MSPA fan fiction 2

[PaulPower]

No harm in taking time out to write something different. Hell, I have four ongoing fics on the burner right now.

Does anyone else have as many fanfics in the fire as I have?
You doubt it.

Well, I'm not doing bad with 2fortstuck, the random shuttling-back-and-forth of my "kids break the game" series and one-shots like "Plan B" . If I hadn't finished off "Friends Who Haven't Met Yet" I'd be up to four.

edit: Saravasti, nice one, unfinished though it is. It's very Rose. Looking forward to the rest.

[raequiem]

@sarasvati: Oh. My. God. I love you so much. To tiny little squishy bits and pieces.

So you saying you like my fic is- I- GUH. NO WORDS. JUST HAPPINESS.

Also, don't you dare apologize for just having a snippet. It is delightful and perfect and please please please make the rest of it happen soon. I'm just gonna kinda stalk this thread until you do

ALSO ALSO: Forgot to put it in an earlier post, but there's a few really good reasons why I gave Dave a drinking problem. (Spoilered for walltext no one cares about, and also hinting at future chapters?)

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First, because I'm not saras. Love you, sweetie, but with all the future!Dave floating around a little distance is a good thing, right?

Second, the in-story reason. Alcohol dulls the senses, and for Dave losing track of time is kind of a way to give his brain a break. Being so hypersensitive like that, to anything, can't be fun. And to have it 24/7 must suck quite a bit harder. Drinking is escapism - for a little while, he can forget all the shit he's been through. He can pretend to be normal. (Side note: He doesn't drink when he makes music, be it recording or live. That's one of the few places this extra sense of his comes in handy, and he knows and exploits that.)

And third, because hurt/comfort has a certain special place in my heart, and I really needed Jade to mother someone. (This is her coping mechanism - and it will come up in later chapters, don't worry.) But breaking out of any dependency is rough, and I've seen alcoholics going through withdrawal. It's not fun, it's not pretty, and it's definitely not something anyone should have to go through alone.

Next chapter will be up either late tonight or midmorning tomorrow.

[Shadow of the Lotus]

@ Red Pen: As always, well written. Do you have any idea how long unhinged will be at this point? It feels like it could be anywhere from two chapters away from finishing to not even half done.

@Sarasvati: I've always been a bit curious; were you the one who posted a Dave/Jade fandom secret like, months ago? I always think of you whenever I think of that shipping.

On John and Rose: Things are complicated at the moment with them certainly. That we don't know John's relation to Mr. Egbert at this point helps it to an extent. At best, I think Mr. Egbert could be John's half-brother. I think it more likely Mr. Egbert isn't related to John at all. However, the point stands that John's adoptive non-genetically related Father is romantically involved with the genetic mother (and 'adoptive' mother) of Rose. They're like.... some weird mesh of step/half/not-even-anything siblings. I tend to ignore the complications.

I'm behind in reading fic and writing fic. I'm going to finish one of the fics I've been working on for a couple weeks tonight. It won't be posted for a while but at least it'll be done tonight. It's the sorcerer's apprentice one; with John and Rose going on a date together. I need to continue "Take me out to the Birthday" fic and I really want to try and write a horror fic. I had an idea I really liked the other day (something with Rose and Jaspers) but I can not remember it right now; damn. I'll update the directory finally tonight as well. School has started again for me but it's nothing right now.

[sarasvati]

raequiem: In a verse where his power is actually like driving him up the fucking wall, I could definitely see Dave turning to the bottle to drown that out. In my headcanon, it's sort of like a grandfather clock in the room; it sounds so loud and obvious when it's new, but eventually you drown it out, it's just background noise, and if you want to check the time, then hey, it's right there. But if you hear the tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick so loudly for years and years and years and can't actually drown it out? Holy crap it's a wonder your future!Dave hasn't been moved to homicide.

Lotus: It wasn't me, actually! (I think I know which one you're talking about--used that black and white Eyes 5 fanart, color coded?) I've submitted exactly one Homestuck-related f!s and it never even made it to the thread, which was probably for the best. I can see how you'd think it was me, though, because I'm the loudiest loudmouth to ever be loud and mouthy about Dave/Jade. It wasn't much of a popular ship at first, which pushed me to write it and champion it, but it's gained a lot of popularity. It makes me all warm and fuzzy.

re: John/Rose stuff
Oh man I could talk for years about how much conflict and tension there would be in getting those two together. I think once they actually get together that yeah, they would settle into something harmonious and "boring", but getting there would probably take longer and be way messier than anything Dave and Jade could manage. It makes me sort of sad that no one else is trying their hand at it! I'm working on pushing out a short little horrible horrible something (surprise project), but after I'm done with that, I'm going right back into we drive by braille, which will hopefully do their conflict justice.

[northernVehemence]

quiem -- oh, don't worry, it's not a pet peeve, and your story was beautifully written! and also wait, you mentioned later chapters? I can die happy now. But please don't think I had any problems with your story, I was just wondering why there aren't more fics of the other kids.

AND THEN SARASVATI SHOWED UP AND WON MY HEART. Honestly, I can't wait for the rest of the fic. I actually just reread "we drive by braille" earlier today, and I'm so happy to see you working on something about Rose. You write so fluidly and you examine each character in such detail, your stories are instant headcanon.

And also, Paulpower, I'm sorry I completely missed "Plan B". Even though it was rather short, i liked it a lot! it's a cool interpretation of how Bec came to be, and I loved the constant interweaving war metaphors. Again, I'm sorry I missed your fic -- i know how disappointing it is not to get any comments! (my last two fics didn't get any) *coughs*

[orngjce223]

arblgarbl thoughts in my head and no framework to write them in

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Rose strikes me as the type of person who, in contrast to (sarasvati's) Dave and his control issues, would try to fit a theory to everything. If there's a theory that explains a situation she can't explain, she will grab onto it with such intensity that there are a lot of people who would look at it and think her gullible. If there is no theory, she will start spawning ideas as to what it is, what meaning it has, whether authority or a certain group of people are involved with it, etc. like a whirling dervish, and she won't stop until one of them gets accepted. This is why she gravitated to psychoanalysis: it provided her a framework in which to explain people, a framework she never actually learned on the most fundamental of levels.

Rose is at a hundred-person K-12 rural school that has two teachers for elementary and middle school levels and then has three teachers for the entirety of high school, and then an hourlong busride at which Rose is by far the last stop on the route. Which doesn't leave much room for really getting to know anyone, as an incredibly smart kid and then teenager. There's a kind of isolation to being smart even in the largest of schools; out in Nowhere, NY it means being totally out of favor: gum on the lockers, being tripped in the hallways, nobody bothering to call a teacher when you fall down the stairs.

And there are snippets that involve her and a subscription to a mail-in library; copying codes from a monthly catalog of what she wants next, books on human nature and psychology and crowd dynamics, trying to find a model she can use for people so that someone, anyone, will accept her. Her novels are dark and inappropriate because there simply isn't anything geared to her reading level and maturity; here's a six-year-old Rose with a nose deep in a book of Lovecraftian horror simply because her mother picked something that would be challenging for her to read on a purely mechanical level, there's a ten-year-old Rose with the purple prose that would make an editor scream, sending in a lovingly-crafted essay on the sociocultural structure of a wizard society and being rejected because the judges of the writing contest couldn't read her work. Thereafter she would keep her writing secret.

And then there's the moments in which she comes home, utterly drained from trying to get on anyone's good graces, dealing with elbows in the side in the hallway, being jeered at for knowing the answers. And the first thing she does is log onto the computer and find the three kids who have stuck with her through everything she's ever done - John is willing to listen to her and ask the incisive questions that really get to the heart of the matter; Jade with first that sunny personality that makes light of anything and then a reassuring but vague knowledge of the future; Dave who raps (which is also a kind of poetry) and is quite happy to verbally spar with her, matching and sharpening each others' wits. All of them commiserate about being the outliers, John the nerd in the school of hipsters, Dave the hipster in the school of smart kids, Rose the smart kid in the school of idiots, Jade out in the middle of nowhere taking the best correspondence classes money could buy but having nothing but the Internet to bounce ideas off of.

How would she ever live without them?

And there is the whisper from the depths of her brain, that answers, quietly -

she would've been suicidal or dead by now if she hadn't found them. It happens to thousands upon thousands of teenagers a year. They have nobody. And nobody can do a damn thing about it.

And there goes the smoldering anger in her that she stamps out, again and again, with theories and logic and frameworks, the concept that the people she can't deal with in daily life are simply stupid and not actively malicious - the fact that her mother is not stupid and thus the only logical answer is that she is actively malicious.

How ironic is it, then, that the girl who is misunderstood by practically everyone misunderstands the one woman who tries to do right by her.

Wait, how did that outline turn into a fanfic? Nevermind, I'm posting it anyway.

[Sushi Database]

Nope. They're not biologically related and they weren't raised as siblings, so there's no reason not to have them together. (At least, that's my justification for OOH SHINY WEDDING BELLS 8D)

there's a reasonable chance of them ending up living together and they're still kids. Not completely weird, but still. I dunno.

[DocBeard]

People write lots of Dave because Dave is the Cool Guy and has his powers. Both of these make future and alt-u fics with Dave as the focus easier. In my opinion the problem with a lot of Dave fics is the same problem with a lot of Rose fics; you guys are buying into their hype, noise that got at least partially dismissed several times in the story. Making Dave and Rose, "The competent/deep/serious/smart one." is easy to do and a disservice to the characterization we see in the comic.

Every kid has times where they look silly, take stuff the wrong way, or otherwise act like dumb kids. They all show instances of fibbing to themselves about how they feel about a given situation. They all get excited over childish things; in other words, in a lot of stories I see Dave and Rose being written as tiny adults instead of a pair of fairly mature kids. I do not want to outright say, "That is wrong and you should feel bad." but I think that a Rose without the magnet mustache and a Dave without petty apple juice pranks is an incomplete picture.

(I try to avoid shipping arguments, but I don't think there are all that many John/Rose fics out there. They are occasionally mentioned as a second tier couple in other stories but off the top of my head the only story about the pair interacting I can really recall was the stuff from Lotus and that one really cool one about John and Rose making soup.)

[Tenebrais]

Right, time for some fic.
Remember Starfound? It continues here!
(This is the first part of a very long chapter that I've split in two)

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Kanaya’s cruiser landed in a starport on Porvonis.
“We were planning to do something special today,” Rose told the passengers. “Looks like we won’t be now. Never mind. Do you three have a place to go?”
They shook their heads. “Nepeta and I are drifters,” Equius said, “and we just left Sollux’s home. We’re pretty good at finding somewhere out of the way.”
“Well we can’t just let you sleep on the street,” Rose said.
“At least come back to our flat with us. Then you can plan what to do.”

It didn’t take much convincing. Soon the five arrived at the girls’ home, and made themselves comfortable.
Rose made drinks. It had been a long time since any of the workers and tasted fruit juice.
“How long do you think it’ll be before the Midnight Crew figure out we’re gone?” Equius asked.
“Who knows?” Sollux said. “They left us to die by ourselves. That could have been months. They’re probably not going to be checking in on us.”
“So we may not have to worry about being chased. That’s a relief, at least.”
“Next thing to worry about is what they want with the crystals. I thought they were just stealing them for profit, but they wanted a specific amount. What are they planning?”
“What are those crystals, anyway?” Kanaya asked.
Sollux produced one from his pocket and placed it on the table. “I don’t know exactly what they are or how they work, but I do know they’re great power sources. More efficient than any battery I’ve come across, and they last a long time too. I thought that was it, but after Nepeta’s trick with your folding drive I’m not so sure any more.”


Diamond approached the Midnight Crew’s caliginous leader. Spade. Few members of the Crew even saw him nowadays. Once he was much more hands-on, but now he was content to sit back and let his henchmen get their hands dirty. He supposed these things came with age. The two of them went way back - they were cohorts even when serving under a monarchy.
That was over a hundred years ago, and on this very planet. Funny how things change.
“What’s the report, Diamond?” Spade was
“We got enough gems.”
“And the miner? Is he dead?”
“We took his ships. He’ll be dead sooner or later. I got some boys to keep an eye on the space around the planet just to be sure.”
“That’s wasteful, Diamond. Frankly I don’t want manpower uselessly patrolling dead space when we have such an important heist running. Just kill him.”
Diamond nodded.
“Soon,” Spade mused, “we’ll have control over everything. This machine will fulfil our wildest dreams. The whole galaxy will fear the name of the Midnight Crew.”
“Are you alright, boss? You’re monologuing.”
“I’m sorry. I’m building a secret super-weapon to take control of the galaxy. I might as well go the whole way.”
“This isn’t like you, Jack.”
“Jack? Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
“I’ve been thinking lately. About the past. When it was just the four of us, overthrowing the monarchy. You and me and Club and Heart.”
“Good times. I should really go and visit their graves some time.”
“That makes two of us, Jack.”
“Maybe after all this is done. When we’ll have something they would be proud of us for.”
“I’m sure they’d be proud of us already. This is the biggest criminal gang in the galaxy.”
“Soon we’ll own it though.” Spade then burst out laughing. “Look at us! Discussing our midlife crisis. We might as well be accountants.”
“I’d hardly say our best days are behind us yet.”
“I’m making sure of that, Diamond. I’m making sure of that. Go take care of Captor. Send the boys watching that planet to join in the heist.”


Rose made a point of listening to the evening news broadcast daily. Kanaya indulged her, and stayed quiet throughout. Today, their guests might have proved a distraction if the news hadn’t caught their attention.
The Arthurian Museum of War History had been raided, in broad daylight. A group of at least a dozen masked men wielding guns stormed security, took hostages, and looted money. They made off with one important artefact called the Quartz Lens, as well as three captives.
“This can’t be unrelated,” Equius said.
Sollux concurred. “They’d never be able to fence something like that. It’s too hot.” The room stared at him. “Look, when you’re a psyche, sometimes you have to do things you’re not proud of. But that doesn’t matter. This lens must have something to do with it all. What is it?”
“No one really knows,” Kanaya said. “It was found in the ruins of a dead civilisation. The general consensus is that it was part of an energy weapon of some kind, but there’s disagreement.”
“So the Midnight Crew must want that too,” Rose mused. “They’re building something. Chemically quartz is the same as glass; it’s just a crystal.”
“Crystals,” Sollux muttered. “It all comes back to that.”


As evening turned to night, Inspector Egbert prepared for the long haul. This wasn’t his sort of thing. He dealt with well-planned and smoothly-executed homicides, the kind that had the perp so surprised that he’d managed to find them. He loved that look of surprise. But this? The Midnight Crew knocked over a museum. In broad daylight. Stole a lens the size of a dinner plate. This wasn’t a mystery, it was a scavenger hunt!
What’s more, with those kidnapped hostages, there was too much riding on this. There should be better people for tracking these things down.
He didn’t have much by the way of leads to go on. The attackers split up, and he had no idea which had the lens, or any of the hostages. He could only assume where they were meeting up next. His current strategy was combing the district for any members of the Crew to question. Even if they couldn’t or wouldn’t help him find this thing, hey, at least that was one more gangster off the streets.
Still. He’d be up pretty late looking for leads.


“Right, so we’ve only got enough space for one of you to spend the night with us,” Rose announced. “Sorry.”
“Nepeta, you stay,” said Equius.
The girl looked up. “Why me?”
“Because a man staying with women would be indecent.”
Rose laughed. “Old-fashioned, aren’t we?”
Equius chose not to reply. “It’s getting late. Sollux, we should go and find somewhere to spend the night.”
The two men left. Kanaya turned to Nepeta. “You’ve been very quiet. Are you alright?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I just didn’t have anything to say. Equius is smarter than I am.”
“How is he related to you, anyway? Is he your brother? Your boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “He’s looked after me since I was really little.”
“A guardian, then.”
“Yeah. He even bought me this coat! He always expected me to grow into it.” She giggled. “I didn’t.”

Equius and Sollux wandered the streets in search of a cheap room to spend the night or, failing that, an out-of-the-way alley. The police must have been really shaken up by the raid today. Round every corner there were Regulators - a make of the automata that kept the metropolis running, and that were part of the cause of the galaxy’s massive poverty problem.
Equius had spent time in this city before, but their behaviour tonight was unusual. Several of them had some sort of beacon that they were focusing intently on. As they passed near to one of the Regulators, its device beeped loudly.
“You there,” it commanded in a somewhat synthesised voice. “Stop, in the name of the law.” It started to walk over to them.
“Stop or run?” Sollux asked Equius.
“Stop. Can’t outrun these things unless you can get right off the planet. They never stop for anything.”
The Regulator stood before them. “You will come quietly. If you resist arrest, you will be charged with further misdemeanour.” It handcuffed both of them while continuing to read its prompt. A police craft flew low to take them away.

[Ale]

Breccia, did you ever finish that serious karkat/sollux fic you mentioned in the other fanfic thread? (just curious)

Also, everyone's fics lately are awesome, but I thought Plan B was my favorite one that I read recently. It's a really nifty idea, and I don't remember reading any other story like it. Good job


Is it just me or is the thread slowing back down again lately?

[Sushi Database]

Breccia, did you ever finish that serious karkat/sollux fic you mentioned in the other fanfic thread? (just curious)

Also, everyone's fics lately are awesome, but I thought Plan B was my favorite one that I read recently. It's a really nifty idea, and I don't remember reading any other story like it. Good job


Is it just me or is the thread slowing back down again lately?

Just you, I think. How many fics have we had in one day? Half a dozen, more?

[Ale]

Good point. I think the last thread was having two-ish pages a day towards the end, and I think it's about one-ish now.
But you guys are still doing really well! Especially since the quality of the writings are generally very high. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was complaining. You guys are awesome, and you should feel awesome!

[kmsumrall]

The Continuing Adventures of Secret Agent Doc Scratch!

There are two spoilers to accommodate the natural break point in the story. So, don't be all clicking the second one first thinking ol' kmsumrall is just rambling about the story.

...I feel like someone else made that speech earlier.

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I woke up with a start, bright lights blinding me for a moment. Rubbing my eyes and blinking away the spots, I saw Snowman mere inches away from my face, giving me an angry look. I grinned and said, “Well, fancy meeting you here.”

She hit me in the head with a pointer. “At least have the decorum to not fall asleep during the briefing, agent.”

“It was a long night, ok? Normally ya’ll give me a a few days before we do this dance again.”

Snowman scowled. “This is a time sensitive issue, Scratch. Did you absorb anything before your impromptu nap?”

I scratched my head. “Something about Vegas and babies with a gambling problem?”

Snowman went for another strike but I ducked out of the way. “There is a charity poker tournament to raise money for the awareness and prevention of sudden infant death syndrome. We believe the casino hosting the event, the Jacques Noir...” I tuned out as I smirked to myself. The Black Jack indeed. “...Slicks and the Midnight Crew. What you need to do in infiltrate the offices during the final table and find evidence of their involvement. There is a high probability that this is either a money laundering scheme or they plan to steal the winnings. At this moment we have no confirmation.”

“A spy at a casino during a high-stakes poker game. Hasn't this been played out? Records are hard enough to get into without the extra guards. Why now?”

“It is precisely because of the heightened security that we believe the Midnight Crew will have the evidence at the casino.”

“Slick knows who I am. If I have a seat, he could just cut and run.”

“You won’t. The Agency is arranging a second agent to play bodyguard to one of the guests. More security will be posted during the final table as they are bringing out the money as the center piece. Motivation, if you will. The other agent will create an altercation at that time. This will be your window to get in, get the goods, and get out.

“How would that even work? A distraction big enough to- Wait, no, do you mean-”

“Yes. Cans, please come in now.”

A tall muscular man walked into the room, wearing a greenish suit that fit tightly across his chest. Guy was grinning his fool head off, coming in to shake my hand. I didn’t take it because last time I needed a cast after. He had a boyish cast to his features and a gentle giant vibe. I would have believed it too if I hadn’t seen him push a guy through a brick wall.

“Gee, sure is good to work with you agent Doc Scratch.” The hero worship was dripping off of every word.

I gave Snowman a pleading look but she just shook her head. “Deal with it, agent. This operation could cripple the Midnights Crew’s infrastructure in a big way.”

I looked from Snowman to Cans and back to Snowman. Well crap. “When do we start?”

~

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“We start now.”

“Copy that Snowman. The P.O.E. is straight ahead.” The rumbling above me made it hard to hear.

“Good. Remember , they will check the cab and trailer but not the undercarriage. Maintain that position until-”

“I got it, alright? Look, how many times have I done this sort of thing?”

“Successfully? One last note, we received a partial blueprint of the building. It is being uploaded now. You’ll want to hit the server room and download the security feeds from the last 24 hours. Once we have those, we ‘ll know the layout in detail and where the files are being held.”

A double bump told me I was close to the destination. “I’m here. Radio silence until I get to the servers. DS out.”

A minute later I heard the sounds of dock doors opening and the truck went in. I heard the idle banter above and felt the truck stop. After that they started to unload. I sneaked a look at my watch. 20 minutes until the final table was opened and 25 minutes until Cans did his thing.

At last the dollys stopped and the light dimmed. Showtime. I stopped, dropped, and rolled out from under the delivery truck, taking in the surroundings. Good, empty as planned. I made my way over to the employee's entrance and took out a card. The boys in the lab had whipped up this baby as a universal key-card hacking tool. No clue how it worked and I didn’t care. I waved it in front of the pad and the door opened.

Casinos and office building and military bases and bee hives all did the same thing. They locked the screen door and the wooden door at the front of the house, but not the door between the hallway and the kitchen. This hallway had no cameras. I rushed to the next door. Ah, there was the thing I needed to watch for. I heard a familiar whirling sound and looked closer. They put the thing on a motor so it could sweep the whole room. Seriously, it didn't cost that much extra just to have an extra stationary camera. But this was easy enough to find the blind spot and sneak under.

Three minutes. Once that time hit I could rush over across this office to the elevator. There was a big open area but if Cans did his job right then no one would be looking. At that point I would have ten minutes to climb up the shaft to the 12th floor. Easy as making a glass of Scotch.

There! I sprinted across, making good time. The elevator door was easily pried open and I was in. Good, they were right and the ceiling was paneled. I popped one off and lifted myself through.

You know, you never see and elevator shaft with a service ladder. I put on some gloves and starting jumping to the next door ledge. Any good lift had greased lines and they were annoying to try and hold onto.

Three minutes later I was where I needed to be. Good, no cameras here either. The door to the server room would be stupid to try and hack, and knocking out the camera pointed at it would just alert the guards. But the conference room above it, now that had no security at all. I had a shaped charge in my pack that would-

Part 2!
The Third Part!

[Masterly]

Dave is angst, simple as that.

[foxesforsale]

I agree with other people, I think it's easy to find conflict with Dave. Also, I imagine that the cool guy persona would be fun to write. We've also been shown signs of him starting to feel the toll of the game - that moment with the blood on his hands? Angst material fun! Additionally, he's probably got the best defined 'power' that goes with his title, or rather an effect of the game that is easy to extrapolate from his title. I suppose each of the other characters have their own appeal in a similar way, but Dave's is pretty clear to me.

I really like the post-sburb powers that seem to be popular, like Dave's sense of time. To me, Jade's would be a sense of place and physics, and Rose is already very perceptive, but maybe also being able to discern lies? I think an interesting post-sburb fic for Rose would be from conflict caused by her always being able to tell a lie from the truth. But John gets me stuck. Heir of Breath? Heir? Breath?

Um. I don't really remember my original point here, or what I was responding to so much. Eheh, I'm pretty absent minded sometimes.

@kmsumrall: I'm enjoying this, it feels like an action movie!

[Red Pen]

Secret... AGENT Scratch! Secret... AGENT Scratch! He's giving you a number, and takin' 'way your name! (Duh-nuh-nuh nuhnuhnuh Duh-nuh-nuh!)

@foxesforsale I think it's more about the items they gravitate towards. Dave alchemized himself some turntables that could control time, letting him mess around in the timestream. John's got a jetpack, letting him fly through the air.
I don't know about Rose, I guess the Thorns of Oglogoth sort of shoot lightning so maybe that counts, and of course Jade hasn't alchemized anything yet.

[PaulPower]

Hoo boy, I started writing these responses at 3AM, went "why am I writing on the internet at 3AM", saved it, went to sleep and now I'm trying to finish it off.

orngjce: haha, yeah, sometimes I think of the fanfic thread as an extension of IDE/Theory for people who like exploring the characters through narrative and dialogue. So it's not surprising that you ended up with an essay on Rose there.

nV: hehe, don't worry about it, I think I'm just one of those annoying people whose ego is simultaneously big and fragile when it comes to writing. So sometimes I can be a jerk about it. Sorry. But thanks . Speaking of which:

nV, Ale, Red Pen: aww, thanks . Yeah, DD is something of an enigma so I thought it'd be cool to try and get inside his head and give him a rationale for his actions. And then suddenly the part of me that browses Wikipedia went "hey remember reading about Blitzkrieg?" and another part of me went "okay so let's have him refer to the Kids by their titles... the Heir... wait, the Heir inherited the Bunny..." and it all sort of dropped into place.

Saying that, the funny thing is that the initial idea was for a longer piece with this bit as the "reveal": the original plan was to have DD use John's computer and beta to get Jade into the Medium (in order to ensure he got Bec as a prototyping) while John was still off busy sleepboarding. But then I thought about poor little Jade, still reeling from the fall and losing her dreamself, watching someone she thought was John dropping her still-alive dog into the kernelsprite against its will, while her attempts to contact John on Pesterchum went unanswered. And my brain chickened out and refused to write it (I bet I've given someone else the idea now, though ).

sarasvati: actually, yeah, good point about John and Rose. They're probably the two kids with the most... inhibitions, I guess, which comes across in them being the two with the toughest time waking their dreamselves. So the two of them getting together probably would be a long, awkward, but ultimately rewarding process. I guess with Dave and Jade it could be more "easy come, easy go" which - fridge brilliance - makes me realise why you set a lot of WDBB after they'd split up.

DocBeard: good point about Rose and Dave still being kids. I do tend to forget that, with Rose especially - although again, I think a lot of that comes from her perceived attitude shift post-Thorns. And for what it's worth, I like writing John/Rose, although I tend to keep it toned down what with them being kids and all (also, with no disrespect to this remarkably talented writing community that lives waaay up the good end of the fanfic bell curve, the Goon in me is twitchy enough that I've got into writing fanfic, let alone shippy stuff).

kmsumrall: Doc Scratch as a super-spy is pretty damn funny, and the action-y-ness works well too. And Cans' cameo was great.

[foxesforsale]

Secret... AGENT Scratch! Secret... AGENT Scratch! He's giving you a number, and takin' 'way your name! (Duh-nuh-nuh nuhnuhnuh Duh-nuh-nuh!)

@foxesforsale I think it's more about the items they gravitate towards. Dave alchemized himself some turntables that could control time, letting him mess around in the timestream. John's got a jetpack, letting him fly through the air.
I don't know about Rose, I guess the Thorns of Oglogoth sort of shoot lightning so maybe that counts, and of course Jade hasn't alchemized anything yet.

Oh, I didn't think about that, but now you mention it...

[PaulPower]

I'd guess Heir of Breath is supposed to link in with the whole Breeze thing on the Land of Wind and Shade: there's been the odd hint that John has some sort of unconscious power over it, as demonstrated by the way it put those fires out for him. Because I've got an obsession with linking these powers in with the kids' musical talents, I tend to theorise some sort of portable organ (with pipes, of course ) that he can use to control it.

Jaspersprite was fairly explicit with Rose about the whole "playing the rain" thing and connecting all that light and rain and songs and genetic codes stuff together. Of course, whether Rose goes through with all that now she's decided to break the game is another matter, but it seems to be what the game wants. And "Violight" would be a pretty cool name.

Space Bass is a cool name too .

[breccia]

quotespam!

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Alright, I get what you were going for, and the writing is good, much better than I could do (then again, I can only write things that are clinical even for police reports). I kinda snapped at it because I was in a bad mood from doing a bunch of ethics case studies.

Not a problem. I can definitely understand the issues you had with it... I may have actually responded the same way (at least in my head) if someone else did something similar. It didn't really occur to me at the time; it was a pretty hasty fic. Anyway, thanks for the compliment. You have pretty dang awesome art, so I wouldn't worry too much about writing.

@breccia -- don't listen to the haters, I liked the music links! I think it helped establish some context of what exactly Dave does for a living and what his tastes are. You have a great writing style, and I love seeing stories about future chums. Really, truly excellent work.

...

My question is, why are there so many future-Dave fics?? I mean, I love them all, I really do, but I think that one could just as easily do something really interesting with the other kids. SO THAT IS MY CHALLENGE TO YOU, FANFIC THREAD.

You always say the best things and I don't know how to respond to them!

I definitely wrote Dave because of sarasvati planting brain seeds in me, but I agree that he's ... easier to slip in to, I guess! I may have to take up this challenge and mock up some really nerdy future John fic. Future nerdy Jade being totally self confident and unaware of her quirks sounds fun, too.

I AM SARASVATI AND I APPROVE OF THIS FLOOD OF DAVE/JADE

I think I am betrothed to a few people on the forum already, but last I heard it was pretty open. I'm glad you liked it ... like I said, your fic heavily inspired me to try writing some future chums. I immediately wanted to do something about Dave being a DJ when I read your fic, and when I finally wrote it weeks later I was more than halfway through when I realized how similar it was to yours. SORRY! He just really lent himself to that style and plot ... or maybe subconsciously you just made him seem that way to me!

I can't wait for the rest of your fics :O

Breccia, did you ever finish that serious karkat/sollux fic you mentioned in the other fanfic thread? (just curious)

Not yet! They are silly boys with silly problems. (Actually I think the problem might be that the story isn't silly enough. Trolls can't be too serious, it is just wrong.)

Crazy edit:

So, I got to thinking about Homestuck characters as written by famous authors.

For example, I assigned the trolls to authors I thought would be fitting, or at least funny ...

Karkat Vantas by Hunter S. Thompson
Equius Zahhak by Ernest Hemingway
Tavros Nitram by William Faulkner
Kanaya by Charlotte Bronte
Vriska Serket by Mary Shelley
Aradia Megido by Emily Dickinson
Sollux Captor by William Gibson
Gamzee Makara by Allen Ginsberg
Eridan Amphor by Sun Tzu
Nepeta Leijon by Harper Lee

(I have no idea who would write Feferi...)

Would anyone be interested in claiming a Homestuck character (ANY character) or two to write a short, famous-author account? You don't have to follow my recommendations above, of course, they're just suggestions to get people thinking! I figured it could be a fun experiment that makes for an interesting patchwork, multi-author fic at the end.

Here's an extremely unpolished example of Karkat as Hunter S. Thompson (but any others probably shouldn't be self-referential like this)

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The playa was dry. Everywhere the sun burnt into the ground and wind kicked up alkaline dust, whipping it at you as if to tame you like a some emasculated lion in a circus. The circus of life and desert and death. I narrow my eyes intently at the scenery, lit so brightly and ephemerally in oversaturated colors. This was where men went to die. This is where the world truly made you her bitch, one last time.

"You look ridiculouth in that hat,"

I snap around at the familiar lisp to see my companion standing nearby, sweat pouring down his taut face, sunglasses nearly slipping down his nose in the flowing mountain streams that dug into the landscape of his skin.

"Shut up. This hat is awesome."

I can never see his eyes roll behind those multicolored shades, but he sends out his annoyance in waves straight at me. It knocks me back.

"Just becauth you wear that hat and do drugth in the dethert doesthnt make you Hunter Eth Thompthon, idiot."

God damn. His lisp was a religious fucking experience. I walk toward him, wanting to find the source of that sound. That airy, wispy sound. He looks frightened as I approach, and backs away from me slowly.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm going to take your lisp from you," I say, reaching toward his mouth.

"What?!"

"Just stand still."

"KK I will leave you here in the fucking dethert to die if you keep trying to freak me out like thith."

I nearly touch him. It's there, in his throat, in his mouth. I can see the tongue dancing. He bats my hands away and I lunge forward, desperate.

"Stay still you fucker!" I yell as he dodges me once more.

"Thtop it!"

He bends around me, running behind. I spin around and grab him by the waist. I am so close. "Just give it to me!"

He cries out and wriggles out of my hands like a god damned snake. Snakes. Snakes always had a lisp when they spoke. It was that long, prehensile tongue.

I reach out feebly toward him once more just as he escapes my grip. "I want your tongue!"

"No! You're inthane!"

"Sollux get back here!"

He is running, now. "Fuck you!"

"Sollux!"

Damn. I was so god damn close.

Any interest?

[Sushi Database]

quotespam!

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hide spoiler

Not a problem. I can definitely understand the issues you had with it... I may have actually responded the same way (at least in my head) if someone else did something similar. It didn't really occur to me at the time; it was a pretty hasty fic. Anyway, thanks for the compliment. You have pretty dang awesome art, so I wouldn't worry too much about writing.




You always say the best things and I don't know how to respond to them!

I definitely wrote Dave because of sarasvati planting brain seeds in me, but I agree that he's ... easier to slip in to, I guess! I may have to take up this challenge and mock up some really nerdy future John fic. Future nerdy Jade being totally self confident and unaware of her quirks sounds fun, too.




I think I am betrothed to a few people on the forum already, but last I heard it was pretty open. I'm glad you liked it ... like I said, your fic heavily inspired me to try writing some future chums. I immediately wanted to do something about Dave being a DJ when I read your fic, and when I finally wrote it weeks later I was more than halfway through when I realized how similar it was to yours. SORRY! He just really lent himself to that style and plot ... or maybe subconsciously you just made him seem that way to me!

I can't wait for the rest of your fics :O




Not yet! They are silly boys with silly problems. (Actually I think the problem might be that the story isn't silly enough. Trolls can't be too serious, it is just wrong.)

Crazy edit:

So, I got to thinking about Homestuck characters as written by famous authors.

For example, I assigned the trolls to authors I thought would be fitting, or at least funny ...

Karkat Vantas by Hunter S. Thompson
Equius Zahhak by Ernest Hemingway
Tavros Nitram by William Faulkner
Kanaya by Charlotte Bronte
Vriska Serket by Mary Shelley
Aradia Megido by Emily Dickinson
Sollux Captor by William Gibson
Gamzee Makara by Allen Ginsberg
Eridan Amphor by Sun Tzu
Nepeta Leijon by Harper Lee

(I have no idea who would write Feferi...)

Would anyone be interested in claiming a Homestuck character (ANY character) or two to write a short, famous-author account? You don't have to follow my recommendations above, of course, they're just suggestions to get people thinking! I figured it could be a fun experiment that makes for an interesting patchwork, multi-author fic at the end.

Here's an extremely unpolished example of Karkat as Hunter S. Thompson (but any others probably shouldn't be self-referential like this)

show spoiler

hide spoiler

The playa was dry. Everywhere the sun burnt into the ground and wind kicked up alkaline dust, whipping it at you as if to tame you like a some emasculated lion in a circus. The circus of life and desert and death. I narrow my eyes intently at the scenery, lit so brightly and ephemerally in oversaturated colors. This was where men went to die. This is where the world truly made you her bitch, one last time.

"You look ridiculouth in that hat,"

I snap around at the familiar lisp to see my companion standing nearby, sweat pouring down his taut face, sunglasses nearly slipping down his nose in the flowing mountain streams that dug into the landscape of his skin.

"Shut up. This hat is awesome."

I can never see his eyes roll behind those multicolored shades, but he sends out his annoyance in waves straight at me. It knocks me back.

"Just becauth you wear that hat and do drugth in the dethert doesthnt make you Hunter Eth Thompthon, idiot."

God damn. His lisp was a religious fucking experience. I walk toward him, wanting to find the source of that sound. That airy, wispy sound. He looks frightened as I approach, and backs away from me slowly.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm going to take your lisp from you," I say, reaching toward his mouth.

"What?!"

"Just stand still."

"KK I will leave you here in the fucking dethert to die if you keep trying to freak me out like thith."

I nearly touch him. It's there, in his throat, in his mouth. I can see the tongue dancing. He bats my hands away and I lunge forward, desperate.

"Stay still you fucker!" I yell as he dodges me once more.

"Thtop it!"

He bends around me, running behind. I spin around and grab him by the waist. I am so close. "Just give it to me!"

He cries out and wriggles out of my hands like a god damned snake. Snakes. Snakes always had a lisp when they spoke. It was that long, prehensile tongue.

I reach out feebly toward him once more just as he escapes my grip. "I want your tongue!"

"No! You're inthane!"

"Sollux get back here!"

He is running, now. "Fuck you!"

"Sollux!"

Damn. I was so god damn close.

Any interest?

Oh god, so much interest. :O I'm also going to jump on the troll you didn't mention and propose Terezi Pyrope by Kurt Vonnegut.

As for Feferi... Who cares about Feferi?

Not sure which one I want to do. So many interesting choices.

[JudgeDeadd]

Haha, Eridan as Sun Tzu?

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1. Eridan Ampora said: The key to defeating the land-dwellers lies in securing one's advantages, being aware of them, and exploiting them.
2. The first is the advantage of terrain. It comes naturally and need not be labored for.
3. The nature of this advantage is thus: The land-dwellers are unable to intrude on water without prior preparations. Therefore do not leave the safety of the sea.
4. The second is the advantage of ignorance. It comes naturally, but must be cared for.
5. This advantage can be described as follows: The land-dwellers shall be kept ignorant of your plans. While they might be aware of your hostility, they must not be aware that you seek direct conflict.
6. The third is the advantage of war equipment. It must be labored for.
7. To wit: Seek appropriate war machines. Take them from where past conquerors have hidden them. Or seek constructors and inventors, or those with access to them.
8. Find some way to ensure their loyalty. Offer them leniency for their misdeeds. Or offer them co-operation.
9. Seek small-scale weaponry. It should have destructive force. Speed and accuracy are less important.
10. Seek large-scale weaponry as well. They should kill as many as possible with one attack. These we call doomsday weapons.
11. Once you have secured a doomsday weapon, use it without hesitation. Or the enemy may guess your schemes and employ defense.



12. But woe be to the general who tries to play tactician on two fronts! on the front of armed conflict; and the front of conflict emotional. For even if you mastered the art of outwitting the enemy, the art of influencing another's heart is a much more exasperating kind of tactics indeed.

[Graven_Image]

That's the best thing. Ever.

[orngjce223]

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In my opinion the problem with a lot of Dave fics is the same problem with a lot of Rose fics; you guys are buying into their hype, noise that got at least partially dismissed several times in the story. Making Dave and Rose, "The competent/deep/serious/smart one." is easy to do and a disservice to the characterization we see in the comic.

Every kid has times where they look silly, take stuff the wrong way, or otherwise act like dumb kids. They all show instances of fibbing to themselves about how they feel about a given situation. They all get excited over childish things; in other words, in a lot of stories I see Dave and Rose being written as tiny adults instead of a pair of fairly mature kids. I do not want to outright say, "That is wrong and you should feel bad." but I think that a Rose without the magnet mustache and a Dave without petty apple juice pranks is an incomplete picture.

My conception of Rose is, I have to admit, influenced by a brouhaha out in some off-board RP group I play Rose in which a bunch of people said "DURR HOMESTUCK CHARACTERS ACT FUNNY THEY DON'T BELONG HERE". There's a ridiculously small area for me to balance her character on. Mostly I resort to having her sleepwalking out of her room at 2AM and somehow getting MEOW all over the floor and ceiling as well as the walls, which is at least an excusable silly compared to "Ignore everything and just ride the tree like a mechanical bull never mind how you're getting electrically shocked from your collars and Jade's dying of bites by giant space spiders".

Although in any case I suppose I should or could be leaning a bit further the other way in a less pressured environment.

[breccia]

Oh god, so much interest. :O I'm also going to jump on the troll you didn't mention and propose Terezi Pyrope by Kurt Vonnegut.

As for Feferi... Who cares about Feferi?

Not sure which one I want to do. So many interesting choices.

Crap. Terezi! I was trying to keep the genders the same, but unfortunately I'm not that well versed in famous female authors. But, gender isn't that important; Kurt Vonnegut definitely needs to be represented SOMEWHERE!

Haha, Eridan as Sun Tzu?

show spoiler

hide spoiler

1. Eridan Ampora said: The key to defeating the land-dwellers lies in securing one's advantages, being aware of them, and exploiting them.
2. The first is the advantage of terrain. It comes naturally and need not be labored for.
3. The nature of this advantage is thus: The land-dwellers are unable to intrude on water without prior preparartions. Therefore do not leave the safety of the sea.
4. The second is the advantage of ignorance. It comes naturally, but must be cared for.
5. This advantage can be described as follows: The land-dwellers shall be kept ignorant of your plans. While they might be aware of your hostility, they must not be aware that you seek direct conflict.
6. The third is the advantage of war equipment. It must be labored for.
7. To wit: Seek appropriate war machines. Take them from where past conquerors have hidden them. Or seek constructors and inventors, or those with access to them.
8. Find some way to ensure their loyalty. Offer them leniency for their misdeeds. Or offer them co-operation.
9. Seek small-scale weaponry. It should have destructive force. Speed and accuracy are less important.
10. Seek large-scale weaponry as well. They should kill as many as possible with one attack. These we call doomsday weapons.
11. Once you have secured a doomsday weapon, use it without hesitation. Or the enemy may guess your schemes and employ defense.


12. But woe be to the general who tries to play tactician on two fronts! on the front of armed conflict; and the front of conflict emotional. For even if you mastered the art of outwitting the enemy, the art of influencing another's heart is a much more exasperating kind of tactics indeed.

Oh my god, that REALLY IS the best!