#Splickedydrabbles

[splickedylit]

HAPPY HOMESTUCK DAY U WANT FIC? >:U

It's 4/13 and 4 days ago I finished posting Karkat Vantas vs The Evil Gods, a fic that I've been percolating for more than a decade and am very proud of, and which readers so far seem to have quite enjoyed! So this is me enthusiastically doing jazz hands at my baby. HEY THERE MY FRIEND DO YOU LIKE

1. Humanstuck, vigilante/superhero AUs, eldritch gods, possession/exorcism, religious horror, hurt/comfort and drama?! Alternia City as Basically Gotham?!

2. Riffs on the Winter Soldier/Turns Out The Guy You Love's Not Dead But He Came Back Wrong?! People slowly recovering from horrible dehumanization and learning to be people again through the power of many different forms of support and love?! People negotiating messy poly situations?! Pale Gamkar, even, perhaps?!

3. Copious shenanigans of Space and Time?! The ever-increasing urge to beat Doc Scratch's smug little "Hee Hee Hoo Hoo" ass with your bare fists?! Goddessdemonangel in a sundress?!

3. Ensemble casts whose backstories could sustain multiple spin-off fics each?! And the personnel forms I fabricated and filled out for every single one of them because I've lost control of my life?!

WINTERSOLDIERSTUCK WEDNESDAY WSUNDAY BE UPON YE. If you've been on the fence please consider checking out my huge and fully-illustrated brainchild (with an eye to the tags and warnings of course) because I had a lot of fun and think it turned out pretty sick! Thank you for attending my TED talk.

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Further xenotroll shenanigans: "splickedy gets predictably in the weeds about clowns" edition

“Your words, (hm).”  Jade frowns, chews on what she means to say, looks at her papers again.  “Trolls, you take small words, and…” she makes a move of her fronds like she’s squishing and crushing at something between them.  “Makes big words!  Long words.  It’s harder for me!  But fun!”

She’s learned her shit a little since the last time you talked—���fun’, she says, meaning a little laugh of a joke between hatefriends, not a real holy riot.  You think the wordy shit she’s up to sounds mad motherfucking boring, but it’s not your business how a motherfucker gets her globes off, you guess.  You nod and wait for her to get around to the point of her point.

“So,” Jade says, marching on forward, tapping at her papers.  “The…Dark Carnival.”  She sounds it out every part one after the other,  ‘fatal-funny cullpit of the messiahs’, like how a corpse dismembered and all laid out turns into pieces instead of a whole troll.  

“Dark Carnival,” you say, putting the corpse back together to show her, fast and fluid how it’s supposed to flow.

“Dark Carnival,” Jade repeats after you, choking just a little on the shift of chirr into click.  “Okay!  What does that mean?”

Turns out it’s harder than you would’ve figured, making explanation of this shit.  You’re called on to clear up “cullpit”—the explaint of that one makes Jade wrinkle up her nose in human disgust, not peeling up her lip from her flat teeth, but otherwise a whole lot the same as a troll would do.  Then you take apart “Grand Highblood” for her, and the names he was given, the things called out by the congregation.  King of Colors and Holy Hilarity and Mirthful Majesty.  

“King,” she repeats, and breaks it up like she breaks apart everything, dismembers it in her flat plant-eater fangs, making shapes in the air with her clawless hands.  You never will quite get used to the way these squishy little motherfuckers bend an extra time in their extra fingers, how they’ve got just flat little chitin plates instead of claws.  “Little he-empress?”

You never did think of how those pieces fit together.  She’s sure as shit not wrong though.  “Damn, yeah,” you say.  “Guess so, sister.”

Jade seems all manner of delight over that.  She laughs big and fearless so it shows all her flat plant-grinder fangs, and yells something out to the other room, something with your moirail’s name in it.  Karkat’s head pops around the corner so quick you know he’s been fretting himself in the next block over—the other humans show up too, and Jade says something in Human, sprinkled-in Alternian words like sparkles of stardust mixed in dirt.  Empress and King and King but broken into its pieces.  Strider and his blue-eyed flighty buddy raise brows and make faces that make you laugh as much as Jade did; the one Kanaya’s preening at covers her mouth like too polite to show off my fangs and laughs too, saying something at Kanaya that makes her turn a shade of green and pick her claws at her hair.

[splickedylit]

me, drawing floaty flashback Gamzee:

(Also I always hesitate to @ people but @drorey you DID ask me to @ you when this was out and I DID make myself a reminder and hold onto it for months lolol)

Chapters: 1/17 Rating: Mature Relationships: Gamzee Makara & Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Characters: Karkat Vantas, Gamzee Makara, Lord English (Homestuck), Doc Scratch (Homestuck), Homestuck Ensemble, Calliope (Homestuck), The Felt (Homestuck), It’s really a ‘everybody is around doing things’ fic I genuinely don’t know how to tag this Additional Tags: Winter Soldier Pastiche, with everything that entails so read carefully!, Humanstuck, Urban Fantasy, Home-Brew Magic System Shit Don’t @ Me, Time Shenanigans, Karkat Vantas Makes Bad Decisions This Is A Forewarning, Polyamory Negotiations, Hurt/Comfort, Lord English’s Fun-Time Brainwashing Time-Travel Torture Gang, Aftermath Of…… Everything….., Past Torture, (physical/psychological/spiritual/emotional–largely inexplicit but not entirely), Past Brainwashing, Possession, implied/referenced past rape/non-con, (implied sexually as well but only shown in nonsexual Cal-flavored intimacy/tenderness), God Finds It Funny To Hurt You But He Also Won’t Let You Die, Let’s be real: plotty gamzee whump with a, Happy Ending

Summary:

Your name is Karkat Vantas. You’ve got a vigilante team of freaks and weirdos to run, and a city to protect, and a long-dead crab-god under your skin, and a ring on a chain around your neck, and an axe to grind with Alternia City’s most infamous gang. You’re going to hunt the Scratch down, come hell or high water, and make them pay. And whoever their new pet murderer is, he’s not going to stop you.

AKA Winter Soldier Gamkar Fic, Work of Many Decades, Pride and Joy!!!!!!  This is for the folks who have consistently matched my clown-related freak all this time! I love you!! Mind the tags but also enjoy!!!

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Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Gamzee Makara & Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Implied/Referenced Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam Characters: Jade Harley, Karkat Vantas, Gamzee Makara, Dave Strider, Beta Kids (Homestuck) Additional Tags: Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Language Barrier, Xeno, culture clash, Wildly gratuitous deep-dives into xenosociology and linguistics ahoy, Alternate Universe - Feferi Took Over, Did i make a glossary of which alien noises map to which human 'oh' 'aw' and 'uh' sounds, yes i did and I'd do it again!!!, i cannot be stopped Series: Part 2 of Aliens Sure Are Weird

Summary:

“Guys, hey, come on,” Jade says. “Troll language is much more specific about stuff like this, when he says stabbed he could mean something different! Karkat,” she switches to Alternian, bending her human vocal structures in painful-sounding ways but still doing a much better job than Dave, all things considered. “Stabbed, stabbed, or stabbed?”

You know you didn’t teach her the distinction between “poke hard with a non-strife-allocated object”, “stab lightly to show somebody not to fuck with you”, and “impale to kill”. Humans don’t even have that distinction. It’s a fucking miracle they get anything done.

“…Stabbed,” you say, carefully enunciating like a fucking liar.

I hope nobody is tired of reading incredibly self-indulgent “what if trolls were like 400% more alien” culture clash fic, because I’m sure not tired of writing it lmao

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*Relationships: Kongo Unsui/Hiruma Youichi/Anezaki Mamori *Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Bisexual Awakenings, Emotional Repression, Polyamory, Canon-Typical Quarterback (And Manager) Mindgames, Dysfunctional Family, College is for figuring out you're not straight OR emotionally okay: the fic, …..Unsui deserves to date two people Agon struck out with simultaneously: the fic, It's not exactly hurt/comfort but, Hurt/Validation, isn't a tag

Summary:

Agon’s jaw works like he’s biting his tongue. “I didn’t hit you that hard,” he says, but Unsui knows his brother, deeply and painfully and inconveniently, and he knows the rare, uncomfortable edge of uncertainty in his voice. “Yes,” says Unsui, coldly. “You did.”

*Full list at link

Bonus: just some dudes having a very civil discussion :)

Agon should get scruffed like a puppy every so often when he gets punchy. it wouldn't fix him but it would make me very happy.

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Hi!!! I’m obsessed with your “aliens sure are weird” series omg. I looove when writers make the trolls super different and strange and you’ve done it so well!! And also all the linguistics stuff, really cool and interesting as well 😊 anyway hope you have a good day, I’ll just be over here hoping you write another installment ;)

lololol doing my best, boss! Multiple people said I should stop holding back and just indulge myself in copious moiraillegiance nonsense, so I'm. Indulging.

--

You take in the shitty production values, the way the two guys on the screen are circling each other—the bad, tinny music.  The way Karkat’s face went bright red when he recognized what you were watching—oh.  Oh!

“Oh shit, this is going to be educational!” you say, delighted.

“This is porn,” says John, because apparently he doesn’t realize the two can be the same thing.  Dave is looking straight ahead, but his face is going really pink around the ears.  Rose and Kanaya are making gimlet eye contact and not looking at the screen at all, so who knows what’s up with that. 

“It's pale, for moirails,” Karkat says, distracted from whatever hissing argument he’s having with Gamzee. "I thinked—I thought, 'porn' is for fucking?"

“It is, for humans!” you say. “But humans don’t have moirails.”

“No,” says Karkat, and drops his face into his hands to click-growl something too muffled for you to make out.  Lifts his face again to say, “<No, humans sure the fuck don’t have fucking moirails, huh?!>” Apparently just in general aggravation, to the world at large.

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Domestic Diplomacy III proceeds apace

(==>Jade: hear the holy and hilarious word)

Gamzee is in the next room over, sitting on a big squishy-looking pillow in a kind of cross-legged sprawl that makes it really clear how his legs don’t bend in the same ways human legs do.  You’re delighted to realize, for the first time, that troll feet are padded like their palms.  You hadn’t thought about it—the chitin claws cover almost the whole toe the same way they cover pretty much the whole finger, and they don’t seem to spread a whole lot, so it’s easy for your brain to read them as hoof-like and move on.  But there’s little beans down there!

Alien contact really is just the gift that keeps on giving.  What a good day already.

Karkat is occupied bustling and hustling around greeting people like the bossiest little mother hen—(And take off those, the fucking foot-clothes, my hive is clean, don’t you put shit and dirt on the ground!  Put them here, by the, tss, the, damn…in-and-out place!)—so you stroll over into the other room and lower yourself onto the floor to watch whatever it is Gamzee’s looking at.

You kind of thought maybe he’d started movie night early, but he doesn’t seem to be watching a movie.  He has something that looks a lot like a normal human tablet propped up on a table, and he’s watching what looks like a live feed of a huge room full of other trolls, with a guy at the front talking.

“<—(A sentence subject you must have missed) is the funniest (implied:warning-shot-level danger) motherfucking make-mess the (something)s could do to make want,>” says the troll at the front of the crowd, succinctly proving to you that Gamzee is not the only troll who seems to think more verbs is better and sentence order is a pointless invention.  The guy talking doesn’t sound exactly the same, but he stretches his hums and chirrs and growls out and piles his clicks together in a really similar way.  “<We’re all (body parts?) up in the air, down up our (whole/entire) motherfucking horns in dirt.  (Some kind of noun with the food-descriptor ‘sweet’ in it) on our (body part again?  It sounds like a compound word of ‘face’, sort of) and that isn’t a motherfucking mistake.  It’s no motherfucking mistake, brothers!”

Gamzee says some kind of emphatic imperative verb—in a polite, subordinate inflection, which is pretty unusual for him.  On the screen, a few other people do the same thing, mostly saying words you don’t know—one of them you hear says “<Say it, motherfucker!>” and another one says “<Yes, brother, yes!>” with the heaviest subordinate inflection you’ve ever heard.  Somebody else honks a bike horn.

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Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kongo Unsui/Hiruma Youichi/Anezaki Mamori, One-Sided Kongo Agon/Hiruma Youichi, Kongo Agon & Kongo Unsui Characters: Kongo Unsui, Hiruma Youichi, Anezaki Mamori, Kongo Agon, Lots of cameo Enma Fires and Saikyou Wizards throughout, …………………………and Musashi Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Bisexual Awakenings, Emotional Repression, Polyamory, Canon-Typical Quarterback (And Manager) Mindgames, these people can't be normal about shit to save their lives, Dysfunctional Family, Agon and Unsui's Convoluted Brother Emotions, And also. parent situation., College is for figuring out you're not straight OR emotionally okay: the fic, …..Unsui deserves to date two people Agon struck out with simultaneously: the fic, It's not exactly hurt/comfort but, Hurt/Validation, isn't a tag

Summary:

“What,” says Unsui, and is keenly, painfully aware that whatever stoic expression his face might have locked itself into in his shock, his cheeks are damningly warm. One part of his mind demands, do something, his plan is working, you’re losing! The other part says, your first kiss was a cackling bastard of a man, because he thought it would make you more likely to lose to him at football. -- Kongo Unsui gets kissed by a man. He's proud to say his performance as a quarterback doesn't suffer at all, in the…extensive aftermath. Hiruma Youichi makes a move, and then does what he does best, which is scramble like a motherfucker and improvise an offense from scratch. Anezaki Mamori analyzes the situation, and politely intervenes. Kongo Agon has a goddamn crisis.

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*Relationships: Kongo Unsui/Hiruma Youichi/Anezaki Mamori *Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Bisexual Awakenings, Emotional Repression, Polyamory, Canon-Typical Quarterback (And Manager) Mindgames, Dysfunctional Family, College is for figuring out you're not straight OR emotionally okay: the fic, …..Unsui deserves to date two people Agon struck out with simultaneously: the fic, It's not exactly hurt/comfort but, Hurt/Validation, isn't a tag

Summary:

“He seems to be threatening me,” says Unsui. “Oh, yes, definitely,” says Kurita, scratching at his spherical stomach with a soft, doughy-looking arm that could easily lift Unsui’s entire body. “It’s just the way he does things! Because he just likes football so much.” “Yes,” says Unsui. “I’ve noticed.”

*Full list at link

[splickedylit]

*Relationships: Kongo Unsui/Hiruma Youichi/Anezaki Mamori *Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Bisexual Awakenings, Emotional Repression, Polyamory, Canon-Typical Quarterback (And Manager) Mindgames, Dysfunctional Family, College is for figuring out you're not straight OR emotionally okay: the fic, …..Unsui deserves to date two people Agon struck out with simultaneously: the fic, It's not exactly hurt/comfort but, Hurt/Validation, isn't a tag

Summary:

“I’m performing a courtesy visit,” Unsui says coolly—instead of getting the fuck out, which is pretty clearly what Agon’s face is saying.  “I was invited in for tea.  It would have been rude of me to decline.” “Just a courtesy visit,” Youichi repeats, gleefully enjoying the way Agon looks at him with murder in his eyes.  “Between quarterbacks.  Since Enma took us out of the tournament last year, I thought we’d sit down and…talk.” Agon’s face transitions, at the reminder of their loss, from something rotten to I just bit down on a lemon.

*Full list at link

[splickedylit]

*Relationships: Kongo Unsui/Hiruma Youichi/Anezaki Mamori *Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Bisexual Awakenings, Emotional Repression, Polyamory, Canon-Typical Quarterback (And Manager) Mindgames, Dysfunctional Family, College is for figuring out you're not straight OR emotionally okay: the fic, …..Unsui deserves to date two people Agon struck out with simultaneously: the fic, It's not exactly hurt/comfort but, Hurt/Validation, isn't a tag

Summary:

They drink tea in silence for a few moments. Then Sanzo says, “...He kissed you because you’re a very handsome man. I know I said that already, but you’re apparently still not aware.” “Ah,” says Unsui. “You should dress a little sluttier sometimes.” “…Hm.”

*Full list at link

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*Relationships: Kongo Unsui/Hiruma Youichi/Anezaki Mamori *Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Bisexual Awakenings, Emotional Repression, Polyamory, Canon-Typical Quarterback (And Manager) Mindgames, Dysfunctional Family, College is for figuring out you're not straight OR emotionally okay: the fic, …..Unsui deserves to date two people Agon struck out with simultaneously: the fic, It's not exactly hurt/comfort but, Hurt/Validation, isn't a tag

Summary:

"What the fuck are you trying to pull?” “I’m trying to have a nice date,” Mamori says brightly—and then, because she’s seen plenty of enamored women hanging on Agon’s arm, and heard exactly how he talks about them when they aren't there, she adds, vengefully sweet, “We’ll see where things go from there. The clean-cut look is very handsome, I’ve always thought.” Agon makes a noise Mamori can only compare to the sound Sena’s cat makes before it vomits on the carpet.

*Full list at link

(There’s a fumbling sound; the quality of the sound changes.  “There,” says his mother’s voice.  “Dear, can you hear both of us, now?” “...Yes, mother,” says Unsui, to his ceiling.)

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*Relationships: Kongo Unsui/Hiruma Youichi/Anezaki Mamori *Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Bisexual Awakenings, Emotional Repression, Polyamory, Canon-Typical Quarterback (And Manager) Mindgames, Dysfunctional Family, College is for figuring out you're not straight OR emotionally okay: the fic, …..Unsui deserves to date two people Agon struck out with simultaneously: the fic, It's not exactly hurt/comfort but, Hurt/Validation, isn't a tag

Summar(ies):

“You’re my brother,” Agon says, like that explains everything. “Oh,” says Unsui, through lips that feel almost numb with rage.  “I’m aware.  Every day I’m grateful for my luck, sharing a family name with the blessed genius Kongo Agon.” Agon gives him a narrow-eyed look at that—like he knows there must be sarcasm in that sentence somewhere, but he can’t seem to find it among all the true statements Unsui just said. Unsui could throw the cup directly at his face.  It wouldn’t make contact, Agon’s reflexes are at the knife-edge of physical possibility, almost inhuman—but it would feel so damn good.

+

Mamori signs back, Limited field to your vision. Where should I look? She raises a hand, but doesn’t sign anything yet.  On the screen, Unsui pushes himself upright, looking after his brother as he stalks away, jaw set and shoulders square. Mamori signs, Keep looking, but opposition is watching you.  Trick play incoming?  All options risky. Youichi snorts, despite himself.  She’s not fucking wrong.  Ten-four.

*Full list at link

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FIC IS ARRIVE!!!!!!!!!! >8U !!!!!!!! Karkat Vantas vs The Evil Gods is a goooooo

Winter Soldier Gamkar has hit 100K words and 6 completed chapters and a whole lot of supernatural bullshit and Reminding My Traumatized Boyfriend What Kindness Is nonsense. Thanks to the co-writer groupchat for reading the first draft and 1. convincing me not to half-ass my scene planning, and 2. helping me figure out Karkat's Whole Deal, lol. Clandestine military experiments.....a comic book classic...

--

You don’t know what the thing you were fused with used to be.  You call it the Cancer, in your head, to yourself, but some part of you knows it’s a whole fucking lot older than the concept of names.  It died so long ago, there wasn’t a word for death yet. 

Any of its corpse that washes up into your reality is just skeletal detritus; the assholes who experimented on you couldn’t find any consciousness to bore into your skull like the Scratch did to Feferi and Eridan.  They had to fuse it into your flesh to wring power out of its remains, and it’s only through some hideous joke of luck that it took and you’re still alive to bitch about it. 

It could be worse.  You could be a rotted, mangled corpse in an unmarked grave.

They’d almost seemed surprised that you were pissed, when you found out about that little wrinkle after the fact.  You regret a lot of shit in your life, but savaging the asshole who changed you—who killed dozens of stupid kids before you—isn’t one of them.

You don’t know who has it worse, really.  Feferi and Eridan don’t show much sign from the outside that anything was even done to them—but for all the double-takes you get on the street, you don’t have to listen to voices and whispers.  There’s no living, scheming forces trying to push you to do anything, there’s just a vast, echoing emptiness in the back of your head.  Sometimes when you sleep, you find yourself in the place where it lives—or where it died.  An endless, quiet walk through an empty shell the size of a thousand cathedrals, rotting and half-consumed.

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Travel Guide/About

Just realized my header says "read the about" but the helpful sidebar links on my blog are basically invisible on mobile. SO:

Most people call me “Splickedy”. You can also call me Ace. They/she/he/it, I really don't care

Art Tag and Writing Tag

Commissions are currently OPEN - Slot 1: FULL, Slot 2: OPEN - See [INFO PAGE] or bottom of this post for more information

Requests are currently CLOSED

Consistent tagging is generally attempted but not guaranteed

I’m 18+ and sometimes post suggestive or mature content accordingly: if that's a dealbreaker I wish you well but also SLAM that unfollow button lol

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FAQ/COMMISSIONS:

HOLD UP.  Toastyhat/emptyfeet/toastyglow has a twin?

Yes.  Go check out Toasty’s stuff, it’s (chefkiss.gif) We are NOT the same person but we ARE twins lol. I know it's confusing.

2. Where can I find (Insert Fic Here)?

Finished and posted writing would be on my AO3(s): spoonerizeswiftness and (18+), respectively.

Short/incomplete writing and link posts to fic updates would be in #splickedydrabbles

If you remember seeing something I've written but now can't find it, let me know! It may be saved on my computer or posted on one of my sideblogs where I can track it down for you

3. Your sideblogs?

Yup! For [Motorcity], ["Pale Porn"/nonsexual intimacy], and [boatboys/Tales From The Michigan Fleet/Original Co-written Novels]

3. Do you take requests/take commissions?

I take requests on specified request nights! You can write in when requests are closed, but it's quite unlikely they'll get filled.

Commissions are usually open, although depending on the timing of the commission I may not be able to deliver time-sensitive results

4. What program/brushes do you use?

I use Clip Studio Paint for special effects, but mostly I use Paint Tool Sai II.

here's a post of my Sai brushes

(Sai II download)

5.  Would you mind if I did (fanart/fanfic/cosplay) for one of your stories)?

Extremely wild but also very cool! Have fun and I would love to see the result**!”

I may miss (@)s/mentions due to my heavy nocturnal work schedule--if I haven't liked/reblogged/acknowledged something you made for me, it's totally fine to re-up it in my messages/inbox etc

**Unless the work is a fanfiction related to the Tales From The Michigan Fleet series (AKA Boatboys), in which case my coauthors and I don’t look at it for legal reasons but are very supportive and grateful!

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COMMISSIONS (short version)

I would encourage checking the full page on a desktop or opening it in a browser to get all the details RE: backgrounds, additional characters, Terms of Service, etc. But the bare-bones prices-only rundown goes thusly:

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excerpting

Domestic Diplomacy II is turning out to be even more "splickedy gratuitously gets caught in the weeds of xenosociology and alien language barriers, the fic sequel" and tbh I'm not mad about it

--

“Oh, your moirail!” says Jade, and bounces upright, ignoring John’s wary little soft human cautionary hiss.  To your vague surprise, she’s apparently learned enough not to do the human holding-out-a-hand gesture they usually do when they’re introduced; she clasps her hands in front of her, nonexistent claws politely folded in, and ducks her head briefly forward and to one side, careful not to jab at him with her nonexistent horns. 

It's a pretty passable greeting—for a social equal, which is its own bizarre issue, considering he’s a highblood.  But relatively non-offensive, for a human, and fortunately for her she’s picked a highblood who isn’t likely to give a shit.  Gamzee laughs out loud and gives his own lazy-ass version of a greeting back, a vague twist of his wrists and dip of his head, condescending to use an equal’s greeting back at her.   When he says “Gamzee Makara,” there’s a hint of a threatening buzz to it, a testing you should know to respect me warning—you could have told him she’d show absolutely no sign of hearing it, which is exactly what happens.

“I’m Jade Harley!  I meet you,” Jade says, a carefully neutral statement-of-fact greeting—not fawning or hostile.  You don’t know if humans are out here just learning neutral address no matter what, or if this human particularly just doesn’t give a shit that your moirail’s a fuck-off mutant-huge highblood with horns that scrape the ceiling of the block—by the expectant way she looks up at Gamzee afterward, she wouldn’t give much of a shit either way.  Out of all of the humans, Jade Harley might actually win the prize for giving the least shits, no matter what Rose and Dave like to pretend.

“Yeah, I meet you too, motherfucker,” says Gamzee, looking incredibly amused, and glances down at you.  “She’s a rude-ass little motherfuckin’ toothful, huh?  I like her.”

“Of course you do,” you say, pained.  “Don’t take it personally, alright?  You’re not a highblood here, they don’t get highbloods.”

“Oh, best friend,” says Gamzee, and kisses your nugbone again, embarrassingly.  “I’m a highblood wherever the fuck I go.  It’s cool though.  Squishy-ass little motherfuckers won’t get any grief from me.”

“<Motherfucker>,” Jade repeats behind you, and switches back to English, in the bright, wide verbal tone you’re starting to learn means ‘smiling and happy’, weird interstitial ‘vowel’ breath-sounds further back in the throat through pulled-back mouth-corners.  “Hmm, <motherfucker>…  Oh, neat!  Is that dialect?  It sounds like, ahh, what’s that other word.  Kk—kkkht—  Uh, dammit.  You guys need to learn how to use vowels—  It sounds like <;brother>.”

“It is like,” you say, surprised despite yourself.  “&lt;Brother> is a troll, and <motherfucker> you put it all spots you want.  It’s a thing, it’s a troll, it’s a, tss, a doing-things word, it’s a name.  It’s bad, it’s good.  Any spot you want.  And he does want, for all those, all the time.”