#nervous as fuck portraying your Meteor for such length

[primalvessel]

@confluxium because he didn't think I would. Cut for length because this one went looooong (by my standards anyway). Inspired by (but not directly chronicling) the pics from here.

They were alone.

Well, technically they'd been alone since they'd rowed over from the mainland, but standing there on the beach with no-one else in sight, the only sounds being the cry of gulls wheeling above them and the gentle rush of the waves as they lapped at the shore... The peace of it was surreal.

It took only a moment for Safiri to notice that his was the only crunch of feet across the sand and he crossed the short distance back to the Miqo'te's side to stand close, intimately so, as the feline looked out over the calm waters before them.

"I never dared dream that we'd be allowed such a thing," Maru murmured, leaning into his lover's side and finally tearing his gaze from one beautiful sight to another. The Hyur looked relaxed and at ease in the simple attire in a way Maru rarely saw and he was determined to commit the sight to memory, bathed in warm light as he was.

They remained there for a long moment, just basking in the quiet and the company until Maru felt Firi's arm go around him and give him the smallest squeeze. It prompted him to look up and press a small kiss to the Hyur's jaw before he was gently guided into turning away from the sea spread before them.

"Come on. There's more to the island than just this."

There was still some reluctance in the feline even as he allowed Firi to guide him, as if he was afraid that looking away from the wonderful sight would reveal it to have never been there in the first place. Nevertheless, he finally turned away and together they climbed the path that led up away from the beach and up to their little tropical paradise proper.

Not before the handsy feline slipped a hand into the open front of his love's shirt though, to press his palm against the cool skin there.

Maru had to stop once more as the little collection of huts came into sight and he swatted his lover when Safiri chuckled softly at him. "Stop!" he protested, a smile of his own on his lips, "I'm allowed to be shocked. This is yours. This whole island is yours."

"Ours," Firi corrected, and dropped a kiss into soft white hair that left the taste of sea spray on his lips. He took one of Maru's hands to coax him closer that he might better see the facilities on offer, beginning with the open-sided main structure and ending with the hot spring with everything in between.

The sun was setting by the time they settled, naked, into the hot waters after a long day of walking, climbing and sightseeing. There was so much more to look forward to on the morrow also, with Maru having insisted that they take some time to go fishing, sunbathe and get frisky, not necessarily in that order.

The eve saw them sat around a small campfire though, with Maru showcasing his skill cooking over it while he made idle conversation, talking enough for the both of them, probably.

"... and then the spear snapped in two and I ended up having to bite it," he explained, sounding very serious about the whole affair, though a grin curled the corners of his lips when he spared a glance for his lover reclined nearby and saw the smile there.

"At least you're honest about where your mouth has been," Safiri replied with an undercurrent of amusement.

"Now how about you be honest about where you want my mouth," the feline taunted in reply with a pointed look (that was completely unnecessary) at the Hyur's groin.

"Don't know what you mean," Safiri replied airily, and crossed his leg over his knee. "Especially after that tale."

Laughing gently, the Miqo'te turned the meat over to finish cooking it through and gave the little pot of popotoes a stir. A little of the island's own butter to soften and flavour it and the simple meal was almost complete (with Maru customarily avoiding his greens).

"I promise I brushed my teeth afterwards," Maru defended lightly and began serving the little meal into the two quaint wooden bowls he'd set nearby for just such a purpose. "Anyway, I came out on top and that was all that mattered," he continued as he handed off one of the filled bowls to Firi and sat beside him so that their knees knocked for a moment.

"Well, I suppose there does have to be a time or two where you're on top," Safiri remarked, hiding his smirk behind a spoonful of freshly roasted fare. He nearly lost it into his lap when the feline gave him a playfully affronted nudge.

"Hey! You take that back, asshole!"

Safiri scoffed, firelight and amusement both dancing in his eyes. "No."

The Miqo'te made a noise that could generously be called a squawk of indignation before he abandoned his own bowl of food and tackled the Hyur into the sand.

Maru topped that night.

x - x - x - x - x - x - x - x

The flower crowns may have been Tataru's idea but when he woke the following morning to be gifted one (very insistently) by one of the mammets as soon as he meandered out into the warming light of the day, it didn't take him long to see that Safiri had obviously been coerced into wearing one too.

How long the Hyur had been there, Maru didn't know. He'd slept deep and peacefully and while he might have stirred when his lover rose, evidently it hadn't been enough to wake him fully. His Firi looked refreshed though, at least somewhat, so Maru didn't ask how long he'd been seated as he was. Instead, he moved closer, trailed his hand along a bare thigh and settled into the space between his lover's legs.

Framed on both sides by quiet strength and having said not a word since approaching, the Miqo'te sighed softly and closed his eyes to feel the sun on his face and enjoy the tranquility of the morning. He rested his cheek against a firm thigh and just basked in the mix of warm and gentle feelings, unable to help the purr that began as a low rumble when Safiri's fingers slid into his hair and scritched lightly at his scalp. It made a little shiver ripple down his spine and he mewled quietly.

In no hurry to start the day, they stayed like that a bell, more than a bell, just existing. With no obligations, no interruptions.

When eventually the Miqo'te stood, stretching his legs and rubbing some feeling back into his ass, he laughed lightly as Firi helped him out with a firm grope before he settled back in against the Hyur's chest and let strong arms coil around him.

"Well I know where your mind has gone this morning," he teased gently, as Firi's hand played over his abs and began to dip beneath the waistband of his pants.

"I'm almost certain that it's your fault," Safiri replied in a low rumble, his free hand splayed across the Miqo'te's throat and collarbones, hinting at what he could do, the control he could have over the feline should he choose to flex his strength. It would never cease to warm his heart that Maru felt safe in the face of that strength, and that feline was strong enough in turn that he need worry less about hurting him accidentally.

"Well then I guess I know which order our plans today are going to unfold," he taunted, turning in Firi's arms so that the hand that had been tracing his happy trail instead rested warmly on the swell of his ass. "At least if we're just fishing later, I don't have to worry about getting around with a limp..."

He stole one more kiss for himself, making it linger as he wrapped his arms around the back of his lover's neck and pressed in against the Hyur's steady warmth, before he pulled away just enough to take Safiri's hand and coax him forward in much the same way Firi had with him the day prior. Always touching, as if not doing so was anathema to him.

Calloused hand clasped firmly in one of Safiri's, Maru let his lover lead the way to somewhere a little more comfortable to work up their appetites...

[burn-the-retcon]

I’ve witnessed an awful lot of drama caused by the claim going around that the Strilondes are canonically Jewish and therefore it’s okay to harass people who do things like draw them celebrating Christmas. It not being okay to harass people over drawings and Dave canonically helping Jade set up Christmas decorations (in April) aside, I can categorically state that no, I am pretty sure they are not. Cut for length, anti-Semitism, and general anti-religionism (on Hussie’s part, hopefully not on mine); please read whole post before commenting.

The evidence which gets cited as proof here is the fact that Dave and Rose came up with elaborate metaphors involving “ethnic weddings”. I’ve seen at least one person claim that Dave must be Jewish because “he knows what happens at Jewish weddings”. This baffles me completely. I know what happens at Jewish weddings and I’m certainly not Jewish, and by that argument, Hussie must be Jewish because he’s the one who wrote it. I’ve also seen a claim that Dave is “obsessed with Jewish weddings”. He mentioned them exactly one time. By that logic, he’s also obsessed with meteors - he discussed those more than once, even!

That aside, let’s look at what he and Rose actually said, starting with Rose’s because it came first chronologically.

Removing the lid signals the moment your life becomes a great whirling batshit pandemonium, somewhat resembling the chaos of an especially ethnic wedding. Somewhere, a soused uncle deliberately shatters china on the floor. Muddy livestock is decorated, and then lost track of. The question “Who’s mule is this?” at times can be heard over the din.

Coming from a Jewish writer, I could accept this as a bit of self-deprecating humour. Hussie is not Jewish, and has a track record of at best tone-deafness and at worst actively cruel mockery of minorities. To my non-Jewish eyes, this doesn’t even look like the correct offensive stereotype. Intentional shattering of crockery is a Greek stereotype, not a Jewish one. As for Dave...

TG: im feeling pretty friggin MATRIMONIAL all a sudden TG: take a look down by your foot see that little bottle TG: stomp on that shit like its on fire TG: noisy ethnic dudes are flipping the fuck out and waving us around on chairs til someone gets hurt TG: im your 300 pound matronly freight-train TG: and my gaping furnace is hungry for coal so get goddamn shoveling

This is at least vaguely like a Jewish stereotype, but again, this comes off like an outsider mocking others’ traditions. He didn’t even get them right - in every case I’ve seen it’s been a drinking glass that gets stomped on, not a bottle, and Googling doesn’t turn up anything about bottles being used. I also note neither of them used the word “Jewish” at any point, but used “ethnic” - a word which implies, at least to me, an out-group that the speaker is not in.

This aside, human religion of any kind is never discussed again except idiomatically, until Rose compares the story of Adam and Eve to splitting the atom, in a scene where she’s supposed to come off as a rambling drunk. Then, we get the other scene usually cited for the Strilondes’ Judaism, the wedding.

This is a much stronger point, but when you look at this there’s a level of nastiness beneath the surface. Rose and Kanaya both look discomfited and surprised, not happy, implying they either didn’t suggest this or are nervous about being picked up and shaken around or both. There’s a Jake face in the background looking shocked and appalled, and he’s just copy-pasted from the Trickster pages but this implies we’re supposed to think this is weird. Worse, the characters doing so are in Trickster Mode. Trickster Mode’s entire deal was the characters acting irrationally and impulsively, had a whole long spiel from the author insert about how it’s a horrible idea, and is portrayed as more or less analogous to drug usage. This is not giving me the impression that we’re supposed to think the chair-lifting is anything but something to be mocked.

Finally, they set up a planet-wide society in which no human religions exist anymore, including Judaism. I can’t find the quote anymore but Dave in the epilogue specifically states dismissively that only troll religions exist on Earth C and even those aren’t popular. If it was so important to them, why didn’t they keep it and tell others about it?

This ties into a general pattern of how religion in general only comes up in the comic to be made fun of or portrayed as a disaster. The kids make idiomatic references to God, but never display any signs that faith means anything to them. John refers to Jesus as “an adult bearded human who was magic”, which is more like how an alien would describe Jesus than anything that comes out of the actual aliens’ mouths/keyboards. Rose specifically brings up Adam and Eve when she’s drunk and babbling. No one celebrates any religious holidays except for Jade and Dave setting up Christmas-in-April with the shittily drawn decorations which is supposed to be them fucking around and pretending to get the presents Jade never got before, not actually finding meaning in a Christian holiday. Gamzee’s religion veers between a reason to mock him and a reason he’s dangerous, and it hasn’t escaped my notice that his theme song of a sort is “Miracles”, by a rap duo who are very spiritual with a Christian influence in their personal lives, and it’s used to make Gamzee look like even more of a dumb stoner. Karkat and Sollux have an exchange about how “MIRACLES ARE POOP STAINS ON GOD’S UNDERWEAR” and “makiing fun of people’2 reliigiion i2 the be2t thiing two do”. And the kids don’t have any qualms about themselves being worshipped as gods in the new world. I am not personally very religious (best I can say is I don’t disbelieve) but I’m familiar with how religious people think, and if the kids were religious in any way, they would not simply throw out their views when something supernatural happened. People who believe in God would be more likely to, from my experience, consider themselves tools of the “real” God behind the scenes and spread the word about the God they worship, not want to be worshipped themselves. They’d consider themselves extremely powerful tools, yes, but still tools, not the ultimate wielders. Not all religions or subsects of Judaism believe in a literal god, just in codes of behaviour and historical connections, but if it was at all important to them, they would at least think about how their faiths connected to what happened to them. The fact that they seem so blase about supernatural happenings in general is probably a sign of clumsy genre switching - it went from “parody of adventure games with characters as stand-ins for the player” to “philosophical rambling with characters in their own right” - but there sure as hell isn’t any canonical support for them practising religion of any kind either way, or even being aware it exists except when they want to make a weird metaphor.