#i have a lot of thoughts about dirk and his relationship towards the universe

[clockworkcheetah]

thinking about how the universe only protects dirk from fatal injury- like straight up dead on the spot (hence why the bullets avoided him in 1x06- bart shoots to kill obvs) but it does nothing to prevent any other injury like harpooned twice in the shoulder? if he can get the job done it doesnt matter

[tomatograter]

How much of jakes begging dirk not to leave in meat do you think is his own true feelings vs Dirks influence?

I don't think Dirk’s influence is enough to make anybody do anything they did not already have half a mind to do. I've seen this be debated a lot, but Dirk is... not The Word Of God. That's pretty much the biggest joke about his defensive posturing. Dirk barks very loudly, and asserts himself in audience-antagonizing overseeing orange voice - but he cannot force you to do something you really don't want to do. He’s only as powerful as your urges.

He struggles, multiple times, to make characters do the simplest things that go against their base instincts. Dave definitely had romantic feelings for Karkat, but he was so sure their relationship could stay and strive as platonic that he pushes Dirk away. He wasn't Right about this, but he was sure of his position.

June is easy. June wants an adventure. June wants to not be herself. June will take any excuse to abandon everything and get to live a cool life where the most pressing issue is “which bad guy do i have to punch” again.

Terezi's arc in homestuck proper is largely about her learning to listen to HERSELF, not the alternian laws or game rules or meddling undead sylphs or doc scratches or whoever the fuck else, and she mocks Dirk's narrator voice to his face. She recognizes the alien thought the moment she has it.

Kanaya has always feared she holds Rose back. She loves her wife deeply, and respects her even more, but her penchant to being attracted to explosive girls (Remember Vriskan? You should remember Vriskan.) Also doubles as Kanaya grappling with the fact that she cannot control them. It's part of the appeal, that they are forces of nature so large and unpredictable she cannot help but be drawn to their orbit like a moth to a flame. Kanaya letting go of Rose is an unspooling of her deepest insecurities, her habit of giving others more credit than she gives herself, and how she's relented to the years peddled position of "mom friend" - kanaya the spoilsport, kanaya the grub nun, kanaya the... Quite Dreadfully Just Regular, I’m Afraid. What could she possibly claim to offer when put up against the secrets to understand an universe? (She isn't right about this, either.)

And Jake? Here's a bit from Jake's confession that i believe has gone largely unexamined:

Take a moment to really consider the positioning of other characters towards Jake in the epilogues. Then a little bit more in the direction of HS proper this time. Jake is the subject of constant degradation at the hands of the cast at large. His plight is always unsympathetic, his role troublesome, and he acquiesces to claiming the guilt for "being a problem in his friendgroup" or "for being assaulted by a friend he ignored" or "for being too useless and stupid", yet even though he cannot let go of the pesky self-flagellating habit, there's... Dirk.

This is how Dirk is represented and this is what he is primarily remembered by in the deepest recesses of Jake’s brain. It could have been anything else, but it’s this instead. Brain ghost dirk is not a dirk with his edges cut off, he’s not a pliant wifedirk, he’s not a little helpful tutorial phantom that tells jake everything he wants to hear - he’s quite harsh and sarcastic As A Dirk, but he believes in a Jake that’s more than the facade he presents as. Truly and fully. This is a Dirk that loves Jake, and not quite platonically.

I think it’s a bit ignorant to suggest Jake has legitimately no reason for loving Dirk back when their canon designation is “Best friends” and “Complicated lovers”. Jake loves Dirk for his brightest parts. Jake has expected a love confession from Dirk ever since the very beginning of the above conversation, during his 13yo birthday, where the big joke is “WELP, i guess instead of dirk telling me he’s gay and that we’ve been flirting all this time, he just says he’s from the future instead!”

Dirk’s influence is only to blame here insofar as him doing such a good fucking job of screwing himself over. It’s stellar. Dirk thinks the AR forced Jake’s feelings, dirk thinks he’s predatory and irredeemable, dirk convinces the audience Jake cannot possibly have a single reason to love him back, dirk fully drapes himself in the capes of being a Bad Guy, but this is HIS justification, when faced with the fact Jake pretty clearly has feelings on the matter buried deep down, and he’s a glaringly /unreliable/ narrator. The biggest tragedy of this bit is the confirmation that the heel turn and the spiel are wholly unnecessary, they clearly had things they could have invested on to make this work, but dirk is too caught up on his high horse to listen. 

Like with Kanaya, Dirk is responsible for exaggerating a heavy mass of preexisting feelings, not creating them. 

Creation, as it happens, is more of Jake’s wheelhouse.

[autumnblogs]

Aside Glance: The Palpable Absence of the Dubiously Canonical

So you might have noticed throughout my writings that I have at the same time avoided directly talking about any of the expanded universe material while also occasionally alluding to it just enough to make it noticeable. At least, probably.

So to nobody’s surprise, let me say;

I don’t like the Homestuck Epilogues.

Before I dig into why, I wanna dig out what I think I actually do like about the Homestuck Epilogues. CW: for mentions of suicide, sexual violence, fascism, genocide, etc. Spoiler Warning for the Homestuck Epilogues, although if you haven’t read them by now, good; don’t. Keep reading for my thoughts on the Epilogues.

I do like that the Homestuck Epilogues say quite loudly and clearly that Fascism Is Terrible, and that Neo-Liberals are often Discount Fascists at best in terms of the material effects they have on the world that we have to share with them. They can often end up being interchangeable, and events can cause someone with a temperament predisposed toward Neo-liberalism down the path of bloody reactionary sentiment the way it did with Jane.

Homestuck has always been a pretty soundly anti-authoritarian work, and pretty aggressively contemporary work, so it makes sense that Homestuck^2 would reflect an internet culture rabidly obsessing about the politics of the Trump-Era United States, cast its villains as parallels to the Trump Administration, the grody religious movements it catered to, and the hyper-rich dingalings who benefited from it.

I do like that the Homestuck Epilogues develop the theme of criticizing the author and continues to call attention to its narrators, this time by explicitly casting them as villainous, and morally ambiguous/incomprehensible respectively. A central idea in Homestuck is the relationship between Author, Audience, and Characters, and the blending of the lines between them.

I like that it calls attention not just to the idea that a story’s narrator is an agent themselves, but also to the reality that the narrator may not have the best interests of either their readers, or their characters in mind. I like that the authorial powers of these characters are represented as overtly dangerous and evil when they are addressed at all.

I also like that the Homestuck Epilogues are rather brutally honest about the fact that sometimes, the people that you grew up with - your close friends - grow apart from you, and turn into kind of bad people. I’ve watched that happen in real time, and have had to stop hanging out with people because they just kind of... turned evil. That’s something that needs to be discussed more in fiction, and more honestly than the usual way. When the most visible example of like, someone you knew and loved turning into a bad person is like, Anakin Skywalker, maybe the world needs more stories about that.

So good, that’s what we’ve got for things I think were good to say. Well done.

What don’t I like about the Homestuck Epilogues?

In a word, I think, they are cruel. Relentlessly cruel. Even actively malicious.

Homestuck has, of course, always been rather mean-spirited and adversarial, pretty much since page one. And really, so has Andrew’s writing in general, since the days when he ran the site Team Special Olympics. His humor walks a fine line between and outrageous and genuinely offensive, as he dares you to say, “That’s fucked up!” so he can respond “it was just a joke, where’s your sense of humor?”

But the Epilogues transcend the usual sardonic envelope-pushing we can usually count on Andrew for, and instead opt to sink their teeth into the readers in an assault on the senses, and on the sensibilities. Reading the Epilogues is a brutal experience to endure emotionally, and in a lot of places, morally offensive.

And they are this way practically from the first page; our very first impression of the Homestuck Epilogues is a content warning that presents itself in such a way as to be almost unmistakably parodic. The stylization as an AO3 work, particularly in the context of Homestuck, where these sorts of overzealous content warning pages are associated with preachy jerks like Kankri, it comes across as a direct challenge to the viewer, and by a challenge, I really mean an attack. It is a mean-spirited joke at the expense of people who have a desire to curate their media experience - and then the authors have the gall to say that the one of the goals of the Epilogues is to challenge people to curate their media more.

Every time a character could conceivably make a bad decision, or become a more ill-conceived version of themselves, they somehow manage it, which becomes all the more unbearable because of the identification of character and audience that has been the case throughout all of Homestuck. If Homestuck introduces us to this entire cast and says, this is you, the Epilogues seem to follow up with and there is nothing good about you. Jade Harley somehow transforms into a grotesque caricature of a trans-woman, a girl who is sexually incontinent and predatory in a way that is directly tied to her having a dog penis - a state of being which the text variously slut-shames her for in Meat, or alternatively uses to blame her for ruining Dave and Karkat’s relationship in Candy.

John Egbert is severely depressed and dysfunctional, and this leads him either to go off and kill Lord English to chase the thrill of adventure and his own sense of purpose (in direct opposition to the all-but-explicitly-stated takeaway from Homestuck which Dave gives us, that the better option is to just leave the story alone altogether - explicitly the worst decision he could make according to the rules of Homestuck) or descend into decades of nihilistic solipsism while the world disintegrates around him.

Dirk’s worst natures take over him and transform him into a person who can only conceivably be satisfied either by becoming an arch-villain, or by murdering himself.

The Epilogues are aggressively cruel to Jake English, choosing to double down on the lack of emotional resolution he suffered from at the end of Homestuck, and squarely placing the blame for his own misery on his own shoulders, in a way which is pretty hard to read around, which is part and parcel of the general malice which Homestuck has historically treated mentally ill characters with. Nearly all the kids in Homestuck have suffered incomprehensible levels of mental and physical abuse, and the text expects them to simply overcome it sheerly by force of will. Sure, Jake is miserable but it’s his own fault, the text seems to say; if he’d just get his act together, like Dave, maybe he could get on with his life without being mind-broken by Dirk, or raped and whipped by Jane.

This isn’t even to delve into the flagship reveal of Homestuck 2, that Rose and Jade in the Candy Timeline have not only had a daughter of their own (without telling Kanaya), but that furthermore they have replicated their own trauma in her. Rose and Jade’s daughter has grown up completely emotionally alone, in the care of her Moms’ archenemy.

The point in all of this is not that the Epilogues have made everyone behave out of character or anything like that - I think it’s clear after a re-read especially that all of this is a conceivable direction that these characters could have taken. Rather, the Epilogues reliably choose to believe the worst of the characters of Homestuck in terms of their writing decisions. Everyone always makes the worst decision that they could make, or at the very least, nearly the worst. And because of the identification of reader and character, we can’t help but take away from that a sense that this is what the authors think of us as well.

And in case it wasn’t stated explicitly enough, a running theme throughout the Epilogues is that all this conflict and badness taking place is, to some extent or another, because we the audience are looking at it. As Andrew stated in relation to the Epilogues, there’s a kind of Happily Ever After possibility bubble around the characters that intrinsically collapses into conflict the moment we observe the events again - in other words, by participating in a story, we the audience members are somehow complicit in the characters’ suffering. Yet not all stories must be driven by conflict - and who triumphs and who fails in that conflict says a lot about what a story has to say about real life.

The Epilogues engage in a kind of voyeuristic cruelty, a kind of pessimism and cynicism, a kind of relentless ugliness that I have seldom seen, and to what end? The whole thing seems to me an attack on the audience.

Aside from general, abstracted claims toward authorial intent (which I think is there), I also want to say that, I can’t emotionally engage with the Epilogues, for a personal reason; as somebody who has struggled with almost daily suicidal ideation for most of my adult life, the way that the Epilogues deal with that subject goes from troubling to malicious and hostile in its treatment of Dirk’s suicide.

And staying personal, while I haven’t had to deal with some of the other sensitive topics that the Epilogues handle recklessly, handle them recklessly they do - Jake is serially raped by Jane, and in a way that he serves as a vehicle to move the plot forward, rather than with any kind of compassion for Jake’s condition. The possibility that Tavros Crocker might be being molested by Gamzee is brought up flippantly in one scene and played off as a joke.

The Homestuck Epilogues play at maturity through handling dark themes and sensitive topics, and reveal a profound immaturity in their authors because of the ways in which they are cruelly, insensitively handled over and over again.

I guess I’ll close with the least egregious thing. The Homestuck Epilogues just aren’t funny. Even at its bleakest, Homestuck has always been funny. In their relentless pursuit of cruelty, and the shared misery of their audience and characters, the Homestuck Epilogues forgo even this most basic element of Homestuck, which Andrew has always described as being basically a comedy.

Anyway; I will not be doing a thorough analysis of the Epilogues. I hate them too much and they suck.

[kookablarn]

The Pleasant Family!

In the save file, you’ll find the Pleasants in Willow Creek, Lucy in Britechester, and John and Jennifer in the homeless townie box. I pretty much remade their family tree from TS2, so if you know it, you’ll see lots of familiar faces!

I thought about divorcing Daniel and Mary-Sue, because their relationship was a little rocky in TS2, but I didn’t want to create separate households because I already have too many. So I kept them together! 

I kinda worked it in as Mary-Sue hitting a low point in her wannabe perfect life after Lilith gets caught doing criminal things, Daniel gets caught cheating, and she gets a demotion (a la the first time you load them in TS2), and coming to the realization that she had been putting her work before her family. She and Daniel talked, they made up, and she started to work towards being a better mother and wife. Of course, it’s already been at least 15 years since all of that happened. 

Also, I gave Daniel the Soulmate aspiration rather than the Serial Romantic. He’s a romantic guy and loves showing affection, but his wife had been working too hard to return it, so he temporarily turned elsewhere.

Angela married Cameron, as they both met in University. They went to different schools, but somehow came together. In TS2, Angela is dating Dustin and while Dustin does appear in TS4 (and they are the same age), they showed up in different packs and I had honestly forgotten about the celebrities until the end :I. 

I don’t think I would’ve put them together, regardless. The same goes for Lilith and Dirk.

Lucy is married to Rohan Elderberry. I based the Pleasant family in Britechester and then moved them to Willow Creek, but Lucy stayed there. She wants to start a family, but Rohan isn’t really thinking about it.

[me-and-my-gaster]

I don't know jack shit about homestuck but here you go! 3, 27 and 74! (I hope the questions apply to you) Oh and also 40 because I like when you ramble about ships even if I don't know those ships! ^3^

The 100 Homestuck Asks!

3 - How many times have you read HS?

It’s hard to count, I guess? I started reading it once and had to stop after the Cascade (about halfway). Then I re-read the first half to ‘get it’ when I read about the Alpha Kid’s session and finished the whole thing. Then I often worked with a YT queue of ‘Let’s Read Homestuck’ playing in the background. And I also often jump in and read a page or a hundred when my friend who is currently reading the whole thing for the first time reminds me of something awesome. So... Personally, fully, with my own two eyes with no breaks (that was a mighty binge, I tell you)? Once. Overall... hard to tell.

27 - Favorite carapacian?

I’d say The Mayor, because everybody loves the Mayor and the Mayor deserves all the love. I do also have a weakness for the Windswept Questant (White Queen) because her design is very pretty.

74 -  Earth C headcanons?

Everybody lived happily ever after, the end. Also, this was only the first planet they inhabited, later on, they traveled further to explore their new Universe. Good shit, good adventures, good fun.

40 - BROTP?

Ho boy. You like me ranting about ships and you picked one of the topics I can rant about A LOT.

Dave & Rose - they behave like siblings, squabble, talk shit, whine about each other, but despite that, both are ready to maul a bitch for the other AND die to keep the other one alive. 11/10.

Dirk & Roxy - they gave each other a hard time but boy if I don’t love how deep their pride and respect goes when it comes to one another. Especially since they grew up in similar circumstances and GET each other in ways that nobody else could. Good sibs again. Kick ass, chew gum, and have unhealthy coping mechanisms together.

Meowrails - at first I thought Equius was too overbearing towards Nepeta and that he was trying to keep her on ‘a leash’. But then I reminded myself that he kept her safe from the goddamn revenge spiral Vriska started and if Nepeta really wanted to do something, she would. I like the difference in height and personality between them. Nepeta being a very small, active, extroverted, and open one is a good balance for Equius’ big body and proper, stiff, and formal behavior. There are also those little things you notice like Nepeta having a blue tail, which meant Equius used his skills to help her with the Lioness life. Like how they’re usually shown together. Like how Equius trying to protect her while simultaneously knowing he’s too weak to keep her safe by his side, so he sends her away. Like how Nepeta was following him anyway and was ready to maul a mad clown because her moirail was hurt. All of it. I just really like them and I’m glad most of the fic writers always keep them together. 

Dave & Dirk - jesus wept, that one long-ass talk between them at the very end of the story hit me so hard. Both of them talking about Bro, about Alpha Dave about how they grew up and what are their expectations of each other. This was one of the best convos in the whole thing for me. I wish I could see more of them, cause there’s so much good shit that can happen. Every fic with Dave and Dirk being good brothers in any older/younger configuration is A+ content for me.

John & Karkat - I know JohnKat is a very fun and nice ship and I don’t blame anybody for preferring those two as a romantic couple but... there’s something for me with them being close friends (or moirails, please gods, yes). They really had a very good relationship in the story, one that had a lot of buildup and growth. One of my favorite convos comes from their interactions. (hi karkat!) They are both leaders of their respective groups, self-proclaimed or not and they did work together (with a lot of help from Jade, that is) to figure out how to save everybody’s asses. They also seem to balance each other out, or at least John is a good balance for Karkat’s unending anger rants. Karkat is also a lot smarter than John and isn’t afraid to point out the other’s dumbassery, so there’s that. What also appeals to me in the idea of them being moirails is how it could be a lovely way to work through John “I Am Not A Homosexual” Egbert’s internalized masculinity stereotypes.

Now, let’s delve deep into the BROTPs that didn’t have much material in the comic.

Sollux & Dave - I didn’t give this pair any thought until I’ve read a few good fics with them being in a pale quadrant, and let me tell you... this shit’s good. Those two are assholes on the outside and would probably be the duo that annoys the everloving shit out of everybody in the close vicinity just with their banter. And I just think they’re neat.

Davesprite & Hal - those two would have hit it off immediately, even if only for being the fifth wheel in their respective “kids set”. Both seem more bitter than their ‘alpha’ counterparts. Both also seem more mature, due to being a bit older/wiser but also a little bit more broken. Both also got mighty forgotten by everybody which, not gonna lie, hurts me a lot. I have a lot of feelings about Davesprite and how much he went through and I also have a lot of feelings about Hal, who’s both a human stuck in the shades and an AI at the same time. I just wish to see the two interact and be bros they really need. They should be happy, dammit!

Roxy & Eridan - the scarf and sniper rifle duo! Ok, I love both of them because they are my comfort characters for various reasons and their stories hit home very hard, so I am mighty biased. But... They both have issues that seem to be polar opposites for the most parts and I really dig the idea of them moirailing the shit out of each other. Roxy being a very open person who is first to make friends would have no issues with befriending Eridan “Water Asshole” Ampora any time of the day. And I think he needs somebody who would listen to him properly and attack him with too much love at any waking moment but also somebody he would have to be actually responsible for. Also, like I said, both are snipers who also use another extra specibi, so I think they would make a lovely power BROTP. 

Also, I do love the idea of Eridan painting Roxy’s nails because she never could get it right herself because she was either drunk or running with pumpkins and the polish looked shitty immediately after she applied it.

Ok, that’s about it when it comes to the BROTPs from the top of my head. Thank you for your ask!

[catflowerqueen]

Happy Homestuck Day!

Here are my thoughts on this happy day’s upd8

-Jane looks very striking in that picture, especially her lipstick. I also love how brain ghost!Dirk is still there, chilling in the background.

 -…Does Jane know that her son is actually dating Vrissy? I realize that it might not matter to her—or actually make things actively worse, in some respects—but considering how out of the loop she is about her personal life, it does make me wonder…

…to that end, has Tavros found out yet that his grandfather is dead? I forget exactly where that happened on the timeline, but I know that his death was something specifically brought up.

 -Oh, Vriska is talking with Harry Anderson… you know, considering her relationship with John… and the fact that a version of him was her ex… she probably would have a unique view of him and what he represents, even more so than any of the other kids—Aside from Vrissy, of course.

And to THAT end… considering some of the things Vriska is bringing up, it makes me realize that Harry Anderson himself is in a unique position among the new generation—his parents came from the GAME OVER!timeline, which saw a lot of messed up stuff happen. And crazy things involving the retcon powers.

 -It’s nice to know that John’s multitude of hammers has been donated to museums.

 -It’s equally nice to see that Harry Anderson does seem to be genuinely worried about his dad’s mental health at the moment, in regards to epiphanies and things, and how he will react to the situation given his current mental state. …it’s also both sweet and sad that he’s worried about John leaving again. …Hopefully he never has to come into contact with the John who is currently a corpse in Terezi’s possession.

 -Ha ha… His ring tone is hilarious.

 -Yep, it makes sense that Vrissy would feel a little jealous/insecure about Vriska and Harry Anderson talking—especially since we’ve already seen how things go when this version of Vriska interacts with other versions of herself (though Vrissy isn’t really a Vriska in the same way—she’s a descendant, sure, but I don’t think she’s like a straight up clone or anything, so even beyond the whole “nature vs. nurture” debate the alt!selves have in general, the situation is still vastly different.)

 -It’s cute to see Vrissy and Tavros flirting, and being supportive of each other in their own ways and within the healthy boundaries/expectations of a blackrom relationship. And Tavros’ empathy is great in general.

 -Yep—it’s clear to see where Vrissy got her genes from.

 -Hm… I wonder who those mysterious figures are… if they’re Jane’s agents, then she works really fast!

 -Aw… John told his son he’s proud of him. And then basically acknowledged how he was acting like his own dad/finally understood how his own dad felt whenever he said that to John. The use of all capital letters was a nice touch.

 -…And now I’m wondering if Harry Anderson shares his dad’s allergies… also if Tavros does.

 -Okay, that’s not quite the take I thought John would have on the situation, but it was still great nonetheless. The nod to Weekend at Bernie’s was also good.

 -Oh, okay, I had thought it was a bit longer since Dad Crocker had died. But I guess not—so I guess that answers my question about whether or not Tavros knew.

 -Oh, okay, those mysterious figures were reporters. That’s… still not great, but better than I was expecting. …Though that mention of secret police is not encouraging.

 -It’s nice that John is being so encouraging and helpful towards his son, here.

 -…Are the chairs on Rose and Kanaya’s ship supposed to be reminiscent of cats? Because they sure remind me of cats. She and Kanaya also look pretty cool from the back! I love Rose’s hair.

 -…At least, I loved it from the back. From the front it looks kind of weird… probably because Rose has no visible ears. Still, though, their expressions are excellent—it’s clear to see just how concerned they are for their daughter’s safety. And that shade of lipstick on Kanaya is nice, as is the way it matches Rose’s jacket.

-It’s also pretty hilarious how everyone’s feelings about/dislike for Gamzee are pretty much universal.

 -Oh look, it’s Jade. Hi, Jade!

 -…Who was Yiffy, again?

 -Oh, good, everyone else is equally confused about that. And once again have some excellent and hilarious expressions.

[laurasauras]

What do you think Homestuck believes in?

g, i love you, your interest in me infodumping is honestly such a delight. i can sometimes feel like i’m talking way too much, but you always make me feel special, it’s lovely!

this is long, so i’m going to use a cut. i’m so sorry, mobile users. blame tumblr. tl;dr? i think homestuck believes in love, hope, and fighting even when the stakes seem insurmountable. 

so there’s a lot of like “core themes” in homestuck, but “what homestuck believes in” is such a lovely and specific way to phrase it, so i’m gonna go with what i think the most important ones are. 

firstly: love. and more specifically, all love. 

look, there are romantic parts of homestuck. and they’re often show-stopping.

(also homestuck does visual callbacks very well, there’s a reason that these two scenes are composed the same way.)

but the core of the story is these four kids, all of them starting from a state of isolation. they don't have "real friends", they feel disconnected from their guardians, they feel disconnected from everyone in the world they walk around in, but they go online and they have each other. and they're constantly joking and making fun of each other, but they're also checking in almost every time they achieve something, as if grounding their friends in their real life.

the story keeps progressing and getting more and more complicated, but it can never quite overshadow the beauty of the pesterlog conversations between friends.

i think that's a large part of what the audience of homestuck connects with—that feeling of connection online and the support that the characters give each other. 

i also think that a lot of the time, the friendships and familial relationships in homestuck were given the same—if not more—importance as the romantic relationships, which is fucking uncommon to see in media! almost every character has to come to terms with how their upbringing shaped them, and you know what? that's the same of almost every person.

the conversation between dirk and dave before the final battle is one of the most important and touching moments of the whole story! two of the characters most concerned with their adherence to masculinity and appearing Too Cool For Emotions talk about their feelings and trauma before hugging it out. and it doesn't further the plot, it isn't part of the hero's romantic arc, but it's vital. 

the second big thing i think homestuck believes in is the importance of doing what is right. in being a hero.

homestuck positions john and his friends as the main characters selected by the universe to play sburb and literally ascends them to god status.

they're empowered by destiny! they're going to beat the game, conquer the worst villain ever and bring humanity and trollkind back from extinction AND their new world isn't going to be under the tyranny of a genocidal fish alien!

but that empowerment is also a disempowerment. 

look at how frequently dave falls into the reluctant hero trope. fate fucking kicks them around. when they are so destined to do all that stuff, can they really be said to have free will? and when they do seem to make a wrong choice in relation to their destiny, it's either something that furthers the plot OR it creates a doomed timeline and they're usually killed horribly. 

and it's a story that is constantly reminding us that it's a story! you can definitely lose yourself in homestuck, you can zone into it and accept the rules and just read it as if it's a reasonable reality, but i don't think it was ever written that way, or when it is, i think that that's a result of hussie accidentally getting into the story as well!

like okay, we start off with this:

that's fucking bonkers. he's 13 and he doesn't have a name? but of course it's bullshit, it’s just a cool homestuck thing. because we never get a conversation that goes:

TG: so the big 13

TG: you get a name yet

EB: yup! let me formally introduce myself as john!

TG: i give that name 4/5 hats

no, dave just immediately calls john by his name. and likewise, until we're introduced to the other characters and learn their names, they're referred to by their handle abbreviations, but the second they're introduced it's first name basis time. because it's a story and our perception is what matters most.

then we have the ridiculous intermission, that starts out as what dave sees when he goes to mspa.com and which resembles problem sleuth enough that i almost thought it was just that, but then seemed to be an entirely new adventure, and then became a pretty vital subplot!

and then we have the author literally climbing into the story and we watch him type it. Don't Forget This Is All Written By Me!

the website changes format, there are the meta jokes, there's the way that caliborn raises the same complaints to hussie about the story being too long and confusing that some members of the fandom were. there's the way that pantskat happened! or they drastic changes in artstyle, often because someone else was drawing a panel!

so like, we've got these characters who seem to have goals that they've developed of their own volition and who seem to have their own ways of going about achieving them, who at times even act contrarily to how hussie says he wants them to act (remember how he attempted to propose to/revive vriska and how both she and caliborn at different times type into the narrative prompt "instead of" hussie) but of course ultimately! he wrote every word!

they don't have free will, they don't even exist! but on a different level, which any writer can understand, once you as an author have established a character, you trap yourself into writing them consistently, which can mean that while something might be best for the plot, the character metaphorically crosses their arms in your head and goes "i would literally never do that."

some characters of homestuck become aware that they are and we know they are, but most of them don't think that, they think that they're just living the life they have.

how the fuck are his characters supposed to go about their days when their author finds it funny to block their path with a giant bust of snoop dogg? and when they work for pages and pages and pages to get around whatever asinine thing andrew fucking hussie (or worse! his fans!) has come up with, there's another obstacle and maybe there's not even a point anyway!

how do you not just dismiss it as something like "hes just being weird/an asshole/etc”?

yeah, look, he might just be having a laugh. but so to might god. 

sometimes you're walking along and something really stupid happens and it makes you for a second want to believe in god so that you can stare at the sky and say "really." :|

think about why detective stories are so popular. they give the illusion that if you're clever enough, if you collect the right data and link it together, you can trace back exactly what happened and solve impossible riddles and make sense of the world. you meet a man who has dust on his knees and you can deduce that he's been sneaking down to the basement of the shop he works at to tunnel into the bank next door. there's nothing magic about it, watson, it's just good detective work.

and we neeeeed that lie! but you know how it works in the real world? in the real world, police are baffled at a crime scene until a decade later someone discovers the fingerprints belonged to a fucking KOALA! that's more ridiculous than a snoop dogg bust in a hallway, or most of the other things hussie has written.

i think like that's a huge message behind the epilogues too, because john figures out he's in a story in candy and everything feels pointless.

but if that's the world he lives in, that's the world he fucking lives in. there's nothing pointless about living.

and i think that clicks for him towards the end when he talks to roxy and then rose. rose actually thanks him for choosing a path that allowed her to have the life she had, because she loves her wife and daughter. like it's insane, but she's happy, that's the life she lived and she doesn't want a more sensible one.

so what happens to us when we get that feeling like the world is pointless? 

(which is A Major Fucking Side Effect Of Depression BTW and i still stand by my interpretation that ALL of john's shit can be put down to his depression, which is what makes it interesting)

for a generation with fucking terrifying levels of mental illness, when we start feeling like the world is too crazy and the odds are too high, and there's fucking war happening and our friends aren't even guaranteed to be on our side?

we just fucking fight anyway.

because we live in the world we live in and we just have to be grateful that we are who we are because of that.

every character in homestuck chooses this, again and again, so i have to read that as hopeful. alpha dave and rose knowing who hic is and that their kids are so far away? still gonna fucking fight and fight LOUDLY even though they know it won't change things. (on top of the fucking white house, in case the political allegory was too subtle lmao.)

there are so many messages in homestuck and honestly i feel like i’ve barely scraped the surface of them. but what does homestuck believe in? i feel that in my heart. homestuck believes in love and in doing what is right, even when it’s hard to figure out what right is, even when you might not make a difference. 

homestuck is good, actually.

[ardenttheories]

On Princes and Knights

There is a significant connection, within the comic, between our canon Knights and Princes - certain parallels that intrinsically intertwine and affect both parties. As an in the works theory, and something I cooked up while wandering around the house, I’m tentatively suggesting that the best way to handle a Prince is to provide him with a Knight, and the best way to heal a Knight is to have him work on a Prince. 

In Homestuck, we see two significant Knight-Prince matchups; Dirk and Dave, and Karkat and Eridan. There is a lot more focus on Dirk and Dave, and thus we will start with them and focus primarily on their connections, but there is something to be said about the latter pair as well - predominantly “what if”s, but evidenced ones. 

It has always been of my opinion that Princes must be surrounded by people in order to grow. It is when they are isolated or alone - such as during the Epilogues, when Dirk actively isolates himself prior to losing his shit; or during Act 5, when Feferi not only dumps Eridan (who otherwise has no-one else he is close to), but refuses to be his friend - that their negative attributes come to the fore. These moments of isolation are all it takes for the Prince to fall into the trap of his Class, and lose himself to the destructive nature of it. 

When surrounded by people, it becomes easier for Princes to remember why they can’t blindly destroy. They can’t justify “a means to an end” when they can actively recognise that their efforts would seriously hurt the people they love. Consider Dirk’s development from the puppetmaster to an active team member; he openly talks about his friends, what he thinks (in a positive way) of them, and how good they are as people more and more throughout this transition. He wants to avoid destruction as much as possible for fear of the harm he’ll cause to them - of the harm he was causing when he wasn’t keeping himself in check. 

A Prince without this backup starts to lose his sense of connection. He might, to some degree, start to lose his sense of reality on a personal level; like we see in the Epilogues, after his isolation Dirk has no qualms of spearheading the narrative and driving it towards his own goals. He sees them as people he loves, yes, but they lose their humanity to him. He no longer worries about stepping over the boundaries, even to the degree of completely ruining Jake’s character for the sake of petty revenge, and tries to force Dave to kiss Karkat before he leaves. This is not the work of a man who recognises the people around him as real, living things.

However, I think there might be more to it than that. Princes need people around them to tether them down to reality and remind them what they hold back for, yes - but I think they might also need a Knight to hammer the point home. 

This is where we come to Dirk and Dave.

Dirk and Dave share Aspect themes. Dirk is the Alternate Universe self of Bro; this is a Time-related phenomenon as well as a Space-related one, and essentially makes Dirk a “younger” Bro - a Bro back in Time. Likewise, the connection of them being brothers (or, more aptly, father and son) provides the Heart-based connection between the two. While it certainly leans into the realm of literal Blood, the fact that Bro is, in essence, a splinter of Dirk, stands more prominent - as well as Dave’s more Heart-aligned disposition (how much more emotional he tends to be, how romance plays a significant part in his life/development).

This connection becomes more apparent when the two of them have their rooftop talk. When Dave talks to Dirk, it’s about what Bro did, and thus what he went through. This is a conversation that heals them both. 

Dirk’s constant struggle throughout Homestuck is the inevitability of his destructive nature. His splinters, what they say about him, his actions, whether or not he’s a good person, and how he can do good if he’s so obviously bad. Talking to Dave about Bro shows him exactly what the extent of his negative nature is; an abusive man bridled with Rage and toxic masculinity that is completely blind to the harm he causes for the benefits that wait at the end. He even admits that it’s refreshing to be presented all of his flaws so critically, and it gives him the chance to reflect on that in a healthy way.

It also provides Dirk with the opportunity to actively say “wow, that’s really fucking bad, and you never should have gone through that”. To admit that Alpha Dave was an inspiration to him, and that he’s glad he had that inspiration, but that there’s a disconnect from the people they were that is good for them. That they don’t need to be those people now, and it’s for the better. That he’s glad he was told all of this by Dave - someone he has a good relationship with, and who he connects to good things.  

This moment gives Dirk the worse-case scenario. It shows him what he could become without him actually becoming it - and it gives him the resolve to never, ever become what Bro became. It gives him the chance to work this through with someone he deeply cares about - someone who’s always played an important role in his life and upbringing - in a way that he admits lets him do it healthily, properly, without the self deprecation. 

In turn, it gives Dave a chance to work through everything he’s never truly spoken about to the person it most relates to. It’s his way of accusing Bro without actually accusing him; of facing his abuser without being in danger; of telling him it was fucked up and being validated for saying it. 

It also provides Dave with the confirmation that he doesn’t need to be some grand hero to be worth something. Alpha Dave was a hero, was grand, was cool - but the takeaway from that conversation is that Dave is just as good, if not better, than Alpha Dave to Dirk. That he’s real in a way Alpha Dave was not, and that, despite everything he’s been through, he’s come out the other side significantly stronger than anyone would have ever thought. That, to at least one version of Bro, he’s worth something more. 

This conversation is vital to their character arcs. It shows Dirk slipping into the role of the Realised Prince, and Dave into the role of the Realise Knight. 

I thus posit that every Prince must have an associative Knight, and that part of their growth is the acceptance of themselves through one another. 

It’s no coincidence that the Knight and Prince happen to be in the perfect position to help one another, imbued with the Aspect of the other. Dirk is exactly what Dave needs to heal as a person, and Dave is exactly what Dirk needs to reject his future potential. Had this conversation not taken place, with them in these exact circumstances - and with them holding such specific Classpects - Dave may never have gotten closure, and Dirk may not have become so self-aware. After all, it’s their specific connection as alternate universe brothers and Dave’s specific Heart-based struggles that make this work so well.  

Knights face trials and tribulations at the hands of highly destructive forces - forces that their Princes represent. Knights also have a duty to Protect their Aspect - which influences the Prince significantly. 

What we see here, then, is a Knight standing up against the representative of the thing that caused him to pull up his facade, and a Prince being protected from the concept he struggles with most. 

This intrinsic connection is deeply important. If we assume that Knights and Princes are made to reflect one another, then a Prince will almost always represent that which the Knight fears most, and the Knight will represent everything the Prince needs to accept. 

(Again, using Dirk and Dave, that means their Classpects and situations were specifically engineered by SBURB to ensure that Dirk, as a Prince of Heart, held the potential to be the destructive force that Bro was in order for Dave to safely stand up against the memory of Bro, and that Dave, as a Knight of Time, was able to show Dirk that his various selves are not predictions of the future)

This is thus where we turn to Karkat and Eridan. 

Eridan is a representative to everything that Karkat is fearful of, and has suffered because of; blood, the hemospectrum, and specifically, murderous highbloods in positions of power (especially those that are steadfastly against progression). 

In return, Karkat within the comic acts as a last Hope to Eridan. Their interactions, though brief, often come down to the same thing; Karkat helps Eridan feel Hope in the ways that everyone else neglects, and remains a single, strong bond post-Feferi that even he refuses to destroy (Karkat is, after all, the only troll that Eridan doesn’t kill during his “rampage”, despite him being frozen in fear the entire time).

Karkat is exactly what Eridan needed to be a better troll. Eridan suffered a severe disconnect between his true self and his outer self, and while that chimes true with Heart, a lot of the reason behind his disconnect was because of his inability to Bond with people. 

His Hope had previously been destroyed by his friends laughing at his Belief, and he never truly recovered from it to form the sorts of Bonds he needed to become a Realised Prince. Arguably, he may never have had those Bonds to begin with - and instead of trying to form Bonds that could become useful to him and his understanding of the real world, he isolated himself among his theatrics and Historical dramas in an attempt to become something he thought would command respect. 

Standing as a facsimile of the old ways of Alternia, Eridan would have been safe for Karkat to stand up against in order to fully transition into his Realised state. Likewise, being both a lowblood and a mutant, Karkat would have been in a perfect position to challenge Eridan’s views and help him regain his Hope - as well as more than capable of teaching Eridan how to form new Bonds.

Part of the reason this never comes into fruition is the Failed nature of their session. None of them except for Vriska manage to attain God Tier, and they don’t fully grow by the time they initially finish the game. There was simply no chance for them to viably reach this point, as much of this growth occurs within the Meteor; either Eridan would have had to live much longer than he did, or this development would have had to happen within their session - and thus, the session would have had to have lasted longer. Or maybe Hussie should have just focused on it in more detail.  

Much like Dave and Dirk, Eridan and Karkat likewise share Aspect themes. Hope is as prevalent in Karkat as Blood is within Eridan. The things they represent perfectly reflect one another - and may actually be why, when I first read the comic, I thought they were going to become moirails. This Prince/Knight combination has a natural coexistence that seems akin to moirailegence, and may even be engineered this way by SBURB to ensure that there is some way for a Knight to stand up and a Prince to step down that is beneficial (and healthy) for both, as well as natural (as in, not forced by a Sylph). 

And, on a lesser note, since this came to mind: Latula, as a Knight of Mind, would have been the perfect foil to Kurloz as a Prince of Rage. Someone who is specifically brainwashed alongside someone whose Classpect focuses entirely on the protection of the Mind? Had more come out of them, I can definitely imagine Latula being able to help Kurloz slip away from that harmful mindset (and his assistance to Lord English), while Kurloz would provide her with the Rage-based determination to reveal her true self. 

In essence, since this came out weirdly wordy and pretentious,

Our canon Knights and Princes have an odd Aspect connection that makes them perfect for helping one another. Their circumstances reflect perfectly what the other needs to grow - the force that the Knight struggles against, and the concept the Prince needs to understand/accept - in a safe and healthy way. Their connection is likely facilitated by SBURB, and specific Knight/Prince Classpects are likely assigned in such a way that a Knight and a Prince will always be able to help one another. 

Whether or not they do, or are able to, help one another is entirely up to the session itself, but nonetheless it seems always present as an option. 

[themockingcrows]

The Esteemed Guest Switch

Now that reveals happened and I’m leeching a wifi signal for a few minutes... time to crosspost this! Written for Polyswap 2019! Also available on my AO3 under the same name.

Ship: Rose/Dirk/Dave in all configurations.

This fic is VERY NSFW.

tags: Praise Kink, Pegging, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Oral Sex, Dom/sub, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M, Light Mommy Kink, Scratching, Spanking, Dirty Talk, Rope Bondage, Power Play, Trust, Rough Kissing, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Established Relationship, Incest, Spitroasting, Breathplay, Femdom

While all three are in love, normally Rose and Dirk share Dave and keep interactions between themselves on more even ground. Both Strider and LaLonde love to be in charge and the idea of yielding isn't one that's come up between them thanks to Dave being the happiest sub in the world between their combined affections. Yet is it possible that Dirk could like more than he knows? Perhaps he and Dave aren't so different after all, at least with Rose calling the shots.

                                               - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Separately was how Dave was used to dealing with Rose and Dirk romantically. They were each a larger than life personality, and each wanted a certain amount of control that he was more than happy to give, especially behind closed doors where each of them wanted his undivided attention and focus. It hadn’t taken long for them to agree on the setup of spending plenty of time together as a group but dividing up the romantic side. Dave had more than enough affection to give in a lot of directions and needed just as much attention back to feel fulfilled and happy, sometimes far more than a single person would be capable of giving especially if they were busy or distracted with other important things. Between their schedules and the tides of their own needs and wants, the schedules just sort of formed naturally between the three of them. Dave was a planet traveling in a circle between Dirk’s star and Rose’s silvery moon.

    Maybe the fact that Rose and Dirk were so alike was what helped the trio function so well, one person leaving just as the next came over wanting someone to lay on and cuddle while they had their hair played with. Even in the bedroom they exuded similar methods, albeit with very different energies guiding their actions. They each had a firm hand and high expectations of him, each had similar desires though not always in a conventional sense. Rose was usually a solid presence who alternated between sweet and tender and putting Dave through his paces before giving a reward that tended to veer towards being allowed to eat her out or to actually fuck her, or getting to pick what she would be pegging him senseless with. Dirk was a little harder to nail down. The methods were there, but the energy was different. He couldn’t seem to make up his mind on what he wanted out of some of their encounters from the feel of the directions. The stern hand softened in the heat of the moment, and many times he wound up putting Dave through his paces as a service top or with any other number of rewards. The treats were easier to obtain: Dirk was never as rough as Rose was.

    Dave, being Dave, couldn’t help but bring it up by accident when they were all sprawled out on the sofa together half paying attention to a terrible movie that nobody had enough opinion about to summon the energy of pulling out the remote to click away from. He lay sprawled across both their laps like an overgrown cat, head on Rose’s thighs and legs resting over Dirk’s legs so one gloved hand rested leisurely on the curve of his hip and ass. A yarn ball gently twitched against the small of his back as Rose clacked her knitting needles steadily, eyes trained on the screen and fingers moving without much more than a second thought to where she was on the line numerically. It was too easy to fuck something this calm up, especially for someone with as much raw chaotic energy as Dave. One second he’d been chattering about the villain being a dumbass, then he’d made Top Energy joke, then a dom joke, and then just to fully stuff his foot into his mouth he just had to look back at Rose specifically to ask her if it was familiar.

    Not both of them.

    Not Dirk.

    Rose first and foremost. Rose alone.

    “Excuse me?” said Dirk, leaning forward and resting his folded arms on Dave’s legs with enough pressure to indicate it was meant to be a pinning maneuver, tipping his head to show that he was trying to meet his eye behind the dual layers of shades. Oh, no, there was no escaping from him now. “Think my name got dropped by accident back there, Dave.”

    “You may need to get your ears checked, Dirk, he wasn’t talking about you at all,” Rose offered with a helpful smirk, setting the knitting project to the back of the sofa safely before using both hands to stroke at Dave’s upper back and hair affectionately. “Dave was talking about tops and doms, an aficionado would be best to ask for verification.”

    Dave felt heat rising on his face and a chill run down his back at the tone of her voice. Dirk had bristled almost immediately, although it’d be hard for anyone to tell just from looking at him. He’d twitched briefly, tensed his jaw and relaxed it like a horse chewing at a bit while he contemplated just what angle to attack from. A challenge that blatant couldn’t be ignored, not from his own flesh and blood especially.

    This could not stand.

    “My ears are fine after all then. Though I wonder as to Dave’s taste and sense of refinement if he considers whatever you do to be the sign of a better dom.” His gloved hand slid to Dave’s thigh and kneaded like a steady massage, the squeeze possessive and the downward press continuing to cement the idea that Dave was meant to stay where he was.  It was familiar, the same heavier touch that would grasp his ass and hoist him up into position against a wall or pin him down on a mattress. It felt rougher now, purposeful without the tinge of lust that usually accompanied it, and entirely directed at Rose despite not being placed upon her body.

    “Whatever I do..?” she asked. Perfectly applied lipstick only served to accentuate the tug upwards at the edges of her mouth, lips full and pretty and absolutely petty in the moment. A cat with the biggest bowl of cream all for herself. They were playing hard ball already, and since Dirk was the opponent in the play fight Rose knew not to hold a single punch. Going for the throat was what would make it most fun. “Why Dirk, I guess it makes sense you wouldn’t understand what I do. A bottom desperately playing the part of a top can only do so much. After all, it’s all a front on your end isn’t it?”

    The room was silent enough that Dave was concerned that his family could hear his thoughts, or at least the pitch at which he was screaming them in his head. A long, unending stream of “ Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ” between his ears that neither rose nor fell, nor was affected by breath or the lack thereof. Jesus fucking tapdancing Christ this was why he never brought up bedroom bullshit when they were all in the same room. Well. Not entirely why. Mostly he never brought it up because aside from both already enjoying their power trips, they were both competitive to a fault and he didn’t want to deal with being stuck in the middle of their bullshit. It was so much easier for Dave to just be the happy sponge and savor the private time in each direction to the fullest rather than let the two of them puff up and posture at each other.

    There was love there, so much love, but it definitely had a mean streak to it. Honestly if they could just make out or fuck each other and get over it already it’d be for the better in Dave’s eyes. Cut through building tension in the quickest way possible, get to the core of the issue, and wake up on the other side in a tangled heap with a clearer head. Sometimes you just needed to fuck it out. However the same problem would no doubt arise, because of fucking course it would: who would top. Who would lead. Two doms enter a room, one walks out, and Dave already knew in his heart it’d be Rose doing the walking.

    At some point during his registering his internal monologue of toneless screams, both Dirk and Rose had begun staring at him, hoping for some kind of answer to a question he’d apparently missed. Fuck. Shit. Dave cleared his throat and curled himself a little tighter, knees lifting towards his stomach and gaze stubbornly shifting to the television screen once more.

    “Come again? Sorry, I wasn’t listenin’.”

    “Obviously,” Dirk said. “I don’t blame you though, most of it was bullshit.”

    “Spoken like a true bottom,” Rose crooned at him wickedly, savoring how he was actually frowning at her now instead of keeping a perfect poker face. He was showing the faintest of cracks, giving her directions on precisely how to tease him in ways that affected him, and Dave could already read the writing on the wall. He felt a cool hand slip beneath his shirt and stroke along the side of his ribs before reaching up towards his throat, clasping and applying just enough pressure to make him go entirely still for her out of habit. Dave felt his pulse grow hot against the expanse of her fingertips. “We were asking for your opinion on each of us, given your predisposition. If Dirk and I can’t agree about our roles, we can at least all agree with yours. You respond so well to both of us... But do you have a preference?”

    “Oh, fuck no, you are not pinnin’ that kinda pressure on me. If ya’ll wanna have beef with each other you can have as much Grade A premium as you want without draggin’ me into the thick of it,” Dave insisted as he decided to make a break for it, hands upon him or not. He shifted his weight and rolled off of his lovers legs like a log, thumping on the floor unevenly once Rose retracted her hand and scooting backwards on his ass to gain a bit of distance. The terrible movie droned on behind his head till he turned to click the damn thing off, wanting to be able to hear himself think more than he wanted to hear a half assed villain monologuing.

    “Easy, easy, we weren’t going to put you on the spot that seriously,” Dirk insisted as he stood up, dusting at his pants and the bottom edge of his shirt out of habit. Rose stood up at the same time and moved her knitting from the back of the couch to the side of it on the floor to keep it out of potential harm’s way. No sense in losing stitches after all. “It was more of a casual question.”

    “Man if you’re so curious what each other’s like in bed why not just do the routine?” Dave asked, bumping his fists together with a frustrated frown for emphasis. “Like. I can vouch if you really want me to, ya’ll are both fantastic. You’re just..”

    “Just what?” Dirk pressed.

    “..Different,” he explained. “Like. I can eat the same meal with the same recipe from two different places and it’ll be familiar but still different ‘cause it’s made by different people? Sometimes there’s extra touches and stuff thrown in on top of the familiar but that ain’t the point. My view’s gonna be pretty predictable and won’t make much of a difference ‘cause I ain’t choosin’ between you two even if you fuckin’ paid me to. Why not just cut out the middleman and just experience it.”

    Rose pursed her lips as if seriously considering the option, but Dirk seemed frustrated all over again.

    “That’ll defeat the entire point, Dave. You’re the one with experience of the both of us, if we dove in and did the top swap bullshit it’d prove nothing.”

    “You sound pretty sure of yourself,” Rose said suddenly. “Why not just do it then? I mean, what is there to lose? I love you and Dave equally, and I’d like to show you what I mean. It’d be an experience and then we’d be able to swap and see if there’s any other preferences. Perhaps even just pick up extra tricks we each could use. Think... sexy business meeting with our experienced sub and guest switch.”

    Dave flicked his gaze between Rose and Dirk several times, but he already knew what was happening without needing to see. She was so calm, so certain, prepared with logic and explanations aplenty even as Dirk was prepared to cross them with twenty more. They were staring each other down then, Rose smiling softly and Dirk stiff as a board with arguments on his lips unable to come out, playing a game of chess without needing to make a single movement. If he backed down or tried to insist she go first there were ways to argue it that would either circle back around or which would be logically sound and stand there only to make him sound like a bitch if he backed down. Dirk had dug the beginning of his own grave with his love of debate and choosing to go against the offspring that could give as good as she gave.

    The staredown finally ended as Dirk slowly exhaled and relaxed his posture, slipping his hands into his pockets to signal the dance had ended and he was relenting.

    “Fine. Example sub with guest switch. Ladies first?”

    “Oh, hardly,” Rose said as she closed the gap between them to press her fingertips against Dirk’s chest, smoothing the fabric upwards when she leaned closer to press her lips to his cheek. “I’d rather give you time to consider your counter examples. I’ve nothing to hide and I’m prepared, so I may as well take the riskier position since I brought the idea up in the first place. You know. So you could maybe stand a chance of impressing me, I mean.”

    Dirk lifted his chin subtly, ignoring the faint ghost of shadow left behind from the black coating Rose’s lips that now graced his skin. He wasn’t used to being challenged like this, not directly. Not on this level. He flicked his eyes away from Rose’s to look at Dave as he slowly stood up off the floor and dusted at his thighs out of habit, standing by at the ready without even needing to be told.

    ...Fuck, maybe this was actually going to be more of a challenge than anticipated.

    “Dave. Are you ready?” Rose asked as she pulled her hands free of Dirk’s body and turned open armed towards her brother, grin bright and cheerful as a Rose LaLonde smile could be. Dave, used to fucking a predator by this point in his life, nodded and moved to take his shirt off. “Ah ah. Nope. Not out here, I’m not interested in messing up the sofa or needing to pause to get supplies. My room instead. Shoo, both of you. And shades off once you get in there!”

    Stretching without a care in the world, Dave left their cluster and sauntered off for Rose’s room with Dirk bringing up the rear once he realized Rose wasn’t going to be walking at the same pace at all. She’d headed to the kitchen instead to rummage around for something or other that was supposedly important for this example session and would presumably be turning up shortly after them both.

    Rose’s room was painted a soft grayish lavender, more somber than pastel and well matched with the dark colored trappings and coverings she’d collected over the years. Her room was a mishmash of gothic aesthetics and geek chic with a pile of clean laundry adorning her floordrobe and a bra slung over her laptop which guarded several empty cans that ranged from coffee to energy drink to an orange soda she’d filched from Dirk days before and a few mugs that needed washing. The bed was made at least, and the floor more than clear enough to work with. Dave casually scooted a few stray things out of the floor just in case, kicking a few plushies and toeing shoes under the edge of her bed so the carpet was more inviting.

    “This is so stupid.. Is she doing this on purpose?” Dirk asked.

    “Doin’ what.”

    “Half assing presentation,” Dirk said. “This just feels sloppy. I mean, the room isn’t even clean.”

    “As if yours ever is.”

    “...That’s not the point, it’d be spotless if it was for proving something.”

    “Spite fuels you cleanin’ your shit up, huh?” Dave asked as he took a seat on Rose’s bed and flopped backwards. He took his shades off and folded them to tuck on the bedside table before lifting a brow at Dirk. “How much spite would it take to fill the dishwasher once in a while.”

    “Dave.”

    “Or vacuum or somethin’?”

    “Dave.”

    “If Rose shoves enough spite up your lubed ass will you suddenly go all ‘50s housewife with the pearls and the heels and the casserole dishes? I dunno man it could be a look, borrow some shit from Jane, get a manicure, stop bein’ a fuckin’ gremlin for ten whole seconds-”

    “Is this just a game to you??”

    “No and yeah.”

    “You don’t get both, which is it.”

    Dave sighed and pressed his hands to his face before slipping one off so he could pat the mattress beside himself as a signal for Dirk to sit down and join him.

    “Look. I’m poking fun at you because you’re bein’ a dick about this. It’s sex. It’s supposed to be fun. If you go in fighting you’re gonna have a shit time and act like it’ll prove your point when really all it proves is you’re a bitch who can’t let people have nice things.” Dave frowned at him when Dirk opened his mouth to retort. “Hey. No. No, right off the bat. I’d be sayin’ this to Rose too if she was gonna turn up to your turn being a bitch too. Just give it a fair shot, okay? Fair as you’d want anyone to give you.”

    “I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to do the puppy dog eyes when you’re trying to convince me to be a good little boy in this weird ass scenario, Dave. I wouldn’t even be doing this if not for you,” he said as he took off his shades, setting them by Dave’s with a sigh.

    “Yeah?”

    “Yep. I’m not expecting to be impressed. Rose is every bit myself as I’m her in some ways, so I’m expecting something I suppose, but one thing I’m sure is you were telling the truth before about enjoying yourself with both of us.” He smirked. “I’ll get to see you getting wrecked without having to lift a single finger.”

    “Voyeurism. Lazy voyeurism.”

    “Said as if you’re surprised. Dave, how well do you know me?” Dirk asked as he reached an arm out to catch Dave’s torso, tugging him closer for a squeeze.

    Dave hummed, stone faced as he was hugged, apparently lost in thought. “Y’know I thought I knew you really well but I just realized I dunno how a cuck joke in its natural habitat’d fly with you, so I guess we’re good as strangers.”

    Dirk snorted a soft laugh near his ear that made his chest warm, and it hit home just how they were positioned. Close together, holding on like climbing vines to one another on a soft topped bed with what promised to be great sex on the horizon. Dave held still for a moment, another heartbeat, a third, before lifting his chin up to kiss him square on the mouth. Their lips parted before rejoining a second time, but by the third it was growing hungrier. Dirk slipped his hand up beneath Dave’s shirt and shifted to roll him to his back as Dave slicked his fingers up into Dirk’s hair and tugged gently. They parted and came together in the heat of the moment several times more, unheeding of their feminine surroundings ���til the room’s owner joined them in the room quietly to watch.

    Rose smiled at the tangle of lanky limbs on her bed and quietly walked over to her desk to pull out the computer chair, spinning it so it faced the bed. A wine glass was settled on the closed laptop lid rather than risk making noise by disturbing any of the debris she kept putting off cleaning up, bra deposited on the floor out of the way. Sinking down into the chair she adjusted her grip on the chilled bottle she held and slipped a corkscrew into the stopper, gently swirling it down into the pithy cork till it was firmly stuck in place. Another turn of her wrist and the bottle was slipped easily against her side, steadying her grip with the arms of the corkscrew before giving it a hard yank to free the cork with a pop. The way the boys scrambled in surprise and sat up looking around like two teens whose parents just opened the front door an hour early was absolutely precious.

    “Eager, huh? The way you were talking just a bit ago made me wonder how interested you really were in following through with this,” she said as she poured a bit of the soft pink liquid into the glass. The bottle was set beneath the desk where it wouldn’t potentially be overturned by mistake before she swirled her cup. “Dave, go tidy yourself up and get ready real quick. Dirk can go after you’re done.”

    “All off or..?” Dave asked as he rested on his elbows, waiting for Dirk to crawl off of him the rest of the way before rising to his feet. The way he had to adjust his jeans to relieve the pressure was as attractive as the flush that had settled onto his cheeks.

    “All off this time,” said Rose as she took a sip. “Thank you for asking. Run along now.”

    Dirk steadily knee walked backwards till Dave could slip free, leaving him to sit on his feet in silence on the mattress once he and Rose were alone. No music. No sound but breathing and the occasional sounds from the bathroom as Dave did as he’d been told. Orange eyes glanced over to stare for a few moments, waiting for some kind of a clue, some sign he wasn’t picking up on. Rose gave him nothing but burning eyes beneath relaxed lids and the gentle curve of her lips.

    “So. You’ve got this all planned?”

    “Mhmm. I admit I thought you two might last a little longer before nearly fucking on my bed, but with how much tension there was in the air just before this it’s my own fault for not assuming you’d do just that.” She took another sip of her drink before humming. “Was it just a moment of passion, or were you subtly snubbing me by doing that before I could even begin?”

    “Moment of passion brought on by a cuck joke,” he said with a straight face. The laugh he got in reply was a nice reminder that Rose was human, was still herself, was still playful underneath the flashes of dark flirting she’d done just earlier. “So. What are the ground rules here, for what’s going to happen.”

    “Straight forward, the same rules I use for Dave. I expect you to follow them, including the rule about tapping out if you need to,” she said, gesturing with her free hand as she spoke. “Traffic signals work best with us so that’s what I think would be best to stick with. Familiar, clear cut. The safe word is Puppets.”

    “....Puppets,” Dirk repeated. “Why the fuck is that the safe word.”

    “Because unlike you, at least from what I can gather based on your surprise, Dave isn’t the type to be waxing poetic about plush puppet ass while getting hammered by something large enough to make English an even more difficult language to grasp.”

    Dirk glowered like a wet cat and he felt the air spark between them again, acutely aware of the shifting pawn between them in play and just how much was weighing it down. There wasn’t much to really lose here. It wasn’t like a true gamble, they’d all be winning. It’d just be his pride that was bruised if Rose proved all the points he was becoming more and more certain she was wanting to not only prove but polish and place on the mantle for future generations to admire after it’d been cast in bronze.

    LaLondes.

    “Right,” he allowed. “What else, then. Give me the run down.”

    “Once Dave gets back you’ll be going to do the same thing he’s doing right now. Clean out, clean up, leave the clothes behind. We’ll hop right into it once you get back and we’re on the same page as far as preparations go. Dave’s example sub, and you’ll be following suit: namely by following instructions. ...At least to start with.”

    “How long do I need to follow instructions till the free will kicks in.”

    “Oh there’ll be wiggle room, relax,” she said as she took another sip. “Would you like some of this now? Or after you’re naked. Dave’ll have some too. I’d hate for you to be the odd one out because of a miscommunication simple as ‘hey do you want some of this sweet booze I’ve got or nah’.”

    “Do you normally drink when you do this?” Dirk asked, resting back on his hands to strike what he was fairly certain was a casual pose. “Considering how often we swap around that’d make for a lot more alcohol than I thought was ever in the house at the same time, or a lot of stealth liquor store runs.”

    “Hah. No, I don’t normally drink before sex. This is more of a special occasion than anything,” she explained. The glass was mostly empty now. Rose took a breath before tipping her head back and finishing the last few sips worth, then sat the glass back atop her laptop. She didn’t refill it right away, instead crossing her legs and settling her hands almost primly in her lap as if waiting for another question to float her way.

    Dirk watched the smooth lines of her legs intertwine, watched how her body curled to itself. It was a bit different than earlier when she was looking ready to eat him alive, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Was it the alcohol? No, she’d literally just drank it, there was no way it’d be affecting anything yet. It wasn’t enough to be hesitancy like fear. The uncertainty was almost enough to piss him off all over again, being given a rubix cube of bullshit when he was already dealing with the task at hand, but there wasn’t a chance to fret over it much. He heard the sound of the bathroom door clicking open down the hall and the creak of the floor as Dave made his way back.

    Practiced, poised looking steps took effect as soon as Dave crossed the threshold of Rose’s room, chin lifted and shoulders back instead of the usual slouch he relaxed into. This was a fairly practiced routine, or at least a habit that had been encouraged enough that it was second nature. He didn’t go to sit on the bed with Dirk once more, though it was pretty clear Dirk wanted to get his hands back on him, especially now that the clothes were out of the way and the half hard bit of dick was just sitting there like a present in full view. Dave headed towards the desk and the chair Rose was settled in, slipped down to his knees in front of hers, and leaned forward to rest his head on her lap like the overgrown lap dog he was at heart. She rewarded him with a few gentle strokes at his hair and down his back before looking up at Dirk, fonder, softer. She always loved the beginning, especially when Dave remembered things without even needing to be reminded.

    He worked so hard to do things right and to make her happy, to impress her. How could she not love that? Love him?

    “Your turn, Dirk. Same as we discussed,” she said before looking back down towards Dave, smile remaining soft as he tipped his head to chase the pressure of her fingers and nails so she’d keep stroking and scratching and petting in the best feeling spots. “We’ll be right here waiting for you to get back.”

    Dirk felt a little better for having seen that tenderness. Rose was gorgeous when she was all thorns and wit coming for his throat, but the gentler side was mesmerizing. The realization that there was a higher than zero percent chance that he’d wind up with her softly cooing and stroking at his hair same as she was to Dave right now made something flip in his stomach that, frankly, needed to fuck off. This wasn’t how bets were won and points were made. There was always time for being coddled and rewarded and praised in the future, when his pride wasn’t on the line. Fuck being a good little boy. He needed to be a good little switch, no matter how brief of a time he was meant to be one to prove this point.

    Tidying himself up was simple and straightforward once he reached the bathroom, no stranger to this kind of prep before play. Leaving behind the clothes to do the walk of shame to the bedroom instead of being able to saunter in with a plan in mind and the full attention of a really attractive man on his bed was a hell of a change though. He spent more than a little time looking into the mirror and fussing with hair that didn’t need fussing with, blowing time before finally giving in to fate and heading back to the hallway. Well. At least he’d gone flacci-

    ...Traitor.

    Fucking traitor of a dick.

    Of all the times to beg to be flaccid, why did it have to be now that he was pretty sure he was rolling from a halfie into an erection that would let him fuck a building. Maybe nobody’d point it out if he didn’t, give him the benefit of that.

    “I was starting to wonder if you’d chickened out,” Rose said the second he’d entered the room, making him stop and slouch before he caught himself. “Or gotten lost at least. Is that for both of us or just me?” she asked as she gestured for him to come over as well. Dave scooted an inch or two to the side before returning his head lazily to where it had been before to avoid missing a thing.

    “Both I guess. Take it as proof of my investment in this situation as opposed to any hint of me trying to sabotage anything,” Dirk said as he knelt down beside Dave and warily rested his chin on Rose’s lap.

    She wasted no time in laying a hand on him, gently stroking his hair back several times before applying more pressure with her fingertips at pressure points alongside his jaw and temple. It was like a one handed massage ranging from his head to his neck, and the longer it lasted the more Dirk was understanding why Dave seemed so happy to drop down and get his own. Every stroke was accompanied with soft murmuring in Rose’s warm voice. Gentle. Loving. Familiar but maternal in a way Dirk was unfamiliar with. Though tense at first there was no way to resist for long, not with Rose’s soothing movements and the warmth of Dave’s bare flesh against his side and his breath near his cheek.

    The soporific effects of a good petting were nearly enough to lul Dirk to a doze despite sitting seiza, leaving him to languidly lift his head when soft fingers beneath his chin lifted upwards. Rose smiled at both of them and nodded.

    “Good. You’re both doing amazing.. Are you ready to really start?”

    Dave hummed and stretched in place before nodding, eyes half closed. Dirk just watched her quietly, wondering how things would proceed. This was already extremely different from how he did things. ...If this was the intro, what was the aftercare like? Would they go hard enough to need aftercare? No, that was a stupid question, aftercare was important and he knew Rose was more than qualified to know something that basic.

    “Great. Dave, go get on the foot of the bed for me. Dirk, stand to the side and keep your hands to yourself,” she said in a sterner voice than the soft murmurings of moments before. When both had risen to do her bidding, Rose stood and rummaged beneath her bed for a flat storage box and slid the lid off. Along essential tools like lube and some massage oil rested handcuffs and a fairly new looking gag, a few lengths of silky black rope in neatly coiled loops, a well maintained strapon rig and several covered sizes and shapes of toys that would attach and several that would not. Dirk eyed the box closely for a moment before deciding the more interesting feature in the room was Dave settled on the bed spread with his gangly legs parted and a cocky grin on his face the second he caught him staring, a hand snaking down to grasp his dick and give it a playful jiggle.

    “Hands off yourself, Dave,” Rose said without even looking up. Her tone was sharp, stern, not to be argued with as she picked up one of the lengths of rope and settled a second one like an overly large bracelet on her wrist. Instantly Dave pulled his hand back and sighed.

    “Yes’m.”

    Rope in hand, Rose rounded on Dirk and lifted the first loop in display as she unfurled the end of it, wanting him to be aware of what was coming his direction. “Turn around and cross your wrists. You’ll be that way for a while, so pick a comfortable position. Traffic lights like we said before. If it’s really intense red suddenly and you need out immediately, I’ve got scissors.”

    No sooner had Dirk sighed and turned around, Rose had begun to slide the rope around his wrists and criss crossed up his arms. The silky cord slipped over the front of his throat before easing back down like a spiders web to cross his upper arms and chest. He hated to admit it, but her interlacing knot work was intricate and functionally attractive on top of being quickly applied. How often was Dave tied up for her to be this quick with it? He bent occasionally without needing to be asked so she could reach easier, straightening at the right times to ensure the ropes weren’t tight at an improper angle.

    “They feel a lil loose,” Dirk said when she’d begun unlooping and feeding in the second cord set, wiggling his arms for emphasis. “Not like it’ll fall off but.. I mean, if you want me to just keep my arms still it’ll work just fine. Could stand to be tighter and be plenty comfortable.”

    “I didn’t ask your opinion on my work, but it’s good to know you’re comfortable. Planning on fighting me?” she asked playfully as she tied a few knots, playing over the lacing along his back and sides. “Get on your knees.”

    Another twitch of his dick kept the early erection from flagging, though Dirk wasn’t sure if it was from the tone of Rose’s voice or the way Dave was biting his lip while staring at him. Dirk sank down to his knees on the carpet, tantalizingly close to Dave’s parted legs as it was before he felt something shift behind him. Rose pressed her foot squarely in the center of Dirk’s back and pulled the rope sharply, forcing him forward against Dave’s cock as the intertwined ropes cinched more firmly in place. He grunted and wiggled his fingers before testing the rest of his arms. No luck, he was stuck tight but fairly comfortably in place.

    “Hands gonna go numb?” she asked. “I can loosen if it’s too tight.”

    Dirk grunted and lifted his head up, though Dave didn’t budge an inch, practically glued in place once a soft cheek was against his junk. It was a good look for Dirk, tied up and in prime position to get his mouth busy at the barest word. He turned his head unprompted to nuzzle Dave’s length while he was there, loving being the cause of the twitch in his muscles and the shaky inhale of breath. Same as he would when spending a night with him. Christ he was responsive, already keyed up and ready to go, eager as—

    Slim fingers threaded into his hair and tugged to force his head back far enough to look clearly into the soft purple of Rose’s eyes set deep in the crisp black eyeliner. She tucked a strand of hair behind her own ear before doing the same motion to Dirk’s bangs, fingers stroking along the flesh of his jaw and throat afterwards in a clearly possessive gesture that was the same maternal petting from earlier with the horny switch cranked to high. He caught himself wanting… more. He wanted her to dig her fingernails into his throat, wanted her to look at him with those same calculating eyes and step on him. It was a peculiar sensation considering normally those thoughts only crept into his mind further along in the heat of the moment with a partner.

    “I’d like an answer, Dirk. Are the ropes too tight. We can’t really go ahead with anything if you’re keeping secrets from me so early.. I might need to just make you watch instead,” she said, giving a harder yank to his hair when he started to frown at her. “I’ll give you a few more chances to be a good boy for me.”

    “Yeah, they’re fine. Sorry,” Dirk said before the apology really registered. Rose grinned impishly and leaned down further, keeping his head firmly in place before kissing him. He could feel the soft squidge of lipstick, and knew that no doubt he was wearing another ghost on his mouth. The warmth of her tongue probed at his lips briefly before she pulled away and licked her lips appreciatively.

    “Good. We’re back on the right track then,” she said as she released him and headed back to the desk. Rose pulled the bottle up from the ground and poured another glass of the pink wine before replacing it down out of kick range. Before taking her seat again she removed her top, revealing the black lace that covered each breast when she turned around proper once more and crossed her legs in front of herself. “You were on the right track before that interruption. I want you to get Dave plenty warmed up. Don’t get him off, but get him close. No hands obviously... There’s a nice reward for doing well.”

    Lifting a brow Dirk glanced over to Dave who had briefly closed his knees before looking back to Rose. She took a small sip of the wine and smiled, keeping the glass in hand before giving a cheers gesture.

    Well. No time like the present then. Giving as much of a shrug as he could while trussed up like a feisty piece of wild game, Dirk shuffled on his knees to line up again. Dave was a familiar taste on his tongue, a welcome string of an increasingly staccato heartbeat between his lips, soft skin and salt and the faintest smell of that weird body wash he used that reeked like overly sweet apple candy took a dip in some Red Hots. It was almost sweet on the back of his tongue as he sank down low, taking as much as he could, brushing pubes with his nose before pulling back to get some kind of a rhythm going.

    His plan was a simple but efficient one: go in fast and hard, then pull away and tease him half to death before diving back on him again. Barring any interruptions from Rose he should be an absolute fucking mess in short enough order. It may not be his turn to lead the show but this was a thing he’d done plenty of times in the past. Making Dave squirm was a favored past time in this house and he was honored that Rose had the foresight to let him keep this piece of it.

    Dirk was messy as he bobbed in place, saliva slicking along the surface of Dave’s cock as he rose and fell, making it all the easier for him to get real suction once he started to suckle. He heard a moan and felt another shudder, knees tensing at his shoulders and the ache of his own dick firmly rising to attention. Plenty of stimuli to let Dirk’s mind slip into a relaxed haze of hormones when it was tangled in with the reminder that they weren’t alone. The inability to reach up and fondle his balls or stroke Dave’s thigh was frustrating, as was fighting the angle of his dick a few times when suction broke or he wanted to lower down and taste him from another side, getting whapped on the nose with wet cock more than once. They were small stumbling blocks but far from enough to deter him from giving this his all.

    The softest squeak came from the chair as Rose moved behind him, but he couldn’t bother focusing on her at all, not when he was this invested in making Dave shiver. He wanted a moan, really. As many as he could get. The louder he could make Dave react the better he knew he was doing and the more invested Dave was since he wasn’t filtering noise by then. Another shuffle of cloth from out of sight, and Rose was suddenly making the bed dip as she sat at Dave’s side, only her underthings remaining on and in place now.

    Though he strained his ears to listen, Dirk couldn’t make out whatever was being whispered into Dave’s ear aside from it being several sentences that made him finally moan again and start to softly pant. Rose stroked at the flat expanse of Dave’s chest while she talked him through something before again giving the possessive gesture over his throat to tip his head back. When she offered the wine he drank, steady sips till the glass was nearly half gone and she was pulling it back again. When she spoke again it was loud enough for Dirk to hear as well.

    “I need to video you sometime, Dave. Both of you. You’d need to see this to appreciate it properly. You have this flush on you and you keep biting your lips and squirming every time his head goes down. Dirk,” she said with a grin, as she gently turned her body to face him more directly, ”you’re as good with a dick in your mouth as I knew you’d be... it’s quite fetching.”

    A leg unfurled from where it was resting with the other as she guided a bare foot towards his groin, pressing the ball of it flat against his shaft till it pressed firm against his stomach. The temperature difference alone almost made Dirk moan, but she didn’t let that fully sink in before starting to gently move in a rubbing gesture. It was pressure but not enough to be effective. It was a tease, and a damn good one considering any time Dirk opened his eyes to look up towards Dave, Rose was there in his view instead. Watching. Waiting. Judging his every reaction.

    Rose pressed down harder then, hard enough to hurt and make Dirk flinch and pull off Dave’s cock with a wet popping sound.

    “ Shit , knock it off.”

    She remained firmly in place and smiled, unimpressed.

    “Red? Yellow?”

    “ Green ,” he insisted with a grumble, diving back down onto Dave’s dick with renewed gusto as Rose started to move her leg up and down with the same intense pressing. It was a blend of painful and pleasurable, just enough to keep him on edge before she was gently easing off.

    “So stubborn. Well, if it’s too much I’ll stop once you say the word, but I admit I’m glad we’re continuing. Tapping out so early would skip the most fun parts and I’d not be able to keep looking at your eyes this clearly.”

    The second the discomfort stopped and he’d relaxed, Rose pressed her foot down firmly once more, grin turning to a smirk when Dirk flinched hard again. It wasn’t as if she’d stomped on him, but it was hard and sudden enough that he—

    He moaned.

    Christ a moan slipped out and Rose looked absolutely wicked as she held her pose, still as a statue before raising her leg higher to press against his chest, forcing Dirk off of where he’d been so intently suckling. To his surprise she came forward with the wine glass and offered him the remaining half.

    “So well behaved,” she cooed as she tipped the glass, sweet wine slipping into his mouth with just enough of an alcoholic burn to clear the savory taste from his mouth.

    Dave looked fit to burst already, fingers fisting in the sheets as he squirmed on his own time. No hands. No touching. He needed to wait and be patient but Jesus fucking Christ was it hard considering there was a guy he was severely attracted to that he wanted to jump on in one position or another at his feet and a woman he couldn’t stop gawking at in underwear that hugged her curves like a coastline pressing against him. He was too bi for this. Way. Way too bi for this. It wasn’t fucking fair .

    Rose retreated from the bed when the wine was drained, setting the glass atop her closed laptop once more before selecting another needed item. The familiar shape of a lube container, albeit a different brand than Dirk usually preferred, graced Rose’s hands when he could next see them.

    “Time to switch things up a bit. Dirk, I’m sure your knees could use a break. Come up here where Dave is and lay back,” she instructed. Dave shuffled to give up his position, before going to help brace Dirk as he rose as gracefully as someone this burdened by a boner could stand while bound with ropes. Which is to say as gracefully as a tranquilized cow till he caught his center of balance on his own past a certain height with Dave’s assistance. She was right, it was nice to get off his knees and restore circulation to his feet that he hadn’t quite been aware was slipping away by the minute while he worked Dave over. Even better was to stretch his back out on the soft mattress, carefully folding his hands instead of clenching into fists, taking a steady breath in and exhaling. A fingertip pressed at the underside of his dick, gently bobbling it in place till he glanced down as far as he could.

    “Dave. Straddle his middle and get to work on this for me, mm? Hips up so I can work,” she said with a smile. “Try to think ahead to what you’d like from the box afterwards.”

    Dave eyed the lube in her hand for about a half second before he was on Dirk’s waist, nearly a blur from how little convincing he needed. He braced himself on one bent arm before leaning down to take Dirk into his mouth, bumping the back of his own throat a few times before easing into it. His hips remained up as Rose instructed, dick remaining downwards to leave a cooling trail of precome in its wake from where the head briefly touched Dirk’s abdomen.

    Forget trying to be quiet, after the earlier teasing and the waiting, suddenly having eager warmth on him was more than welcome. Dirk dropped his head back and groaned low and heady, brows furrowing. He only opened his eyes again when the bed gave another well timed dip, Rose settling on her knees beside his head to fiddle with the lube. It seemed to be a new container judging from how she uncapped it and tore off the small amount of guard plastic over the opening with the tips of those sharp nails that Dirk wanted back on his neck again. When the cap was snapped back in place she reached an empty hand out to stroke the side of Dave’s hip.

    “You know, I’d originally intended for you to do this part of the job for me with your mouth, or at least the majority of it,” she said. The stroke turned rough, nails turning to leave a trail of stinging red behind, making Dave’s muscles tense and his muffled whine to appear over the sounds of soft wet slurps. “I don’t think you’d have minded. He’s quite a treat when he’s like this. I’m sure you know already, of course.. Can bend him to whatever whims you have and he folds like paper best he can.”

    The scratch ended near the middle of the back edge of Dave’s thigh before Rose stroked the roughed up line with the back of her knuckles. An unexpected pang of jealousy shot through Dirk as he watched those red welts appear.

    “I love him for how hard he works to make me happy. ...You though. You still need to impress me.”

    “What do you want to prove with this. If I’m bad at it, it just proves I’m not cut out to be a bottom. Like I said,” Dirk challenged.

    Rose pursed her lips as if frustrated he were missing an unstated point, then shook her head.

    “I don’t think that’s quite right. I’m not asking for you to be a god of sex, Dirk. I’m asking the same of you as I ask of Dave: compliance. The attempt. If you try your best and give your all, if you’re good for me, it shines through. If you half ass something or try to be spiteful, it shows through as well.”

    She stroked beneath his chin then before drawing her hand back down and trailing upwards again, dragging the edge of her fingernail up over his collarbone, up over his Adam’s apple, stopping right at the tip of his chin.

    “I like honesty too.. I want everyone happy as I make Dave,” she said. “If someone’s working hard to make me happy, then it’s my job to make sure they get satisfied as well. This is a two way street, remember?”

    “You’re preaching t-ahh… To the choir, Rose. I know all this already, this is normally my job remember?”

    Rose’s eyes narrowed just enough to make him question if they’d changed at all. The predator look was back with her smile, and when presented in tandem with Dave’s continued eager actions over his dick it was getting harder and harder to not respond just how she wanted to keep things happening.

    “Alright then. When you feel like talking later you can tell me everything,” she said. “No doubt you’ll be eager to talk again by the time you’re done.”

    “Done with what, just last? I can’t do much like…” Dirk trailed off as Rose sank back and hooked her thumbs into the edges of her panties, working them down and off before slinging a leg over Dirk’s face. She peered down at him and winked.

    “I’ve got some work to do now, but keep that thought in mind for later,” she urged as she scooted further down his face to line herself up. “Eat up for now. If you do well you’ll be getting what Dave gets afterward. I’d hate for you to wind up unsatisfied.”

    So that’s how she was going to be. She had to know. She knew and was doing this on purpose, stringing him along while knowing precisely what he wanted and choosing to ignore it. ...Or. Or she didn’t know? Which was it? Rose said she was going to prove she was the better dom somehow, but so far she was just proving how frustrating she could be. So be it then. Grunting, Dirk strained upwards a fraction to reach her easier, tracing his tongue along her clit a few times to tease and adjust to the new task.

    Eating pussy was fundamentally different from sucking a dick, especially at this angle. Rose did something that made Dave hum and breathe heavier around his cock again, knees shaking where they were pressed at his sides, making Dirk wish he could see more than Rose’s ass above him. She had to be opening him up, there’s nothing else she could be doing, prep work wasn’t anything mysterious or new when dicks had been mentioned and an ass was going to take something. However for some reason being unable to see yet being able to feel the progress, while being expected to keep his tongue and lips moving over Rose’s lower lips was a true test. Two bodies, two people he cared for, loved even, were resting atop him as if in their own world despite the distinct connection between the three of them. They were a mechanically functional ourboros of sex, and Dirk couldn’t give two shits that his shoulders felt like they were cramping a bit.

    Experimentally Dirk probed hard with his tongue before finding a good spot to suckle at, repeating the sucking the same as he had to Dave’s dick earlier over her clit, focusing with his tongue and lips as if he were drinking a thick milkshake through a boba straw. Rose tensed over him and rocked her hips, grinding against his face, forcing the back of his head down into the mattress. He had to time his breathing to avoid feeling claustrophobic beneath the warm mass of ass and thigh, but this was doable, especially once he started to get reactions like that out of her. Any reaction was good, but the ones he could feel twice as much were appealing; every time he made Rose feel good she seemed to get more intense with prepping Dave, who in turn went to town on his cock as if it were a quickly melting ice cream cone in the center of a heat wave.

    “Three fingers already? You’re such a slut,” Dirk heard through the thigh earmuffs he was wearing, and with it came the sharper sound of a hard slap. Dave flinched and jammed himself down so far on his cock that Dirk saw stars and stopped licking to gasp, though the reprieve was limited as Rose ground down on him again to make him re-start. “Three fingers for Dave and a reprimand for my previously well behaved chair if he doesn’t finish his dinner. Wow, I think you’d be able to take Asmodeus quite easily this time...”

    Asmodeus?

    Jesus fucking Christ, did Rose name her dicks?

    Another sharp slap sound, another moment of Dave swallowing around his dick, and Dirk could only think one thing in the haze of trying not to come too soon: a reprimand. That was intriguing. Would she even follow through on that threat? She didn’t seem unwilling to raise her hand now and then, and from the noise it had been strong enough to potentially leave some marks wherever the strike had connected with Dave’s body. Would he get any of that? Or was she not that type of dom.

    Wait, why the fuck was he wondering that. Even if she was, who cared? Why did he give two shits? He was just following Dave’s lead so she could prove her point and then he could prove his point in the near future as a love letter to just how incorrect she was about him.

    ...Though. It would be a bit of a waste to not experience everything Rose had to offer in such circumstances. Before he could reconsider the nagging sense of curiosity, Dirk probed as efficiently as he could and went still once more. He felt the nudge, the rutting against his nose and mouth, but the hopeful response of being threatened didn’t happen. Instead Rose suddenly lifted off his face and to the side, giving Dirk a deep breath of fresh air for the first time in a while. It felt cold on his face and down his throat, and the light of the room felt too bright.

    “Good, I’m glad you’re okay,” Rose said as she watched him. Her clean hand touched his face gently as it had before, stroking down his cheek and jaw. It was startling just how much it relaxed him, how soothed and comforted he felt. This was okay. This was nice, actually. He actually closed his eyes while she pet and stroked at his face, leaning subtly into her touch. “Do you have anything else to tell me before we move on?” she asked softly. “Dave’s pretty wound up now and I hate to keep him waiting for too long.”

    “Can I go ahead and pick one out?” Dave asked on cue, needing to keep his mind on absolutely anything but reaching down to rub one out. He could be patient. He could wait. But when he didn’t absolutely have to wait, when he could be a little whiny and get away with it? Why not take advantage of that. Rose only let him do it when she felt like letting him do it, and when she didn’t feel like it he still won anyway when being punished.

    Always winning made for a prettying freeing experience with Rose. It was easy to win with Dirk as well, but the feeling was just so different. Rose alternated the softness with the intensity purposefully, interweaving them as she pleased. Dirk aimed for hard and faltered, softening at occasionally crucial moments. Were it anyone but him would he do that? Or was this softness a Dave specific reaction for Dirk?

    “Yes, pick whichever one you want,” Rose said without looking up as Dave slid off the bed excited as a kid at Christmas to rifle through the options. “You’re picking for Dirk as well, so keep that in mind. Don’t challenge him too hard, I don’t feel like doing swaps between the two of you, I’d rather just stick with one. You’re the example today but you’re also really used to thi—.”

    “I’m not a fucking baby, Rose, it’s not like I’m a stranger to this kinda thing,” he interjected sharply enough that she slowed her hand to a halt and retracted it. Well shit, cuddle time over then. “Pick whichever you like best Dave. I can handle it.”

    Those purple eyes watched him, unblinking, studying him close enough that Dirk felt like they were probing into the side of his face. It was hard to blink, to look away. If he didn’t make eye contact in too long was he hiding? Was she waiting for a question? No, she was waiting for an answer to a question she’d asked twice now. What did he want?

    What did he want?

    Could she give him what he wanted, did he even know what he wanted?

    There’d been enough curve balls so far that it was confusing him and his own end goals. He’d be impressed if it wasn’t entirely frustrating. Maybe once they reached the climax of this entire affair it would feel more worthwhile.

    Dave rummaged and rustled till he whipped out a black bag with a white cord and slid it open to reveal the well made silicone toy it contained. ...Okay, maybe that was a little intimidating. He’d need some prep for sure if he was supposed to take it as well, but it wouldn’t be impossible, he’d taken larger before. The gentle curve cast in a deep gray was appealing and the way Rose grasped it with practiced ease was even more appealing, slipping it into place on the harness.

    “How are your arms,” she asked, pulling Dirk out of his head as she worked, Dave heeled at her side to kiss along her thigh and occasionally bite with gentle presses of those teeth he loved so much.

    “Kind of sore from laying on them,” he said. “Not numb of severe pain but.. Discomfort.”

    “Would you like up? Or untied?”

    “I can handle being tied longer,” Dirk insisted, not wanting to show weakness. Rose eyed him immediately to call his bluff, and he could tell she was trying to decide if this was a time to override his insistence that all was well or to roll with what he said. Apparently she rolled with it because she kept quiet as he continued to talk. “But I’d like up, yeah.”

    “Dave? Go ahead and play with Dirk for a second while I get this ready. You already know how to make him happy, have some free range while he gets upright,” she said with a wave of her hand before focusing on the harness and toy as if the mostly attached unit needed far more work than it appeared. This was an engineering issue. Did she want it in tandem with another toy? Something to rub against her clit or vibrate? Did she want to buzz Dave and Dirk while fucking them? She intended to fuck both of them, not just the one.

    Warm, familiar lips covered Dirk’s own within a few seconds as Dave bounced up atop him from the floor, holding either side of his face still to kiss him deeply, wet, open mouthed kisses that blended together and blurred their edges. Dirk could taste traces of himself on Dave’s tongue, and he knew for damn certain Dave could taste Rose. Somehow that just made it all the more delicious as they started to rock their bodies together, caught in the moment and bit of fencing till they heard Rose clear her throat.

    Ah, fuck. Right. His hands. That was what they were meant to be doing, getting pressure off of his hands and stopping the sense of trapped blood in his arms that had just begun. Dave pulled himself up and off just enough to scoot further back on Dirk’s legs before tugging him upwards by the ropes for another kiss as he settled on his lap. No complaints from Rose meant more heady kisses, more of Dave’s fingers in his hair and his teeth at his neck, more pressing their chests together like they wanted to crawl into each other’s skin somehow rather than be potentially pulled apart again. Every time Dave’s cock brushed his own it felt like lightning in his veins, and the sense of whiplash only grew ever stronger when he noticed Rose was pulling the harness on and into place to add the healthy sized appendage to herself firmly as she could. He saw a patch on her inner thigh catch a flash of light and couldn’t be bothered to feel a sense of smugness.

    Of course she was turned on. Everyone in this room was hot and bothered, but you wouldn’t know it from her features. She looked serene and unaffected safe for a telltale flush to her features and the wet spot that would no doubt get more noticeable once she put that dick to good use. Dave turned in his lap to eye her with interest, and it made Dirk’s heart ache that he clung tight to keep kissing him for longer instead of immediately dancing off of him at the promise of getting wrecked.

    The flavors had blended enough on their lips that it stopped being noticeable, started to become an average, mellowed tang in the air that reeked of sex. Dirk wanted to tug Dave’s hair, wanted to pin him down and put his fingers in his mouth, wanted to bend him in half and rest his legs up on his own shoulders and plow into him till he screamed.

    … Yet he also wanted Rose to pet him again.

    He wanted Rose’s soft, soothing voice and gentle petting, sweet touches and praise over and over as the bar was set incredibly low despite it being set for him. He wanted that almost as much as he wanted her to choke him while calling him a whore and the stark differences just made his dick hurt even more when Dave finally crawled off his lap. Where was it coming from? She’d asked him what he wanted, but now that he even knew what he wanted he could never admit it.

    Fuck, would she not do it if he didn’t say it? Would he just wind up getting cock teased the entire time and left to blueball it out while she did the example sub bullshit with Dave? Would Dave be the one to finish him off or would it be the photo finish jerkoff session with partly numb hands the second he was untied when it was too much to keep dealing with? Would Rose ride him and leave him squirming, or would she milk him dry while hammering his prostate? Lust ate at him in a way that Dirk wasn’t entirely comfortable with, not used to this degree of wanting someone, of wanting something he could only half understand and explain beyond a gut feeling and a concept of desire. It felt like powerlessness.

    “Dirk, go up to the head of the bed and sit quiet for me. Dave? On your knees. Get close as you’d like to Dirk up there, but keep off his dick or I’ll slap you senseless.”

    Dirk groaned under his breath at the casual threat and watched his lover like a hawk as he scooted backwards to the head of the bed and Dave slipped to the center. Once he was on all fours he splayed his knees and sank down a bit, knowing there wasn’t much in the way of a height discrepancy between he and Rose as it was. Just enough lowering to let her work, to get the best possible angles and speed comfortably. They made a cute pair as she climbed up behind him and took off her bra, lush breasts drooping comfortably against the front of her chest and swaying as she leaned to get some spare lube for the silicone beast she sported, a pair of nearly identical opposites. Dave rested on his elbows tantalizingly close to Dirk’s dick and kept glancing upwards at him from beneath his bangs with a hungry look in his eyes, trying to fuck him with vision alone so provocatively that Dirk could practically feel him riding on his lap in some close encounter with a separate reality brushing against their own at a thinned point in the veil.

    Rose bent forwards once she’d slicked her dick up, kissing a line up Dave’s spine as reverently, tenderly, leaving a pale ash of her lipstick in a tree along the vertebrae. He rose up onto his palms again and arched his back to let her kiss further, all the way to the side of his neck where she bit him a few times. Dave moaned aloud as she took him by the back of the head and shoved him down into the mattress as hard as she could, easing up enough to let him turn his head as she lined up with his hole and began to ease in.

    “That’s right, take all of it for me Dave. You’ve had bigger from me you greedy bitch, just let it in nice and easy like you always do,” she crooned, living for how Dave responded beneath her with micro-movements and twitches, panted breaths and the barely there hints of a moan. Rose wasn’t usually much for dirty talk, but she’d picked up the habit specifically for Dave in small doses, rolling with what felt natural at the time instead of trying to force something. When they’d patiently slipped about half the toy in, Rose rocked her hips back and withdrew a few inches before rolling them forward once more to sink even further inside. She traced her hand from Dave’s upper body to his narrow hips, bracing him carefully as they continued to do the back and forth dance of making him take every inch of what he’d selected as his own fate.

    As Dirk’s fate too, he remembered once he noticed Rose had started to stare at him. Smirk at him. The challenge was there loud and clear: is this what you want? Do you want more? Will you ask? Can you ask? Dirk didn’t know for sure if he could ask or not, but the incentive was nice. Unable to touch himself he clenched his fists behind his back and watched his lover adjust and relax in waves of sensitivity till at last Rose’s hips were flush with his ass. She cooed softly and rubbed the sides of his thighs and hips, his lower back, then around front to the barely there bulge of his abdomen.

    “So pretty. Doing such a good job for me, Dave, such a good boy doing so well. Are you ready? Let me know. Do you want it like usual?”

    Dave nodded into the bedding before he found his voice, clearing his throat a few times before croaking out a shaky “Yeah” loud enough that they could both hear it. Dirk glanced to Rose’s eyes again and found her already looking at him again, smirking. Knowing.

    “Okay then,” she said as she gave an appreciative squeeze to his thighs and straightened up again to start moving.

    The pace was far gentler than what Dirk was expecting. It caught him by surprise just how tenderly they moved together, far more making love than just quick and rough sex. Rose rocked at a decent pace and occasionally flicked her hips to change the inner pressure against Dave’s insides, and Dave clung to the bedding to keep himself from moving beneath her thrusts. They both made breathy sounds and loving murmurs, though Dave’s were already far less coherent when she eventually picked up speed. Skin hitting skin rang out and Dirk was surprised to see just how efficiently Rose was keeping up with the physical demands, barely breaking a sweat.

    Made sense. Couldn’t top two men in a row if you weren’t physically prepared to do a lot of fucking.

    Dave cried out suddenly and stole Dirk’s attention again, made him unconsciously try to reach for his dick to stroke himself as Rose found the best angle to hammer along his prostate at and went to town. He sank down further, straining to keep upright as she continued to rough him up from behind, occasionally slapping a side of his ass hard enough it left finger and palm prints and Dave melting in place with bliss. Rose leaned forward over Dave’s back possessively to snake a hand beneath his hips to catch his cock was a lovely sight, nipples dragging either side of his spine before being pressed flat between their bodies as she slowed just a fraction. Her hand needed some of her effort now, working his length hard and thorough.

    “Come for me, Dave. You’re doing so good, you did such a good job. Come for me now,” she panted, grin breaking wide when he tensed and cried out again, clawing at the bedding before bowing his back. He came hard from the look of things, the top of the bedding streaked with white before even more leaked out to form a small puddle beneath him. Rose milked him through his orgasm ‘til the most intense part had passed and he became overly sensitive beneath her, shivering as Rose removed her hand and held him close to her chest. She carefully pulled out and let Dave roll to his side to catch his breath, dazed and finally satisfied.

    Dirk envied him for about ten solid seconds before Rose was crawling forward on her knees towards him, silicone dick swaying generously in the harness as she planted her palms on either of his thighs to get right up in his face.

    “Last chance,” she said. “Talk to me.”

    Dirk’s heart hammered in his chest as he weighed his options. Take whatever option came with not talking, not telling, or talk and do as she says and ostensibly have a better time for it. Give and take, but it felt like giving a hell of a lot for what he could only hope would be taking a good amount back. Wetting his lips, Dirk lifted his chin.

    “I’ll take whatever you want to dish out.”

    “That all?” Rose asked. He could feel her nails turning to bite into his flesh, testing him and his limits. “I’m all ears, Dirk, but not for long.”

    “Whatever it is, I can handle it,” Dirk said. Then after a moment’s hesitation, he glanced to the side. “...I can probably handle the rest, too.”

    The biting nails stayed where they were, hard enough he wondered if he’d just have crescents in his skin or small traces of papercut thin lines of blood. Was that not clear enough? Was that not what she wanted? He glanced back onto to see Rose staring at him flatly, unimpressed.

    “What? Wrong answer?”

    Rose lunged forward like a dog preparing to bite his face so suddenly that honest on God he flinched back to avoid her running into his nose at top speed. She frowned and narrowed her eyes at him.

    “Is this what you really want, Dirk? Tame answers, promises I’ll fuck you senseless as rough as I can and cuddle you to my tits afterwards, or are you wanting to actually work for what you want?” The frown gave way to a curled smile. “Dave’s earned what he gets plenty of times over. He’s a good boy. I’ve seen you try to be a good boy for me, but I’m pretty unconvinced. I think you’re still the same self important prick you always are, wanting to have his cake and eat it too.”

    “What do you mean?” he asked, dick fit to burst on his lap. If he came now he’d never live it the fuck down, hold on just a bit longer, Jesus fuck.

    “I mean I think you still want to prove your point, because it’s a very Dirk thing to do, and you’re not subtle about it. Same as you’re not subtle at all about being thirsty for what I can do. As you are right now I’m unconvinced you won’t just take my best then twist it into not being enough so you can rebound with your own example on a higher step.”

    He frowned. “How do I convince you then? I don’t want to do that, I’m willing to approach this on even territory for now.”

    “Beg for it,” Rose said without missing a beat. When Dirk immediately leaned further back she pursued till Dirk was plastered against the headboard proper and Rose was riding over his lap, silicone dick digging into his abdomen stubbornly between them.

    “Beg for what , for what I already admitted I could handle?”

    “No. I want you to beg for what you want, Dirk. I won’t be doing a damn thing till you beg for you like a good little bitch and admit I’m the one calling all of the shots well enough that you’re reduced to begging for it instead of it just being delivered to you on a silver platter.”

    “I worked on Dave!”

    “Working on Dave is easy when it’s what you did, though I’m sure he appreciated every second of it.”

    “I also ate you out! Doesn’t that count for good work done?”

    “You stopped early enough I worried you’d passed out.”

    “Yeah, well, I didn’t. I was tired.”

    “And I’ve had better, funny how that works out,” she snipped before covering Dirk’s mouth in a kiss that ranged from gentle leading in to nearly teeth clicking intensity before they pulled apart to catch their breath. “Beg for me and I’ll follow through as good as I’ve been given. Tell me things to avoid.”

    “Don’t suddenly take a dump on my chest and we’re good,” Dirk grunted. “But I was being genuine before: I can take whatever you can dish out. The rest too.”

    Rose slipped off his lap and adjusted herself before grabbing the ropes that held Dirk’s arms in place behind him, physically throwing him to the side so he landed on his back with his long legs dangling over the edge of the bed as he looked up at her, startled. Her hair had fluffed up a bit wilder, a few strands hanging in her face as she planted her hands on her hips and stared down at him. The predatory look had returned, and intensified as she crawled up his thighs, up over his waist, to perch right ahead of his dick. He could feel a streak of precome rub against one of her ass cheeks and cool on impact, the bit of pressure tantalizing as it was before he realized she was sinking down to align his length with the crack of her ass. A few steady, pressure filled rubs and he was nearly gone.

    Her hands snaked up to his throat then, thumbs placing pressure directly over where his air supply passed on either side, and pressed down steadily. While Dirk could still breathe it was being impaired significantly beneath Rose’s solid grip, and his eyes widened when realization kicked in. She was choking him based on his earlier explanations, something that he hadn’t entirely realized he was into till Rose did it. Something about her soothing concern and caution mingling with the getting in his face and beneath his skin was intermingling nicely in his brain. He was at risk, this was something that if done in another way could hurt his throat, but Rose knew what she was doing. He trusted Rose. He trusted her to not hurt him worse than he said he could handle. He trusted Rose to only hurt him in the best ways, and then to maybe even kiss that pain away.

    Dave to their sides had rolled to his other side to watch them and was lazily reaching out to stroke at Dirk’s hair in the same petting gesture Rose had been doing before. Soothing and soft was mingling with being choked out, and Dirk twitched as he came against Rose’s ass harder than he could remember coming in quite some time.

    She seemed surprised at first, but slowly reduced the pressure bit by bit till he was breathing normally. Assuming they were done, Dirk sighed and opened his mouth to thank her for the new discovery, but was cut off.

    “Ready to come, then?”

    “I uh. ...I just did.”

    “Yes. Once,” Rose said with a smirk. “I’d hardly call that done. Especially since I didn’t give you permission to, and off you shot like a rocket just from a bit of breathplay and a nice ass.” She pressed a kiss to Dirk’s cheek before murmuring up by his ear. “Predictable. Weak move... Are you ready to beg for me, Dirk?”

    Boy was he fucking ready. Shit already felt great and there was one more round to go, he had to see it through for all it could be instead of half assing a second of it. Dirk sang like a canary as Dave grinned and pet him in the hazy afterglow of what he’d already experienced, leisurely coming down while Dirk was still ramping up for one last rodeo with the remnants of his previous erection.

    “Let me have it, Rose. Fuck me up. Knock the shit outta me, I don’t care,” Dirk said. “Just kiss it better afterward. Pet me like Dave. I want all of it.”

    Rose and Dave shared a look, surprised he actually complied but very pleased nonetheless. When Dave stopped petting him, Rose gave him another tender kiss and hummed as she pulled away, swinging her leg up over his body to climb off and to her feet at the side of the bed. She slipped up between Dirk’s parted thighs and tugged him closer to the edge of the bed before he got the idea and lifted his legs on his own to leave himself exposed for her. The erection still hadn’t gone down, apparently ready and raring for the next round as he was verbally, orange eyes expectantly watching Rose as he rode on the discomfort of his arms. Pain, but not more than he could take. Not more than he kind of enjoyed as his fingertips tingled behind him in the mattress.

    She cupped Dirk’s hips before teasing at his entrance with the toy’s head, humming still as if in thought.

    “Dirk.. Do you think you can take this without extra prep..? Plenty of lube of course. But it’s quite a lot,” she said.

    It’d sting. It wouldn’t destroy him, Dirk knew what to do and he trusted Rose to be patient and not just jam it in at the first opportunity. They were both experienced adults. He nodded and bent his knees a little more, letting his knees part.

    “Yeah.”

    Right answer apparently. Rose beamed at him and Dave handed over the lube before returning to rest on his side, toying with Dirk’s hair while they waited instead of petting him, sleepy expression of satisfaction still playing over his face. The lubricant was applied liberally on the toy, and more was added at his entrance, Rose curling her fingers to probe him briefly the same way she’d prepped Dave. Same method but different speeds, she withdrew her hand and rested them at Dirk’s hips after lining up once more and slowly beginning to push inside.

    He exhaled and tried to keep his muscles as loose as possible, relaxing with all his might as Rose entered. ...And entered. ...And kept entering. He’d forgotten just how long the toy really was when it was being shoved inside of a man’s body, observing had shown him the bulge Dave got and yet somehow Dirk was still surprised at just how much there was to take. It just seemed to keep coming at him in more and more intimidating pushes till at long last they were flush together and he was panting his air, sweat slicking his brow.

    Rose loomed over him like a pleased goddess, stroking along the new bump in his abdomen and up the flat planes of his stomach. She tweaked a nipple so hard it stung before repositioning her nails over the top of his ribs, sinking them in a bit before dragging them downwards as if she were a bear marking a tree. Dirk hissed air between his teeth before groaning in satisfaction, savoring every inch she dragged downwards and doing it all over again when she did it to the other side, crossing the very ends of the patterns she’d drawn in the hair below his navel. His skin felt like it was on fire but there was no mistaking the surge of endorphin in his blood.

    “Dave, be a darling and keep his mouth busy for me. Be attentive, though. Don’t choke him, he’ll be moving and it’d be hard to signal like that. Just keep good and close so he can go at his own pace,” Rose instructed before she straightened, grabbed his hips and drew back, slamming home so hard and suddenly that his teeth clicked before he could cry out.

    Jesus Christ, right at the nerves, her aim was goddamn good she stroked it right on the first thrust. The bed sank around Dirk’s shoulders as Dave carefully straddled his head from behind, then seemed to think better of it and settled for scooting close enough to rest flaccid, dribbling dick to the side of his lips and his own hands on the headboard for balance. It was a strange setup but it worked well enough, Dirk opening his mouth to accept Dave and suckle gently as he could once Dave hissed with sensitivity. Gentle, gentle...

    Rose was the opposite of gentle as she set a heavy pace, jostling him this way and that as she used the bed for leverage, putting her back and hips into following through on what Dirk had asked of her. Could she be rougher? Of course she could. She was already thinking of different toys and tools to use next time she could talk Dirk into playing with her and Dave, or even just her if Dave wanted some time to himself one night or another. She wanted to see just how much Dirk really could take without breaking, and what he was like when he did break. It’d take more than one session to really see that out properly though.

    She had a feeling he’d be eager enough for this that the earlier bet might potentially be put on pause, at least for a while. Something something more research needed before a proper ownage could occur something something. Dirk was predictable in some ways and that was just his charm.

    With Dave crooning at him, Rose hammering away at him till his toes curled, and alternating smacking the backs of his thighs and the sides of his hips hard as she could, Dirk was losing a battle he’d only just begun to fight. When he felt that warm hand wrap around his dick and squeeze, doing the same milking gesture in tandem with the staccato of her hips against his ass, Dirk saw white and seized briefly, spilling thinned, barely there semen over Rose’s knuckles. Not enough time had passed to be very effective, but the release had been achieved and he was swimming on cloud nine.

    She let him enjoy it for a few moments, resting her weight on his torso and petting the side of his face, kissing his cheek, his lips, the tip of his nose after Dave pulled back to give him air. Dave stroked his hair and scratched his scalp in gentle motions as he rested curled on his side like a human halo around Dirk’s head. They were all a mess, they were all exhausted by now. Rose grunted when she got up off of Dirk and pulled the toy gently free. On unsteady legs she stood and removed the harness, setting it and the toy aside for proper cleaning afterwards before reaching down and carefully pulling Dirk up by his ropes.

    Dave was the one who untied him, familiar enough with the knots that he could recognize which places held the most tension and support, which ones he could pull to loosen the entire structure quickest to free him. Dirk’s skin was depressed and red where the ropes had bit into him, repeating the intricate knots and lattice work as brightly on his skin as the scratches stood out on his chest. The palm prints from where he’d been slapped were still red, and from how warm they still felt they’d be leaving some kind of bruise behind as well in time. He felt light headed when he could move his arms properly, stretching them to the front to pop his shoulders and move his numbed fingers to get the life back in them. Rose took one arm and Dave took the other, gently massaging the blood back where it needed to go, keeping the ache of return from growing too intense.

    All the while Rose talked in that same soft voice Dirk had grown addicted to, gentle praises and comforting phrases as the backdrop to the new silence in the air now that the sex and moaning had stopped. Dirk could hear the gentle pour of rain outside, pitter patters against the covered glass of the window and the distant sound of cars forming the perfect soundtrack with Rose’s voice.

    He wasn’t sure when Rose moved him again, when Dave shifted them all to the side, but he was glad he went whenever it was. Rose was in the center of the bed on her back in a comfortable position, with Dave cuddled up beside one breast and himself by the other side, free to kiss or touch wherever they pleased. Her hands were on their shoulders and kept straying up to their heads in lazy strokes and pets as she continued to soft speak barely there words like poetry to his soul. They slept well like that for some time, tension having risen to a fever pitch in the moment only to be cuddled away, to the sound of a steady rain storm.

    Dirk didn’t offer Rose a reverse challenge for several weeks. Instead, he made sure to catch her more often when Dave did on the couch, making certain Rose sat in the center so they both could rest a head on her leg. Both eager to be stroked and told just how good they were. How wonderful. How sweet. How loved.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Meat ch 28-32 [Epilogue 5]

So now we’re in different hands.

chapter 28

We return to John, this time with alt-Calliope narrating about his alarmingly blunt teeth. Also on further thought I have no more reason to use ‘she’ pronouns for alt-Calliope than proper Calliope (alt-Calliope does not even seem to use the name Calliope in narration, just things like ‘the dead cherub’), so I will use they pronouns, and will edit the previous post to reflect that.

alt-Calliope declares that they are not going to be ‘inserting thoughts into peoples’ heads’, though they will be ‘truthfully’ reporting those thoughts with more clarity than the subject of narration is necessarily prepared to acknowledge.

john would be mortified with human embarrassment if he could understand the clarity and precision with which i am willing to telegraph his thoughts. but his embarrassment is irrelevant to me. as always, the truth is paramount.

This mortifying description of how John thinks of Terezi includes a reference to “gap moe”, because of f u c k i n g course it does.

John worries if this makes him like a creepy weeb who collects body pillows, but in dialogue dismisses this as something that would only make sense to a human. Unfortunately, Tegiri exists to disprove that sentiment!

Despite alt-Calliope’s avowed dedication to ‘truth’, there is obviously more to this than not contradicting the ‘truth’ of events or thoughts... she is deciding how to present the ‘true’ information, what to state and what to leave implicit and what to brush over. a story also concerns what’s ‘relevant’ and ‘essential’, as Rose said so long ago.

chapter 29

Jane, it seems, has been using the trickster-mode lollipop during her campaign. This leads to an argument with the narration about whether or not it’s “problematic” - neither Jane nor alt-Calliope think so, though neither can be considered someone presented in a 100% positive light at this point...

(Jane mostly argues in the in-universe political campaign situation, when of course the argument about ‘trickster mode’ was the whole ‘caucasian’ shitshow)

Anyway, despite her prior statements, alt-Calliope is not above interfering in the narration if it’s for the sake of cherub artefacts.

jane rubs her eyes under her glasses and groans. trickster mode is also quite exhausting. what a strange quirk of human biology that excess euphoria must necessarily be followed by crippling despair. she carelessly tosses the lollipop on the floor, lurches toward her desk...

no.

she turns around promptly, her body jolted by the surprise of her sudden reversal. she bends over, cradles the lollipop reverentially, and situates it carefully in a place signifying respect: atop the mantle, after clearing space for it by shoving several brittle, worthless objects to the floor.

alt-Calliope narrates that she’s totally got Dirk’s number - “he probably thinks he’s a very clever boy, my brother did too” - as Dirk works on a long red rifle in between other tasks designed to distract.

Jane wonders about trying to blackmail Jake by revealing that he’s been having sex with trolls. Dirk challenges this as xenophobic. There’s an odd exchange...

JANE: What ISN’T xenophobic?

DIRK: Well, for one thing, what you just said there?

DIRK: Probably also xenophobic.

JANE: WHAT?

DIRK: Sorry, that’s just how it is.

DIRK: You either gotta roll with the woke shit, or decide to commit laborious, symbolic, melodramatic suicide in the process of utterly giving up.

This may be referring to his suicide in the other branch, I guess? idefk what this is trying to say ><

chapter 30

Karkat and Dave are attempting to win over Jake. This involves a lot of jokes about “neoliberal austerity measures”, super pacs, and so on... and the two of them playing off each other. Dave has been presenting “visionary”, “avant-garde” campaign ads based on SBAHJ.

alt-Calliope notes that Jake has now been freed from Dirk’s indirect narrative control, able to make his own decisions. In tiny text, Dirk grumbles about this. Without his control, he declares, Jake is a purely reactive ‘dead bug’; with it, Jake is like an ant controlled by Cordyceps towards a “greater purpose” (i.e., reproducing Cordyceps ¬¬)

Anyway, Karkat ultimately makes a speech: he doesn’t say he’ll be the best president, but that whichever one wins, it will set a precedent on the matter of troll reproductive rights that will last for a very long time. Jane is, necessarily, far more concerned with nice appearances than doing right:

KARKAT: NO MATTER HOW NICE SHE WAS WHEN YOU WERE KIDS, HER DEDICATION TO THE APPEARANCE OF THAT “NICENESS” HAS ALREADY LED HER DOWN A PATH OF CORRUPTION AND DUPLICITY.

KARKAT: BECAUSE WHEN YOU LIVE INSIDE A SKIN THAT’S A LIE, YOU’LL EITHER GROW TO FIT IT, OR COLLAPSE UNDER THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF YOUR OWN SHIT-SPEWING COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.

KARKAT: TRUST ME, I FUCKING KNOW, BECAUSE I USED TO SPEW AN UNTOLD AMOUNT OF SHIT.

I think this is well put. I think it gets to the heart of a lot of things, that this story is talking about, apart from the free will/alternate possibilities stuff...

Anyway, that wins Jake over to their side.

chapter 31

Back to Terezi eating weird things in space. (Nice!)

Do god tiers need to eat? ...come to think of it, Terezi never actually went god tier.

Anyway, Terezi and John have a heart to heart. About the doomed timeline... and about Vriska. Terezi refers to the Remem8er flash, where she found a connection with the Terezi from the Game Over timeline.

TEREZI: TH4TS WHY 1M OUT H3R3

TEREZI: YOU S33...  

TEREZI: TH4T DOOM3D T3R3Z1 M1SS3D VR1SK4 *SO* MUCH, 1T W4S L1K3 4 HOL3 1N H3R H34RT

TEREZI: 1 R3M3MB3R TH3 W4Y SH3 F3LT, B3C4US3 ON3 T1M3, 4LL H3R M3MOR13S C4M3 FLOOD1NG B4CK

TEREZI: 1 3V3N GOT TO S33 WH4T H4PP3N3D WH3N SH3 D13D

TEREZI: SH3 4ND 4NOTH3R VR1SK4 GHOST F1N4LLY FOUND 34CH OTH3R

TEREZI: 1T M4D3 M3 SO H4PPY G3TT1NG TO F33L TH4T, 4S 1F 1T W4S ON3 OF MY OWN M3MOR13S

TEREZI: 1T JUST R31NFORC3D TH3 F33L1NG TH4T TH3R3 W4S SOM3TH1NG SP3C14L B3TW33N US

TEREZI: 4ND 1 JUST K3PT H4NG1NG ON TO TH4T B3L13F, R1GHT UP UNT1L...  

TEREZI: OH, 1 DONT KNOW

TEREZI: NOW???

TEREZI: 1V3 PR4CT1C4LLY D3VOT3D MY L1F3 TO C3RT41N M3MOR13S, TO TH3 1D34 TH4T TWO P3OPL3 C4N B3 M34NT TO B3 W1TH 34CH OTH3R ON SOM3 COSM1C L3V3L, 3V3N 1F TH3Y 4LW4YS S33M TO G3T 34CH OTH3R 1NTO TROUBL3

TEREZI: 4LL TH4T 1NV3STM3NT, 4LL TH4T S34RCH1NG...  

TEREZI: 4ND FOR *WH4T*?

TEREZI: OV3R 4 SW33P TOG3TH3R, 4ND SH3 JUST D1S4PP34RS 1NTO THE VO1D 4G41N?!

TEREZI: WH4T 4 HUG3 B1TCH

T_T

Anyway, this gets to the crux of the matter: Earth C may supposedly be paradise, but it doesn’t feel like it for either of them. To quote a certain book series, “perhaps some people just don’t have the knack of being happy”.

Anyway, Terezi can’t bear to part with John just yet - so she offers to take a look at his tooth wound. There’s a very funny moment where alt-Calliope narrates the blade drawing in a way so as to personally antagonise Dirk, who is pissed.

Terezi removes the poisonous tooth and then dresses John’s wound - I’ll be interested to hear from @drc4ble if her wound care is up to snuff. Then they have post-surgery makeouts.

Literally any even slightly intimate moment lol (or even a fight)... I miss feeling able to be that affectionate with people.

Although this is a het scene, it actually feels surprisingly... not het. idk. Not sure how to clarify that.

alt-Calliope, I guess, hasn’t lost her obsession with shipping and intimacy from when she was small. She claims she’s merely allowing John to perceive his “true” thoughts - and that’s why he’s being so bold. But that involves a decision, right, about which of his thoughts are “true”?

chapter 32

Apparently “proximity to a black hole”, a proxy for void, renders Roxy’s internal monologue perceptible to alt-Calliope, even though it wouldn’t normally be for those “on a higher textual plane”.

as for alt-Calliope, narrated as Jade:

looking beyond the wall she faces, and beyond everything past it, through the very fabric of narrative itself. they scan the ciliary veins of pacing, motivation, foreshadowing, irony—a continuum that has been upended by the prince’s interference. 

Dirk and alt-Calliope are back to arguing in the narration - about how diverse the crowds are, for example. Dirk dismisses alt-Calliope’s narration as “fake-woke”.

Anyway, despite Dirk’s needling in the narration, Roxy and Dave have a well-observed conversation about like, figuring out your gay/trans/nb/etc, coming out and so forth. Dave talks about like, various stages of more-or-less-ironic self-denial. Dirk gets increasingly irate at the discussion of gender and sexuality that doesn’t lead straightforwardly into like, clear-cut relationships.

Also he’s preparing to assassinate Jake. Unable to force his thoughts into narration, he just speaks out loud, and I guess alt-Calliope reports his words.

Dirk starts climbing the bell tower. Alt-Calliope tries various means to stop him: narrating that his feet feel heavy - he monologues that he has determination to get past this - dropping a bell on him - he monologues that he’s destroying the bell with his sword. Then they just dismiss him as boring...

Alt-Calliope resorts to warning Dave of the assassination attempt. This is turning into Death Note here... “ah, but what you didn’t realise is...” type shit stacking on top of each other. Dave stands in front of Jake, which would be a Heroic death, something Dirk isn’t willing to expose him to. But Dirk’s gun isn’t loaded with bullets, but with... tranq darts. But moreover, he was misleading us as to his intentions.

He wasn’t going to shoot Jake at all. He was going to shoot alt-Calliope/Jade... giving him back control over the narration!

That was interesting though. Cherubs are fuckin’ weird, I’ll totally concede. Still not sure what makes them tick. What they idealize, what they really want. It all comes across to me as a little cloying. Perfection to them is a sweetness beyond comprehension. Sugar so potent it’s poison to us. To our bodies, to our souls. Like the place she was operating from was a realm of self-construction. A bubble of pure, phantasmal confection.

Well, I for one have had enough of that goddamn toothache. I’m back in the protein saddle, motherfuckers. I’m clacking my tongs, and the charcoal is hot.

Now who’s hungry for meat?

Epilogue 5, in toto

So this is just a ludicrously meta version of Death Note now? ok, ok...

Dirk has essentially taken the role of Caliborn, in terms of representing one of two poles of what Homestuck is “about”. Where Caliborn was about tedious masculinity and over the top carnage, Dirk seems to want plots: plans unfolding, some kind of big elegant modernist [that may be incorrect] construction where everything is “in its proper place” according to an artistic vision.

alt-Calliope now seems to want to tell a story about the personal, about complex but ultimately happy relationships, and of course to let these characters fulfil ‘their own will’, somehow...

[blaperile]

Homestuck Epilogues - Meat - Page 19 (Epilogue 4 Page 2)

[tarexippus]

@fahleren tagged me to list my favorite characters from ten fandoms and then tag ten people! Now as a token indecisive bitch these are in no particular order. ALSO SPOILER WARNING I'M WRITING MY OPINIONS FROM A PERSPECTIVE OF WHERE I AM IN THE SERIES. IN SOME CASES, THAT MEANS I'VE ALREADY FINISHED IT.

1) Freckle- The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo: what's not to love? Genderfluid bicon with a lot to say.... As a genderfluid bicon with a lot to say I'm legally obligated to list freckle. If i had to give any more solid evidence, they're such an incredible actor, and i really aspire to match that level of talent. The scene where Len asks them if theyre ok and they deliver the iconic "I'm perfect." line? The "sometimes... Things that are expensive... Are worse." monologue? An idol through and through.

2) Torbjorn Lindholm- Overwatch: now i kinda thought of him as a joke but really he's a good character! He's an incredibly intelligent engineer and while he doesn't have much lore i do admire his sense of justice and his inherent good naturedness. Also he canonically fucks severely sawr......

3) Taako Taaco- The Adventure Zone: now i gotta disclaim this to say that I've only listened to about five episodes but as expected i LOVE taako. He's gay, he's feminine, he's got a strong sense of aesthetic and GLITZ.... Again i find him clinically relatable and also as a fellow longhair femme i gotta give respect to my man.

4) Naruto Uzumaki- Naruto: man i just think he's really fun. He's got a lot of really cool respectable abilities and he's got an inherent sense of kindness within him that shines through in almost all aspects. I love the way his character development goes and i especially love how he befriends the biju in the end. What a guy.

5) Rukia Kuchiki/Yumichika Ayasegawa- Bleach: this one is a tie so sue me. I love Rukia because she's got a really strong character and i just really love her consistent characterization, but also how she grows; starting out stubborn and headstrong but ultimately dependent on every other's validation, and ending strong and reliable and self sufficient. I also think her Zanpakuto and her bankai are some of the coolest and also some of the strongest, i really would have loved to see more of either or both. I really love Yumichika because he's got such an interesting obsession with his looks and aesthetic (much that i do- relatable) but it definitely belies an insecurity inside. I really like how he's technically as or more powerful than Ikkaku, but stunts himself for the sake of an arbitrary aesthetic" definitely a symbolic thing. Again, i really love his Zanpakuto, how it shares his inner sense of narcissism and even mentions how itd like to kill Yumichika for calling him a name it doesnt like. I also think how it "sulks" and doesn't reach full power because of an arbitrary aesthetic- a very tasty parallel that i love. I also really like the azure version of it's shikai.... Flowers.

6) John Egbert- Homestuck: I just really love how at the beginning he's kind if an "everyman" and doesnt have much characterization at all so that the reader feels invited to project on him. This leads itself nicely into slyly adding bits and pieces of characterization until he's a fully fleshed character without a majority of the fanbase having realized it, yet still maintaining a fondness towards him as if he's an old friend. Whether or not it was intentional i think it was an absolutely delightful tactic, and one i would love to see utilized more often. I also love the symbolic exploration he goes through in discovering his powers, starting out with the wind unconciously protecting him and ending with him literally beign able to rewrite the canon of the story; i think it parallels his character development nicely and ties back to the main themes of the story as a whole just delightfully. I also just think his retconning ability is fucking cool.

7) Deadpool- Marvel: i think he really is a bicon as we know it. He's funny, he's morally ambiguous, he's canadian, the whole monty! He really is the epitome of "i want to do something, i do it and i dont regret it." which i really strive to achieve. Also, deadpool kills marvel is my favorite comic of all time.

8) Bart Curlish- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: i think she's a really neat character. I love how she just straight up cannot be harmed unless dirk will be hurt and then her ability just... Nullifies. I think it's really interesting how lots of her dialogue parallels with dirk's dialogue and i just think she has so much depth and characterization to explore.

9) Pearl- Steven Universe: again, i just really love her depth and characterization. I love to see how she gets past all these mental blocks she puts on herself; how she substitutes garnet for rose in forming sardonyx, how she followed 'pink's' last order to a fault, how she thinks of everyone but herself.... I just think she's a neat, round character.

10) Pik- Coupon Kids: i think they're just an incredibly funny and interesting character... Why do they have such a relationship with their father? Why can they remove their mouth from the equation and how can they make more eyes spontaneously appear on their face? Why does creating more eyes make them nauseous? I just think that like any good character they leave the audience with a lot of questions but makes them laugh the whole time theyre asking the questions. I also love how they act like a rock to quat despite how chaotic they are. What an icon truly.

Ill tag @skingustus @snirti @trovairitz @partyinthecloudkingdom @dadpresident @dadspacito @grandgardenlover @peachpitdreams @gay-jesus-probably @spidermans-butt

(I was just tagging mutuals- if you wanna do this go ahead! Conversely, if you were tagged and don't wanna do it, don't feel obligated to, it's just for fun!)

[contradictorycrimson]

theory

ok so with Hiveswap out ive been thinking about Homestuck a lot lot more. I refuse to let myself fall into the state of obsession I was once in but I had a thought and I couldn’t not share it. I was thinking about the role Zodiac signs play in Homestuck and that lead me to think about the Tarot. Where I had a realization, the 22 sburb players and the 22 major arcana have waaaaaaay too many similarities. Here’s my thought process:

John: “The Fool” not only is it the first Arcana but also John tends to know nothing as we mainly learn the rules of the universe through him. Also his character is mega centralized around comedy and practical humor, Sassacre’s text being the prime example.

Rose: “The Moon” this is due to her mysticism with dark yet benevolent forces such as the Horrorterrors as well as Grimdarkness

Dave: “The Hanged Man” the part of Dave’s classpect that makes him so powerful is his use of the Doomed Dave’s (prime example being Davesprite) existence. They can lead him in the right direction and assist him as well as harm him but they are always sentenced to death regardless.

Jade: “The World” her classpect manipulates the physical and spacial properties of the the universe, as well as her actions in minimizing the worlds of the inciphisphere and leading them to the new session.

Aradia: “Death” The role the concept of death plays in her character as well as her constant infatuation with the concept of funerals and corpses speaks enough.

Tavros: “The Chariot” so obviously Tavros uses a lance and a wheeled machine but beyond that, Tavros’ entire character development, as well as his role as a Page is based around moving forward and looking straight ahead.

Sollux: “The Lovers” a little less obvious but hear me out. Sollux’s whole character is centered around duality, and every major point of conflict for Sollux is based around failed romance, his matespritship with Aradia that lead to her death, as well as his budding moirallegience with Feferi that lead to her death, and his (½) death.

Karkat: “The Emperor” Karkat makes a very clear point in being the leader of the situation, his rancorous nature, as well as his strife specibus being sicklekind also speak to this.

Nepeta: “The Hermit” Nepeta often keeps herself isolated due to Equius’ wishes, she even lives in a cave.

Kanaya: “The Sun” this is due to her relationship with the green sun as a rainbow drinker as well as her being the only troll to ever enjoy sunlight.

Terezi: “Justice” I find this one is fairly obvious from her introduction scene with the scalemate trial as well as her confrontation with Vriska.

Vriska: “The Wheel of Fortune” her powers and her weapon both rely on her good fortune. Her strife specibus revolves around the idea of rolling a dice, or alternatively, spinning a wheel

Equius: “Strength” Not only is there the obvious implication in his muscles, but Equius always has infatuation with the strength of others, as to why he despises many lowbloods and refuses to lay a hand on highbloods.

Eridan: “The Magician” From the first moment we see Eridan he constantly refers to his hobby with magic, his strife specibus for a period of time is wandkind, and even though he states he doesn’t believe in magic, he also is known to state many other things about himself that are clearly denial. The part he plays as an angel slayer also brings black magic to mind.

Feferi: “The High Priestess” Originally I believed Feferi was the Empress but with more thought I find that role goes better toward another player. Feferi, although royal, never rules, instead she heals all, not just the royally blooded.

Jane: “The Empress” Her assosciation with the “batterwitch” and The Condensce, the real Empress of Alternia, is enough to speak to Jane being represented by the Empress Arcana.

Roxy: “Temperance” Her entire arc around recovering from alcoholism.

Dirk: “The Tower” His early character revolves around being hard to approach and distant from the rest of the group.

Jake: “The Hierophant” His intrigue with ancient ruins and treasure. His whole reputation as an adventurer really.

Calliope: “The Star” Kind and bright she supports the Alpha kids from afar and spreads positivity.

Caliborn: “Judgement” Lord English plays the role of a god-like figure, administering what ever it wants to do and believes it should.

Thoughts? It seems too damn convenient for it to just be a coincidence.

EDIT: oops, forgot, Gamzee is the Devil Arcana for obvious reasons

[dahniwitchoflight]

Who inverted in the comic and who overembraced? This is really interesting.

oh man a list of everyone? oh boy lol

I dont think I can list everything AND explain why in detail all in one post, but I can at least make a basic list of my thoughts roughly in order

so in the first four acts of the comic roughly, there was Alpha Jade who wandered near the path of inverting to a Seer of Time, but snapped out of that when she saw a dead dave in her googles

there was Jadesprite who had become comfortable with nonexistence/death being suddenly brought back to life and Inverting because of her situation

then later incomic Grimbark Jade I would say with our new knowledge of what things are Time and what things are Space is probably that Grimbark Jade was overembracing (Space as bigger picture thinking/not worried about details/patience focused ie “playing the long con” = GrimBark Jade as wanting to go through with the plan of Dave killing LE with the cueball and not explaining anything just wanting it done, her being patient but threatening with Roxy getting her to make the matriorb etc things like that)

Rose obviously spent a lot of time falling in the beginning, and then made a big splash inverting when she went grimdark. later in the comic she become more balanced, more okay with not having all the answers or the answers that she “wants”, still dipping now and again but nothing too bad

Dave overall at the beginning was alright, Davesprite however was I believe heavily inverted throughout most of his existence (and then later finding some happiness as an existence in Davepeta, but I also consider that partly him “giving up” at being “Dave” in general so ymmv)

Dave himself foundered here and there in parts, but I wouldn’t say he ever got as bad as even John in the ship, his path was mostly “maaaan why do *I* have to be the guy who does things all the time, like yes like I’m good at Time, but can’t somebody else be good at Time too? Give me a break” like his situation was trying to set him up to overembrace and do everything himself but he was actively trying to avoid that, so it sort of ended up evening itself out in a comfortable balance kind of way

John has, obviously, the Prospit ship, but other than that one bad situation he found himself in was otherwise actually pretty alright in his role

as for Alpha kids, Jane was somewhat similar to Rose in that she had a lot of buildup for going down a dark inverty path at the beginning, it kind of came to a semi head under Caliborn’s mockery of her, then she stuffed it down until Crocker!Jane happened and let it all out

Dirk and ARr have an interesting situation where one was an overembracer while one was an inverter, and they kinda push eachother away from themselves as they both attempt to distance themselves from eachother, in some ways both versions of Dirk are trying simultaneously to be “less like “Dirk” ” and “more like themselves (who is Dirk)” in varying ways throughout the comic, so they both show signs here and there of flip flopping between those two states, overall though I think Dirk was more likely to overembrace at the start and invert near the end, while AR was more like to invert near the beginning and overembrace near the end

Roxy of all the kids was actually the most straightforward in her path, even moreso than John, she never really wandered from the straight and narrow, even when her vices came to a head or when she stumbled a bit she didnt let it overwhelm her, but shook herself off and straightened herself out and kept on trucking

and then Jake was fairly alright, but I do think a lot of his bravado at the beginning was maybe him trying to cover up that he didn’t really feel like a valuable contributor/part of the rest of the team, which is probably why he seemed to fall easily into place whenever Dirk stepped up tor try and take the reigns of any situation they were a part of in the beginning. Jake always did seem more comfortable leaving difficult situations in the hands of other people rather than deal with things honestly and thats probably because of his own perspective that he wasnt able to handle those things

and then when Aranea did her thing with him, technically during his giant hopey ball thing you could consider that “environmental factors forcing him to act overembracey” but I dont think it really counts cuz it wasnt of his own free will at all

and then for the trolls, most notable examples of either inversion or overembracing were:

Aradia as inverting while still a ghost/dead aka before god tier

Vriska as HEAVILY overembracing to the point of being poster child, while (Vriska) or punk Vriska/Ghost Vriska going the extreme other direction of inverting for a bit

Terezi at the super beginning you could say was more likely to overembrace (mostly because of Vriska influence probably), then mellowed out a bit, but then far later her relationship with Gamzee caused her to somewhat invert

Gamzee, did make drastic personality flips over the course of the comic, but he’s an ambiguous character and thats overshadowed by things like his personal Loyalty to LE and Lil Cal, I’ll give him that. But, overall, he did decide that what he wanted was the same thing as what LE wanted, he decided he was going to become his own god/s, and he sort of suceeded at that, and everytime, when it came to a head between what he wanted and what other people wanted, Gamzee did what he wanted every time (because he wanted what LE wanted which he understood as things that he himself wanted, because he knew he was going to become LE) so I would consider that a tendency for overembracing overall, with the slight exception of the beginning of the comic where he was a complete sopored up pushover

Eridan you could consider was a straightforward example of of overembracer in the same vein of Aranea later on, where he decided on a plan of action/his own beliefs, didn’t let anything or anyone else come into his consideration, and ended up having that plan blow up in his face

Tavros has a notable mention of as a ghost with Vriska dipping slightly into inversion but it never really came to a head/amounted to much

then the other trolls are more like, Equius was submissive, but he *wanted* to be that way, but he didnt do anything at anyone elses expense really, so he didnt invert or overembrace

Kanaya like Roxy was fairly steady in her role overall, and more rose to occasion whenever she was needed

Nepeta didnt really get much either way and neither Sollux

and while I definitely agree Karkat had some up and downs with his own self worth, neither were really that extreme, I think he did end up coming out on top with a better understanding of his role at the end of the day

and of the older trolls, the only notable example out of any of them inverting or overembracing wise was Aranea for overembracing, for already spoken about reasons

Meenah was a notable character, but again, was one of those that stayed fairly steady in their path without really trampling others’ wills

then finally cherubs

of course Caliborn/LE is THE poster child for overembracing as a universal concept far greater than even Vriska

Calliope, especially when dead, fell more into a situation where if she had been left in it, she would have bent towards one of the extremes overtime, probably inversion, but overall in the comic was a great example of someone who found more of a balance in her role overall

and then Alt!Calliope was, again, now knowing a better understanding of Space as patience and broad thinking versus Time as impatience and details focused (unlike before where I had those parts actually switched) I now understand her as someone who’s situation forced them to overembrace their talents, to become like Caliborn and his overembracing ideals in order to survive, to think only of themselves and nothing else in order to continue existing at all and find a way to claw themselves out/be able to do something

thats about that roughly

[protecticarus]

Prompt idea: Dirk finds a lost baby as a clue, Todd is less than pleased until they inevitably act like an old married couple and Todd sees Dirk is good with kids?

this is adorable! I’d love to see dirk with kids :’)

(I went with established relationship, hope that’s okay!)

~

“Hello Todd!” Dirk exclaimed as he stepped through the door to formerly Todd’s, now their apartment.“Hey.” Todd replied without lifting his eyes from his guitar.“We have a new case!” Dirk said, grinning. “Really? What is it?” Todd asked and put his guitar down, expecting whatever Dirk had gotten mixed up in to require his full attention.“This.” Dirk replied.Todd lifted his gaze to look at Dirk, only to find standing at the door cradling an actual human baby in his arms.“Dirk… What the actual hell?” Todd said in a surprisingly calm voice, which did not match what he was feeling.“I don’t know her real name, but I’m calling her Anastasia.” Dirk replied.“Dirk, please explain why there’s a baby in our apartment?” Todd pleaded.“She was lost.” Dirk explained.“Did she tell you that, or?” Todd replied sarcastically.“Of course not, silly! She was alone outside of our building. It’s a sign. It’s a case.” Dirk replied.“Dirk… Someone’s looking for that baby! You can’t just take her!” Todd exclaimed.“Todd, she was alone. This is a case. I know it.” Dirk argued.“Are you sure?” Todd asked.“Yes.” Came the reply.Todd sighed. This is not something he wanted to deal with. Most of their cases were chaotic, but a baby? Todd had no idea how to handle that and was fairly certain neither did Dirk.“Okay. What the hell are we going to do about the baby?” Todd asked.“What do you mean? She’s the first clue.” Dirk replied as the baby squirmed in his arms.“What, you plan on having her here? Shouldn’t we call social services or-““Oh Todd, we can’t! We are supposed to find out where she belongs! We are supposed to take care of her!” Dirk exclaimed.Todd wanted to argue, but decided against it. He knew by now that when Dirk was like this, there was no stopping him.  

“Fine. But Jesus, Dirk, that’s a human being. We have to be… Careful.” Todd tried to reason with Dirk.

“Of course, Todd, we will.” Dirk replied and smiled down at the baby in his arms.“I’m just saying, our cases can be dangerous and we aren’t exactly experienced with children-““I am well experienced in a dangerous and traumatic childhood, so I know what not to put her through. She will be fine!” Dirk replied, still looking down at the baby.Todd’s expression softened. Of course Dirk felt the need to protect the kid.“Okay.”Dirk smiled at Todd, grateful to have him agree.“You want to hold her?” Dirk asked.“No! No, I don’t.” Todd replied, not trusting himself with a baby.“Fine. Then you can go get some diapers and whatever babies eat.” Dirk suggested.“Oh God…” Todd replied, dreading the case already.“Thank you, love.” Dirk grinned and pecked Todd on the cheek.“Just… Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, okay?” Todd said and left for the store.He had a bad feeling about this.-Dirk spent the rest of the day holding the baby and talking to her. Non-stop. The baby actually seemed very focused on Dirk, which only encouraged him.Todd focused on trying to find out where the baby had come from, how she ended up at the Ridgley. But every now and then he would get distracted by Dirk’s soft voice talking to the baby.-A sharp cry woke Todd up.He groaned. How had his life gone from late mornings with his boyfriend to waking up in the middle of the night to a crying baby in one day?“Dirk.” Todd mumbled, trying to get the detective’s attention.Dirk replied with a groan much like Todd’s own.“The baby.” Todd said.Dirk groaned again. Todd turned around under Dirk’s arm slung around his waist to face him and placed his index finger and thumb on both sides of Dirk’s nose, blocking his breathing.Dirk coughed. “Rude.”“The baby’s crying.” Todd said, closing his eyes again.“Why can’t you calm her down?” Dirk asked.“Your baby.”“‘S not.”“You brought her here.”“Our baby.”Todd snorted. “I think I’d remember that.”“Our case, ergo, our baby.” Dirk mumbled.“Dirk.”“Todd.”“Dirk.”“Fine.”Dirk slowly got out of the bed and made his way out of their bedroom. Todd fell back to sleep almost immediately after the baby stopped crying.He woke up again a few hours later to the sun shining into their bedroom. He reached out next to him to bring himself closer to Dirk, only to find his side of the bed empty. He opened his eyes to look around the empty bedroom. Furrowing his brows, he got out of bed and walked towards the living room.“Dirk?” He called out.As soon as he stepped into the living room, he found Dirk asleep on the couch with the baby in his arms. Dirk was leaning against the back of the couch, his mouth hanging open and light snores coming out. The baby seemed satisfied enough. She was placed against Dirk’s chest, her tiny hand tangled in the collar of Dirk’s pajama shirt.An oddly warm feeling washed through Todd. Something about the sight before him made his heart melt. What the hell was that about?Todd went to pick up his phone from the table to capture the moment. He forgot to put his phone on silent and the camera clicked loudly in the otherwise silent apartment.The baby cried out and Dirk jumped awake.Dirk’s eyes found Todd immediately.Todd stood in front of him with his phone still pointed at Dirk and the baby, an apologetic look on his face.“Oh Todd…” Dirk groaned and started bouncing the baby in an attempt to calm her down.-“Dirk, what the hell are you doing?” Todd asked as he noticed Dirk making faces at the baby.“Entertaining Anastasia, of course.” Dirk replied.“That’s not her real name you know, and shouldn’t we be working on finding the people who did give her her real name?” Todd asked.“Who’s to say it isn’t Anastasia?” Dirk asked, his voice coming out funny due to the face he was currently making. The baby laughed.“Not the point, Dirk.” Todd replied but couldn’t help a smile taking over his face. The baby, who only yesterday had never spent time with either of them, had obviously taken a liking to Dirk.“Yes, of course we will. We will find your parents, won’t we, Anastasia? Oh yes we will.” Dirk replied, mostly speaking to the baby.“Let’s get to it then, yeah?” Todd asked.“Yes, of course. I already know where to start.” Dirk said. Anastasia, the baby, laughed again.-The next three days were incredibly weird but surprisingly pleasant.They almost got used to waking up in the middle of the night to a baby’s cries.Todd even held the baby, though she cried as soon as he did. Dirk assured him she just wasn’t used to Todd. Surely enough, when Dirk later forced Todd to try again, the baby was calmer. Dirk had smiled like the sun. Todd had smiled back.Dirk didn’t like to put the baby down except at night. Most of the time, the baby was in Dirk’s arms. The baby seemed to enjoy it. And weirdly enough, so did Todd. A few days ago, he would have never thought that Dirk would be good with children, let alone that he would find Dirk with children so… Endearing.Todd had never not liked children, they just… They just weren’t a part of Todd’s life and he was okay with that. Yet somehow, when they finally found Anastasia’s (whose given name did in fact turn out to be Anastasia) parents, Todd found himself feeling emotional over having to say goodbye to the baby.Dirk on the other hand had actually shed a tear as he cooed at the baby in her mother’s arms. The mother was, of course, eternally thankful for Dirk and Todd for finding her daughter and returning her safely. She promised they could visit any time they wanted.Dirk thanked her multiple times.-“You okay?” Todd asked as he and Dirk sat on the couch, his arm around Dirk’s shoulders.“Fine.” Dirk replied and let his head fall onto Todd’s shoulder.“You miss her, don’t you?” Todd asked.Dirk sighed. “I do. Isn’t that odd?” He mused.“No. It’s not.”“No?” Dirk asked.“No. You were so good with her. And she obviously liked you. It’s like you… Had a bond, you know?” Todd explained.Dirk sat up. “I thought so too!” He exclaimed.Todd laughed. “Her mother did say you could visit.”“Yes, I know, but I don’t know how wise that would be. Might just confuse everyone.” Dirk sighed.Todd was silent for a minute. “Are you always that good with babies? Or was it just Anastasia?” He finally asked.Dirk thought for a moment. “Well, I don’t have a very impressive amount of experience with children, but the ones I have come across seemed to like me.” He replied.“You are good with babies. Babies like you.” Todd voiced the conclusion he’d come to.“I suppose so, yes.” Dirk smiled.“That’s nice.” Todd replied.“It is?” Dirk asked.“Yeah. I mean, I’ve always thought I wasn’t good with kids, but I think seeing how good you are with them made me a bit more comfortable.” He explained.“You didn’t like kids?” Dirk asked.“It’s not that I didn’t, I just… Never really had to? I haven’t spent much time around kids really. And I was okay with that. Didn’t think I wanted to.” Todd said.“Didn’t think?” Dirk asked curiously.Todd blushed slightly.“I mean… I thought having to look after a baby during a case would be a disaster but… It was kind of…”“Fun?” Dirk stepped in.“Yeah.” Todd agreed. “And you seemed happy to have her here.”Dirk smiled. “I was. It was great fun.” He said.“Would you… Wanna do it again?” Todd asked, his voice a little quieter than before.“Look after a lost baby?” Dirk furrowed his brows in confusion.Todd mentally face-palmed. “No, I mean… Do you… I don’t know, want to have one?” He asked.Dirk looked stunned. “I… I never thought about it. I didn’t think it was possible for me.”“Because of the universe?” Todd asked.Dirk nodded.“Who knows, maybe you’re supposed to have one. You are weirdly good with them.” Todd mused.Dirk grinned. “Perhaps. I don’t think I would want to do it by myself though. A lot of work. A lot of responsibility.” Dirk said.Todd grinned too.“I guess you’d need someone to help you then, huh?” He teased.“I think so.” Dirk replied smugly. “Well, I’d be a terrible assistant if I didn’t help you with something like that, wouldn’t I?” Todd said, hoping Dirk would get his meaning.Dirk’s expression softened and he smiled in a way that made Todd fall in love with him just a little bit more.He never thought he’d actually consider having a child.Then again, he’d never thought he would end up where he was now, either.

~

if you have any fic ideas, please send me prompts! I’d love to write them. my inbox is open! x

[wakraya]

My problem with the "we're real people we don't have arcs" line is that they do in the post retcon timeline? However brief they are they still exist, but they are all solved by vriska. Rose still got drunk, dave still doesn't want to time travel, karkat struggles with his position of leadership and relationships, and terezi still gets into a black relationship with gamzee. Instead of trying to fix their flaws on their own they're done by vriska. 1/

Vriska knocks the drink out of rose’s hand, vriska captures gamzee before his and terezi’s relationship goes bad, vriska takes the role of leader from karkat and distracts terezi from dave leaving karkat not having to worry if she and dave are a thing and pursues dave, dave gets karkat who he can talk to about some of his issues. Someone else fixing everyone’s flaws doesn’t feel genuine. 2/

Sure vriska doesn’t fix every problem but the ones she did fix were ones we have seen characters struggle with for years. It still cheats us out of any resolution that many fans have been waiting for years. It also begs the question of how serious are these flaws if you can just knock a drink out of a hand to stop them. 3/3

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See, here’s where I have an opinion that differs drastically from the Fandom’s, and that is, I think most of Vriska’s involvement post-retcon is ultimately useless to the characters, and nothing she does actually fixes anything.

You see, Vriska is a very special brand of attention whore, she just LOVES being the center of attention, regardless of what it is. She wants to be the one to defeat the Villain, and so creates him, she wants to face English herself, she’s in the most literal sense, as her role indicates, stealing the spotlight from the story at any chance she gets. But while the focus shifts to her constantly? She doesn’t actually do shit.

Let me explain: I’ve heard this argument, that Vriska’s involvement was a Deux Ex Machina that just solved every single problem the people on the Meteor had and thus made them less relatable, but that’s just not true. Let’s go one by one:

Rose and her drinking addiction, what many people don’t get about this interaction is that Vriska doesn’t give a FUCK if Rose is an alcoholic or not. What she doesn’t want is a useless Seer. We only see her smacking the drink off her hand once, but by the descriptions by Karkat and Dave and the attitude Kanaya has towards her, it’s obvious that Vriska has been bossing them around for three entire years, which means at any moment she’s seen Rose fall into alcoholism, she’s stopped her, to keep a valuable asset for the fight that was to come. Now the thing to have in mind is that Rose getting drunk so often is bad, very bad for her. But she doesn’t just drink for the sake of it. She starts drinking because she’s nervous to go out with Kanaya. And she keeps drinking to mask the underlying fear of growing up. Her Development, her Mother, Rose has a TON of issues she masks with the alcohol, and we see it when we get to the Session and she fails to foresee the creation of Rosesprite and Jasprose. Rose struggles with her powers and her role in the group, and while the alcoholism is gone, her problems with her growth aren’t. That being said, post-credits, it seems marrying Kanaya and taking care of Grubs left her happy and complacent. But Vriska had nothing to do about that.

Terezi on the other hand is better off without Vriska than with her. Game Over Terezi had regrets about killing Vriska, and it fucked her up in the long run, getting together with Gamzee, fixing her eyesight, and eventually, leading her to forcing John to fix what she’d done. However, the catharsis of not having to kill Vriska doesn’t come without a cost. They become Moirails- And this Moirailship is absolutely one-sided. Vriska uses Terezi to feel better about herself, while Terezi dwells in the thoughts of this other Terezi that planned the trip back in time for John and did all the cool shit. She sticks with Vriska even though their relationship is toxic, to the point to bring herself to fight, she uses her powers to experience the catharsis of a version of herself who got together with the Vriska she wants. Terezi’s regrets about killing Vriska were the thought of changing her, of making her a better person. But post-Retcon? She’s more cocky than ever. She thinks she’s the center of the Universe! Terezi wants (Vriska) to be healthy and happy. But all she’s getting is an even worse Spiderbitch. And even though she knows it, she goes back into the broken Furthest Ring to try and get her.

Kanaya is happier with Rose being more healthy and not drunk all of the time, however with her complicated relationship with Vriska, things have turned around. Initially, Kanaya had red feelings for Vriska, but was stuck in a Moirailship with her, and eventually caught her making out with Tavros, which made her fall off with the jadeblood. And now that she’s back alive? It’s hard to say if Vriska’s red-flirting with Kanaya or just trying to get her attention, but she’s heavily getting on her nerves. Kanaya dislikes Vriska and feels nothing for her anymore, but now it’s her who wants the jadeblood, too, to pay her attention.

Gamzee, well. I mean. Vriska’s making his life impossible in the meteor and she ends up stuffing him in the fridge, but this is very much well deserved. Fuck the clown.

Karkat may not have Quadrant Issues with Terezi anymore post-retcon, but his leadership issues are shining more than ever. Vriska has replaced him at his job, she’s taken the spotlight and thrown him off the stage entirely. He mellows down and hangs out with Dave, but the way he acts when he falls asleep and leads the charge towards English? Echidna’s words about keeping him safe? The fight with Clover? Karkat wanted action, he wanted to be useful to his friends and actually lead them as a leader, even though he’s not really good at that and his eager, initial charges seem to only harm him in the longer run. Thankfully Dave and the Mayor seem to support him through it.

Dave, well… His catharsis comes later with Dirk and Vriska has nothing to do with any development he has or stops having. It’s obvious he dislikes Vriska too, though, and I bet along with the other things they have in common, seeing Karkat’s position of leadership fall upon Vriska aided get their relationship going. See, that’s the thing- Dave and Karkat, much like Kanaya and Rose, are happy together and show how happy they are together, but they don’t have their issues resolved. On Karkat’s side it’s the Leadership, on Dave’s it’s the Fighting itself. Confidence the Spiderbitch herself does nothing aid with.

And finally we get to the Session, where Vriska finally shines and puts Jade and Jane to sleep. Now that is the only thing she helps with, and yet, was it truly necessary on her part? You see, it did speed things up and left Condy without two immensely valuable assets, but even if she hadn’t done this, the Kids would’ve in the long run defeated Jade and Jane themselves. 

Now this isn’t explicitly canon, so take it with a grain of salt, but when Artist Caliborn sees his future on the screen and describes the Masterpiece, he explicitly states that he’s surprised by the Kids appearing in a retconny John flash. He also has the ring that Calliope gets to resurrect. That makes me think Artist Caliborn is not the Alpha Caliborn that will later become Lord English, tying with my thoughts that with the Retcon, by the end, we’re not even following the ‘Alpha Timeline’, since the Alpha Timeline is that which favors Lord English, and the point of the Retcon and finishing the game is to escape the clutches of Paradox Space and the Alpha Timeline. So thematically, this makes a lot of sense. And so if the Vriska is 8ack Timeline is not the Alpha, the most likely outcome is that the Alpha Timeline where the Kids have won and regrouped to take down Caliborn is one in which Vriska wasn’t brought back. Which means even then, against all odds, they won.

But even if she did help take those two down, okay, a small win for Vriska. Compared to what she does later it’s nothing at all, right? She makes up the entire plan to win the session, and she faces Lord English herself to defeat him! She ends up stealing the Spotlight! Except… That’s all she does. She inserts herself there, at the very front of the story… And does absolutely zilch for anyone but herself.

The plan she makes is an absolute failure, and going against everything she’s planned is what ends up happening in the Session. The Felt is the least troublesome bunch? They end up time-warping around, being extremely meddlesome and manage to kill Jake once and cause a bunch of mayhem around, have to be taken on by Jake, Karkat, Dad, and the Skeleton Army to stop them from messing everything up. The Healer can’t fall, if Jane falls they’re done for! And yet Jane falls and they still push through. If Jade wakes up it could jeopardise the entire mission, she must be kept asleep at all costs- But she wakes up anyway, and Condy is too busy in Derse to notice her and put her back under her control. The people she disregards the most seem to be the ones that ended up doing the most shit in the fight, because she’s an asshole. Vriska is an absolute and utter, self-centered asshole, and her entire existence from the Retcon onwards is to be there in the middle of everything without regard of what’s actually favorable and what isn’t.

She doesn’t even STICK with the gang to help them win the Session, instead she heads to the Furthest Ring… Where she finds (Vriska) and abuses her psychologically. (Vriska) is the antithesis of all Vriska is. (Vriska) is a Vriska that actually came to terms with the fact she’d done wrong, that she had paid the ultime price for her transgressions… And that, in death, had slowly realized the futility of trying to change things, that she was no longer relevant. This irks Vriska. (Vriska) has stopped acting like a Thief of Light. (Vriska) is no longer trying to seek the Spotlight, and she can simply not comprehend something like this.

Then she goes on to try and rebuild the Ghost Army to take English down- And again, she does nothing. Tavros, to rub it in her face, has built the army himself, and now proceeds to gift it to Meenah to rub it in. Tavros becoming subservient willingly to Meenah is the ultimate Fuck You to the Spider Troll. She wants to be relevant, she SHOULD BE THE ONE to lead the army! But Meenah and Karkat team up to lead the charge, while Vriska stays with the Juju.

Juju that (Vriska) and the previous Ghost Army found. Juju that Aradia carried along and guarded.

When the climax of Act 7 happens and she opens the crate? That’s it. That’s her moment. She steps in front of the army during the next charge, after Karkat charged in first, after Meenah attacked English first, after part of the army is already dead, after Davepeta had their chance to fight English. She steps in, as if she owned the place, and uses the weapon.

True to herself, Vriska works to benefit only herself towards the end of the comic, and if it helps anyone else at all, it’s only tangential casualty.

Does she solve some problems? Yeah she does, to advance her own agenda. But she ignores the root of most of them, and disregards a ton of other issues and some of the characters entirely as if they were useless. All Vriska wants is to shine. And in the end? I seriously hope she’s dead and re-dead with Lord English in that cozy pocket of a Black Hole torn in the middle of Paradox Space.