#kanaya not mediating for once

[remma-demma]

Whoever did the art for this upd8 POPPED OFF I gotta do some art

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Is Eridan’s fake attempt for land dweller genocide just a manifestation of his guilt of orphaning all those trolls? He says he wants to kill them all so they will no longer have to deal the loss of losing their parent to some finned hipster asshole?

So Eridan's life pre-SGRUB is primarily concerned with one thing: it is his Duty as a violet-blood who is close to the Heiress to feed her lusus so that it doesn't throw a tantrum and Kill Everybody. It's a manifestation not of guilt, but of anxiety.

He describes the murder he commits in pursuit of this as "all i evver done practically," and we never see him participate in a hobby he enjoys - we learn he's a hipster because Karkat calls him one, he FLARPs to fill Gl'bgolyb's belly, and people have fought with me before, but I maintain that his "interest" in military history is also just a part of his posturing/something he reads like somebody would doomscroll, as it validates his anxiety, because he only ever talks about history twice, in the vaguest possible terms, and the first time, it's just part of him posturing at Kanaya, and the second time, he's literally just. Wrong? He's just incorrect?

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

CC: None of your plots to kill t)(e land dwellers ever work out, and every doomsday device you get your )(ands on turns out to be a piece of junk! CA: so CA: i got to keep tryin thats howw all the great military masterminds became great through upright persevverance

Like I just. Don't believe him when he says he's obsessed with military history when he doesn't seem to be able to name five specific battles, and thinks the main attribute a military leader needs to succeed is "persevverance". We know that Karkat's interest in romance is real because he brings it up more than twice and also starts infodumping about it to Vriska at one point, but Eridan only seems to mention it because he thinks he's supposed to care about it.

Which is pretty much, like, one of the biggest tensions in his character: how he feels he's supposed to act vs. how he actually feels about acting that way. He faces multiple pressures to be a certain person, which run counter to his actual feelings.

He has to be a murderer, because if he isn't one, then Gl'bgolyb will do a genocide on his entire species.

He has to be an unrepentant murderer, because they live in a horrible fascist murder-society where highbloods are supposed to kill lowbloods all the time for literally any reason.

He has to be the one getting his hands bloody because his ancestor, Dualscar, was also the Orphaner, and (especially highblood) trolls need to take up their ancestors' mantles.

He has to be rude and condescending to everybody else because that's how highbloods, and especially sea dwellers, have to act.

He cannot express compassion, sympathy, or pity, because sea dwellers and highbloods aren't supposed to act that way.

Magic has to be fake, because it's for shitty wigglers, and Eridan's not a wiggler anymore!

He has to be in a torrid pitch relationship because that was the most defining one Dualscar had, and he needs to complete Dualscar's unfinished business.

He has to be in a flushed relationship because Dualscar had an unrequited flushcrush on the empress, and he needs to complete Dualscar's unfinished business.

He has to hate the lowbloods because he's a highblood.

He has to hate the land dwellers because he's a sea dweller.

But wait! That's weird. He has to hate the land dwellers and lowbloods, but he's the one responsible for making sure they don't all die by keeping Gl'bgolyb full?

In truth, it would be all too easy to solve the land dweller problem once and for all. You'd just need to lighten up on the feeding schedule for a while. Maybe you'd be a little too busy to bother with that hassle for once? Or maybe you could happen to be off your game for a spell? It happens, even to the best sometimes. But nah. It would make her upset. More emotions. More problems. That's all you need.

And he has to be an unrepentant murderer even though he clearly feels more guilt for it than Feferi?

That should keep her happy for a while. And make a freshly orphaned troll somewhere pretty sad.

And you claim magic is fake idiot stuff for babies but you like it SOOOO much?

You also like MAGIC, even though you know it to be FAKE. Like a made up friend, the way wizards are. Made up make believe FAKEY FAKEY FAKES. It's still fun though.

So we can see that Eridan is basically being pulled two ways at all times.

On one hand, there's everything society says he needs to be: an unrepentant murderer, a military dictator, ruthless bloodthirsty sea-dwelling aristocracy, hater of all low bloods and land dwellers, Orphaner Dualscar's heir.

And on the other hand, there's the guy Eridan actually is: doesn't give a shit about the hemocaste, just wants friends and/or relationship partners, likes magic, like hipster stuff, kind of a tool, guilty and traumatized.

It doesn't help that the people he's surrounded by are the least likely to recognize his distress as distress - Feferi loooooves being a princess, Kanaya has never really voiced any strong opinions on the hemocaste because it largely doesn't concern her since she's a rare jade blood, and Vriska is doing a lot better than Eridan is at fitting the mold they were born into (not that she doesn't have problems, she's just doing better than Eridan, which is a low fucking bar). Even Karkat, because of his own hangups about being a mutant pariah, venerates the society he was born into, because he (wrongly) sees it as a means to gain validation so he can hate himself less. As a result, Eridan winds up with basically 0 support system, because pretty much every aspect of his life reinforces that the thing society says he should be is correct, and that there's something wrong with Eridan for being unable to meet that expectation.

Especially because, for at least all the "murderer" he's supposed to be, if he fails to meet that expectation, everybody dies. So it's not just that he's got a pushy lusus and a shitty society, like Vriska does, but that there's also the added weight that adhering to those expectations is literally, objectively, the correct thing to do, so long as he doesn't want literally everybody to die.

As a result, he's constantly trying to overcorrect his behavior and cognition to line up with what he thinks he's supposed to be. That's why he's constantly saying slurs even though he doesn't actually treat anybody differently for their caste. That's why he's constantly talking about murder and military history, even though he clearly doesn't enjoy doing either of those things. That's why he's always pushing this image of a big bad fascist wannabe, even though he actually wants to be a magic-slinging wizard.

The thing about genocide, for Eridan, is that he's already obsessed with genocide - the prevention of genocide. Keeping his species from being genocided is, without exaggeration, the most time-consuming pursuit in his life. BUT WAIT! He can't say, think, or believe that his actions are for the benefit of the land dwellers, because first of all, he feels kind of guilty about killing them, and second of all, because he's not allowed to express compassion to the people he's keeping safe. So between the stress, the cognitive dissonance, the anxiety, and the fact that Eridan doesn't really do a lot of introspection because he's so overwhelmed by emotion, his existing preoccupation with genocide is transmuted into something that's socially acceptable: "wanting all the land dwellers dead."

"[I]t would be all too easy." Indeed: if he ever slacks in his duties, they will all die. In fact, it's easier for him to let them die than to not. He clearly doesn't like doing all that killing, and it clearly makes him feel bad, and takes up a shitton of his time if nothing else, so it's probably occurred to him over, and over, and over, that maybe he should just... not! What if he just stopped.

Well, then everyone would die. Gl'bgolyb would raise her voice a little and it'd kill all the rust bloods, then the bronzes, the golds, the limes, the olives...

Wait! Is he feeling bad for them? He's not supposed to be feeling bad for the low bloods! Shit, shit, shit. Say a slur and then say something about how you WANT all the low bloods dead. PHEW. OKAY. SAFE. But that means you need to kill all the lowbloods. Because you said it, so it has to be true, and also, this is the way you're supposed to be. So, fuck, well, go commission a doomsday device. Okay, done. PHEW. It probably doesn't work, but nobody can say you didn't try! Hooray, you did it! You have performed a Sea Dweller Action! Oh it's time to go kill some people again. Damnit. Killing people sucks. It makes you feel bad, and it takes up so much of your time. What if you just didn't...

And we can see this with the way his lust for genocide is described. There's no mention of why he hates the land dwellers, no mention of how he believes society will improve with them gone, or even what they're doing that's so bad in the first place. He rambles at Feferi about "keeping the bloodlines pure" at one point, but this is clearly contradicted by him stating he wouldn't kill Kanaya, because what sort of friend would he be? (And the fact that he cares about Kanaya, Vriska, and the anon-blooded Karkat, who could be literally any blood color, at all!)

So yeah, like, the thing is, he doesn't want to kill them all. He even calls himself out for knowing his latest doomsday plot was a bust from the start:

You are almost starting not to care about this stupid doomsday device which probably won't even work. She probably KNOWS you know it won't work. She has probably put all the pieces together and knows it was an elaborate ruse to be in cahoots with her again.

And so does Feferi:

CC: None of your plots to kill t)(e land dwellers ever work out, and every doomsday device you get your )(ands on turns out to be a piece of junk! CA: so CA: i got to keep tryin thats howw all the great military masterminds became great through upright persevverance CC: I t)(ink deep down you stack t)(ese plots against you so you fail because you know it's wrong.

And here he is outright contradicting his stated goal of killing the land dwellers because, jegus, he'd never kill his friends:

CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

And a reminder that one of his closest friends at this point in time is Karkat, whose blood color is currently anonymous to his friend group, meaning he could be literally any blood color and Eridan wouldn't want him dead:

CC: You know, I'm not sure w)(y we never talk about our romantic aspirations. CC: We s)(ould more often. It is kind of -EXCITING! CA: shrug CC: Probably because you fill your gossip quota wit)( your nubby )(orned bro.

But Karkat also explicitly lumps himself in with the low bloods, so Eridan can't even use the excuse that Karkat might be nobility (but sea dwellers are still suppose to hate land dwelling nobility so that still wouldn't be a defense EVEN IF it was true):

CG: CHALK IT UP AS ANOTHER INFURIATING VICTORY FOR GUTTER BLOOD OVER ARISTOCRACY.

Because Eridan does not want to genocide the land dwellers. He's just anxious.

[tipsygnostalgy]

"It was never that serious," said Rose Lalonde calmly. — a deranged rant on update rose + philosophy

now that rose has officially hopped onto the "nothing matters" track of things i'm inclined to believe faux-absurdism is a sleeping agent in the strilondian neuroticism paradigm moreso than a real plot point but yeah anyway i have mixed feelings

on one hand i can definitely see why people don't like her / think she's ooc. the classic process of "cause major change in a character" goes inciting incident -> development -> big blowout moment demonstrating the change (appropriated + bastardized from mr freytag himself), and in my personal opinion the comic jumped the gun on this one? we get the inciting incident (candy timeline's irrelevancy) and both irl timeline and character arcwise are plunged straight into the blowout with very little time in between. there's a tiny hint with the light symbol playing a role (more on this later) but for the most part it feels sudden and unjustified if you're insane about rose + understand sufficient epilogues metaphilosophy + and are coded specifically to like this type of shit you Get Exactly What's Going On and fucking dig it. if you don't, you think they've put her through a meat grinder and i can see both

on the OTHER. dear god i'm sucking on the sweet teats of knowledge and absurdism like a baby at the bath. her swapping her constant need of "why" to "why not" and both rose's constant struggle with Light mixing with the irrelevancy of candy and coalescing in one big idgaf war except.

except on the third hand it's worth mentioning that she's also half-assing absurdism so bad that it gets pathetic. her last line "I knew you would forgive me anyway" actually solidifies this arc as one big tantrum that they plan on developing into Not A Thing (hopefully) because she doesn't tell kanaya "I knew it wouldn't matter." the forgiveness is what she focuses on. the forgiveness matters. kanaya still matters to her whether this dumbass light player is consciously aware of this or not and i think ironically KANAYA knows this better than she does which is part of her saying she refuses to mediate this one. on a rosemary level this is jaw-dropping on a character level BOOOO

MAKE HER ABSURDIST! make her sit there and do things not for the sake of kanaya but literally only to do them. make her sit there and genuinely believe the only obligation in reality is to live it. dirk fails at being a true absurdist too he starts injecting meaning into life like there's motherfucking nothing and rose actually acknowledging there's zero meaning whatsoever but living anyway and in that process learning to love life (juxtaposes jake's adventurer) would juxtapose her to him but NOOOOOO she has to sit there and go Well there's no meaning to Life. It was Never that serious. Fuck you. but then refuse to kill herself (thereby proving camus right once again) then now what. now What. Ohhhh "nothing" matters cool then die. dirk's suicide was meaningful because he broke that formula okay he went There's no meaning to life? Ok. then immediately hung himself he DEVOURED that sequence he subverted absurdism back into existentialism which is cool but ROSE COULD PERPENDICULAR THAT!

[dirkspanelcollection]

Pesterlog/Conversation between Eridan and Kanaya from page 2343

not really a panel, i know. but i love this exchange too much not to put it here.

Full log under cut.

caligulasAquarium [CA] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin

GA: Who

CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very CooperativeGA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok

CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone doesCA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to

GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less

CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticingCA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

GA: If Your Slander Werent So Predictable Id Block You Too For Saying That GA: Has It Occurred To You She May Have Blocked You Because You Are Vvery OvverbearingGA: I Just Said That Aloud Now In Your Silly Accent And Had A Private Moment Of Enjoyment

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

GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent GA: What Do You Want From Her Anyway

CA: she made me somethin per a prior arrangementCA: she wwill delivver it wwhen wwe meet in this game but i dont knoww wwhat the logistics are yetCA: im tryin to connoiter wwith her here but shes blowwin me off again fickle dirtscrapin landhag

GA: What Is It

CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethinCA: ok wwell not that obvviouslyCA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after

GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That

CA: wwellCA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionableCA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

GA: Also Speculate For A Moment That Self Preservation Might Not Be What Would Sway My Decision

CA: yeah go ahead and kiss us off but therell be blood on your handsCA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched toCA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps

CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworksCA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at onceCA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

GA: Its Just GA: Laborious Listening To ThisGA: Im SorryGA: None Of It Matters

CA: yeah it does its important sorry but the fate of the race and purity of the bloodline is important excuse me for being concerned

GA: I Know GA: But You Really Should Know By Now The World Will End Tonight RegardlessGA: Land And Sea Dwellers Alike Will All DieGA: Because Of The Game We Are About To PlayGA: And I Agree The Fate Of The Race Is Important But Its In My Hands NowGA: All Of Ours Really

CA: huhCA: wwell ok

GA: Really

CA: ordinarily id call bullshit on terrible stinkin bs like that but i knoww you dont really lie about stuffCA: unless its to yourselfCA: but thats wwhy i bother evven talking to you i wwouldnt evven be here SAYIN any of this otherwwiseCA: so did your clouds tell you that

GA: The Doomsday Scenario In Particular GA: No Not Exactly

CA: i got clouds and they dont tell me SHIT they hide nothin but misfortune and monstrositiesCA: fuckin pain in the ass fuckin cloudsCA: so howw do you knoww then

GA: I Have Another Source

CA: ok wwell you are jacked tight the fuck into this thing in so many wways i dont knoww wwhat to say anymoreCA: wwhatevver wwe wwill just play and find out i guessCA: so can you tell her to talk to me anywway

GA: No

CA: god dammitCA: she and me are teammates wwevve got to havve a powwwwoww or SOMETHING

GA: You Arent Actually On The Same Team

CA: fuckCA: fine i get it ill step offCA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

GA: No Thats Not It

CA: yeah it is your real feelins run pretty awwful RUDDY methinks evverybody knowws itCA: especially that assblood karkat he and me havve you so pegged about that its upright sillyCA: but its cool its totally fine dont wworry ill leavve you alone and givve you a shot

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience

CA: wwhatCA: wwhoa wwait wwho

GA: Never Mind

CA: ok wwait did she talk to you todayCA: wwhat did she sayCA: or glub or wwhatevver

GA: Something About Longing To Touch You Indiscretely

CA: WWWWHAT

GA: And That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You GA: As Deep In The Flushed Quadrant As One Can Be

CA: wwaitCA: did she actually say thatCA: in confidence

GA: To The Letter

CA: can you copy exactly wwhat she said

GA: Absolutely Not

CA: this is bullshit youre bee essing me in some wway awwfulCA: you dont lie but you do tease and ill tranfuse my kickass royal blood out wwith incontinent musclebeast discharge if i wwont knoww wwhen im gettin hooked

GA: Yeah GA: Shes Just A Concerned MoirailGA: Looking Out For YouGA: Thats All

CA: awwww fuckCA: see im tellin youCA: you got to play your cards right

GA: What Do You Mean

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

GA: Oh GA: Hmm

CA: kan its hard

GA: What

CA: being a kid and growwing up

CA: its hard and nobody understands

caligulasAquarium [CA] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

[mwezina]

The Sylph/Witch and Character Arcs

The defining question for the Sylph/Witch is, “What is my purpose?” 

You may have noticed at this point that I did not do the usual pairs of Heir/Witch and Sylph/Maid. The reason for that may seem silly, but I noticed that there are essentially three sections to all the classes (with the exception of the master classes). Classes that can be found outside of castle walls on a campaign or within the cities (rogues, thieves, knights, and pages). Classes that can be found within a castle either working or by birthright (heirs, maids, princes, and bards). And classes that are found far away from civilization and are only sought out in times of great distress (sylphs, witches, mages, and seers). 

The other reason is the emotional journey that these classes go through. Sylphs and Witches must both travel through a point of extreme hopelessness --the dark night of the soul-- and are deeply affected by it, to the point that it changes their entire outlook. This in turn changes the trajectory of the story. 

Setting

The Sylph/Witch lives in an untamed world that faces the possible annihilation of everything that they care about. Their world may be untamed wilderness with the Sylph/Witch encouraging the growth of civilization, or their world may be untamed because they chose the wild over civilization. But there is something threatening both the wild and the morals of the Sylph/Witch. 

These classes live on the outskirts of other people’s lives. Centred and in tune with the world, but not with its people. When the horror first knocks upon their door, the Sylph/Witch may wonder if this has anything to do with them. They may believe more active classes will solve it with a little guidance, or that the problem isn’t such a big deal. However, only the Sylph/Witch has the power to protect their world from the oncoming threat. And only the Sylph/Witch has the wisdom to see the truth of the horror and accept it. 

Internal Conflict

The Sylph/Witch must see that they still have value to the world. Even though all has been lost before the story even began, they must find their way back into the people’s hearts. 

Once the Sylph/Witch embraces the world, they will see their own purpose and be able to keep moving forward. 

External Conflict

The Sylph/Witch must face the forces of evil with the help of others. We will see that the horror is usually not a concrete antagonist, but a problem that appears to have no solution. 

This horror is especially terrifying to the Sylph/Witch because it mirrors their deepest fears. Whether it is a nemesis long-past or a glimpse of their own future, the external conflict is something that the Sylph/Witch is convinced they cannot face. And it’s precisely because of this belief that this journey through the dark night of the soul will achieve the most amount of growth within them. 

The Sylph

The Sylph answers their defining question with a shrug of the shoulders. “I have no purpose, and I intend to keep it that way.” Sylphs see themselves as outsiders, and merely an old fool, fetching the main characters and tagging along for the ride. They undervalue what they have to offer, and foist the responsibility onto other, more capable players. 

They can fall into the hermit archetype, as they wander around in the wilderness focused on their own goals, unwilling to connect with others. 

Examples

The first example is Kanaya Maryam from Homestuck. She faces the extinction of her species because there is no longer a Matriorb. She stays on the periphery of relationship dramas, mediating instead of playing an active role. 

The other example is Gandalf the Grey from The Fellowship of the Ring. Gandalf senses evil in the ring that Bilbo found and intuits it will bring great devastation. He sets the hero onto the journey, but steps out of it, focused on his own goals. He thinks he cannot offer anything to the heroes except by running around in the background, handling logistics and behind-the-scenes. But Gandalf must face his fears and learn to fight on the front-lines protecting those he cares about. 

End Goal

The Sylph’s goal is to find their purpose and face the horror for the greater good of the world. Whether that means seeing with clear vision what it means for the horror to triumph and rallying their comrades, or stepping up themselves and filling a role they are unaccustomed to, the Sylph must face their dark night of the soul in order to save their world. 

Kanaya uses the powers of a Rogue of Void to spawn another Matriorb. She guides Roxy to find it, seeing with clear vision that the mother grub must be recovered. She also puts aside her own fears around romance by starting one with Rose. 

(You may also notice that Kanaya is the only Homestuck character that I talk about in the “end goal” section. And that’s because she’s the only one that completes her class’ character arc.) 

Gandalf faces the Balrog of Moria alone in service of Frodo's journey to destroy The One Ring. He faces his fears and grows from the experience, maturing into Gandalf the White and facing the forces of evil head-on, with renewed confidence. 

The Witch

The Witch answers the defining question by insisting that they already know their purpose. There is nothing to learn, nothing to protect. They live for themself alone. 

They can fall into the sorceress archetype (as though “witch” wasn’t already an “evil archetype”!). They will connive and steal and manipulate to get everyone else out of their way. 

Examples

Jade Harley from Homestuck is a prime example. She is playful by nature and doesn’t take the threat of either Jack Noir nor Lord English seriously. She uses her magic for her own entertainment and her forceful personality often prioritises her needs above those of others. 

Carl Fredricksen from Up is another example. He chases the dreams of his late wife, leaving everything he knows behind. He wants to ignore all the problems and people he meets along the way, focusing only on the goals he made with Ellie. 

End Goal

The end goal of the Witch is to find a purpose in service of others and to face their fears with honesty. Just like the Sylph, the Witch shies away from the horror because they are afraid, but they mask that fear with a preoccupation on the self. 

Carl stands up to Charles to stop him from killing Kevin the Himalayan Monal Pheasant. He faces the fear of death whether in body or in legacy with bravery. He accepts Ellie’s death and the end of Charle’s (as well as his own) era of adventure. The horrors of death, loss, and end of eras are just a natural part of life, and Carl accepts them with grace. Then, he goes on to pursue further adventures with new people he cares about, adding them to the repertoire of people he loves, never replacing. 

Conclusion

The Sylph/Witch may live in an untamed world. But through their actions, they can find meaning and relationships within it. By the end of their story, the world will no longer be untamed, and they will no longer reside on the outskirts. The Sylph/Maid has found a way into the heart of their world, and they intend to stay there. They will find their own value, and finally face the horror that threatens their world. Through facing this horror, they realise it is not pure horror, but a wonderful opportunity. An opportunity to not only accept what has passed, but also grow from it. 

[pesterloglog]

Eridan Ampora, Kanaya Maryam

Act 5, page 2343

caligulasAquarium [CA] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin

GA: Who

CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative

GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok

CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does

CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to

GA: Why Do I Got To

GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less

CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing

CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

GA: If Your Slander Werent So Predictable Id Block You Too For Saying That

GA: Has It Occurred To You She May Have Blocked You Because You Are Vvery Ovverbearing

GA: I Just Said That Aloud Now In Your Silly Accent And Had A Private Moment Of Enjoyment

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her

CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right

GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

GA: What Do You Want From Her Anyway

CA: she made me somethin per a prior arrangement

CA: she wwill delivver it wwhen wwe meet in this game but i dont knoww wwhat the logistics are yet

CA: im tryin to connoiter wwith her here but shes blowwin me off again fickle dirtscrapin landhag

GA: What Is It

CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin

CA: ok wwell not that obvviously

CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after

GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That

CA: wwell

CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable

CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

GA: Also Speculate For A Moment That Self Preservation Might Not Be What Would Sway My Decision

CA: yeah go ahead and kiss us off but therell be blood on your hands

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to

CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps

CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks

CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once

CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

GA: Its Just

GA: Laborious Listening To This

GA: Im Sorry

GA: None Of It Matters

CA: yeah it does its important sorry but the fate of the race and purity of the bloodline is important excuse me for being concerned

GA: I Know

GA: But You Really Should Know By Now The World Will End Tonight Regardless

GA: Land And Sea Dwellers Alike Will All Die

GA: Because Of The Game We Are About To Play

GA: And I Agree The Fate Of The Race Is Important But Its In My Hands Now

GA: All Of Ours Really

CA: huh

CA: wwell ok

GA: Really

CA: ordinarily id call bullshit on terrible stinkin bs like that but i knoww you dont really lie about stuff

CA: unless its to yourself

CA: but thats wwhy i bother evven talking to you i wwouldnt evven be here SAYIN any of this otherwwise

CA: so did your clouds tell you that

GA: The Doomsday Scenario In Particular

GA: No Not Exactly

CA: i got clouds and they dont tell me SHIT they hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities

CA: fuckin pain in the ass fuckin clouds

CA: so howw do you knoww then

GA: I Have Another Source

CA: ok wwell you are jacked tight the fuck into this thing in so many wways i dont knoww wwhat to say anymore

CA: wwhatevver wwe wwill just play and find out i guess

CA: so can you tell her to talk to me anywway

GA: No

CA: god dammit

CA: she and me are teammates wwevve got to havve a powwwwoww or SOMETHING

GA: You Arent Actually On The Same Team

CA: fuck

CA: fine i get it ill step off

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

GA: No Thats Not It

CA: yeah it is your real feelins run pretty awwful RUDDY methinks evverybody knowws it

CA: especially that assblood karkat he and me havve you so pegged about that its upright silly

CA: but its cool its totally fine dont wworry ill leavve you alone and givve you a shot

GA: Its Unbelievable

GA: Her Patience

CA: wwhat

CA: wwhoa wwait wwho

GA: Never Mind

CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today

CA: wwhat did she say

CA: or glub or wwhatevver

GA: Something About Longing To Touch You Indiscretely

CA: WWWWHAT

GA: And That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You

GA: As Deep In The Flushed Quadrant As One Can Be

CA: wwait

CA: did she actually say that

CA: in confidence

GA: To The Letter

CA: can you copy exactly wwhat she said

GA: Absolutely Not

CA: this is bullshit youre bee essing me in some wway awwful

CA: you dont lie but you do tease and ill tranfuse my kickass royal blood out wwith incontinent musclebeast discharge if i wwont knoww wwhen im gettin hooked

GA: Yeah

GA: Shes Just A Concerned Moirail

GA: Looking Out For You

GA: Thats All

CA: awwww fuck

CA: see im tellin you

CA: you got to play your cards right

GA: What Do You Mean

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people

CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

GA: Oh

GA: Hmm

CA: kan its hard

GA: What

CA: being a kid and growwing up

CA: its hard and nobody understands

caligulasAquarium [CA] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

[thewertsearch]

GA: What Do You Want From Her Anyway CA: she made me somethin per a prior arrangement CA: she wwill delivver it wwhen wwe meet in this game but i dont knoww wwhat the logistics are yet CA: im tryin to connoiter wwith her here but shes blowwin me off again fickle dirtscrapin landhag

There’s that bloodism again. CC didn’t display any prejudice, so I was starting to hope that Equius was a bit of an outlier in that regard. 

I guess CA’s already shown disdain for the land-dwellers, so I really shouldn’t be surprised. 

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after

So he was the doomsday commissioner. 

Genocide feels like a bridge too far, even for the average troll. It’s too early to tell if he’s serious about it, since a lot of trolls are all bark and no bite. Either way, what’s this guy’s problem? 

GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable

So, what? You’re going to kill all land dwellers, but make an exception for the ‘good ones’?

I want to give the guy a chance, so I guess I’ll reserve judgement for now. After all, Vriska seemed cartoonishly evil before we knew her story. 

CA: yeah go ahead and kiss us off but therell be blood on your hands CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks

Alright, things are getting a little clearer. 

In troll culture, there are situations where a blossoming kismesis relationship is a bad thing. CA is describing a particularly tumultuous, destructive blackrom, and implying that Kanaya should want to prevent this.

If I had to guess why this is undesirable, I’d point to CA’s colorful description of, essentially, collateral damage. An unhealthy rivalry can boil over, harming any bystanders unlucky enough to be nearby at the time - and it is the role of an auspistice to nip these rivalries in the bud.

I can see a huge problem with this system - and it comes down to simple mathematics. 

CA is being kind of crass here, but he’s getting at a very important point. Auspisticing requires emotional intelligence, and a calm disposition - traits that I think it’s reasonable to assume are pretty rare on Alternia. There can’t be that many trolls emotionally equipped to be auspistices - but unhealthy relationships are surely a dime a dozen. 

Kanaya might not be overstretching herself by choice. She’s one of the only trolls who can adequately perform this role, and she’s outnumbered a hundred to one by the rivalries she’s trying to prevent. 

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Alpha kids + trolls and whether or not they like Twilight

Hooooo boi this is gonna be a long one but alright challenge challenged

ALPHA KIDS:

Jake: Yes. A thousand times yes. This guy canonically has no taste in movies of course he's gonna watch Twilight and enjoy it. He thinks Renesme is brilliant. The direction astounding, the soundtrack, effervescent. He cannot be stopped, swayed, or distracted from his love of Twilight

Roxy: Yes, for separate, but similar, reasons than Jake. She knows it's trash. It's garbage and poorly written, and you know what? Sometimes the garbage is okay. Great even. She has taste in movies but she's also completely capable of enjoying a bad movie without tearing it apart. Because a bad movie is better than a boring movie.

Jane: No. Hard no. She thinks they're idiotic and nonsensical, the plot pandering and meandering with no point or direction, like a frisbee caught in a tornado but less entertaining. The first thing she does as soon as she can is buy up every copy and stop distribution online to halt it's continued existence in Earth C

Dirk: No, the last thing he's looking for is another trite hetero love triangle between the personification of beige, a Dirk Strider Clone a pretentious control freak and a Dirk Strider Clone an angsty furry.

TROLL TIME

Aradia: The girl loves all things dead and dying, she is goth incarnate. Of course she likes it. I wouldn't say she loves it though. She just thinks it's neat. Like the kind of movie you put on a lazy sunday afternoon or when you wanna read something on a bus ride. Quaint is a good word for how she sees it

Tavros: I'd say he likes it tbh. It's an engaging story for him, not for any plot reasons but more for the drawn out character conflicts. He thinks the people in it are intriguing and largely play off each other well.

Sollux: No, and you couldn't make him read it with a warship to his head. The writing is boring and just all edge with no point, like a pizza cutter, and if he wanted one of those he'd go to the kitchen section and he is a terrible cook. Metaphor is getting out of hand but the point is he thinks it's dumb and looses a bit of respect for anyone who does like it.

Karkat: Do I need to say it? Probably because this is what this whole thing is about. Yes he adores this series. He hates the plot but who cares about that when you get such strong emotions pulled out between bell-bottom jeans and ed wood, though he thinks it would have made more sense as a ashen-rom once jake's weird clone entered the picture where taco bell pits fullmetal vampire against sharkboy and she has to play ringmaster and mediator. But for what it is it's great in his book.

Nepeta: Absolutely not. Ehhhhh threw you for a curveball there didn't I? Anyways, no, Nepeta cannot bring herself to tolerate Twilight even in passing conversation. The plot is serviceable but the characters have no chemistry to be spoken of. They're only together because they're the main characters, there's nothing they have in common other than being as tasty as celery, and Nepeta want's a juicy romance with some m33t on it's bones.

Kanaya: Yes, so much yes that it is like one of the first things established about her character. She likes Twilight. No, she ADORES Twilight. The angst, the longing, the separation and then the reunion of the leads, it's tastier than any blood she drinks. This is the closest she had ever come to understanding being attracted to men, though she normally mentally rewrites them as ladies when she can't be bothered to manually regender the characters.

Terezi: No, she's not averse to it but she's got better, less self-indulgent things to do with her time. She can picture herself maybe reading it after a particularly rough breakup or if she's in an uncharacteristically angsty mood, but otherwise no. Besides, romance isn't normally a priority for her, it's more having a good time. Or at least that's what she tells herself

Vriska: Yes, definitely, absolutely. She is a sucker for trash a la Mindfang's journal and is also, in my opinion, a hopeless romantic with bad taste and even worse judgement. It's just the right amount of saucy and intriguing for her to follow, but she does bemoan the lack of Bella kicking ass. Otherwise though it's a regular read for her.

Equius: Yes, but with some caveats. He would never openly admit to enjoying Twilight, as per the norm is for him, but he looses himself picturing himself as Bella, being longed after and not hurting someone for once while still being focused on for whatever reason. It's cathartic for him.

Gamzee: I don't think he can read, but even if he could he wouldn't pay any attention to it in any state of mind. Stoned Gamzee would think it's just part of a really long commercial and sober Gamzee would dismiss it as boring.

Eridan: Yes, it appeals to his melodramatic nature. A five movie long conflict over who gets to kiss whomst that could have easily been solved in a week or so by actually sitting down and thinking about what you want in life? Sign him the fuck up!

Feferi: Nah, she's had enough of that bullshit and she's not about that life. She thinks Bella is a wishy-washy protagonist and the story is nothing special. She wishes people would get over it and read other stuff, there's plenty of fishes in the books and this one isn't really worth getting in a twist over in any sense of the word.

-Mod Terezi

[katsidhe]

could you share the descriptions of the answers? I'm bad at answering these quizzes cause I always get like 3 answers that fit but in different circumstances so I like seeing all of the descriptions

Yeah sure! I too wish uquiz gave an option to see all the result descriptions... alas. 

anyway here’s a wall of text, go nuts. 

DEAN-CODED DEAN GIRL

You might just be the hero of a YA fantasy novel or an action movie, because you have Big Protag Energy. You’re self-centered and extremely giving at the same time: you expect and demand absolute loyalty, just as you provide the same. Your love can move mountains, but if you’re not careful that same love can be suffocating or controlling. You’re volatile: you’ll cut a bitch and you don’t care who knows it. You’ll kick their ass. You’ll kick their dog’s ass. You’ll kick your own ass. You have a one-liner for every occasion. Your friends like you but would describe you as “a lot.” You’re magnetic: your charisma and sheer bull-headedness mean you stand out in every room. You’re polarizing, and you know it, but that doesn’t bother you: you know you’re right, and even when you’re wrong, you’re at least entertaining. You’re very “do as I say, not as I do:” you’re a bit of a hypocrite, but, like, in a fun way.  

Holotypes include: Dean Winchester (Supernatural), Thomas Jefferson (Hamilton), Sirius Black (Harry Potter), Kathryn Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager), Katara (ATLA), Vriska Serket (Homestuck)

DEAN-CODED SAM GIRL

You are a charmer and a people-pleaser. You’re charismatic to a fault, when you want to be: whether consciously or not, you have a razor-keen sense of how others see you, and you mold yourself to expectations. You can either talk circles around most people, or you come across as so fundamentally honest that you gain everyone’s trust without trying. Your affable persona is built on a rock-solid sense of purpose. You have a steadfast, deadset fixation on your goals, which you know in your heart to be worth any cost and any sacrifice. Armed with iron conviction, you’re a rebel with a cause. Is it paranoia if they really are all out to get you? When you inevitably win, the whole world will know your name. Your strong sense of self will carry you through any hardship. Your friends look up to you, but they don’t always “get” you. 

Holotypes include: Lucifer (Supernatural), Eponine (Les Mis), Count Olaf (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Prince Zuko (ATLA), Samwise Gamgee (LOTR), Karkat Vantas (Homestuck)

DEAN-CODED CAS GIRL 

Like all Dean-coded people, you are charming and affable, and you talk a big game. You might be the class clown or a popular athlete, or otherwise one of them cool kids, but underlying that public persona is a certain quiet idealism. You keep your strong convictions close to your heart, even when far from home or beset by strife. You’re fiercely loyal and you crave being around people, but you can see when your friends need space, and you can get along okay on your own. You’re not afraid to change your opinions if new information comes to light. Strangers find you easy to get along with: you tend to go along with the group, and you’re a team player no matter what needs to get done. Your chill-to-pull ratio is sky-high.

Holotypes include: Ahsoka (Star Wars), Meg (Supernatural), Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson), Ginny Weasley (Harry Potter), Boromir (LOTR), Jon Snow (Game of Thrones)

SAM-CODED DEAN GIRL

You come across as level headed, but you’re never more than an inch from going off the rails. Your highest values are love and personal loyalty, but you’re pragmatic about it, and you try very hard not to put unfair expectations on other people, with varying degrees of success. You spend a lot of time dealing with expectations; it’s something you either grapple with, or lean into to use to your own ends. You value your own sense of identity, but that identity can get subsumed by your loyalties. You can easily get pulled in or suborned by strong personalities. You keep secrets, both from yourself and from others. Who you want to be is at odds with how you see yourself. People meeting you for the first time might say you’re aloof. You have lots of strong opinions, but you usually keep them to yourself… unless provoked. Careful; you bite. 

Holotypes include: Mary Winchester (Supernatural), Harry Potter (Harry Potter), Aragorn (LOTR), Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars), Julian Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games) 

SAM-CODED SAM GIRL

Gifted kid (diagnosis). You were and maybe still are an outsider, and because of that you’ve had to learn to be self-sufficient and confident in your own abilities. You’re a fiercely independent overachiever, and you’ve fought hard for every inch. Somewhere inside you is a hot, long simmering rage born from the injustice of the world, but it’s buried very deep. You’d be more than content to be alone for long periods of time. You have sometimes crippling perfectionism: if you aren’t succeeding, it’s your fault for not trying hard enough. You’ll pick every kind of intellectual fight and throw yourself into playing devil’s advocate just to improve your understanding: you see the gray areas in everything. You’re aggressively big-picture. You want to, no, you MUST change the universe, but you don’t need to take credit for it. Your few friends might describe you as callous, but you know you’re just being realistic: you’ve got a harsh, clear-eyed sense of the world. No pain, no gain, and really, if you do the math, no single individual is all that important in the grand scheme of things.  

Holotypes include: Kevin Tran (Supernatural), Jean Valjean (Les Miserables), Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars), Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter), Frodo Baggins (LOTR), Dirk Strider (Homestuck), Luke Castellan (Percy Jackson)

SAM-CODED CAS GIRL

You have a strong sense of how the world ought to be, but you have no overriding vision or big master plan: you take life day by day to fix the little things you can. You have very few close relationships, but those you have you treasure dearly. You support your few friends unconditionally, but you tend to be emotionally distant with acquaintances. You may be a bit of a pushover. You often find yourself put in the position of mediator. You loathe conflict, so you avoid it unless absolutely necessary--but once you’re truly angry, you’ll stop at nothing to see justice done. You’re a diplomat and an advocate: you are deeply idealistic, but you’re nevertheless strongly grounded in a pragmatic sense of achieving what you can. Philosophy is action, action is philosophy; you like meditation and self-improvement and have probably done at least one juice cleanse. Both friends and strangers describe you as quietly dependable. If you can’t see the trauma, the trauma can’t see you! That’s just science!

Holotypes include: Sam Winchester (Supernatural), BJ Hunnicut (M*A*S*H), Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Aang (ATLA), Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Nico di Angelo (Percy Jackson)

CAS-CODED DEAN GIRL

Much of your identity is tied up in a set of core beliefs - to the point where those beliefs might be strong enough to override your identity. You’re not beholden to any outside system. If you’re comfortable serving a larger common goal, it’s because you believe in it wholeheartedly. You’re action-oriented: you act first, and think later, or possibly never. You judge your friends solely based on what they do, and you tend to hold people accountable for any unforeseen consequences of their choices. You have strong personal loyalties. You’re not at the center of your social circle, but your friends trust you implicitly and the leader of your group tends to confide in you. You don’t seek power, but you’re also not afraid of taking charge, and you may find power thrust upon you. If you do find yourself in a position of leadership, you struggle with going too far or taking your friends in an unexpected direction. Whether you’re fighting in a war or making yourself a sandwich, you go hard in the motherfuckin’ paint.

Holotypes include: Castiel (Supernatural), Javert (Les Miserables), Captain Rex (Star Wars), Kanaya Maryam (Homestuck), Worf (Star Trek), Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter)

CAS-CODED SAM GIRL

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you’re a bit weird. You are spacey or odd or otherwise out of step with how people think you should act, but that’s fine. It doesn’t matter what they think, because if you’re sure of one thing, it’s that you should never mold your unique identity to other people’s expectations. You live internally: you’re all about grand, world-changing concepts, whether they be philosophical, artistic, or mathematical. You are grounded in the reality that you are one person and one viewpoint among many others, but that doesn’t stop you from writing your nine-hundred page thesis on the topic you’re passionate about. You can justify just about anything by the virtue of your personal convictions arising almost entirely from within yourself. Your identity can get swept up in your big ideas. You’re easier to sway with logic than with emotion, but you don’t feel the need to confine yourself with such terms: you operate on both vibes and flowcharts. You move through the world with the assurance that you are the master of your own fate, and you are unburdened by worrying about the opinions of others. You won’t let yourself feel pinned down by one social group; you float in and out comfortably, depending on how you’re feeling. Friends and strangers describe you as “spooky.”

Holotypes include: Azazel (Supernatural), Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter), Aaron Burr (Hamilton), Princess Azula (ATLA), Yoda (Star Wars), Jadzia Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Terezi Pyrope (Homestuck)

CAS-CODED CAS GIRL

You are chaotic and excitable. You’re swayed by the drive to explore: the greatest good is to understand the universe and your place in it. You’ve got big ideas, and you’re drawn to new experiences, but you don’t necessarily understand what’s going on. You might be a part of a bigger social machine, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be defined on its terms: you’ll self-actualize if it kills you. You identify new objects by licking them. You can see the strings of the world; what will you choose? You’ll take the reins and see where they take you. You say you’re following your own path. Your friends say you don’t know what you’re doing. Pragmatism? Never heard of her. A dream is a vision is a reality; ideas are the world writ large. You might be a prophet or a visionary. With your head in the clouds, you’re sometimes divorced from both reality and consequences. You’re usually on the outside looking in, and you don’t want to be. People think they understand you, but they definitely don’t. Your friends and enemies describe you as impulsive and mysterious. 

Holotypes include: Raphael (Supernatural), Uncle Iroh (ATLA), Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter), Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars), Gandalf (LOTR)

[macklives]

session 99 end

ok ill do that next time then so i can actually get to know the new character with a fresh brain which hasnt been overrun by troll romance and an unwarranted kiss

so ok im not gonna put too much in the end notes bc that was a lot, and i basically went hard in understanding it in the posts itself so reread those if u want my understanding, otherwise here ill sum it up 

soooo

horizontal quadrant portion of the chart: relationships based on the physical and “love” or “hate” during the relationships

vertical quadrant portion of the chart: relationships based on the platonic affections during the relationships

black romance: the hate (spades/clubs)

red romance: the love (diamonds/hearts)

pale/morallegenenienence/diamonds: the best friends/soulmates love

flushed/matesprites/hearts: the lust and affection love

caliginous/kismesis/spades: the hate love

ashen/auspiscitisicism/: kismesis relationship AND a mediator to make sure they dont kill each other

trolls want each one filled. mostly flushed and caliginous so they dont get killed by the drones who will collect the genetic material of the couple in buckets to give to the mother grub so she can create babies.

trolls think it is best to fill each quadrant only ONCE bc that indicates the soulmate who is destined for that spot. can happen that they split up but on average...

hispter dude wants a kismesis relationship with vriska and for kanaya to mediate him and vriska. is in a pale relationship with fish girl but wants it to be flushed most likely. all of these are non-reciprocal (except for the pale relationship of the fish ones)

kanaya wants a flushed relationship with vriska except they are pale. but vriska wants a black relationship with tavros (they kissed ew!) and for kanaya to mediate. kanaya is sad about this...

and yeah thats it ig and my brain is dead :D 

[maybe-homestuck-now-or-something]

I have a quick little observation about Kanaya, Rose, and problem solving.

basically, Kanaya has a really strained relationship with being a mediator. she's good at it... she genuinely is. and that actually seems to be a pretty rare trait among trolls on Alternia, because their population is all so young and volatile. but once Kanaya is labeled as "the mediator friend" that becomes the only thing anyone ever uses her for. the one exception is Karkat, who seems to subtly understand this about her, and doesn't ask her to solve any of his problems. in fact, he specifically asks her to antagonize Rose, and I love him for it.

beyond that, we have Rose... who generally puts it out there that she's the analytical type, but ultimately resorts to brute force whenever she's really struggling. she mostly has the power to back it up, but that almost makes her even harder to care about, because everyone is just waiting for her to end up in over her head at some point.

between the two of them, we see the pitfalls of both being accommodating to a fault, and being confrontational to a fault... and through their early interactions, Kanaya learns something about confrontation, and Rose learns something about compromise. Rose even ends up in a situation where she asks Kanaya how to be an auspistice later on the meteor... which, when it isn't couched in alien lingo, is just Rose asking how you help someone else resolve a conflict in an effective way. and later still, Kanaya confronts the issue of Rose's drinking problem, but also displays that, through her experiences, she's come to understand what kind of problems are worth the effort of trying to solve. to Kanaya, this is worth working hard for. and that carries a lot of weight after Kanaya's relationship with mediating has made her very particular about what she'll stick around for.

[edenfalling]

[Fic] “Frog Hunt” -- Homestuck

Summary: SBURB is not turning out anything like you'd hoped, and your game session may be broken. Which is a problem, because you can't go back to Earth -- last you checked, it's busy being an apocalyptic wasteland -- and judging by your most recent dreams, the rest of the Medium beyond your little Incipisphere is an equally apocalyptic wasteland of ghosts and horrorterrors. The only way out is through. You have to win the game.

Winning SBURB requires frogs.

Note: I started this fic way back in 2012, hit Jade's horrorterror dreams, and had no idea where to go from there. Last week it occurred to me that actually the horrorterror dreams made a perfectly reasonable ending, provided I filled in a missing middle scene, established an emotional/thematic through-line, and tweaked stuff until the new parts played nice with the old ones. So I did. :) [2,325 words]

--------------------------------------------- Frog Hunt ---------------------------------------------

SBURB is not turning out anything like you'd hoped. You wanted to see your friends in person, go on cool adventures, and save the world. You guess technically the cool adventure part is happening? But it turns out that being in the middle of an adventure is mostly very upsetting and dangerous.

Also your game session may be broken. Which is a problem, because you can't go back to Earth -- last you checked, it's busy being an apocalyptic wasteland -- and judging by your most recent dreams, the rest of the Medium beyond your little Incipisphere is an equally apocalyptic wasteland of ghosts and horrorterrors. The only way out is through. You have to win the game.

Winning SBURB requires frogs.

You have a lot of pointed questions to ask whoever designed the symbolism behind this process.

You also have no idea what you're doing. Zoology is not your thing! Botany and rocket science are your things!

But you've done crazier things in the name of friendship than breed magic universe-creating frogs. And this time you'll have Dave by your side, even if all he can help you can do is win the Olympic gold medal for synchronized flipping out, which might as well be a thing now since Earth is gone and if anyone ever reestablishes the Olympics it will be you and you can stick in any sports you feel like.

That analogy may have gotten away from you a little. You decide to preemptively consider it Dave's fault, and send him another message asking for an ETA.

"Kanaya says we won't have enough time to collect all the frogs, let alone raise them and do the breeding and mutation stuff. Not even if we yank Rose and John into the project, and especially not with just you and me," you tell him when he shows up in person, popping out of nowhere with two discs floating at his side. They look a little like Grandpa's old vinyl records, but with red gears turning underneath them. "Not that you aren't helpful! But there's only so many seconds until disaster."

Dave arches the backs of his hands, fingertips still ghosting over the ridges of his floating record thingies. "Harley, c'mon, work with me here. What's my aspect?"

You blink. Oh. Time travel, durr. Okay, possibly your flipping out was a little premature. "Whoops, forgot that! Potentially infinite seconds, yay recycling. So how are we doing this?"

Dave shrugs, letting the records vanish back into his sylladex. "We have limited absolute time, basically from when I got your house up to reasonable height to, let's say, an hour before whatever runs us off the rails goes critical. So we have to maximize our use of space -- duplicate this ectobiowhatthefuck setup and run an assload of slime zapper tadpole tanks at once. I'm thinking one on each of the top ten floors of your house. We'll do one floor on each master loop so we don't keep running into each other. Mark the space and time coordinates for each croaker we target, then head out to poke them or whatever literally the second after we zap them, take notes on any other frogs that look useful, and move down a floor and back in time to start again."

"What about breeding?" you ask.

You think Dave frowns. It's hard to read his expression behind his shades, but he doesn't guard his posture as much as his face. "Whoops, forgot that. Uh, let's say every third floor and third loop is for breeding and mutation games. Shouldn't be too hard, especially if we whip up a regular appearifier. They don't have these bullshit temporal lock restrictions."

"Sounds like a plan," you say. "Let's get everything set up and start breeding!"

Dave's discombobulated expression is so faint and brief that if you'd blinked, you would have missed it. Hmmm, you think to yourself. Maybe...? But no, you probably just reminded him of something one of the trolls said. They can be so bizarre sometimes.

"Time to rock and roll," Dave says, and you shake off your daydream and get to work.

---------------

It turns out that ectobiology is actually very simple! You don't need to know genetics or metaphysical zoology, which you were a little worried about. You just need to zap frogs and run their ghost slime through the game-provided machines until you hit a gene combination that pings a little automated reward mechanism. Scanning for useful frogs is a little trickier, since you get the reward ping for any potentially useful gene sequence even if it's one you already have on file -- you have to weed out the duplicates manually, which is time-consuming and a total pain.

Creating hundreds of potential paradoxes to make sure the appearifier grabs slime instead of actual frogs is also time-consuming and a total pain.

It would be simplest to just shoot the frogs, but first of all, that's mean, and second of all, it would probably screw up LOFAF's ecology to storm around wiping out its native fauna less than an hour after thawing them out in the first place. If you had a dart gun you could trust not to mangle the frogs on impact, maybe you could stun them for a few minutes. Unfortunately, all of Grandpa's guns (and by extension, all of your guns) are designed to shoot projectiles straight through solid objects and totally fuck up their day. Which means that instead of perching in a tree like a cool and sexy sniper, you are galumphing around on the ground, hot and sticky and covered in a gross combination of mud and panicked frog secretions. Ugh.

"I look like a swamp zombie, don't I?" you say before you can think better of the words.

"Yeah, but in a cute monster-girl way," Dave says. "I'm just a scarecrow that got left out in the rain and turned into a mold sculpture."

You look over at him just as a clump of mud and moss slides down the left lens of his shades. "Um. No comment." You are determinedly not noticing that he said you're cute. Nope. Completely thought-free zone over here, nothing but genetics and logistics, which everyone knows require no brain power at all.

Dave shakes his head in faux solemnity. "Tragic. Faced with the death and destruction of my awesome good looks and you can't even dredge up a "That's sad"? I am betrayed. I am devastated. I am--"

"--still cute underneath the glop, stop fishing for compliments," you interrupt, and are furiously grateful for the mud hiding your blush. Stupid Dave and his stupid... everything. Why do you even like him? He's such a butt.

Of course, all your friends are kind of jerks. Possibly there's something miscalibrated about your friend-finding radar. Or possibly you're also a jerk? Hmm. That's something to ask Rose about, whenever you finally get to see in her person.

You will get to see her in person. You refuse to acknowledge any other possibility.

"Ouch," Dave says, but the corner of his mouth quirks up just a degree. "Damned by faint praise. I guess I'd better step up my frog-napping skills, can't let my dashing good looks outweigh my knightly swag. Speaking of which, have we been standing still long enough for that little orange fucker to stick his head out?"

You glance around, then down, then up. There's a tiny flash of color just over-- you shift slightly-- yep, right there on the tree by Dave's shoulder. "Um. Yeah. Just... keep standing still. Really still."

"Making like a tree, yes ma'am Sergeant Harley ma'am," Dave says as you inch slowly toward him through the muck between the tree roots. "It's right behind me, isn't it? Getting all ready for a jump scare, gonna leap out and poison me to death with its slimy frog toes, alas, Horatio, here dies a fellow of infinite memes, taken from us too--"

You lunge.

You catch the frog.

You also knock yourself and Dave flat into the muck. His shades knock into your forehead. Your own glasses skew against his nose. Your left knee is jammed between his shins and his belt buckle is digging into your stomach.

Your mouth is right up against his chin. If you moved just an inch or two...

"Ooh, Miz Harley," Dave says, somewhat breathless.

"Oh, shut up," you say, and shove the frog into your sylladex as you scramble back to your feet. "Look who's talking, Mister Swamp Thing."

Then you bend down to yank Dave up, too, because fair is fair.

---------------

By the fourth loop you're ready to drop from exhaustion and the weird, indefinable tension of actually being around one of your friends in person instead of getting to mediate your interactions through computers. "I don't care how tight the schedule is. I'm starting to see double and I'm taking a goddamn nap," you tell Dave as you drop to the floor and lean back against the wall. You lay your rifle across your lap and keep your hands carefully away from the trigger. You know your temper sharpens when you're tired, and Grandpa taught you never to take chances with guns.

Dave frowns, and you know he's tired too because this time you can see his mouth curve downward to match the annoyed set of his shoulders and the fuck-you shove of his hands into his pockets. "The more loops we run, the harder it is to keep shit from falling apart," he says. "You that eager to trip into a doomed timeline? I can go back and hit reset anytime, easy as cake and pie and banana splits, but every screwup costs one dead Dave and one Jade abandoned in a dead-end universe. I don't even know if that you would get erased or keep on living until you go shithive maggots."

He's been talking to the trolls too, you remember, especially the teal one who uses l33tsp34k. He says her name is Terezi. She's been running time loops with him too. He likes her a lot.

You are not jealous. That would be stupid. You are not stupid; therefore you are not jealous. QED.

"The more tired we are, the harder it is to keep from screwing up," you say. "We're creating a whole new universe and we'll have to live there after we win the game. It's kind of important, Dave!"

Dave presses his back against the wall and slides down to join you on the hard tile floor. "We're not gonna win the game, you know. There is literally no way to do that. The game was borked from before the word go was a twinkle in its druggie teen mom's eye."

"Maybe this session's broken," you agree. "But that doesn't mean we can't find a way to cheat, and even if we lose, I'd rather lose trying my hardest instead of half-assing shit because I was so tired I fell asleep while operating complicated machines."

Dave sighs. "Yeah, okay. Naptime. But not here. This is a work floor; we've gotta keep it clear for work loops. We'll go crash further down." He taps your shoe with his own. "Up and at 'em, Harley, let's go hit that transportalizer."

You groan and haul yourself to your feet.

The obvious place for a nap would be your bedroom, but then where would you sleep on the next loop? Anyway, you only have one bed and it'd feel... presumptuous? pushy? maybe just go with awkward. Yeah. It would be awkward to share it with Dave, especially without John and Rose there as well to clarify that it's strictly a friend thing.

So you alchemize an armful of blankets and pillows and make a little nest in one of the hundreds of blank, identical stories Dave copied from the real-world part of your house. It's still a little weird sharing the space -- Dave is so close you can feel him breathe, every exhale stirring stray wisps of hair over your ears -- but you think you could get used to this.

You think maybe you want to get used to this.

"Sweet dreams, Jade," Dave mutters as he flops over onto his side, one hand curled loosely around the hilt of his sword.

"You too," you tell him, before you remember he's just going to wake up on Derse as his dreamself, still stuck in this stupid, lying, Möbius tangle of a game. And you're going back to those weird bubbles in the monster-filled void. Neither of you can get free until you finish Frankensteining your magic frog and beat an unwinnable game.

"Heroes always beat million to one odds in stories," you say to nobody in particular. "Why not us?"

Dave mumbles something unintelligible in response, already mostly asleep.

You wiggle sideways until your shoulder brushes up against his, so the warmth of his body radiates through the thin blanket onto you and your warmth feeds back into him. He's alive. You're both alive. Somewhere else in the Incipisphere, John and Rose are (you hope) also still alive.

You would do anything to make sure your friends make it out of SBURB, to a new world safe from meteors and monsters and predestination. Anything.

You dream of bloody, mangled ghosts, groping desperately toward you for salvation while you stand frozen under the horrorterrors' incomprehensible regard.

In the dream, you imagine yourself reaching for Dave's hand. You imagine him weaving his fingers between yours. You imagine Rose and John standing beside you. You imagine all four of you stepping through a door into a new universe.

If you imagine something with all your heart, that makes it a tiny bit less fake, and being less fake means it's at least a little bit real.

The pressure of the horrorterrors' attention attenuates, just that vital fraction.

You turn away from the ghosts and think of frogs.

---------------------------------------------

End of Fic

---------------------------------------------

If anyone has constructive commentary, I am all ears! Also I am going to bed soon, because being awake is overrated and also I took a Benadryl in order to eat a BLT for dinner, so, you know, probably better to lie down than to slowly drift off in front of my computer. *wry*

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 6-13 [the rest of Epilogue 2]

I’m told that there are 40 chapters, and a postscript, in Candy - and also that it’s split into 8 individual ‘epilogues’ within that, of varying length. ‘Epilogue 2′ began with chapter 4, featuring Rose and Kanaya. So I kind of cut it off in exactly the wrong place. Oops!

Anyway I’m going to split these up by Epilogue section from now on. This one covers the rest of Epilogue 2, which mostly concerns shipping, and processing of feelings.

Here are the irons in the fire at the outset of chapter 6:

Gamzee is back! he claims to be setting out on a ‘redemption arc’

Terezi is in space somewhere looking for Vriska, but set to return at some point, and not all that happy that Gamzee’s back

Dirk has perceived some bad news. And briefly spoken about it with Jane, though without explaining anything.

But that’s all Epilogue 1 stuff - old hat!

Rose has suddenly recovered from her illness, and is patching things up with Kanaya

Jade has attempted to push Dave and Karkat to admit they’re into each other, but really just made things worse

Jane attempted to run for President of Earth C - to the trepidation of the Karkat, who hyperbolically suggested this would amount to troll genocide - but abandoned the idea

That’s all interesting but let’s talk about money! This is something I didn’t pick up on in the last post:

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

Elsewhere, Jane’s megacorp and stocks are mentioned.

One wonders why, given the machinery to manufacture just about anything by means of alchemizer, the forms of money, stocks, and corporations are retained... what sort of productive and reproductive labour is regulated and mediated by these markets? Or are they merely acting out the vestigial forms of capitalism as a bizarre drama...

As for the consequences of an infinite money supply, let’s not get into the ‘modern monetary theory’ debate on a Homestuck post, maybe.

on to chapter 6+

This is a Jane chapter. It opens almost immediately with economic discussion; Dave apparently once accused Jane of ‘neoliberal corporate welfare’ for trying to bolster the ‘struggling locksmith industry’ rendered unnecessary on a planet without crime.

She’s visiting Jake, who’s probably my least favourite Homestuck character (who’s not an alpha troll). About Dirk... Jake (Jane says) seems to still have a bit of a thing for him, and Jane, meanwhile, still “has no idea why she can’t get [Jake] out of her system, even after all these years.”

The reason Jane cancelled her run was, it turns out, because Dirk said ‘cancel everything’. She gets drunk, very quickly... and hits on Jake, who is completely oblivious to her advances. She speaks of wanting to abandon business to raise a family, which Jake himself notes is something rather new for her (though the whole traditional gender thing she does isn’t lol)

Jake/Jane isn’t a ship I have any sort of opinion about, honestly. Dirk/Jake’s terrible collapsing relationship was kind of interesting but yeah, here’s a thing. What even are heterosexuals though? “I want to clean your giant house and have a lot of children”... incomprehensible!

One thing I will give credit for is the narration: it creates pretty strong images of like, these characters as fully embodied people, being intimate in like, subtle physical ways. that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense... whatever lol. it works

chapter 7

...brings us back to Gamzee. fittingly, i’m listening to the friendsim soundtrack as i read this, and i just hit ‘take me to clown church’.

anyway since this whole story basically seems to be an exercise in developing ships along the lines of ‘A is into B, B is obvious to their advances’... Roxy’s hot for John now I guess? or at least, so Callie thinks. she insists they’re all going to be ‘very, very happy’ despite her disappointment.

anyway, then we get Gamzee saying a bunch of casually misogynist stuff to John about Roxy. in this context, basically two interpretations are shown: a shallow ‘oh he’s redeemed now’ attitude from Roxy and Callie, and a ‘oh god i hate this person keep him away from me’ attitude from John. Gamzee’s repulsive qualities are underlined by the narration (from John’s perspective): he’s unhygienic, he’s casually misogynist (which seems like a new element, and rather out of keeping with the gendered-but-somehow-theoretically-not-patriarchal Alternia)...

chapter 8

Rose and Kanaya chapter. Jane’s possible presidency is once again the subject of discussion. Jane apparently wanted to apply some kind of anti-troll eugenics policy, and tried to bring Kanaya on board - and got told to fuck off for it. Our two good lesbians agree that, if Karkat were president (and Dave running the economy), things might have worked out ok...

We are briefly introduced to a new character, a jadeblood troll called Swifer Eggmop. Her character archetype, we are directly told, is ‘1920s newsboy’.

We bear witness to an egg hatching (in prose, anyway). This particular baby grub out closely resembling Vriska... which Kanaya says is because she comes from a slurry based on the original 12 trolls. Rose notes this would make Vriska the troll’s Ancestor, which raises an interesting question of whether Ancestors still exist as a social concept on Earth C. Anyway, Kanaya wants to adopt baby Vriska, which can only be a fantastic idea...

KANAYA: There Are Two Things Of Which I Have No Doubt

KANAYA: That You And I Are Going To Be Happy For The Rest Of Our Lives

KANAYA: And That We Are Never Ever Going To See Vriska Again

I think we can safely assume that neither of those things are true. The emphasis on ‘happiness forever’, voiced by multiple characters, is interesting... also the turn towards reproduction.

I went to uni with people who have kids now. Heck I have friends who have a child (who they are trying to spare from gender)... but for most of my social circle, which is to say almost entirely 20-to-30-something trans women, even the idea of adopting is incomprehensible? It’s somehow weird to think of ‘wanting kids’ as the narrative of 20-something year olds...

Kanaya is right. Vriska is dead, and despite everything, she died a hero. Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.

It would be a fitting memorial for her and Kanaya to raise a version of Vriska who would be given every chance to make good on her noble characteristics. A true, symbolic redemption arc. Something about the thought appeals to Rose’s taste for the dramatic flourish. It would be proof that this was all worth it in the end: the destruction of multiple universes, the death of Kanaya’s friends, the circuitous rites of suffering experienced by the nearly infinite splintered versions of every being to inhabit Paradox Space...  

Once again, the notion of a ‘redemption arc’ enters the narrative explicitly, directly echoing fandom discussion. Unlike Gamzee, this is studiously neutral on the Vriska Question: steering exactly between ‘Vriska did nothing wrong’, nor ‘Vriska is a monster’. Regardless... I think it’s probably safe to say that everyone’s prophecies are wrong and we haven’t seen the last of the ‘true’ Vriska.

chapter 9

More of Jade trying very hard to ship her friends, to the discomfort of everyone involved. Jade kisses Karkat, and Karkat explicitly names what she’s doing as sexual assault, a violation of boundaries and consent - Jade attempts to convince him that no, it was really Dave who kissed him!

This prompts a long monologue from Dave in which it’s obvious that he has put some thought into kissing Karkat. Point seems to be: they sure are into each other but Jade’s intervention is not at all welcome. At least I hope that’s the point. I would prefer not to see Jade vindicated by the narrative.

Anyway, other things of cultural note: grub spaghetti is apparently still eaten on Earth C. I always thought it was implied that ‘grubs’ in Troll food were like, actual troll babies, but maybe they’re just ordinary (for certain values thereof...) bugs bc I don’t think Kanaya would stand for that.

chapter 10

The ‘Jane running for president’ subplot has largely disappeared, because what we’re really here for is... shipping! This time, a John/Roxy chapter. I think they call it Roxygen or something? Terezi explains the ‘pair the spares’ logic of the ship (dequirkified):

TEREZI: Um, yeah John.

TEREZI: We are not idiots. We can all do the math on this.

TEREZI:  It’s not like you were going to fuck your human mom or human sister.

TEREZI: And you are “not a homosexual,” which takes Strider dick out of the equation.

TEREZI: And Kanaya is the only girl troll left, and she lesbian married one of the two remaining eligible human females.

TEREZI: Oh and Jake is a double threat. A human dad with a human dick!

TEREZI: So by a process of elimination, of *course* you were going to “fall in love” with Roxy.

Equation of ‘dick’ with ‘male’ there terezi but whatever... (god is this fic going to get into the question of what a ‘nook’ and a ‘bulge’ is...)

(lol i’m calling it a fic...)

Anyway, my position on this one is: Roxy/Calliope was a fine ship worth upholding, and I do not see any reason why anyone would be into John. Though I may be biased on that front.

Terezi also brings up the Calliope question. John is trepidatious on that front.

There’s an interesting line from Roxy here, when John tries to assure her she doesn’t have to wear makeup:

ROXY: john...

ROXY: do u ever think about like

ROXY: gender???

JOHN: ???

JOHN: uh. not really, i guess?

JOHN: but i don’t think girls should feel like they HAVE to wear makeup just because they’re girls.

ROXY: lol

ROXY: thats not what im getting at

JOHN: what do you mean then?

JOHN: are you, like...

ROXY: like what

This is where I’m conscious of the ‘trans character’ tag on this one.

They talk about adulthood, as a performance that they do not feel ‘ready’ for. At that point Dave shows up, clearly aflustered after Jade’s intervention:

DAVE: anyone can be a dude if they really want thats part of the beauty of living in this brand new world with none of the baggage our old world had like gender and sexuality and relationships only involving a very specific number of people

chapter 11

So yeah now to pick up the torch on Dave starting to understand he’s gay. here for this

DAVE: theres a metric fucking ton of shit about to come down on me because i dragged my heels on doing some serious self reflection

JOHN: is this just some more stuff about...

JOHN: being gay?

DAVE: maybe yeah

DAVE: ok definitely yeah

DAVE: its 110% about being gay

JOHN: i thought you’d already worked all that stuff out?

DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse

nice to see it named as such i guess

the dialogue in the last couple of chapters has been really good. i’m getting properly drawn into this, the characters feel extremely well-realised. threads which were long latent are finally being made explicit.

Dave is struggling with very abrupt self-realisation: he definitely has feelings for Karkat, he has complicated feelings for Jade, but the ‘simple’ solution of just entering a non-mono relationship both is not feeling ‘right’ to him. John isn’t really able to help... he’s gonna talk to Dirk.

This chapter does a lot, I really like it, but at the same time I’ve not got a tremendous amount to add to it.

chapter 12

in our latest chapter of ‘homestuck but they fuck now’, Jake and Jane did that - while up on various substances, including at least alcohol and the trickster lollipop. Jake is having second thoughts but when he tries to back out, Jane looks sad, so he decides to go for it. This can only end well.

Also damn I guess someone on the team thought ‘what would it be like to fuck while high on the trickster lollipop’ so uh, that’s a thing now.

chapter 13

Back to the Strider boys. There’s a heavy intro...

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing.

Yeah huh.

Can’t believe Rose and Kanaya have the dubious honour of being the most ‘together’ characters in this.

Anyway in this case Dave still feels like he needs to talk to Dirk - who we know has gone awol, for some mysterious reason. He meets... Gamzee, who says some religious clown stuff, and offers Dave a redemption arc (really running this joke into the ground huh), but Dave brushes him off. Then he finds a fembot that Dirk was working on, with a note.

We don’t get to read the note yet. I would guess that’s the end of epilogue 2.

Sure enough it is.

Epilogue 2, taken as a whole

I quite enjoyed this, Gamzee sections notwithstanding. The prose is tight, the dialogue is hitting its flow, and a lot of relationships that were left vague in Homestuck proper are finally being given time to develop.

Obviously it’s kind of risky bringing in explicitly sexual themes, but I think they approach them in the ‘right’ way: focusing on the emotional meaning of relationships that now might - now we’re dealing with 23-year-olds - include sex, rather than just porn lol. It does slightly strain credibility that, in all their time on Earth C, none of them have made any meaningful friendships or relationships outside the core group of 8 kids and a handful of surviving trolls, but I can also understand the desire to focus on the already-developed characters. That’s a common problem for ‘endgame’ ships: in truth dating exclusively within a tiny friendship group is probably a recipe for disaster, but in fiction it makes a work manageable.

I am enjoying just how gay Homestuck has gotten. If Homestuck is the comic for Very Online kids who were around 13 in 2009 when the comic began, it’s somewhat fitting, because our cohort has, at least to a degree, done the same thing lol. Of course, that’s shaped by my personal experience of like, transitioning and moving to a friendship group that’s like 99% trans lesbians and bi women, but I suspect statistics would bear out the idea that more and more people are comfortable identifying ourselves as not-straight in some way. I could be wrong about that though lol.

Of course, it’s too much to hope that this trend - insofar as it exists! - is like, the beginning of the end for Gender as a system of social relations, violent exploitation and coercion - especially since periods of ‘more acceptance’ often seem to precede violent repression (c.f. Weimar Germany and then, the nazis; the period just before the AIDS crisis; much earlier, the construction of colonial/modern gender in the first place on the bones of less rigid gender systems...)

Anyway, let’s see what’s happened to old Dirk. I’m still wondering who the “trans character” is going to be, and how they’re going to handle that. It’s going to be tough to match fic like @rememberwhenyoutried‘s An Earth-Shattering Confession, but we shall see.

[solarianradiance]

Heartsick: Loving Rage

https://skaianradiance.tumblr.com/post/174939512530/heartsick-quelling-nightmares

You are ROSE LALONDE

And you just finished your third therapy session with JOHN EGBERT, and things were pretty productive. 

EB: so is... that it then?

TT: That’s it, unless you have something else you feel like sharing. Which I encourage you do, since we are still here.

EB: nah, i was actually getting a lil sleepy, glad we can do something else now.

TT: Ok, then why dont you run along and play now, the big kid toys on the playground are open~

EB: ok i’ll-

EB: ...rose...>:B

TT: Sorry, you just seemed like an eager child waiting for recess, wanting to burn off his energy in a game of tag. A lil playfulness isnt going to hurt~

EB: right, well, your eagerness to reduce me to child-like context makes me think you might want kids, or could be an assertion to your unfulfilled childhood.

TT: Using my status as psychologist, and attempting to use it on me, can be interpreted as a sort of challenge, a display for primal ugres pertaining to the desire for dominance.

TT: Is this your way of saying that you want dominate me John?~♥

EB: what?! no! i want nothing of the sort! <:B

TT: Or perhaps you want me to dominate you?~

EB: ok, enough! this is weird enough as it is and i want no part of your weird kinky fantasies!

TT: Doesn't take a psychologist to know that you love it~

John absconds tfo, likely off to reevaluate his sense of company... or at least grab a bite to eat. Which might be a good idea for you to do yourself. You haven't eaten much of anything all day, and you are gonna need some energy to digest all of these notes.

Oh boy, what a choice of words to apply to your thoughts, you really are hungry!

Either way, you got a lot of things to go through, today really was productive, so many notes to go through!

Which is what you WOULD say, or think, if you werent a liar. There really isnt much more you have garnered that you don’t already know. The therapy sessions with John haven’t yielded much thus far, but these things tend to take time.

At least he is here with you and Kanaya. Speaking of whom, you feel like visiting her afterwords... specifically after your own snack.

You head out of your office, and into your kitchen. Its a spacious place, nice and wide, ready to make a feast if it needs to, especially a state dinner meant for discussing the worlds issues and the like. Rather dull affairs usually, even if they do tickle your “woman of power” side quite a bit. Being a Goddess has its weight of duty behind it, but it also has its perks~

You don’t worry about wealth or food, and you feel rather fulfilled acting as both a literal Queen and Goddess ruling a part of the world. Your Mother would be proud were she alive today... which she technically is, both alive and proud of you.

Speaking of whom, you informed her of the situation this morning, about John’s general condition and beckoned her return as soon as possible given that the situation is rather urgent, though not dire. However, you omitted the part about his incident in the bathroom. You don’t want to build up excessive stress in their minds and risk making them hysterical.

Kanaya had the duty informing Terezi of the situation as they know each other better than you do, being Troll lends an air of intrinsic understanding that you would not be innately imbued with, that much you have come to understand  studying the psychology of Trolls.

Anyways, you simply are here in the kitchen for a slice of pizza, you don’t know why, but you have been craving this pie of Italian cuisine for over a month now. Meat lovers in particular has caught your fancy, though you have been mixing things up with everything on it and veggie pizza’s.

You guess its that they remind you of home, you sort of miss those nights your Mother called in for a delivery when she didn’t cook anything for the evening... or did cook something, and it was an egregious disaster. Part of you thought she did it out of spite, but looking back, she simply enjoyed it as much as you did. In fact, you think it was one of those times when the two of you sort of put your supposed game of will’s aside and just enjoyed each others company, in your own ways.

Regardless, you have been on a pizza kick, and you need your fix for the night ahead, so you open the fridge

to find your leftover are missing and now assumed eaten by an entity other than yourself!

... ... ...

TT: ...

TT: Whatever, didn’t need it anyways.

Need is the correct term, but you really did want it. You guess John must have eaten the last of it. Oh well, its not the end of the world again, you can always just order another one, you get them basically for free. Then again, you don’t want to go through the hassle, you’re not that up for pizza again now that you think about it. Annoyed from hunger pains, you instead choose to go a much more healthy rout of crafting yourself a rather tasty salmon sandwich, with a side of cheese and a glass of grape juice.

You WOULD have some wine, but you need your wits about you for the upcoming trial in mediating this interaction between John and his romantic partners. Both have been gone from his life for a long period of time, months in fact. Breaking the news to them of their lover’s emotional decay into self-harm and outright suicide is going to be a dance of caution to say the least. You really don’t want them to turn into hysterical broads over this, like you think they might. They might just blame themselves, which is an overtly strong possibility.

You finish your meal, not as fulfilling as pizza, it lacks that mild-mannered bread crust which you dig all kinds of hella on, but salmon has its own sweet charm~

As you were consuming your middle-class gourmet, you went over your notes during your sessions with John and things are... odd. There is certainly depression going on. Deep depression, yet nothing that would compel suicide. He is sad, very sad in fact, but not outright miserable, at least from what you can glean from so far.

At least he is in your care, you wouldn’t be much of a friend had you merely left him there alone in his house... sort of like what you did over the last few years. You literally had no idea he had gotten that bad, or else you would have intervened earlier. But then again, Roxy and Terezi might not have had any idea, as John was hiding his emotions and repressing them. Seems like they’re finally coming out due to isolation in the form of deep depression. You really can’t let him be alone again anymore, or else you might get a repeat of the bathroom incident.

You feel a reasonable compulsion to share this information with your wife, Kanaya. You clean up your mess in the kitchen and go looking for her. Which isn’t a very long search, as you find her in the living on a terminal. She seems to be playing a video game of some kind

GA: NO! I Dodged It’s Grabbing Lunge And Got Away, How In The Blazing Hell Did That Fat Fucking Bastard Catch Me?!!

She seems to be having a bad time.

TT: You seem to be having a good time.

GA: I Am Having An Absolutely Lively Celebration...

TT: Do you have a minute?

GA: I Do Now. I Need A Break Anyways, For This Game Has Ben Crush My Patience For Several Half-Hours Now.

TT: What were you playing? An RPG Action game?

GA: A Gaming Title That John Discovered Recently.  Supposed To Be Considered Quite The Quality Recreational Engagement From What I Understand.

TT: Seems like a lot of fun.

GA: It Is! I Am Rather Enjoying Myself.

TT: I was... being sarcastic?

GA: And I Was Being Sincere.

TT: It sounded like you were hating it with a true passion.

GA: I Was... But In A Sort Of ♠Caliginous Manner♠. I Don’t Know What It Is, But This Game’s Brutality Is Rewarding When You Overcome It’s Challenges~♠

GA: This Thing Sincerely Hates Me, But It Wants Me To Win, And So I Hate It In Return For That~♠

TT: Uh-huh... anyways, I wanted to talk to you about our guests that are going to arrive shortly

GA: Terezi And Roxy? In Relation To Johnathan I Assume.

TT: Yes, more specifically on how we are going to break the news to them directly. I am not sure as to what method we should use.

GA: Perhaps Isolating Them Would Help Us Engage In The Relaying Of Our Honestly Dour Predicament?

TT: Maybe, but as I said, I am not certain, this whole situation is tricky to even talk about with John.

GA: Well, We Don’t Have The Time To Dally On It All Evening, They As Our Guests Will Be Arriving Within The Hour.

TT: I actually expected both of them to be here sooner, I suppose they had to take care of something before coming.

GA: But More To Your Point, Maybe It’s Better If We Just Told Them Both Up Front At Once  And Get It Out Of The Way.

TT: Both at once? Why? That just seems like a way to escalate the situation to an all time high, wouldnt it be better to just be more subtle and work up to it?

GA: If We Did That We Might Make Things Worse, Especially With Terezi, Who Has A Habit Of Figuring Things Out, Being A Seeress Of Mind And All.

TT: How do you think Terezi will react? I can fathom what Roxy might do, probably become distraught over news of John’s self-harm, but Terezi I don’t think I can predict given how wild she is.

GA: She... Might Be Calm And Collected About It, OR She Might Become Overly Furious Over Him Committing Such An Act.

GA: Which Is To Say That I Am Not Sure Either As To How Terezi Will React Either. I Am A Bit Worried How This Is Going To Transpire.

TT: A stern possiblity is that th-*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

TT: Sounds like our guests ar-*KR4SH*

TT: !!!

GA: !!!

TT: I do believe that our guests are indeed here... glad one of them could give us an adequate amount of time to prepare for their entry

*Terezi and Roxy enter the room, proving the Seer of Light correct in her assumption of their arrival. They dont appear overly happy at the moment.*

CG: G33T1NGS OTH3R L4LOND3. N1C3 TO SM3LL YOU 4G41N K4N4Y4!

GA: Good To “See“ You As Well, Terezi. I Hope Your Trip Was Fruitful.

CG: 1T W4SNT, 4S 1 4M ST1LL CURR3NTLY SHORT OF 4 VR1SK4...

TG: hey rosie, how you doin?

TT: Hello Roxy, I am doing fi-

CG: WH3R3S JOHN?

TT: That was brief. What? You don’t want to relax and catch up for few minutes?

CG: YOU C4LL3D M3 4W4Y FROM MY S34RCH FOR MY SCOURG3 S1ST3R, NOW 1 W4NT TO KNOW WHY. 1 4M 4SSUM1NG 1TS SOM3TH1NG S1GN1F1C4NTLY 1MPORT4NT, 4S YOU H4V3 R1SK3D MY WR4TH. 1 WOULD R4TH3R SK1P TH3 PL34S3NTR13S 4ND G3T TO TH3 PO1NT 1F YOU DONT M1ND.

TT: He’s...

TT: Actually I am not sure what he is up to at the moment.

GA: He Is Currently In His Respite Block I Believe.

CG: WH1CH R41S3S TH3 QU3ST1ON 4S TO WHY H3 1S H3R3 TO B3G1NG W1TH.

TG: ye, y isnt he at his house? you made it snd like smt srs happended

GA: As You Were Informed, Johnathan Is The Subject Of Strenuous Circumstances And Has Come Under Our Watchful Care.

TG: wat kind of issues we talkin here? like hes got a broken leg or pranked the wrong asshole and now we got a polkal debecle again, or wats the story here? TG: *political debacle

TT: No, it’s more like something along the lines of personal care. He... well, in your’s and Terezi’s absence he seemed to have become reclusive and appeared to have gotten depressed and he might have engaged in some harmful behavior.

TG: wat? laik he tried to hang himself or smthing?

TT: Um.... oh boy...ok so, “Tried” isn’t the word I would use... buuut...

TG: ...w-wait, wat the fuck r u saing rose? did he actually try to kill himself or smthing?

GA: Should We Just Tell Them?

TG: tell us what?

CG: TH4T SOM3TH1NG R34LLY B4D H4PP3N3D TO JOHN. 1F YOUR3 B31NG TH1S DODG3Y, TH4T WOULD 1MPLY TH4T 1T W4S OF TH3 D1R3 V4R13TY 4ND W3 M1GHT P4N1C, SO STOP ST4LL1NG 4ND T3LL US WH4T H4PP3ND3D!

GA: Rose, I Acknowledge That You Already Had A Plan In Place To Prepare Them But Should We Simply Tell Them Now? It Seems They Made A Number Of Assumptions They, And Are Making Things Worse.

TT: Im literally trying to tell them. But im trying to do it in a way that wont make them hysterical!

TG: tell us wat?! nuff of the third degre and tell us whats goin on with john! hes ok right?!

TT: Yes, at this moment he is fine. You shouldnt be so worried right now.

CG: BUT H3 W4SNT F1N3, OR 3LS3 YOU WOULDNT H4V3 US3D THOS3 WORDS 1N ORD3R TO D3SCR1B3 H1S CURR3NT COND1T1ON 1N R3L4T1ON TO WH3N YOU OR1G1N4LLY FOUND H1M

GA: Rose I... Think They Have A Strong Idea Of What Happended, I Do Not Think There Is Much To Be Gained In Dragging This Out.

TT: *sigh* Very well then... a week ago, we were getting worried about John and his condition as he was becoming withdrawn and his behavior was particularly odd. He wasn’t really as energetic or as lively as he once was and Kanaya and I began to notice. He wasn’t answering any of my calls or messages for a long while, so Kanaya was sent to his home to investigate if he was well... turned out he... wasnt

TG: ...and? what was wrong?

TT: Um... we arent entire sure what caused it, or if John was aware of what he did to himself. God this is harder to break than I thought.

GC: W41T... YOUR3 S4Y1NG TH4T H3 4CTU4LLY... TR13D TO OFF H1MS3LF?!

TT: ...Apparently, yes... Kanaya found him in his bathtub.

TG: back the fuck up, what do you mean by that exactly?!

GA: I Found Him In His Bathtub... There...There Was Blood Everywhere And He Was... Not Moving... I Was Afraid He Was Gon And... I Kissed Him In An Attempt To Revive Him-

TG: but you said he was alive right?! hes ok right now?!

TT: Yes, as stated, he is currently all right. Its as though it never happened. Kanaya Revived Him.

TG: so hes ok then, right now i mean?

TT: Yes, he’s fit as a fiddle. As I said, its like it never happended.

TG: ok good, terezi, they said he was in his room in this apartment, didnt they?

CG: Y34H TH3Y D1D, WH1CH M34NS H3S SOM3WH3R3 1N H3R3

TG: thanks rezi *does the rouge of voidy thing and vanishes tfo*

GA: Um... What Did Roxy Intend With That Stipulation Prior To Her Visual Diminishing?

GA: Then Why Did She Engage Her Voidy Powers?

=======

Elsewhere in the apartment, a very hysterical broad slowly opens the door to her boyfriends bedroom, and finds him watching a video with a pair of earphones, meaning the door opening went unheard. He seems rather into it, not sure why, but either way provides the broad with an opportunity to do this to the bum that she calls boyfriend.

*PILLOW SMACK*

EB: AH WHAT THE FUCK?!  *windy thing*

EB: holy shit what was that?!

TG: me, thats what *un-voidy thing appearify*

EB: oh, its just you... what the hell is- *PILLOW BOPPED*

EB: ow! what the motherfucking shit roxy?!

TG: im motherfucking mad as hell at u right now, thats the motherfucking shit, john!

EB: well, hello again to you too i guess, why the fuck are you mad exactly?

TG: u kno exactly why im mad u dum adorable bastard, u cant fool me!

EB: oh... u saw it then?

TG: no! i wasnt there and shit, i just learned about it! i would have been here sooner if i knew what you did to yourself!!!

EB: ...wait, what are you talking about?

TG: u killing urself and kanaya finding you dead in the bathtub, wat the ever living shit do u think i was talking about?!

EB: ooooh, hehehe, thought you were mad about something else.

TG: wha-...what in the hell r u doin laffin about this? this is srs! REALLY serious! Seriously, why in loving fuck are you so chipper about this shit?!

EB: well its kind of hard to explain but-

*Rose, Kanaya and Terezi Appear*

TT: May I ask what you two are doing that is doing me a significant concern?

GA: I Second This Query, What Are You Doing?

EB: hey rose, kanaya...

EB: t3r3z1...

GC: JOHN...

TT: Roxy, answer me, what were you doing running off like that?

TG: to see john, duh!

TT: And why was there a commotion that was making a stir the ocean?

EG: hah!

TG: dude, srsly, i am so srs right now, y r u laughing?

EB: cuz it was funny?

TG: how could u be lafing about this shit?

EB: like i said it was funny! or at least i thought it was funny, so why wouldnt i laugh?

TG: because u killed yourself, or tried to! this isnt something u should be laughing about!

GC: 1 AGR33 W1TH 1NFORM4L L4LOND3, TH1S S1TUT4T1ON 1S NO L4UGH1NG M4TT3R. DO YOU M1ND T3LL1NG US YOUR S1D3 OF TH3 STORY FOR TH3 S4K3 OF POST3R1TY?

TG: yeah, tell us y u did it john! from your mouth, i wanna hear what u have 2 say bout wat happened.

EB: um... ok, theres really not much to say. where do you want me to start? 

GC: HOW 4BOUT TO TH3 PO1NT? D1D YOU DO 1T JOHN 3GB3RT? D1D YOU 4CTU4LLY TRY TO K1LL YOURS3LF?

EB: i don’t i did?

TG: da fuks that supposed to mean? u either did it or u didnt! now which is it?!

EB: i guess i did it in my sleep then? i dont really remember how it happended if im being honest, i just sort of went to sleep one night and i woke up in the bathtub with kanaya...

GC: TH4TS 4LL YOU R3M3MB3R?

EB: thats all i remember!

GC: ...

GC: BULLSH1T! YOU H4V3 TO B3 OM1TT1NG SOM3TH1NG! NOW STOP PR3T3ND1NG TO B3 4 CR1M1N4L W1TH SOM3TH1NG TO H1D3 4ND T3LL US WH4T YOUR3 H1D1NG!

TT: Oh God, Terezi, no! Stop this line of questioning immediately! Its not good for him to be invoking emotions he doesn't feel comfortable invoking on his own!

EB: ok, this is getting a little bit uncom-

TG: would u knock it the fuck off rose? were tryin to get a grasp of the situation, we got a right to know whats going on!

EB: can you guys ju-

TT: Thats not your call to make, you aren’t his therapist, I am!

GC: L3G4LLY OR AR3 YOU JUST S4Y1NG TH4T TO L3ND YOURS3LF 4N 41R OF 4UTHORITY?

TT: Yes, legally! I’ve been having therapeutic sessions with him and helping him adjust enough to get comfortable and you two have been undoing all of that progress with your incessant questioning like an unexpected inquisition!

TG: well we didn expect him to offhimself while we were gon n shit rosie, wegot a right to know y he did it and all that jazz so we can help him!

EB: guys, seri-

TT: Yes you do have a right, but you need to wait until John is ready, any sooner and you might make him more withdrawn. That’s why we didn’t have John with us so that we could minimize stress!

GC: W3LL TH1S WHOL3 SH1TTY S1TU4T1ON 1S STR3SS1NG M3 TH3 H3LL OUT! 1 D1DNT W4NT TO COM3 JUST TO F1ND OUT MY K1SM3S1S 1S ON TH3 BR1NK OF T4K1NG H1MS3LF OUT! HOW DO YOU TH1NK W3 F33L 4BOUT TH1S?!

TT: Its not about you, Terezi, its about helping John, and your current behavior isnt helping anything at all, including your stress!

EB: guys im willing to help, it’s jus-

TG: doesn't help when we don’t know what happened to john. laik, did he do it or did he not do it?!

TT: That’s what we are trying ti figure out, Roxy, it’s just that this is going to take time, and we need to give him space so he can get adjusted and emotionally heal, and you two are making that quite difficult to do in the first place!

TG: bullshit! ur tellin me u had all week to figure out what the fuck went down and u still have-

GA: Would You Collection Of Inconsiderate Buffoons

GA: ♣SHUT THE EVER LOVING FUCK UP!!!♣

TT: <:X

TG:<:P TG:*<:O

CG: !!! >:O

EB: <:B

GA: ♣THE SINCERITY THAT IS MY PERSONAL DISBELIEF AT THE WITNESSING OF YOUR APPALLING MISTREATMENT OF YOUR QUADRANT-MATE IS MAKING ME ABSOLUTELY GOD DAMN FUCKING LIVID!!! NO WONDER HE TRIED TO HOMICIDE HIMSELF, HE HAS YOU TWO TO MAKE HIM FEEL LIKE LIFE ISNT WORTH LIVING TO BEGIN WITH!!! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU INCONCEIVABLY VEXING FUCKWIT CUNTS?!♣(♠?)

GC: 4LL R1GHT NOW SM3LL H3R3 M1SSY FUSSY F4NGS! 1 W1LL-

GA: NO! Shut! Up! Cease Your Bitching This Instant And Remain Silent Before I Literally Smack Your Shit Out Of My Hive!!!

GC: ...ok  <:T

GA: You Two... You Two Are Supposed To Be His Quadrant-Mates... And Upon Learning Of His Predicament, This Is How You Treat Him? By Interrogating Him Endlessly Like He Did Something Wrong?! You Have Done Nothing But Not Even So Much As Asked Him How He Felt! You Should Be Consoling Him, Not Berating Him Like You Are Doing Now!

TG: i dont have to take this, wat do u think we’re doin? we’re tryin to help him and we’re-

TT: Actually, it seems like you two are trying to get to the bottom of things on your own terms, but from what I can tell, you two are merely panicking about it.

TG: ...

GC: ...

TG: ok... maybe we did panic a lil, and...

TG: shit i didnt this through at all did i?

EB: can i say something?

TT: Of course you may John. This situation IS literally about you.

EB: yeah, i... roxy, terezi, i don’t know what happened to me, but im being honest, i really dont know how i ended up in the tub. and since i guess you two care alot about me, you were upset over me not being open with you or something?

TT: John, its not your faul-

EB: hey! can i finish!?

TT: ...Just remember that its not your fault...go on.

EB: thanks rose. anyways... whatever is making you angry about this... its ok i think. we can just talk it out, right? 

GC: ...Y34H, W3 C4N B3 R4T1ON4L 4BOUT TH1S.

TG: i just wanna kno y u didnt tell us about how you were feelin. like were u sad or some shit?

TT: AH! We can discuss all of this later, together, in a more formal setting. Otherwise, let’s just focus on relaxing. I think we should just this all emotional turmoil for when we are ready.

TG: ok! but just let me ask one serious question.

TT: If John wants to answer, then go ahead.

EB: sure rox, only under the condition u tell me y u panicked so hard that u snuck up on me to hit me with a pillow.

TG: i was... mad. thats y i rogued u.

EB: about what exactly?

TG: alot of things. things like, when i asked u to come wtih me an calliope on our tour and u said no. made me think u were mad or sad or something when rose told me bout ur... tub-nap, like i did it or something.

EB: oh... i said no because i thought you and calli wanted some space, thats all.

TG: dude! if we wanted space we would have let u know up front! i dont play that shit! i asked u to cum because we both wanted u to cum!

GC: H3H3H3H3H3H3333

TG: y u laffin?

GC: OH JUST SOM3TH1NG FUNNY 1 THOUGHT 4BOUT

TG: whateves, rez. look, john, im sorry if i made you feel bad at any point over the last few yeras, but i need u to talk to me about this sort of thing, ok? im also sorry about boppin u with a pillow, that was a dick move on my part. TG:*years

EB: its roxy, dont worry about it! you were just having a panic attack-

TG: no its not, u scared the fuck outta me, and i really... REALLY dont wanna lose u! espeically not like that! i ju-

TT: I think thats enough for now. We can have a therapy session sometimes next week. For now lets just calm down and try to have a good time together, ok?

GC: HMMMM

GA: Is There Something You Wish To Add Terezi?

GC: MMMMM, NOT H3R3. JOHN, YOU 4ND 1 W1LL T4LK L4T3R

EB: oh great, alone with the swamp monster that licks everything and rarely brushes, fan freaking tastic.

GC: W3 W1LL SP34K 4S M4T3S, 4ND NOT 4S R1V4LS, YOU D1TZ.

EB: ...... uh...

TT: Ok! We are done in here. We shouldn’t even be having this honestly rather awkward conversation in John’s bedroom of all places.

TT: Why don’t we all go downstairs and watch a movie, or play a videogame or something. I’ll order us a pizza for dinner!

GA: No.

TT: ...Kanaya, we talked about this. You can’t stop me from ordering pizza, even if you wanted to. Besides we have guests, so one more night of Italian gourmet isn’t going to kill any of us.

GA: That Is Not What I Meant, But If You Wish To Get Fat, Be Guest Rose, For I Shall Love You All The Same.

TG: pfff-fff-fft, rood~

GC: H3H3H3H3333

TT: In that case, what do you mean by “No” then?

GA: No. As In, No, We Shall Not Be Engaging In Familial Bonding. Not With Me And Not With Johnathan.

EB: really? how come?

GA: Because You And I Are Going Out Together.

EB: you mean like a date?

GA: ♣An Ashen One, Yes♣

EB: those are a thing?

GA: Yes, They Are.

GC: NOT W1THOUT 4LL THR33 P4T1C1P4NTS TH3YR3 NOT!

GA: Yes, They Are, Terezi. Especially If The Auspice Feels The Need To Punish One Member.

EB:.... uuuuuuuhh, why are we going out together?

GA: Because I Don’t Think That After This Little Fiasco Of Theirs In Reacting To News Of Your Apparent Suicide, It Would Be Wise To Avoid Rewarding Them For Such Behavior. That And In Light Of What Has Transpired, I Do Not Feel Very Comfortable Without Knowing You Are All Right On My Terms.

TG: hang, u cant just make a desicion like that, i wanna spend time with john for a while! i didnt end my vacation just to let him flounder like a depressed fish by hijmself! i came here to help fix him!

GA: That Is Not What I Saw.

TG: well, john doesent haf to go if he doesent want to, so there.

EB: ...well...

TT: It... actually would be a nice way of resetting the mood. Getting a fresh start all that. And it could give us to catch up together, Roxy! I can fill you in better and what we can do.

GC: 1T WOULD M4K3 OUR PR3D1C4M3NT R4TH3R L3SS...3MB4R4SS1NG TH4N WH4T 1T 1S. YOU D1D K1ND OF P4N1C TH3R3 4 B1T, ROX.

EB: ... i guess that is kind of a good idea. i wont if you dont want me to though cuz i really don’t want to upset you again as well as placate Kanaya and stuff along with other shenanigans maybe.

TG: ... ur fukin luky that ur kewt... fine, u go out an have a good time or somthin we’ll stay here and wait 4 u 2 come home.

EB: great, i’ll c u latr gatr!

TG: 1 more thing *mmmwah*... im sorry again... i shoulndt have been a bitch in rage or wateves~♥

EB: heh... not problem rox <:d EB:*<:D

GC: *L1CKS*

EB: AH-GOD DAMMIT TEREZI YOU FUCKING GOBLIN CRETIN!

GC: YOUR3 ST11L MY N3RD, SO DONT FORG3T TH4T... S33 YA L4T3R DUMMY~♠

GA: Very Well Then, Now That You Group Of Flighty Broads Have Been Calmed, We Can Be On Our Way. Come Along Johnathan.

EB: all righty then, cya roxy! later rose! good to c u dumbass!

*John and Kanaya Absconds*

[mmmmalo]

red-zora replied to your post “I think Karkat's "I gave your universe cancer, Jade." speech may yield...”

i would offer a minor correction and say that while physically speaking Arquius is a component of Doc Scratch alongside the cueball, Doc Scratch's personally is a mirror to Arquius' and contains pretty much no trace of Gamzee or fuckface's

So I’d say that Arquius IS Doc Scratch

Very very fair.

red-zora replied to your post “Idle thought”

it would make sense in conjunction with Heir lining up with the Jungian Orphan archetype and Witch lining up with the Jungian Creator archetype...

That actually brings up the chief semantic counterpoint, since ‘create’ is seemingly already taken by the Maid/Slyph pairing within some schema. Kanaya’s mending of fabric calls to mind both Godhead Pickle Inspector mending the cosmos with thread and needle and Stitch mending Lord English’s coat, described as the fabric of space-time, acts of creating by mediating with a third element, as it were. A semantic similarity between sowing and auspisticism. Healing is one way to characterize these actions of a Sylph (as emphasized by Aranea restoring Terezi’s vision), but healing is conceptually preceded by a rupture. To avoid the heirarchy implied by ‘restoration’, ‘healing’ was generalized as ‘creation’.

Kanaya is elsewhere characterized by her verbose clarity and meticulous de(con)struction of ideas such as time. Her mode of breaking down the complex by asserting its basic tenets sets up a template for contrasting the destruction of Time (death, end, complexi) with the creation of Space (birth, beginning, basic).

The above is a framework which may or may not be true. I mention it only to point out that if ‘willing’ something into being amounts to metaphysical ‘creation’, those definitions of Witch and Sylph may not be compatible. You either need to alter the verb around which the roles orbit or take Kanaya’s description of a Sylph as a ‘magical Witch’ at face value, pair the two classes, and then try to justify Heir/Maid as the new counterpoint to Seer/Mage.

The annoying thing about classpect is that once you have a verb in mind, it can be exceedingly easy to perform the semantic leaps necessary to justify that paradigm. Like if I wanted to further justify Witches as Willing, I might point to Jade’s compu-sooth spectagoggles, which replace her eyes with a pair of dream bubbles (from the Charles Dutton book) emblazoned with some sort of alchemical symbol. The idea of alchemical creation, bringing dreams into reality through the eyes, could certainly serve the idea of ‘willing’. But you could also characterize the goggles as simply conveying a fixation of Jades that is not necessarily related to her role, in the same way that Dave’s iShades display his obsession with forbidden fruit.

It’s been pointed out before that both Kanaya and Jade become the things they dream about being (vampire, furry), while Calliope executes the transformation post-dream-mortem within her little sanctum, so goggles that assert the reality of dreams are certainly relevant (I currently view them as a signal to question whether Jade is discovering or inventing her current events), but whether this motif is specific to class or aspect or both or neither is kind of up in the air.

(There’s also the matter of how the spectagoggles (often worn with her Iron-lass suit) make Jade’s eyes a spooky robotic red and black, just like Crockertier!Jane, but Jade’s seeming identification with robots is a separate question that I ALSO don’t adequately understand)

[twoteenswriting]

Copper and Salt

Actually just Homestuck fanfiction. Vriskanroserezi on the meteor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It started as a joke, it had to be. There’s no way anyone would really like her, especially Kanaya. She wasn’t worth the trouble. Terezi must have put her up to it. She would enjoy it while it lasted, but she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kanaya was waiting too.

Vriska was just teasing her, incessantly. She knew, she had to know that she is- was infatuated with her years ago, and she wouldn’t risk her relationship with Terezi. Would she?

The flirting was black, Terezi would understand, Rose wouldn’t. At least Dave didn’t get it, and they were pretty much siblings. They couldn’t tell anyone, because if one did, the other would jump out and reveal the joke. They would laugh, but neither of them wanted it to end, so it didn’t. 

It typically went like this. Dinner, or breakfast, someone would make a quip about time not passing right, usually Dave. Terezi would joke with him and Karkat and Rose would sit ready to intervene, one hand in Kanaya’s. As soon as she did Vriska would say something from across the table about getting a haircut, Kanaya would act interested, waiting for the punchline. 

“No, a haircut for you, Kan.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Are you really so deep in the vampire schtick that even your hair has to match?”

“At least I have a theme, lately your style is very…”

“What, fussy-fangs?”

“Like you picked it up from your floor and did a sniff test.”

“That’s Terezi.”

“HEY”

Then Terezi and Vriska would engage. Rose would try to mediate, and Kanaya would be out in the cold again. She could jump in, but she found it’s best to fall back and wait, and look at Vriska.

Roughhousing made all her wild attributes pop. Her hair normally tangled hair fluffed out, her teeth gleamed when she laughed, and when she flexed… well, she went to such great lengths to make sure Kan could see. 

She tried to scold down the blush that was rising in her cheeks. This was a joke. She didn’t mean it, couldn’t. 

Rose knocked over the salt. She took out her copper piercings and tossed them on the table before jumping into the fray. The copper sparkled like the sun, and the salt the stars. Kanaya pushed back tears and pretended to laugh about all the mess.

Terezi was on a salt kick. She salted everything, including hot cocoa. Dave introduced the cocoa and somehow Terezi grew up without any salt so she was getting her fix. They had to stage an intervention when she started walking into rooms with a bottle full of salt. She even salted her own mouth once before kissing Vriska. She claimed she enjoyed it. Kan didn’t get it.

Rose was newly fixated with copper, and so was Kanaya. The color suited her, and they would talk for hours about its antibacterial properties. Rose would spend hours alchemizing jewelry and playing with copper sheets. She said that she never got to express her inner craftsman at home. All this about aesthetics; Vriska didn’t get it.

Kanaya pulled her aside after dinner / breakfast, her eyes darting left and right. She led her past bedrooms and hallways, no place far enough away for their secret, and settled on a closet in the heart of the meteor. 

“Something has to change,” Kanaya didn’t like the way her voice wavered, “this is real, right?”

“Real, I mean-“

“You have to tell me that this isn’t all in my head, that I’m not imagining things because it can’t be, this isn’t-“

“Breathe,” Vriska put her hands on Kan’s shoulders, “breathe.”

They were so close, and the past few months flashed through Kan’s head. Brawls that lasted way too long, inching toward each other at the table, it couldn’t be just a joke, this girl had played with her feelings too many times and if this was one of those times she would rather face the punchline than take one more minute of this. Anything but this.

Vriska was usually the one falling apart, and while the role reversal made her smirk it mostly made her worried. They’d been playing relationship ouija ever since… well ever since they’d met in person for the first time. She was so different in the real world, outside of that little chat box that seemed to rule their lives. Kanaya had needs, and Vriska thought she could fill them in a very very platonic way, but she moved here and she moved there and she didn’t know when they crossed the line but Vriska struggled very hard to shove the very very un-platonic feelings away, but they kept coming back. 

Kanaya abhorred what she did, but she was trying to change, and she wanted to help with that. She tried to get her to open up but there was always a barb or a detour to surprise her. She had finally pinned her down in the closet. It felt real, very very real, and being so close was torture and she would never get another chance,

and she would never get another chance, and she went for it

and she went for it. 

The kiss was long and deep, violent and passionate. Years of feeling condensed into one long moment. They only stopped when they tasted copper and salt. Vriska’s lip was cut and tears streamed out of her eyes. 

“Stop, stop! this will hurt them so bad.” She didn’t recognize the words coming out of her mouth. 

“I don’t care.”

She didn’t believe Kanaya either.

She leaned in again, Vriska had to shove her away. Blood was all over her face. 

“You don’t care?”

“I, I do, but I didn’t feel it- what did you do to me?!”

“Me?!”

“Yes, you’re influencing me… some how, just get to the punchline Vriska just say I’m the punchline!”

“You thought I was- I thought you-“

“What did we do?!”

Light flooded the closet, neutralizing the soft glow of Kanaya’s skin. She looked away, Vriska didn’t. 

“Rose… I can-“

Her expression was obscured by the backlight, but her emotions were clear when the door slammed so hard it rattled the hinges. 

Back against the door, Rose struggled to take deep breath. With all her foresight she had neglected to account for this outcome, how? She thought she could see Kanaya so clearly, Vriska not so much. What would Terezi-

“TEREZI”

She dragged a couch in front of the door before running off to collect the other cheat-ee.

Vriska’s eyes adjusted back to the dark and cold. She was used to being cold, but not when just a second ago she was flush with someone so surprisingly warm. Kanaya wouldn’t look at her. She wanted to know what she was thinking so badly, but she was uncertain what she would find, so she went about it in the old fashioned way.

“Would you leave me for Rose?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Wow Myryam… that’s cruel. Am I rubbing off on you?”

Kanaya wiped the blood off her lip and tasted it.

“You could say so. What about Terezi?”

“I’ve been talking to her about… whatever we are. I need her, ugh, but I think I need you just as much.”

“I have trouble believing that.”

“At least as friends, I mean, aggressive acquaintances, if you really want to go back to that. In a heartbeat.”

“I didn’t mean-” Kanaya sighed “I didn’t mean that I don’t care about you. I meant that you’re… like the stars. Rose is like the sun. Without you I might lose direction, but without Rose…”

A smile pulled at Vriska’s mouth. The way it was, it wasn’t perfect, but it was good. Now it might not be, but she was used to messing everything up. Her very existence seemed to draw in trouble. She never seemed to know when to fight it or accept it. She looked at her hands, the floor, anywhere than the little bit of normal she sacrificed to have just one kiss, just one.

“I get it. I’ll step back.”

She jumped a little when Kanaya squeezed her hand.

Rose found Terezi surrounded by piles and piles of cans, hammering out can town’s constitution with the Mayor. 

“Terezi there is a situation in the closet.”

“What?”

“Come see for yourself.”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Terezi!”

They both make their way to the closet, Terezi chuckling the entire way. She pushes the couch aside with one hand, and winks with both eyes. Without opening the door she yells,

“WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE, ARE YOU TWO MAKING OUT?”

“Were.” Kanaya’s voice is hoarse.

“Oh. Hmm…”

Terezi paced back and forth, tapping rhythmically with her cane. She slammed the door back into place when it creaked open. Still tapping her cane, she parsed the situation. 

It’s not like she didn’t see this coming. She knew Vriska better than she knew herself, and on top of that she was a terrible liar. Every time she caught the glances between the two the pangs of jealousy only fueled her teasings, but now it was real. 

A relatable struggle, but Terezi was better at hiding her true feelings. 

Rose only interrupted when the tapping became pounding. Putting one hand on the cane and the other over the hand tapping it, she looked into red eyes and failed to notice the blush spreading over Terezi’s face.

“What do we do?”

“I’m not sure. I mean Vriska’s kind of stupid but I’m not leaving her.”

A muffled HEY made Rose turn.

“You’re not?”

“I don’t see a reason to.”

“But you never see.”

She shrieked with laughter, and Rose couldn’t help but smile. All she was looking for was some sigh that everything was going to be ok, and Terezi’s blood curdling laughter was the same as it ever was.

“I mean, I’m going to punish her somehow, but leaving her would be cruel. What about you and Kanaya?”

“I don’t know,” Rose slumped against the wall “On Earth I would have, but now I’m a god of light and she’s an alien vampire so does anything matter anymore?”

“I guess not. She’s super hot by the way.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Isn’t this what this is about? Keeping secrets?”

“I suppose so.”

“We should talk to them-“

“I’m a moment,” Rose pulled her down so they were both sitting on the ground, “but not yet. I don’t know if I’m ready to see her yet.”

Rose took a moment to breathe. On the other side of the door Kanaya buried her head in her hands and cried. Vriska was her childhood crush, but even then she knew she was a mess. There was something about that wildness that intrigued her. Rose was beautiful, amazing, perfect, and everything she ever thought she wanted. Maybe she was too perfect. She would fuss and fuss but not much could be done without starting a fight or Rose retreating behind another layer of human sarcasm. 

Time spend with her felt subdued, their conversations were sparring matches, and while Vriska was no less of a stressful enigma she needed someone, and she needed to be needed. She needed adventure and someone to take her, and she needed to express the feelings she never let slip so long ago, but she needed Rose’s stability even more.

Vriska tried to comfort her, telling her how much of a catch she was, assuring her that she wasn’t horrible, rubbing her back in long, slow circles while telling her to breathe. The role reversal was jarring.

“Sometimes I feel Rose slipping away,” Kanaya said on a long exhale, “on Earth women weren’t supposed to love other women.”

“Yeah I know. Dave talks about it but, Rose never brought it up.”

“I know it bothers her. Sometimes I felt that she was just looking for an excuse to break it off so she wouldn’t have to confront it. I’m worried she’ll freak out.”

“Yeah I think trapping us in a closet constitutes as a freak out Myryam-”

A quick jab shut her up. Unfortunately the silence was killing her. The mumbling from outside drove her crazy, and pressing her ear to the door did nothing. 

“Can you… listen in?”

“I can try.”

Vriska took a steadying breath before reaching out with her mind. Terezi’s mind was familiar and comforting, and she often sought out its presence when they were apart. She would never tell her that though. Settling between her ears she began picking up any stray thoughts. Smell, touch, she was playing with the edge of her cane, no sight but- ah! Sound. 

What she did pick up was muffled by emotional turmoil. Something gross and mushy around Rose, fear, truth, honesty, tuning like a radio she tried to silence it, but it was no use. She decided to just observe. Tempting as it was to meddle. So tempting…

An idea floated past, she could just, nudge it along. Open the door, come on. Come on.

The door creaked open. Terezi came in first. She walked over to Vriska and slapped her.

“I know what you were doing!”

“You were out there so long I thought I’d die.”

“Fine. If you want this so badly I guess you’ll have it. Come on in Rose.”

There were flames in her eyes. Flames directed at Vriska. She stormed over and gave her another slap.

“What was that for?!”

“I don’t know! Everything’s just always your fault somehow, isn’t it!” Rose pinched the bridge of her nose “Anyway, I have something I wanted to say.

On Earth, this wasn’t something I was supposed to do. I tried so hard to suppress it but it always came out. I thought that because Earth was gone, so was that guilt. I was wrong. I’m scared. This is scary. I found some kind of stability and now it might be gone. A part of me wants to throw it away because it’s not what’s supposed to happen, but it has. Kanaya, I struggle but I’ve felt more right than I ever have in my life with you, and if I’m not doing something right I want to know, please.”

“Rose…” Kanaya rushed over to embrace her “nothing, you’re doing nothing wrong. I love you, and just because I love Vriska doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

“You love her?”

“LOVE ME?! MYRYAM THAT’S GROSS!”

“But I will stop this if that’s what you want.”

“Wow thanks.”

“I will learn how to tolerate Vriska if it will make you happy.”

“I guess it’s just bag on Vriska day huh.”

“I love you Rose.”

“I love you too. I have to say I was a little disappointed when I figured out those flelexing sessions weren’t for me.”

“HA! I KNEW it, everybody is in love with me.”

“Not so fast!” 

all eyes shot to Terezi, 

she took her time with the suspense, 

“Dave isn’t.”

“Babe I never wanted him to be.”

Terezi head-butted her girlfriend “I know.”

“Are you sure you’re alright with this?” She motioned to herself and Kanaya.

“As long as I get PLENTY of attention and you pay a fine of… one million kisses!”

“We’d have to be together for a really long time for that dude.”

“ACCEPTABLE! Well what are you waiting for? Begin your payment.

Oh! And before I forget, Kanaya,”

“Yes?”

“Your girlfriend’s hot. Rose? Your girlfriend. Is. Hot.”

“Did you have to say it in that way?”

“No, but it bugged you didn’t it?”

Terezi let out another demonic shriek and Vriska chuckled against her cheek.

“She really got you there! Why don’t we come out of the closet?”

Rose laughed so hard that she had to lie down. Maybe this would work out just fine.