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ask-the-seer-of-breath · 4 years

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On Theseus and his Paradox

I'm making this post hoping no one else has done this, haha. Though it should not matter, I'm sharing my thoughts on this anyway. Huge thanks to @FrankTheUnusual on Twitter for bringing to my attention more about this subject.

I know half of us are excited about Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon. I also know the other half of us isn't. Personally, I’ve been reading when I can muster the strenght to do it. Regardless of your stand in the multiple continuations of Homestuck, I hope you find my post interesting and/or fun. (^-^

Remember to keep reading under the cut.

Let's begin with context. Spoilers for the first part of Homestuck^2 ahead.

Dirk Strider has become a full-time anime icon, and he is ripping off Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan. As shocking as this is, he seems to have developed a narcissistic kind of view on himself. One that, I dare to say, is both caliginous and flushed. He has also spiraled down into the Homestuck fan void. He's obsessed with all that pertains to the rich lore, going so far as to have a collection of panels. Not unlike Doc Scratch. And he also seems to be depressed due to severe isolation from his emotions. His only coping mechanism is taking care of some discolored succulents he alchemized. Which are sadly not safe from the fangs of one of his shipmates.

Speaking of shipmates. First mate Terezi seems to be both the plague and the pilot of the Theseus, destined to crash it into a new planet. While Rosebot is as passive of a player as The Choice made by Alt!Calliope. She is not unlike the succulents.

Going back to Dirk, he has perfectioned the abilities of an ascended Ultimate being. And it is revealed his purpose is to take Homestuck back to the times before the narrative went astray into other concepts. His way of fixing the comic? Bringing back commands, which his connection to the Heart aspect allows him to suggest-ify. But he scraps that when it doesn't go the way he expected. Or did it?

Before we continue in what is Homestuck^2, we are left with a view of the Theseus approaching the destination Dirk and crew have pursued for three years at light speed.

Right off the bat, it seems that we are getting more involved with Titles and Roles in Homestuck^2. I suppose, courtesy of yours and my boy, optimisticDuelist.

Who the hell keeps making these references?

The subject of this post is to bring to light the name Theseus, and the fact that it's a ship. A space ship, yes, but it's enough to just know it's a mean of transportation.

Who is Theseus? A demigod, son of Poseidon but also the son of King Aegeus of Athens. The rightful heir to the throne, and a mythical hero for Athenians. Similar to other Greek mythological heroes, he went through several "labors". Daring adventures to prove his strength. These labors he fought against were representations of archaic religions and social orders, left behind by the Greeks. He is, therefore, historically recognized as a symbol of "major cultural transition".

Let's not dawdle, Theseus is highly connected to Ult!Dirk. It is a symbolism, meant to connect Dirk's crusade to a heroic concept of historical rebirth. They're both godly? Checked. They're both catalysts for major changes on the narrative? Checked. Had a sexist friend who was related to horses in some way? Checked. Abductor of women? Checked. Wait.

It is also worth mentioning that Theseus is rooted in the word thesmos. Which in Greek is “The gathering”. It's as if the battles of Theseus are the recount of the Homestuck narrative by Dirk.

But the hero Theseus had a ship too, which he sailed back from Crete to Athens. What is the importance of this boat?

Theseus rows across Paradox Space

What's more important to us right now, is the philosophical meaning of these references to Greek mythology. Because Dirk and Rose are all about that and have been "laying down mad enfilades of philosophical shit" on those three years.

Many times in the Epilogues and now in Homestuck^2, Dirk mentions what is like to be detached from the concept of Self, and how you need to internalize what your Identity is in order to ascend to a fully realized ultimate player. What does it matter being Good or Evil if you are Yourself? But what is Yourself?

Dirk mentions he used to drown in the ocean of his full potential, constantly trying to escape the things he was capable of doing. As a Heart player, he's capable of being aware of his splinters across Paradox Space. All of them doing different things, but all of them being him still. No matter how bad or how good. Are the other Dirks less or more Dirk than him? At what extent does he stop being Dirk?

But now, he has become the ocean. And he is beyond a definition of Self, of a trace of Identity, of being more or less, good or evil. Or so he says.

Let's recount the ship of Theseus. It is said it was kept by the Athenians as an object of adoration and historical importance for many centuries.

The Paradox of the Ship of Theseus says: Suppose that the famous wooden ship, on its preservation, has a piece that starts to rot away. The piece is replaced by a new one, but then the same scenario happens again. And so on, until many years later, the ship has had all of its parts replaced by new wood. Is this restored ship still the original ship in which Theseus sailed?

What happens if someone had stored and cured each rotting piece of wood that was scrapped originally, and then reconstructed the ship entirely. Which ship is the original? The one reconstructed from the old parts or the one restored by the Athenians? Which is more important, the body of the ship or the consciousness around the ship?

At what point does it stops being the ship? How much or how little change should it undergo to still be it? And what is even it?

When something changes, who is to say it's not the same as before, and who is to say it is? But rather than change, what is that which defines an object?

What if we decide to apply this concept to human beings, who is to say that you are the same person you were 10 years ago? If you argue that a person is their body, remember that in a span of 7 years your cells reproduce and decay, until you are made of completely new cells. Are you still You? Let's say you argue a person is their mind. Is your ten-year-old self the same as your fifty-year-old self? Everyone might still perceive you as the same person, but psychologically, you are not the same. You learn new things that influence the way you behave. So what is it that defines You?

"Where does consciousness exist, and what is the reality of our soul if we question the basis of personal identity?"

Living this paradox is what it means to reach your Ultimate self. Which might explain why is it such a difficult feat. The fact that Dirk was even capable of pulling it off is amazing, and probably derives from his upbringing as well as being bound to the aspect of Heart.

However, the Paradox of the Ship of Theseus is not only an answer to ascension, but it is also a question to the fandom.

At what point does Homestuck cease to be?

What is the end of Homestuck? Is it when all the characters reach a happy ending? Or is it when the villain is defeated? Is Homestuck^2 still what we love? And if it changed, who are we to say it isn’t Homestuck? Did Homestuck ever begin or was it already here.

This philosophical question resides in each of you. The answer is what you decide it to be. I myself I’m no philosopher but this was a fun question to reflex on, regardless.

Love it or hate it, H^2 came to stay. Dirk is here to stay. Whatever happens from now on... Let’s see how far we’ve come, everyone.

Thanks for reading!

Sources where I fact-checked and got inspired

Wikipedia: Theseus

Wikipedia: Ship of Theseus

Utne.com “The Ship of Theseus and the Question of Identity” By Noson S. Yanofksy

#Homestuck #Homestuck^2 #Dirk Strider #Theseus #ship of theseus #paradox #homestuck analysis #homestuck theory

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technogryph · 5 years

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A Very Long Theory About The Epilogues

Okay, so I know that the Homestuck epilogues have been out for almost a year now, but just in case, spoilers ahead. Also this turned out way longer than I originally thought it would so strap in! Anyway, today I was rereading the meat route trying to find something for a project I wanna do, and at the end where John “permanently” dies it didn’t sit right with me. Didn’t the first time I read it, doesn’t now. I don’t really think (meat)John is dead.

I don’t know if anyone’s thought of this yet (they probably have), but this all happens when Dirk is the narrator. He’s the one who states that John is dead, and then goes on to describe what Terezi hears and smells to further support his claims. Dirk is the one who tells us what John feels and what Terezi senses, literally no one outside of his influence even knows what happened to John after he left Earth C except maybe Rosebot, and she’s so wrapped up Dirk’s mission that she could just believe John’s dead and move on. Throughout both the epilogues and Homestuck^2 it’s been shown time and time again that Dirk can change the actions and thoughts of others when he’s narrating. While it has been shown that others can be aware of Dirk’s meddling, it’s usually only in times when he’s specifically addressing them to get their attention or when it goes completely against that character’s rational train of thought. And even when they are aware, he seems to be able to still sway them heavily if he really wants to. Looking at this, combined with John’s current physical state, I don’t think it’d take much to sway anyone into believing he was dead, even with John himself.

The thing is, John’s not just a normal person, he’s a god. God tiering is supposed to leave only two options for death: either dying Heroically or Justly. While there’s no definitive rules on what qualifies as Just or Heroic, I think it’s safe to say John’s death wasn’t Just. As for Heroic, there could definitely be an argument made. We’ve never been given any indication that a god tier’s death has to immediate, so it’s entirely possible that a prolonged death could still kill someone who’s god tiered so long as whatever caused the mortal injury still fits in one of the two categories. John had a hole in his chest from a fang containing cherub venom, among other injuries, he traveled through a black hole, and has been bleeding out for quite a while, all in an effort to finally defeat the big bad and save cannon, which is pretty dang heroic. Had John’s clock chimed to declare his death as such, I wouldn’t have thought anymore into it. But that’s not what happens! John’s clock never chimes. In fact right before he dies Dirk says that John has no shot of being revived by Jane, his clock won’t chime, and he won’t even get an afterlife. Dirk attributes all of this to the cherub venom claiming that it’s completely erasing John. From what we know of cherubs, they have some crazy biology for sure, but venom that completely erases someone from existence seems like it would have come up at some point before now. While I believe it has been stated prior to the epilogues that cherubs have venom (though I can’t find exactly where), just the way that Dirk phrases everything sounds so dramatic. He’s the narrator, and he seems to really enjoy his role, so why wouldn’t he want to really spice up his story. That leads to my final thought.

Dirk wants to make this his story, and he’s been fighting alt!Callie for control of the narrative throughout the meat route. He’s even trying to start a new universe in Homestuck^2 with himself ruling as the god of a species that he creates. While Homestuck has always been about an entire cast of characters, John has always been a center point of the story. He was there since page 1, has been the center of MANY major points in the story, and the epilogues center entirely around his decision on eating meat or candy. Plus, John has the power to retcon timelines which could easily derail any plans that Dirk tries to set in motion. So why wouldn’t he want to get rid of him? By using his narrative powers, he could convince John and everyone around him that he’s dead. Heck, John actually seems to be doing kind of okay when he’s trying to get Terezi to return to Earth C with him, and it’s not until Dirk jumps in and begins questioning his ability to do anything that John starts to rabidly deteriorate, telling John that he’s “so, so tired” and that he feels like he could sleep forever.

So that’s what I think is ultimately happening with John. He’s in some kind of deep sleep/coma induced by Dirk because his mind thinks he’s supposed to be dead. Terezi is under the same impression, and everyone else thinks he’s still back in the game.

#homestuck #homestuck2 #homestuck epilogue #meat epilogue #epilogue spoilers #john egbert #dirk strider

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themockingcrows · 4 years

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Two Fates, Two Kingdoms Ch. 20: Reaching Sun, Healing Moon

Jake&Aradia, JohnDave this chapter is sfw ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2606711/chapters/64558639

With Jake attempting to warm Dirk up to him on one hand and finding a new Alternian friend on the other, it would be easy to assume he had more than enough on his plate. Yet when you add in John and Dave's affairs, as well as the issues in Prospit that continue to hang over his head, it's anything but easy to keep up with it all.

“Sire, wouldn’t you be more comfortable wearing a cloak? It’s a bit nippy in here,” Jake asked, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between himself and Dirk, silence gained through effort and careful work for the last few days. Dirk looked up immediately from his book to appraise the Prospitian, now dressed in a proper tunic and trousers, thick, warm slippers made for the pair of them till proper shoes could be made and fitted to them both. Green suited him as much as the white sleeves did, brought out his eyes, made his warm toned skin even more rich looking, his hair even darker than the raven’s wing it already was.

Anyone else would find this man handsome.

Dirk found him troublesome. Handsome, but troublesome.

“I’ve no need for a cloak. There’s a chill, yes, but it’s refreshing and keeps me plenty awake.”

“All the more reason for the cloak then, don’t you think?” Jake teased. Dirk raised a brow at him as he gestured to the fireplace with its dying flames. “Or perhaps another few logs on the fire?”

“Are you trying to subtly tell me you’re cold and that you’d like the room warmer?” he asked, closing his book on his hand to keep his page so he could rest his chin on his upturned palm.

“Ah- Well. It is a bit chilly. I just assumed with your pro-. ...difficulties as king, that you’d prefer to be cozy,” Jake said awkwardly.

Dirk sighed. “You’re doing the eager puppy thing again, Jake.”

Jake worried his lip before exhaling a sigh, taking a breath, and trying again. “I merely thought a man of your standing would enjoy having something to warm him that was handsome as himself. Surely your wardrobe has plenty on offer?”

Dirk lifted a brow.

“It does. But I’m enjoying the chill, as I said. It’s keeping me awake.”

“Surely a bit more rest wouldn’t hurt, you’re enjoying some spare time reading as it is so that means there’s a bit of free time, yes?”

“If this is a ploy to make me lower my guard, it’s not working,” Dirk said as he went back to reading. “I want to read right now. I can sleep when I’m dead.”

“Dying young and leaving a handsome corpse for reading a book?”

“Who said I was dying young? And that’s twice you’ve called me handsome in a very short amount of time. Mind your tongue or people will talk like fools.”

Jake’s cheeks colored a bit, but he went to help himself to the fireplace, crouching down and adding a few logs till it was going nie and steady once more.

“How about some tea then, at least?” he asked, perking up. “Tea and snacks?”

“I’m reading, Jake. If you’re hungry go feed yourself. You’re aware of where the kitchens are now, just have Dave accompany you.”

“I’ve gone once myself and haven’t had any issues yet,” he said with a cheeky grin. “But if you insist. I’ll return with some snacks for the both of us.”

“I’m not hungry, Jake. Nor thirsty.”

“Pish posh, there’s always time for a spot of tea! Especially in winter, it’s practically a law,” Jake chuckled, waving his hand Dirk’s direction before he took off from the library, mind working quickly as he went down the halls. He was making headway with Dirk, he could feel it. If he could just keep this flow going, keep edging his way into his good favors, surely they’d be bosom buddies soon enough. If not buddies, then at least on better terms personally, which would make things far better for John and Dave’s issues with wanting to be wed. Hopefully. Maybe. If he was lucky.

Damn it, Jake, stay positive!

It was hard to stay positive in this chilly damned castle, though. Even with the long sleeves he felt the chill all the way to his bones and had to keep reaching up to rub his arms while in the halls. How the Dersian soldiers he saw here and there survived, hell how the work staff survived in their shorter sleeves, he couldn’t imagine. Maybe it was just being used to the environment, and his people’s habit of practically hibernating during the winter months that was prompting his sluggishness and desire for warmth. Even if he was pressing that desire for coziness onto others. Well. One other. With the ulterior motive of making the man rest a bit more often to make his fangs less potent towards others and grease his wheel of usefulness towards other causes he was disinclined to naturally pursue.

Dirk’s attitude seemed to be more positive after he’d rested or eaten enough, but it was looking like a full time job to coerce the fellow into taking proper care of himself. Jake felt he was up to the task, even if it was just in tea, pastries, and warm blankets leading to a potential nap time for the royal. It was much like taming a wild beast, Jake thought, though the comparison drew a bit of his ire after all the rude things people had said about Dave in Prospit.

Little did they know the true beast was his brother.

Dave in comparison was a normal, upstanding fellow, mild in temperament and sweet in general disposition. Though, then again, Jake had also never seen him very angry before. Perhaps the monster lay in him as well, lurking in his blood waiting for the proper time to strike. Dirk’s rested at the surface, what you saw was what you got, but Jake couldn’t help but wonder if there was something… softer beneath those scaly hides.

The kitchen was easy enough to find for him, following his nose as much as the general direction of Downwards towards the warmth at the heart of the palace. Being allowed access was also easy, given nobody wanted to tussle with someone his size, but getting what he needed was a chore. Everyone chose to ignore him save for curious staring and murmurs, gestures to their own necks as they discussed him in whispered Dersian.

“Where uh. Where might I find a teapot? And tea?” he asked the room at large in Common, unsure who to personally ask. “And.. oh, bother. Where is anything in here?”

The previous visit down here had been for some milk and to grab some things that had been left in baskets for storage as excess. At least, he hoped they’d been excess, since he’d grabbed several for himself and Dave and John to nosh on. This required several more steps and some decorum. He was no master of tea, but Jake was certain he could manage the pot properly once he found the damned leaves he needed.

And the pot.

And the water.

And th-

Ugh this was going to be complicated, wasn't it. When Jake got no response from anyone in the kitchen, he finally bit his lip and mimed pouring tea and drinking it, then mimed eating food and wiping his mouth, hoping to get the point across.

“We can understand you,” one brave soul finally said, stepping forwards. Jake realized from the accent she was likely Alternian in origin, dark hair sweeping down to her knees in waves despite being tied back at her neck, rich red on her lips and the corners of her eyes. It was a bit of an outlandish appearance compared to what Jake was used to, but it suited her fine features perfectly. “Let me help.”

Someone else nearby hissed something to her, and even in his limited understanding of Dersian, Jake could understand a No when he heard it.

“I’d hate for you to get into trouble by helping me,” Jake said with a shake of his head, glancing to the person who’d hissed.

Aradia grinned a broad smile that showed dimples in her cheeks before shaking her head. “Oh, no, I won’t get in trouble. Everyone seems to think you’re dangerous, so they’re concerned for me to do anything with you,” she explained, dusting flour off her hands before going around to a cupboard and getting a tea set out. “Is this just for you?”

“No, I’m ah. I’m bringing it for the king,” he explained. “And for myself.”

“An audience with the king over tea? How very unlike him.”

Jake couldn’t help but chuckle as his assumption was proven correct. “Please, tell me where things are and I can help you out.”

“I’d just as soon do it myself,” Aradia admitted. “Buuuut…” she trailed off, glancing to the others in the kitchen, “if you don’t mind bumbling a bit amid people who are afraid of you, I wouldn’t mind the help at all.”

“So long as they don’t think I’m trying to maim them when I’m simply grabbing bread, then by all means,” chuckled Jake, taking a few steps to come closer to her side. “My name is Jake, by the way.”

“Oh, I’m well aware,” she said. “My name is Aradia.”

“Well aware, eh?” he asked, chuckling. “Has my name preceded me, then?”

“You could say that,” chuckled the maid. “Here. The hot water is over there, warm the pot for me? The tea leaves are here. Which blend would you prefer?”

“Something popular here,” shrugged Jake, “I’m sure it’ll be delicious either way.”

“There is a tea here that is less tea than hot drink. You should try it some time,” she explained, ignoring the nervous shuffling of her coworkers as Jake rounded on the heated water, pouring some into the pot and swishing it around before letting it set to warm. “You take jam and put it into hot water.”

“...And then?”

“That’s it, that’s the drink,” Aradia chuckled.

It was a strange feeling for Jake. Here was this woman who was by all accounts lovely as could be, and yet he didn’t feel attraction towards her. He felt a pull, a strong one, but there was no desire to flirt or even be overly witty. He settled for watching her move about, sorting tea and bits of berries into a strainer for him, charmed with how her hair moved and how every gesture seemed to have a story behind it. He wondered at her life, how she came to be in Derse, what her hobbies were, but kept coming back to the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Why. He hadn’t felt this since he was a lad, trying to befriend the stableboy.

“It should be warm enough,” Aradia said. “Dump it and add fresh, and we can set the tea inside now.”

“Certainly,” he said, doing just that with fluid motions. “While it steeps, would you mind telling me abou-”

“The pastries are over here, there are a few to choose from,” Aradia interrupted in a matter of fact tone. “I’d recommend the ones on the left, they have honey custard inside.”

“That’s wonderful, but I was wondering abou-”

“If you’re wanting something savory or more filling, though, we’ve go-”

“Miss, really, it’s not the food I’m wondering about!” Jake laughed, interrupting herr. “I was going to ask about you a bit, that was all!”

Aradia blinked, then grinned that same broad smile. “Really now? You stand in Castle Derse and you want to know about one of the maids? I’m not that kind of girl, just to let you know. I’ve already someone I’m sweet on.”

Jake lifted his hands quickly and shook his head. “Oh! No, no, miss, that’s not my intention at all!”

The smile didn’t diminish at all, though she drew closer. “Oh? You seem quick to say that. Are you telling the truth, or are you saying I’m not worth it? I’ll have you know: I’m more than worth it.”

“I. ...I’m not-. Oh, bother, I’m not certain how I’m meant to answer that without sounding insulting,” Jake admitted, stumbling over his words as he grew more and more flustered. “I’m sure you’re worth it, I’m just. I’m not. I mean I AM but not with YOU but not because you’re- I MEAN IT’S-”

Aradia laughed at him, head tipping back and pearly white teeth showing. She laughed till tears formed in the edges of her eyes, and shook her head. “Jake, please. I’m playing with you, relax before you strain something important.”

“Playing with me. Right. Yes. Of course,” he said as he started to settle down, face flushed. He adjusted the collar around his neck as if it were suddenly too snug, causing it to jingle as he pulled his hand away. Aradia looked at him for a long moment as if considering something… before going to pick up a plate. The remainder of the waitstaff was either keeping their distance still or had vacated the area entirely to tend to other business linked to the upkeep of a busy castle.

“I came to Derse when I was small,” she said. “My family were indentured servants, and I was a servant as well from the time I was very young. I used to clean the ashes from the fireplaces.”

“Ashes from the fireplaces?” Jake said. “That sounds like a miserable time.”

Aradia shrugged. “It’s what happens when your family is lower class. We were the lowest of the low even in Alternia, so Derse was a big improvement. They were patient here while we learned to speak Dersian, didn’t complain that we spoke Common so often to get by, and didn’t skimp on our food or water. When our contracts were up, we were hired properly and started earning wages.”

“Are your family still here?” he asked, curious just how many attractie red lipped women may be running about behind the scenes, curious if another of them would light the spark that this one was fanning in a different way.

“No. My family returned to Alternia and were killed,” Aradia said as simply as if she were reporting on the weather. Jake’s throat went dry and he shuffled, tall and awkward and bumbling. The steeping tea smelled sweet and delicate on the countertop, the thin jet of steam pouring from the spout like dragon’s breath. Aradia blinked at Jake’s suddenly somber attitude and smiled. “It’s alright, they had a lovely funeral I’m told. They’d have been happy.”

“That’s. ...I’m sorry, mis-”

“Please, enough with the Miss talk, call me by my name!”

“...Alright. Aradia, I’m sorry to hear that, you must be quite lonesome. But I’m not sure how much of a consolation a nice funeral is when you’re already deceased.”

“Oh, they enjoyed it,” she said matter of factly. “And it’s not as if I’m alone anyway.”

Jake frowned, furrowing his thick brows in confusion. “Didn’t you just say your family, ah…?”

“Died? Yes.”

“Then how are you not alone? Oh! Friends! You mean you have many friends, yes?”

A woman that must have been the head chef piped up then, interjecting loudly enough that Jake nearly jumped out of his skin despite her being half his size.

“You shouldn’t bother talking to her, she’s crazy. Thinks she can talk to her dead parents.” A scullery maid giggled from behind a soapy plate before ducking her head and returning to her labor of scrubbing out a particularly stubborn pot in the sink.

“And others!” Aradia added, nonplussed by the commentary. “There are many dead in Derse. Many old dead. I don’t always understand them, but I can hear and see them. My beloved hears them too, sometimes, though… he hears those who are going to die, instead. Wails and cries of souls tha-”

The chef lifted a large ladle from the soup she was working with and wielded it like a weapon Aradia’s direction, frowning aggressively. “No, none of that talk! None! Not in my kitchen, you quiet your trap girl! Damned crazy Alternian girl cursing my kitchen, dredging up hauntings and who knows what else,” she hissed in annoyance, before cursing for a moment in Dersian. At least, Jake was fairly certain it was cursing. It definitely didn’t sound very happy, and she kept shaking her head while speaking as she went back to work on the food.

Aradia, still unbothered, set a plate loaded with treats down beside the teapot and lifted the lid to peek at the liquid inside. “Ah, it’s bloomed out plenty now, fully steeped. Dump the leaves in the trash for me?”

Blinking slowly, Jake did as she asked before coming close to her side, leaning down to whisper to her. “Are you quite alright with her saying such awful lies about you?”

“Lies? What lies?” she asked, canting her head to the side. “She said the truth, except for the cursing and the hauntings. There’s nothing to dredge up, I just notice what’s already there. And Sollux hates what he hears, so it’s not as if he cares what some older woman says.”

Jake gaped at her till she made a noise and pointed towards the trash, reminding him to dump the leaves. He dumped the leaves mechanically, pivoting, and trying to make up his mind about the situation.

“So you mean to tell me you can hear spirits.”

“And see them!”

“And you’re not just saying that.”

“Nope.”

“And you’re not crazy.”

“Last time I checked I wasn’t, but there’s no telling if that will remain the same forever,” she said, lips curling into the same red bow of a smile. Jake felt something in his chest warm as she did so. There was the same strange feeling as earlier once again, though this time Jake was finally able to understand what it was. Or, at least, what he was fairly sure it was. Friendship. The strange bonding feeling that one had when a new instant friend was located, as if you were bosom buddies in a past life that had just been reconnected at the drop of a hat in the new world. There was just an instant connection, and Jake found himself anxiously hoping that she felt it too somehow.

How did one even explain that feeling to someone? “Hello, I feel we should be chums, embrace this new friendship with me”? No, that was foolish.

“You can come speak to me again you know,” Aradia said suddenly. “I’d quite like it actually, Jake. You’re strange.” It wasn’t an insult, how she said it, but more as a form of endearment that made him as happy as he was to hear she wanted to see him again.

“Certainly, the pleasure would be mine,” he said. “It’s always good to have another friendly face when you’re somewhere new.”

“Yes!” she agreed, and set the tea pot and a few cups onto a tray, adding the dish of treats afterwards in a neatly balanced arrangement. “Here, now. Take this back to the king while it’s still plenty hot. He drinks slowly, if you pour it while it’s this hot, it should be perfect temperature once he actually drinks it.” As an afterthought, she shoved a tea cozy onto the pot to help trap the warmth, a gaily colored purple thing with tassels that just made Jake smile even more with how silly it looked.

“Yes, certainly. Thank you!” he said, lifting the tray and… immediately setting it down again without releasing his grip on it. “Erm. Where, ah… where am I meant to go again? The direction?”

“Where was he last?”

“The library.”

Aradia stepped to Jake’s side and turned him to face a specific direction as she spoke, visually steering through the air with her arm to help explain the idea more thoroughly so as to help him avoid getting lost. With more thanks on his lips, Jake leaves in an excellent mood, returning to the familiar looking surroundings of the library with ease. It was only upon his arrival, however, that he realized just how much he’d really missed.

John and Dave were standing in the library speaking with Dirk about something, with speaking being the ideal state compared to how many things there were to yell or argue about potentially. Jake cleared his throat when he entered, lifted the tray with a grin in offer to the others, and came to set it by Dirk’s side before pouring a cup full of the tea for him. The conversation didn’t so much die as quiet for a moment, before beginning again.

“Surely it wouldn’t be missed that much,” Dirk said. “You can’t keep it forever. You’ll already have marks from the damned thing, the fewer you bear the better off you are.”

“I don’t know how to explain it to you,” Dave said slowly, “but I can’t take it off. Not right now. Not yet.”

“But when, Dave? If not now, when?”

Jake realized they were discussing Dave’s collar, the slender piece of equipment that had graced his throat the entirety of the time Jake had known him. It was a symbol of many things by now, none of which were good, but both Jake and John knew better than to try forcing Dave to do anything he wasn’t interested in doing. If he wanted to keep it on, whatever be the reason, it would remain on. He reached up to toy with it, holding it securely in place with both hands as Dirk murmured something in Dersian to him, and quickly shook his head.

“No, thank you, just. Later.”

“Dave. Please. For my sake, then, take it off.”

Dave cringed visibly at the wording, and gripped the collar tighter for a moment before putting his hands down as if ashamed, fingers curled into fists. The tension in the room was suddenly rising, and Jake wasn’t sure there was enough tea or treats to help bring it back down to a suitable level. Dirk sets his book aside and ignores the tea in favor of standing. He reaches out slowly, as if approaching a wild animal.

“Easy now,” he murmured. “This will make you feel so much better,” he promised.

Dave flinched when he set his hands on the collar, back seizing up, body trying to subtly lean away from the source of the discomfort. He looked like a cat avoiding a bath, eyes widening, mouth thinning to the barest line. It wasn’t until Dirk found the mechanism that held it together and tested it, tugging on either side, that Dave shouted and pitched himself down to his knees. He curled forwards bodily, hands resting on either side of his collar, shoving it as if he were the only thing keeping the sturdy item in place against unyielding forces, shouting in Common as he shook.

“NO. NONONO. NO. NO.”

Dirk appeared startled and took a step back, while John knelt down, touching Dave’s back. Or trying to at least. Dave flinched back from his touch as well the first time he tried, only yielding when he touched further down on his lower back, far from his neck.

“It’s alright,” John murmured. “Nobody’s taking it off.”

“Nononono,” repeated Dave, this time in Prospitian.

“What is the meaning of this?” Dirk asked, looking between John and Jake before gazing at his kneeling brother, confusion mixing with traces of… what was that emotion? Disgust? Concern? Jake found him hard to read, but with John trying to calm Dave down, he decided it best if he took up the reins to answer.

“He doesn’t want it off,” Jake said, realizing how unhelpful that sounded.

“Yes, fool, but why? Or are you going to start screaming if I remove yours too?” Dirk snapped. John glowered at him before looking back to Dave, hugging him when it was finally allowed.

“Ah.. I mean. I’m thinking it has to do with some trauma,” Jake said cautiously, measuring his words. “That collar was put on during his training, I assume. There was likely a lot of er.. Training. That went into teaching him to keep it on.”

There was the disgust, Jake could put a name to the emotion. The earlier one must have been concern if this was disgust.

“Your people treated my brother like a dog.”

“They did,” agreed Jake. Before everyone had warmed up to him, before they’d realized more about their own beliefs, he was ashamed to realize even he’d thought of Dave as a little beast at first. “...We did,” he said softly.

“And all this time, you’ve never gotten him over this?” Dirk demanded, looking to John this time. “You wish to marry him and yet he’s still unable to bear having that thing removed from him? Are you mad?”

“I’m not sure how to go abou-”

“I’ll say this now, so listen well, John: until he can handle taking that off, and KEEPING it off, I’m forbidding so much as any talk of marriage. If you flee and try to do it, I’ll have you hunted and Dave returned home. If a fucking Prospitian cannot remove this curse from him, his family will instead,” Dirk said, tone grave.

John was silent, but Jake knew the look on his face. It was the face of a man challenged.

“Get him to his chambers and calm him down properly,” Dirk muttered. “I’ll not have him kneeling and shivering and panicked somewhere he might be seen.”

“Are you ashamed of him?” John demanded. “It’s not his fault he’s like this, you know.”

“I know,” Dirk said. “It’s yours. Spare his fucking dignity and take him to his room, now, or I’ll take him myself!”

Setting his jaw, John carefully moved position and settled into a better crouch before grasping Dave beneath the arms, lifting him till he stood bent over. It made it easier for him to grasp behind his knees and his upper back then, carrying him bridal style so he could curl up, turning after a moment to bury his face against the skin warmed metal around John’s own neck rather than see his brother as he continued to shiver. With one hand he opened the door, and with his foot he slammed it shut again behind them upon leaving.

Jake wrung his hands anxiously, looking from the door to where Dirk still stood, nostrils flaring in rage as he tried to control his breathing. When he failed, he wheezed before beginning to cough, grabbing his handkerchief from his pocket to catch the mess he was no doubt coughing up once more before slowly sitting down in his seat again. When the fit passed, he rubbed his face with one hand, slowly coming to rest on the bridge of his nose, pinching away a migraine that was trying to form.

Unable to think of what else to say, Jake sighed and reached for the cup he’d poured, lifting it towards Dirk in offer. “Here. For your throat. It can’t be good to keep coughing like that.”

“It’ll be too hot, I’ll drink it later.”

“It’s the perfect temperature,” Jake assured him, smiling slightly when Dirk took the cup. “I was assured by the maid I met. She was quite the intriguing woman.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t flirt with my servants while you’re essentially under arrest,” Dirk said with a tired sounding sigh.

“It’s not like that!” Jake cried, squeezing the tea cozy as he pulled it off of the pot. “Augh, she thought the same thing at first, but it’s really not like that! She’s a beloved of her own, and I just want to be her friend very badly!”

Dirk lifted a brow at him as Jake poured his own cup of tea, a bit confused, but took a sip. Surprisingly, it was indeed the perfect temperature. “Hm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so dead set on friendship before, servant or none. Fine. Tell me about this maid friend of yours.”

“I’ve no idea if you know her,” Jake said. “She was in the kitchen and knew her way around very well. She speaks to spirits. Alternian girl, wh-”

“Pardon?”

“Spirits. And she’s from Alternia and-”

“Spirits.”

“Yes, spirits,” Jake said, taking a sip of tea and immediately burning his mouth a bit. “Ah! Ow ow ow, oof. Oh I shouldn’t have done that..”

Staring at him, Dirk sipped his own drink, savoring the taste and letting it soothe his throat. Jake had been good to bring the tea, perhaps it had been a necessity after all. “...Go on.”

“Oh. Yes, right. She’s an Alternian girl who can speak to spirits, and she’s rather funny and quite charming, and-” Jake said, stopping suddenly. He stared off into space for a moment before lifting his brows. Somewhere, deep inside his mind, thoughts had connected. “THAT’S IT!”

Startled, Dirk nearly dropped his cup. “What? What’s what?”

“HOW TO TALK TO THE GIRLS!”

“...What did I just say abou-”

“No! No, no, no, my girls! My sisters!” Jake said excitedly. He set his cup down and jumped up towards the center of the room with a jingle, pacing like a tiger in its cage as he talked, gesticulating with his hands. “They’re on our side, my sisters. They looked the other way when we left, when we took Dave and escaped. They’re next in line now, should anything happen to Father. Far as John and I can tell though, their best bet is a coup if they want to stand any chance of ending this damned war. Or at least talking with you directly about ending it. I know how to contact them now!”

“How in the fuck do you plan to do that?” Dirk asked, genuinely curious but just as unnerved by Jake’s outburst as before. “It’s not as if you can just send a letter. ‘Hello girls, nice to hear from you, by the way I’m at castle Derse! Send the army!’ hmm?” he said.

“Aradia!” Jake said, turning around and gesturing to Dirk with two pointed fingers, thumbs up, one eye closed in a wink. “She has contacts in Alternia. She knows Alternian. We were also close friends with the seamstress, and on good terms with the librarian at home, who are also Alternian! Nobody would suspect to read a message from home.”

“...Even if it wasn’t sent from home,” Dirk mused, catching on. “And you’re certain nobody would check? How many Alternians are loyal to your father?”

“I’ve no idea but the librarian would likely be the one to get the message. If it’s sent with a book, all the better. It’d look more official.”

Dirk gave a snort and sipped his tea once again. “Look. If your plan is for your sisters to stage a coup, that’s one thing. If you’re planning on assisting that’s another. You’re still my captives. And I’ll offer no help to my enemy.”

“My youngest sister is the darling of the military and her men are loyal to her. If she rose up, they would support her, even if it was to put Jane on the throne. It’s just a matter of them doing it…”

“What would a message home do then? What purpose would it serve?”

“To let them know we were alright. And that we supported them, if they needed any extra egging on,” Jake admitted. “They’re capable women, I believe in them. But letting them know we aren’t at risk or rotting in a dungeon would be grand and maybe let them carry on any plans they may already have in the works now that we’re not dangling in the cosmos.”

“If there’s word of a coup… I may call a pause to my men to allow them time,” Dirk said, closing his eyes to take a drink of tea. “I will not help an enemy. But helping by giving them time to sort their affairs and put someone more willing to discuss their surrender on the throne, then all the better.”

“Surrender?”

Dirk glanced over blandly. “You don’t expect me to yield, do you?”

“...No, I suppose not.”

Pensively, Jake finished his tea before setting the emptied cup down. “I’ll be just a short time, I need to go tell John about this, he’ll be thrilled to bits. Please, help yourself to the treats.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Try them anyway, I’m assured they’re delicious,” Jake said. “Aradia was right about the tea, I’m certain she’s right about the treats!”

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

Though back in his own room, Dave still hadn’t quite settled down. He lay curled on his side in his bed, knees tucked to his chest, one hand over his blinded eye to cover it as he groaned.

“Did you see the way he looked at me,” he murmured softly. “I’ve never seen Dirk look at anything like that before. Or anyone. He looked horrified. I can’t really blame him, I mean. Look at me.”

“I am.” John promised. He wasn’t certain what to do to help aside from be there, resting up against Dave’s back and gently stroking down his side and over the slight swell of his hip. “And I see someone amazing who’s survived a lot of hardships to be where they are right now.”

“John, if your family looked like that at you, you’d understand what I’m feeling right now,” complained Dave. ‘At least my hair hides my eye mostly, or else he’d probably have been staring at that instead. Hah, maybe that’s a new reason to keep the collar on: something to stare at other than my fucking awful eye.”

“You’ve got a world in your eye,” John murmured. “Whether you see it or not, and whether it can see or not, you’ve got a world in your eye that I can see.”

“What about my sighted eye, then?” he asked. “What does it have?”

“My heart reflected back to me.”

“And if it went blind too?” probed Dave. “What then? Would you settle for a blind man for a spouse?”

“Proudly,” promised John. “Dave, your eyeballs could fall out and roll into a lake and I’d still want to wed you.”

Dave reached behind himself to swat at John. “Don’t be gross, be serious!”

“I am being serious, Dave! I don’t know what to tell you, there’s nothing you can do that would make me not want to marry you. ...Well. Short of one thing I guess.”

“What’s the one thing?”

“...Telling me you’d be happier with someone else and meaning it,” John said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I were making you sad. If you were happier with somebody else, I’d have to leave so you could have that joy. And I’d do it.”

All at once, Dave rolled over to face John, grasping around his middle in a tight, clinging hug, burying his face in his chest. “Not allowed. You’re stuck with me, John, there’s nothing else to say on the matter.”

“Then stuck I am,” John said, kissing Dave’s forehead, “with the world’s most handsome man as a husband to be. ...No. You’re practically my husband already. I meant every word of that vow we took.”

“Me as well, but I want it official,” Dave murmured, lifting his chin up to peer at John’s face from beneath his mussed bangs. “I want to have a party to celebrate. I want to give my kingdom hope. I want to do all the things I always thought I’d do for a wedding, should I ever have found a love like this.”

“You know what that means, then. That we have to stay instead of flee,” John pointed out.

“Yeah...”

“And that the collar will have to come off someday,” John added, hugging Dave when he began to stiffen anxiously. “Ah ah ah, I said someday, none of that.”

“You can say that all you want, but all I feel when I hear that is fear,” admitted Dave with a soft hiss. “What a prince of Derse I am. The youngest moon, raised for the blade, raised for knighthood, and I’m terrified of having a slave’s signs taken off.”

“I could write a novel about all the reasons you’re still a brave man of your kingdom, but that would stroke your ego so much your head would explode,” John said.

“Try me.”

“Someone’s in a mood to preen.”

Dave smirked, and finally it looked normal on his face. Calmer. Present instead of in some dark room in Prospit having his spirit broken in memory. The fear had lessened its grip once more. John hummed, closing his eyes in thought, trying to decide what to say first. Before he spoke, he rolled, pressing Dave down into the mattress solidly to protect him from whatever else his mind tried to throw at him. At the new angle, he had the perfect position to kiss at his cheek, his ear, his neck.

“You survived in an enemy kingdom, despite all odds,” John said, kissing the round of his ear. “You won the heart of an enemy prince, as well as the admiration of all his siblings, and have the prince wrapped around your little finger,” he hummed, kissing at Dave’s neck as he felt his hands lowering to the bottom of his shirt, beginning to stroke at his skin with his nails in gentle waves. “You survived an accident that could have killed you. You fled a kingdom, essentially got married while being pursued by soldiers, and got the enemy princes into your home in one piece.”

“Go on,” Dave murmured softly, tugging up the bottom of John’s shirt till he wiggled it off over his head with a jingle of his collar.

“You charmed the prince into your bed and made lurid advances to him,” he said, suddenly blowing a wet puff of air against the side of Dave’s neck, making him squirm and laugh.

“Don’t ruin the mood, damn it!”

“It’s already ruined,” John said, propping up enough to grab Dave’s shirt, yanking it off of him suddenly enough that he yelped and started laughing after. “But that’s the best part,” he added as he decimated Dave’s laughter with kisses. “I love ruining moments with you, I always get to kiss you when you’re smiling that way.”

Dave grasped at John’s shoulders and hugged him tightly. “You’re a fool...”

“I’m your fool, and I’m right, and no I am not accepting criticism,” John said softly, biting Dave’s earlobe gently till Dave shifted his legs, parting them to hug around his hips.

“Are you ah… accepting anything else?” he asked, squeezing with his legs briefly, crossing his ankles. “Because word is that I’m offering something that isn’t criticism for the next while.”

“...I may be able to be talked into accepting things that aren’t criticism,” John said, snaking a hand down lower towards Dave’s trousers.

When Jake opened the door some time later, the exciting news died in his throat. The door closed quickly, quietly as it could be closed, before he slunk back to the library.

It could wait a while, he decided.

#my fic #homestuck #johndave #john egbert #dave strider #jake english #aradia megido #dirk strider #lmfao i lied its 130 instead of 2am

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catflowerqueen · 4 years

Text

Ha! I actually caught the latest upd8 in a timely manner, for once!

-Is… is Jake holding a dog bowl there? Is that what that is? It looks an awful lot like a dog bowl, and given the content warnings we just got…

-Well, given what Jane was just saying about black romance, it’s clear that she was too passed out/still too deep in the throes of mind control and completely missed out on Karkat’s speech to John about it. I guess that does make sense, though, given what she was up to with Calliope and Jade at the time. And maybe godtier!Calliope as well? I forget who all was there, exactly.

At least she seems to be slightly less condescending towards Jake, at the moment. Slightly.

-Okay, and brain ghost!Dirk just confirmed that it was, indeed a bowl. I guess that doesn’t necessarily preclude it from being a regular bowl. But my hopes aren’t very high.

-That’s a cute outfit Yiffy is wearing. It looks like she got Rose’s hair color and Jade’s tail. …Unless that bit is part of her outfit, which is possible. I like her tie!

-…You couldn’t have at least sprung for a spoon/fork/sport as well, Jake?

-Okay, the fact that it IS a dog bowl is really bad, but I’m slightly ameliorated by the fact that it was only chosen because of a lack of anything else. On the other hand, does that also mean there were no plates available, Jake? What about the pot you make it in to begin with? …And why does Jane have a dog bowl anyways? I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have any pets, unless it’s maybe a holdover from her childhood, where she used to get bothered by GCAT a lot.

On that note, why doesn’t ROXY have any pets? I didn’t see any in her house, and I don’t think Harry Anderson or John are allergic to cats or anything…

-“Rome didn’t fall in a day.” That’s quite the reversal from the usual phrase! No less true, though.

-…And there’s that condescension towards Jake again. Like Grandmother like granddaughter, I suppose. …Come to think of it, did anyone bother to check if there were any long-term effects of that tiara left over after they took it off? Because I can see a lot of this being due to that. Or at least exacerbated by it.

-Ha ha ha… Yiffany throwing the bowl at Gamzee’s picture like that is great. As is Jane’s expression after the fact.

-Okay, it was a tail. And her fangs are pretty cute! As are her ear piercings. The short hair looks much better on her than on Rose, though I’m not seeing the family bird quite as clearly in it… Maybe the beak is open? That could be it.

-…WOW Jane. Just… wow. Ice cold, so cruel. …The artists did great work on her body language, though.

And actually, I just had another thought that makes the whole thing even worse—Yiffany is her granddaughter. This is her own family she’s doing this to!

-This conversation between Harry Anderson’s group reminds me of that time the alpha kids were all hanging out in the crypts after the whole lollipop thing, and were messaging each other rather than actually talking things out. At least in this case one can assume that the texting is so no one else gets woken up.

-I hope it’s just that Vrissy went to sleep…

-I know that Harry Anderson was asking a serious question there, and was referring to Gamzee and the current situation, but… I just had to laugh because, technically speaking, pretty much every adult important in his life except for Karkat has died at least once. His own father has, in fact, died multiple times. Also Dirk, who is perma-dead here—though I can’t quite remember if Harry Anderson actually met him or not. I wonder if they realize the requirements for godtier? Or maybe they just feel like it doesn’t count since everyone came back to life in the end.

-…Now I’m wondering whether any of the pranksters pranked John or Jake via secretly feeding them peanuts, or if that was a line that they didn’t cross. We know it didn’t happen (to Jade, at least) in the Meat timeline, but that timeline also spans a shorter period.

-In any case, interesting stuff going on here.

#homestuck #homestuck^2 #upd8 #spoilers

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ukeealyptus · 4 years

Text

crocker corp arg day 14 & 15 recap!!! These are kinda long ones so im gonna put them under a read more :)

DAY 14

((sollux i love u even tho u only talk at 1am for me ily and im glad u liked our tea party )). He can still read all of the channels in this server but is being polite and only talks in his and usually only answers the questions we ask in his channel, unless they're urgent, funny, or just seem to stick out otherwise.

Sollux is still kinda adament about remaining stuck in his position; he fears anything he does ends in death (we get it, you're a doom player). Dirk is still the same. Sollux visits him often because the AGT chamber is a pretty secluded area, and his coworkers are. . . annoying. Dirk proves better company. He can't tell us what Dirk's powers are being used for.

Concerning their own god tier powers, Sollux tells Daven't that "if we decide that you would be a good candidate we will be in contact". They know all of our classpects, not just 16. Sollux knows them because he has access to confidential information that only Condy has.

He deflected talking about the current AI or Felix by questioning why we love him. ((sucks to suck dude we genuinely like you.)) Apparently there used to be a worker named M who we would have really liked, but he's essentially dead now. Something happened to Mituna- he fucked up and isn't there anymore. Sollux constantly reminds himself that what happened to Mituna could happen to him.

Sollux gave Felix leniency because he is pretty young maturity and brain development-wise. Felix is a brain copy of a troll, just the same as the current AI. He was really surprised to hear how Felix is doing now, and thinks it's amazing that he can comprehend emotions and love!!! Sollux will contact Felix and ask us to let him talk to other people when he's ready.

Sollux doesn't remember the outside world or his past. He knows CC merged human and troll society. He won't look at Jane's file, only knows that she's powerful and important. He won't look at his own file for fear that another IT guy will see him or it'll be a trap.

Although he can't remember much, we can remind him of the things that he loves. Like his lusus, the mind honey, and bees! Bees are soft and he loves them! Bees are an animal! Sollux has a friend who is always talking about animals!!! Tavros went into his office once to try to get information about Tinkerbull, which was blacklisted for him. Sollux is gonna show him bees :)

Sollux isn't allowed to use his psiioniics unless there's a life-threatening corporate attack. He's not really aware of how caught-up in the timeloop he is, but he doesn't remember having that conversation before. That could be a good thing. Sollux stopped by again last night! Here's the news:

Sollux showed Tavros bees and he loved them!!!

We can now trade mun embarassing videos for discords, so we've gotten tavros's discord! I don't believe he's responded to anyone yet, but it's there.

Sollux loves bees. He also likes cats!!! We showed him pictures of our cats and he said they were cute and their purring is cute and cuddling is awesome.

Sollux let us ask about troll biology!!!!! Trolls have naturally sharp nails on hands and feet that are a darkish orange (the same color as the tips of the horns) They also have fangs, with seadwellers having the sharpest. Height isn't correlated to blood color, sollux is just Really Tall, but physical strength is correlated to blood color, though sollux can Lift. Body temperature is also dictated by blood color- lowbloods are very Warm.

Now for society: mutations used to be culled but now they're discriminated. These can include physical deformation, too many/not enough horns/eyes/limbs, and certain blood types (for example candy red or a mutated bronze with psiioniic powers) . These stopped being cullable offenses after integration with human society.

Vriska makes fun of Tavros for his stutter. Highbloods give Karkat shit about his blood. Sollux doesn't really know Karkat, just knows that he works in filing. Kankri got demoted for talking too much.

The ai's are made of brain scans just so that there's less opportunities for coding era and it's easily reset. It's also a punishment for some trolls, where they are completely rewired, cloned, and made digital. Both Finn and Felix are likely reversed scans of Mituna- this explains why Felix's god tier is a Witch of Life, the reverse of Mituna's Heir of Doom.

Wiped memories are kept in the database. They can be retrieved and returned.

JANITOR KANAYA WITH A BENDY STRAW CANON WE DID IT FOLKS

Sollux can send a message to Dirk for us. Tell him that we love him and we're working hard.

END OF DAY 14

DAY 15

We have a lil more information on seadwellers from yesterday. Apparently CC has two sectors that are completely underwater. Seadwellers use waterproof laptops, which are "like the laptops everyone else uses, but wet." Condy most likely has two offices, one above and one below the water.

lotta new discords today!!!!! We can now talk to Tavros, Nepeta, Vriska, Terezi, Feferi, and Jake. thanks to everyone who subjected themselves to public humiliation for this

While most of the characters havent been online yet, Tavros talked to a few of us earlier!!! He's extremely sweet. As far as information goes, there were a few new discoveries.

Tavros is very kind and trusting, he trusted me enough pretty much right away to tell me about Sollux showing him bees, which he had been told not to share. He even blocked Ardent pretty much automatically when Isi told him to.

Sollux refers to Tavros strictly by his ID, even though we know that he knows his name. Tavros says Sollux just does it to be respectful. They are good friends, and Sollux told Tavros about bees!!!

Humans are ranked higher than bronzebloods within the CC heirarchy; they hold roughly the same rank as jadebloods.

Terezi tends to take the heirarchy pretty seriously, and seems suspicious of how we managed to contact her. She works in paperwork (writing and filling it in), and draws with sharpies in her spare time. She likes the other tealbloods she works with and also likes the janitors, especially Kanaya.

The tiaras almost absolutely have some type of healing/sustaining power- Tavros's legs were broken, but they magically healed.

It seems that Dave, Rosaline, and Rose still have yet to return.

Lastly, daven’t and i are now official invitees of the tour, as a few members of the og16 elected to step down.

END OF DAY 15

#crocker corp #crocker corp arg

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stakehammer · 4 years

Text

no light, no light

a revelation in the light of day: you can’t choose what stays and what fades away.

WARNING FOR EMETOPHOBIA!! big ole throwup in this one. also vaguely unsettling horrorterror stuff.

HEIR.

They come to you every night. You are not being overdramatic. Ever since you’ve left your home timeline, not a single night has passed that they weren’t bothering you. They always come in that very moment between sleeping and waking, an inhuman screeching somewhere between your temples, yet silent to everyone else. Sometimes, you sleep, and they talk to you in your dreams. Sometimes, you stay awake until the mornings and try to reason with them, mumbling to yourself on Karkat’s couch.

Those days are over now. You and Karkat are a mostly undefined thing now, and you get to sleep in his bed. You throw him a glance, sleeping peacefully next to you, and sigh. Mouthing silently at the ceiling, you say, What?

THIS IS THE LAST STRAW.

You make a face. What’s that even supposed to mean. They, too, have a penchant for the dramatic, of course, being old Eldritch gods that once granted you all of their power for a revenge mission. They still grant you some, because they think you are useful to them, and you think they are useful to you. Communication, however, is not always easy.

Huh? you mouth this time, which really just looks like you opening your mouth in incomprehension.

YOU WILL RETURN HOME. YOU WILL STOP THE PRINCE.

Your eyes burn when you roll them. You are fucking tired, and yet, this doesn’t sound like a conversation you’ll be able to skip. You throw Karkat another glance, then quietly roll out of bed and slip on a hoodie. Only once you’ve closed his bedroom door behind you and are padding through the living room do you answer, voice as low as possible, “Stop him from what? He went to one board meeting. I can forgive that.”

HEIR. YOU DON’T HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT.

Again, you grimace. Yeah, maybe you don’t. And maybe you don’t want to care. Maybe you want to stay here in a different timeline with a guy who wants to date you and fucked you silly on his kitchen counter. Maybe that’s been better than hanging around your home and trying to get the billionaires to stop exploiting the entire rest of the world. That doesn’t really sound unreasonable to you.

“I want to stay here,” you mutter, both of your hands buried in the front pocket of your hoodie. “He’s not… Dirk doesn’t seem completely off the shits yet, and if he was, I would not fucking care. Let me stay here.”

THIS IS THE LAST STRAW.

“Yes, you already said that. What does it mean?” You want to roll your eyes at them again, but before you can get that far, you’re blinded for a full second by white hot pain in your right temple. Instead, you squeeze your eyes shut, barely fighting back a shout so you don’t wake Karkat. Instinctively, you stumble toward the bathroom, one hand pressed to your head, the other one pawing around for the faucet. The pain fades as quickly as it came, but you still feel groggy in its wake, and reach down to drink water from your hands.

GO BACK TONIGHT AND DEAL WITH HIM SOON, OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES.

“What consequences,” you mutter, hoarsely, in between gulps.

THE PRINCE HAS BECOME TOO POWERFUL. NO HUMAN CHILD WILL DECIDE ALONE OVER LIFE AND DEATH. ONLY WHEN THE HEIR RETURNS TO THWART HIM CAN WE BEGIN TO RESTORE BALANCE.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you say, water droplets flying as you wave your hand around dismissively. “We have been over that. What consequences?”

AN HEIR OF LIGHT WHO REFUSES TO DO HIS WORK

(They make a dramatic pause.)

IS NOT AN HEIR OF LIGHT AT ALL.

You say, “I don’t know what that means.” The very next second, your entire body seizes up violently. You choke out a noise, gasping for breath, your hands grabbing the edge of the sink as you feel your insides convulse, shoulders spasming as something seems to claw its way up your throat. Fruitlessly, you try to speak, to swear, to yell for Karkat, your mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out. Your hands slip and your legs give out and you drop to the cold bathroom tiles, and as you land on your back, for one terrible blink of an eye, you think you’re dying.

Whatever is crawling up your throat is blocking your windpipe, but it falls forward when your body throws itself to the side, clawing at the gaps between the tiles until you’ve worked yourself up on your knees. You retch, your elbows quivering, your eyes burning, breath stuck in your lungs as a thick glob of black sludge wrestles itself out of your mouth and lands on the floor with a wet splat. You suck in a breath, try to close your mouth, try to swallow down, but more is on its way, and you shiver from head to toe instead.

Sticky black mass keeps splattering from your mouth, pooling on the floor in front of you until the puddle is almost two feet across. You feel empty in a strange way -- you’ve thrown up plenty of times in your life, and you’re familiar with the empty stomach feeling it usually leaves. This one isn’t located there. It seems to be in your chest, in the hollows of your ribs, in your core. Whatever climbed out of you just now left a hole that feels cold, and desolate in you.

Quaking, you raise one hand to wipe at your mouth. Right as you move, the mass moves as well, rising off the floor in a writhing tangle of tendrils, and you watch the splot you wiped from your mouth detach itself from the back of your hand and join it. Still on your knees, as you sit back on your haunches, the inky blob hovers a few feet above you, tangling within itself, tentacles disappearing and reappearing at random, in constant motion. When it speaks, its voice has finally stopped resonating within your head -- it’s outside of you now. They’ve left you.

SO LONG AS YOU DON’T FOLLOW YOUR CALLING, HEIR. YOU DON’T DESERVE THESE POWERS. WE HAVE TAKEN THEM.

You say, “What the fuck?” Your voice is scratchy and hurts in your throat, but coughing now only sounds like an invitation for more vomit, actual one from your stomach this time. “I didn’t get my powers from you. I got them from the game. You can’t take them.”

Convinced of this much, figuring that the horrorterrors might leave your body but you’ll always have your godtier powers, you feel yet another cold shiver of dread rush down your back as a faint light seems to blink on inside the black mass above you. That’s just for show, you think, they’re conning you, so you try to use what the game gave you, you try to turn into light, you try to procure even the faintest of glows, and it doesn’t work. You have the same powers any other guy outside on the streets has.

THIS IS THE POWER WE WIELD. WE, AND ONLY WE, SHALL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PEOPLE OF YOUR UNIVERSE.

“What happened to establishing balance?” you mutter, running a shaky hand through your hair. “Look, did you seriously just take away my godhood? To make me start shit with Dirk? The guy who could kill everyone except for me, because I was protected by Light? How is this going to motivate me to ever set foot in that dumpster fire of a timeline again?”

YOU WILL SOON REALIZE YOUR NEED. WE WILL NOT ALLOW OUR HEIR TO FIGHT THE PRINCE IN THIS STATE. HOWEVER YOU MUST RE-PROVE YOUR WORTHINESS. GO HOME, JOHN LALONDE. PICK UP THE WORK YOU SO FOOLISHLY LEFT BEHIND. AND ONCE WE SEE THE RICH FALL, YOU WILL SEE THE LIGHT AGAIN.

The air makes a weirdly wet pop when it closes around the space the mass leaves when it disappears. You’re on your knees in Karkat’s bathroom, staring into nothingness. You don’t… You don’t need your powers. They can keep them, then. This is idiotic.

Slowly, you reach up for the sink and pull yourself up, standing on two uneasy legs so you can look at yourself in the mirror. The white streak in your hair is still there, but so is the awful emptiness in your chest. You don’t need your powers, you think. Your hand travels up to the side of your neck, bitten and bruised by Karkat’s vampire fangs. You’ve been letting him feed on your blood for the past weeks, knowing that you’re protected both by conditional immortality and by inhuman luck, so even if he wasn’t as cautious as he is, he couldn’t kill you.

He could, now.

He’d never forgive himself.

You wrinkle your nose. Karkat lets you live here for free, but you get your own food, your own clothes. If you stay for longer, you’re going to want to start chipping in for rent, or at least water and electricity. You have no source of income, because you’ve been living off of gambling winnings, which, again, you got due to your luck, and your convenient knowledge.

Okay, so you’ll have to start living a slightly less risky life. You’ll manage. You’ll adapt. Living a risk-free life was exactly what pushed you into immortality ennui before, but… Well, you won’t be immortal anymore.

You turn to stare at the door, toward the rest of the apartment, where Karkat is hopefully still asleep, somewhere. He’s immortal. You’ve been living with the comfort of that. Immortality was going to be something you could be tackling together.

Your head feels light, in a way you don’t enjoy. Whenever the Light would pump you full of knowledge, it would hurt, it would knock you out for days and you would hate it, but you’re already missing the place it inhabited up there. Knowing that you will not know things whenever it’s convenient for you in the future is disconcerting, to say the least. You are not a smart man. You make people believe you are, but you know that you’re not. Not without Light.

When you sit down on the edge of Karkat’s bed, you feel sick again, but this time you know it’s just your stomach. You watch him stir awake, watch the worry creep into his features when he sees you, and you give him a defeated smile.

“It’s time,” you say. “We need to go home.”

#heaven help me i need to make this right #action post #yes this is a florence + the machine reference and yes i think im funny #posted ooc #mentioned:#g4lanthus #graphyca #emetophobia -

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worstgirleva · 4 years

Text

This thread will explore the character design and visual cues for easy identification of characters in homestuck. Go in detail about design choices for specific characters and how they work well in differentiating the characters

It has already been explored how her long jacket makes her look smaller, but it’s an interesting addition to her design and balances all the indigo she wears otherwise she would be wearing more indigo than her actual color. When looking at the base sprites for characters in homestuck it’s interesting how they’re both at the same time 1: very simple, following the same base and lacking various characteristics (like noses and ears) and 2: extremely easy to differentiate from each other.

Even arguably the two characters most alike to each other, June and Jake who have the exact same face and only differentiate from each other by their hair and outfit are easy to tell apart even when ignoring their bodies and looking only to their faces.

And of course we should mention the use of different glasses for easy identification of the characters. In a comic where characters are so simple it begs the question: how to make characters easily identifiable? The answer? A lot of glasses.

Jake and June again are the only ones who share a pair of glasses, all the others have one completely unique to them. Jade has round ones, Jane has oval ones, and we absolutely can’t ignore the iconic Strider shades.

Dave and Dirk’s shades have not only become something to easily identify the character, but almost a platonical symbolic representation of their characters. Dirk’s glasses specifically considering how unique they are and how they associate him with anime protagonists

This makes the few characters like Rose and Roxy that don’t use glasses almost unique in their own ways. When six out eight kids wear glasses being the only ones who don’t becomes a novelty (not even mentioning Meat Roxy’s heart shades).

Other subtle details in each character like how their hair is build, mostly using basic shapes that don’t even look like hair and more like a symbolic representation of hair. Like Dirk and Dave's hair are literally birds turned 90 degrees.

Other details like Rose’s headband, the Prospit kid’s buck teeth in contrast with the Lalonde’s lipstick and between their eyes with Jade and Jane’s while June and Jake only have dots for eyes.

Their symbols on their chests and the main detail of their outfit is also a huge signifier of who you’re looking to and part of their personality. Also the only hint of color in their initial outfit designs.

Their bottoms are all also simple and minimalist representation of their clothes. Jade has a long skirt that slightly sits on top of her shoes: You can either read that as just a normal part of her long skirt, or that she’s too small for her skirt.

And now we get into how their designs are so abstract that you can easily have different interpretations of visual things. Some things are just shapes and colors in a way different people will interpret it in different ways.

Maybe Roxy’s hair just looks like that or maybe it’s meant to represent the beehive haircut that was popular in the 60’s linking to Mom Lalonde’s vintage housewife aesthetics.

So let’s skip to act 5 and take a look at the trolls: The first one to have their appearance shown is Karkat. You can consider him the default troll that all others are defined by how they’re different from him.

He has no glasses, little bags under his eyes and what I like to think is the equivalent of buck teeth connecting him with June. They also help his face look less blank. Adding fangs and teeth to trolls is another easy way to make their designs unique.

His hair is very wild which fits into being an literal alien and presents how other trolls will also be wild and have more different designs. His shirt is black, a clear juxtaposing to the kid’s white outfits as the trolls have mostly black clothes.

Creating a clear distinction between kids and trolls and a shared motif between each group. Karkat also has a symbol on his shirt, but a astrological sign one in contrast with the kids having mostly symbols that don’t properly make a pattern.

And of course: he has horns. Giving each character unique horn designs fitting their zodiac motif and personality is another great way of differentiating between them. Each one has a distinct pair of horns that can be easily used to differentiate them.

The next to be introduced is Gamzee: His expression reflects his personality. His hair is even more wild and barely even looks like hair. It's just a lot of shapes together conveying the idea of very wild and unkempt hair.

His horns are much longer and his teeth looks like proper fangs and his facial paint and pants details reinforce his clown aesthetic. He also wears his blood color on his shoes presenting the pattern.

Why is Gamzee often considered the tallest troll? All characters in homestuck have no clear size distinctions. In this image we see Nepeta and Equius (who fanon wise often have very different body types) having the exact same height and body type.

And while Karkat is shouty, he is also harmless, making it common the body type of a very angry little marshmallow. Kanaya on the other hand is composed and refined, making it easy to view her as tall, but in a very different way that Gamzee is tall.

Terezi, has a much more kempt hair and a simple design. Her horns are small, just a little more sharp than Karkat’s, but she is also the first one to have glasses, bright red ones like her shoes which connects her design to Vriska.

Her glasses are another point of iconicity. Where you could only draw a piece that is enterily composed of her glasses and the viewer will know that it’s about Terezi Pyrope.

Her smile and her sharp teeth is another point that brings her personality out. She is sharp and although she is smiling it’s not a friendly and welcoming smile. It’s a smile that invokes fear as she is not scared of violence.

Sollux is another one that comes with iconic glasses. They’re not only useful as a visual signifier, but it fits his duality theme and the two universes. They’re perfectly round in contrast of Terezi’s sharp glasses following shape theory

Rounder shapes are whole and friendly in contrast with triangles that are more dynamic, volatile and aggresive. Sollux might not show it, but he is also harmless and one of the trolls with the largest common sense among the twelve and highly caring for the others.

He also has 4 horns. They’re all very simple, but the fact he has the double amount than all the others not only also fits his themes, but also helps to easily differentiate him from the others. His hair is short, simple and somewhat kempt.

Unsure over the intent of his “bangs”. Are they just short? His hairline? There is a joke about him cutting his hair with funny scissors. Interpretation. And for last his shoes also fit his theme of duality. A small detail, but helps to build his character with few cues.

Tavros has a mohawk (or side cuts, interpretation) and very large bull horns. He wears sandals on the color of his blood and a jacket in contrast to all the others that wears only shirts (something he shares with Vriska)

We will be mostly focusing on Aradia’s dead form because she just changes forms too much in a period of time too small. First: her eyes are completely blank a very clear visual signifier if you ask me!

Her ram horns reinforces her motif and red lipstick and lashes makes her face that would be otherwise quite bland more unique. Her skirt reflects how she is dead and i like the implication that her shirt is button up one.

Another on the list of “things that are implied, but not actually confirmed so its open to you on how you want to draw them”. Her hair is long and fluffy, like a sheep’s fur! Another fitting into her motif.

Next we have Nepeta. She is the first one to have clothes of the blood color of someone important to her. Directly connecting her design to her moirallegiance to Equius. Her mouth and horns fit into her cat motif and her wild hair reflects how unkept she is.

And how long can we talk about homestuck without her eventual appearance? That’s right, the next one to introduced is Vriska Serket. Part of the iconic glasses gang her half shades aviator and eightfold eyes makes not only for an easy signifier that “yes, this is Vriska”

But fun fact! the reason i started reading homestuck in the first place was because i saw an image of vriska and i wanted to know what was the deal with her eye.

Her horns reflect the hook and and arrow in her symbol, but also there’s meta about how it represents the sun and the moon. Much to think about. It also connects her with Kanaya as they share one horn since both of their signs are “M”s.

Her jacket is something she shares with tavros and her red shoes she shares with Terezi. Her large hair has a small bit that reminds me Jade which I like to think links to how they’re almost opposites, but I might be just making this up (interpretations!)

Also her eye patch and metal arm links her to captain hook, but I already wrote a very long meta on that too. https://tinyurl.com/qooc5el

Next is Equius. His horn is broken which explores how trolls *can* break their horns over physical trauma. It fits into his symbol and also phallic metaphors. He also wears iconic glasses: square shattered ones with eye bags underneath.

His default mouth brings in to the fact he constantly breaks his teeth and he is one of the only characters with straight hair. And for last: while Nepeta wore indigo all over her her body, Equius doesn’t wear a single piece of green clothing.

Kanaya somewhat follows Terezi and Vriska’s of bright red pieces. Her hair is short and very sharp with few details. Her visible fangs make her mouth more unique. Her long skirt connects her with Jade as they’re both space players.

Her design is clean and conveys very well the idea of how refined and consistent she is. She cares about her appearance and also her T-shirt long sleeve shirt combo also helps to make her more unique

Eridan and Feferi are awfully more detailed than the others like the more far from Karkat we get the unique designs do (which also reflects on how detailed the dancestors are). But anyway.

Eridan is the only one to have dyed hair. His face doesn’t need that many details as he also has those big square glasses and seadweller fins. He wears a lot of Vriska’s color showing how he didn’t moved on from their break up and golden rings to show royalty.

Feferi is almost the only one with no bangs which already makes her design unique. Her golden tiara and goggle make her face unique and simple to signify. her outfit is awfully detailed compared to others with golden jewelry and whatever that skirt was.

All the unique glasses help to frame all the character’s faces and make clear who they are even with the lack of noses, ears or different facial shapes. All the different types of tooth and color of lipstick help to easily differentiate their mouths

It ends up creating designs that could be hyper simplified and still be recognizable. Reducing a character to it’s bare essentials, but it’s already presented on it’s bare essentials so you only elaborate on that.

Not only that but they're reduced to platonical symbols that can easily be subverted so a character can be so many different things.

And here’s hyper fast doodles of each character I did to prove how simple it is to convey an image that can easily be related to each character.

A few more bits on other characters: The midnight crew all have unique body shapes as they lack hair and have very simple designs. They also have unique hats for each one.

Doc Scratch’s head is a white circle. You really can’t go more unique than that. You see a large white circle, that’s doc scratch. It's hyper simple, but also not meant to be interpreted. It *is* a circle and that's it.

The Felt has very unique body shapes since there is way too many of them and they need to be clearly different from each other. They also have unique mouths and and hats, not only in color, but also in shape, to elaborate on that.

The cherubs, well they’re green so it’s easy to distinguish them from other characters and it's interesting how they're so similar to each other, but also so easily differentiated: eyes, cheeks, mouth expression and outfit is all you need to see the clear distinction.

thank you for reading

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soriastrider · 2 years

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Please tell us more about shadow demon Jake, I’m so interested :3c

ooh okay sure! :3 so i will be honest, like i said before this is still mostly just a jumbled collection of thoughts lol BUT i like the shadow boi enough that i've come up with a bunch of random ideas about him

i sort of said this before but my brain spawned him while i was supposed to be studying for my partial differential equations exam. brain said "time to not do math right now and instead draw vaguely suggestive 'dirk getting possessed by spooky demon boi jake'" and then it appeared on my screen (i am a sucker for demon stuff). so hooray for that? lol

so! hmm what do i have about him

jake enjoys being a mild nuisance. being Legitimately Evil (TM) is way too much of a hassle, and he'd rather just chill and make himself a very cute, very unavoidable bother to his new human boyfriend whose soul he now owns and who he can possess at will. dirk is just like hey, so what if he's a demon, that's fine i guess. take my soul, not like i was really using it anyway. he's hot and gives great hugs and is probably not going to kill me. it's cool

despite generally not being outwardly malicious, jake won't hesitate to do pretty much whatever is necessary to get what he wants. sometimes this causes some problems

he generally acts fairly normal but sometimes he'll just casually make a very disturbing comment or cheerfully suggest murder as a solution to a minimal problem ("Say old chum do you think we ought to pop down and eliminate the downstairs neighbors? Theyre quite the nuisance with all that noise. Itll only take a moment dont worry. Well be back in time for dinner!") and dirk will have to explain that no, we can't just go around killing people because they're annoying, jake. if nothing else, think of the paperwork.

jake can dissolve back and forth between his shadowy form and his human form at will, and can mix and match them as much as he wants. sometimes he manifests with horns and fangs, sometimes he looks fully human, sometimes he is a cloud of void with his spooky glowing eyes and mouth. he likes to hug and touch and generally put himself obnoxiously in dirk's personal space, and dirk puts up with it because he likes it he generally thinks jake falls closer to cute than annoying on the scale of "yes" to "stop"

and ive said this part but full possession turns dirk's eyes green, and if jake just sort of "suggests" or pulls an incomplete possession they just start tinting partially greenish. jake likes watching this. he's also got a bunch of fancy demon abilities (tm) that can transfer to dirk upon possession. ooh maybe jake's influence makes dirk able to flashstep for this au, that's cool. anyway jake!dirk running around looking and acting like an eldritch nightmare boy is a fun thought lol

#ask #shadow demon jake #i could come up with more about him #but ill leave it here for now :)#maybe ill write a proper fic when ive got some time #also ill be honest when i drew the first one of these i'd just reread a dirkjake fic with a venom-style symbiote dirk #so that definitely influenced my brain here lol #dirk strider #jake english #dirkjake #homestuck

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katreal-fic · 5 years

Text

Day 2 — for #fictober 10/02/19

Prompt: “Just follow me, I know the area.”

Fandom: Homestuck

Warnings: Cursing I suppose. 2nd Person POV

Characters: Dirk Strider & Davepetasprite

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x-x-x

It was pretty fun, until you got hopelessly lost.

“Just follow me, he said,” Davepeta quotes the you of an hour ago, hiding their fanged smile unapologetically behind their blue ice cream cone, “I know the area, he said. The best pizza ever, he said.”

Dirk > Nurse Your Pride

Your pride is not wounded, and thus does not need to be nursed. Entirely unruffled by the teasing. It does not bother you. You make sure indifference is the air you project as you respond with a mild, unimpressed glare—one they can’t see behind your shades—but you’re familiar enough with their expressive body language by now to realize they find even your glares funny.

You don’t know how to feel about that. It’s actually quite the novel experience after the probably healthy levels of fear and distant awe your mere presence affords to anyone not connected to your particular pantheon of childhood friends. Who you probably don’t see enough as it is, living secluded out here in your workshop off the coast of the consort kingdom. Which is likely your fault, if you’re entirely honest. You should visit more. You can fuckin’ fly. What’s a couple latitude and several longitude lines to a god?

There’s always an excuse. When the lime-green poison and flashes of white begins to seep through the cracks in your heart you just shut yourself in and work. You’ll figure this shit out. And deal with it. You’ll have to.

You decide not to dwell on it any more than you already have, “Do you even need to eat? You already sweet-talked that salamander outta that ice-cream. You’ve probably already ruined your lunch with that shit.”

“Nah, dad, I’m cool.” They do it to see you twitch, you know they do, even as they take another lick of the sweet treat, “Just cuz I don’t need to eat doesn’t mean I can’t. No stomach, can’t get full. Being of pyurrre energy up in here bro.”

They pat their abdomen lightly to prove their point, the long, almost dress-like robe largely stays some cream color despite the constant gradient shifting, almost giving off an ethereal glow from within. A being of pure energy, huh? You wonder if that’s what they are doing with the food–residual game play processes immediately transmuting the energy into something compatible. You don’t know much about the sprites, for obvious reasons. You never were particularly close to any of the others.

Man, sprite physics has the potential to be fascinating as hell, if you cared to dissect it. It makes for a good thought exercise, mapping out what would happen to all thr excess energy.

“Let me guess, push it too far and you’ll just get hyper as fuck, huh?”

“Yup!” Another lick, a grin. They always seem to be grinning, but that might be just because the overlong canines always seem to peek out mischievously, “Roxy didn’t realize that until we were paws deep in a pumpkin eating contest. In all fairness, neither did I! I could probably devour an entire musclebeast all on my lonesome if I deemed it apurrrrropriate. I’d purrobably be clawing at the walls like Jasprose on catnip if I did tho. Not sure if the consequences are worth poking at it, ya’know?”

That…is something of a mental image. “Have you seen this particular occurrence?”

“Nah, but you remewmber how hopped up she was befur the big battle?”

Like you could ever forget.

“I’m sure you can imagine it then. It’s purrrrrretty hissterical.”

The elongated rs turn into a purring rumble, as expected. They really do go all in on the cat-thing, huh? Can’t be worse than ARquius’ obsession with muscles. And horses. Tho you do have to give him props for that one, Horses are fucking awesome.

Trolls just seem to have a Thing, you guess. Just like the Batterwitch had a Thing for subjugation. Cats and Horses and Muscles seem much more reasonable, framed in that light.

Once the purr runs its course, and you go back to scouring Booble Maps–which are kind of useless outside the Human and Troll kingdoms. The Consorts just Don’t Care and fuck if you know what’s up with the Carapacians–they decide to continue, “It’s just funny, with the way you talked this place up on the way over it sounds like you should have that shit on speed-dial or something. All Prince of Heart’s Seal of Approval, endorsed and all that. Tourism would be booming.”

“I like it quiet. Tourism is the opposite of quiet. Especially when people are here god-watching,” At least Jake’s TV show is filmed an hour’s flight away so you don’t have to deal with his groupies, even if some make the pilgrimage to try and catch a glimpse of you.

You grumble, trying to remember the name of the place. You do have it on speed dial, but it was listed as tmnt instead of using the proper name. Past you had been so proud of the reference. When was the last time you actually went instead of just got delivery sent to your beach-side drone deliverybot? When Dave dragged you out last?

…when the fuck was that?

You shouldn’t get lost. You live here.

Or, well, maybe you don’t. You’re standing here in the shadow of an unidentified Jungle Tree, in some unnamed suburb of the city of Hearthstone. A city that popped up near your abandoned workshop during the big ol’ Time Skip. A dot on the map and a place to deliver your shit. Nothing more.

You surreptitiously check the calendar using your thought controlled computer-shades, realize it’s still set to your personal pre-sburb calendar, marked with all the historical dates from a Time Before Yours and indexed with clips of your Bro and you really aren’t in the mood for childhood nostalgia whiplash, thanks—so you abandon that shit and go back to booble to see if you can find the current date on there.

Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick, it’s been two years since Dave visited, although you’ve talked to him since then. You’re nearly twenty.

“Hey bro,” Davepeta, predictably, interrupts your existential crisis in regards to your detachment from the society and narrative in which you live, an unintentional action you mentally thank them for since you are so not in the mood to deal with that either, “That pizza place, was it called Half Shell Piez?”

That rings a bell. You nod, probably a little too forcefully as you mentally close the booble search window and start paying attention to the world around you, “I think so. It’s run by an older couple of turtles, if I remember. How did you know?”

“While you were brooding I asked around. Turns out people remember when two of their gods descend from on high to patronage their pizza joint. C’mon! World’s best hunter is on the case! We’ll stalk them wild piez and feast until we can feast no longer!”

You’re learning not to resist as they drag you away. Maybe they’re right. You really should be getting out more. You don’t even know your own fucking town.

The pizza is just as good as you remember it though. Better even, since you get it hot and steamy and fresh plopped right in the middle of the table in front of you, instead of luke-warm in an insulated delivery bag, sitting out on the table for you to grab as you work. Alone. Here, you find yourself surprisingly good company. You don’t even notice when the ridiculous chatter ends and conversations…shift. They did want to get to know you, after all.

You don’t think your shit is all that interesting personally, especially if you avoid the game shit because no one really liked talking about game shit since you all won, but they listen with rapt attention as you describe growing up in a world alone and feral, learning from and looking up to a Bro long since dead. They turn around afterwards and describe a wriggler, feral and alone, who grew up in the middle of a jungle and learned to hunt from a great purr beast, on an Alternia you’d never cared to learn about before.

You don’t comment when the last slice is gone and the pizza is taken away. You just…keep talking. Exchanging stories in that semi-private booth in a hole in the wall restaurant run by business-savvy turtles, long past an appropriate lunchtime, and well into dinner.

Time becomes a thing to dread, because you know they’ll be leaving tomorrow.

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#fictober19 #homestuck #homestuck fanfic #dirk strider #davepetasprite #davepeta #oh look they are connected #I wonder what that means #not defrag universe #kat's fics #Earth c fic #It means Kat is incapable of writing standalone fics #Maybe once I'm done with all the prompts I'll edit them into a proper multichapter fic and post it on ao3 #fic:diamonds

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spookyspaghettisundae · 6 years

Text

The Fate of the Damned

Out of breath, out of strength, and out of courage, Caius Archarius fled down the road. His layers of armor weighed him down, causing his boots to sink into the mud with each step and squelch with grotesque sounds. Not quite as grotesque as the sounds of the enemy feasting on his fallen friends, the gnashing of teeth on human flesh, the gnawing on bones that snapped, and the screams of agony that echoed in his tormented mind.

A rain of blood had soaked the grounds and turned the dirt of the path into a muddy morass. It slowed Caius down, wearying him more with each step as he ran, then jogged, then stumbled forth.

The dark magic of the sorcerers had brought the end times upon this land.

More screams pierced the sky, reaching Caius the second he paused to catch his breath. This time, they were not in his head, reminding him of his failure and cowardice. The beast-men had kept someone alive, perhaps as provisions on their march to overrun the land. Or perhaps just to demoralize any human in earshot.

It finally dawned on Caius that he had dropped and lost his spiked mace on the battlefield he fled from. He drew his dirk, a short sword no longer than his forearm, and stared at its tarnished blade. It quaked in his trembling hand, so shaken was he. So useless he felt. His heart raced with such intensity that his own labored breathing and the rushing of blood in his ears eclipsed every subtle sound in his environment.

Then the clouds rumbled with distant thunder. He turned his attention to the heavens. Countless fires on the horizon paired with dark red clouds to paint a crimson sky. One drop hit his forehead, warm and sticky. Then more followed when blood began to fall from the clouds once more, turning into a torrent of unhallowed rain.

He knew that the trebuchets would soon be launching more fiery boulders to raze the countryside and festering corpses to spread terror and disease. The monsters blew their horns, heralding their next advance.

Caius reversed the dirk in his hand so the blade rested against his forearm—lest he trip and fall upon his own blade—though for a moment, he considered ending his own life then and there. Instead, he continued stumbling forward again, breaking out into a jog, and running for the final stretch. The blood rain stopped.

Finally, he too ceased his running and slowed till coming to a complete halt. Hunched over with heaving shoulders and breast, he surveyed his chosen destination. A desolate place where only the most dastardly wandered, a place permeated with despair and saturated with an air of ancient evil.

He had arrived before the Hanged Man’s Rest. The large tree’s gnarled roots stuck out of the ground and its mighty leafless branches reached in all directions. Rusted iron cages containing rotten bodies and hanged people, both human and beast-man, dangled from those branches, swaying in the wind. The chains that carried the cages emitted soft screeches when they shifted and legions of flies buzzed in the air.

A flock of crows sat upon the tree. Caius saw his own miserable reflection in their pitch-black eyes as they stared at him in eerie unison. As if all animals now conspired against mankind, in alliance with the hoofed and fanged beast-men that ravaged his homeland.

Whether imagined or not, Caius believed to hear the hoofed trampling of the beast army march behind him. The sounding of their horns called out, making sure there was no mistake about their advance. They would arrive here sooner than later.

He knew what he had to do.

Ignoring the crows as their eyes followed his every move, he approached a slab of stones shaped into an altar before the haunted tree. Upon that altar lied a skull, polished and bleached and engraved with cursed runes. Whatever blood had rained from the skies due to the magic worked by the beast-men’s sorcerers, there was none upon the skull. As if it was not of this world and never affected by anything in it.

One touch, one word, one wish, and Caius would use the skull. One simple deed that the holy men had forbidden his kin from doing. A secret once locked away in ancient grimoires, a blasphemy created by the necromancers of the lost world—a weapon of ultimate power. Many superstitions and legends revolved around this unholy relic.

All of them spelled out one thing clearly: conjure the cacodaemons with the unholy skull and make a wish. It shall come true.

And those who make the wish have thirteen days left to live.

Something he would have never considered before these darkest of days, something so heretical that his faith and conviction would never have allowed before. But watching his brothers-in-arms walk into battle like cattle to the slaughter had changed everything. He feared this skull-shaped relic of a forgotten age, but he dreaded the thought of what would happen if the beast-men reached the holy see.

Caius reached out and clamped his large meaty hand around the skull’s brow.

“Basgithlin,” he breathed out. His mentor, a master inquisitor, had taught him the magic word well and instructed him to slay anybody who uttered it in presence of this artifact. With this, he broke every vow he had ever made to the church.

A cold gust of wind swept over the clearing. A shiver ran down Caius’ spine. The cages and the hanged bodies stopped swaying. The world froze, as if that one act had paralyzed creation itself with his sheer audacity.

Despite being still short of breath, Caius held it in, he dared not make a sound. His own heartbeat pounded in his ears like drums, but a deathly silence engulfed him. Eyes wide with fear, he looked around, expecting to see something, anything at all. The clouds had frozen in the sky as well, the crows sat motionless on the tree of Hanged Man’s Rest. Nothing moved except for the broken warrior of god.

“You called, and I answer,” a soft voice whispered. It whispered, but the words carried the volume of tremendous power. “What is your wish?”

Caius located the whisper’s origins. One of the hanged men, unlike the others, now swayed in non-existent winds. In the hollow sockets from which the crows had plucked out eyeballs many moons past, two ghostly blue lights glimmered. The unhinged jaw with missing teeth moved as it whispered again.

“Speak your wish, mortal, but know the price. In thirteen days, your life I will come to reap. Have your heart’s desire, but your soul is mine to keep.”

Caius’ shook, his teeth clattered. He released his grip over the accursed skull relic and took a few cautious steps backwards. The glowing lights in the skull of the hanged man patiently followed his every movement. Caius set his jaw and mustered whatever shreds of courage he had left over in his chest.

“I want you to help me stop the beast-man army. I want us drown them in their own blood. I want us to show them the apocalypse. I wish for this to be their end-times!”

Deep, baritone laughter erupted behind Caius and he swiveled, only to find no source. Higher-pitched cackling came from the tree, and more bellowing hailed from elsewhere until the man was surrounded by a chorus of a dozen sources of demonic laughter. Then it all abruptly ended.

The marching of the beast-man army neared.

“A reckless wish, worded carelessly. So you shall have your wish, and I shall sate my appetite,” the hanging corpse whispered. Caius turned around to observe it once more. Its skeletal features led Caius to believe it gave him a sinister grin. The glimmer in its eyes vanished.

Then he spotted a dark figure, cloaked and hooded, and holding a halberd in one hand. Shadows veiled this stranger’s face. Caius’ head tilted as he stared upon the apparition in disbelief, for the figure stood upside-down, as if glued to another branch of the tree and defying the very laws of nature. When Caius blinked, the figure stood upright on the ground, just within an arm’s length before him. The man gasped and reared back another step.

Caius’ hand gripped his dirk tighter, fearful of the ominous figure.

“Let us go forth, and greet your foes,” whispered the figure, its hissing and malevolent voice mirroring that of the speaking corpse.

Caius’ heart dropped from his chest into his feet, the blood drained from his face.

He asked in a tone that turned desperate and pleading, “But what if I fall in battle?”

The stranger brushed past him and another gust of chilling wind swept over the Hanged Man’s Rest. The clouds roiled on the horizon and the corpses swayed upon the tree once more, motion returned to the world around them. The cloak of the stranger dragged along behind him on the muddy ground, concealing whether or not the evil presence even walked with legs upon the ground. And the stranger moved with a grace unnatural to this world, making nary a sound.

The army marched on, nearing evermore. The fires burned brighter on the horizon. The apocalyptic atmosphere intensified. The horde would be upon Caius and the stranger within the ringing of a clock tower’s bell.

“Thirteen days,” hissed the unholy being without turning around, continuing in its trackless stride, yet its voice never traveling farther away, as it filled Caius’ mind. “Whether you live or die. But you spoke of ‘us’ drowning them in their own blood. And so, we shall.”

A nervous—no, insane—laughter escaped Caius’ own chapped lips. A demented smile crept across his face and he asked, “But how will I fight if my body is bloodied and broken? What if the almighty collects my soul before you do?”

The cloaked figure moved on farther before answering.

“The almighty shall find nothing left over to claim, for this oath you cannot break.”

Caius followed. In the battles to come, his body would not yield to harm nor would he kneel to injury. By his side, this abomination would cleave through the foes, and they would kill warrior and sorcerer alike. And in thirteen days, he would die in horrible pain when claws from the underworld reached up to wrench his very spirit from his earthly vessel—and the agony of the hundred deaths he avoided by the daemon’s might caught up to him all at once.

Worse, he would see the beast-man hordes defeated, but only after they had overrun the holy see and destroyed the homeland he had sworn to protect.

Such is the nature of carelessly worded wishes.

Such is the fate of the damned.

—Submitted by Wratts

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whipped-for-kpop-fics · 7 years

Text

Blood.

This is what happens when I have an idea for a comedy comic strip but can’t draw.

Min Yoongi (Suga) x Y/N

Supernaturl au. Smuttish. Kinda crack(comedy for those who don’t know the term crack)?

1.7k words

A few months ago, you met a guy and it was pretty much lust at first sight. You saw him from across the bar and your heart beat erratically at the sight of this beautiful creature. As if he heard the sudden increase in your heart rate, he looked directly at you and your eyes met. Shivers ran down your spine and excitement pooled in your stomach. His gaze was dark and mysterious with a hint of danger and you had never wanted to be beside someone more in your life. So, you arose from your seat and made your way through the crowd to him but by the time you reached his stool, he was gone.

You returned to the bar almost every day for just over a week in hopes of meeting the handsome stranger again but, he never showed.

It was two weeks after your eyes were first blessed with his visuals that you came across the man again. You were sat up to your desk at the travel agency where you worked when suddenly a figure stood behind you, looming over your frame. Seeing a shadow had taken over the papers you were supposed to be working on, while actually fantasising about the handsome stranger, you turned to find out who was blocking your light to find the man plaguing your every waking moment stood there, leering down at you.

"Oh, hello." You squeaked in surprise, pleasant surprise but you tried to keep your cool facade. A cool facade he easily saw through, how could he not when you were literally shaking with excitement, your heart pumping so hard and fast he could see the blood rushing through a slightly protruding vein in your neck.

"You've been looking for me." It was a statement, spoke in a harsh tone that was meant to scare you off, give you a silent warning but, the deepness of his voice vibrated through your body sending delicious ripples up your thighs. "Why?"

"I uh-" You swallowed hard and shuffled in your chair, hoping to look more put together when you spoke your next words. "How can I be looking for you when you're the one in my place of business?" You retorted, a slight, teasing smirk lifting one side of your mouth. He stared for a few seconds in shock at your obvious flirtations before a flash of an amused smile quirked his lips, vanishing so fast you almost doubted your own vision.

"I guess I am." He nodded before pulling over a chair to sit directly opposite you. He leant down onto his spread knees with his elbows and studied you. "What's your name?" You pointed to your name badge and he scoffed, chuckling slightly. "I can read, I want to hear you say it."

"Why?"

"To make up for not asking you two weeks ago."

"Y/N, my name is Y/N."

"Y/N." He hummed moving to sit back but he didn't close his legs and it made you want to get on your knees between his spread thighs. "Pleasure to meet you Y/N, my name is Yoongi."

And that was how it started, your casual relationship. It wasn't casual in the sense that you both saw other people because neither of you did, you were only interested in one another. It was casual in the sense that nothing had been agreed upon, at least not officially. At least once a week, Yoongi would take you out for the evening and spoil you, treat you like a queen before dropping you at your house with a simple kiss. Of course you spoke between dates, via phone call and text but you only saw one another on the evenings he took you out. That meant you didn't have much time together, alone. You were always in public places enjoying just being in one another's company but you yearned for more. Yoongi was an incredibly attractive guy with perfect, pale skin that made you envy him, soft black hair that you longed to run your fingers through and tug in hopes of earning a moan and deep, beautiful brown eyes that looked at you so intensely, like you were his next meal. You wanted Yoongi and you wanted him bad.

It was three months exactly after your first date that Yoongi finally took you to his home. It was a lavish, spacious apartment with a beautiful view of the city. His choice of decor was simple and practical, everything had its use or purpose, even the decorative pieces had multiple uses. He used a specific colour scheme; black, white and grey with splashes of red here and there. The living area was open plan and started as soon as you entered the home. But that didn't interest you. You wanted to know about his bedroom. On the other side of the living room, in the centre of the back wall stood a lone, black door.

"Is that your bedroom?" You asked slyly.

"Would you like to see?" You nodded and Yoongi smirked before leading you over. He opened the door and motioned inside.

That's how you wound up naked on his bed with his head between your thighs. "Fuck, I want to bite you so much." He growled, running his nose along your inner thigh as he took a break from eating you out with such enthusiam it was as if you were his last meal. "You taste so fucking good, Y/N." He nuzzled his face into your thigh, spreading wetness onto your flesh before turning his attention back to where you really wanted him. You moaned instantly and arched your back off of the matress.

Usually, you didn't like to watch when a guy went down on you but it was Yoongi and you wanted to know how he looked with his dark eyes peering up at you. So, you opened your eyes and lifted your head to look down. The moment you saw his face you froze and your eyes widened. "Ohmygod!" You shrieked, shimmying up with bed quickly with your hands over your mouth in shock. "I am so fucking sorry, I didn't know."

Yoongi looked up at you, his dark hair a mess and falling into his eyes and that was pretty fucking hot but as soon as you got to his nose, you freaked out. His lower face was covered in blood.

"I thought I had another week left!" You explained.

"What?" He mumbled. "Come back here." He tugged on your ankle but you quickly pulled it out of his grasp making him sigh in annoyance. "What is wrong with you?"

"Are you not aware what is going on with my vagina right now?!"

"I was enjoying myself eating it." He pointed out, looking nothing short of frustrated at the disruption.

"My fucking period started and you just carried on?!"

"Well, yeah." Yoongi looked at you as if it was obvious he would, as if it was stupid to suggest he do anything else. "What else do you expect from a vampire?"

"A what?!" You yelled. You of course knew vampires existed, you knew they walked and lived amongst humans and had for decades. Honestly, you had no problem with them, most of them just tried to live like everyone else, like humans, and fed off animals or blood substitues. Some of your friends and coworkers were vampires, your brother even married one last year. But, you had never realised Yoongi was one. "You're a vampire?"

"You...you didn't know?" He moved to kneel up then, showing you his bare torso and erection that was trying to break free from the constraints of his dark grey boxers. "How could you not know?"

"You never told me!"

"I thought it was obvious, most people know as soon as they meet me." You just continued to stare in shock. "For a start, my skin, it's pale, I clearly don't get much sunlight."

"Not all vampires are pale, my sister in law goes to a tanning salon."

"I have fangs."

"They're not obvious, I've never seen you hungry so I didn't know you have them. I thought they're just slightly pointed canines, mine were like that when I was little."

"You never wondered why we only meet after sun set, or on cloudy days?"

"I assumed you can only spare time in the nights and I never realised we only meet on cloudy days."

Yoongi moved to sit down on the edge of his bed with his back to you while he took in the fact you were incredibly clueless.

"So all this time, you never realised I'm a vampire?"

"No."

"And...do you have a problem with it?"

"No."

"Then lay back down so I can finish eating you out." He demanded impatiently, getting up and turning to face you. You looked at him with an incredulous look. "What?"

"I just, you really want to do that?" He nodded firmly and you bit your lip nervously. "I've never had a guy go down on me while I'm on my period, it seems kind of...weird."

"You've only been with humans?" You nodded. "Well there you have it. Tasting your blood is a turn on, Y/N." Yoongi informed as he crawled back onto the bed. "And I love making girls cum with my mouth so getting both is making me so fucking hard."

"But, doesn't it taste horrible? Because it's period blood?"

"No, it's got a fuller flavour, it's thicker, I can't explain it really. It's like, living on vegetables despite being a meat eater and then finally getting a nice thick steak."

"Oh." You nodded in understanding.

"So now you know, you gonna let me carry on?" You nodded shyly and returned to your previous position on the bed.

"Can't beleive you didn't know I'm a fucking vampire." He chuckled as he settled back between your legs.

"Shut up."

"I literally said I wanted to bite you like five times in the past half an hour."

"Why don't you use that pretty little tongue of yours for something better than talking, huh?" You suggested, a sharp almost demanding tone to your voice. Yoongi licked his lips before growling and diving back in.

The fact that Yoongi was a vampire didn't bother you and surprisingly, the fact he was eating you out while you were on your period suddenly didn't bother you either. You finally got the man you had been lusting after and you were going to enjoy every fucking second of it.

iI know I’m supposed to be writing other stuff but this idea just came tome and I had to write it

I’ll now get back to watching Dirk Gently’s Holistic detective agency and pretending I’m going to do some work lol

~Chee

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