#was supposed to be an angry karkat face

[maretriarch]

Just in time for 4/13 here's the second line of my r63 dolls, this time CREEPover themed with bonus accessories! in an ideal world they would come in adorable recuperacoon shaped packaging. and probably a sopor slime making kit because kids love slime. which one are YOU picking up from your local Goreget today?

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 5-1, Part 2/5 (p. 2100-2235)

Read the previous post here.

Work was really rough for me last week so I didn't get a chance to write this. But here we are with the second part of this Act readthrough. It starts with a character I've had inconsistent opinions about during my time in the fandom.

I used to really hate Tavros when I was first in the fandom. Over time, I realized that my ire was directed more toward a certain fanon breed of Tavros: The simpering pacifist with love in his heart for all living creatures, who is a victim of misfortune and needs to be coddled (preferably by Gamzee).

I like the canon Tavros better. He's more like an awkward, avoidant weenie who isn't so much kind as he is too much of a spineless dork to fight back against the abuse hurled his way. He is quite explicit whenever he doesn't like someone or if he's uncomfortable, but he never does anything about the situation beyond that.

Tavros is also Hussie's dedicated buttmonkey, it seems. Prior to this point, all we really knew about him was that he was a bit of a try-hard who liked to rap and was really socially awkward. Now we see that he is wheelchair-bound and also really likes fairies and Pokemon. For a 30 year old man in the early 2010s, fairies and Pokemon would be patently uncool (and also "gay," to use the parlance of the time). Hussie wants us all to know right away that Tavros is lame (literally and figuratively) and gay (colloquially). Point and laugh at him!

I like the implication that Tavros actually breeds and raises all the Fiduspawn creatures he spawns.

Everything about Tavros's life is tragic. Hussie wanted to make a pathetic character who's the butt of every joke and whose existence is near-constant torment.

I suppose that building in the back could be a stable to house Horsaroni and the other Fiduspawn creatures, even though it's never stated. This is the last time his affinity for animal husbandry will ever be alluded to. You'd think Hussie would've included some crack about how being paralyzed makes it difficult to clean up their shit or something. Cue Tavros slipping and sliding face first into some manure...

Like Karkat, Tavros also wants to join the military to avoid being culled. It's surprising to see him have an actual goal to aspire to, considering how his character is mostly listless and focuses on escapism and avoidance. Perhaps he wants to be a cavalreaper not because of any higher ambition, but only because he thinks it'll save him from an early death.

Considering how it's never really mentioned at all after this point, I'm willing to believe it.

It is pretty funny how Tavros just lets Vriska prattle on. He gives her nothing to work with but she runs her mouth anyway. She's also really just ranting about Kanaya instead of anything about Tavros. He's a good captive audience for her to ramble at because he won't leave even though he stated at the start that he doesn't want to talk to her.

Couple of things to note: Kanaya giving Tavros some lame advice about anthropomorphizing his self-esteem is very on-brand for her. One thing about Kanaya that nobody seems to cotton onto is that while she loves to give advice and try to be helpful, she isn't all too good at it.

Another thing is Vriska immediately getting angry at "Rufio" for apparently attempting to stop her from talking to Tavros. That's a fun detail.

Gamzee and Kanaya are the only trolls so far to show kindness to Tavros. Which isn't saying much because Gamzee talks to Tavros in the same way he talks to everyone else. It's not like he's showing him any preferential treatment.

Note how Gamzee has slime on his face, so he had just eaten a pie and is totally stoned. It would explain why he seems much more out of it in this conversation than he was with Karkat or Terezi earlier, especially in the beginning since all he really does is laugh and honk instead of responding to Tavros in a coherent way. He then proceeds to relay all the information about the game to Tavros (pointless recap of shit we already know about), and the log ends with the two of them preparing to rap. In all this is a pretty worthless log and doesn't even offer much entertainment. And I say that as someone who generally likes pre-Murderstuck Gamzee.

I cannot believe this single conversation is what inspired so much generic slash art between these two. Homestuck fandom in 2010 was wild, man...

Aradia... exists. Her Ouija modus is a good representation of her character: a instrument of the plot/outside forces with little to no agency of her own. She spends a good chunk of the story as a deadpan plot device facilitating the whims of Sgrub and not much else.

Aradia is a frustrating character to discuss. There are at least four different versions of her depending on her status as alive or dead, and not once do we really get a chance to know the "true" Aradia. She really does serve as the "Jade" of the troll session, but Hussie doesn't even make an attempt at portraying her as endearing.

I wish that Aradia, not Terezi, was built up as Vriska's biggest rival. Aradia is the competent psychic who doesn't respond to taunts, doesn't care about winning, focuses on events yet to come, and generally has her shit in order. Compare that to Vriska, who cannot control Aradia, is hyper-competitive and escalates things constantly, always holds grudges and lives in the past, and switches emotions on a dime depending on what benefits her. They were already rivals in the past and while Aradia has long moved on, Vriska is dredging up the drama once more in a feeble attempt to try and "make amends" with her. The true motives of this are both to gain a position of power in the Blue Team, and also to soothe her own bruised ego and make her feel better about herself.

Her lame attempts to schmooze and flatter Aradia, trying to be on the same team as her, is in a subconscious way done to make sure that she isn't put against her. She knows Aradia is the stronger psychic and the better player, although she'd never admit it. If she can't beat Aradia, she'll do whatever she can to weasel into her good graces and try to steal credit for Aradia's achievements as the Blue Team leader.

Aradia of course, views the whole thing as childish and doesn't humor her at all. As she says herself, Vriska "never listens". These two are the perfect dynamic of cold and hot and I wish this was focused on more. Vriska should've been way more jealous of Aradia's abilities, seething about her and trying to one-up her. And the whole time Aradia doesn't take her seriously, which would only serve to piss her off further.

Time to talk about Nepeta, the troll that nobody seems to understand.

Nepeta is a lot of things. She's a personification of 2000s chatroom and forum-based RP culture, more specifically within the furry fandom. Not only does she roleplay as an animal on the internet, she also lives a very feral lifestyle. She lives in the woods, away from civilization, hunts and eats whatever animal she comes across, and uses their blood and pelts for arts and crafts. She's silly and naive, but also a capable hunter and quite perceptive, if socially immature.

Also, in regards to her moirallegiance with Equius, Nepeta appears to be obligated to stick with him for no real reason other than "someone has to keep him pacified." It's like a burden that she's saddled with; she's the only one that can put up with this dude that literally nobody else likes. While noble of her, it ends up being overall detrimental considering what a massive power imbalance they have. (Just read this post where I go into this in more detail. This post is long enough already).

People either want to characterize her as a ridiculous anime catgirl (which isn't even accurate to the subculture she's meant to parody; think less catgirl and more lolcats), or a bloodlusted killing machine. And both interpretations more often than not reduce her to a useless background character whose defining characteristic is her moirallegiance to Equius. I spit on all of that.

Nepeta's main trait is isolation (both physically and socially) and her difficulty expressing her desires. She leads a simple, primitive lifestyle away from civilization, which also impacts the way she is able to connect with others. Roleplay is the main way she expresses herself, and she has difficulty doing so when forced to drop the silly facade. She has a lot of wants (her crush on Karkat, her desire to be independent of Equius's control) that she is too awkward or timid to properly convey. Everyone around her almost always regards her as some kind of joke (Terezi roleplaying with her "facetiously", Karkat calling her autistic and trying to avoid her because of her feelings toward him, Equius's intensely infantilizating attitude toward her, Eridan not even remembering her name, etc.) which definitely hinders her ability to make others treat her with respect.

Oh wait, I forgot. Hussie himself calls her a joke character. Stupid me for getting invested in Nepeta, I guess.

"KARKAT THINKS ABOUT THAT A BIT AND HIS JAW DROPS OPEN AND BREAKS A HUGE COLUMN OF BRICKS LIKE A FUCKING KUNG FU MASTER" might be my favorite Karkat quote.

Equius is the one troll Karkat actively seems to dislike. This is the guy who is buddies with Eridan of all trolls, yet Equius is where he draws the line. Not even Vriska is a "bigger asshole" than Karkat. Nope, that's Equius, baby.

You know, it should be a little concerning that Karkat, the troll who lives and breathes troll romance in all its forms, is disgusted and dumbfounded by Equius and Nepeta's relationship. Especially since it's so often heralded as the "perfect" moirallegiance. Speaking of which...

This is very notable as being one of the few explicitly anti-hemospectrum statements said by a troll. A few trolls like Karkat, Aradia, and Sollux will grumble about their position in society and the way the higher castes behave, but ultimately accept the hemospectrum as an immutable facet of society.

Nepeta goes a step further than that and straight up says that caste separation shouldn't exist. Nepeta. The troll everyone writes off as being an infantile moron. Maybe it's these radical sentiments that cause Equius to keep her on such a tight leash.

As for Equius's response, am I the only one reading this!?!?!? What an incredible asshole. These two are the same age, yet he's talking to her like she's a child who needs guidance solely because she's of a lower blood caste.

Does he even like Nepeta? His supposed fondness for her is incredibly patronizing. It's like he only keeps her around because she provides him a service of calming him down and for no other reason. Other than that, she's only "ok, but not great".

Nepeta hunts and kills massive animals on a regular basis. She is not "delicate" in a physical sense. Equius is saying that she is "delicate" as in impressionable and at risk of being "corrupted" by her lower blooded friends. That's all Equius cares about: her moral standing.

Equius knows full well that Nepeta would never fight back against him, since she takes her obligation to pacify him very seriously. He exploits her goodwill to make her do whatever he wants. Why is this being paraded as the most wholesome ship in the fandom again???

I feel like it's this log that has forever damaged fandom's perception about Equius and Nepeta. Tavros suggests that Equius prohibiting Nepeta from playing FLARP was a positive because she possibly could've been maimed or killed otherwise. But it's not like Equius ever gave a shit about the danger involved at all. His biggest objection against Nepeta playing these games was because she'd be playing with lowbloods, not because he was afraid she'd get hurt. The ends don't justify the means. He's still barring her from interacting with her friends for shitty reasons.

Anyway, Tavros sucks here. He suggests Nepeta just go with the flow in her terrible relationship because he himself is so painfully passive that he'd never consider rocking the boat, even if it means standing up to someone who wrongs him regularly. Don't listen to Tavros, people.

I think I really need to have a serious talk about Vriska and Karkat's dynamic because I never see anyone talk about them. Their back and forth is hilarious just because of how similar they are to each other. Both have extreme delusions of grandeur that mask massive insecurities and paranoias (Karkat's "curse" vs. Vriska's "bad luck"). They also have aspirations of being the leader of all their friends, which leads to their egos butting heads with each other.

Vriska acts smarmy and disarming while Karkat vehemently shuts her down. Karkat sees through her manipulative tactics and doesn't want to give her any angle to work with at all. Vriska meanwhile sees right through Karkat's bravado and likes to toy with him and rile him up. (Something something... I wonder what other dynamic between a Knight and Light player is kinda similar to this where they see through the other's bullshit so transparently?)

Also jeez Karkat counting out the question marks is adorable and hilarious.

I love how Karkat boasts about what a competent opponent he'll be followed up by him telling Vriska not to use her mind powers. Right, that's kind of a major advantage she has.

Rolling my eyes at Karkat hyping up Terezi as this master tactician. "Ooh Vriska is jealous of her because Terezi is so good at manipulation." Why does the story keep talking about how cunning Terezi without ever showing us her abilities? Am I seriously supposed to think she's this Machiavellian mastermind because she tricked John Egbert of all people? Get real!

This is what I mean when I say that Aradia is the one Vriska should have seething jealousy over. Why should Vriska be jealous of Terezi at all?

Between Karkat, Tavros, and John, it's very safe to say Vriska's type is primarily soft boys.

Vriska, above all else, is an egomaniac. She, like Karkat, wants to be the best at everything. She wants to be in charge, to dictate the fates of those she views as weaker. She exercises this desire most often in FLARP, where she's essentially the most dominant player. She even likes to dabble in "dark prognostication" so she can foresee future events and stay ahead of those who wish to undermine her. This might have something to do with how her life is otherwise dominated by her needy lusus. She requires an outlet to exert control over others.

She's childish and cannot handle when she's losing or when bad things happen to her as a result of her own poor decision making. She breaks her magic 8 balls when they don't give her the result she wants, she lashes out at people when she fails to manipulate them, and she melts down when things in her life aren't going the way she wants them to. "Overdramatic" is an understatement when talking about Vriska. Everything about her is always turned up to 11.

She's also a master at avoiding responsibility for her actions. Any negative repercussions are deemed "bad luck", as if she's a victim of forces beyond her control. She'll even double down on this and claim that all her broken 8 balls are responsible for adding to this bad luck. She's a victim of a self-destructive mindset.

Also note how she's an "apocalypse buff" and Karkat dreams about programming the perfect doomsday virus. Yet another trait they share. Just saying.

Oh wait never mind all that. Uhh... "Vriska did nothing wrong!" There I said le funny meme. The only person who should honestly believe that is Vriska herself.

Vriska's such a goofball. She's so proud of her dumb little OC.

(Oh my god this was annoying to format. Fuck you Scratch and your white text.)

Very cute how she reuses Karkat's opening line against Scratch. And it turns out that she also reused the same login trick on Karkat that Scratch had done to her previously. Vriska is quick to call people out whenever she finds their actions to be unconscionable, but she'll readily excuse herself whenever she's guilty of doing the same thing. "It's okay when Vriska does it!"

She gets incredibly irritated when Scratch keeps talking about how he took advantage of her because she does not want to lose. She doesn't want anyone to have a position of power over her. It's a major way to make her uncomfortable (hence why she starts putting 8s in random letters very early on in this log).

I love it when Vriska says "can it". Also whenever she says "man" as a general expression of annoyance or amazement.

Kanaya loves dangerous women, but has no idea how to handle them. She wants to gently guide Vriska toward a more positive path, but Vriska resists any attempt at being controlled. Honestly, kind of fair considering that Kanaya is really only feigning to be Vriska's moirail so she can try and slide into her flushed quadrant. Kind of like what Eridan does with Feferi. But you're not ready for that conversation.

Uh, Vriska? Feferi's right there. And her lusus is much higher maintenance because if she doesn't get fed, everyone dies.

Not that I don't think Vriska wouldn't downplay Fef's struggles anyway.

And again, Eridan has significantly more irons in the fire since he's essentially in charge of keeping everyone on the planet alive.

Not like Vriska would care, though.

Equius might be one of the most viscerally repulsive and morally repugnant characters in the whole comic, but god dammit he just might be the most hilarious. To his credit, Hussie managed to craft the perfect buffoon by successfully capturing the essence of a specific kind of racist, perverted, online creepazoid and distilling it into a sweaty teenager who loves milk, horses, and being STRONG.

Making Equius fixated with grotesque furry art while calling it high art is a great parody of how fascists are obsessed with this grand idea of European exceptionalism when it comes to art and culture. It comes off as creepy and perverse (it also helps that many of these people are also addicted to hardcore pornography). If Homestuck was written today, Equius would probably be a very unsubtle parody of those people with a statue avatar and blabbing about how the West needs to "RETVRN" to past glories.

I'm kind of glad that's not the case because that'd be too on the nose. He's nasty enough as is.

Most trolls have to behave like "a sort of zookeeper" when interacting with their lusii, but Aurthour actually serves and cares for Equius. This does not stop Equius from referring to Aurthour as a "craven excuse for a custodian" or from mocking him when he gets injured (injuries caused by Equius himself, mind you).

I know it's a popular headcanon to depict Equius as this rippling, muscular bodybuilder, but I think it's more fitting to make him into this lanky guy who just happens to be freakishly strong. Muscular physiques are too aesthetically pleasing. It runs contrast to Equius's otherwise unappealing physical features. His widow's peak, his long unstyled hair, his broken teeth, his goofy ass legwarmers and shorts, the fact that he's constantly sweating... you get the idea.

He talks to Gamzee every day? Bro really wants to get his rocks off.

Equius won't roleplay over text with Nepeta, but he will pressure Gamzee into participating in his kinky dom/sub fantasy.

Equius structures all his social dynamics entirely around their position on the hemospectrum in relation to his own. There is no e%ception, he's incredibly infle%ible about this. From the way he browbeats Nepeta, to how he's begrudgingly civil to the similarly-classed Vriska, to the way he has to all but force Gamzee to try and dominate him, he is incapable of seeing anyone beyond what color their blood is.

Even later on, he never "overcomes his casteism." The only reason he ever acts subservient or polite to a lower blooded troll is because he view it through the lens of a power play dynamic. He gets a thrill out of "perverting" the class structure and getting "dominated" by those he views as inferior. Because despite his high social status and amazing physical strength, Equius is naturally submissive. It's this contrast that fuels a lot of his inner torment and anger issues.

Yeah he isn't a very dynamic character because at his core, he's a walking sex joke. But in Hussie's defense, it's an incredibly funny joke.

Oh Christ. And to think there was so much art of these two as a legitimate couple.

Equius's obsession with Aradia kind of reads like an openly racist/transphobic guy who secretly likes watching interracial/trans porn. Or perhaps in this specific passage, a guy who thinks he can "fix" a lesbian woman by turning her straight. No matter how you slice it, this just sucks.

Stay tuned for more yapping about trolls in the next post!

Read the next post here.

[daedalusdavinci]

22, twobat. heard u were talkin SHIT

22. While someone demeans your lover, standing up for them. Either in word, or by physically placing yourself right in front of them as a protective barrier. im thinking about emotional dysregulation and a strong sense of justice and how bruce is the reason alfred lost all his hair. in the words of karkat vants: anger can be a love language. alksdjnfsldjknfs i am NOT editing this

You get in fights for him. You've been getting in fights since no one gave your parents a chance to, something in you quick to snap and your fists faster than anyone could stop. You don't know how many strings Alfred had to pull to keep you from being suspended in middle school, but you know it was a lot, because he used to pick you up with a sigh written in the lines of his face, white gloves hiding the tension in his hands on the steering wheel. Sometimes he tried to argue with you about it. You never folded, because you were certain you were right.

Your school records are a mud-stained mess of arguing with teachers, getting in between a bigot and a victim, and the crack of your fist against someone else's jaw. You grew up stocky and angry, and you never had a problem taking things outside so someone else didn't have to. You think a part of you still feels like if you take on every fight yourself, no one else will ever have to get hurt. Regardless, it means that the college you get into isn't near as prestigious as everyone expects of you, and you know Alfred had to grease a lot of palms to do it. You think he's hoping maybe you'll keep your head down for a few years, and the intellectual challenge will be enough to keep your fists steady.

But then you meet Harvey, and he's simultaneously everything Alfred wants for you and everything Alfred doesn't.

He's optimistic in a way you aren't, level-headed and determined, but filled with the same drive for justice you are. Unlike you, he got in with scholarships and smarts, and he tells you stories about the kind of lawyer he's going to be one day, and the way Gotham will change. He flips some kind of switch in your brain, and your plan for the future starts to take a slightly different shift, accommodating for a world where you're not the only one who cares. He motivates you. He challenges you. He makes you better, and you think Alfred would like the person you become when you're around him.

At the same time, Harvey's a brown kid struggling with some kind of disability you'd never heard of before you met him, and the privileged fucks around you can smell it. So you get in fights. You're so quick to snap to his defense, putting yourself between them and him because you've never done anything else in your life, and Harvey tells you he's sick of patching you up, because you're bleeding again and he thinks it's his fault and he's trying to make you laugh.

It works. It always works when it's Harvey.

In later years, they'll call him Apollo. He's the handsome white knight who brings light back to Gotham, and he'll find it embarrassing and flattering all at once. You'll tell him you think it's apt, and he'll shove you, laughing like you told him a joke. But in college, he's the sun you orbit your world around, warming you when nothing else will.

The dean calls Alfred after you land a kid in the hospital. He doesn't need hospital treatment, but his friends don't know medicine like you do, and they panicked. He'll be fine. Alfred still calls you, cold, clipped anger in his voice, and you feel like you're eight again, angry and muddy and past the point of reason, the crushing feeling of a meltdown spiraling past what you can handle. Alfred tries hard to be a parent, and he tries to be a butler, and you're his kid and his spoiled charge, and this isn't the first time the two of you haven't nailed the impression of a functional family unit. You fight.

Med students aren't supposed to hurt people. Med students aren't supposed to snap and beat the shit out of other students. Med students aren't supposed to have meltdowns, no matter how crazy the workload is, no matter how much injustice happens in the medical field alone, no matter how much injustice your best friend faces at the hands of people you're supposed to view as mentors. Med students aren't supposed to recognize themselves in the textbooks. The dean is threatening you, and you're supposed to shape up.

In a few days, you still haven't gotten over it. Alfred isn't talking to you, you're not talking to Alfred, and a call from Leslie only makes things worse. You don't go out of your way to pick fights, but you don't need to, because people seem a little afraid to say anything after you sent that kid to the hospital. Harvey tells you it'll blow over with a grim confidence that you take seriously. It sounds too much like he's speaking from experience.

Then, someone makes a comment about your parents. It's not a particularly interesting comment- you've heard much, much worse over the years, and they've lost a lot of their effect. It stings- it's cruel- but you brush it off. You're in enough trouble already, and you've never cared about standing up for yourself the way you do about standing up for others.

Harvey's fist snaps out before you know what's happening.

The kid is flat on his ass, gaping up at you both, and Harvey is brimming with rage. "Shut the fuck up," he says, thick and growling. "You'd be fucking lucky if your parents loved you half as much. They probably only sent you here to get rid of you."

"Harv!" You grab his arm, tugging his attention back to you. You're torn between shock and worry, but worried for him, and what this will mean for him once the stupid kid reports him to the dean. You think for a terrifying moment that he could get expelled, and selfishly, you don't know what you'd do here without him.

You can tell he's furious, but he lets you drag him away, ushering the both of you away from the scene before things can escalate further. You stand in an abandoned stairwell and Harvey's fingers clench and unclench in your sweater as you hold his arms, giving him time to breathe.

"You didn't have to do that," you tell him quietly.

"Shut the fuck up, Bruce," he scoffs. His gaze flickers up to your face, thumb grazing the bottom of a bruise that's purpled in the past few days. You didn't get out of that fight scot-free, but no one ever cares about that. Except Harvey, who always cares. "You don't get to talk to me about when I should or shouldn't stick up for someone."

You don't have anything to say to that. The words all dry up in your throat as you stare at him, caught on the heat of his touch, the soft brown of his lips, and the determination in his face, like he'd do it all over again. You've never met anyone who understood you the way Harvey does, who matched your drive for justice and inspired you so completely. You look at him the way an astronomer looks at the stars, struck by their beauty and complexity- understanding, and yet endlessly wanting to know more, to know everything, to hold something you don't think you ever can. "Okay."

Something pricks embarrassed in his face, eyes shifting away suddenly. You think his cheeks are a little darker, but it's hard to tell.

You'll think about that moment for years. For years, when you hold his face and try to figure out how to tell him all the ways you love him, and when you watch him become the hero you always knew he could be, and when you watch him fall, holding his hand in the hospital and meeting his eyes across a rooftop, you'll think about what it was like to be so young, trying to put words to the way you wanted to press your lips to his. You tell him, once, that you think you're always going to see that little college kid in him, and he laughs at you. His laugh has turned raspy after years of smoking, and the shake of his shoulders makes the chains rattle, but it's the same laugh. "Maybe it's better that way," he says, grinning. "We were two of a kind, back then."

"Three," you correct.

His grin turns a little more sincere, a little more embarrassed. He says his words like a tease, but it's only to lighten the truth. "We thought the sun shined out of your ass."

"That's just the light reflecting off of it," you say, and he laughs again. You still love his laugh.

These days, you fight each other. You don't think it'll ever stop you from loving them both every bit as much as you did then.

[ace-does-words]

flushed, pale, what's the difference?

written for pale gamkat week 2025, only a week late because. i didnae know abt it ;-; ehehhehe, but! i hope the people enjoy it late. prompt: royalty.

Ao3 port: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62695981

"This bitch is motherfucking tiny" is arguably your first coherent thought when you're presented with the Troll that's supposed to be your Matesprit.

He's like a solid two heads shorter then you. You sorta gotta crane your neck to be looking at him, so does he.

You can't help but crack a bit of smile at how pissed off he looks. He's so tiny, and he looks so fucking angry. It's pure comedy, lightens the weight of the fact you'll be forced to marry in no more then a months time.

"Fuck are you smiling at?!"

Oh my gog.

He's fucking amazing.

"Not much." You crouch right on down to be face to face with him, if he punches you out you don't even think you'd be mad. "But uh, you're kinda small."

"And?" He snapped.

"Chill man, I'm not gonna throw you out."

You watch as the considerably smaller Troll freezes up. Like watching it blue screen.

"You know where your block is right?"

He nods, rigid and stiff in motion.

"Coolio, see ya 'round brother."

-/-/-/-

You end up finding the fucker at your door near like, the middle of the night.

"Yo," You start with as you stare at him, leaned up against the frame all the while.

He looks like his Lusus got culled.

"Did something happen?"

He shoves past you into your room. You swear you can see smoke rising off the top of his head, just storming through like a hurricane. All of his steps are deliberate and heavy.

Cool.

Is this gonna be a frequent occurrence? You don't know, but you don't really sleep much anyways. Won't be much of a bother.

You pivot to face him, leaned up on a wall instead of the door frame. "Dude—"

"Do you even know my name? Or am I just some fucked up social experiment, see if the heir can handle an inorganically formed Matespritship?" His voice is all shaky as he lays down such baseless accusations.

You can't help but laugh a bit.

Yeah, no, he hit the nail on the head as any of your non-Alternian bros would say.

This whole fucking deal is a mess.

"Well why don't you tell me your name, we'll see if I got given the right infographics in preparation."

That was clearly the absolutely, 100% wrong thing to say because he raises his head and he's crying these pretty red tears and looks livid. Highkey those tears do look like rubies, all shiny and heady with pigment. You try not to focus on that though because he looks like he's ready to bang his cranium against a wall till his horns snap right off.

He just, he just sort of sighs. Whole body heaving up, and then down again. He wipes away his tears with the sleeve of his jacket before looking at you.

"I'm Karkat Vantas."

"And I'm—"

"Gamzee Makara. Unlike some of us I did some research on who I'm being forced into partnering with."

This time the laughter is sheepish.

Karkat does not reciprocate the notion.

"Look, Karkat, I'm like, sorry you're stuck here. but it'll only be a month before ya get kicked." You hope the notion is a comfort. Like, arguably the position he's in is way shittier then yours. You're just the prince who gets to go through a hundred arranged Matespritship's till one is found that clicks. Why it's always an arranged deal, you don't know, but tradition's a tradition. And uh, nobody in charge wanted to break, even if you were verbose about it.

Karkat just groans, dropping his head in his hands again.

"If it makes you feel any better we could go have some pie."

"How the fuck would pie make me feel better?"

"'Cause it's got sopor slime. Always takes the edge off for me."

"You know what, sure. Let's go have some sopor pie. Get absolutely zonked out of our fucking gourds. Let's do that. It sounds fucking great."

Despite how sarcastic he sounds he is standing up and making his way over to you.

-/-/-/-

Realistically, you and Karkat probably should've at least tried to click in that fabled flushed way.

Instead of doing any of that you mostly spent two weeks just fucked up. There wasn't ever a single waking moment spent fully sober, always drifting between absolutely fucked beyond belief or barely holding onto that blissful high. Of course, one slice for Karkat did as much for him as a whole pie for you.

He's really giggly when he's high. That or he's dead silent. There isn't really much of an in between until he's coming down from it.

Doesn't bother you much though. You're just glad it makes him a little bit less angry at the entire world.

-/-/-/-

It's a mistake, that's what you try to explain to yourself as Karkat retracts his hands.

Then he steps back.

"Fuck."

Whether you only think it or say it you aren't sure, but the touch lingers. Like, it really fucking lingers. In a good way, kinda like a fuzzy blanket, a phantom sensation.

When your vision is properly and fully focused again you look at Karkat. You don't even bother hunching yourself to do so, he's already so far away you don't even need to. Nothing but fear is on his face, a shiny veneer of red in his eyes as he shivers with far too fast breathing.

"Yo, dawg."

You try to keep your tone as even as possible.

Apparently that's making it worse because Karkat really does start crying. In a really quiet way, nothing like how he normally does. Tears just sorta roll down clear skin, free of the greasepaint you taught him how to do. They gather at the edges of his jaw before falling down to the ground.

"Why'd ya fucking shooshpap me brother?" You gesture a little bit as you talk, trying to ease this horrid tension in the air.

"I didn't mean to, I swear. I was just doing stuff and then I did that. Was it really shooshpapping? I don't think so-" Karkat prattles on for a brief moment, a lot of the words just hit you but don't really sink in. He speaks fast. Too fast for it to register sometimes, and maybe that sweet, sweet haze of contact is still fogging your thinkpan.

You take a couple steps closer and Karkat keeps on talking. You drop to a knee, which puts you shorter then he is. Reach out with both hands, and just, give him a gentle little bap and shush him.

And he goes dead silent.

The opening to talk before he starts up again is brief.

"I know it wasn't the reason you got brought here in the first place, but, I have been feeling just a bit pale for you. Wild what getting loaded and talking about stuff can do to the way ya feel, ya know?"

Karkat still doesn't answer. You haven't stopped tapping hands on his face, careful with your claws.

"Being a Moirail with the heir probably won't look very good as a report back to your fam, but if it's mutual, I wouldn't say no. And if it's not, then I can totally set you up for life 'cause—"

Before you can continue you Karkat is returning the favor, hands on your face and repeatedly tapping. He's still too speechless to talk much, but there is a small little hint of a smile. The slightest little uptick that shows off far too sharp teeth (especially this one little snaggletooth fang).

You'll take that as a reciprocation of pale feelings.

[red-elric]

oh my god when you split the aspects into threes the symbols and themes start adding up ive totally cracked the code

CHAOS/REALITY: (space, mind, void) symbols are circular (true for all reality aspects) with squiggly edges; players (calliope, jade, roxy, kanaya, terezi, equius, porrim, latula, horuss) have themes of lonliness but also being yourself unequivocably. you dont like to follow the rules, and you dont fit in with people very well either, but you have a lot of power behind you. (if I were to put these on a circle, id put void close to the axis between reality and people, so I think void players struggle with this less)

ORDER/REALITY: (time, doom, light) symbols are circular with more angular, defined edges; players (caliborn, rose, dave, aradia, sollux, vriska, damara, mituna, aranea) have themes of hiding your true selves, playing a part to fit in and drastically changing to reveal your 'true self.' youre able to go through the motions of interacting with people, but your true abilities come through when you start to ignore that

CHAOS/PEOPLE: (blood, heart, rage) symbols are all clear iconography (literal blood, symbolic heart, angry face); players (dirk, karkat, nepeta, gamzee, kankri, meulin, kurloz) have a huge impact on people and relationships despite feeling like they dont quite fit in. they have a hard time following the rules for society, but they have a great deal of power among people even if they dont realize

ORDER/PEOPLE: (breath, life, hope) symbols all got that wispy ethereal stuff going on, but still pretty reminiscient of clear iconagraphy (wind, plants, angel wings); players (john, jane, jake, tavros, eridan, feferi, rufioh, cronus, meenah) all have themes of dealing with expectations and choosing between complacency and rebellion. they all absolutely could fit in with anyone they wanted, and are very capable of blending in and playing the role theyre supposed to play, but it doesnt quite sit right with them. they are in positions of great power among people as a default

[pesterloglog]

Karkat Vantas, Kanaya Maryam

Act 5, page 2567

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FUTURE carcinoGeneticist [FCG] 599 HOURS FROM NOW opened memo on board TEAM ADORABLOODTHIRSTY.

FCG: FINE THEN.

FCG: SINCE PAST ME JUST BANNED CURRENT ME FROM THE PRECEDING MEMO

FCG: AND DOESN'T APPEAR TO GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MY FUTURE WISDOM, AS USUAL

FCG: LOOKS LIKE I'LL JUST HAVE TO START ANOTHER MEMO FROM SCRATCH.

FCG: HEY PAST ME, GO HAVE A BLAST KILLING THE KING, I'M SURE IT WILL BE AWESOME.

FCG: IN FACT, IT WAS AWESOME. BANG UP JOB WITH THAT, DUDE!

FCG: TOO BAD IT WAS ALL A HUGE WASTE OF TIME.

FCG: OH, WHAT'S THAT, PASTHOLE? YOU DIDN'T READ THIS AND FIGURE THAT OUT AHEAD OF TIME?

FCG: OR MAYBE YOU JUST SKIMMED THIS AND IT DIDN'T GET THROUGH YOUR THICK BULGE???

FCG: WHAT A SHOCK!

FCG: MEMO-WITHIN-MEMO TO PRESENT SELF: PUT FORTH A MORE CONCERTED EFFORT TO IMPRESS UPON EVERYONE IN THE PAST, MYSELF INCLUDED, WHAT A BUNCH OF FUCKING IDIOTS THEY ALL ARE.

FCG: I AM LEARNING A VALUABLE LESSON TODAY!

FCG: IT TURNS OUT YOU CAN'T ALTER THE OUTCOME OF DECISIONS MADE BY MORONS, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU YELL AT THEM.

FCG: ALL YOU CAN REALLY DO IS GIVE THEM A HARD TIME AND TRY TO MAKE THEIR LIVES JUST A LITTLE MORE MISERABLE.

FCG: WHICH SOUNDS LIKE A MORE NOBLE PURSUIT THAN CHANGING DESTINY FOR THE BETTER ANYWAY, FRANKLY.

FCG: LOSERS SHOULD BE FORCED TO FACE THE MUSIC, EVEN FOR THE MISTAKES THEY HAVEN'T MADE YET.

FCG: THEIR PUNISHMENT IS BEING ALLOWED TO MAKE THE MISTAKE IN THE FIRST PLACE. TALK ABOUT POETIC JUSTICE!

FCG: AND THEN GETTING SOUNDLY BERATED BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER THE MISTAKES ARE BEING MADE IS JUST THE MUCUS ON THE GRUBLOAF.

FCG: THE SWEET, TANGY MUCUS.

FCG: THIS IS DUMB.

FCG: WHY DID I EVER THINK THESE MEMOS WERE GOING TO BE A GOOD IDEA.

FCG: NOBODY CARES

FCG: I MEAN

FCG: NOBODY'S EVEN TROLLING ME ANYMORE.

FCG: AND I'M LEAVING MYSELF WIDE OPEN TOO, SAYING SOME PRETTY DUMB THINGS HERE.

FCG: I GUESS MAYBE I WROTE TOO MANY.

FCG: AND FILLED TOO MANY OF THEM WITH LONG ARGUMENTS WITH MYSELF.

FCG: NO ONE'S GOING TO READ THROUGH ALL THIS, ALL THE VALUABLE INFORMATION IS JUST GETTING LOST IN THE YELLING.

FCG: YOU STUPID STUPID IDIOT.

FCG: OH FUCK YOU, WHY'D YOU EVEN START ANOTHER MEMO THEN??

FCG: I GUESS

FCG: THERE ARE A COUPLE THINGS I WANT TO GET OFF MY CHEST, OK?

FCG: OH GOD, NOW I'M ARGUING WITH CURRENT ME.

FCG: I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE I WAS DOING IT, THIS IS REALLY FUCKED UP.

FCG: I'VE GOT TO PULL IT TOGETHER.

FCG: THINK BACK TO WHAT WE MIGHT HAVE DONE WRONG.

FCG: BUT THE THING IS

FCG: AS MUCH AS OUR PAST SELVES ARE A BUNCH OF STUBBORN UNLISTENING ASSHOLES

FCG: I CAN'T EVEN REALLY IDENTIFY ANY MISTAKES WE MADE.

FCG: IT WAS ALL PRETTY MUCH LIKE CLOCKWORK.

FCG: A 600 HOUR CAMPAIGN TO COMPLETE A GAME LIKE THIS IS PRETTY GOOD IF YOU ASK ME.

FCG: AND I HAVE ASKED ME.

FCG: IT TURNS OUT ME AGREES.

FCG: I CAN'T SHAKE THE FEELING SOMEONE ELSE MUST BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS.

FCG: IT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE IT WAS SOMETHING THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN IN OUR SESSION.

FCG: SOLLUX HAS THE SAME INTUITION ABOUT IT AS ME, HE THINKS THERE'S SOMETHING FII2HY ABOUT IT.

FCG: IT'S REALLY INSUFFERABLE THE WAY HER FISH PUNS HAVE RUBBED OFF ON HIM, IT KIND OF MAKES ME WANT TO VOMIT.

FCG: ANYWAY

FCG: HE SAYS HE'S WORKING ON TRACING THE ORIGIN OF THIS DISASTER.

FCG: IF I FIND OUT WHO'S RESPONSIBLE

FCG: I WILL

FCG: I DON'T EVEN WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT NOW.

FCG: WASTE OF GOOD FRESH RAGE.

FCG: I'M A LITTLE TIRED OF ALL THE OLD THINGS I'VE BEEN ANGRY ABOUT.

FCG: IT'S GOTTEN SO STALE.

FCG: IN A WEIRD WAY I'M SORT OF LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVING SOMETHING NEW TO BE PISSED OFF ABOUT.

FCG: IT'S NOT LIKE THERE'S ANYTHING ELSE TO LIVE FOR NOW ANYWAY.

FCG: SO I'M KEEPING MY PRONGS CROSSED.

FCG: IT WILL BE LIKE FUCKING 12TH PERIGEE'S EVE UP IN HERE.

FCG: LAST SWEEP'S EVE WAS PROBABLY THE LAST HAPPY MEMORY I HAVE IN FACT.

FCG: WHAT DID YOU GUYS DO FOR THE LAST HOLIDAY?

FCG: ANYONE?

FCG: I REMEMBER MY LUSUS HAD BEEN GONE FOR DAYS AND I WAS STARTING TO GET WORRIED.

FCG: BUT THEN HE FINALLY RETURNED, TRIUMPHANT.

FCG: HE BROUGHT THE FRESH BEHEMOTH LEAVING INTO OUR HIVE, AND TOGETHER WE DECORATED IT.

FCG: AND

FCG: I DUNNO

FCG: THAT'S ALL I CAN SAY, I'M GETTING A LUMP IN MY SQUAWK BLISTER.

FCG: I GUESS I'M DONE.

FCG: I'M GOING TO LIE DOWN NOW

FCG: ON THE STEEL FLOOR OF THIS FRIGID METEOR DRIFTING THROUGH THE BLACK UNCARING VOID OF OUR NULL SESSION.

FCG: NULL, KIND OF LIKE THIS MEMO I GUESS.

FCG: LATER.

CURRENT grimAuxiliatrix [CGA] RIGHT NOW responded to memo.

CGA: I Dont Think We Did Anything Special

FCG: WHOA, HEY

FCG: WHAT?

CGA: Last 12th

CGA: We Stayed In

CGA: And I Read Stories To Her It Was Nice

FCG: OH

FCG: THAT'S COOL.

FCG: THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE RESPONDED TO A MEMO THAT I CAN RECALL.

FCG: YOU TOOK IT RIGHT DOWN TO THE WIRE. I WAS JUST ABOUT TO CLOSE THIS THING.

CGA: Yeah I Know

CGA: I Wasnt Sure If I Was Going To

CGA: But Then I Noticed A Conversation In Which I Was A Participant

CGA: Which As It Turns Out Is The Conversation Taking Place Now

CGA: I Scanned It Briefly And Then Perused Other Memos For My Presence

CGA: I Found None And Returned To This One

CGA: But My Part Of The Conversation Was Gone

CGA: I Regarded This As A Prompt To Begin Typing And Record My Contributions Live

CGA: That Is How This Works Isnt It

FCG: PRETTY MUCH.

FCG: FOR A WHILE IT WAS FRUSTRATING.

FCG: WHEN I DISCOVERED THE FEATURE I KIND OF BREEZED THROUGH ALL MY FUTURE MEMOS, NOT REALLY READING ALL OF THEM CAREFULLY OR THOROUGHLY.

FCG: THEN I LOOKED AT IT AGAIN, AND THE WHOLE BOARD WAS GONE.

FCG: BECAUSE IT WAS TIME TO MAKE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, SO I DID.

FCG: AND THEN I KEPT MAKING MEMOS WITH ONLY FOGGY RECOLLECTIONS OF WHAT THEY CONTAINED.

FCG: WHILE ALL THESE OTHER CHUMPS FROM DIFFERENT TIMES KEPT GIVING ME SHIT.

FCG: INCLUDING MYSELF.

FCG: BUT IT WAS ALL GOOD, BECAUSE AS I EVENTUALLY BECAME MY OWN FUTURE SELVES, AND GOT TO BE ON THE OTHER SIDES OF THOSE CONVERSATIONS.

FCG: AND COULD DO MY PAST SELVES THE SERVICE OF INFORMING THEM HOW STUPID THEY WERE BEING.

FCG: I STOPPED BOTHERING TRYING TO REMEMBER HOW ANY OF THESE MEMOS WENT.

FCG: HONESTLY THE LAST FEW WEEKS HAVE BEEN A BLUR TO ME, JUST NON STOP YELLING AT MYSELF, HAGGLING WITH PAST AND FUTURE KNUCKLEHEADS, KILLING MONSTERS AND SOLVING PUZZLES, CYCLING THROUGH ALL THE GATES AND PLANETS LIKE A HUNDRED TIMES, ZIGZAGGING DOWN TO THE BATTLEFIELD, OUT TO THE VEIL, OVER TO PROSPIT, BACK TO DERSE, AND ON AND ON AND ON LIKE THAT UNTIL WE THOUGHT WE WON.

FCG: BUT WE DIDN'T WIN. WE LOST.

FCG: WE LOST AS HARD AS FAT GUYS FALL.

CGA: What Exactly Happened

FCG: DID YOU READ THE MEMO JUST BEFORE THIS?

CGA: No

FCG: GIVE IT A READ, I'M DONE RANTING ABOUT ALL THAT FOR NOW.

CGA: Alright

CGA: In A Moment

FCG: BUT YEAH, THAT'S HOW TROLLIAN'S TIMELINE STUFF WORKS. YOU'LL GET USED TO IT.

FCG: OR NOT! SINCE APPARENTLY THIS IS YOUR ONLY MEMO REPLY. YOU WERE PRETTY SHREWD IN SIDESTEPPING THIS WHOLE CLUSTERFUCK.

CGA: It Seems Like A Logical Way To Engineer A System Wherein One Simultaneously Functions As The Reader And Author Of The Transcripts

CGA: Its Temporally Sound Construction

FCG: THEN YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS SO.

FCG: HELL YOU PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER MAID OF TIME THAN THE ONE WE WERE STUCK WITH.

FCG: SHE'S COMPLETELY SHITHIVE MAGGOTS, DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED.

CGA: I Think We Are Given Roles To Challenge Us

CGA: That Dont Necessarily Suit Our Strengths

CGA: At Least I Was

CGA: I Have No Idea What Im Doing Here

FCG: SURE YOU DO.

FCG: OR, YOU WILL. TRUST ME YOU'LL DO FINE.

FCG: SO WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO RESPOND ANYWAY.

FCG: I MEAN ASIDE FROM BEING STRONGARMED BY CONVERSATIONAL PREDESTINATION.

CGA: Oh

CGA: At This Point Im Not Even Sure If Im Inclined To Ask Anymore

FCG: YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE A CHOICE.

FCG: DO YOU REMEMBER IF THIS MEMO WAS MUCH LONGER THAN THIS?

CGA: Um

CGA: There Is A Good Way To Go I Think Yeah

FCG: THEN MIGHT AS WELL SPIT IT OUT.

CGA: Its Such A Silly Question

FCG: RED OR BLACK?

CGA: What

FCG: YOUR PROBLEM, DOES IT PERTAIN TO REDROM OR BLACKROM INTERESTS?

CGA: Thats Not What This Is About

FCG: COME ON. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN USING THESE MEMOS TO SIFT THROUGH THEIR ROMANTIC PROBLEMS FOR WEEKS, I AM A FUCKING VETERAN AT THIS SHIT BY NOW.

FCG: SERIOUSLY, I DON'T MIND, IT'LL BE A WELCOME REPRIEVE FROM SHOUTING AT MYSELF.

CGA: Im Not Sure What To Say About It

FCG: DIDN'T YOU AT LEAST GET A SENSE OF WHAT THIS CONVERSATION WAS ABOUT WHEN YOU SKIMMED IT?

CGA: Not Really

CGA: If I Were Thinking About It I Probably Wouldnt Have Wanted To Anyway

CGA: Dont You Think Its Better To Have Unrehearsed Conversations

CGA: Even If The Subject Matter Is Awkward

FCG: YES I COMPLETELY AGREE.

FCG: IT'S GOOD YOU DIDN'T READ IT. WE CAN AVOID THE SORT OF VERBAL SLAPSTICK ROUTINES I'M SICK TO FUCKING DEATH OF BY NOW.

FCG: I AM SO TIRED OF PEOPLE BEING ALL COY AND TELLING ME WHAT WE'RE ABOUT TO SAY BEFORE WE SAY IT, AND THEN WE WIND UP FUCKING SAYING IT ANYWAY.

FCG: AND THEN WE PROVE TO THE INVISIBLE RIDDLER THAT IS FATHER TIME BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT WHAT A BUNCH OF FUCKING IDIOTS WE ALL ARE.

FCG: DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW OLD THAT GETS AFTER A WHILE?

FCG: SO REALLY, TELL ME.

FCG: I KNOW IT'S ON YOUR MIND, I GOT A SENSE FOR THESE THINGS.

FCG: R OR B???

CGA: Ok

CGA: Red Then

CGA: But I Guess

CGA: Not Really Red Enough

FCG: HAHA, WELL ISN'T THAT ALWAYS THE CASE?

FCG: STORY AS OLD AS TIME.

FCG: EVEN IN PLACES WHERE STRICTLY SPEAKING TIME DIDN'T EXIST UNTIL RECENTLY.

FCG: WHO'S THE TARGET OF THESE FLUSHED LEANINGS?

FCG: IF YOU DON'T MIND MY ASKING.

CGA: Its Not The Asking I Mind

CGA: Its The Telling

CGA: In A Public Forum

FCG: I DON'T THINK ANYONE'S READING.

FCG: DID YOU NOTICE ANYONE ELSE JOIN IN LATER?

CGA: No

CGA: It Appeared To Be Just The Two Of Us

FCG: SEE

FCG: NOBODY CARES ENOUGH TO BOTHER.

CGA: I Dont Know Whether Thats Reassuring

CGA: Or Just A Bit Disheartening

FCG: WELL I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT.

FCG: THEIR DISINTEREST IS MORE A REFLECTION ON ME THAN YOU.

CGA: Disinterest Is The Operative Concept Here

CGA: Shes Not Even Responding To My Messages Anymore

CGA: Could Be Busy

CGA: But Im Rapidly Approaching A Resolution To Discard The Preposterous Infatuation

FCG: SHE? WELL I GUESS THAT NARROWS IT DOWN SOMEWHAT.

CGA: Shit

FCG: IF I THINK BACK ON EVENTS KNOWING THIS I COULD PROBABLY PIECE IT TOGETHER...

CGA: How About

CGA: If I Agree To Consult With You About It In Private

CGA: We Can Drop It Here

CGA: Before You Crack Me Like A Vault

CGA: With Your Weird Romance Sleuthing Acumen

FCG: ALRIGHT, DEAL.

CGA: It Still Puzzles Me That You Are So Versed In The Topic

CGA: Do You Have Access To A Manual Archived On A Remote Server Somewhere

FCG: WHAT

FCG: NO OF COURSE NOT.

FCG: I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW ALL THAT MUCH.

FCG: I JUST KNOW THIS STUFF WILL DRIVE YOU SHITHIVE MAGGOTS IF YOU DON'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO DEAL WITH IT.

CGA: That Figure Of Speech You Keep Using Puzzles Me Too

FCG: LIKE

FCG: NOT THAT I EXPECT YOU TO GIVE A SHIT BUT PERSONALLY I AM ALL TWISTED UP ABOUT BLACKROM STUFF ESPECIALLY.

FCG: HONESTLY I DON'T THINK I WAS CUT OUT TO HAVE A KISMESIS, I THINK MY STANDARDS ARE WAY TOO HIGH.

FCG: DID YOU KNOW THAT...

FCG: THIS FEELS SO INSANE TO ADMIT, BUT

FCG: OVER THE COURSE OF THIS ADVENTURE, AT TIMES I ACTUALLY BEGAN TO SUSPECT I WAS MY OWN KISMESIS.

FCG: HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT???

CGA: Im Not Qualified To Say

CGA: Neither Romance Nor Psychology Are My Strong Suits

FCG: BUT OBVIOUSLY ITS NOT TRUE, I NEVER EVEN DID ANY LEGIT TIME TRAVELING WHERE I COULD MEET MYSELF, I JUST BICKERED WITH PAST AND FUTURE GHOSTS ON A CHAT CLIENT.

FCG: FITTING REALLY. EVERY CALIGINOUS ADVERSARY I'VE CONTEMPLATED HAS ELUDED ME LIKE A PHANTOM, EVEN MYSELF!

FCG: WHATEVER, I'M DONE WITH IT.

CGA: And What Of Scarlet Ambitions

CGA: Fare Any Better In That Quadrant

FCG: NO NO NO I'M NOT AIRING THAT SHIT OUT HERE.

FCG: MAYBE PRIVATELY.

FCG: IT'S PRIVATE.

FCG: LET'S CHANGE THE SUBJECT, WHAT WERE YOU ORIGINALLY GOING TO ASK ME.

CGA: Oh Fine

CGA: Heres This Silly Question For You

CGA: I Was Just Wondering Given Your Vantage Of Hindsight

CGA: If Youd Had Cause To Observe At Any Point In Time

CGA: Magic

FCG: UH...

CGA: Like Real Magic

CGA: I Guess What Im Asking Is

CGA: Is Magic A Real Thing

FCG: WOW, YOU'RE RIGHT, THAT'S KIND OF THE DUMBEST FUCKING QUESTION I'VE EVER HEARD.

CGA: I Know

CGA: Its Just That I Have A Good Reason To Believe Magic Is Real

CGA: Our Ancient Predecessors Discovered How To Use It

CGA: But Then They May Have Surpassed Us In Skill By A Great Deal

FCG: YOU PUT WAY TOO MUCH STOCK IN THAT RATTY OLD GUIDE.

FCG: BUT ANYWAY NO, WE NEVER USED MAGIC.

FCG: I MEAN, LET ME TRY TO PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE HOW RIDICULOUS THE WHOLE NOTION IS ANYWAY.

FCG: WE CAN ALCHEMIZE PRACTICALLY ANYTHING WITH THE RIGHT MATERIALS AND GRIST.

FCG: WE CAN, AND DID, MAKE SUPER POWERFUL WEAPONS AND ITEMS THAT CAN DO PRACTICALLY ANYTHING.

FCG: WHAT ADDITIONAL ADVANTAGE COULD MAGIC OFFER? ALL THIS SHIT IS PRACTICALLY MAGIC ANYWAY.

FCG: BUT MORE LIKE

FCG: GOOFY SCIENCEY MAGIC. YOU KNOW?

CGA: Sure

FCG: BUT EVERYTHING HERE IS KIND OF MAGIC IN A WAY, ISN'T IT.

FCG: FORTUNE TELLING DREAM CLOUDS AND GOLDEN MOONS AND SHIT.

FCG: IF YOU LOOK AROUND

FCG: THERE'S MAGIC EVERYWHERE IN THIS BITCH.

FCG: IT'S ALL AROUND US.

FCG: MOTHER FUCKIN MIRACLES, RIGHT?

CGA: Heh

FCG: WHAT DO YOU NEED MAGIC FOR ANYWAY?

CGA: Im Running Out Of Ideas

CGA: I Need To Figure Out A Way To Stoke This Volcano

CGA: In Case You And The Others Are Successful In Recovering The Queens Ring

FCG: YOU'LL FIGURE IT OUT.

FCG: AND YOU WON'T NEED MAGIC, TRUST ME.

FCG: JUST BE PATIENT, THE ANSWER WILL COME TO YOU SOMEHOW.

CGA: I Guess You Would Know

FCG: YEAH, REALLY THERE'S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

FCG: AT LEAST AS FAR AS THE DETAILS OF THE ADVENTURE GO.

FCG: WE WERE ALL PRETTY AWESOME AT THIS GAME.

FCG: REALLY AWESOME IN FACT.

FCG: UNTIL A LITTLE WHILE AGO.

FCG: WHEN IT TURNED OUT WE WEREN'T ACTUALLY ALL THAT AWESOME.

FCG: TURNS OUT WE WERE PRETTY FUCKING UNAWESOME ALL ALONG.

CGA: Still Baffled By What Would Conceivably Cause Such A Crisis In Awesomeness Post-Victory

FCG: WELL

FCG: FOR STARTERS

FCG: HAVE YOU SCROLLED UP TO THE TOP OF THE TIMELINES YET?

CGA: No

FCG: CHECK THAT OUT

FCG: MAYBE READ A FEW RECENT MEMOS

FCG: BUT OTHER THAN THAT IT'S NOT FOR YOU TO CONCERN YOURSELF WITH.

FCG: JUST DEAL WITH GETTING THROUGH THE QUEST.

FCG: I'LL CATCH UP WITH YOU ABOUT IT WHEN YOU CATCH UP WITH ME ON THE TIMELINE.

FCG: WHICH JUST HAPPENS TO BE RIGHT NOW.

CGA: Say Hi To Me For Myself

FCG: OK I PROBABLY WON'T DO THAT, BUT ALRIGHT HA HA.

FCG: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE ANYWAY?

CGA: You Mean Future Me

FCG: YEAH.

FCG: YOU'RE MESSING AROUND WITH YOUR CHAINSAW.

FCG: WHILE TAVROS IS SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR.

FCG: OH GOD.

FCG: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK WHAT ARE YOU DOING???????

CGA: What

CGA: What Did I Do

FUTURE carcinoGeneticist 2 [FCG2] 600 HOURS FROM NOW responded to memo.

FCG2: OK.

FCG2: EVERYTHING'S FINE I GUESS.

CGA: What Happened

FCG2: I PASSED OUT FOR ABOUT AN HOUR.

FCG2: FUCKING EMBARRASSING.

FCG2: YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MIND, YOU KNOW.

CGA: Shithive Maggots You Mean

FCG2: YEAH

FCG2: IN A GOOD WAY THOUGH.

FCG2: OK I'M SHUTTING THIS MEMO DOWN FOR MY PAST SELF.

FCG2: SINCE HE'S CURRENTLY LYING UNCONSCIOUS ON THE FLOOR AN HOUR AGO.

FCG2: SEE YOU IN THE FUTURE-NOW.

CGA: Til Then

FCG2 banned CGA from responding to memo.

FCG2 banned FCG from responding to memo.

FCG2 closed memo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[kabutoden]

more yapping under cut but:

tl;dr: i think karkat would deeply respect steven as someone who brought peace, freedom and equality to his own people while also being a social outcast, even though he'd be SUPER mean and rude to steven on the face of it. steven would empathize deeply with karkat's existence outside of societal systems and the shared intense legacy of their ancestors they both have to uphold: but this would also set off his insecurity and frustration really badly. he'd convince himself he needs to fix karkat by making him outwardly 'nice' and would fail, because karkat copes by lashing out at himself and others.

frustrated and insecure about not fixing everything, i think steven would believe that karkat is someone who refuses to become a better person. karkat hates himself so he wouldn't deny that, even though its not true. furthermore, steven might extrapolate this to be the reason karkat may fail to 'save' trolls and resent that. having grown up with insane pressures and responsibility, steven fails to see that karkat deserved to get to be a normal kid too. steven survived and improved HIS world, why shouldn't karkat?

full essay. karkat is known in fanon to be the 'friendship troll,' and hes particularly good at socializing for trolls. hes a descendant of a stigmatized icon that was murdered brutally, and hes heavily dismissive towards the reverence people have for the sacrifice his ancestor made. that sacrifice left him with a heated hatred and rage for the injustice and cruelty of society, and complete exclusion from said system to the point his own existence breaks it fundamentally. his generational trauma gives him a hair-trigger anger response and extremely hostile and demeaning language to put anyone at arms length. despite this, trolls can tell that karkat's aggression is meaningless because he never follows through on threats and works himself past exhaustion and keeps the full group in mind, even people he doesn't like. dude refers to FIVE PEOPLE as his best friends.

to be friends with karkat is to ignore half the things he says because he's so jumped up on defensive hostility all. the. time. people fire back jokingly, dont take him seriously, think hes funny as hell, or just ignore him. at 13, karkats language is for keeping him safe in a very dangerous place, its supposed to make him appear as a dangerous and cruel person he is not. now, i think karkat views what really are coping mechanisms: his rage and mean vocab: as a permanent and intrinsic failure. this only depresses him further as he doesn't have the tools to understand why he's so angry and defensive.

steven on the other hand really cares about what people say and listens to them carefully. he's kind and deeply empathetic, and i think he'd recognize that karkats from a bad situation. they'd both be unsettled by how their places in the world overlap: steven and karkat are both heirs of complicated legacies and symbols of connection between their respective alien species and the human race. even more, they both resent the weight of their responsibility, as they struggle to bear it as best they can.

i think karkat would see steven's success as a peacebroker and like that. he wants that for his own people, he wants to BE that, but the icon he represents doesn't have such an easy claim to authority. karkat would see stevens response to his duty and think its admirable, and appreciate how steven helps his family. of course he wouldnt tell any of this to steven, and would probably be super mean to him.

steven deeply believes in his ability to heal and fix people and NEEDS the validation of doing so. he's vulnerable to insecurity and frustration when people don't need him or he fails to help them. he'd see karkat as someone in a situation uncomfortably close to his own. additionally, steven listens to people very carefully and takes them seriously. i think karkat's barbs and verbal attacks would really hurt him, especially when he respects karkat.

steven would see progress as karkat being acting more outwardly 'nice' when thats neither what karkat or alternia needs. karkat's truth and anger at cruelty and its results are motivating to make change as every troll suffers from the caste system. furthermore, i dont think karkat can change how gruff he is: its kept him alive for sweeps.

frustrated and insecure about not fixing everything, i think steven would believe that karkat is someone who refuses to become a better person. karkat hates himself so he wouldn't deny that, even though its not true. steven might cut off karkat as someone he feels empathy for and instead just feel... cold. furthermore, steven might extrapolate this to be the reason karkat may fail to 'save' trolls and resent that. having grown up with insane pressures and responsibility, steven would fail to see karkat also deserved to get to be a normal kid too. steven survived and fixed HIS world, why shouldn't karkat?

i think stevens idea of what makes someone a better person doesn't cooperate with who karkat is. tbf, karkat's behavior would be terrible for cable television as he's not really an example of good behavior kids should emulate, but the a result of a bad system. karkat is fundementally not tv-pg. hes incongruous with the messaging of steven universe as a show.

what you guys dont realize is karkat and steven universe would get along really well actually. sucks im sorry. its a fact. karkat would really like that guy. however, steven would fucking hate him

[gokupowers]

whats karkat like in the euphoria au?

omfg @swimfuel is responsible for like half of this. also its insanely long bc i am uncontrollably verbose

Karkat's always been angry.

Not angry at anyone or anything, but at the whole world. He's always been like this. Sometimes he thinks, if he stopped feeling this potent miasma of rage, always pounding in his head and through his veins, his heart would stop. 

As he watched his dad fall asleep, his head in his arms and a stack of bills on the counter, he was angry. At school, when he realized he was the only kid in hand-me-downs, he was angry. So when Vriska gets a gleam in her eye one day at recess, and asks him where his dad is, knowing full well he was cleaning right in front of them, voice vicious and thinly veiled, he doesn't think twice before punching her.

That was the first and last time he hit someone else on purpose.

After the fight, Karkat expected a lecture. Instead, his father looked at him sadly, held him in his arms, and apologized. Looking at his son’s little face, he told him; never do that again. Vantases don't use our hands to solve problems, we use our words. Right?

And boy, does Karkat use his words.

A nonstop stream of paragraphs and epiphets and swears and threats and made him less like the kids in his neighborhood who play-fight (and as he grew up, just plain fight), and more like the prim kids he knew at school.

One day, he watches Eridan’s dad throw a sneer and a snide remark at his father, passive aggressive comments on his work ethic and an underlying threat beneath it all. That night, he sees his dad cry for the first time, head down while he thinks he and Kankri are asleep.

Karkat learns that rich people don't use their hands to hurt other people. They use their words.

He grows up resenting the friends he made at school, while being inexplicably fond of them. He knows there's more to them than the money, that their lives are just as twisted up as his. But God, doesn't that money make it easier?

He thinks: all of his’ dads work for him to go to a fancy private school, when he says it's a better opportunity or for his future, Karkat knows what he's really saying. That it's for money. So one day, he wouldn’t have to reuse the same clothing for years, or see an eviction notice on the door. One day, he’s supposed to be rich.

So Karkat does just that; he pursues money. He dreams of security and safety and one day repaying his father and putting a stop to the growing shadows under his eyes and the sunkenness of his cheeks.

He throws himself into his studies, throws himself into his friendships, throws himself into everything so he doesn't notice at first, when his dad gets weaker. More tired.

When Kankri starts cooking more, he's in middle school, but none of it matters because now he's in the student government and speech and debate and learning to program and doing anything and everything that will make him more than a diversity hire or a charity case.

And for all that Karkat rages, he listens and he sees.

He sees Vriska, withdrawing, becoming meaner. She's started wearing makeup, he notices, but it does not come as a surprise. She's always been painfully vain, he thinks, but this is different in a way he can't put his finger on.

When he sees her take out a little white bag after school, passing it around a group of older kids, he understands.

He learns that rich people do drugs for different reasons then the people back home do. He's used to people people using to hide their pain, to distract them. Here, they're just bored. 

There's nothing for them to do, after all, with trust funds and stocks for passive income and a starting reserve of millions already their birthright. So they do drugs and have sex and hurt each other just for the hell of it. Unlike for Karkat, there's never any danger either; mommy or daddy  would always swoop in and the cops never saw it as anything but good fashioned teenage fun.

When Karkat turns 13, his dad's condition is unmistakable. His fatigue after too many late shifts when Karkat was a child now seemed laughable in comparison. He'd all but wasted away. Everytime Karkat asked, he was brushed off. It wasn't anything for him to worry about, just focus on those grades of his and playing with his friends, he was told.

When he asks Kankri, he tells him, in a way that's shockingly blunt for all the neurotically sensitive pontification his older brother is prone to, that it's cancer. They can't afford treatments anymore. Karkat hears the implication: they can't afford them, because of you.

Karkat is prone to smashing things, to shouting words, to handing out cruelty before he can recieve it. Once his dad dies, he smashes the laptop he'd worked hard to save up for with a summer job. Kankri wordlessly replaces it. Karkat is prone to these fits, though he only ever breaks what was his in the first place. Kankri worries about him because he's almost sure that's worse. 

Karkat realizes he can't program for shit, too many barbed exchanges between himself and Sollux's silicon valley genius-brain that he decides on something “attainable'', instead. Med school. If he plays his cards right, if he applies to the right scholarship and uses that anger as fuel... he'll make it. And he'll be able to help his dad, or at least, people like him. 

When his dad dies at 14, it's not a surprise. When Kankri is forced to take care of him, and things become worse between them, he's not surprised. This kind of thing always seemed to happen to Vantases. 

Maybe he becomes angrier, but no one notices. Karkat’s always angry, after all. Gamzee was his best friend, and the kid was always high out of his mind 

When they were little, Gamzee was fun, if a bit mischievous. He would talk about clowns and his father's religion and honk his own nose as if it was a horn. As he got older, the clown imagery became less cute and more horror movie levels of disturbing. Violent. One day, hed brought home a pigeon, with a fork stabbed through the middle, and presented it to Karkat like a cat, blood still on his fingers.

So when Gamzee started experimenting with weed in middle school, while Karkat couldn’t fully endorse it, Karkat was honestly a little relieved. He becomes more like how he was as a kid.

Gamzee had started to become more intense about his fathers religion, which karkat now unabashedly called a cult slash pyramid scheme. “IF SCIENTOLOGY IS AN ACTUAL COMPETITOR TO YOUR DAD’S COMPANY, THEN YES GAMZ, IT'S A CULT.”

Karkat gets used to managing people the way he was used to managing his father when he had worked too hard, or his brother when he had blundered into another friendship fuck up.

So managing gamzee is easy. He’s had practice.

When Gamzee starts taking uppers, Karkat notices. And he manages. Makes sure Gamzee never takes too many, is never totally unsupervised.

But he's started to hate it. Hate being everywhere for everyone, for taking care of teenagers who would always have more than him. The world makes him so fucking angry, but he's always been able to seperate that from the people he calls his friends. It's been harder, lately. 

So when Karkat sees Dave pummel Eridan’s face at that party, he thinks. They're the same.

It's the same halfhearted fantasy he's had for years, showing Eridan everything he says about him and people like him has concequences, that just because he had less money doesn't mean his fists wouldn't be just as painful, that he was any less real than the rest of them.

He always dismissed it, because Eridan was always more pathetic than genuinely maddening, everything an echo of his parents’ beliefs in a desperate ploy for attention and love. It wasn’t really his fault.

For Karkat, it was embarrassing. But that didn’t make it any more cathartically satisfying to hear his nose crunch under Dave’s fist.

(switch to first person POV)

And normally, you would be put off by this sort of ease of violence. But the last couple years,

with Terezi and Vriska maiming each other, Tavros' accident, fucking Aradia’s accident... You're not surprised by blood anymore. Besides, Eridan instigated, though you know if it was anyone who’d known Eridan for more than two minutes they’d realize they were all empty threats.

And you know Dave… Not really, not past first time you ran into each other on accident, but you've seen him crying. That counts for something. And you saw his hands tremble after he hit Eridan. You two are the same, you think. So much anger, and so much hunger for something more.

You've never met someone like him before.

You've seen intimations of him, in Eridan, in Cronus, in Equius, in every guy who hides an eating disorder and insecurity behind protein shakes and physical perfection, who blusters his way through masculinity because anything else is too scary. 

But Dave? He's serious about it all.

Effortlessly masculine, effortlessly cool, and just that little bit of unhinged. Well, you've never claimed to have good taste in men.

And something about him makes you want to manage him.

He's like you. If you can save him, that means you can be saved too.

[dav3katz]

Oooh a new ask blog for homestuck :D!! Can I have hcs for Yandere!Karkat x reader, please? Thank you 😘🥰!

Yandere karkat hcs

- karkat is quite obsessive as a yandere, though I do think a lot of Homestuck yanderes are much worse than him in this regard.

- he’s still obsessive though, and he is constantly at a battle with himself. Wondering if he feels more red or black for you

- cause while a regular karkat might be able to pin that down a yandere karkat cannot. He hates what he feels for you and how much his feelings for you have caused problems in his life and he confuses that with genuine hatred for you at times

- but a part of him can’t fathom the idea of truly hating you? Like he would never kill you or anything of the sort. But he still kinda hates you and what you make him feel. See? It’s confusing. And he’s so contradictory.

- suppose he just doesn’t understand what he feels. He goes in between talking shit about you for endless hours because he hates your guts so goddamn much, or he’s sappy and rambling about how talented and sweet you are and how you make him so fucking happy.

- he goes out of his way to bother and annoy you. It’s kinda like how he’d antagonize and start fights with sollux for the fuck of it, but it’s much more common and intense with you and usually never gives you a break.

- however, still similar in the regard he will say some mean shit and then cry type over whether or not you’re still friends (because y’all definitely aren’t dating yet)

- he does care for you though. So deeply in fact, it frustrates him. It frustrates him even more that he feels a protectiveness over you. It makes him even MORE frustrated when he knows he can’t protect you. He’s just a short, mutantblood, what can he honestly do except do intimidation tactics.

- Karkat is a jealous yandere, gets jealous over the dumbest shit. He doesn’t even get it either at first, which frustrates him. When he’s finally dating you though he knows it very well.

- it leads to problems. He assumes you like the person, he assumes you’re cheating on him. Or he simply assumes you’re doing it on purpose so he has every fucking right to get the guy murdered.

- overbearingly clingy, though unsurprising since back in his early days.. before he met these damn humans.. he was always available to talk to his fellow trolls. It should come as no shock he has no fucking life.

- Karkat is generally not a dangerous yandere, he can be if jealous. His jealousy makes him angry and causes him to make rash decisions, but he feels justified in his anger. He doesn’t completely understand his attraction, his feelings are mixed and jumbled together. Despite somebody with supposed experience in romance.

- but deep down, even if he feels he hates you, he knows he loves you just as much.

- but he needs to know you love him. Or else it’s the end of the fucking world. He’s so dramatic about you not saying I love you every 10 goddamn minutes. He’s overly insecure, which may correlate to the jealousy.

- but he doesn’t think he’s obsessed. He thinks he’s normal. He’s completely off his fucking hinges though.

- and the more you show you don’t love him (in his eyes at least) the closer he is to murdering everyone else you’ve ever grown to know

- (also, he’s got creepy ass stares. Stares at you with this fuckin glare on his face. You can’t tell if it’s his normal expression or if he’s mad at you for something.)

- sometimes, acts like you’re a useless fuckin toolbag that needs his assistance with everyone, a part of him knows how condescending it is, since he knows how it feels. He does it regardless.

- he’s just so insistent on helping you with everything. Whether it’s because he wants to help or truly seems you as a useless animal, who knows.

- but there is genuine love in there. It’s twisted, but it’s love.

[hoarder-of-stories-27]

So all I know about Homestuck I've osmosed from being on the internet, whereas you've actually read the thing, so I would love to get an expert opinion: I've been thinking Murderbot and Mensah are moirails. Do I have my pale shipping goggles on sideways? I would love to hear any thoughts you have to share about a Murderbot and ART moirailegence!

!!!!!!!!! *excited happy flapping* I would love to infodump about connections between the two things I’m currently special-interest-ing on, thank you.  (This got really long, whoops.  The short answer is “yes, I think both Mensah and ART are Murderbot’s moirails.”)

Okay, so, moirallegiance in Homestuck is a kind of relationship meant for people in a really violent society.  One partner is supposed to pacify the other.  From the comic:

A reasonable human translation would be the concept of a soul mate, but in a more platonic sense, and with a more specific social purpose.

Trolls are a very angry and violent race. Some are more hot-tempered and dangerous than others, to the extent that if left to their own devices, they would present a serious threat to society, or even to themselves. Such trolls will have an instinctive pale attraction to a more even-tempered troll, who may become their MOIRAIL. The moirail is obliged to pacify the other, to function as the better half. The two partners in a strong pale relationship will serve to balance and complement each other's emotional profiles, and thus allow their other relationships to be more successful.

The more dangerous partner also tends to protect the pacifying one.

A lot of people in the Homestuck fandom use a looser definition of moirallegiance, where it’s less lopsided and there doesn’t have to be a one-dangerous-person-and-one-calming-one dynamic.  Basically just queerplatonic partners.  I think both Murderbot/Mensah and Murderbot/ART fit into the official definition, though!  From Network Effect:

I could say it was an accident, I’d meant to take him prisoner and he had tried to get away and— 

Dr. Mensah would never believe that. My accidents were spectacular and usually involved me losing a big chunk of my organic tissue or something; she knew I could stop a human without hurting them, without even leaving a bruise, that was my stupid job. 

She would never trust me again. She would never stand close enough to touch (but without touching, because touching is gross) and just trust me. Or maybe she would, but it wouldn’t be the same. 

Fuck, fuck everything, fuck this, fuck me especially. 

I opened a secure comm contact to Mensah and Senior Officer Indah and said, “I’ve caught a GrayCris agent in the Port temp housing block.”

Dr. Mensah wasn’t even there and that guy wouldn’t be alive without her.  And from Exit Strategy:

I could take over the ship’s SecSystem before this human with the temptingly large familiar projectile weapon could blink. I could get that weapon before that human could blink. I wanted to do it, and it bled through into the feed.

Mensah turned, gripped the collar of my jacket with both hands, and said, “No.”

(...)

I sent, You have no idea what I am.

She tilted her head and looked more mad. I know exactly what you are. You’re afraid, you’re hurt, and you need to calm the fuck down so we can get through this situation alive.

I said, I am calm. You need to be calm, to take over a gunship.

Mensah’s eyes narrowed. Security consultants don’t get their clients into unnecessary pitched battles for control of their rescue ship. She added, Because that would be stupid.

She wasn’t afraid of me. And it hit me that I didn’t want that to change. She had just been through a traumatic experience, and I was making it worse. Something was overwhelming me, and it wasn’t the familiar wave of not-caring.

Fine, I sent. I sounded sulky, because I was sulky.

I hate emotions.

“Good,” she said aloud.

That’s... heavily reminiscent of the Karkat and Gamzee scene (arguably the most important portrayal of moirallegience in Homestuck).  And obviously Murderbot protects her.  Yeah, they’re moirails.  :D

Murderbot and ART don’t fit quite as easily into the comic’s definition of moirallegiance.  I thought at first that ART would be the dangerous one.  I mean, it is dangerous.  (They both are.)  But Murderbot’s usually the one who needs to be calmed down and kept from going through with its bad ideas.  There’s this (from Network Effect):

I was desperate. I sent privately, ART, tell them I need to go alone. Back me up. 

ART said aloud, I concur, it will be safer if SecUnit is accompanied by two certified survey specialists. 

Why am I even surprised. I sent privately again, ART, you asshole. 

ART replied, only to me, It is safer. I’ve lost my crew, I won’t lose you. 

Amena said, not helpfully, “Your face just got really weird. Are you all right?” 

No, it was confusing. I was confused.

And while Murderbot 2.0 did end up happening, ART was against it until it was absolutely necessary.

I do think Murderbot and ART could be considered moirails!  Especially if you use the looser definition that’s basically QPPs.  Still, I like “mutual administrative assistants” better than anything else for their relationship.  :D

I hope that answered your question!  Sorry about how long it got.  (Wow, I wish I could use this energy for things that aren’t my special interests.)

[chlorophasmic]

Laughter pulls a blink, surprised by the sound. A little manic, almost hysterical where it comes from seemingly nothing. You hold his stare through it, through the goading that has your frown tightening, as your mind quivers between two spheres of influence, both yourself and.. not. That distant, clouding feeling of conflict threatening to overwhelm.

Anxiety cuts through the din, cold and unexpectedly grounding against the heat radiating off the face mere centimeters apart from your own. The icy chill of certainty.

You're not supposed to be doing this.

"Fine."

There's contradictions bubbling beneath the surface, frustrated and disgusted and angry to be met with something you can't have, making it all the harder. But they can agree on one front. And it's that Karkat's the one making it all happen. Two stones, one bird.

Without even thinking about the link of your collar, you're spurred to action, hands smacking into the fabric of his shoulders where you shove, hard. If you fall with, fuck it. Get this guy to step the fuck back before you both do something you'll regret.

It was impossible for you to predict how the new, older Treekat would react your increasingly pointed provocations. He continues to seem so similar to the one you remember, and then every now and then throws you a curveball just to remind you that he's not the same anymore. That being said, the fact that he would ask if he should kick your ass instead of just doing it feels so quintessentially him. Because really, what else would the point of all this be if not to goad him into falling back in hate with you?

The sheer ridiculousness of him asking if he should, when combined with your already frayed nerves, results in a few short beats of laughter spilling out of you before you even realize it's happening. You clutch onto his collar, not willing to give up any control until he took it by force. You're not about to let up any pressure now when he seems close to finally pushing back, you can't.

"I don't know, can you? You've been happy to let me drag you around so far."

You're thankful that whatever blood goo you apparently had is gone now, because you can only imagine how poorly it would handle the way you can feel your blood coursing through your body now. The past few weeks of dancing around his cowardly attempts to deny this has been agonizing, and now you feel almost feverish with the anticipation of being so close to pushing him into finally taking what he wants. What you both want.

[skips-is-asleep]

fic prompt: while on the meteor, dave tries to convince Karkat that he can cook even tho his cooking knowledge stops at Kraft Macaroni. it's like a cooking show if that cooking show were left unattended for most of its childhood. rose stands by inwardly just fuckin living for this shit as Dave swears to god humans eat this

I almost didn’t do this one but this is my first ever request and also I'm not a fucking quitter so

You hate living here. You hated living here when it was you and a bunch of your friends, and you hated living here when the threat of a murder was around every corner, and you hate living here now that you’re with a couple of strangers that look weird and behave weird and say weird things.

Not that they didn’t say weird things before you started living with them, the two of them had that shit on lock. But now you have to hear it come out of their mouths, and into your brain where you’re forced to visualize some of the things they say.

At first, it was kind of nice? In that new-haircut way, where you’re not confident in it, but you can’t really change it so your only option is to just wear it until it becomes you’re new normal.

You have not reached that point in your new hivemates yet, unfortunately.

You’re not friendly with the humans. Not in the same way you are over text, at least. It’s always been difficult making friends in person, even the friends that you spent your entire life with had to live with a little bit of shunning from you simply because you’re not used to sharing your space with other living beings. It’s weird.

When the Strider human approaches you (and you call him that because you think it’s fucking weird to address someone by just a one-syllable name, and last names are more comfortable than just refusing to address him, not to mention rude) it only spells bad energy. Rancid vibes as he puts it.

You’re curled up on the sofa, in the recreation center, reading the same book you found in a decrypted hallway a few weeks ago. The cover of the book is so smudged and ripped, there’s no cover really, and some of the pages are torn out, but it’s kind of fun imaging what the missing pages had in them. Strider smacks something on the table in front of you and it makes your whole body jolt and hair stand up on end as your claws grip the pages and tear them even more. Great, that’s like a whole six more words you’ll have to make up later.

As you peel the parchment off your fingertips, you finally look up at him. You do your best to look annoyed, but you know you’re just tired. He’s got that look on his face. The one that says--

“Check this shit out.”

Good, god, yeah, that look. The thing he slammed on your table was a box, small, probably less than ten inches tall, and thing, only about an inch wide and deep, and a bright fucking blue with ugly bright yellows to contrast it. The design alone makes your lip turn slightly. “Whatever the fuck you want to bother me with this time, I guarantee I don’t have the patience for it. And I usually have the patience for it.”

“Total lie, but it’s okay, I forgive you, ‘cause this is gonna blow your fucking alien fucking troll mind, dude. This,” And he holds up the box, suddenly you feel as though you’re being sold something and you really really don’t want it. “is a Kraft dinner, and it’s called kraft cause it was crafted by the straight-up amazing ass food gods, not us ‘cause we’re different.”

You don’t want to talk. You feel like talking will encourage him to keep going, but he keeps going regardless as if you aren’t even there.

“I’m under the impression that you don’t know what this is, or even what’s inside of it, so lemme give you the tour.” Strider opens up the box and decaptulouges what appears to be an entire fucking metal basin, cooking surface, and a whole fucking sink. It’s...food. You suppose. Considering you’re not entirely certain what humans classify as ‘dinner’, it does not seem to be the same as what you do.

Strider dumbs the box into the metal basin, and out clatters little hard....let’s be honest here, they’re tubes. Tiny tubes.

“Is--” You start, and try to reach forward to touch the tubes. Strider smacks your hand away with a sharp slap and you hiss and pull back. “Dude, fuck off, I'm doing a bit here. Keep your hands and feet in the ride at all times, you know the drill.”

“What drill! There’s no d--I don’t want to be part of your stupid bit! All you ever do is run around with your little fucking god powers and make shit do other shit and turn shit into other shit and make a mess and who has to clean it up?? Karkat does, Karkat cleans up everything and he never gets a single please, or thank you or anything! And now you want me to watch you eat plastic and pretend it’s food?? I’m not falling for it, especially not this time, you blabbering, annoying fuckhead.”

The noises he makes, which you think are meant to pacify you, sound kind of like a tea kettle that’s only just starting to boil, a soft hiss/shush noise while tapping you on the shoulder. “Just trust me on this one, it’ll all be worth it.”

Fuck it, what else are you gonna do? Count pebbles??

After you seem like you’re going to allow him to continue, Strider fills the basin with water, and puts it on the cooking apparatus, turning the thing on and mumbling while he puts on his weird little show.

“Water’s gettin’ hot and it’s ‘bout to get hotter, fill it to the top, make sure it doesn’t splatter--no that’s fucking stupid, scratch that, reverse, uh, actually fast forward...” There’s his dumb little powers again. Before your very eyes, the water’s boiling. You peak over the top curiously and the little plastic tubes are big, pale and bendy. They peak over the water just a little, not completely submerged. He conveniently opens up his sylladex again and pulls out...a bowl with holes on it??

“You didn’t salt the water, Dave, you’re supposed to salt the water.” You peak over your shoulder and see Lalonde, the other human, in the doorway. She’s leaning her hip against the framing, arms crossed and smiling. How long has she been there. “Whatever, it doesn’t even make it heat up faster, who care.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“I’m absolutely not.” He then dumps the pasta out of the basin into the bowl, all the water spilling out into the sink. You’ll admit, now your interest is piqued. The tubes are soft now! Just from cooking in water??

You’ve decided your interest is un-piqued. Even as Lalonde continues to make fun of her human counterpart for not putting human salt rocks into a big pot of water where they would surely sink to the bottom and not add any experience to soft squish tubes. But you don’t say anything, because you’re tired of being made fun of for not understanding human cultures. Mouth shut.

Lalonde scoffs, baffled. “It’s for seasoning, Dave.”

“It’s cheese, Rose, it has all the flavors it needs!”

As they bicker, you see Strider move the tubes from the bowl to the basin again, stove off and he picks out a little white pouch, opens it and dumps it in. You watch with astonishment and disgust. Those tubes looked perfectly suitable!!

The two of them look to you, Rose with surprise but Dave keeps the same face on regardless. Strider has stopped stiring, with the big ol’ spoon he took out as well, which was changing the color of the tubes and making them into this gross mush that looked a lot like the insides of some animals back home. You almost gag, but manage to hold it back just enough. “I know it’s probably weird to you, but I swear it’s good, here gimme a sec.”

“Listen, bro, I'm basically a fucking M and C expert, I use to eat this shit for weeks on end.”

“Yes, and then you’d faint on your keyboard from iron deficiency.”

“That was one time, and it wasn’t even because of that, it was because of something else completely.”

“DUDE WHAT THE FUCK!” You sit up and shout, now kind of angry that Dave ruined perfectly good tubes and was acting like nothing was even weird about it.

You’ll admit you’re curious. So when he starts to pull out a little spoon, and get you some on it, it makes a little squelch noise and you do gag at that, and he holds it up for you to take. You do. And you stare at it for a really really long time. With as much care and precision as you can manage, you take one little tube. out and eat it.

It doesn’t...taste like anything. Not strongly of anything at least. You almost wonder what steps occurred to bring this sort of thing into existence. Not only on earth but here, on the meteor. You don’t say anything, just handing the spoon back to Strider. It’s the most polite way you can think of.

Still, he asks, “it’s good isn’t it?”

[homestuckstuff]

Swimming hcs

Karkat: horrible at chicken, he’s too short to actually hit people and he’s terrified about falling. Managed to learn how to swim in six minutes and nobody knows how. Can be deadly silent when Marco Polo comes from all the droid scares he had, once just stood in the corner of the pool and Dave couldn’t find him for an hour.

Dave: good at chicken, will throw hands with anyone who try’s to win. He and John constantly find ways to cheat at Marco Polo. Got John to find karkat for him after an hour of searching. Probably threw his ice cream at someone by accident, gfdi Dave this is why we can’t have nice things. Karkat gives him his out of pity

John: cheats at Marco Polo but still cannot manage to find Karkat. He turns into wind so he can dash around the pool and tag people. Did chicken once and fell and hit his head on the concrete, refuses to play it again. Got dared to eat Dave’s floor ice cream for two dollars and did it, terezi calls him a floor licker. “Stfu terezi you were the one who dared me” tries to pull peoples feet and gets kicked in the face.

Jade: doggy paddles everywhere but still manages to be faster then everyone but Jake. Didn’t know you were supposed to wear bathing suits and just jumps In. She and Dave kill at chicken but her and Jake are unstoppable together, they’ve never lost a single match. Jade is s t r o n k, looks like she could kill a man by looking at him but she won’t.

Rose: doesn’t swim but wears a matching outfit with Kanaya and roxy that spelt fuck off please when put together. She wore the fuck part. Was goaded Into playing chicken and did it with John against terezi and Dave. She killed them on sight but when Jake and jade came against them John promptly got knocked onto the fucking concrete and everyone thought he was dead. Bought a squiddles themed sun hat and drew over it.

Aradia: doesn’t go in the water. She knows how to swim but she just doesn’t feel like it. Will grab pebbles and toss them at whoever’s Marco just to watch them freak out.

Tavros: doesn’t swim because of his mecha legs but his sits by the pool anyways. He and Gamzee did chicken and when tav fell in Equius nearly came for his head. Gets a water type fidusmon and floats across the pool until Vriska shoves him in. Equius Comes for Vriskas head.

Sollux: pulled a gamer move and didn’t touch the water, used his Psionics to make a whirlpool and then dragged eridan into it. Throws pebbles at John and eridan cause it’s funny

Nepeta: the water turns brown when she touches it cause she hasn’t taken a bath in years. Hangs out with Equius at the end of the pool and kills anyone who fucks with him on sight. Makes shipping charts out of the pebbles sollux and Aradia throw. Equius and her have a tea party together and invite Aradia and Karkat to it, they try to play eachothers wingman and fail miserably. At least their tea is good :,33

Kayana: didn’t swim either, wore the off part of the swim suits. Stole roses squidle hat and wore it all day. Bought rose some flowers. She and rose ate some donuts together and had a lovely time

Terezi: she went behind John and slapped his ass so hard that he turned into wind. Didn’t give John his two dollars when he ate the floor ice cream and he pushed her in the pool. She sat in the pool with Vriska and they got to play chicken with terezi’s cane. They slap jade in the face to win and they make her cry. Jake almost beats the shit out of them. Vriska says that whoever’s angry at them can fight them but literally everyone starts gearing up to beat her and terezi up. Vriska almost shits her pants and terezi apologizes for them. Jade gets to slap them both to make it equal but she doesn’t cause she’s nice.

Vriska: is glad that jade didn’t kick the shit out of them. Stole roses martini but turns out she can’t handle her alcohol for shit. Almost passed out in the water but John got her out of there. Wears a nic cage themed bathing suit and John is so jealous

Equius: sits with nepeta and plans to beat up anyone who hits on her. He keeps breaking teacups, nepeta keeps pulling out more. He refuses to talk about the party incident with Aradia.

Gamzee: his face paint doesn’t even wash off. He and Tavros are decent at chicken, he’s nervous about Tavros falling in. Freezes sopor into popsicles and c r o n c h e s on them all day long.

Eridan: turns out eridan can’t swim well. It doesn’t really come up until sollux drags him into that whirlpool and he gets stuck at the bottom of the pool. He can breathe, he’s just kinda.....stuck down there. Feferi has to drag him out. He tries to play it off like he was joking about being stuck at the bottom but no one believes him. Sollux begrudgingly apologizes and eridan almost cries.

Feferi: is the one who made sollux apologize. She races jade and everyone is terrified because they both look like they’re going to throw hands. Jade wins by a damn inch. They high-five and congratulate eachother.

Jane: has a cute ass one piece. Dave makes a joke about johns hot mom. She’s not real good at swimming. She and roxy are a decent chicken team. She tried to help eridan out of the bottom of the pool but he yelled at her. She refers to him as the fish bitch. Made the snacks for everyone.

Roxy: wore the please part of the outfit. She and John are real good at chicken. She, John, and terezi decided to ditch for a minute to go flying. She and John picked up terezi and flew around happily. Everyone else joined, none god tiers got carried around. They eventually land and turns out terezi isn’t too good with heights. She vomits and they have to give her some water. The rest of the day she watched movies and played chicken with her friends.

Jake: is wayyyyy too nervous around all these people. He loves hanging out with his friends but he really doesn’t know half the people here. He and jade swim around to try and defuse some stress. John tried to grab his foot but he panicked and screamed for him to go away. He and dirk moved inside so he could calm down. He comes out two minutes later and apologizes to John. John is Lowkey scared of him because of how tall he is. He spends the rest of the time trying to convince Roxy that he and dirk didn’t do anything weird.

Dirk: is nervous around the pool. He thinks it’s way too cold and doesn’t want to go in. Roxy pushed him in and he refuses to get out because spite. He and Jake are pretty good at chicken but dirk can’t really hold Jake up on his shoulders. He and Jake had a bonding moment and talked about why Jake was so nervous and why he freaked out. More tears were shed then they both would like to admit. Got revenge on roxy. He started a food fight and got a frozen sopor popsicle to the eye. He’s lucky his stupid glasses didn’t break

[rabble-dabble]

Okay, so a really good hot take I saw on another blog pointed out that Trolls probably see flowers in a different light than humans. Like, all things in Alternia are poisonous, so giving someone flowers would probably come across as threatening or as a pitch flirtation or something. Basically, John gives Karkat flowers and Karkat flips his shit because he thinks John wants to flip pitch on him.

“I’M NOT DOING IT!!!”

“What? But, Karkat, they’re just-”

Karkat stuck his pointed claw right in the human’s face, just inches away from his nose, and huffed. “It’s one thing to have rejected me when we first met. It’s another to admit years later that you wanted a romantic relationship and actively tried to pursue it. It’s a whole ‘nother thing, John Egbert, and basically an entire fucking insult to what we both have right now to want this!!!!”

John looked between Karkat and the red flowers between them. “Uh. You mean the roses?”

“No, I mean your facehole. Of course, I mean the roses you fucking quadrant vacillating, two-timing no good bulge infested spewdent shitpiss!!!”

“Woah, Karkat!” John set down the flowers and enveloped his boyfriend in an - almost - hug. “Okay, no, let’s think about this here! There’s something I’m not getting.”

Karkat growled into his neck. “Of course there’s something you’re not getting, and it’s about to be me shoving my foot up your-”

“Karkat. What’s usually the problem when there’s something I don’t get?”

Karkat huffed, but did pause to revel in the human's warmth. “It’s because you’re an idiot.”

“Ha, no. Come on, let’s figure this out: when it really seems like I’ve done something wrong, it’s because...?”

“Because you’re the slimiest, no good-for-nothing human stain on the existence of-”

John chose wisely to ignore the bullet of insults coming at him from his (obviously) upset boyfriend, and decided instead to lay his head on the troll’s shoulder while running his hand up and down his back. 

“Karkat,” he sang softly, prompting the troll to stop his line of insult. “I’m really sorry about whatever you’re upset with right now. But I can’t learn how I not to do it again unless you can tell me what’s upsetting about the roses.”

Karkat wanted to scream in the human’s hear, but distracted by his soothing gesture, said instead, “You should already know. The..the implication of giving me those..”

John blinked, his trail of thought running a little harder in place of Karkat. “What, so, do roses mean something specifically in troll culture?”

Karkat shook his head. “No. It’s not just the fact it’s roses, it’s the fact you tried giving me those pissing weedshits in general that I find particularly insulting to our very, hard-earned matespritship. All things considered, Egbert, I thought you wanted a very red relationship.” He wanted to grip onto John’s shirt angrily, but he knew he’d only earn a sharp cry if he used his claws while angry now, so for the sake of not giving himself a headache he decided against it.

John blinked again. “Wait, so flowers are supposed to be..uh, the pitch quadrant?”

Happy that his human learned something during their time together, he confirmed. “Yes. It’s basically the equivalent of asking for, I think, a breakup in human terms, and insulting against a stable matespritship.”

John’s face grew from mildly concerned to outright upset. “What! Oh, oh gosh, Karkat, no no no no!! I don’t want that. At all.”

“Yeah, me neither!”

“I just...” John looked down, upset, at the discarded roses at their feet. “It’s supposed to be romantic. Flowers to humans are supposed to be about a lot of different feelings, so you give it to people important to you.”

Karkat’s eyebrows rose. “Wait, you humans just give each other flowers? As in, you willingly give them out?”

“Well, yeah!” John rubbed the back of his head. “They’re to tell people about something special. I was trying to show you how much I loved you, and how special you were to me.”

Karkat looked furiously between the flowers and John now. “How could you humans even see them like that! They’re dangerous! That’s why you give them to a potential kismesis!!”

“What? But they’re essentially harmless! Only the really bad ones are dangerous, and we know to stay away from those.”

“But...wait, not all of your plants are dangerous?”

“Um, no. Are all of yours?”

The two looked between each other, dumbstruck. 

“Oh,” John chuckles humorlessly. “I think I understand the mixup now.”

“You stupid humans..” Karkat facepalms himself. “I should’ve known your thinkpans rotted so far as to mix up a kismesis gesture and a matesprit one..”

“Hey,” John grabbed Karkat’s hand into his own, an understanding smile on his face as the troll guiltily met the blue eyes of his matesprit. “It’s okay, we figured it out, alright? It was just a misunderstanding, and no one wants to break up with anyone.”

Karkat eyed John suspiciously, before he realized, yeah, there’s no way after so long and a lot of hard work John would just (unknowingly) flip their relationship on its head. 

“You should just ask me next time about what I want,” Karkat growled, but this time, without any hurt. 

John kissed his face. “I mean, it’ll ruin the surprise, but okay. I really don’t want to repeat this again.” 

“Stupid human,” but Karkat’s turned his head so he can sneak a kiss that just ends up getting him an enthusiastic human back. 

The roses get recycled into Jade’s custody later, and John spends the rest of the next day feverishly canceling any and all romanticly planned gestures that used flowers. 

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

oohohoho you just opened the deepest can of worms on the planet

-mod dave, who wrote a fucking ten mile essay

first off, addressing the second anon, no theyre all humans. h., half humans at least. cause yall know me i fucking love my humanstuck aus off my ASS

(that would be funny as hell though. a troll from space walking into a camp on earth going “I AM THE SON OF ONE OF YOUR EARTH GODS. BITCH” like... holy shit)

so first things first their parents. im gonna lay this out, the beta kids and trolls are all greek (EXCEPT sollux hes roman cause his parent has no greek equivalent), and all the alpha kids and trolls are those gods roman equivalents (,,EXCEPT dirk cause he kinda balances sollux being roman out). i havent figured out how thatd happen like 16+ times yet cause in the percy jackson books theres only ever been one instance of two siblings of the same godly descent being greek and roman respectively in HISTORY so like.. i guess th. i guess thats just not a problem in this au

anyway this gets really long so im gonna talk about the beta kids and trolls cause i havent elaborated on the alphas at all ((peep the tags if you wanna see their parents though))

johns the son of zeus, rose is the daughter of athena, dave is the son of apollo, and jade is the daughter of demeter. they were all raised in their respective states, all had to come to new york for various reasons. jades been there the longest, shes been there 9 years and shes been on a couple quests. her biggest accomplishment so far is how she protected the camp from this big vicious angry hellhound that got past the barrier. naturally the girls fluent in Dog Training, so she steps up and instead of trying to kill this thing, she reaches out and tames it as fast as she can. it ends up actually working, and ever since that day she, her cabin, and the camp have a whole bodyguard sleeping right outside the demeter cabin! hes her steed in battle and hes a Very Good Boy. and his name is becquerel

johns the newest kid at camp, he has no idea who he is or why the fuck his school got attacked or why in the hell those anemoi thuellai were so fixated on him or HOW in the hell he absorbed the lightning one threw at him and ended up fine,,, hes just a big mess right now. a big enough mess that when he got claimed by literally zeus, no one else was around, he shrugged it off as some basic magical happening, and he stayed in the hermes cabin far longer than he should have cause no one! fucking knew he got claimed! by zeus of all people! dumbass. he ends up figuring it out though. like an off-hand mention about how this “weird lightning thing appeared above my head a couple weeks ago, haha weird right?” once he figures it out he realizes “hey i might be able to fly” so he sneaks off into the woods to try it. he succeeds fairly quickly but god almighty everyones face the one day the dude just yote himself off a small cliff without warning,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

dave and rose are really tight, theyve been there roughly the same time length, and since their cabins are across from each other they just bother each other all the time. daves the resident Doctor even though he really doesnt look it cause hes got the apollo powers. apollo is the medicine god. so if you wound your stupid ass in battle daves in the ER room patching you up with his glowy hands. rose on the other hand is a very good strategist. shes one of the only athena kids ever recorded to actually have a power - telekinesis. she has no idea how she developed it, she thinks its from birth, but it freaks her out. shes training it though.

so the beta trolls, are also all human(ish). aradias hades kid. but i pulled a pjo trope on her based on one of my favorite characters (im not saying for spoilers, but if you recognize the situation, You Probably Know Who Its Based Off) and aradia died. her mom, the handmaid, had been pulling some Shady Ass Shit and ended up getting herself killed, but aradia tried saving her and ended up going down with her.

so handmaid gets sentenced to the fields of punishment in the underworld, and aradia gets sentenced to elysium, heroes paradise. shes like “no i want my mom to be okay” so they take that away from aradia and they put them both in the fields of asphodel, the neverending grey space for Not So Good But Not So Bad people. her mom becomes a shade (shadow spirit, no human resemblance), as all people do, but aradia. doesnt? and she gets dunked in the fucking river lethe and if you dont know what that does it erases your memory. so she just. comes out of the river like “hello? wgat tae fukc goin on??” but she still remembers one thing. there was an “a” in her name.

tavros is the son of hermes, hes just kinda taken on the role of backup counselor for when the actual cabin counselor is out. hes in a wheelchair, but he also has prosthetic legs for when he needs to actually stand up and fight. hes really good at it too. also catch him in winged converse cause he Owns Those and Uses Them To His Advantage. hes trying his best to keep focused on the camp, cause aradia was his childhood friend, he misses her a whole lot, she never got to camp in the first place. and to his knowledge, shes still dead.

sollux is a janus kid. thats a problem cause janus is roman, and this is a greek camp. he grew up with dave, he showed up with dave, hes been at camp as long as dave. but hes been unclaimed since he showed up so he thinks hes unwanted by whatever parent he has. he knows hes a demigod, he got through the camp barriers, so what the fuck is wrong with him? he also feels shitty cause hes shit at the greek lessons, he cant read a lick of it which literally every demigod without exception should be able to do, he cant name any gods- well, he can, but.. he gets their names mixed up. why does he keep calling poseidon “neptune”? and he has a much, much different way of natural fighting than other kids. they slice, he jabs. he wasnt taught to jab. 

karkat is an aphrodite kid with vitiligo, and to make matters worse, hes ace and on the aro spectrum. to make matters WORSE, the aphrodite kids are kinda notorious for being really shallow, really materialistic, and really mean. karkats been dubbed the “runt” of the cabin, he gets made fun of for his spots to the point where he uses make up and magic to conceal them. worst of all? hes the kid of the goddess of love, for fucks sake. being reminded that “loveless people shouldnt be able to stay in this cabin, mom must have made a mistake claiming you” is kind of.. a blow to the self esteem. long story short he hates aphrodite for claiming him, and would have rather stayed in the hermes cabin. but he eventually goes on this big quest thats vague as fuck right now but Its The Main Plot, he ends up proving to himself that hes worth something and that his siblings are wrong, and my FAVORITE LINE IN THE WHOLE THING i came up with is HIS when he deals a final blow to some big monster: “REMEMBER MY FACE THE NEXT TIME YOU REINCARNATE. MY NAME IS KARKAT VANTAS, I’M THE SON OF APHRODITE, AND LOOKS CAN KILL.”

nepeta isnt anywhere near developed as others are unfortunately, shes a daughter of ares and shes really really good at hand to hand combat. shes small but she leads groups of people in things ranging from camp volleyball games to actual literal wars. shes a tough little shit

kanaya isnt really developed either, i have yet to figure out most of her powers too actually, shes a daughter of iris, the rainbow goddess though. (blatant reference to both kanayas vampirism and. h. her. sh. es ga. gay) ONE THING SHE CAN DO THOUGH is iris message at will without water or drachmas so really shes just everyones go to cell phone and its fucking hilarious cause people just come into the cabin like “KANAYA I NEED TO TALK TO [X]” and shes like “You Better Fucking Pay Me I Am Not Your Personal Cell Phone”

terezi is the daughter of nemesis and she has this really peculiar power she hasnt really gotten the hang of yet. she has synesthesia, so while she cant see she can smell and taste the colors of her surroundings and its really helpful. sometimes though she gets messages from her mom. they dont even come as dreams half the time, they come as almost a different plane altogether. tez has the power to literally tip the scales, pretty much. and when she gets like that, she can see. shes not on earth though, shit on earth stops when shes like that. shes just kinda In Her Own Head, i guess? and in her head she holds the two scales in her hands. she is the arms of the scale. and depending on which one she lifts up, she can literally alter the fate of the battle or happening thats going on By Herself. once she chooses she just whooshes back to real life though and nothing has changed. the only downside? it takes a LOT of energy and cant be exploited for little things. her one thing on her bucket list is to tap into said powers while getting something from a vending machine so like three things will fall out but it hasnt happened yet and shes upset

vriskas a daughter of tyche, the luck goddess, come the fuck on you knew i was gonna, i havent really elaborated on her either and im upset about that. but hey now you get a break from all those fucking paragraphs

equius is a hephaestus kid, and he kinda stays in the background. hes a range fighter, he spends a lot of time in the forge, and even though its been a project looooong since forgotten, hes been excavating the tunnels under cabin nine for years. by himself. he has no idea where they lead, but dammit hes gonna find out where. he has no idea about a certain bunker in the woods though...

gamzees just there for a fucking laugh tbh hes a son of dionysus and i love that cause hes the god of wine and parties and insanity. usually gamzees just zoning out somewhere hes Not supposed to be, and hes not affected by the maenads FUCKED UP BULLSHIT that goes down the forest sometimes. also hes so fucking scared of tavroses wing shoes he tried them on once while he was high and JESUS CHRIST

eridan is the son of kymopoleia, a SUPER obscure goddess. lets just say dont fuck with eridan cause his mom is the goddess of violent sea storms,

and naturally, feferi is the daughter of poseidon. cause who the FUCK else would she be the daughter of. WHO. NAME ONE GOD

OH AND JUST CAUSE I FORGOT CALLIE AND CALIBORN ARE SATYRS IN THIS AU. CALLIE HAS PAN PIPES. and caliborn still has a gun

[bladekindeyewear]

Book Commentary on Inversion Theory

Alright, as a follow-up to this post, it looks like there’s an actual full bit of Homestuck book commentary (around the pages nearing Rose’s grimdark transformation, Book 6 pg 115, HS pg 3305, thanks @ramiedersedreamer and @zandraxofnebulon) about how Inversion Theory (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) isn’t what we thought.  Quoting and reading it first (not the whole reddit post but that portion at least), then discussion under the cut:

"Rose is a Light player, but her blackout effects result from arguably the nadir of her role as such a hero--that is, when she succumbs to Scratch's manipulations and other eldritch persuasions, and goes grimdark. This truth would appear to lend credence to a line of classpect thinking known as "inversion theory," which really isn't without its merits. This note has just gone to the bother of describing one of its merits, in fact. However, it is possible to get carried away with this line of thinking and use it to evaluate everything that happens in Homestuck. For instance, you could say "Well, Karkat is a Blood hero, and here's where he stops being as Karkatty as usual, so that means he's being the opposite of his aspect. Which means he's being Breathy instead of Bloody. So that means a bunch of other stuff, ipso facto, Homestuck has been EXPLAINED." That's not really the way all this works. Aspect lore runs deep, but it isn't the Rosetta Stone to the story. When in doubt, it's better to remember this: rather than an underlying mystical logic where all classpect roads lead to Deep Answers, HS is a comprehensive nexus of many themes, and all roads lead to the basic idea that this is a tale about kids who are trapped in the universal struggle associated with growing up."

I... hm.  Dammit.  Is that all he wrote??  This slippery author is a master of giving us tantalizing and insightful details without committing to any hard yes-or-no whatsoever.  >:T

I’d been building myself up to reading this all throughout yesterday with gut-wrenching dread that at this late, late, late hour he’d finally given us a definitive “NO” on Inversion.  Instead we get this quite interesting but more vague “eh, there’s merits, but don’t go too far with it”.  Which is...... 

...about as potentially-optimistic as I put it in the previous post, if not moreso?

Andrew’s being careful to lavish odd praise on inversion theory, too.  Which some people are going to interpret as (Option 1) “Nice try, but dead wrong”, like the anon who put a snippet in my inbox initially, and others will interpret as (Option 2) “The big ones are RIGHT, nudge nudge, but stop applying it everywhere cause the fans who say every line of the comic means ‘ghosting inversion’ are looking at the story wrong and annoying everyone”.

As someone guilty of being one of those fans described in the latter half on occasion, I can CERTAINLY agree with THAT last part.  Andrew made it really clear with the ending of Homestuck proper -- “this side shit didn’t matter as much as you thought it did”.  I was so enamored with the classpect system that I thought almost everything was being shown to us through those lenses, at one point -- but even though perhaps more than the random reader might have thought is there, like he says, it ain’t supposed to be no Rosetta Stone.  Even when I WAS overapplying classpect everywhere, the people who did it too often in places I felt clearly un-merited REALLY pissed me off!  I can’t imagine how much more that might’ve been magnified in the shoes of someone who happened to apply the correct, lower amount of classpect and had to put up with me babbling and slathering it everywhere, much less the author’s shoes.

But there is still a big hole in his criticism, one he intentionally seems to have left there to me.  By saying “don’t look for it everywhere”, but ALSO that “there’s more than some merit to it”... I don’t think it’s a stretch to think the truth might not only be somewhere in between Options 1 and 2, but perhaps even closer to Option 2.

Aaaand HERE’s where if you’re someone who HUNGERED for me to admit wrongdoing by sticking with this theory for so long, you’re no doubt angry.  Looking at me as making excuses in the face of this long-awaited OBJECTIVE PROOF OF TOTAL THEORY DISMISSAL... WHY won’t the deluded bastard FINALLY succumb to REASON?  ANDREW HIMSELF spoke up on the issue, IS THIS NOT ENOUGH?!???

And, well... you’re right to be angry.  To be honest, I’m a fair bit pissed off too -- I could’ve used a solid “NO”, traumatizing as it would’ve been to me!

But that’s not what we got, because... *rolls eyes @ author* ...that’s not how Andrew works nowadays.  And as irritating as it is, I also have to respect it a bit.

Andrew has become pretty committed to not full-on table-flipping fan interpretations and fanworks, avoiding forcing one “correct” interpretation (see: central struggle of HS^2 and the villains labeling divergence from canon at all as “bad”) because both interpretations should be rewarded.  If something is REALLY wrong and hurts objective appreciation of the lessons he wanted to portray in his comic, like people plastering Classpect everywhere to the exclusion of the story’s central canon-escaping themes, he’s willing to shut them down... but when it comes to effective-sounding interpretations of the comic that he possibly never intended but “could” have been what he intended?  He’s REALLY careful not to step on them!  Or even sometimes DISTINGUISH them from the ones that he DID intend, sometimes, to keep as many fan interpretations alive in our imaginations as possible.

Which, as someone who pins Inversion’s entire existence on the assertion that “Andrew deliberately intended this and it’s our DELUSION otherwise”, really pisses me off at times like this.  This is a theory hinged on the idea that Andrew had been deliberately hiding INCREDIBLY clever evidence throughout the comic for these intense thematic moves.  All the SYMBOLISM we thought was pointing to inversion would lose an incredible amount of its meaning if it were all an accident.  What about all that cool imagery in the Breath and Blood post?  Did any of THAT really mean what we thought it was there for, like between WV and PM?  Was any of it REAL?  Will we ever even get an ANSWER?  The answer is “no, we won’t”, because Andrew persists in this method of keeping his cards close to his chest even if he has to take them to the damn grave, cause he knows we’ll have more “fun” not knowing ‘em.  That considerate son of a bitch.  >:(

I’m serious -- it really does make me more than a little angry.  I really do wish he’d said more to show us where we’re off-course.

But HS^2 has brought us Terezi telling us that Mind and Heart are indeed opposites.  He MIGHT be holding onto the info because we may get it later in canon itself...

Meh.  I’ll try not to hope too hard.  And I’d better clarify what I actually believe, here:

My TL;DR thoughts on Andrew’s commentary up above are that when it comes to Inversion Theory (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), he’s leaving room for some of the BIG events to have been right or almost right -- say, #1, maybe #2, and only POSSIBLY #3 or #4 -- while telling us to back off and cast SERIOUS DOUBT on stuff that could have more character-driven explanations, especially #5.

If there’s a seriously FUNDAMENTAL transformation in a character that isn’t fully explained by their character journey alone (as kids growing up), involves significant outside interference, and is reflected by countless visual cues, THEN we should want to see if Inversion Theory “has merit” in that sort of case -- while laying it up against other competing theories that account for external interference of a non-Inversion-related nature in their actions too.  Things like pre- and post-ascension Aradia or pre- and post-dreamdeath Jade seeming almost completely different characters?  Or Rose seemingly taken over by the Horrorterrors... only to do nothing to benefit them but throw her mainself at Jack and get killed so she’d be forced to ascend on the moon mission rather than God-tier-die?  I’d say Inversion is worth consideration and -- daresay -- worth believing in, in such cases.

And it still might all be wrong.  There are legitimate ways to read Andrew’s commentary above that would have people screaming that Inversion has been disproven, that the “merits” mentioned were just a nod of respect to the losing side that I’m completely overblowing.  But those seem to me like carefully ambiguous words from a carefully ambiguous man, and if there’s anyone to blame for their ambiguity, it’s Andrew.  Trust me; I don’t like it either.  He’s had plenty of practice saying things in a way that we CAN’T really draw many assumptions from.

Heck, even the Redditor transcribing this summarized their thoughts in a way that draws some assumptions I don’t believe are there:

Mostly I think it's just interesting that he's actually addressing Inversion Theory, and the gist is basically "it's a cool idea and has some merits, but the classpect system and story are not quite that formulaic." Sorry BKEW. At least we know Hussie has been paying attention to our wild theorizing.

--which is a rebuke drawn on the common interpretation that Inversion describes too “formulaic” a classpect system, especially with specific-class inversion like Seer <-> Witch and such.  But IS that what Andrew is saying? Andrew criticizes the overapplication of aspect theory in describing everyone’s actions page to page, but does that mean a quote-unquote “rigid” system (I’m not going to play out the old “specific-class-inversion-is-too-rigid” vs “youre missing the flexible potential a fixed system gives” arguments again) is ITSELF an overapplication of classpect to people’s actions and personalities? Is he perhaps hinting that only Aspect stuff mattered in Inversion cases and the Witchy Rose class stuff was just a separate thematic thing that fits by coincidence??  What does it mean? WE DON’T KNOW!  AND IT’S PISSING ME OFF AAAARGH

...I think I’ve said all I can think to say for now.

I mean, I’m glad Inversion Theory wasn’t outright disproven.  I think it’s neat.  I have a lot of emotional investment behind it, and being told it was all a worthless goose chase would have made me vomitously sick!  But as I struggled with at the end of Homestuck proper, constant ambiguity shows a fair bit of disregard of its own, and both ending AND epiloguing Homestuck not only without a “yes” on this but without even a clear “NO” has caused me more gutache and poor feelings across MONTHS than either answer ever would have given me.  I thought we’d earned that by getting through it, that we wouldn’t have to wait for YEARS and then STILL get cockteased like this.  And I wonder how much I’m going to regret, later, that this wasn’t just a clear, simple “NO”.

I’m being told there’s an upd8 just now and I should read it.  I’ll get on that.  Cy’all.