going to do, Dave had no idea.

Then, an hour later, there was an explosion, and a rockslide came down right on one of the big-ass meaner-looking alpha deathclaws. It roared in pain, and the rest of the nest all darted towards them, letting out their own horrible cries.

"What t'fuck," Rose mumbled.

Dave hauled her up. "Time to go."

[davestriderpostscratch]

Dave for the ask game?

notp: aside from the obvious i never got into daverezi honestly. their relationship on its own isn't particularly compelling i like having them be part of a polycule together though

brotp: i think he and kanaya would either be best friends for life or would want each other dead a little

otp: davekat as mentioned but i prefer pitch over red

second favorite: the amount of stuff i've contributed to DAVEVRIS NATION should speak for itself

fluffy ship: dave and rose's sibling relationship slides very easily into angst territory but whenever i remember how they talked to each other in like acts 2-4 i often find myself smiling uncontrollably

angsty ship: davesprite/jade oh god the pain

favorite polyship: davekarezi is NOT funny enough if vriska isn't there sorry they need more toxicity

weirdest pairing: davejane is so funny sorry. dave finally, FINALLY gets the opportunity to tell one of his friends that he fucked their mom and MEAN it

[mrsegbert]

Homestuck x Reader Headcanons but I rate them on how they kiss

John - Very eager, maybe a bit overwhelming! Cradles your face or jaw in his hands and just dives in! Just. NEEDS to Hold You while he gives you smooches. Usually always smiles into the kiss, laughs as he pulls away. His kisses usually last a while, and leaves you breathless. Loves to nuzzle your noses together either before kissing or directly after. Affectionate boy 💙💙💙 10/10

Rose - Her kisses are soft and slow. Presses up against you slowly, until you're making full contact. Likes to hold onto your arms or waist. Though, sometimes she's more chaste and leaves you wanting more. She's got full lips, perfect for kissing! A bit cold, though. 9/10

Dave - INCREDIBLY nervous. Too nervous to initiate things, even, you might have to take the reins at first. Melts into the kiss, and sighs into it. It takes him a while to get truly comfortable, but when he does, he loves to hold you and take things slow. His touches are incredibly soft. Feels more like being kissed by a ghost than anything. 7/10

Jade - Very excitable!!! Loves giving kisses willy-nilly!! Forehead kisses, cheek kisses, the works!! Loves to pull you into a kiss and just press into you, before breaking away and peppering kisses across your face. Is super giggly and happy the whole time. 9/10

Jane - VERY bashful at first. Starts off with quick cheek kisses, blushing the whole time. It takes a bit for her to warm up to kissing you on the lips - she's just so nervous! She's so gentle with you, even when giving a smooch. She doesn't want to smother you. You can feel her nervous smile against your own. Very soft and smoochable lips. She might pull away too soon for your liking, though. She can't handle it! 8/10

Jake - Has no idea what he's doing! But also won't let that stop him. He might get too big for his britches and just. Try to mush his face against yours like he's seen in comics and on TV. There might be some drool. You'll definitely  have to help him out, but he's an eager learner! 4/10

Roxy - LOVES!!!! KISSING!!! God, she just. Loves romantic shit!! Kissing you is a dream come true!!! She loves pulling you into an embrace and smothering you in kisses. Sometimes it's hard to kiss her back because she's just smiling so hard! Loves to hold you and gets really handsy, maybe too much? She's just really happy and a bit touch-starved. 8/10

Dirk - You're gonna need to initiate things, full stop. Dirk is INCREDIBLY touch-starved and desperate for affection, but is just so terrified of fucking things up or making you uncomfortable. Freezes up when you kiss him, before just. MELTING and just audibly sighs into it. Needs to hold you more than anything. He doesn't really get too deep into a kiss, as he never wants to force you into something. 6/10

Karkat - Has no idea what he's doing, has never done this before. Really shaky and nervous, blushing like a madman. Might act a bit annoyed or snippy to distract from how out of depth he is. The first kisses are really short and chaste, with Karkat pulling away almost the instant your lips meet. Just give him some time and be patient. Eventually, he'll learn to keep calm and relax into kissing. 6/10

Aradia - Smiles into kisses. A bit giggly. Also, surprisingly chilly? Loves both chaste and deep kisses, but does the former more often, if only to tease you. Like to cup your chin or jaw as she pulls you into a kiss. For deeper, longer kisses, she loves to dip you. Also loves leaving lipstick marks all over your face. 9/10

Tavros - Really, really shocked and nervous… You? Want to kiss him? Pinch him, he must be dreaming! You'll have to help him through the motions, and reassure him if he gets nervous - he hasn't had the best experience with… People trying to kiss him in the past. Really tense and visibly nervous the whole time, but is trying his best. Probably prefers cheek-kisses or forehead-kisses more than anything. 5/10

Sollux - Doesn't really… Like kissing? But, will do it for you. Though, that isn't too say you should expect anything grand. He'll give you quick pecks on the cheek or lips in passing, but not much else besides that. Don't get him wrong, he loves you! Kisses just aren't really his ThingTM. 2/10

Nepeta - SMOTHERS you in kisses!!! Will tackle you just to give you smooches all over!! She's just wants you to know much she loves you!!! It might be a bit overwhelming, though, and it might feel like she's trying to swallow you whole. If you ask her to take it down a notch, she'll begrudgingly agree, excusing her actions as just wanting to show you how much you mean to her. 7/10

Kanaya - Much like Rose, her kisses are usually more chaste than anything else, but will last longer, if you ask her and so desire. There's just something you find so graceful about her, even when she's planting a smooch on you. And, as much as she hates to leave a mess, she loves it when your face is dotted with lipstick marks. It really tickles the more possessive side of her. 8/10

Terezi - There will be drool. Full stop. It is inevitable. Her kisses aren't so much kisses, rather than… Full-blown sloppy makeout sessions every time. Really uncoordinated and sloppy, but, considering Terezi, it might be purposeful? Also, at some point, she just stops kissing entirely and starts licking your face. 1/10

Vriska - Kissing is a rarity for her, and only done when she really, really, reaaaaaaaally likes someone. So, consider yourself l8cky! Vriska's smooches usually don't last long, but are full of force and power. Loves to just grab you by the scruff of your clothes and lay one on you. She more often than not leaves you breathless, and she'll use that to tease you. 7/10

Equius - Probably doesn't kiss you a lot. He's terrified of hurting you, even if he's being as careful as possible. If he isn't being incredibly gentle and careful, he could easily hurt you! And that thought makes him even more sweaty, which, besides getting your jaw broken, is something you'd rather not feel during a kiss. The most you'll get is an extremely quick peck, which feels barely like a kiss at all. 0/10

Gamzee - Really silly and goofy during smooches. Prefers to cuddle while doing so. Loves to hold you in his arms while he peppers kisses all over. Though, he doesn't shy away from deepening kisses, either! After all, he IS a fan of sloppy makeouts ;0O Takes things soft and slow, and always makes sure you're comfortable! 9/10

Eridan - Not very experienced and kind of in disbelief you like him enough to kiss him? Really gentle and affectionate and sweet, but looks kinda goofy while doing it. He just, scrunches up his face and shuts his eyes and leans in. Makes up for it with enthusiasm. Very soft fish lips. 8/10

Feferi - Super affectionate and excitable!! Would probably kiss you all the time if she could!!! Loves to hold you in her arms while she gives you smooches. Does it all over, too - your lips, cheeks, forehead, neck, collarbone, shoulders!! Might hold you a bit too tight, sometimes she forgets her own strength when she gets lost in the moment. A bit overbearing, but she can't help it, she loves you so much!! 9/10

[tomatograter]

How do ya capture the "voice" of homestuck characters so well? Besides studying the comic, is there any other media you consume to really get in their head?

First off: Thanks, i’m happy you enjoy my stuff! Secondly… there ARE a few steps i take to the madness.

I basically come from a Dungeon master/Open-world roleplay management background, so when approaching HS cast voices and trying to understand a character to write a story for them i usually take into account 1.INSPIRATIONS, 2.INTERESTS & due to homestuck’s nature, 3.INTERPRETATIONS (As opposed to “player intent”- Hussie’s work is an amalgam of himself and the public input.)

Rereading their logs/sections always helps when you’re trying to figure out their language, pacing, and a bit of their temperament, but getting too lost on mimicking their messages as-is without looking into the character itself may risk leaving them ringing hollow or repetitive (specially for the section of the public that may be more familiar with this character than you are. This is something that may matter to you or not, if you WANT this work to appeal to a specific public or are just messing around.) Because it may just come down to mindless quirk indulgence. In my experience, readers are more forgiving & enthralled by creators who, while not following the specifics of a character’s quirk to a T maintain a sense of internal logic that is congruent with what is shown throughout their appearances. Some AU’s specifically remix, remove or substitute these aspects, and the reason why people usually don’t complain about it is that “it makes sense- given (x) and (x) context.” Like kidswap aus, etc. 

Another thing about Quirks is that they can very easily be broken. Having a grasp of how quirk rules affect a character based on their emotional state and how it changes over time is more valuable than internalizing a hard set of rules that never changes. (Ex: Sollux’ quirk evolves over time. So does Aradia’s, as she changes bodies. June’s quirk takes on Vriska-like qualities after they begin chatting, Vriska uses 8’s and exclamation points more liberally and/or nonsensically when she’s angry/distressed/desperate, Jake’s transatlantic slang and embellishment of speech is mostly at the backseat unless he’s pretending/anxious/overwhelmed, otherwise he’s pretty simple.) Knowing how to break a quirk is just as good as knowing how to write it - traditional prose in fics *may not use quirks at all*, but they’re so good at grasping the particular intonation a character uses when stringing words together at a given situation that you don’t mind that at all. It’s a smooth adaptation.

[GREAT RESOURCE: this google drive has a compilation of all logs between characters in Homestuck separated by participants but usually only lists them on one-on-one basis, so you may wanna look at groupchats in the original comic. I think the epilogues section may be still unfinished. I forget who originally posted it on twitter but i know they have a dedicated tumblr, i’ll edit this if someone can name their blog]

“INSPIRATIONS” are usually how i define character personalities by their distinct mix of archetypes. This is the “PROTAGONIST”, “GOTH GIRL”, “SILLY GIRL”, “COOL GUY”, “WEIRDO”, “GAMER GIRL”, “CODING WANNABE” and other such little buzzwords that HS will throw around in reference to each of its characters, and that usually, but not always, function as a setup to subvert the expectations based on that character come a certain point in the story. Where does the character you’re trying to write fall into, when you try to describe them in these terms? Does their story humour this definition, reject it, destroy it, or evolve it? Does this seem like a genuine fact about them, or a facade? Why do you think that is? (Asking questions is my preferred way of pulling apart and understanding a character, this may work differently for you.)

“INTERESTS” is where i look into for that chunky, fatty, well-grilled meat that goes in the middle of a character’s text. Homestuck characters are defined by what they like, what they aspire to be, and what they fail at becoming(& how that shapes their actions going forwards). Interacting with the media they like may not always be the way, but having a general idea of how it functions and what it means to them is usually very helpful. I was already familiar with a lot of things my favorite characters enjoy, and thus it was easier for me to get attached to them. I also had to watch a lot of shitty movies sometimes. You win some, you lose some.

EX: It’s easier to write Dave’s pov if you have a good grasp of the pop culture & economics he so often references. (What he likes) It’s easier to write Rose’s pov when you’ve searched a bit of armchair psychology wikipedia definitions and familiarized yourself with the genre and existential questions usually involved in Eldritch Horror, and how it evolved outside of Lovecraft. (What she aspires to be like) It’s easier to write Jake when you understand his persona is a collage of juvenile and outdated archetypes taken from action flicks & shitty mainstream comicbooks, that he ultimately fails to ever live up to and hinders his development as a kid at odds with self-imposed traditional masculinity, dreading to publicize the big “Gay” word. (What he fails at becoming)

It’s always useful to ask yourself “Why does this character like (x)” and what that particular thing may say about them. It doesn’t have to be a big groundbreaking revelation, just put yourself into their shoes and try to reverse engineer what you’re presented about them vs their environment, personal issues, and you might just find yourself understanding why they do what they do. 

“Karkat probably likes cheesy romantic comedies because they’re peak middleclass normalass media for someone who’s ostracized from troll society and is purposefully a shithead to keep people away”

“Terezi probably likes dragons because they’re FUCKING COOL but also whoops here’s all this historic lore about Redglare and their lusus and a tragic sense of JUST1C3”

“Aradia probably grapples with the concept of mortality and the ephemeral nature of life, so she’s really into the morbid observation of disasters & archeology & bones, i guess? Is this because she died really young? Oh. Maybe yeah.”

But if you find the above too hard to access on your own, that’s where 

INTERPRETATIONS come in to make this process smoother in the case you just wanna write an extended cast thing and frankly you could not give less of a shit about (x)’s lore, you just want to have a sense of what people like about them, and why people read about them, and how you can purposefully adapt that into your text so socmedia user halfucker69 isn’t crying on your mentions for 11 whole threaded comments about how you did their babyboybaby wrong. I can’t exactly point to you where you can FIND meta because this highly depends on the character, and sometimes you just have to make your own food, but you’ll be good if you try to look into creators who post about these characters, whose thoughts or fan media seem to be congruent with your idea of said character or solid enough that you can easily see how it’s been developed from point A to point B. Interact with more fanworks. Find out what works for you and what doesn’t. “Character study” is a whole genre of fanfic, if you don’t wanna go for shippy stuff - but a lot of “shippy stuff” has its own valuable edge to seeing how people internalize a character, and shouldn’t be as easily dismissable as it is. Again, you’ll have to rely on your own sense of internal logic here - you can’t take EVERY work as the universal truth, but trying stuff out will give you a better sense of who you think this character is.

Then you have to get around trying to write it, which is easier said than done. A lot of times writing about a character will lead you to understanding them better, and you may even find yourself disagreeing with things past-you said when you were first beginning to think about them, and that’s ok. You only get better at writing by asking better questions and then writing some more. Take your time with it. I hope this helps!

[soundsof71]

Hey! Album: 'Fleetwood Mac' (1975) - Fleetwood Mac

Hey! Great to hear from you! You (and your previous blog) were my original inspiration for trying to raise my tumblr game to something intentionally curated, and more than that, personally creative. Sorry to have let you down. LOL

What a pleasure to talk about this one, though, an album I think is -- strangely enough -- one of the most underrated albums in the classic rock pantheon!

What’s that you say? An album with “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” underrated?!?! Well it’s true, seriously underrated, at least partly because those two stellar, nay, legendary songs are the first ones that most people think of. There's so much more! It's definitely my favorite Fleetwood Mac album!

My perspective is a little different than the standard rap that Fleetwood Mac didn't properly begin until those two California kids joined the band in 1975, because to me, they started taking off when their first American joined the band, Bob Welch in 1971 for Future Games, which I wrote about at some length here. 

(For the record, Future Games is my second favorite Fleetwood Mac album. Anyone who hasn't checked it out really needs to.)

I’ll leave it at that for now, except to observe that to most of my music nerd friends at the time, I was a latecomer to Fleetwood Mac the band, having completely missed their earlier, bluesier lineups. Indeed, the 1971 lineup was their 8th! And they'd come to #9 in 1972, before landing on lineup #10 in 1975.

They had a bunch of hits on the five albums in this 71-74 range (”Hypnotized” is one that still slays me) that I think hold up as among their best ever. While the album before Fleetwood Mac, Heroes Are Hard to Find didn’t have a hit single, it rose to #34 on the US charts, and got plenty of attention. 

My point is that Fleetwood Mac didn’t spring into existence out of nowhere in 1975. Nor was 1975 necessarily ground zero for the millions of people who bought the album Fleetwood Mac. It came out in the summer of ‘75, but took 15 months to hit #1 in the US! (It peaked at #11 in the UK.) This was a far bigger album in 1976 when all the singles came out, and the band was touring like crazy to support it.

They basically dragged the album to the top of the charts kicking and screaming by the end of THAT year with relentless touring, setting the stage for their true commercial breakthrough with Rumours in 1977, but artistically? I prefer everything about 1975′s Fleetwood Mac.

btw, the music nerds know that Fleetwood Mac was recorded at Sound City Studios, which makes all the difference in the telling of the tale. In 1974, the band had located to Los Angeles, and following the departure of Bob Welch in December, Mick Fleetwood went looking for both a recording studio and a guitarist. 

While getting to know producer Keith Olsen at Sound City (a studio legendary for its drum sound, among other things), Keith played Mick some tracks from an album he’d recorded here a couple of years earlier with a local guitarist and his girlfriend singer, both of whom were also songwriters.

Mick said, I’ll book the studio to record my next album, I’ll book you to produce, and I’ll hire the guitarist....who famously informed Mick that he and his girlfriend were a package deal. All of this happened because of Sound City Studios.

(Here's Mick recording this very album in this very studio.)

Your friend and mine Dave Grohl directed a FANTASTIC documentary about Sound City Studios, a kind of a dump to be honest, but where tons of phenomenal records were made, from After The Gold Rush to Caribou, Damn The Torpedoes, Nevermind, Rage Against The Machine, and most recently, Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher. Lots and lots of stories about the making of Fleetwood Mac in this movie, and much more. 

Here’s the trailer. The whole movie is available on YT, too! And Amazon Prime, and a bunch of other places. HIGHLY recommended!

So here we go taking directly about Fleetwood Mac.....

the first song from the album i heard: "Over My Head". This was the first single released in the US, remarkably, four months after the album was released! I dunno, did the label not want to sell any albums? Or did they just not get how catchy these tunes were? I have no idea.

And ironically, the band didn't like the choice of "Over My Head" at all, ranking it dead-last in their own considerations of likely singles! I think that this is evidence that they were using heavy drugs much earlier than we thought. LOL

"Over My Head" peaked at #20 in the US, their highest to date by far, although, in some defense of the band's reservations, didn't chart at all in the UK. Saying that it rose to "only" 20 in the charts doesn't begin to describe how heavily it was played, though. A LOT.

do i own the album: Did then, Spotify now. The answer for most of the albums in this round of Asks. :-)

my favorite song: "Over My Head". Look, I admit that this is insane when Fleetwood Mac also includes "Landslide" and "Rhiannon." "Landslide" in particular is maybe one of the greatest songs anyone has ever written, and every single person reading this knows somebody named Rhiannon because of that song. (I've met two.) And hey, "Say You Love Me" was a MUCH bigger hit at the time too... but I'm tellin' ya, "Over My Head" fucks. 

It's the single version that fucks hardest, though, no doubt about it. I was disappointed when I finally bought the album that the version there fades in (NO! THIS IS WRONG) and has a wide mix that diffuses the impact. The radio version is so tight that it's practically mono, and it punches you right upside the head. 

One of my favorite things about listening to "Over My Head" in the past couple of weeks for this Ask is that it's Old School Fleetwood Mac. Chris on piano, Mick on drums, and John McVie with what might be the best bassline that anyone stroked out in 1975. My god, it's a fucking monster, and it just gets hotter as the song progresses. By the end, it's on fire, and you hear it so much better in this tight single mix.

The new guy adds a nice little solo on top of a nice rhythm lick, and he and Stevie add background vocals, but they're not front and center. "Over My Head" is really Christine McVie's showcase, although Fleetwood and Mac really shine too. This would have been a monster hit without the new kids, as indeed it pretty much was. You could say the same thing about "Say You Love Me", which is also all about Christine's songcraft, and a voice like no other, then or now.

Here's my edit of a lovely Mick Putland photo of Christine McVie from a couple of years earlier.

I guarantee that it's been way too long since you heard the in-your-face single version of "Over My Head". On Spotify, you can find it on the couple of Deluxe Editions of Fleetwood Mac (here's one), and it's also on the anthology, The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac, which I've embedded here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw-lIt1ILzk

least favorite song: "I'm So Afraid." I'm so afraid not. LOL

a song I didn’t like at first, but now do: Hmm, I might put "Sugar Daddy" in that category, but honestly, the main thing I don't like about this song is the title. LOL But it's the 4th best Christine McVie song on an album where the best three of hers were all released as singles, so I guess it all works out.

a song I used to like, but now don’t: Anything by the new guy. I'm not going to go into detail here because what I love about this album, I still love. At the time, I dug two of his songs here (you can guess which two, surely), but I started to really despise this guy a few years later. Now, I can't listen to anything where he's prominent at all, on any Fleetwood Mac records.

Fortunately there are more than enough Christine and Stevie songs, and Mick and John's playing, plus all those earlier albums like Future Games, to keep Fleetwood Mac in the rock good pantheon. I'd have fired the new guy 30 years earlier than he was. 

favorite lyric:

Mirror in the sky

What is love?

Can the child within my heart rise above?

Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?

Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I've been afraid of changin'

'Cause I've built my life around you

But time makes you bolder

Even children get older

And I'm getting older too

Like I said, the two Stevie Nicks tracks on Fleetwood Mac deserve every bit of the love they've gotten over the years. You can also see with just a quick glance around my blog that she's one of my most-posted artists. Please don't take me repping Christine as any disrespect for Stevie!

Do I like "Landslide" a little more than I otherwise might because it's specifically about outgrowing the aforementioned new guy? Maybe.  Or do I like it a little less than I otherwise might because I can't hear it without thinking of him? Maybe that too.

overall rating out of 10: Then: 9.4. Now: 9. The new guy went 2-for-4 for my money at the time, and the two that he whiffed on are genuinely terrible...but as bad as those two clunkers were, the rest of the album seemed perfect to me. Certainly among my most-played mainstream rock records into the early 80s. I was perfectly fine skipping one song on each side.

Even though nowadays I can't stand any of the songs he sings lead on, you take those off, and you STILL have "Landslide", "Rhiannon", "Say You Love Me", "Over My Head", and "Warm Ways". No album with ALL THOSE on them gets less than an 8.5, right?

I'm adding a few tenths each for how tightly Fleetwood and Mac are locked into each other and these songs on rythm (easily the most underrated duo of the era, sez me), and Keith Olsen's immaculate production. The score of 9 is therefore objectively correct and mathematically unassailable. LOL

I'm going to end where I began, by talking about Christine McVie. Instead of listening to this first and foremost as an album with a couple of giant Stevie Nicks songs, listen again to Fleetwood Mac as Christine McVie really lighting things up. She deserves so much more credit for the band's success than she gets, and seriously, "Over My Head" fucks. 

Now looky here, @aluacrescente . I know that YOU have strong feelings about this record, so spill! And the rest of you, too! I don't intend to have the last word on the albums in any of these Asks! Just the first one. :-) So lemme know what YOU think!

PS. Apologies for any formatting weirdness! I started this on desktop, where I do all my writing, saved the first few paragraphs to come back to later, only to be told by tumblr that I'd stated this on the app (DID NOT) and could only edit there. Grrr. Not cool, @staff. I've spent another day just tweaking to make it somewhat readable and wondering how these people can be so bad at their jobs. LOL

My crackpot opinions and wobbly writing are my own of course, and I'm aware that they have a larger negative impact on readability than tumblr's incompetence by far. LOL

[rin-hanarin]

I’ve been thinking about dirkjohn a lot recently, so I conjured a wall of scattered thoughts because I have a terrible need to share them.

I love how versatile they are when it comes to the way you can portray them. I enjoy tenderness and fluff a lot, but I equally like darker scenarios and personal drama (which should be obvious because I enjoyed Homestuck at all lmao).

The general idea for me personally boils down to ‘huge bitch and nice guy’ where Dirk and John are both because they have multiple sides to them. Keep in mind that everything below doesn’t include post Credits content, I’m aware of it, but I prefer to have a clean slate.

John is genuinely caring and empathetic, but he can be insensitive and mean at times, and I feel like flaws make him more alive and give him a relatable human qualities while simultaneously making him contradict his character traits. I think his character is flexible enough for a huge amount of interpretations to be reasonable, regardless of what I personally do and don’t like. My image of John is that of a person who tends to escape and disregard their worst moments and emotions instead of truly getting over them until they explode, and it’s proven to be the case with his violent outbursts. Things make him mad and he isn’t a saint all-forgiving guy because that’s how people work, and I don’t believe his being supportive but also telling people to fuck off contradict each other. John isn’t faking being nice and loving his friends and family, but he also refuses to acknowledge his own issues and can be a brick wall sometimes. You can explain John’s multiple sides in his love for pranks: they are jokes, but their entire purpose is to cause someone distress for someone else’s enjoyment, and it’s up to individual to decide if they like it or not.

Dirk on the other hand comes off as an arrogant and self-centered even without his multiple questionable selves, but he also has a lot of love to give and keeps getting hurt and disappointed because of it. On the surface he seems to be the opposite of John, when in actuality they both struggle to be completely genuine and vulnerable because they know they’ll get hurt if they do (it’s also growing up in a ‘normal society’ for John, you can imagine the consequences.)

When it comes to their potential interactions (which sadly never happened), I can see them teasing and making fun of each other mercilessly, but they also can eventually lower their walls a bit if they realise that it’s okay to trust someone and be vulnerable with them. I think that’s why the most common scenario in dirkjohn fiction is Dirk seeing John at his lowest without judging him because on some levels he’s the same: they can’t judge each other without reflecting and throwing their own personal issues at themselves at the same time, if that makes any sense. They also have no actual expectations of each other because they lack a personal connection other than ‘friend’s relative’, which doesn’t mean shit. John has his friends’ expectations placed on him, and Dirk’s literally the only person out of the whole human group that doesn’t have some sort of image of John, other than his alternate universe self and vague things Dave told. Dirk had expectations for his friends and that backfired horribly, but he has the most vague idea of who John Egbert is, and I feel like he learned or at least has the potential to learn to keep his expectations in check.

Basically dirkjohn is full of possibilities because of how unexplored it is in any official material. They can be anything you want them to be, and you get a special kind of creative freedom if you have barely anything to work with. John likes Dave’s comics and is totally comfortable with Rose’s interests, he just vibes with Strilondes a lot when it comes to their sense of humour and on-brand posturing; Dirk’s really familiar with the extreme versions of stubborn deflecting and bad taste and he’s completely okay with is, but he also uses Cage memes to fuck with people because he’s ironically a haha funny guy in his own special way. I think they should be friends.

[senorarelojes]

Fic: But Not Tonight (8/?)

Summary: Dave asks his best friend Alan to go to the prom with him. Pairing: Dave/Alan Notes: One of the silly little things I wrote for @pinksyndication @what-could-have-been @songsofgayanddevotion @raphinas

Part 1: here. Part 2: here. Part 3: here. Part 4: here. Part 5: here. Part 6: here. Part 7: here.

.

It feels like the kiss has unlocked something between them, because now they can’t keep their hands off each other. Dave’s hands are still on Alan’s hips, and he gasps in surprise when he can feel the warmth of Alan’s palm on his arse. “Oops, sorry,” Alan says with a smirk, although his hand hasn’t moved. The other is sifting through Dave’s hair, and Alan is staring at him like he’s the only person in the room.

Dave can’t remember the last time he was this hard. At this age he gets erections all the bloody time, which can be embarrassing and inconvenient. He’s spent many long showers fantasising over Alan’s body - his arms, shoulders, thighs, hands, mouth - and of course he’s imagined what it would be like to have sex with Alan. But nothing ever prepared him for this, for the first real touch of Alan’s warm hand resting proprietarily on Dave’s bum like it belongs to him, like it’s his property.

And that just gets Dave even harder. 

Of course, it doesn’t escape Alan’s notice. “Either you’re happy to see me, or you’re smuggling a beer can in your trousers,” he says in Dave’s ear.

Dave laughs loudly. “A beer can? I’m afraid you’re going to be rather disappointed once you see the real thing, mate.”

Alan’s mischievous smile fades away. “Nothing about you would ever disappoint me.”

The second kiss is unexpected, Dave sighing when Alan brushes his lips against Dave’s. This time there’s no tongue, but it’s wet and promising all the same. Alan has found an exposed patch of skin between Dave’s trousers and his shirt where it rides up, and Dave moans a little at the insanely pleasurable feeling of Alan’s thumb rubbing circles on his skin.

Dave can feel Alan perking up when the song with Spanish lyrics fades into something familiar, both of them regrettably breaking off the kiss. Across the hall, Daryl is giving Dave a thumbs up - finally he’s playing Dave’s special request. “Wait-- the Beatles?” Alan asks, looking both pleased and surprised. 

Dave grins widely at him. “I might have slipped Daryl a tenner to play something off ‘Abbey Road’,” he admits, circling his arms around Alan’s waist. They’re sort of swaying side to side now as ‘Something’ blasts from the speakers. Around them, numerous other couples are also slow-dancing along to the song. Dave and Alan are a little further removed from the main mass of people on the dancefloor, but this is fine. It feels like they’re in their own private little universe.

Alan just can’t seem to stop smiling at him. “Thought you always preferred the Stones yourself.”

Rolling his eyes, Dave gently bops Alan on the back of the head. “Yeah, but this is for you, innit? You’re a Beatles bloke. Ain’t your fault that you have poor taste.”

Both of them chuckle as Alan leans closer, his forehead resting against Dave’s. It’s surprisingly romantic, given they’re in the same hall where Dave once broke his knee and where they’ve suffered through countless assemblies. Dave is still hard, but his desire is down to a low simmer for now. He still wants Alan - he always has - but he doesn’t feel like ripping off Alan’s clothes in front of the entire school anymore.

“Al,” Dave begins, clearing his throat. “How long have you felt this way? About me?”

Alan purses his mouth, looking deep in thought. “Do you remember when we were in my back garden one summer a few years ago? With Mart and Fletch?”

Dave’s jaw drops. “And we were playing Lana Del Rey on someone’s dodgy speakers?”

Alan’s eyes widen in surprise. “You remember that too?”

“Fuckin’--” Dave wants to kick himself, shout at the walls, even tear his hair out. “Why didn’t you say anything, Charlie?”

Alan lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “You were dating so many girls back then, I thought you were straight.”

“I--” Dave doesn’t know what else to say. “I wasn’t sure, then. About myself, y’know?”

“Oh.” Alan examines his face closely. “So you’ve figured it out, then?”

Dave nods vehemently. “It’s always been you, Al,” Dave tells him with as much sincerity as he can muster. Alan’s resulting smile is beyond lovely, his eyes lighting up as his lips curve up in that private little smile he’s always reserved for Dave and Dave alone.

This time Dave has to kiss him again as the Beatles song winds down to a close. The kiss is on its way to getting even deeper and dirtier until Dave gets distracted by very familiar thumping drums over the speakers, followed by a guitar riff he knows by heart. “The Damned!” Dave exclaims as he breaks their kiss. “Fuck, how does Daryl even know--”

Except that Alan is smiling knowingly at him. “You’re not the only one who can bribe people on the sound crew, y’know.”

Dave gapes at Alan. “You bribed Flood?”

Alan laughs as he nods, pulling Dave towards the dance floor which is already starting to pogo along to ‘New Rose’. “C’mon Mr Abbey Road, let’s dance.”

[anotherhamiltonblog]

Unwritten Destiny pt 1

Unwritten Destiny part 1 a Daveed Diggs x OFC fic (partly Rafael Casal x OFC)

Rose Soo faceclaim is Christian Serratos(Rosita from TWD)

Warnings: Flirtation? Cursing? Embarrassment. Some fluff? Pregnancy. Some social media in there. Talk of Cheating... that’s it i think. ALSO ITS NOT PROOF READ.

Word Count: 2.5k(maybe a little more. i forgot now)

Forever Tag: @i-know-i-can​

Enjoy.

The first time Rose ever spoke with Daveed, it was back in 2015, she was trying to call her cousin. Yet a male answered the call. Not that Rose even noticed, she went straight into a rant about her delayed flight. Her asshole boyfriend who refused to travel with her and how she was starving. 

Of course, after finding out that it was a man named Daveed listening to her rant. Rose listened to him explain that Pip had left her phone at his place after their cast dinner. It was past midnight and Rose was waiting for late flight from L.A to NYC to spend time to her cousin.

The two happily chatted, going on random things. Like the Hamilton show and how much Daveed was really enjoying his part in it. Daveed kindly talked to her until she had to board her plane.

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The second time was when her cousin Phillipa was dragging Rose to a after party after the show. Rose had been fighting with her boyfriend over the phone a few minutes before they had arrived. To say her mood had turned sour was an understatement. She was on break from filming The Walking Dead and just wanted to spend time with her cousin. He didn’t want to join her, his loss. So, as she stood around, a cup in her hand, Rose couldn’t help but roll her eyes and judge the party. Not that meant to do so, she was just in a foul mood.

“Hey! Pip’s cousin!” a voice called out, Rose looking over and raised an eyebrow. “Daveed… we once talked for over an hour on the phone?”

At that she laughed and held out a hand. “Ah, a face to the voice… I’m Rose, or Rosie.” She introduced herself.

“Well it’s nice to finally meet you.” He winked and looked around. “Enjoying the party?”

At the question, Rose pulled a face. “I mean, it’s ok. Feels a little… high school scene.” She admitted. “The red solo cups, tacky music…” she shrugged and looked around. “At least everyone’s having a good time!” She added with a laugh.

“DIGGS!” A voice yelled out from Daveed��s other side. “Dude… where is the food? Also… I might have broken a vase. BUT I cleaned up the mess!”

Rose’s face paled and her jaw dropped. “Wait… it’s your party?” she asked turning to the two men. Cursing under her breath when Daveed nodded, Rose tipped back the drink in her cup before excusing herself.

She could not believe she just bad mouthed the party to the fucking host. God this was not her night.

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By the third time they were talking, after countless teasing from Daveed at the ‘boring’ dinner and ‘horrible’ music the restaurant was playing. Rose ignored him, while the rest of the Hamilton cast were laughing and having a jolly good time.

“Yo, where you going?” Rafael asked when Rose stood up.

She just gave him a pointed look and held up her phone, showing a call was coming through. Turning, making sure she had her ringing phone, Rose walked away from the table.

Standing outside of the restaurant, talking to her boyfriend, more arguing then having a conversation. Rose talked, expressing herself and moving her hand around as they fought.

“Trouble in paradise…” Daveed commented, everyone really trying to ignore the girl outside, not that it was easy. They were seating next to the windows, which gave them perfect view of Rose.

“Not that it’s anyone’s concern… her boyfriend is an asshole who didn’t want her to come visit.” Phillipa glanced at everyone and went back to talk with Jasmine.

When the girl came back to the table, her eyed, red and slightly puffy from crying. She picked up her purse and put down money. “I gotta go… I’m sorry.”

With that, she didn’t wait for anyone to stop her. She turned and rushed out.

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Being busy with the show, comic con and interviews. Rose was finally getting time off. The year was 2016 when the two ran into each other. The two being in Miami, while one was on a break, the other was simply just on her day off from Comic Con and photoshoots.

Walking the beach, wearing a one-piece black bathing suit that showed off all of her back. Rose was enjoying her time away from her cast mates. She loved everyone she worked with, yet these little moments when she could just breath and he herself. It was what she preferred.

“Rose?” a strange, yet very familiar voice called out. Causing the dark-haired girl to turn and be shocked to see Daveed standing there.

Shirtless.

In just swim trunks.

Damn

“Hey! What brings you here to Miami?” she asked, a small smile on her face.

“My group is doing some shows here…” he chuckled. “I’m just enjoying the sun and almost deserted beach.”

Nodding, Rose looked around before facing the ocean. “It is nice when almost no one is around, huh?”

“What are you doing here?”

Turning back to face the man, Rose chuckled. “Uh, work… This is my day off. Tomorrow I’m back at comic con and interviews about the new upcoming season.” She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Oh true… I’ve been watching that. The ending of season six… that was fucked up.” Daveed grinned and raised an eyebrow, nudging Rose softly. “Come on… give up some spoilers?”

Laughing and nudging him back, Rose shook her head. “No can do.” She laughed, the two giving the other a small smile.

Spending the rest of the day together, Rose snapping photos for Daveed to post. Only for him to do the same for her, he snapped various photos, some without her knowing.

Rose had a good day; she had planned on spending it alone. To clear her head from her idiot ex, yet by nightfall, as she got back to her hotel room, after having dinner with Daveed. Rose realized she didn’t think about Mark once the whole time she was out.

Grabbing her phone, she found Daveed’s number and clicked on it to send a message.

Rosie: ‘Thanks for today. I hope you have a great show. I’ll have to try and make it to one of your shows before leaving!’ D. Diggs: ‘Tell me which night your free and I’ll arrange it for you!’ Rosie: ‘Will you also arrange the menu, the venue, the seating?’

Giggling at her little Thomas Jefferson jab, she started to take off her makeup waiting for a reply. When her phone dinged. She picked it up and giggled.

D. Diggs: ‘You think you cute or something?’ Rosie: ‘Oh, I think I’m adorable! 😉’

When she didn’t hear back from him, she went and got ready for bed after posting a photo pn twitter.

Her phone going off hours later with a new text, yet Rose was already fast asleep.

She was sad when the opportunity to go see Daveed with his group never came. Though she tried to get a night off. She wasn’t able too. Something Daveed luckily understood. Not that either party were particularly happy with it.

Rosie: ‘Sorry I couldn’t make it to your show… ☹’ D. Diggs: ‘I understand. You’re a busy gal.’

Getting on the plane with her castmates, Rose sighed and fixed herself on the seat and fell asleep.

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2017. A year in which Rose didn’t see anyone other than her castmates and boyfriend. Going as far as changing her number to stop all the fighting she was having with Mark. He hated that she was texting Daveed. So, she did everything to not talk to him anymore. No matter how much she missed the man.

By the end of 2017, things were going so horrible that Rose couldn’t take it anymore. She was in the middle of packing her bags while Phillipa was waiting in the living room for her.

“I can’t believe you would do this!” she yelled at Mark, fed up with all the lying and cheating. “After everything I did for you. Fuck. You!” she snapped, pulling on her coat and grabbing the four bags she had packed.

“I’ll be sending someone to get the rest of my stuff. You touch one thing that’s mine. I won’t hesitate in going to the cops and charging you with the abuse you put me through.” She hissed, raising an eyebrow at Marks scoff.

“No one will believe a bitch like you.”

Grinning, she nodded slowly. “I have proof. Pictures, videos and voice recordings.” She said calmly, “So don’t fucking test me.”

With that said, she turned and stormed out of the room and went downstairs. Her cousin helped her with grabbing two bags, and they left the house.

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Being at the Premiere of Blindspotting, Rose was excited. When Rafael messaged her on Twitter and asked her to be his ‘date’ seeing as he had recently broken up with his girlfriend and didn’t want to go alone. Deciding to go for it, Rose was more than happy to dress up and be one of the first people to see the movie.

At the Premiere, she was on Rafael’s arm, the two talking and having a good time. When they bumped into Daveed, Rose still smiled. Despite the little green monster on her shoulder when she saw him with the gorgeous Emmy Raver-Lampman. The four talked, she allowed them to take pictures with the cast of the movie, even getting pulled into some photos thanks to Rafael.

By the end of the night, both Jasmine and Rose were ready for the after party.

At the party, the girls were dancing, drinking and laughing together. Jasmine telling Rose about how Daveed and Emmy met back during the Hamilton days and they started dating a few days back.

Rose told Jasmine about her ex, the cheating and beatings. The end and how Phillipa went to help her leave. Then the random message Rafael sent to invite her and how the two hit it off. Just as friends,

Not that the night ended like that, after lots of alcohol and light touches, Rose and Rafael ended up sharing a hotel room and bed that night.

The next morning, neither really minded what happened, deciding to keep it up simply for pleasure. Seeing as neither one of them were in a relationship.

There were times, Rose would go visit man, go on tour with him and Daveed, whenever she wasn’t filming. He would come to Georgia to visit her as well. The two hitting it off pretty well. When they decided to end things, around the time Daveed and his girlfriend Emmy split. Magazines always making things up about the two friends, everyone wanting to know if they were dating, or what was going on.

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Rose found herself living in New York. 2019 was starting to look a lot better than she expected, only problem… Rose was pregnant, and Rafael was now dating some pretty model. He knew, of course he knew. So did his girlfriend. They all decided that Rose would keep the baby and split visitations.

The situation was a weird one, not that Rose cared, she was happy, Rafa was happy. Everyone was happy.

On an afternoon walk, she was surprised when she bumped into Rafael, who was waiting for Daveed. Jokingly posting a photo of Rafael on her Instagram, tagging Daveed. The two waited around for the other male. Just walking around and laughing. Rafael buying her a New York pretzel as they waited.

By the time Daveed joined them, the guys kept making her stop to take pictures of them every now and again. Rose rolling her eyes and smile each time.

“Come on… Phillipa is waiting for us to have a late lunch!” Rose linked her arm with the two males, and they headed to the cute deli.

Sitting down, Rose asked for an iced tea and a smoked ham deli sandwich with a side of tator tots. Everyone at the table being quiet and just sitting around after the orders were placed.

“So… we gonna talk about the elephant in the room?” Daveed asked, glancing around his friends at the table.

“I think I’m gonna call him Dumbo, Jim and Henry…” Rose said, looking behind Daveed, who turned and saw mini statues of elephants on a shelf.

Thankfully that broke the ice and they fell into comfortable talk, mostly about work. When the food came, Rose scrunched up her face when the smell of smoked ham hit her. Covering her mouth, she excused herself and rushed off to the bathroom.

Rafael on her heels, along with Phillipa who went into the bathroom with her.

Daveed’s POV:

Watching Rafael come back, Daveed raised an eyebrow. “She ok?” He asked, obviously worried.

“Hmm?” Rafa raised an eyebrow and lifted his head once he sat down. “Oh… shit man. I didn’t even.” But he trailed off. “Remember how we were kind of seeing each other and broke off a month back cause I met Adrienne?” he looked up at his best friend and slouched back in his seat. “She’s pregnant. I mean, we don’t want to terminate the pregnancy. Adrienne is ok with it, understands that Rose and I were never in love… simply physical between us.”

Daveed rubbed his forehead. “Well… there goes my chance with her.” He mumbled and

Rafael furrowed his eyebrows and leaned forward. “What do you mean?” he asked his best friend. “You’ve been with Emmy… That’s why I asked her out man.” He kept his voice down so those around wouldn’t hear.

“Yeah, I know. Why do you think we didn’t work out. She’s a great girl. Talented… but she’s not Rose. I was waiting for y’all to end so I could ask her out.”

“Well, you still can… I mean, if you don’t mind her being pregnant or anything. Won’t be like it’s some strangers kid or anything.” Rafa suggested with a smirk. “She’s a great gal ya know.”

Daveed just sighed and shut up when the girls returned.

“Hey, I asked them to switch your sandwich. Hopefully Roast Beef will be better for you.” Daveed grinned at Rose, noticing the slight blush on her cheeks.

“Aw, thanks Diggs.” She smiled and kissed his cheek before sitting back down. “Don’t worry… I washed my mouth with mouth wash I carry around.” She added making Daveed chuckle.

After everyone ate, Phillipa went to the theater her show was at, Rafa left to head back to the apartment he was sharing with his girlfriend while they are in New York,

Daveed looked at Rose and smiled. “Want to go grab some ice cream?” he asked and offered his arm to the girl, she grinned and nodded, agreeing to go with him.

The rest of the day went nicely, with both Rose and Daveed walking around New York, acting as if they were tourists visiting the city for the first time.

AN: That’s the first chapter. It’s long. the fic itself will only be around 5-6 parts.

Hope you all enjoyed this!

[cmfan3]

If I Ever Lost You Part 1

Pairing: Jennifer Jareau X Emily Prentiss

Warning: Strong Language & Violence

Words: 6K

With a shaking hand, she reached over and picked up the paper. She opened the note and when she read the three words, her world stopped.

I have her.

A few days earlier

Emily was sitting at her desk in the bullpen chatting with Derek and Spencer. Actually, it was more like picking on Spencer with Derek. The two misfits were pestering Spencer about his new haircut. “Are you sure you’re not in a boy band?” joked Derek while ruffling his hair. Spencer swatted his hand away in annoyance, “yes, I’m sure. Now can I please get back to work? You guys are distracting me.” Emily opened her mouth to respond when she was cut off by JJ rushing in. Out of breath, JJ barely managed to get the words out as she rushed to the conference room, “it’s a bad one.”

The three went up and sat around the table, each in their respective spots. Emily looked up at the screen which was covered in gruesome photos, ones she couldn’t seem to stomach. As Emily began to actually look at the victims, she couldn’t help the gut wrenching feeling that arose as she glanced at the blonde standing in front of her. They all look exactly alike. The thought sent chills down her spine.

Before JJ began presenting the case, she glanced upon the brunette to try and understand how she felt about it. JJ saw what no one else did, the dread and fear that rose in Emily’s eyes. She shook it off and began explaining the situation to her team, “four victims as of now. They’re all in their mid-twenties with blonde hair and blue eyes. They were born in different states, but ended up in Washington. They all seemed to be single, but they were still in contact with their families. They worked different jobs and lived in different areas. All the victims had a different COD-”

“-Then why are we even looking at this case,” interrupted Emily. Locking eyes with her, JJ couldn’t help but soften her gaze at the brunette as she realized just how badly this case was affecting her. Emily’s knee was bouncing and her hands seemed to play with themselves. We can’t take this case. Does nobody else in this room seem to realize just how alike JJ and the victims look. They could be siblings for fucks sake. Emily’s breath seemed labored and she didn’t even want to look at the file in front of her for another second.

Before JJ could respond, Hotch cut in, “we’re taking this case because of the signature.” He nodded to the blonde, in which she then clicked to the next set of pictures. She turned away from the screen, her face morphing into one of disgust, “each victim had a message carved into their back.” The team stared on in horror as they read what was shown. Tick tock. Her time is running out. You won’t find me. I’m just getting started.

“No. Please don’t tell me we have to go look for an unsub who seems to be killing exact replicas of JJ,” stated Emily. She stared at JJ, pleading to see reason and to not take the case, no matter how selfish it seemed because she was keeping a secret no one knew. I won’t let the woman I love willingly put herself in harm’s way.

Hotch responded, “Emily. I know none of us want to investigate a case like this, but we have to. If we don’t, there’s no telling how bad the spree is going to get. That said, Garcia will update us if anything happens and we’ll brainstorm on the plane. Wheels up in twenty.” David was the first to leave the room. Soon after was Derek and Spencer. As Hotch was about to leave, he glanced back at the women for a split second before going to get his things in order.

As soon as Hotch was out the door, Emily shot up out of her seat and rushed towards the blonde, who was still standing by the screen. She grasped both of her hands desperately. “JJ, please, at least tell me you’re not going. You have to see the resemblance between you and the victims. I’m not going to let you get hurt. Please don’t come with us,” pleaded Emily.

JJ squeezed her hands, “well if you’re not going to let me get hurt, then I don’t really see an issue. Emily, even if I didn’t want to come, who’s going to handle the media when things get bad. They already started calling him The Messenger. I’ll be fine, the team will protect me.” She smiled gratefully at the woman in front of her, “I’ll be ok Em, don’t worry so much.” She slid her hands from the brunette’s grasp and walked out the door, towards her office.

Emily ’s heart felt heavy as she watched her retreating form. How can I not worry about you? I love you.

On the jet, the team just ended their call with Garcia, and as soon as she cut the line by saying, “I’m like the wind: back in a flash... or is that lightning?,” the air was so tense, it could’ve been cut with a knife. Dave sat in front of Hotch, the two brainstorming ideas about the unsub. Morgan and Spencer were talking, mostly about the case, but every once in a while, Morgan would try to lighten the mood by talking about Spencer’s haircut. The two would crack a smile before they resumed talking about the horrors of the case.

Towards the back of the jet, JJ was looking through the file when she felt someone occupy the seat next to her. She glanced up and saw Emily place two cups of coffee on the table in front of them. “Oh thank god,” the blonde exhaled, “you don’t even know how much I need this,” she sighed. Pulling the steaming mug up towards her face and taking a deep breath, she exhaled, “I needed this more than I realized.” After taking a sip from the steaming dark liquid, she looked up to see Emily staring at her.

How can someone look perfect while drinking coffee? Oh who am I kidding, she always looks perfect. Realizing she was caught gawking, Emily instantly looked away, a flush creeping up her face. “Sorry,” she mumbled. Trying not to make it more awkward between the two, Emily opened up her case file, “so what are your thoughts about how the unsub kills them?”

Amused, JJ states, “I don’t think they actually know which way they prefer killing yet. Yes, while the unsub doesn’t have any hesitation marks, it seems as if this is their first time because of all the different COD’s. So I think they’re trying to figure out which way excites them the most.”

“The carving of the messages in their backs are exciting enough,” grumbled Emily. She attempted to pay more attention to the photos, but every time she looked at a victim, all she could see was JJ lying there with her eyes open, all cut up and bloody. She shook her head, as if to clear the image from her mind. She turned to see JJ staring at her quizzically. As Emily looked into the blue eyes in front of her, she saw the question are you okay? staring back at her. She nodded her head and gave a small smile, hoping to convince the woman in front of her that she shouldn’t be worried. Emily began to look at the pictures once again. She tensed up when she felt something brush along her arm, but relaxed when she realized that it was just JJ leaning her head on the brunette’s shoulder. Emily felt butterflies swarm her stomach when the smaller woman curled up into her side, seeking warmth. In a matter of seconds, JJ was out cold, leaving Emily to gaze lovingly at her, hoping and wishing that she could keep her safe from harm. Deep down though, Emily knew that not everything was in her control, and she hated it. Making sure no one was paying them any attention, she placed a loving kiss on the top of the sleeping woman’s head and when the blonde curled even more into her side, Emily wanted to capture this moment forever. She’ll be ok. I won’t let anything happen to her. Kept running through her head like a mantra. Soon after, she succumbed to exhaustion and let sleep take her.

Emily awoke to the feeling of the jet hitting the runway. Shaking off her grogginess, she looked down next to her and felt the butterflies rise up yet once again when she saw the blonde still curled up into her side. She smiled at the sleeping woman before shaking her slightly. “Come on Jayje. You need to wake up, we’re here,” whispered Emily.

In response, JJ grunted and shifted farther into Emily’s side. “Not yet,” she grumbled. Hearing a bark of laughter, she peeked her eyes open and looked up at the woman laughing at her. “It’s not funny Em. I barely slept and I’m tired. I need more coffee,” JJ complained. She reached across the table and picked up Emily’s coffee and took a long sip. Looking over the rim of the glass, she saw Emily attempting to stifle her laughter behind a smirk. She gently smacked the older woman’s arm and feigned shock. “You dare laugh at me Prentiss, well we’ll see who’s laughing when I finish your coffee,” joked JJ.

As Emily smiled at her, the blonde could see her eyes gleaming with mischief, but before she was able to act on it, Hotch’s voice boomed over the jet, “Prentiss, you’re with Morgan. You two go to the crime scenes and see if we missed anything. Reid and David, you two go to the morgue and try and find more information about the COD’s and messages. JJ and I will head to the police precinct to set up. Jennifer I need you to start handling the media and get rid of that ridiculous name. It only fuels the unsub’s desire.”

“Sir, I don’t mean any disrespect, but you can’t seriously consider putting JJ in front of all those cameras when all the victims look exactly like her,” argued Emily. She looked at the blonde next to her with worry shining in her eyes.

JJ reached for Emily’s hand and squeezed it softly, “I’ll be fine Em, like I said, I have you and the team to protect me. Hotch is right, I need to handle the media. That’s my job.”

“But-,” Emily started again, but when she looked at Hotch, she knew there was no point in arguing. She excused herself from JJ’s grasp and went towards the bathroom, pulling out her phone and dialing the only number she thought could help.

“Office of Unfettered Omniscience. Penelope Garcia is in. Speak, oh fortunate one,” rang Penelope’s voice through the line. Emily smiled to herself and reminded herself to check if Penelope was on anything. “I need you to do me a favor PG. Can you please keep an eye on JJ? Track her location, make sure she’s ok. It doesn’t matter to me as long as she isn’t in danger,” Emily requested. Garcia’s voice rang out, “of course E, you know how important she is to all of us. I know you guys won’t let anything happen to her, but if it makes you feel better, I can keep an eye on her. Just in case.” “Thank you, I’m just worried about her, and it seems like I’m the only one. It’s frustrating,” fumed Emily. “I know sweet cheeks, but it’s a part of the job,” reminded Garcia. “I know, I know. But it doesn’t make it any easier. Thanks Pen, I’ll keep you updated,” Emily responded. “Over and out,” chirped Garcia. Turning back towards the team, she let her eyes roam over each member before they settled on the blonde who was looking out the window with a look on her face that Emily couldn’t seem to decipher. I have to tell her. She has to know before something happens, because with our team’s luck, something is going to happen. Grow up Prentiss, just tell her. What’s the worst that could happen? We could stop talking completely and she could act like I don’t even exist. Fuck Prentiss, just tell her already. After boosting her confidence, Emily began walking towards JJ in hopes of finally telling her how she’s felt for so long. Emily noticed that when JJ saw that she was walking towards her, a smile lit up the blonde’s face which was immediately mirrored by the older woman. Emily slid in next to JJ and reached for her hands. Clearing her throat and staring down at their entwined hands, Emily began, “Jen, there really isn’t a good time to say this, but I have to say it. Please forgive me, but I have to tell you. Jennifer I-” “We have to hit the ground rolling. Let’s go everyone,” interrupted Hotch. “Just perfect,” Emily mumbled. She looked up into the crystal blue eyes and sighed, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll tell you later.” Or never. The blonde simply nodded and gave Emily one of her dazzling smiles.

While on the jet, Morgan was able to witness the entire scene unfold. As he and Emily were walking onto the crime scenes, he questioned, “so princess. What was that on the jet?” Nearly choking on the water she was drinking, Emily managed to sputter out, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Derek merely laughed and nodded, “Alright princess, but just know, I’ll find out soon enough.” Emily glared at him as she walked up to the fourth victim’s body. As soon as they arrived at the body and saw the message I’m just getting started carved into her back, both put the topic at hand in the back of their heads and focused on the case.

Spencer and Rossi were chatting amongst themselves as they waited for the autopsy results. “It’s strange that the unsub hasn’t settled on a COD, especially because it seems as if carving the messages is really what gets them off. I would think that since they enjoy carving them in, they would also want the victim to die by knife,“ inquired Spencer. With a grimace, Rossi realized that the kid is right, yet once again, “well, maybe the unsub just gets off on the whole ordeal and it doesn’t matter what they use to kill the victims. Maybe they kill the victims based on whatever’s easiest in the moment.” As Spencer was thinking about it, the forensic pathologist walked in with some information. She began, “so we got the results from the autopsy and let me tell you guys, it isn’t pretty. So it seems as if the victims had the messages carved into their backs while they were alive.” Pausing so she could register the reactions of the agents in front of her, she wasn’t shocked when she saw the disgust and horror flash on their faces. She continued, “based on the laceration marks on their wrists, it seems like they were suspended from something and their feet were barely scraping the floor. They were severely dehydrated and it seems like they were kept for a span of three days, if not shorter. Here’s the crazy bit though, the COD for each victim was actually the same. They all bled out.” Shock ran across Spencer’s features before morphing into understanding, “the victims died when the message was carved into their backs. The rest of it was forensic countermeasure.” At this point, Rossi wasn’t shocked with the news, the only indication that he had even registered what had been said was how his shoulders drooped lower and the fatigue on his face became more prominent. “Alright kid, let’s get back to the team and let them know what we found out,” Rossi sighed. Both agents thanked the forensic pathologist and began their drive down to the precinct.

At the precinct, JJ was attempting to control the media as Hotch began to set up the team’s room. Bracing herself for all the questions, she took a deep breath and began, “I know you all have questions, and I’ll try to answer them as best as I can, but the first thing that needs to happen is the name, The Messenger, needs to be forgotten. Call the killer an unsub. Giving the unsub a name only fuels their desire to kill again. Now, any questions?” A flurry of hands shot up and voices seemed to ring out from all directions. One reporter managed to make his question heard by the media liaison, “should everyone be worried about being next, or does the unsub have a specific type?” “As of now, they do seem to have a specific type, but everyone should be vigilant, and if you see or hear something, say something,” JJ managed to reply before she was barraged with more questions. “What does the police know?” “Do you have any suspects?” “Is there an end goal or is it just for entertainment?” “Where is the rest of your team now?” “Have you ever seen something like this before” Before she was able to answer any of the endless questions, one question in particular made her freeze in place. “You look like them. Do you think you’re the ‘her’ that was referenced in the message ‘her time is running out’ because you look alike?” Unable to form an answer, she simply responded, “that’s all the time we have for questions,” and walked off the stage and back into the precinct. She rushed to the bathroom in hopes of calming her nerves. She leaned over the sink, gripping the edge until her knuckles turned white. After what felt like hours, her breathing finally evened out and the tears in her eyes were no longer there. She washed her face and fixed her hair before she walked out, not noticing the worried look that was sent her way by none other than the brunette.

The team gathered in the room and began debriefing each other on the new information each of them found. As Emily passed by JJ, she reached out and squeezed her shoulder, signaling to the younger agent that she wasn’t alone. JJ looked up at Emily gratefully, eyes shining with a thank you. As Emily took her seat by JJ, she was surprised when the blonde grabbed her hand, intertwining their fingers together under the table.

As the room settled, Hotch was the first to speak, “Morgan and Prentiss, what did you two find out?” “Not much that we didn’t already know. We know he has a secondary location because there wasn’t any blood at the crime scene. They were all positioned where the message was clearly visible meaning it’s the most important thing to the unsub. None of the victims were placed in the same place, but all of them were placed in a location where there would be a large majority of people,” Derek informed the team. “So the unsub wants the victims to be found. He wants his message to be broadcasted,” concluded JJ. Emily spared a glance at the woman next to her, giving her hand a squeeze causing JJ to smile slightly. Emily jumped in, “we already know that the unsub’s evil, what did you two find out at the morgue?”

Before Rossi was able to debrief the team on the new information, Spencer interrupted, “evil can’t be scientifically defined. It’s an illusory moral concept that doesn’t exist in nature. Its origins and connotations have been inextricably linked to religion and mythology.” As he looked around, he saw all of the confused faces and decided to drop it, motioning to Rossi to take over. With a smile tugging at his lips, Rossi thanked Spencer for the information, “Thanks for that boy wonder, but what we found at the morgue does explain a lot. It turns out that the actual COD of all the victims was blood loss. They were all alive when they had the messages carved into their backs and that’s how they died.” Hotch intervened, “I think this means that we can believe that this unsub is experienced because their cuts are clean without any hesitation marks. That said, I believe it’s a Caucasian male in their early to mid thirties because as we saw in the crime scene photos, the unsub placed the bodies in an area where there’s nothing there. So the unsub would have to carry the bodies from their car to the drop off location which would take a large amount of strength.” Reid decided to jump in, “unsubs don’t tend to cross racial lines so he would be Caucasian because all of his victims are Caucasian. Since all his victims are in their mid twenties, he should-“

The phone ringing cut Spencer off and when the line was answered, Penelope’s voice rang out, “hello my big beautiful crime fighters. I come with bad news, like bad bad, like all the puppy photos on the internet got deleted bad.” Everyone tensed up waiting for Penelope to continue, “Anyways, back to the case. There’s been another body.” Emily turned towards JJ to see that the color drained out of her face and her jaw was clenched. With her free hand, Emily rubbed small circles on JJ’s back, attempting to comfort her. Leaning into her touch, JJ all but curled up into Emily, seeking protection from the news that was just dropped. “Unfortunately, that’s not all. The message that was carved into her back said I’m coming for her,” Penelope continued. As soon as the words left Penelope’s mouth, the reporter’s question from earlier in the day bounced around in JJ’s head. Do you think you’re the her? The contents in her stomach threatened to come out so she jumped out of her seat and rushed to the bathroom, where she then relieved her contents into the toilet. “Thanks Garcia,” Hotch replied. He turned towards the brunette who was looking where the blonde ran and nodded in her direction, causing her to run after the younger woman.

As soon as Emily opened the bathroom door, she was hit with the sound of sobbing coming from one of the stalls. She cautiously opened the stall and was broken when she looked down at the woman in front of her. JJ’s eyes were getting red from the tears and her cheeks were stained from the falling tears. Emily opened her arms and JJ practically jumped into them, seeking comfort from the only person that she knew could help. “Come here Jen, I got you,” reassured the older agent. JJ clung onto her like she was a lifeline because she essentially was. Emily kept running her hands through the blonde’s hair and rubbing small circles on her back while whispering sweet nothings into her ear in hopes of calming her down. For the two of them, it was like they were in their own little bubble where no one could hurt them. As JJ was finally able to even out her breathing, she pulled back from Emily’s grasp slightly. She looked up into Emily’s eyes, silently thanking her for everything.

As Emily looked at the woman in front of her, she felt the urge to lean in, but she couldn’t do that to her, especially after everything that just happened. So she simply glanced down, wishing that she could kiss the blonde and tell her how she feels. God I love her. When we make it out of this, I’m going to tell her. Instead, Emily pulled her back into an embrace, kissed the top of her head, and pulled her out of the restroom, where the team was waiting for them. Hotch looked at Emily, questioning whether the blonde was ok or not. She simply shrugged and focused her attention back on the younger agent.

Hotch called out, “That’s all we can do for today, everyone head back to the hotel. Everyone gets their own room. Except for Jennifer and Prentiss. I want you two sharing a room just in case something were to happen, it’s safer.” Both women were secretly overjoyed because even if Hotch didn’t give them a room together, they would’ve ended up in the same room.

After a short car ride that was filled with silence, the team arrived at their hotel. Courtesy of Penelope, the team’s rooms were all next to each other. As Derek was closing his door, he called out, “goodnight mom, dad, princesses, and pretty boy.” The women scoffed and shared a quick smile with the agent as they walked into their respective room, locking the door behind them.

“I call the left side of the bed,” Emily said almost immediately, her eyes twinkling with joy. In response, JJ pouted, “you always get the left side.” Emily let out a laugh, “because it’s my side,” and began undressing so she could change into her pajamas. JJ grumbled a reply that couldn’t be heard by the older agent, but she still put her go-bag on the right side. She unzipped it and began shuffling through its contents, looking for a big t-shirt and shorts.

Emily plopped down on the corner of the bed once she was done and watched the blonde carefully. After the blonde shifted through all of the content in the bag, and didn’t find what she was looking for, she turned and looked at Emily, who had her mouth quirked up into a smile. JJ didn’t understand why until she took a closer look and realized that the other woman was wearing the clothes she just spent ten minutes looking for. Before JJ could protest, Emily explained, “you took my coffee earlier, so I’m taking your clothes.” Not to mention, they smell like her. Unable to say no to Emily, JJ simply questioned, “well then, what am I supposed to wear to bed?” Emily reached behind her and pulled out her own pajamas, handing them to the blonde. JJ snatched the clothes from her outstretched arm and began undressing while muttering about how Emily should wear her own clothes. Unable to help herself, the older agent gawked at JJ’s body when she was undressing. Feeling eyes on her, JJ looked up and locked eyes with Emily which caused her face to redden. Emily instantly looked away, ashamed that she was caught gawking. What is wrong with me? I’ve seen her change a million times before. What’s so different about this time?

Once she was done changing, JJ set her go-bag on the floor next to the bed and jumped under the covers, wrapping herself up like a burrito. She patted the empty spot next to her, her head peeking out from under the covers to look at Emily. The brunette couldn’t stifle her laughter at the sight in front of her, so she simply turned off the lights and crawled under the covers next to the blonde, mimicking her burrito position. The smiles that were on their faces reached their ears.

Suddenly, the smile that lit up JJ’s face disappeared and she instantly turned sombre. “Em, do you think I’m the her that the unsub’s talking about? I don’t want to be. God I really hope I’m not, but I can’t come up with another idea of who she might be,” JJ whispered. Emily didn’t respond, instead, she wrapped her arms around the smaller woman and pulled her close, running her hand through the long blonde hair while tracing imaginary circles on her back. This caused JJ to rest her head in the crook of Emily’s neck, breathing in her comforting scent. The two stayed in this position for what seemed like an eternity. When Emily felt JJ’s breath even out, she kissed the top of her head and whispered, “I love you.” Hidden from the brunette, the blonde smiled to herself. I love you too.

The next morning, JJ woke up entangled in Emily’s arms. She shifted so she could gaze upon the sleeping woman next to her, taking in every feature, lingering on her lips. Suddenly, they moved, “didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not nice to stare at people Jayje?” She gave the blonde a lopsided grin as she peeked one eye open. JJ scoffed, grabbed a pillow, and smacked the older woman in the face, unable to hold in her laughter as Emily feigned hurt. “We both know I’d absolutely destroy you in a pillow fight Jen. You don’t want to start with me,” she joked. Putting the pillows back on the bed, the brunette stretched, hoping to shake off her grogginess. Sighing, she got out of the bed, pulling the younger woman up with her, “even though I don’t want to, we have to get ready and get down to the precinct.” Looking up into Emily’s eyes, JJ asked, “coffee?” The brunette simply nodded with a smile ghosting her lips and went to grab her go-bag so she could get ready for work.

After their quick coffee stop, the women walked into the precinct with a coffee for everyone, the both of them sitting next to each other once again. As they took their places around the table, Morgan called Garica. Before the first ring even ended, the line was answered and Penelope’s voice rang out, “challenge me, you beautiful behavioral analyst.” Letting out a laugh, Morgan requested, “hey baby girl, I need you to find all Caucasian males who are in their early to mid thirties.” “I need more to cut down the list crime fighters. This list is a whopper,” Penelope responded. It was Reid’s voice who cut through next, “he would have a normal job that gave him a lot of free time to be able to abduct, torture, and kill the women. He would have to own a large property because he needs a lot of space and his victims need to be isolated.” Emily jumped in, “he would be single since he doesn’t have time for a significant other because he’s spending most of his time with his victims.” “Ok my beauties, I’ll hit you back when I have more. Garcia out,” Penelope replied as she ended the call. Hotch stood up out of his seat and began assigning his team tasks, ‘’Prentiss, I want you and JJ to try and control the media. They’re having a field day with the fifth victim. Morgan and Rossi, you two try and shorten the list that Garcia has. Reid, work on the geographical profile. I’ll head over to the fifth victim’s crime scene and look over everything we have to see if we missed anything.” As the team walked out to complete their assignments, Hotch pulled Emily back, “Keep her safe Prentiss. I didn’t want her on her own, especially since that last victim.” She nodded in a silent promise that she wouldn’t let anything happen to the blonde.

In the SUV, Emily tried her best to watch over JJ while keeping her eyes on the road. JJ’s knee was bouncing up and down and her breathing seemed forced. Noticing the distress behind the movements, Emily pulled off to the side, putting the car in park. She reached over the center console and gripped both of JJ’s hands, running her thumbs along the soft knuckles. Emily looked into JJ’s eyes, seeing the fear that was shining through. “Come on Jayje, you know you can talk to me. Please let me in,” pleaded Emily. Dropping her eyes from Emily’s, because they were staring at her intensely. “I know I can Em, it’s just hard. Yes I’m scared for my safety, I mean who wouldn’t be, but I’m terrified for your safety,” JJ confessed. Emily was speechless after hearing the blonde’s confession, so JJ decided to remove herself from Emily’s grasp and turn towards the window, letting her thoughts consume her. If I know she loves me, why can’t I just tell her that I love her? Oh God, how I want to be with her. I just can’t let her get hurt because of me. Emily turned towards the steering wheel, unsure of what to do except to keep driving. The rest of the ride to the conference was silent, both women engrossed in their own minds.

Rossi and Derek were looking over the list that Penelope managed to send. Every once in a while, a name would get crossed off because the man didn’t seem to fit the profile. It took a total of roughly three hours and two coffee pots to get through all the names. When Derek finally leaned back into his chair, done looking at the final suspect on the list, he sighed from sheer exhaustion, “Damn Rossi, Penelope was right, that was one hell of a list.” Derek dialled Penelope and after a minute, they heard “He who seeks the Queen of All Knowledge, speak and be recognized.” Chuckling to himself, Derek managed to inform Garcia about the new list, “hey baby girl, we cut down the list to 7 men, we need you to dig deeper on them and let us know what you find.” “Like you even have to ask. Back in a flash,” Garcia responded and ended the call. Rossi stood, grabbing the files on the table, “let’s go see if Hotch could use any help.” The two men cleaned up the office and closed the door behind them as they left.

Reid was looking through the geographical profile that they had in place, updating it with new information from the most recent murder. He was able to map out a circle with a radius of twenty miles. As he looked at the map, he saw a few properties that would be perfect for the unsub. I should talk to Garcia and see if she can find anything out about the houses in this area. After he was satisfied with the geographical profile, Reid left the room so he could update Hotch and Penelope.

The conference took a toll on both agents. Emily spent a majority of her time making sure JJ was ok after particularly difficult questions. As soon as they left the conference, Emily felt as if she was being watched so she glanced around, but when she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, she shook off her chills and resumed walking towards the SUV with JJ. When they got to the car, the women decided to head to the precinct to see if their team had any new leads. Although music was playing in the background, both agents were silent, each sorting through the thoughts that occupied their minds. After what seemed like an eternity, JJ was the first to speak, “Emily. There’s been something on my mind and I have to tell you before it’s too late.” Emily glanced at the blonde quizzically, completely oblivious to what the younger agent was trying to say. You already started, you can’t just leave her hanging, just tell her. You know how she feels about you. Just do it already Jareau. Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, JJ continued, “the other night, when you-”

Suddenly, the car was rammed, causing Emily to hit her head on the steering wheel and lose consciousness. In desperation, JJ grabbed the wheel and attempted to keep the car from crashing, but there was no use. The car drove into a lamppost, causing the airbags to expand. The smell of gasoline that was in the air was easily recognizable. There was destruction everywhere. Pieces of metal and glass littered the ground. Smoke billowed through from under the hood of the damaged car. The last thing JJ saw before she lost consciousness was Emily slumped in her seat, blood pouring from the cut on her head. She reached out weakly, cupping Emily’s pale cheek before dropping her hand. She whispered, “I love you too Em,” and succumbed to the darkness.

[eridanromantic]

☕️ Vriska is not as complicated as the fandom wants to believe. Idk I just want to know your opinions on her.

I mean, sort of.

Vriska is. A fucking character that's for sure.

She's definitely the most lore packed out of any of them, karkat or dave probably being a close-ish contender for second place, if not terezi or aradia.

There's a SHIT FUCKING TON though, so i can semi understand why people overcomplicate things.

Technically, vriska's lore is just. A smaller part of the literal fucking spider web that is the serket lore.

Oh, and by the fucking way, i don't like these guys. This is what i remember from my first read of homestuck, so please stay with me, and also be aware it most likely won't be in an exact chronological order.

So i'll make a list on the serket lore.

Aranea plays her version of SGRUB, one that is utterly hopeless and fucked, and is killed by meenah to enter the dream bubbles. This is when their session scratch happens, leading and making the beta trolls.

Mindfang. There's a lot to unpack with mindfang, so just. Mindfang. (If someone asks, i could probably make a post on what i remember on mindfang lore. Personally? I thought it was really boring so i just went deeper into the other ancestor lore, specifically the signless/sufferer and dualscar.)

Vriska. So, there's a lot HERE, obviously. So I'm making a smaller list for unpacking.

Vriska meets terezi over trollian

Vriska, terezi, and eridan get heavily into FLARP. (Maybe a few others as well, but this is all i can remember who did actually do that shit.)

Somewhere along this time, the events of Make Her Pay play out, resulting in terezi going blind, and later on, vriska losing her eye and her arm, being a very similar parallel to mindfang losing HER arm.

The events of SGRUB play out, leading into their session's victory, although not lasting for long considering jack/bec noir is out for the trolls, causing her, and everyone else to

Go to the meteor. This is when she finally starts to get shit done, trolling john, becoming his patron, etc.

-however, i will say: the major event is her being the reason the noir is out for them all, happens here as well.

Terezi eventually finds out about this and confronts vriska on this. Depending if this is the retcon timeline or not, one of two things happens.

Vriska dies, leading into the game over timeline

John punches and knocks out vriska, leading into the successful timeline. (Also can i say that it's fucking bullshit that of all characters needed it was fucking her? Christ hussie, you have a lot of issues.)

Which, the successful timeline doesn't have a lot to talk about, it's just "oh hey vriska's there, helps rose out of alcoholism, and sorta makes davekat canon" or whatever, i just. Didn't fucking care much about the events with vriska in the timeline.

Allinall, sorta confusing, but. The fandom overdoes things a lot.

Seriously, of all characters to not strip out everything but one trait, it was vriska. What the fuck, guys.

(Oh, and by the way, i used john because june isn't canon just yet. For now, they can coexist. Any discussion on that will not happen.)

As for my general opinion on vriska, or just the serkets in general?

I fucking hate them. So fucking much.

I mean, mindfang's lore was pretty cool i guess, but i just really prefer the signless/sufferer lore.

[drake-the-incubus]

This is a gift for @striderhell from the Homestuck Secret Santa 2020 (@homestuckss). I was aiming for 3000 words but uh, Dirk as a muse didn’t want to continue exploring the concept of gender given his rigid but philosophical nature.

I hope this was good, and if not just gimme a shout and I’ll try and come up with something better. 

Word Count: 1521 Fandom: Homestuck Characters: Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde Relationships: Dirk Strider & Roxy Lalonde (Platonic/Friends)

Additional Notes: Roxy uses He/Him and They/Them, I’ve never finished the epilogues but I love NB Rox. Dirk uses no pronouns in this, as I wanted to try that out. 

Please enjoy Dirk exploring his gender. 

Sometimes in an effort to define ourselves, we feel trapped to conform to some rigid aspect or label in hopes to reach an understanding of who we are. At times this process can be frustrating and dissatisfying. Other people take weeks or days, and some of them take years or never figure it out. 

Perhaps gender, as a construct, can’t be fully understood, but we can understand ourselves as people without it. The tale before you, is only a short of someone who wishes to take a journey many end up doing, and most have never encountered.

Dirk was sitting in a cafe on Earth-C, sipping on a coffee in between tinkering with another pair of shades. The goal was updating and adding a better set of graphics, hoping to add some additional features to make things easier.

It had been a while since the Prince of Heart had seen the rest of the gods. Jake would visit once in a while, and they would have a friendly spar or talk. Roxy would message once in a while, letting Dirk know any spicy news about the rest.

Dave would randomly show up, they would stare each other down before both Striders would give a thumbs up and go their separate ways.

Rose would often come by, trading witty banter and wisdom. Both of them struggled with the massive impact of their god tiers and would often talk about it to one another.

Today though, Dirk decided a change of area would suit this project best, specifically needing to leave the workshop and enjoy some caffeine. Recently a problem developed that would continue to nag at the Prince even through the night. Lack of sleep was the reason why Dirk had picked a coffee shop. It made the most sense.

Gender did not.

Dirk had been going through a lot lately, and when Roxy had come out as trans, it had been taken pretty well by most of them. Not that it would be different if Dirk came out either, but rather that would take knowing what was going on.

This was a laughable moment, since they all had beaten the game, made it out and enjoyed their own little home in the midst of nothing. Creating entire worlds and civilizations with the help of their space and time players, but Dirk was sitting there, in a cafe, trying to figure out what gender even was and how it related to the god’s own identity.

Pronouns were hard, but so was even figuring this shit out. Making a copy of your brain at thirteen was much easier than figuring out if you’re cis or not, and Dirk didn’t know.

The more it was thought about, the more the thought cropped up, what if it turned out the being Cis wasn’t the result. Dirk was absolutely sure about not being a chick, nothing really appealed about that, but then again there was a very similar feeling over the current gender.

Man, agender or woman. Those were the categories that presented themselves currently. Working harder to connect the shades to the newly built chip, Dirk jolted when suddenly Roxy sat down across the table.

“I called out to you, but you didn’t answer.” He said leaning over and looking over the project. “I was wondering what made you change location, you’re pretty adamant to work in your workshop Dirkie.”

“I needed to think, which I was doing when you were calling out to me. Thinking so hard about creating a new line of orange pop with more caffeine than this cup of coffee that the world died out and I was left to only the one set of thoughts for once.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms. “Really now? You think that I can’t tell something bigger is going on in that Strider head of yours? You’ve come up with projects while having a philosophical discussion with Rose and texting Dave a rap battle. You’re the king of multi-tasking, which also means your attention is usually divided more, and you’re attempting to put a wire on the wrong side of that.”

Dirk frowned and sighed, putting the project down. “Well, I can’t get nothing past you I suppose. I guess one thing that’s on my mind is how much I miss AR, since he was a good source of introspection, then again I have no idea if that would have helped in the first place.” Tapping fingers filled the space between them as the Prince looked outside at the billions of humans and trolls walking over the streets.

“I’ve been contemplating what gender is and how I relate to it since you came out as nonbinary. It’s been making me think about what is my gender, and I’ve come to the conclusion none of them really fit, but that’s also something to worry about since that means I don’t relate to any of the options-“

“Before you go on a long tangent, I want to ask, what are the options?” He interrupted Dirk while cocking his head.

“Agender, man and woman.” Dirk said bluntly, staring at Roxy. The laughter that resulted made the god tip the iconic shades down to stare at Roxy with deadpan orange eyes.

“I get greeted by your eye colour, score! But no, you got it all wrong, gender isn’t rigid categories, it’s a spectrum. You can’t define it by strict labels and there’s too many to count. So you don’t fit in three, there’s millions of genders. Some might not have a word for it right now. I’m nonbinary, but that’s because I’m not a man or a woman completely, I’m somewhere in the middle, closer to a man if I were to describe it as like, a sliding scale. So don’t be in a hurry, and don’t worry if you don’t figure it out.”

“I need to. Not knowing makes things difficult. I know it might be unhealthy to obsess over, but ever since I made Auto Responder, I had the need to understand myself fully and everything about myself.” With an elbow on the table, Dirk took a hand and raked it through the mess of hair. Having done so more than a hundred times earlier, the Prince was sure it was a complete and utter mess at this point, and would need to be taken care of at home.

“Well, I have a list of some of the other more known ones, maybe one of them check out for you?” He offered a tablet.

Dirk took it, and looked over the list of options and each description of it, mumbling under breath before placing the tablet back down with a definite, “I’m going to use Genderless for now and see what happens.” It looked interesting, the excerpt specifically outlined not having a gender at all due to neurodivergence, rather than lacking a gender or having no gender, different from agender. It didn’t feel much different from everything else, but nothing did. Having several of the entries be defined by one’s neurodivergence was weird, but the more thought placed into the concept, the more it felt real to Dirk. Rather it meant that the Prince would have to take Rose up on her offer to get a fully evaluation soon, even if both of them came to the conclusion Dirk was probably neurodivergent and that it wasn’t impactful with how the god had lived life before the game. 

“Are there any pronouns I should use for you?”

Pursing lips, Dirk gave a shake of the head. “None preferably. I think I need more time to actually think everything over. I have no positive or negative feelings for anything on there, and so I’m debating on if I’m everything or not. I can figure out how to make an exact replica of my own brain as a teenager, create robots, plot out the exact way I can kiss Jake and even save everyone's lives getting into the game. I’ve designed complex interactions to lead to the outcome I desire, and I can’t even pick a gender. This is quite frankly, ridiculous.”

“You don’t gotta. Dirk, it’s not about just picking a gender, it’s about figuring out a big part of yourself, and something most people don’t do for yours. You figured out you’re gay, now you’re figuring out what else you could be.” He placed a hand on Dirk’s and gave him a smile. “Whatever your result, I’m here for you. Even if you later think you’re a Cis man I’ll still be here for you. We might be siblings but we were friends first and that matters the most to me.”

Dirk gave a snort. “This is so fucking corny, but thanks Rox. I appreciate the love and support. Maybe I can treat you to another coffee since I feel like if I don’t buy one soon I’m going to be kicked out for making a mess of a window table.” Motioning towards the table, and standing up, the god stretched out. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Caramel Macchiato please.”

“Gotcha.”

[clariongradiation]

what's up guess who still reads homestuck in this, the year of our lord, 2020. anyway here's every homestuck character in Among Us (under the cut because i do mean every character)

John: happy-go-lucky, way too trusting. always goes off to do his tasks immediately, is usually completely oblivious to who might be an imposter. pretty good as imp, just because no one suspects him right away, but if you pay attention he never tries to fake any tasks 

Rose: makes strategic use of cams/admin table to achieve her goals, but due to this can be slow to complete her tasks. tends to filibuster the vote just because she types so much during meetings, but uses this to her advantage when she's imp to avoid getting voted out

Dave: also prefers to concentrate on tasks, but is way more observant than john. if he's sus of someone he'll follow them around to see if they're faking tasks. similar to rose, gets distracted in meetings coming up with raps instead of paying attention

Jade: likes to use the buddy system, but she'll carry it over between games so sometimes it makes her an easy target. will hang out in greenhouse/o2 when she's done with tasks. her gut sus feelings are pretty accurate in meetings, is a good imp but tries to avoid killing friends

Aradia: dgaf if she gets killed right away, will finish tasks then follow people around the map. if she’s haunting someone as a ghost they tend to get killed soon after. as imp she’s an impulse killer, but usually has pretty good timing so she doesn’t get caught in the act

Tavros: also task-focused, uses one of the little pets. has a hard time asserting himself in meetings, so even if he saw the kill he might not get around to accusing. regular victim of the imp pinning the blame on him. you can tell when he’s imposter because he gains Self Esteem

Sollux: ‘doesn’t play games for wiigglers’, but when he does he almost always wins. favors sabotages as imp, will use them to avoid meetings and get another kill. buddies up with the other imposter to get double kills, but will vote them out if they get caught

Karkat: adopts the loudest = rightest strategy in meetings. can usually be seen telling everyone to do their tasks and stop fucking around. not bad as imp, but gets flustered if someone accuses him out of the blue. sometimes gets voted out just so people don’t have to read his rants

Nepeta: master stalker, will vent kill with ruthless efficiency. always buddies up with equius, but will kill him and >:33c about it without mercy if she gets imp. draws fanart of the trolls as their among us avatars

Kanaya: precision killer, she’s slow but always makes absolutely sure she won’t get caught. extremely efficient at tasks, she’ll check on people’s visual tasks to see if they’re crew. will encourage tavros to type in meetings if he has something to say

Terezi: supreme detective, though sometimes she can get confused if her screen is too blurry. types a lot during meetings, but she’s always working around to an accusation (whether she’s imp or crew). big fan of sabotaging lights to get kills

Vriska: loud, bossy, forces votes. another impulse killer, if she gets caught killing she’ll bluster or point fingers to avoid getting accused. will randomly sabotage to throw people off. usually the one talking over tavros. has a 100% winrate if she gets imp with terezi

Equius: efficient as crew, but horrible as imp. never kills nepeta or anyone higher on the hemospectrum than him. won’t even vote them out even if he knows they’re the imp (gets too sweaty, has to find a towel, and will miss the vote)

Gamzee: will get distracted listening to game sounds or staring at the animations. if there are only a few tasks left to win, it’s a safe bet they’re his. (off sopor, he’s a ruthless killer that heavily favors venting, and is very good at deflecting blame onto someone else)

Eridan: no one likes to play with him because he always tries to turn it into some weird blackrom flirting. is a pretty good imp, but not very careful about getting caught because it’s ‘his right as a seqdwweller’. another one that gets voted out on principle (due to creepiness)

Feferi: just excited to be here, great team player. as imp she’ll kill people if she thinks they’re not doing their tasks fast enough. will apologize for kills in ghost chat if she gets voted off. almost never sabotages, but if she does it’s always one of the crises

Jane: hit-or-miss detective, good at putting cluse together but will take what people say at face value. can be pretty bossy, but you can tell if she’s imp because she doesn’t tell people to finish tasks. will vote someone out if she thinks they’re not working fast enough

Jake: like john will focus solely on tasks and be oblivious to imposters. unlike john, is bad at imp; gets stuck in his own head pretending to be a character from a movie and either doesn’t pay attention to people or forgets to do tasks. always surprised by kills, even his own

Roxy: as crew uses the buddy system, but as imp is absolutely ruthless; trust them at your own risk. great at distracting people in meetings by typing very fast. will accuse on instinct just to see what kind of reaction people have, very reliable about fixing sabotages

Dirk: another big talker, but no one ever gets what he’s talking about. sometimes gets distracted by watching cams and will forget to do tasks. is a good killer as imp, but his real specialty is getting people to think it’s someone else (either with accusations or with confusion)

Damara: completely chaotic, randomly won’t do tasks and will just follow people around. sometimes doesn’t even report bodies

Rufioh: good at encouraging crew, but pretty shy at killing. will usually skip vote if he’s imp, but is an accurate voter when crew

Mituna: single-minded focus on either tasks or killing. will ignore most sabotages, prefers to be alone unless he’s around latula

Kankri: doesn’t play as the game enforces harmful stereotypes about blood castes, culling, ableism, death, space travel, aliens, etc.

Meulin: always partnered with Kurloz, like nepeta is an excellent imp but can be distractable as crew. sometimes forgets to type during meetings

Porrim: extremely good at tracking what people are doing, will call out imposters that try to fake tasks, is Here for the Drama

Latula: runs around a lot, does tasks randomly, will follow mituna around to keep an eye on him, revenge kills imps that killed him earlier

Aranea: big talker, though she’ll get cut off by meenah. will buddy up to do tasks, but is also good at helping the other imp by sabotaging

Horuss: honestly pretty average, sometimes he wins and sometimes he loses. tends to ignore chat from those lower on the hemospectrum

Kurloz: never talks, seems to appear randomly around the map even if he can’t vent. usually hanging around meulin, even if one of them is the imp and the other is crew

Cronus: no one likes to play with him because he’s annoying, a creep, and an ass. usually voted off first on principle

Meenah: chaotic killer, will target one person then follow them around. doesn’t like doing tasks, but can be hassled into it by aranea. impulse votes in meetings

Calliope: helpful, full of headcanons, buddies up with Roxy. ifa  lot of people are talking she’ll stay quiet, but has a lot of opinions and advice if asked. absolutely abysmal at imp (pre-scratch self is quieter, a solo player, and extremely good as imp)

Caliborn: loud, annoying, rage quits, tries to cheat. very easy to tell when he’s imp because he’ll act all superior in chat. gets voted out and banned a lot.

Dad: are ya winnin son

Bec, Halley, GCAT, Vodka Mutini, Jaspers, Maplehoof, Seppucrow: they are just leetol bebbies

Colonel Sassacre: doesn’t know what a computer is

Serenity: amazing player, but no one understands blinking

Liv Tyler: also amazing player, but doesn’t talk at all so no one understands

Itcy, Die, Cans: don’t really get it, but ok at killing

The Mayor, AR, CD, Doze, Sawbuck, Eggs, Biscuits, Ms. Paint, consorts, Squarewave: don’t really get it, but ok at tasks

PM, WK, HB, Trace, Fin, Matchsticks, Quarters: decent players

WQ, DD, Clover, Crowbar, Snowman/BQ, Stitch, Sawtooth: actually really good players

Jack/Spades Slick: only interested in killing

Doc Scratch: insufferably omniscient, wouldn’t play even if someone wanted him to

Andrew Hussie: probably plays among us irl