#the sadstuck that comes from that is so Nothing to me. the way things actually played out is way more fucked up and fun imo

[ot3]

i love dahlia both as a character and a villain but its always so frustrating how much fanworks involving her just kind of ignore the fact that she barely knows phoenix, doesn't really care about him, and only met him twice.

[rabble-dabble]

Johnkat Fic Rec

oh HELL YEAH. THIS IS HAPPENING. i have a google doc open, a drink full of water, and a will full of last-minute idea inspiration. 2020 fic list baby. 

Thin Air - NGL this was the first fic i read after i realized i should look at ao3 for johnkat back a few years ago and it was a GREAT re-introduction back into the ship. it’s when john retcons canon but “over the top gay” (LEGIT THE TAGS) and john and karkat’s relationship develops over the time trips. a lil bit of blood at the end but it all ends happily. 

(do not ask) the price I pay - multi-chaptered alternate universe sort of take on how sburb works and centers around karkat who is “sacrificed” to the Gods and ends up living with them. it’s REALLY emotional and REALLY sad and it takes your heart and STOMPS ON IT REALLY REALLY HARD. but it is SO worth the read. i’m trying so hard not to spoil it but it’s good. 

Dead Man’s Poison - karkat becomes a ghost and it’s such a funny and sad take on his (after) life. time moves on, someone moves in, and karkat discovers being a ghost can be really boring (and really regretful). has a little bit of a horror aspect at the end, but resolves it beautifully. it’s angst cranked to 10 even though he’s already dead. 

Carbonated Truth Enhancer - a oneshot vortex of emotional egbert trauma that john TOTALLY deserves. this fic takes up my one braincell at least half the time. 

How Not to Make a Species - better to be called “how god underestimated my ability to weep” because it really, really did and it was a lot. it’s just poetically soft and gentle and it brings a tear to my eye just skimming it. 

And It Was Clear - karkat needs glasses and john has a really, really good idea. it’s alarmingly short and yet, perfectly clear. (hehe)

Breath & Blood - sadstuck, bloodheavy short story made by FiveTail and if you haven’t even heard of that name i weep for you. i have never felt more pity for a doomed timeline and i think about it constantly. 

Waiting For God Tier - I AM GOING TO SHAKE YOU IF YOU HAVE NEVER READ THIS. this is basically a doomed john and karkat going through their afterlife trying to figure out how they died (warning blood and sadstuck) and i cried so much i had to go blow my nose. and then i drew johnkat art cuddling each other before i went to bed thinking about them very, very alive. 

Just a Taste - adorable valentines day fic. john thinks he is sneaky to try to get karkat to lick cake batter off his hand and this is probably the closest suggestive fic on this list. AND IT’S NOT EVEN MEANT TO BE SO LIKE ARHJGHGHJHJHJRGHJ-

responsible, forever, for what you have tamed - this SCREAMS fluff and romantic. karkat had made john the stars, but for karkat, john has made him a garden. it’s beautiful and read it to hear my distant happy tears. 

Happy Accidents - John and Karkat become parents in the most unconventional of ways. They foster a baby grub and it’s adorable and yes, if you must ask, i did also cry at the end. it has a happy ending though so it is WORTH it. 

Blurring the Lines - John is the idiot who goes wandering off and Karkat is the one who has to save him from the stupidity he has before it gets him murdered by an insane clown. So, basically, regular life lol. 

In Which John and Karkat are Pranked - in which my reasoning why dave is simply the best person to always have the two idiots get together, and my heart goes out to the poor bastard author who had to format this. it’s PESTERLOGS. and i feel. SO SORRY. 

This Could Work - Karkat is scared for the future of their new universe and John decides at the WORST time to confess that he might be in love with Karkat. it’s presented so delicately well that i’m suspicious that they might have just looked into an actual alternate universe or something and saw canon. 

A Line Between You and Me - Everyone takes on aspects of each other, and John is led living life figuring out who he inherited his from. sadstuck alarms, this is one story that doesn’t end as well as the others.

Welcome to the Rest of Your Life - this hits ALL the right sadstuck feels and ALL the right “winning the game” feels. sburb didn’t take very kindly to losing so it takes the one thing karkat cherishes: his home. 

Surfeit - a comic story au about growing up and childhood crushes and the beautiful, beautiful scene of idiotic love. 

Blue - karkat is bored from his marriage, his life, and from his work. this fic really details that feeling about the state of melancholy, where it is all just bland. this was a type(?) of inspiration for Step by Step (i think) and it just pulls you in to read more. 

Jesus Wouldn’t - considering how i know the inner workings of being the religious type and how people tend to abuse what messages come with it, this fic is oddly beautiful and inspiring. it truly just quilts together the messages of what is important and how everything is sort of okay on the inside and outside. not exactly johnkat centric, but i thought it was worth it to be here. 

i will buy the flower shop, and you will never be lonely. -THIS is moirallegiance or nothing is. pale johnkat is beautiful and worthy and basically i love this one so much it fills my lungs with honey and flowers. 

lock it up and leave - sadness sadstuck about how broken karkat is and how hard it is to take care of someone when they think the only thing left to do is to give up. but john egbert isn’t having it, no, he refuses to lose anyone else - “if you go, you’re taking me with you.”

Apocalyptic Literature - i found this in the depths of ao3 hell. honestly, it intrigued me and i wasn’t disappointed with what i found. sadstuck grim, and there’s mention of blood and bodies but the ending is surprisingly soft and on a happy note. 

 Of Growing Up - Yeah you know of RMWT? Real Men Wear Tights? Someone in the universe got the memo that i am always angry about super hero friends who can’t recognize each other and gifted this upon the world, which I like to think i was meant to find and gush over. this is PERFECTLY executed and even has some detail i was smug on finding, so if you too have read RMWT and want an ending i suggest giving this a look. 

and that’s about it! i have more but they’re not really..eh, what i’d want to put here (for now). i’ll keep ya upd8ed if i come across more i really, really enjoy. 

[fluorescencefuture]

Homestuck^2: How I’d write the Omega Kids (and the Candy timeline villains)

I haven't reread Homestuck nor the epilogues in a while so correct me if I'm wrong with anything here. This was all in one go, too, so I probably missed something here or there. I'm also not a native English speaker so pardon some grammar errors.

In General

I’d give them a five-letter name scheme. Names of a group being the same length was a big deal in original HS (human first names had four letters, troll names had six, Ancestors had eight-letter titles, Cherubs had eight letters too, etc.), so it’s odd seeing this new group have names of varying length

I’d also give them all shirt symbols. It’s odd that something so iconic to Homestuck isn’t present in the new kids, either.

I'll write for both the canon post-canon with evil Jane and for my own version with different villains. Evil Jane happens because a highblood troll who hears of the old ways of Alternia attempts to kill her and take her crown, as she's technically the heiress. Jane wins, but she starts to see trolls and Alternian culture in a different light from then on. At first she was only trying to prevent the worst parts of Alternian culture from coming back, but over time grew to despise trolls, and ended up trying to force human culture onto Alternians.

The other Candy villains are a dangerous terrorist rebel group that wants to overthrow the creators and destroy them. They say the creators made the people, abandoned the people for years, then suddenly came back and decided they control the people. The group is made of humans, trolls, carapacians, and even consorts. The mysterious shadowed leader claims to be doing this for the people, but really, all they want is to have control for themselves, and they don't care if any innocents get in the way.

Harry Anderson

Has nothing to fix, he’s perfect as is

Okay but seriously, the guy is the kid with the least questionable things around him. He has no baggage from sharing the same name as an established character (ICP Harry Anderson doesn’t count), and he didn’t come from infidelity.

He also has actual color to his personality. He likes musicals and sewing. He has a good relationship with his dad. Like many kids with divorced parents, he wishes his parents were together again. What do the others have? Vrissy is just a slightly less aggressive Vriska. Tavros is just OG Tavros and Jake combined. Yiffy’s thing is being a dog girl named Yiffany Longstocking. The others could be fleshed out eventually, but with the slow pace and meandering plot we have right now, I doubt it.

If Jane's the villain, things would mostly go the same way. If Jane isn't the villain, it goes two ways: he decides to join Vrissy's guerilla anti-anti-creator group and fight because he wants to protect his parents, or he's just very anti-conflict and avoids the fight because he doesn't think he's up to it. He's frequently threatened but doesn't tell his parents about the threats. Eventually, he gets convinced to join and fight.

Vrissy

So Vrissy’s in relationships with guys who are technically her cousins. At first I was like “well, they’re not biologically related nor were they raised as family so it’s not weird”. But then Tavros called Kanaya “Aunt Kanaya” and now I’m thinking “oh god, that’s really weird”.

Now she’s just a troll girl from school. She's just close to Kanaya and Rose, but isn’t their kid. She isn’t related to anyone. Anyone except Vriska, who she was named after. Vrissy’s new nickname is just Vriss.

Alternatively, her name is something completely different. Honestly, it just seemed like a way to shoehorn in a Vriska for the story. Only for actual Vriska to come back anyway.

Uhh, Eshtha (from Jyeshtha, a Hindu nakshatra Scorpius is associated with)? Oriona (from Orion, the myth where Scorpius is mostly attributed to)? Naiaka (from Manaiakalani, as Hawaiians saw Scorpius as the demigod Maui’s fishhook)? Oh wait, I’ll have to make nicknames for those names too. Uh, Eshty, Riona, and Naiah.

Maybe have her have a personality that’s rather opposite to Vriska’s than have her as Vriska 2. She's more a perky goth, more cheerful and sweet. More "I knew you could do it!" than "So you can do something after all." A beast in battle, of course. She doesn't like to use her mind control powers, because she finds them disturbing.

If Vriska had to come back, the conflict would come from their conflicting personalities. Vriska would pretty much act the same way she did to (Vriska), but this time, Vriss doesn't take any of it and stands her ground.

Whether the villain is Jane or not, she's the one who decides to fight back, and she gets her friends and others to join her. The creators have been nothing but good to her, and she cares about them a lot, especially Rose and Kanaya. Not to mention they're also her friends' parents.

Tavros

Yeah, we’re gonna have to rename that kid. It never made sense to me why Jake and Jane named their kid after some guy they don’t know that well. I don’t remember everything from the Epilogues, but I’ll assume the reason was Gamzee or something. Also weird that Jane, who’s supposed to be racist to trolls, would just...let her kid be named after one.

Something old-ish would work. Flynn? Silas? Avery? Clyde? Niles? Louie?

He's moirails with this Vriss instead of kismeses. The Vrissy/Tavros kismesis also felt like re-hashing the kismesis that Vriska and OG Tavros kinda had.

If we went post-canon villain Jane, he'd be reluctant to join the rebellion and is more of a pacifist who would rather try to talk his mom out of it.

Alternatively, Jane and Jake are separated (but not divorced) and he lives with Jake. Because Jane was never terrible to him and Jake doesn't tell him how bad she's gotten, he disagrees with her but still tries to justify and rationalize that Jane's really doing it from a place of good intentions.

If the villain isn't Jane, then Jane and Jake have been hiding him away, and his friends can only see him when they visit him at his swanky home. You might say he's...housetrapped. He joins because his friends are in it, and doesn't quite grasp how serious things are until the rebels try to kill Jane (the rebels try to kill Jane first because you always kill the healer first).

He's in contact with a mysterious guide who's kinda spacy and a little terrifying at times. His friends think the guide might just be some creepy predator. It's revealed to be Candy Gamzee, out of the fridge and legitimately harmless, but untraceable and doing mysterious things behind the black. Again.

Come to think of it, Dirk's missing too...

Yiffany Longstocking

Yiffy is now the ectokid of Dave and Jade. She looks more like a DaveJade kid than JadeRose, really. Dave and Jade are also either happily married or coming close to an amicable divorce. Yeah, the toxic shit Jade did and the erasure of Dave's bisexuality also don't exist here. Jade, Dave, Karkat, and Terezi are backing Vrissy's anti-anti-creator group.

Her new name is something unisex. Riley? Logan? Robin? Sloan? Salem?

She spends a lot of time outside doing sports and doesn't talk much. She's not very close to the other three kids, but she's surprisingly pretty close to her Aunt Rose.

While Jade and Dave are out on a mission for Karkat (this is the mission Candy Dave dies), she gets kidnapped by the opposing force (Jane/the terrorists). She gets a shock collar forced on her, then is hidden away in a Boarding School for Inconvenient Girls, enrolled under the name "Yiffany Longstocking". Jade comes home to find that her family's been taken from her. Again.

Yiffy almost escapes, but she gets knocked out and taken back to base, where they lock her in a cage and treat her like a dog. She's still defiant to the end.

If Jane's the villain, Jake is inspired by Yiffy's defiance, grows some balls, exposes Yiffy's treatment to the press, and sets her free. She beats up the guards trying to stop her. Jake gets surrounded by more guards. In response, he pulls out his pistols and a one-liner, and bam, cliffhanger.

If it's the terrorist group, Terezi picks up on Yiffy's scent when they're in a base, and she's saved by the other three kids, where she immediately turns around and beats the crap out of the guards. They become proper friends from there.

The reunion panel still happens and this time it's her reuniting with her loving mother and aunt instead of...y'know.

BONUS: Sadstuck

Harry gets his own “im not a hero” speech after trying and “failing” to be the hero that John was

Vriss is eventually forced to use her mind control powers. It’s either a “Katara using bloodbending" situation, or she forces her friends to leave her behind when they want to stick by her.

Tavros finally witnesses his mother’s true nature when Jake defeats all the guards, but is stabbed from behind by Jane and killed. In the other version, it seems Jane is finally safe and able to come home to her son. Then she’s killed right in front of him.

After the big hug with Jade and Rose, Yiffy pulls away. She smiles, looks around behind them, and asks “Where’s Dad?”

So, please tell me what you think!

[homespork-review]

Spork Introduction

CHEL: Hi! I go by Chel, they or she pronouns, and I’m the one spearheading this project. I still like at least a fair percentage of Homestuck, but after the ending disappointed me a great deal, I got bitter, and when Hussie pissed me off further by Godwinning himself, I decided to do something about it. I’m no longer angry about it, but I felt I’d benefit from picking out what I hate from what I love so I can focus on the latter without annoyance getting in the way, and also to benefit my own writing efforts.

BRIGHT: Howdy! I’m Bright, and I got into Homestuck fairly recently. After ploughing through the archive and digesting for a while, I realised that I was thoroughly annoyed by how something enjoyable had fallen apart so comprehensively. I am looking forward to the time-honoured practice of ripping the story apart to identify its weak points and shout at them.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hello, I’m Failure Artist (call me FA for short), she/her/herself pronouns, and I’m so old-school they burned the school down. I was introduced to Homestuck via Something Awful’s Webcomic thread. I checked the old mspadventures.com site and the latest update was [S] John: Bite Apple. After watching that bizarre piece of animation, I had to know what the hell happened before then. I found I enjoyed the wit of the comic though I didn’t really care much about the plot. It was only when Act 5 came around that I became a serious fan. I currently have 122 Homestuck works on Archive of Our Own. I have a lot of free time, you see. I am very disappointed in how Homestuck ended. Possibly there was no completely satisfactory way it could end but it still could have been better. I feel like Hussie was a juggler who threw a lot of balls into the air and ignored them as they fell to the ground and some fans think not catching them was a master move since you’d expect he’d try to catch at least one. Sadly, lots of the problems with the ending are embedded deep within the canon.

TIER: Hi hi. I am Tier, a very late newcomer to the wonderful world of Homestuck (2018 reader!) and average fan overall. I love this webcomic to bits, but the low points are deep and I enjoy seeking out what the heck went wrong. Not particularly analytical myself, hope that's cool!

CHEL: Cool by us! We’ve already done plenty of analysing before we started, as you may realise from my Tumblr’s “homestuck ending hate” tag (at @chelonianmobile).

FAILURE ARTIST: But let’s put that aside for a moment and talk about the good stuff. 

Homestuck is incredibly innovative. It is the first true webcomic. It’s not just a print comic posted online. It uses not just still images and words but also animation, music, and interactive games.

Homestuck is the latest adventure in the series MS Paint Adventures. MS Paint Adventures started as a forum adventure. In forum adventures, the OP acts as a sort of Dungeon Master and other forum members give them prompts. Andrew Hussie’s previous works under MS Paint Adventures were Jailbreak (which is little more than Hussie dicking with the prompters in scatological ways), Bard’s Quest (Choose-your-own-adventure), and the actually-completed Problem Sleuth. Problem Sleuth lacks the music and animation and despite the weird physics shenanigans is a simpler story than Homestuck. The characters aren’t even two dimensional.

Homestuck (and the previous MS Paint Adventures minus Bard’s Quest) are set up like adventure games. Adventure games are where the player is a protagonist in a story and are usually focused on puzzle-solving though sometimes there’s combat. In the beginning, these games were purely text. The player would type what they wanted to do and the game would spout back text describing it - assuming the computer parser understood you.

CHEL: Oh god, I HATED that. I wasn’t around for the heyday but I’ve played a couple and

Pale Luna

was barely an exaggeration (horror warning).

FAILURE ARTIST: As graphics improved, adventure games started using them, but the commands were still in text. Only later was the point-and-click interface created and players didn’t have to guess what exact sentence the computer wanted them to type. Homestuck and the other MS Paint Adventures play with that frustration while paying tribute to the genre. The game within the comic uses RPG elements but the comic itself is set up like those good ol’ adventure games. In the beginning, Homestuck was guided by commands from forum members. Even after he closed the suggestion box, he used memes and fanon created by readers.

CHEL: How good an idea this was varies, as we’ll be showing.

We probably don’t need to describe Homestuck much more. Everyone here who hasn’t read it will doubtless have heard of it. Almost everyone with a Tumblr will have seen fanart, almost anyone at a convention will have seen cosplay. Shoutouts have been made to it in professional works such as the cartoon Steven Universe, and the Avengers fandom latched onto “caw caw motherfuckers” as a catchphrase for Hawkeye to the point that it’s now often forgotten it didn’t originate from there.

FAILURE ARTIST: The Homestuck fandom term “sadstuck” for depressing stories/headcanons somehow leaked into other fandoms. Using second-person is actually cool now and not just for awkward reader fics. Astrology will never be the same again.

CHEL: Now, in the interests of fairness, we will say that when Homestuck is good, it’s amazing, and it’s good often. The characters at least start out appealing and are all immediately distinguishable; even with the typing quirks stripped, it’s easy to tell who said what. The magic system is one of the coolest I’ve ever seen, who doesn’t love classpecting themselves and their faves? Hussie also shows a lot of talent for the complex meta and time travel weirdness, and it is fascinating to watch a timeline thread unfurl. And whatever else one says, it’s a fascinating story that’s captivated millions. I think it is deserving of its title as a modern classic.

However, as the years have passed, we have ended up noticing problems, big and small, and they nagged at us until we decided it had to be dissected. Our intention here isn’t to tear apart something we loathe entirely. It’s to take a complex work and pick out what works from what doesn’t. As I said, when Homestuck is good, it’s very very good. But when it’s bad, we get problems of every scale from various offensive comments to dragging pace to characters ignoring problems and solutions right under their noses to an absolute collapse of every theme and statement the comic stood for before.

The comic is ludicrously long; eight thousand pages, or thereabouts, to be specific. Officially one of the longest works of fiction in the English language, in fact. Naturally, we can’t riff that word by word in any timeframe short of decades, and we can’t include every picture, even if that was permitted under copyright law. Instead, as comics have been done here before, we’ll recap most of the time, and include sections of dialogue and pictures when particularly relevant to a point.

Here are the counts we’ll be using, possibly to be added to later if we find we forgot anything. Most of these counts will only start to climb post-Act 5, but we’ll be keeping track of them from the beginning. Most of them could have been fixed with a decent editor, which is sadly a hazard of webcomics, but still frustrating to read.

TIER: Note: we started this endeavor months before the thought of a "technically not but still we'll count it" set of canon epilogues were a twinkle in the eyes of the fandom. That is, by the way, a whole 'nother can of worms that will be dealt with at a later date if that ever comes around. We're judging Homestuck the Webcomic as a whole, so no after the credits stuff is to be noted for whatever reason.

ALL THE LUCK - Vriska Serket constantly gets a pass or gets favored over every other character. This count is added to every time she pulls some shenanigans with which others wouldn’t get away. ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY? - Sometimes it’s not entirely clear whether a thing is supposed to be taken seriously or not. We don’t require hand-holding through every joke, but when, for example, we’re supposed to take one instance of violence seriously while a similar case is supposed to be funny, this count goes up. CALL CPA PLEASE - Instances of creepy sexual behaviour (and perhaps particularly gratuitous acts of violence) from the thirteen-year-old cast. Now, mileage may vary on this one. We won’t pretend that thirteen-year-olds are perfect pure angels, especially thirteen-year-olds growing up in what is openly supposed to be a nightmarish dystopia. However, when full pages focus on said behaviour, there comes a point of it being very uncomfortable to read. Clarification: does not refer to cases where the adults do something heinous, this is strictly when the kids do. CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS - When an offensive joke or comment is made, particularly when not justified by the personality of the character involved, or presented in the narration as being okay. GET ON WITH IT! - When the pace drags. ‘Nuff said. Hazard of the format, but it makes archive bingeing very annoying. GORE GALORE - For unnecessary and/or excessive torture porn which is treated less seriously because it features troll characters, and therefore less “realistic” blood colours. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC - When the comic does something mentioned in How Not To Write A Novel, and it isn’t justified by the webcomic format. HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING - Characters repeatedly neglect to do something about or even react to terrible happenings, either because they don’t care even if they should or they forget they have the capacity. Not necessarily anything to do with their magical powers, either - characters ignore personal problems that are right under their noses, too. IN HATE WITH MY CREATION - For reasons that are unclear, Hussie chose to create characters he apparently hated writing, or at least ignored in favour of others. Every time he’s clearly disrespecting one of his own characters, this goes up, whether it’s by nerfing their powers or changing their personalities. RELATIONSHIP GOALS? - Romantic relationships in particular get fumbled quite often. Ship Teasing is used with skill, but that skill tends to be lost when the characters actually hook up. Fumbled friendships and family relations can also come under this heading. SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER - When characters other than Vriska get away with something morally questionable. Covers everything from sexual harassment to not trying to save people from the apocalypse. SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS - Later on in Homestuck’s run, Hussie tried to make up for the offensive humour and casual -isms counted by Clockwork Problematykks above. How successful he was at this varied. This count goes up whenever an attempt at progressivism is waved in front of the reader but doesn’t stand up under scrutiny. WHAT IS HAPPENING?? - When the already confusing plot kicks it up a notch. Admittedly this is as much a selling point of the comic as it is an issue, but either way, we’re going to keep track. Points will be added to when it gets confusing, and taken away when a previous confusing thing is explained adequately. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM - What is shown about Alternia repeatedly contradicts what we’re told about how different it is from Earth. For example, trolls still use heteronormative terms even after it’s established they reproduce bisexually, and the demonstration of the class structure doesn’t always add up. This count goes up every time that happens. It also goes up every time something happens which strongly implies Hussie was envisioning the human kids as white, despite his later claims that they were always supposed to be “aracial”, and every time their economic statuses don’t add up either.

[karkatvantasistrans]

Everyone heal your epilogue stress with another chapter of my Rosemary fic!!! Even if it is a little...dare I say........sadstuck. You can also read it on ao3 here.

Be Kanaya

When you return for training the next day, no one mentions it. You bump shoulders with Terezi while running from a crash of Time in the air behind you, and the sureness with which she hooks her arm into yours dissolves your weeks away from battle as if they had never taken place.

You wonder if Vriska feels just how erratic her control of Mind has become. You wonder if she encourages the chaos so she can feel in control of something, watching as space spits her aspect outwards, hitting the potential decisions of your allies as Vriska deflects the onslaught, cackles as it overwhelms Dave for a moment, drops him to his knees. You wonder why you bother aiming Mind at a wall at all as Karkat wretches, his matesprit opting to curse out Vriska rather than either source of the attack.

No one questions why this is.

When Dave’s time whips into Terezi’s control, you are in the sphere of influence this time, spiraled backwards into a time as a young grub when you grappled with the feelings you failed to have for a boy who, for all intensive purposes, you should have been the perfect kismesis for. You feel the smallness, the vulnerability rocket through you as you struggle to warp the space between the fraymotifing pair, and this time when Vriska laughs you swear it’s at your prepubescent shame, spilling out of every pore as the waves of purple escape the wall, embrace you instead.

If this is the case, no one mentions it.

Maybe there’s less to mention than you think.

Be Kanaya, one day later.

You would like to tell Rose about this.

Between the thorns of her disapproval, there is a unification of ideals that you crave every time you are left open on the battlefield, emotional wound of a girl as you heave and bleed.

She is not around for three days to ask where the blood comes from.

Maybe you don’t look quite hard enough.

Vriska mourns the loss of structure silently, the threat of your hard fought-for weekend creeping into the edges of her training schedule for the day. She pushes you harder, lights into each of your arms and bodies and torsos with a fresh intensity, delivering the promise of a weekend spent on self-repair.

Freeing you from the burden of unstructured time.

=>

There was an inkling you had, before your coupled departure, that the pressure Vriska put on you all to perform was not uniform. As you watch the blood trickle down Karkat’s forehead, bright red, unnatural saturation running over the hills of his face and through his bared teeth, this is confirmed. Head wounds bleed a lot: it’s something you’re all familiar with. But the intensity of his blood, of his entire approach to battle sets you all silently on edge. It’s different from the unhinged approach Terezi allows her aspect: endangering others is, in some way, part and parcel with your overall goals. But when Karkat fails, or refuses, for the hundredth time to deflect an attack, to focus his energy on himself over adversary, the message in the air is unmistakable.

He won’t let Dave defend him outside of battle.

When they pull their fraymotif together, hot red bursting over the wall in liquid waves, Dave shoots every attack back into history, vaccuums them from the timeline altogether.

These are the only times Karkat will defend himself: under the cloak of Dave, red explosion incomprehensible in their combination.

You all remember the first time Dave came between him and Vriska, the only one who’d allow himself the vulnerability to worry for Karkat out loud. To demand that Vriska stop launching attacks exactly where she knew they would hurt, pull the hot red of shame over the honest slice of agony.

Dave was the only one to begin to put a name to the truth in the air: that Karkat didn’t see himself coming out of this battle alive.

No one named it explicitly: Dave only pressed into Vriska, demanding, finger to her chest as the rest curled into his cape. Why Karkat’s focus was never re-directed to defensive practices; why no one had a problem with how much of the blood on the floor was always Karkat’s.

Vriska only lauded Karkat’s dedication in response, the comfort with his potential demise a tether binding the two of them together.

Dave and Karkat left together that day, returned separately the next.

Dave’s eyewear did little to hide his ire, but it was never brought up again. The only indication left was the hot anger on his face behind his matesprit’s back, the chill of inevitability sitting, fog-like, over the room.

You refuse to auspticize the comfort with Karkat’s death he shares with Vriska.

But you make a silent commitment not to let another boy be destroyed by her.

Be Rose

You haven’t left your room in four days.

Shuffling down the corridor, sleeve sliding along the wall, you text Kanaya as your mind churns with data. There is so much to absorb, you think, to consider in the accumulated mass of troll and human text alike. Your novels are annotated with brusque, splattered strokes in the room you’ve left behind, and you carry the synthesized conclusions with you in the well of your mind on your way to see her. You are excited, you think, to see someone who can be an audience. The inclinations of your heart burble deeper, muted, under the cascading cipher of the rational mind.

-– tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] at 17:01 -–

 TT: So, Kanaya, to what do I owe the pleasure of you summoning me from my lair?

 GA: Oh Its Status Has Been Updated To Lair Since We Last Spoke?

 GA: I’m Anticipating An Excess Of Macabre The Next Time I’m Over.

 GA: At Least As Far As Decor Is Concerned.

 GA: Otherwise A Demotion Back To Block May Be In Order.

 TT: I promise nothing but the most appropriately monikered interior.

 TT: Cultural norms on earth dictate such an abode if I’m to be consorting with a woman of the vampiric persuasion, I’m sure you understand.

 GA: Ah So It Is The Earth Equivalent Of Tidying Up Before Ones Matesprit Arrives.

 TT: Only if you like to adhere to banality, I suppose.

 TT: I’d like to think the supernatural element is a welcome expansion on the concept, however.

 GA: Hmmm.

 GA: Perhaps.

 TT: Anyway, Kanaya, you didn’t answer my question.

 GA: No?

 TT: What do you have planned for our rendezvous tonight?

 GA: Ah, That.

 GA: My Plan For Today Is As Follows:

 GA: [TACTICAL OMISSION]

 TT: Oh my.

 TT: I’ve suddenly found the motivation to hurry.

-– tentacleTherapist[TT] ceased pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] at 17:17 -–

– -- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began pestering tentacleTherapist[TT] at 17:19 –-

 GA: In All Seriousness Though I Did Have Something I Wanted To Run By You

 GA: Also Under The Heading Of A Tactical Omission Until You Arrive

 TT: I look forward to the unveiling of this top secret information, then.

 TT: See you soon, Kanaya.

–- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] at 17:21 –-

     Your hand does not feel like yours when you reach up to knock on her door.

                      -

                                                   You are awake in her bed.

Shift of skirt, hair bouncing off of shoulder, you orient yourself: face to wall and arm tucked under stomach. It’s with a bleary brain that you roll your head, unite your eyes in tandem with her figure.

“Welcome back.” It’s delivered dryly, spine to face, and she finishes typing before she turns to see you.

Her screen is filled with cascading geometric patterns you do not recognize. They hum together in time with the focus of her eyes on you: intricate and intense, the illusion of constant motion.

“I didn’t mean to drift off so soon into this visit, Kanaya. I’m sorry.” It’s sincere: it’s damage control.

The shake of her head is slight, but present.

“Is that what it’s called?”

What?

“…Pardon?” A pull of legs under thighs as your body urges you closer to her, upright. “Maybe I’ve got too much sleep between my ears still, Kanaya. Sorry.” You deliver a yawn for emphasis, try and send her a sleepy wink to cement your camaraderie.

“You weren’t sleeping.” A shift of her eyes, her whole body, as she spins back towards her husktop.

Away from you.

“You ended up that way, more or less, but when you came over you were not…present.”

The rip of guilt is hot, like a rope pulled up from your stomach, through your eyes.

“It was trance-like, but otherwise…unobtrusive. That being said,” A click of hesitation pops in her throat as she raises a knuckle to her teeth, swings her eyes back to you for the briefest moment.

“…it would be nice. If you could actually schedule being present when I ask you to come over.”

“Of course,” Reconciliation attempt comes too quick, too eager.

A trance.

“I’m sorry, Kanaya. I’m not always able to predict changes in state like that. Perhaps it would have been prudent to warn you, but…I did want to see you.” For all the rehearsed intimacy of your hand on her cheek, the emotion that claws its way out of you is still genuine.

You can work with a trance.

“This is a normal attribute of human soporofics?”

“Ah - only at certain echelons of consumption. It’s the sort of thing I’d enjoy alone, not necessarily on a day I’m planning to see others,”

This is not normal.

Fidget of fingers, soft disquiet of lost inhibitions beyond your own ability to predict.

This is not normal.

But you are fine, the moment has returned, the underestimation is to be expected from time to time.

Repentance re-adjusts itself, focuses on your girlfriend’s disappointment alone. An unexpected blip, but one whose only consequence is a ruined afternoon.

Salvageable.

“Would you like me to leave?”

“No…” Head turning, body with it, finally facing you in full.

“No. It’s alright. I’d like to at least spend some time together before I fall asleep.”

Be Rose, 41 minutes later

Kanaya’s hair is slick with sopor, gathered at her temples and rubbed in thick, decisive lines over her forehead. You can see the streak of her fingertips etched into the green on the back of her neck when she moves to turn off the light.

You have to remind yourself not to play with her hair as you sleep, subtract the buffer between slightly unpleasant nocturnal solemnity and nightmare.

Tucked with one arm to her chest, the other circling her back, you feel the gentle brush of lips and the edges of teeth on your forehead as she starts to drift to sleep. You think of how soft Kanaya’s hair always is when you wake up, sopor-treated silk, and wonder if the gentle frame of dry black on her face in those morning hours is the sign of a nightmare ripping through her mind.

You feel childlike, infantile as her arms circle you into her chest, disgust soaking you lightly until a fluid equally familiar pulls you under entirely.

You never did find out what she wanted to tell you

Be past Rose

“Kanaya!”

Did you forget?

You’re Kanaya Maryam.

You have just finished training with the rest of your friends, and have filtered out with slightly less urgency than the rest of them. Training in a group is more strenuous than you remembered, possibly because of Vriska’s overenthusiastic testing of your independently practiced abilities. Catching your breath at the hallway’s threshold, you turn to see Terezi walking towards you, hands shoved into her pockets.

“Terezi,” you greet, voice uneven with the remnants of exertion. Her face is illuminated as she steps into your your radius, reminds you of the energy brimming from your skin.

“Ah, sorry…” Hum of lambent skin lifts into the corners of her lips, over the hills of her cheeks as your phosphorescence pops, extinguishes. She is lit, now, only by the distant lamps of the hallway, glowing a soft red under her chin.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something!” Straight to business, no pretense:

“Was this you?”

Your eyes struggle to register, in the dark, what she is pointing to on the right side of her face. Something whips through you as you identify the “what” as bite marks, and you force your eyes back onto hers when you start to recognize the soft pucker of blood pooling around both scars.

You struggle to excuse your proclivity for blood theft.

“I’m afraid so.” Is all you’re able to cough up, dull throb of your face’s light bouncing off of hers in embarrassment. The pinch of teal in your gut Sings, shooting through your system as it begs to be reunited, made whole as you watch the way her blood pools lightly under the healed wound

“I didn’t expect there to be such a physical effect when I woke up, I admit I may have gotten…”

You struggle to find a better word, utterly fail.

“Snacky.”

She cackles, elated, head thrown back and uniform fangs exposed to the sky.

“That’s great!” She enthuses, and you hear the echo of an “eight” in her pronunciation.

“I didn’t mean to leave a mark,” You’re reassuring yourself, not her. She is positively jubilant over the revelation.

“I wasn’t exactly using every faculty of my think pan when that happened. I’ll admit getting cored left something to be desired in my…proclivity for foresight…” You tap your chin, lightly, a small bounce of light flickering with each collision of your nail.

“I don’t care about that at all!” It’s a dismissal and a reassurance: the Terezi special.

“Nothing wrong with a little battle scarring, Kanaya. But!” You feel the light slap of her cane on your ankle, soft repetitious tap communicating the post-strife excitement still rattling over her bones.

“What’s the story with your new spectrum imbibing lifestyle?”

You pause, hesitant, then surprise yourself by deftly pulling up the lip of your shirt, revealing the writhing mass of your stubbornly healing stomach.

The air is silent between you two for a moment, interrupted only by the wet slither of your churning organs.

“NEAT!” Comes her excited response, and you feel a warmth hit your bloodpusher as you immediately understand your comfort in trusting her with this.

[attempted-writing]

The Void and Those Within

Fandom: Homestuck

Setting: The Void.

Summary: Equius became one with the void after god tiering and using that power in combat. One day, he gets a visitor.

Warnings: Isolation, Sadstuck?

Pairings: None

Word count: 1130

Author notes: there was a writing competition on the art bump server and this was my entry. i’d also like to thank the judge for giving me some pointers when it comes to the formating of a story. After spending a long time in the void, Equius has little to no volume control, which is why that is a thing at first. I hope you enjoy and feedback is always welcome :-)

Equius lay there. In the nothing. Only the clothes he gained when he died on his back, to keep him warm.

And yet, he was not dead. The dead would go to the dream bubbles, a place he wished he could have gone, but no. his class and his aspect had different plans for him, not in death, but in life.

He reached god tier when he found his quest-bed, and when he slept, Aradia found him. She killed him there, partially out of revenge yet mainly because of the change of plan. The new idea was to get everyone to god tier and kill the king and queen and escape their session. And everyone did reach god tier and everyone did fight the king and queen with the amazing powers that the new tier brought them. Equius had been happy, unleashing the strength he so often failed to control. He fought with vigour alongside his friends. but the more he used the void, the more he became the void.

And now there he was, in the endless nothingness.

He found a yellow path that had led him to a stage with blue curtains, a strange place he would call home. At least for now. He was never a very social person, and yet. He missed all of them. Eridan who just wouldn’t leave him alone, Vriska and Tavros who’s limbs needed the tedious chore of getting checked and maintained, Karkat shouting orders that confused him, Aradia who could stun him with her beauty, and Nepeta. Dear Nepeta who could make him feel like he was an actual person, cheer him up when he was at his lowest and get him going when he got stuck in his own head. He missed all of them, even that disgrace of a high blood Gamzee. He closed his eyes when he thought about his friends, tears forming in their corners. The heir of void, loathed the loneliness his powers had brought him.

He heard something. Something other than himself, he was sure of it. Footsteps, quiet and careful and yet, loud and clear to the troll who had been stuck in a soundless space. He wiped the tears from under his glasses and sat up straight. What he saw was a sight he could not believe.

A girl was standing there, in clothing that looked like Nepeta’s god tier outfit but it had his colours and symbol. her pink eyes looked friendly from under dyed pink bangs that playfully drooped from a head without horns. He stared at her from behind his glasses, not uttering a single word, because no words came to mind. As it appeared, words did come to her mind. One word, to be precise.

“Calliope?”

Calliope? A name, Equius thought and eventually shook his head, still not uttering a single word. “then… who are you?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. And still he couldn’t help but think it was strange that someone, anyone would be looking for someone else in a place where there was literally nothing.

“I AM EQUIUS!” he answered. Only after seeing her react by reaching for her ears did he notice that something was off.

“n-nice to meet you, Equius. I am Roxy,” the girl started a bit unsure but got more confident, the further she got in her sentence.

She put her hand forward to shake his and he stared at it. Fearing if he were to shake it, he would hurt her. With a careful and almost jerky motion, he put his hand forward as well, leaving his thumb pointed up. Still with a raised eyebrow, Roxy carefully took his hand and lightly shook.

“sorry about the screaming,” Equius said. At least he thought he did, because Roxy looked at him and asked “sorry, I didn’t quite get that,”. After thinking what she said he tried to speak again “i-I am sorry for screaming.” He was the one to stammer this time. And yet, Roxy reacted with a slight giggle “oh that! Nah, that’s fine,”. Her reaction put Equius at ease, so far so good he figured.

“say, do you know someone by the name Calliope?” Roxy asked him and this time with words he answered “I sadly do not. Are they a friend of yours?” he asked, watching Roxy think for a moment. A little bit louder next time his thoughts appeared to be correct when the girl tilted her head back as to say she finally understood him.

“yeah, she is. Her brother wants her dead so she hides in the void,” Roxy explained. “but how did you get here?” she asks and Equius looks down, heaves a deep sigh and answers “I turned god tier like my friends. We fought our denizens and then the black king and queen. But I am a heir of void. And I got my inheritance. I became nothing,”.

Roxy stared at him before answering with a cheerful tone of voice “tell you what, big guy. We both go to find Calliope and when we find her, I’ll take you both back to paradox space,”.

He couldn’t believe what he heard. A way out of here? A chance to be with them again? Thoughts like these rushed through his head, the palms of his hands began to sweat like they hadn’t done in a long time. Roxy stared at him, trying to read his face.

“do… you like that idea?” she asked trying to find his wandering gaze.

“Yes” he said eagerly, locking his eyes with hers before continuing “anything to leave this place. Anything at all,”.

Roxy was taken aback by the intensity of his reaction. She was starting to get the idea that intense was his default. “ok then, let’s find Calliope and get the hell out of here!” She smiled a slightly uncomfortable smile and gestured at the yellow path that led to the stage.

Equius got up, took the few things he had and joined his new friend on a long walk to a distant stage. While they walked they talked, he asked her to tell everything that had happened and she did. She told him of thirteen strangers of whom eleven trolls like him that came on a meteor to the session she played with friends. About others who would be arriving on a spaceship. He listened and as they walked he daydreamt about the things she told. the friends he was going to meet again, her friends he would meet for the first time. It all got him in the best mood he had been in since he became part of the void.

And so, with a big smile on his lips he walked with a new friend towards a new day.