#Resisted drawing karkat

[iregulargremlin]

i needed to make som Karkat Art recently, just cus i had to. so made this, if you look carfully youl even se Hes 1 frame away from being hit in the back of his head by ruble lol

[sadevergreen]

as a camp counselor (technically not currently bc i went home for Illness) and homestuck fan (also technically not currently bc I'm too busy being a camp counselor) i love camp skaia. which homestuck characters are most likely to be the "we're ALL sick there's no reason you can't do the hike up the hill" (has mild cold and vague heatsickness at worst) counselor x "actual lung infection but thinks it's a really normal cold" (very easily gaslit) counselor program group pair? i feel like eridan and kanaya are hot contenders here

ooo ok this is so good- apologies for the ever loving hell that you are about to see but i sought assistance from my dear dear pale friend @marv3l-drag0ns !!!!!!!! MUAH PLATONICALLLY <> ILY they were a huge help in putting this together

BOY DO I HAVE A LOT TO SAY ON THIS, THIS WAS EXTREMELY FUN :D

so let’s begin: my immediate instinct was kanaya and tavros are the most easily gaslit, or adhere most to given direction (we’re not going to talk about HIM). but then who to pair them with? they are both wet cats that won’t work. we decided that YES kanaya and eridan definitely make sense! but in which role? it may seem obvious but NO! eridan too sick? whiny fussy pitiful sopping kitty he’s just a beanbag full of milk! so we decided barely sick eridan, otherwise he’d be throwing a fit. instead he’s referring to his Superior Genes! and kanaya is. strugglin. but fuck man here we are 🤷‍♂️

But we’re not done yet!

the next we considered was karkat and terezi!! especially aided through the lens of karkat’s old crush on terezi; he’s too whipped and in denial to deny a girl a hand!

this led to possibly the funniest thing ever: THE INNER KANKRI THAT EVERYONE HAS AND HE SITS ON YOUR SHOULDER AND REMINDS YOU TO BE DECENT AND LEAVE ROOM FOR KANKRI

for the bigger drawings i capped it off with a good ol favorite of mine; erifef. why did i like them? man idek anymore but it worked really well with the idea of eridan being the sicker one, but being ok such thin ice over his constant whining that he just has to go along with it we just though it was funny hehe. it can be viewed through any lens! snippy or non, s’all good here! it’s all canon.

what is he was sick and he couldn’t whine 🥺 what is he was sick and he wasn’t allowed even a snivle about it 🥺 not a snort 🥺 or a sob 🥺 he’s so pathetic !!!! besides, he can’t be out paced by some fuckin kids!!!! HES A GROWN ADULT 16-18 Y/O CAMP COUNSELOR GODDAMNIT!!

MARVEL: “Feferi: ah yes your sickness you have a functioning immune system and are the most dramatic guy on planet earth (only one of those statements is true)” which statement? :) yeah

she doesn’t believe him anymore <333

Ok and that is it for full line art doodles, but!!! i couldn’t resist drawing some more pairs we pondered

ERIDAN AND KARKAT: omfg so good!! but they would 100% either both be tooooo sick and dead, or they would both be mostly fine

VRISKA AND TAVROS: no. and you know why we’re not doing this one :,( we all instantly knew this one would be here but we are choosing to ignore it im favor of…

TAVROS AND KARKAT: Marvel proposed it and it was very interesting!! i think similar to eridan and karkat, where they’re both dead or both barely sick. no i’m between. aggressive yet positive motivation (?) for the win!!! they further proposed that karkat “eats dirt for a living and doesn’t get sick very often”

Overall this was really fun to put together and answer, and i had a blast getting to colab with a mutual along the way :3 so thank you anon and thank you marvel!! this does bring me to something i’ve been meaning to say,,.,,,

@marv3l-drag0ns ,,? we’ve been friends forever, you know my dogs middle name, we complete each other in a way no one else can! you stop me from eating bones i find on the road, and i stop you from ascending to godtier to avoid going to exams…,…

would you be my

Moirail? <>

anyways! that’s all for now <3 this was so fun :) please send in more asks/ requests like this if you ever think of any more! i definitely feel for the camp counselor piece cause that was me earlier this summer PFF and all the counselors got sick and passed something around (but hey! it was an excuse to sit away from 7 y/olds for a few minutes while i got tea for my sore throat)

[knights-unwelcommentary]

I wish I could draw the scene where Karkat kills his denizen accurately to my vision. Imagine: He enters the lair and finds its just a humble hole in the ground that could not possibly be fit for the home of a legendary creature. Already feeling that something's off he still pushes forward looking for a mighty foe like the ones some of his friends mentioned defeating. When he finally finds it it's just this pitiful little thing that just looks at him solemnly; Silently forgiving and understanding of what must be done. Offering absolutely no resistance

Imagine the frustration of finding out the universe has once again taken Karkat's opportunity to prove himself worthy and in a moment of externalized self-hatred he just snaps and kills it and it's way too easy but it is not supposed to be like this

And he doesn't feel better for it, he just feels pathetic and powerless and it's Abraxas fault but it's really not and he has to get over it because the others are waiting on him and he's so fucking tired already and there's still so much left to do

[palestporn]

Karkat: try to let yourself have something nice for once

This time when Gamzee reaches out he goes straight for the bruise on your forehead, and you grit your teeth and let him, steeling yourself for when it starts to hurt. By the way your pan is aching, you have to be bruised all the way to the root of your horn.

When he touches the place that hurts, though, it's so light you hardly feel it. He makes an unhappy, hissing little noise through his teeth, and takes his hand away again; when it comes back he's got the cloth you used to clean his face off, dabbing with almost ludicrous care at the lump on your skull.

"You're gonna turn all motherfucking sorts of colors," he murmurs, and works his way down your cheek, back up again, to the dried mess sticking your eye halfway shut. "Close this for me, brother."

You try. You seriously do. But when his claws come near your eye, you twitch away on instinct and snap your fangs before you can get a hold of yourself. It hurts, centering in your horn and out like a spiderweb, spiking and flaring in your jaw as you grit your teeth--

Gamzee's hand settles on the horn that doesn't hurt, and gives a slow, hard squeeze.

It feels so fucking good. For just a second, your body and your thinkpan both unclench and go loose like a muscle cramp giving way. The pain in your head sinks down to something manageable as your jaw untenses. His bad arm is wavering, but he's cleaning the blood away quick and gentle, careful around your swollen eye. You just want to let him--

Threshecutioner Vantas: The MISSION. The mission, your moirail, PROTECT HIM.

--You can't, you can't, you still need to finish cleaning him up, put a pressure wrap on his leg, he's going to start having pain again soon, and you want him in sopor before that happens, and you have to send your mission report to the empress--

"Ohh, beloved," Gamzee says, soft and sleepy, and pulls you inexorably forward, ignoring your tense resistance, rubbing slow and steady at the base of your good horn, filling your pan with the sense of him. There's an extra edge to his voice, a whispering hum, when he says, "You're all tangled up, best friend," and you look up at him in time to catch a slow pulse of purple light through his eyelashes. "I smell it on you--"

"Keep your creep powers the fuck out of my thinkpan," you say, and he sighs and blinks the light out of his eyes. The hum of his holy chucklefucker voodoo bullshit dies out of your horns, whatever he was doing fades, and you feel--bad again. Worse again. "Are you done? We're clean, we're done, let's get out of here and get you in a recuperacoon."

"I'm done," he says, and scratches his claws slow and gentle through your hair, pressing and kneading at the root of your horn, still talking to you in that quiet, steady voice like he's trying to talk down a panicking lusus. "Still some stuff you gotta let go of, though."

"I don't need--" Fuck that feels nice. "No. No, I'm-- If you're feeling better then we're done here, Gamzee, I have shit to get done."

He nods, considering that. "Well, I'm not a threshecutioner," he says, and you know the tone he takes when he digs in his fucking heels. Goddammit. "But you schoolfed me pretty good how this works. if you wanna get some shit off me, motherfucker, you're gonna have to give me something back." And he leans forward and rests his forehead on yours, locking the nubs of your horns against his. This time when his eyes start to glow, you can feel the hum right down through your horns. He's coaxing at something, trying to draw it up.

Karkat: How bad is it?

==> It's going to hurt you. You want it to. ==> It's going to hurt him. He wants you to. ==> It's going to hurt both of you. It already has.

[Start Over]

[beverage2000]

iiiiiiiits somebodys birthdaaaaaayyyyyyyyy

[affectionatetea]

How to train your dragon au where Jade and Karkat are both dragon riders!!

[x]

[pulse-clockwork]

Inktober day 26: 🏠 STRETCH 🏠

Your name is Dave Strider and you just punched your own traumas in the face. Now you're falling from an altitude of 600 meters, but somehow you know from now on you'll be alright. After all, he's got your back. He won't let anything bad happen to you.

(author note: hes not gonna die)

[screpdoodle]

I know I'm almost late, but happy wriggling day Karkat! I haven't drawn anything Homestuck related in a hot minute, but when I remembered it was Karkat's birthday today I couldn't resist throwing something together (of course including Gamzee- XD) Also- I did not draw the background! It's Karkat's room from Pesterquest, specifically by @/PiousKnob! I was going to attempt to redraw it but it would have probably taken me until tomorrow and I didn't want it to be late X'D

[arostuck]

Could... Could I get an greyromantic Greysexual Dave strider and Karkat vantas?

Absolutely,, I could not resist making a pun on Karkat’s part

Image description under the cut:

[Image description: a drawing of Dave and Karkat. Dave is a human with light curly hair and sunglasses. He is wearing a cape, a t-shirt with two grey romantic and grey asexual pins on it, and a long-sleeve. He has his hands inside a pocket on his t-shirt and is looking at Karkat, smiling. Karkat is a troll with short fluffy hair and small round horns. He is wearing a sweater with the words “My blood color is grey." on it. The word “grey” is colored in with the grey romantic and grey asexual flags. Karkat has one hand raised up as if talking and is looking at Dave and grinning. END ID]

[theorynexus]

114:  Beyond Adoption

That last line is very interesting, in particular. It paints Karkat as alllmost a little speciesist, himself, though I am not sure it quite qualifies, since the assumption that a troll child would be treated differently (likely poorly) is indeed a legitimate concern, and could certainly change the parental calculus of a completely objective individual, I should think.

This is most humorous. X3

Aww. This is surprisingly cute, and does show that the three of them do have some degree of romantic chemistry together, rather than just as individual pairs. While it still doesn’t prove things might work out well (especially in the light of the conversations between Dave+Terezi/Karkat+Terezi that the Teal Troll told John about), it does at least give one a glimmer of hope for them.    Of course, there is a good chance that this hope is intended specifically to lighten the spirits of the audience before Hussie yanks the rug out from under them (as is often his stylistic tendency), but it certainly is good to know a bit more of the conditions of their romantic potential regardless.

Tut tut tut. Explaining the joke takes away from the magnitude and potential of its humor, Dave. I know you know better than that.

***snerk***   (Obliviously plowing forward does add a bit back in, though.)

Oh geeze. That wasn’t entirely a joke. That was also self-doubt driven by depressing comparison between himself and his Bro.   >:

Ahhhhh!!!   And he’s comparing himself to Jake in the Jane/Jake/Gamzee situation!  (Or really, more Gamzee, probably, but it depends on how one constructs/destructs the metaphor.)    D: (The empirical evidence line is interesting, by the way. They clearly haven’t had enough cases to draw proper conclusions, yet, which he should know, considering Jade’s expertise in science and his own at least passing interest in its various fields, long before starting the romance with her~)

Sadly, I am not well-versed enough to make actual claims about the developmental consequences of such a life on the kid.   I am not sure there are enough studies on the effects of children being raised in households with additional parents to actually create a well-founded hypothesis, though.   (Also, one should, if one is being serious, also include some measure of the fact that there will likely be a significant religious disagreement between parents as the child is growing up, which may effect their development, as well.)

***struggling not to laugh***    Why is schadenfreude so fricking powerful?! XD

***shudders***     Not only does it feel disturbingly possible that Jane has done that (and YES, it is both possible for a woman to rape a man, and for rape to happen in marriage--- don’t even get me started), this is horrible foreshadowing. Not... the rape part I’d think, mind you, though that is also conceivable, considering how much Dave and Karkat were resisting things in the Meat side of the coin, but the leaving a bad relationship part.   These are not a pleasant prospect to have brought up, now.

Ahhhgh, frack, he’s starting it up already.   It almost sucks worse, because I’m sure their look is not just filled with selfish desperation, but a genuine concern for Jade and a desire for her to be happy, which can be hallmarks of bad relationships, too.     >~~~<

THE HECK?!?!?!!!

This is very interesting, though, seeing their limited but still potent ability to react to things, here. It certainly seems better than what happened in the other version of things, with the very awkward Dave/Jake situation at the trailing end of the campaign.

My first reaction was to wonder if this would be a Terminator reference. My second is to remember the hyper-epilogue segment at the end of the Meat Epilogue.   This shouldn’t be the version of her from the fight with Lord English... right?

Huh. Yeah, it seems like that could actually be the case?!   Darn, I don’t---   didn’t... that version of her definitely went through the black hole, meaning that, considering she IS the version that appeared in the Meat Epilogue epilogue, a whole lot should have happened beyond the point where Davebot appeared in order for this to actually be logically her?     Man, that does indeed make it feel more like a Terminator reference, somehow. Aaaannnd I have to stop right when the action begins to shift from internal and social struggles to actual existential/mortal threats.   It figures.

[grumpycupface]

Kakara Vantas is currently freaked the fuck out.

[dreamverie]

the new Crystal Temps ft. the squad, ms paint style ~

[gal-liveblogs]

A parting gift from an old flame, it was given to one of my splinters in a distant timeline before ending up in my posession via lots of complicated shit that I don't wanna get into.

O.K. So someone gave some version of Dirk Hussie painting of a quarterback fighting a horse. I have an intense desire to know who.

"Dear Dirk, In memory of our precious time together. When you look at it, think of me, and be reminded that while we breathe, we Hope." -B.O

Oh fuck me, it was Obama. Jesus Christ, I can’t.

O.K., I had been wondering what this stuff in the corner was, but didn’t comment as I couldn’t think of how to describe them. Now, though, we have a bigger picture and that’s a cherub paint set and an old troll horn headband. Probably Calliope’s stuff.

This set of paints and the charred remains of my HORNED HEADBAND are the only surviving relics of the first and last WORLDWIDE INTERSPECIES ROLEPLAYING SESSION we ever attempted on Earth C.

Oh. Not Calliope’s. They are, in fact, Dirk’s. The Interspecies Roleplaying Session was probably orchestrated by Calliope, though.

Calliope got it into their head that dressing up in cosplay would be a fun community activity.

Right on the money!

In other news Dirk’s trollsona has a unicorn horn. So it’s not that the headband was tilted and the other horn was hidden behind the paint set like I thought. Also Dave’s trollsona has dick horns. I am not surprised. Weird how Dirk, Dave, and Rose didn’t bother to give themselves black hair. Rose gave herself yellow scleras, but couldn’t commit to the black hair it seems.

Vantas had some very uncharitable things to say about the idea, and for once in his life I think he was right.

I mean, it’s like when white people dress as Native Americans for Halloween. I can understand his anger. Though even if he didn’t have a good reason Karkat would have still been angry, I’m sure.

Plants are basically the ideal friends. They don't constantly question your decisions, or try and undermine your authority, or suggest that perhaps you should try talking about your feelings every once in a while.

I think Dirk’s issue with Homestuck getting too feelings-y was that he doesn’t like talking about his own feelings.

Wait. Does Terezi have some form of narrative control? She made it clear in one of the Epilogues that she was aware of Dirk’s narration. I’m going to assume that while Terezi herself can’t narrate, she can submit commands.

DIRK: I see you've found the command terminal.

Oh. So she can submit commands not through her own power, but because there’s one of those exile command terminals things on this ship. O.K. They have everything else on this ship, might as well have one of those too.

TEREZI: 1T S33MS TO M3 L1K3 L3TT1NG M3 BOSS YOU 4ROUND FOR 4 F3W M1NUT3S 1S TH3 L34ST YOU COULD DO TO M4K3 UP FOR WH4T PROB4BLY 4MOUNTS TO TH3 MOST BOR1NG 1NT3RG4L4CT1C VOY4G3 1N TH3 H1STORY OF SP4C3 TR4V3L

I don’t know, I think Jade’s voyage after Davesprite and John blew up might be a good contender for that title. Then again Jade had practice not having anyone with a degree of intelligence around to talk to. Then again she still had the internet on her island and could talk to her friends, unlike on the Prospit ship.

TEREZI: 4ND CONS1D3R1NG TH4T ON3 OF MY TWO PR1OR 3XP3R13NC3S 1NVOLV3D SCOUR1NG TH3 FR4CTUR3D, D1S1NT3GR4TING CORPS3 OF P4R4DOX SP4C3 FOR... WH4T F3LT L1K3 4N 3T3RN1TY,

Oh yeah, I guess that would also be a contender too.

DIRK: What, Heart and Mind?

TEREZI: M1ND 4ND H34RT, Y3S

I have a feeling Terezi purposefully switched them around to make her aspect first and to just be a tiny annoyance to Dirk.

Dirk, how dare you use Complacency of the Learned to even out a chair! Does Rose know you’re using her book like that?

> L1B3R4T3 L4LOND14N L1BR4RY

Thank you, Terezi.

TEREZI: DO3S ROS3 KNOW YOUV3 B33N US1NG ON3 OF H3R NOV3LS TO PROP UP TH4T DISGUST1NGLY T4CKY CH41R?

Terezi and I are one.

DIRK: (I captchalogue the book into my MSPA MODUS. Forget HASH MAPS, PICTIONARY, or any of that shit. This thing is where it's at.)

What the FUCK does MSPA Modus entail???

TEREZI: 4W WH4T TH3 H3LL

TEREZI: TH3 CH41R W4S SUPPOS3D TO F4LL OV3R

DIRK: I'm not sure I understand. Why would it? The four legs are all touching the floor.

TEREZI: ...

DIRK: Try not to think about it too hard.

Ha!

TEREZI: FOR SOM3ON3 WHO CL41MS TO KNOW 4 LOT 4BOUT JOK3S YOU SUR3 H4V3 CONT1NU3D TO S4Y B4S1C4LLY NOTH1NG FUNNY 3V3R

Oooh, burn! When I get around to doing my fourth read of Homestuck I’ll have to tally any instances of Dirk telling a funny joke just to see if this holds up.

For a second there I was really confused over what fractal nonsense was happening here, but then I remembered Dirk is controlling the narrative. That includes the pictures, not just the text.

DIRK: Not many really understand that when pleasure is taken seriously enough, it can easily mimic the appearance of business, just as when irony is practiced with enough passion, it becomes indistinguishable from sincerity.

So Dirk’s idea of loosening up and having fun, whether for the irony or sincerity of it, is drawing himself in romantic situations with Jake. Yeah, that pans out.

(Seriously, why is Jake such a heartthrob? John is described as dorky looking and he and Jake are practically carbon copies.)

TEREZI: DO YOU... W4NT TO T4LK 4BOUT 1T...?

DIRK: Absolutely the fuck not.

Terezi, did you seriously expect him to answer with anything else?

This feels like a meme image.

TEREZI: TH4TS TH3 ON3 TH1NG 1 4LW4YS FOUND D1FF1CULT 4BOUT M4K1NG COM1CS W1TH D4V3

TEREZI: YOU H4V3 TO DR4W 333333V3RYTH1NG >:[

God, hard agree. This is why I could never have a comic. As much as I’d like to I just get burnt out with all that tedious drawing.

DIRK: Exactly. But sometimes, visuals are just a more effective way of doing things.

DIRK: So finding the right combination of words and pictures to communicate an idea efficiently is where the artistry lies.

DIRK: And sometimes that means dispensing with one or the other entirely when appropriate.

See, this is why the Homestuck style comic is so interesting. I don’t think other comics combined panels and text like Homestuck did, and now there are so many copies of the style out there!

Woah, I feel like I just got whiplash with the disappearance of the panels!

For the sake of precedent, I'm saying that we can cloak the visuals entirely and continue with narration alone, replacing the panel with a block of text like this, which we can call a “prattle” from now on.

Right, so when we go into a more book-like format it’s a prattle. Got it. Good name, since it’s just Dirk droning on to himself.

So then Dirk narrates Terezi using the command terminal to get him to do a slew of bizarre actions. He says it’s to show how much can be done in a short amount of time (a single block of text as opposed to 50 panels), but I have a feeling the real reason is so that we, the readers, don’t actually get to see him doing any of this stuff. He doesn;t get an audience to such an embarrassing display and he gets to rub our faces in it.

She has me undertake the most intense workout routine paradox space has ever seen, all while whistling the entire discography of the Swedish pop group ABBA, which she's taken a liking to recently for some god forsaken reason.

Terezi likes ABBA? That’s amazing. I need a video of Terezi singing and dancing along with Dancing Queen now.

(... And which coincidentally was a favorite cultural weapon of Her Imperious Condescension back on Earth, centuries ago. Mamma Mia in particular was repurposed as a sugar-coated propagandist piece, calling for worldwide submission to the Batterwitch's dictatorship. "My my, how can I resist ya," as the old saying goes.)

HOLY SHIT. Now I just had a headcanon that all trolls love ABBA.

DIRK: I told you I could have fun.

TEREZI: Y34H YOU SUR3 SHOW3ED M3 1 GU3SS

Dirk, are you saying Terezi purposefully trying to torture you was actually fun? ... Are you secretly a masochist? Do you... Do you like being bossed around and forced to do ridiculous stunts? I am learning so many things about Dirk I never expected.

TEREZI: WH4TS TH1S TH1NG OV3R 1N TH3 CORN3R

TEREZI: UND3RN34TH TH1S B1G SH33T TH1NG

DIRK: Don't look in there.

TEREZI: OH SHHHH 1M ONLY T4K1NG 4 P33K

DIRK: Terezi.

DIRK: Listen to me.

TEREZI: 1M JUST L1FT1NG UP TH3 COV3R 4 L1TTL3 W4YS!!!!

DIRK: Terezi please stop talking right now.

TEREZI: D1RK HOLY SH1T

TEREZI: W

Well that sounds sinister. With Dirk I would think ti was a robot of some kind, but given his new hobby of collecting things from various timelines and his skill in building it could literally be anything.

At first I was confused at the three panels that follow, showing Dirk’s room in disarray, but then I rememebered that Dirk did a whole bunch of shit we didn’t get to see because we were in Book Time.

ROSEBOT: So, I guess today is finally the day everything's been heading towards.

I honestly thought she was going to say “today is finally the day we fuck everything up”. Not sure if the actual line counts as a callback or not now.

ROSEBOT: Instead, it feels like the very notion of fortune is simply out of the question as a means of describing the potential outcome.

ROSEBOT: As though in this moment, luck isn't either strictly real or not real, or somewhere inbetween, but absent of meaning completely.

ROSEBOT: Luck took one look at our itinerary from here on out and said you'll just have to go on without me.

So it’s Schrödinger's Luck of Who Gives a Shit? Been reading so much Dirk I tried to channel my inner Strider there. Moving on I feel like this is a very bad situation for Rose to be in. Her Aspect is luck, so what does it mean for her when she’s in a position like this?

ROSEBOT: You aren't going to believe this, but it turns out that the deranged horny ramblings of a spurned anime-obsessive have essentially no therapeutic properties whatsoever.

Rose is a gift.

I wish I could copy and paste Dirk’s whole spiel about the ocean, both literal and metaphorical, but since it’s Dirk it’s just way too long. Suffice to say I thought it was some lovely writing and really got the the meat of who Dirk is as a character. His loneliness, his fear, his eventual peace, what it means to be an ascended Prince of Heart. Good stuff.

DIRK: What's that noise I'm hearing.

DIRK: It sounds a little bit like a cat being caught in a ventilation fan. A sort of...

DIRK: Inhuman screeching, combined with the grinding of metal.

DIRK: Are we even going to make it to the ground?

ROSEBOT: Oh, no,

ROSEBOT: The ship's fine as far as I can tell.

ROSEBOT: That's just Terezi laughing.

Terezi is also a gift.

Then we end with a rather pretty image of the ship coming in for a crash landing on an Earth-like planet. I would share it, but it’s a tall panel and this post is long enough as it is. Very curious what this planet is. I would guess it might be a Earth, but the landmasses don’t look like any on Earth. Could be artistic license,  but I feel like we have too many Earths as it is. Let’s get some new planets up in here!

[caledfwlchthat]

Characters:  John Egbert, Dave Strider, Karkat Vantas Ships:  John/Dave/Karkat, John/Dave, Dave/Karkat, John/Karkat Other Tags:  Post-Retcon Meteor, Dream Bubbles, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Xenophobia, Closets, Coming Out, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Troll/Human Sloppy Makeouts, Polyamory Negotiations, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Fat Vriska Jokes, Unreliable Narrator, References to Depression Rating:  Not Rated

Hi followers, now that Polyswap reveals are out (a few days ago now), I can fess up to writing this 20 kw JohnDaveKat thing about making out in literal supply closets, that I wrote for @cassandraooc (check out her art and AO3, she’s tops!).  Shout-out also to @katreal-fic for her help as a sounding board and general pompoms while I was writing this.

R^4 fans:  this was my May/June, I have not forgotten you!  But if you like all the dream bubble romance and the awkward poly negotiations Rose and Kanaya have been having about Dave, you might give this one a look too.

Process discussion (as best as I can recall it) under the cut, as with other swap assignments I’ve done, for anyone who’s interested in the (long, spoilery) story of what the hell I was thinking exactly when I wrote this thing.

So my giftee’s prompts were -- by her own admission -- written in a bit of a sleep-deprived haze (I had to laugh as I read them, haven’t we all been there at some point, I know I lost some sleep over mine).  We were each required to provide between three and six prompts for polyships (3-6 characters each) that we wanted to see depicted in gift fic or art.  Cassandra’s OT3 was JohnDaveKat, which sported a string of elaborate sub-prompts (“medievalstuck!”, “soulmates!”, “haunted house!”, etc.) -- along with an invite to not use any of those and just write whatever I felt like.  Other prompts for Dave/Sollux/Karkat, Jane/Callie/Roxy, and Rose/Kanaya/Jade were basically completely open-ended.

I’m trying to remember exactly how I seized upon the idea I ended up executing.  Although some of my other works feature polyships, such as Kankatrezi (The Cafe Mocha Caper) and Daverosemary (foreshadowed in R^4), the process of how they got together is important for me in ways that I don’t care about as much for canon ships.  I felt some resistance to just picking one of the ships and starting to write it as if it was already established.  Also, people who know my writing know that I like to stick close to in-game or post-game AUs, or at least the broader Homestuck setting, rather than non-game AUs or other settings that remove the characters from the context that made them who we recognize them to be.  So I was going to need some runway and a satisfying premise to run along it with.  But by golly, if Cassandra wanted JohnDaveKat, she was gonna get JohnDaveKat.

The JohnDaveKat prompt I personally found most hilarious and awesome was

John gets turned into a Trickster, and finds Karkat and Dave. In the ensuing candy fueled mess, a lot of pent up emotions and secret crushes get revealed, including Dave realizing and admitting that John was probably his first crush on another boy though he was in denial at the time, and Karkat admitting that his own pitch crush for John never went away. (For his part, John finds out that he might, in fact, be a bit of a homosexual.)

Another JohnDaveKat prompt that turned out to figure in heavily later with the work I ended up producing was

John decides to surprise Dave and Karkat with a visit, only to find them already *quite* busy. Before he can think of what to do or do enough thinking at all to leave, he gets caught, and Dave notices evidence of interest, knows Karkat's still got some pitch feelings, and has some of his own, suggests maybe John stay a bit and they talk over some things and maybe do other stuff later too.

Going with Earth C could also bring the Epilogues material into play, and I briefly toyed with an Epilogues-related scenario that could score multiple polyships at once, before remembering that the Epilogues are hugely polarizing and maybe I want to be double sure about my giftee before giving them such a gift in a fan swap.  A combination of Tumblr-stalking, re-reading the prompts and discreet inquiries showed that my idea wasn’t going to work, largely because Ultimate Dirk is a legendary piece of shit and his presence over against End-Of-Act-7 Dirk would cause real friction with Cassandra’s requests -- which leaned fluffy and offered bonus points for “DirkJake” and “Dirk and Dave being good bros who love each other”.  Maybe I could have just done something similar in a separate Earth C AU without a lot of the Epilogues baggage, but by that point the specific discarded spin on the idea had so thoroughly colonized my brain that I just had to ease the whole thing carefully onto the shelf.  I’d still be keen to write that other fic sometime.  Just not for this particular fill.

So, I took a break for a few days before revisiting the prompt and asking what else I could do.  When I think of John, Dave, and Karkat together, my mind goes immediately back to the “EVERYBODY STFU, I HATE YOU BOTH ETC” memo, in which Karkat tries to dissuade Dave and John from encouraging Terezi’s and Vriska’s flirtations, respectively.  This convo is burned into my head because I’ve VA’ed it -- I draw a lot of inspiration for character dialogue from the time I’ve spent doing goofy voiceovers for them.  And there is a lot of grist for the mill here:  Karkat alluding to his pitch crush on John, Dave making fun of Karkat for being gay (while not realizing or admitting how he might be projecting), John being totally clueless about whether he’s attracted to Vriska.  All of these are compatible with the “pent-up emotions and secret crushes” Cassandra asked for, and favors Dave <3 Karkat <3< John as a baseline.

Now, one of the reasons I love writing dream bubble fic is because I am fundamentally lazy.  I can basically use any canon Homestuck pesterlog as a prompt and run with it.  So that’s what I did here.  In the moment that they realize that it’s a dream, the participants are forced to reckon with the way dream bubbles respond to their innermost thoughts.  Deep desires manifest in weird ways; emotional distances contract, go non-Euclidean.  Despite this, the association with dreams simultaneously offer a layer of abstraction or remove to Dave and Karkat -- allowing them to access and slake those deep desires without having to take responsibility for it, either with themselves or each other, during waking hours.  In that sense, John opening the closet is like walking in on them a second time -- the dream bubble itself is their main outer closet, and they already know the jig is up when John diverts the pesterlog down Memory Lane.  This then raises the question of whether they might have wanted John to discover them, deep down?  Perhaps John’s convenient remembering is a sort of wish-fulfillment dream summoning.

From there I already sort of had the fic’s contours and decided it would be best written from John’s POV.  The other nice thing about the dream bubble setting was that it let John participate even during the meteor journey, when Dave and Karkat must have been messing around trying to reverse-engineer their own sexual preferences.  How gay is Dave, and how troubled is he about it at this point in his history?  How does he feel about John finding out?  Does Karkat somehow have some symmetrical hangups that leave him struggling as much as Dave, or is he just a giant crab?  (The literal vs metaphorical closet thing was accidental at first, but once I discovered that I ran hard with it.)

There were still some problems I struggled with, such as how to get John to fall for Karkat pitch-ways when he’s said in canon that he isn’t gay, and when Karkat has said in canon that he’s not pitch for John anymore.  The second problem is easily dispatched by pointing out that Karkat isn’t a reliable narrator of his own preferences, by construction.  As for the first -- John might be no Casanova, but he loves his friends and is fiercely loyal to them, and he also saves his anger for either really important moments (like his GAME OVER fight with Caliborn) or utterly trivial moments (like Con Air not being as good as he thought).  This seemed like a good place for the former.  Once that was laid out, the trio coalesced nicely -- Dave and Karkat need John to keep them honest, and John needs Dave and Karkat to keep him anchored.  John <> Dave and Dave c3< (John <3< Karkat) were dynamics that just showed up on their own.

The interpretation of the ending is left open, but the other difficulty I left unresolved is the timeline mismatch between pre-retcon and post-retcon, and the question of which John it was exactly that showed up in Dave and Karkat’s shared dream.  Pre-retcon Davekat didn’t happen because Dave and Karkat were fighting over Terezi, but post-retcon John died in the explosion of LOWAS and couldn’t live happily ever after having so gloriously enabled post-retcon Davekat.  And I wanted them to live happily ever after.  The two most obvious interpretations I could think of were (a) the three are all on Earth C and dreaming together of each other -- or, more poignantly, (b) pre-retcon John is starting to integrate some of post-retcon dead!John’s memories.  The second possibility leads in the direction of Ultimate John (what would that even be?) so I made sure to place the ending in a time frame that gives the Epilogues a miss -- although the background DirkJake also signals that this is probably an AU that diverges after the ACT 7 victory.

All in all this was really fun to write!  There were lots of other great prompts in the collection, but the ones that grabbed me looked like they would spawn more 20-30 kw novellas and I need to get back to my poor neglected serial!  I’m looking forward to making my way through the treats that others posted, eventually adding some of my own, and of course going through Cassandra’s other stuff.  (Maybe that awesome fantroll Friendsim project will be the next thing to eat my life after this.)

[zayashmaya]

My fic idea for karkat was if a human got stuck on Alternia and kinda did the same thing mc did in friendsim (making friends with the 12 trolls) but Karkat took a Massive Interest in them because someone that's like me??? But an alien??? I need to know more???? (Red blood, empathetic nature, ect.) And just gradually he just just falls for the little human because damn aliens are fine (I am so sorry for my bad explanation rubrjdkandx this is why I draw and not write)

that. is. so. cute. 

imagine he finds this hornless alien injured at his doorstep, and at first he is all for letting the human die until the moonlight reveals the barest hint of that unnatural blood color and he is so! curious! yet so distrusting! so the human is dragged into his hive and crab dad watches them over while karkat is standing 10 feet away decked out head to toe in some makeshift armor (trash basically) and threatening them as soon as they wake up. 

human has nowhere to go, so they have no choice but to endure these insane hosts. karkat constantly stays a considerable distance away from them while pummeling them with a million questions about who they are, where they come from, why their blood was like that, etc. it’s exhausting and overwhelming to deal with him at first, but when the human realizes karkat means no genuine harm, and crab dad actually feeds them (and cares for them in his own horribly grouchy way), they start to see past the prickly exterior and meet his barbs with laughs and kindness. 

it throws karkat in for a loop. he doesn’t understand why this human is so selfless and offers him unconditional friendship. he tries his hardest to resist the temptation to succumb to their offers of playing video games or watching movies together until human finally catches on to his weakness - shitty ass romcoms. cue karkat plopping down on the opposite side of the couch with a sharp growl to not get anywhere near him as he sits stiffly and human relaxes, smiling in victory at having won him over for once. and as the movie drags on, karkat gets so caught up in explaining the intricacies of troll romance, and when human tells him about their own version of romance, karkat is dial-up noises in his brain bc holy shit that’s everything he’s ever wanted oh no this human is meeting all his standards - 

he doesn’t realize it, but he is starting to fall hard and fast for this human. he begins to notice the little things about them, like how the moonlight illuminates the subtle shine of their hair (so different from their own), the way they breathe softy as they sleep (he’s stumbled upon them sleeping on his couch in the early evening and spent a second too long looking at their dumb serene face), and when human reaches out to touch his hand for the first time, he nearly jumps out of his skin from how soft that felt for him. 

boy does he go through all the stages of grief when he actually realizes he’s in love with them. he might even snap back and be distant because he is afraid of opening himself up like that. and the human, in turn, will think that they may have overstayed their welcome, that things were changing, karkat was starting to resent them, maybe they did something wrong and they needed to leave now. so they do, sneaking past crab dad as he slept and leaving a note for karkat about how grateful they are for all that he’s done for them. 

upon finding the note, karkat nearly combusts from fear and concern for them. this was exactly the opposite of what he wanted, he wanted his human to be safe with him, and now they are braving alternia because he was too weak to figure his shit out. i dunno how it happens but they reunite, human was safe and probably chilling with the other trolls and seeking out advice for what they may have done to upset karkat (maybe they end up crashing with kanaya, everyone needs some kanaya wisdom). 

once all that drama is out of the way and karkat blurts out his feelings for the human, cue a painful montage of him trying to romantic and suave and failing miserably because his only point of reference is cheesy movies and a cantankerous crab who brings home shit for troll christmas. but damn it do they have a happy life together. 

anon how dare you make me feel all these feels 

[karkatvantasistrans]

Hey, guess what! I only took like. 8 months to update my Rosemary fanfic. You can also read it on my ao3, here!

Everybody enjoy!!

Be Karkat, in the middle of something. You are now Karkat, and you are in the middle of something. You are moving a thick chunk of hair out of your moirail's face, watching as it brushes through the outer layer of his grease paint and pulls a thin layer of white off his forehead. You run your hand back through his hair, pushing the lock back far enough to stay off of his face. You then repeat the process, with your left hand, on the other side of his face. A rumble lifts out of his throat as he leans into your hand, periodically clicking his tongue on the backs of his teeth. It's a soothing process the both of you are intimately familiar with, and it's one you used to pretend you were keeping up with to pacify his potential murderous urges. You've long since dropped that pretense -- past Karkat is such a fucking idiot -- and you now have the maturity to understand you're doing this for the same reason you always have. Pity.

Your hands now dug into the hair on the back of his head, he leans his face into your shoulder, the low rumble now sinking into the rhythm of your body as you hold onto him. You're now so used to the feeling of his grease paint, you can feel the areas where salt has pulled it from his face. It's not a communication based relationship, morailship, so you don't ask him what moves him to tears, and he doesn't offer an explanation in return. It's the nature of pacifying highbloods to receive screams and vague sentimental wailing as the only explanation for their agony, so you have pieced together his sources of pain using agonized snapshots alone. Loss is a big theme in highblood pacification, if only because they're trained to be above the concept for a lot of their upbringing. The shock that they care can be just as painful for them as the loss. You inhale deep into his hair and reflect on how comfortable this is. The familiar pre-determined patterns, this understood undercurrent of resentment, the extreme feelings of pathos: it's all perfectly familiar. It's comfortable coming here, you admit, face buried in hair as if it could hide the admission. It's so, so familiar and safe, head pressed into Gamzee's neck as his nails drift along the back of your shirt, lazily pulling in circles and loops as he uses you to calm himself down. Your face, just like every time before, is resting on the dried blood of an old friend, caked on the collar of his shirt as you dig your head deeper into his embrace. You can taste it, blue and hot between you, as the moist air from your mouth brings it back to life -- inhale -- back to life on the piece of fabric between you. There is a persistent rust smell always around you, here, and you're sure there's some piece of Tavros hidden in a pile of debris because of the times you've caught Gamzee hunched over and cooing into a corner where the air is thicker, hotter with salty humidity. You try not to look for signs of pooled mahogany, but you catch it on his lips when he returns -- on the soles of his feet, peeking up with every step. Be Kanaya You hold your hand along the wall as you walk, guiding yourself with the hum of light from your face and the faint smell tacked on the walls as you draw closer. The bolts in the meteor walls interrupt the tips of your fingers every four, six, five steps as you lurch unevenly down the hall, faint wisps of colour peering out when your light hits certain angles. The colour is mahogany. Continue being Karkat. You breathe him in: breathe in the grease paint and the leftover stench of Equius on his collar and the blood of Tavros aging, coagulating, fermenting on your tongue as it sits under blankets and horns. You lick your lips and you still tast him, rusting the floor and thickening the air and dripping down Gamzee's temple and onto your cheek as it becomes the tang of his sweat. You hold one of his hands in yours and as your lips settle on his fingertips you can still taste Nepeta, clinging to his unwashed nails after so much time has passed, and you keep sighing it in, over and over, every time you're here. The lack of remorse fills him out, extending out over his body, his posture, and the air is suffocating you with the stolen lives of your friends, and as you hold the sides of his face and brush your lips over his forehead, all you can think is how much safer you feel here than when you're with Dave. Be Rose It's the middle of the morning. Theoretically, anyway. The meteor has pushed far beyond the point of absurdity in establishing that it is always, and forever will be, the middle of the fucking night. But there's a parallel to the mid-morning hours, burning with prohibitive radiance and expunging the halls of all promise of life as they close in and force their hands around you: push you, paternal, into your rooms and blocks. The density of the air, a tinny exchange bolstered by uninterrupted communion of walls accross walls, hums up and down the corridors as the meteor establishes itself, once again, as an entity. It's an entity restrictive in its permissions, and you fall obediently beneath its pressure and evacuate its core.  Under the thumb of unseen and quiet omniscence, your doors close and you are spared from the disquiet of hours communally unwitnessed. It's the perfect time to meet Karkat. He is sitting, just slightly out of view, dipping his finger methodically into his coffee before licking it clean: one finger at a time until he's already emptied half the cup by the time you arrive. "Karkat," His head bobs up, curls flouncing, eyes wide: "UH. HI," clears his throat, "Hi Rose." You breeze past him, skirt wind-swept, and prepare a cup under the spout that allegedly produces coffee. You're still not entirely convinced after a year, you muse, slap of liquid braying out and around the ceramic floor of the mug. You can hear Karkat's claws softly tinkling against his cup behind you. He clears his throat. "Gamzee said it was nice seeing you the other day." His eyes are already on you, head steady, when you glance over your shoulder. You spin excitedly around. "Karkat! Dispelling with all pretense of innocence so soon? Resisting the delicious tug of intrigue and coded language? Shared innuendo with an unlikely cohort? Or-!" You chuckle into the back of your hand, "The potential for deception! Lo, you sit, absorbing arbitrary accusations as amiably as anticipated, unannounced ambitions awaiting as I lambast you, all atwitter with my admissible antagonisms, admonished for all appearances with absolute argument, and THEN--" Your arm sweeps up and you almost stumble, fall into the counter, "Cutting out from the grass, serpentine, you retord -- retort -- in defiance of such ill-conceived, one sided assault: "Gamshee said it was nice seeing you the other day"! Are you not predicated on such duplicitous impulses, Karkat?" Your hands clap together and you hope he missed the ill-placed slaps of your tongue on the wrong teeth, "You disappoint me!" Karkat stares at you, hair wild, expression wilder and moves his mouth, ever so slightly, around his teeth. "I-uh," he falters, "I'm Really not interested in you that way at all, honestly, and I'm sorry to say so because from what I've seen you definitely put a lot of thought into this and would almost definitely be able to handle kismessitude fairly astutely it's just, not something I've felt for you personally? I haven't given it much thought, I mean, sure you've had a consistent veneer of antagonism towards a lot of us on this meteor, but I never really felt it was especially pointed towards me? And this -- wow, Lalonde, I mean, I'm impressed, seriously -- the delivery, that either took some rehearsal or you really have it bad for me but, uh, what about Dave? I mean his familial status and proximity to me would pose some problems, right, plus he's -- he's such a handful already with his thankless commitment to redrom sabotage I've been honestly wondering if he's been forcing antagonism just to test the waters or, I don't know, maybe humans fulfill the quandrants all as a packaged deal? So I'd be adding blackrom infidelity on top of potentially throwing more that he could handle all on his nutrition plateau and, uh--" He finally looks up from his neurotic monologuing to realize your face is twisted into the widest smile you've ever sported uslessly hidden behind your hand, cheeks stretched so painfully your eyes are beginning to hurt from the pressure, and his expression falters. "Do you want to...talk about it, Karkat?" The falter lasts only for a minute before he launches, diarrhea verbalized, into another outpouring of information, "Oh, great, just fucking great, forgive me for daring to take something as serious as romance into consideration during a fucking mysterious midmorning rendezvous, great beast of trusting burden that I am, Troll Atlas with his monstrous fucking life sphere of genuine interaction pushing ever forward through a mire of insincere Strilonde bullshit -- the great overseers of paradox space are mirthful in their malevolence and I'm fucking strung up as en effigy to the last honest communique in a mire of feckless gabble --" you are holding in laughter as he bolts forward, knocking his chair back as his coffee cup sloshes around in his hand, "Well, behold! A martyr to the cause of fucking unobtuse conference on this godforsaken meteor for once, punished for the sin of attempting to have a fucking heart-to-heart with one of only six possible emotional receptacles on this hunk of rock--" his head throws back and his coffee hits the ground so hard it bounces, and you know it's time to stop him. "Karkat," He pauses, out of breath and slack-jawed, and looks at you as if he just remembered you're in the room with him. "...do you want to talk about it?" He pauses, considers the almost-empty coffee cup in his hand and the chair on the floor, before picking the latter up and dropping himself back into it. He shuffles forward a few inches for good measure, and the look he gives you is characteristically open and earnest. Bug-eyed, he leans in and tells you: "Dave doesn't know he's out of the fridge." Kanaya: Give in to temptation Hunched over, the wet sounds of your teeth and tongue sliding against vein and muscle reverberate against the walls around you. You are drenched in shame and holding down his hair with one hand, the base of his horn with the other, and you breathe it in so deeply you choke as it flies up your nose. The blood is stale, fetid, alkaline on your tongue and as it hits the back of your throat, and still you gouge a wider and wider hole for a neck that no longer remains as you drink from him, deeper than necessary, too deep to excuse. You are starting to come up for air, finally, choking on blood or a sob -- you're not sure which -- and feeling the pulse in your arms as he runs up, down, into your heart and out. It should have been where he was all along, right? But here he is instead, splayed open on your lap as you skirt drenches in his decerated remains. Coming down off the high: mournful, disgusted, you hear a nose behind you that swivels your head fast enough to hurt. A meandering step and a deep, soft hum hits you right in the gut -- freshly regenerating! -- and adrenaline pulls you to your feet so hard you almost slip in Tavros, bare feet slapping the floors as you make Gamzee a blur in your peripherals, a quickly fading impression. The noises you hear behind you send chills down your spine, down your freshly forming gut, and into your legs as they continue to slap, slap, slap the cold and quaking floors. The chill -- the feeling -- isn't from fear. The sounds you hear aren't ones of aggression. Your heart thuds on your throat and tears prickle at your eyes as you're forced to confront your reality: You are hearing a monster cry. Be past Karkat As Gamzee sobs quietly into your shoulder, you feel your phone buzz softly in your pocket, and catch yourself praying silently that it isn't Dave. Future Kanaya: Reluctantly accept culpability

– grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling terminallyCapricious [TC] at 13:54 –

GA: I'm Sorry.

– grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling terminallyCapricious [TC] at 13:54 –

– grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling terminallyCapricious [TC] at 13:59 –

GA: I'm Starving.

==> Kanaya: Stop being Kanaya ==> You are now The Mayor. Looking down at the cans layed out before you, you place a soft hand on the lip of one of the surrogate buildings, weaving around the outer rim one, twice, but no more. The thought appears to you, often, to try and tap things out on these cans like you once did at home, but you don't hold faith in it. Rare are the instances when even the humans and trolls pick up on your efforts at communicating, and rarer still that they understand the connection with your nails hitting their township, your arms -- the shouty one's horns! -- and this effort. Despite yourself, though, you find your hand tapping out a "hello" on the can lid, silently hoping for a response you will not recieve, just in case a wandering dream floats in at just the right moment. You know that's where they should be, in theory: the citizens of dreams shared among the humans and trolls rightfully belong where they wander in sleep and after, but each bubble is in such a way unpopulated. You know the dream selves have fused, and you picture derse thinning out, spacing out of existence as the dream and flesh selves meet. Still, though, you hope for a bubble. As if a wayward troop might remain, unhindered by probability, and clack happily down their chest with an, "imagine the luck!" or a "here of all places, shit!" or a glib "always in charge of something, huh?". Something jovial, unrehearsed, tinged with nerves and unearned reverence as they can finally experience one another outside of a battlefield, if only for a moment. It is lonely, you resign, lording over empty villages as the dark kingdom's defector. Did your comrades not dream?