MSPA Fanfiction III

[mythmonster2]

Well, future-fic, so maybe Eridan just became more mature about it or something. Eridan in general was one of my self-critiques in this fic, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work, so I just went for <---- that lame excuse there.

[Douhneill]

Not actually a "lame" excuse. Kinda clichéd, maybe. But still a valid excuse. I was preemptively looking for changes in character when I read that it was 4 sweeps later than our current trolls, so don't worry about it. However, make sure to make it seem like there was a good reason for the change, and don't go TOO far off the handle (if you plan on continuing this).

Regardless, I really liked it. Keep up the good work.

[KanjiUsagi]

Everyone before this post--good job! I'll make specific comments when i post my next trollmas story.

I'm working on Five Golden Rings--it's taking a while because it's supposed to be a "its a wonderful life" story with eridan, but i dont like eridan too much so i'm having trouble writing him as a sympathetic character >_< i jusssst have to get this one out of the way, then i can write Six Geese a Laying which i have planned out perfectly...i really, really hope i can finish it in time to post it tonight so i don't go a day without a story posted. wish me luck!

[BPrinny]

It's easy to write for Eridan. Just make him as miserable as possible.

[KanjiUsagi]

I think I'm starting to get the hang of that part...But then i realized i don't have anyone for a clarence odbody character who isn't very deus-ex-machina-y. STUPID STUPID DUMB.

...typing that gave me an idea. off to write. the block is broken.

*clarence, not claris >_< i saw a school production of the play once that cast a girl in the clarence part, so that's the name i had in my head.

EDIT! It's done! Ugh >_< Warning: a small bit of gore. Troll society is as such. :/

Kanji apologize for stupid. Kanji need go SLEEP.

Twelve Days of Trollmas 5:

Fivve Golden Rings

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Eridan sat atop the highest point of the lab. He'd spewed empty threats at Sollux until the yellow-blood had grown sick of it, and granted him access to Terezi's room—the only room with an easy way to the roof. Staring out into the blackness, he watched the neon green cracks in existence fade. Inch by inch and mile by mile, faster than light and barely outpacing the average shellbug. Horrorterror nonsense made linear measurements of speed very, very irrelevant.

if only i could fade awway like that.

He held in his hand the wand Kanaya had alchemized a while prior. The damn thing had caused him enough trouble recently... and so had Feferi. And Sollux. And Kanaya and SCREWW IT, all of the others. He just couldn't take it anymore, so he'd sought the shelter of the veil. Endless black, like his collapsing and expanding blah blah blah oh why did he even bother with the old vernacular. It wasn't like anyone else was referring to things by their old names anymore. No, it was all “dog” this and “bathtub” that and “ears” friggemfraggem. At this rate as well have sawed off their horns, dyed their blood Karkat-red and called themselves human. Hell, they were already celebrating the human holidays!
Human holidays like Christmas. Ugh. What ever happened to Perigee's Eve? That was a good holiday. A holiday for tradition and simplicity, not one for trees and stupid songs and a personalized, sugary-sweet Aesop moral for everyone. Even thinking about it made him roll his eyes. Jade kept going ON and ON and ON about it being a cheery season, but tonight had been anything but cheery. Stupid Kanaya. Stupid Feferi. Stupid lousy dumb Sollux.

– – – –
(A Short While Earlier)

“Eridan. Calm down.”
“Wwhat if I don't WWANT to, Kan? Wwhat if I'm sick and tired of this bullshit! Wwhat if MAYBE this isn't about ME? Huh?”
“-Eridan. This is supposed to be a happy ti—”
“Wwhat if this is about YOU, Fef?!”
He turned on his heels from Kanaya to his ex-moirail, pointing at her confrontationally.
“Wwhat if this about the wway you thought you could just kick me to the curb and go running to that lousy land-dwweller?!”
“That was forever ago, -Eridan...”
“WHAT THE GRUBSTENCH IS GOING ON HERE.”
“I'm not sure :( He's been yelling at everyone since Kanaya refused to oops-it...austrailipicky...opsit-spice...”
“THE WORD YOU'RE HUNTING FOR IS AUSPITICE.”
“What you said, for him and Sollux.”
“OH JEGUS. I'M STAYING THIRTY-NINE AND A HALF FEET OUT OF THIS ONE.”
While Jade and Karkat retreated to the kitchen, out of the crossfire of Eridan's hissy fit, the accusations and screaming continued to jump between targets. Out of the kitchen, previously obvious in his land of cooking, walked the next unfortunate victim.
“HeY mY mAiN mOtHeRfUcKeRs, DiNnEr WiLl Be ReAdY sOoN—”
“Wwhat about YOU?”
“HaHa, YeAh MaN wHaT aBoUt Me?”
“You and your fuckin obsession wwith your MiRaClEs—let me tell you something wwanna-be, your miracles? They don't exist, FRIEND.”
“:o( DuDe NoT cOoL, tHeY eXiSt If YoU wAnT tHeM tO.”
“Then you wwanna tell me wwhy THAT ASSHOLE—” he pointed—his wand now equipped—at Sollux, who was comforting a worried Feferi. “Is still around?!”
“NoW mAn If YoU tHiNk SoMeOnE dYiNg Or ShIt LiKe ThAt Is A mIrAcLe ThEn ThAt'S mEsSeD uP.”
“Oh shut up. You wwant miracles and magic? Take a look at THIS magic trick.”
The wand was pointed into the kitchen and a smoke alarm chirped its complaint as Gamzee's work was undone. Gibbering something along the lines of “NoT cOoL mAn,” he ran back to the kitchen to extinguish the many appliances that were now on fire. Satisfied by this, Eridan turned to Sollux still outraged.
“And you. Wwhat if this is about YOU?! You ignorant, girlfriend-stealing LANDGRUB?! Wwhat if this has ALWWAYS. BEEN. ABOUT. YOU.”
“Fef wath never your girlfriend, algae-breath.”
Hoo boy was that the wrong thing to say. Eridan pointed his wand at Sollux, muttering some spell from the humans' “Harry Potter” books. A blast shot from the wand, and was deflected off of a computer screen as he ducked out of the way— and disintegrated the tree.

“Ah! :(”
Eridan stood staring at the pile of ash in the center of the room. His head was tilted to the side, as if he had trouble understanding what he had just caused. Jade turned to shoot him a hurt glare, and the others—not willing to listen another moment to Eridan's nonsense—hurried to comfort her.
“We can fix it, Jade! We can make a new one, even more purretty than befur!”

Shaking his head in frustration, Eridan grabbed his passkey into Terezi's room and left before he had to deal with anymore crap from anyone. Peering back as he left the main room, he saw the others already scrambling to re-alchemize the tree and its trimmings.

Wwell, I fucked that one up.

– – – –

Maybe it wwould be for the best if I wwas nevver born. Cloned. Wwhatever. I'vve sure as hell nevver done any good for anyone by existing.
It wasn't like he could make that a reality. Eridan wrang his hands, twisting over the sea-dweller rings on several fingers. Glancing at the shiny surface of the rings, he got a look of inspiration—or perhaps just curiosity—and he deployed a book of spells from his sylladex. He thumbed through the pages searching for a spell he had only had mild interest in previously.

“Scrying glass. Scrying glass. Wwhere the hell is the spell for...Ah!”

SCRYING GLASS:
Gaze deep into the heart of other worlds and times.
Very convenient for spying, office space security systems and babysitting.

Ingredients:
Shiny surface
Spell-casting tool

Focus on the reality you wish to observe, and recite the following incantation:

Apogee Epigee Pedigree Perigee

Eridan smirked and cast the spell over all five of his rings—setting each to keep watch certain places and people in a universe with no him.

– – – –
Ring One

Eridan gazed into the first ring, disturbingly eager to see the changes.


The West Alternian Ocean. Home of the sea-dwellers—and the most disgusting place on Alternia. Bottles and paper and squashed game-grubs bob up and down in the water. It looks nothing like a sea. No, from what you can see of it, it looks like an angry tumultuous beast, an amalgam of the filth of a society hell-bent on intergalactic manifest destiny, with no sense of troll rights or of conservation. It's odd, considering the royalty is expected to live in this wasteland.

A girl sits on an algae-coated rock jutting out of the water. She is a member of the aforementioned royalty—her name is Feferi Peixes. She is coughing violently and picking bits of plastic out of her hair. She shakes her head, dejected. This is the only life she's known. Is this any way to treat an Empress?



Eridan sneered at the ugly polluted waters. How could his absence have any bearing on that sort of thing? No, no, it must be for another reason. Even if he didn't exist, it wouldn't cause that. It wouldn't cause her to suffer like that, it couldn't. Maybe the next ring would show something good.

– – – –
Ring Two

Maybe this one, he thought, averting his gaze from the filthy ocean.


The coastline. A beachside hive sits abandoned. Its contents have long since its inhabitant's departure been looted by banditerminators. What little remained inside—an oven, a poster, and a one-wheeled device—sit collecting dust. Outside, in the shallow waters, a large lusus does the closest thing a lusus can to weeping. It grieves for the young troll it meant to raise. After a month of searching, it has found a single long, curved horn below the depths. The lusus always warned its charge to avoid the ocean. This is was what at risk. The boy's blood wasn't quite purple enough, after all. He was just barely excluded from the race of the drown-proof.

It has failed as a guardian. Its usefulness in life has run out. Troll society's expectations of a lusus are cruel—its only purpose in life is to raise the next generation. If a lusus' troll dies prematurely, the lusus is expected to give itself back to nature to feed the next of its own kind—perhaps they will do a better job.

The lusus tenderly places the horn just out of reach of the tides, then solemnly returns to the deep ocean to complete the cycle.


What? Gamzee? Eridan stares at the abandoned hive in his ring for a moment before remembering that one day, the day he had forgotten so easily. Once, just once, Eridan had witnessed a land-dweller as they were swept away by a riptide during a storm. He had just sat through a lecture on equality from Feferi, and was feeling the smallest bit merciful. Because of this moment of kindness, he helped the land-dweller to shore and cautioned him to take more care in the future.

That was Gamzee? Somehow it just didn't “click” for him. Sighing, he twisted the ring upside down so he wouldn't have to watch that sorry scene again.

– – – –
Ring Three

Eridan shuddered and gazed into the third ring. Please, oh please let this one show something good.

The girl—Empress Peixes, she refuses to go by anything else—stands on land. In her hands she holds a Two-by-Threedent stained in every color on the spectrum save for purple. She wanders seemingly aimlessly, when she catches sight of exactly what she was searching for. Her pupils shrink and her voice of reason is silenced as her animalistic hunting instincts take over. She tiptoes through the low brush and swings her weapon at a target just out of range of the ring.

Chuk.

Bright yellowy-orange blood spatters onto the Empress' face as she regains her composure.

“Why do you fight?” she asks with calm decorum expected of someone of her stature. “Someone as lowly as yourself should be honored—no, humbled to serve such a worthy cause.”
A second squelch as the two-by-threedent makes another strike and the deed is done. She smiles and curtseys to her victim.

BLUH! Feferi?! A land-dweller-killer? Eridan's eyes were wide as saucers and he sincerely considered throwing the ring into the void below. Calming down after tearing himself away from the gorey scene, he thought it actually make a strange sort of sense. Maybe his own insanity had caused her to see the land-dwellers as equals, simply because she felt that he crossed lines that she couldn't. Wow.

– – – –
Ring Four

Eridan paused for a breather before moving to the next ring. The sight of a murderous Feferi had stunned him more than a bit. Finally he felt comfortable enough to continue—


Empress Feferi swims as fast as her fins will take her, dragging the fresh corpse along through the murky depths. She has a look of unbridled panic on her face. Low murmurs rumble through the water. The smallest tip of the beak of a monstrous lusus is seen as the Empress offers up the insignificant sacrifice. It does nothing to lessen the grumbling.

The ring changes views quickly. A handful of trolls of lower blood castes are seen clutching their heads in pain. The glubs are loud enough to kill off quite a few innocents who never, in their worst moments, did a thing to deserve this fate.


Did Eridan ever want that to happen? Watching the psychic demises of perfect strangers, Eridan wasn't quite sure. He got a tiny bit of comfort knowing Feferi wasn't just murdering out of spite—but that comfort was replaced with a feeling of guilt from seeing her struggle to placate G'lbgolyb.

Only one ring left. Thank gog.

– – – –
Ring Five

Eridan hurriedly peered into the final ring. He wanted to get this over with. If he didn't watch it now, it would still be there later when he unsuspectingly glanced at his hand upon waking up in the morning.


Empress Peixes never bothers to befriend any of the land-dwellers. Only ten of a destined group of twelve even exist anymore, and most of them have never met.
A frog temple is never sent to the world.
They never program a game from software they found inside. They never have stupid arguments over Trollian about playing the game. They never play the game.
Alternia remains in one piece.
Eventually a crippled brown-blood and a blind teal-blood are culled while the others leave to fight for the empire.
Innocents on other planets are aggrieved into submission and an ill-gained kingdom expands. Glb'Golyb's mumblings cause many undeserved deaths each day.
Mindless, heartless drones continue forever to show up unexpectedly at every door and enforce the world's only real law swiftly and messily.

Troll society continues as it is for millenia to come and peace is never truly realized.

Perhaps this is the worst fate.



Pale purple tears streamed down Eridan's face as the vision faded from his ring.
He was one of that team. Not the Blue Team. The team downstairs in the main room of the lab, the team of twelve trolls who had the chance to create a better world than that. If any one of them failed to exist, well, the consequences would have been surprisingly dire. Present company included. Racing down the stairs, Eridan thought of every possible way he could make amends.
By the time he reached the main room, he had dried his tears and regained his composure. He walked in awkwardly and, without a single word, began placing beautiful new ornaments on the freshly alchemized tree. The other ten—Gamzee was in the kitchen, making MoThErFuCkIn Tv DiNnErS to save time—stared at Eridan. He was hanging ornaments with letters on them. When it occurred to them to look at the tree, they found “I'm Sorry” spanning the needly green canvas.
Once the message on the tree had been noticed by all, Eridan attempted in his own awkward way to make things right. Confused glances were exchanged as he silently hugged Kanaya and then Feferi, and shook Sollux's hand.
It was at that moment that Gamzee walked out of the kitchen once more, looking uncharacteristically exhausted and frustrated.

“OkAy FoLkS, yOu CaN gO gEt YoUr DiNnErS yOuR oWn DaMn AuUgH”
Following his screech of surprise, Gamzee stared—startled, annoyed and puzzled—at Eridan, who had thrown himself in a nerdy bear hug at the confused cook. He looked at each of the others in hope of an answer, and was received with fourteen shoulder-shrugs. After trying and failing to pry the purple-blood off of his neck, Gamzee sighed a sigh that told a thousand words and dared to ask.

“WhUt.”
“I'm glad you're not dead man.”
“ThE fUuUuUcK iS wRoNg WiTh YoU?”
“A wwhole damn lot. But I'm gonna try to fix it. I...Sorry I bleww up the kitchen.”

Eridan pointed his wand absent-mindedly into the kitchen and Gamzee's sixteen TV dinners were replaced with the previous meal he had prepared. The indigo blood laughed at the gesture, and patted Eridan on the back.

“HaHa. YoU'rE aLl RiGhT eRiDaN. CoMe On GuYs, LeT's EaT! :o)”
“You knoww, I hope I am. At least, I think I wwill be.”

Eridan's mumbled observation went completely unheard—thank gog, how embarassing—and he ran to join the others at the table. At Thanksgiving he was dumb enough to not be grateful for anything other than his scarf. He'd sure make up for that tonight.

[KilroyWasHere]

Kanji: Oh God, poor poor Eridan. I can imagine how... Sad seeing that would make him. This was an excellent thing to wake up to.

[lucidSeraph]

@sinnonan - oh man that was beautiful. Just the right mix of cute and sad.

[Sionnan]

@sinnonan - oh man that was beautiful. Just the right mix of cute and sad.

Thanks very much. I had been hoping the sad didn't feel out of place. I'd been figuring Dave, like Rose and John, would have troubled dreams, and since Bro's a major part of his life, he'd feature in them a lot.

@ everyone: thanks guys, I'm glad that you enjoyed Dave's birthday tribulations. C:

[Sionnan]

Sionnan, you have no idea how much I want to draw that birthday card.

Because double posting is for cool kids: dooo iiiiiit. If I had money, I'd friggin' pay you 8D

[raequiem]

Kanji: Oh, Eridan. You adorable, angsty little man. That was really sweet, and well done.

Sionnan: I SHALL. By Christmas. Probably.

Maybe.

(ohgodIhaveSOMUCHSHITTODOOOOOO)

[lucidSeraph]

Wow okay remember when I asked about names? This is turning into a... thing.

A large thing.

I write very slowly so it may take a while. I'm also reluctant to start posting it now, because the full impact won't be noticible until I finish it, but... meh, whatever. MIGHT AS WELL PLUNGE RIGHT IN.

Ladies and gents, I present:

reVisions

(an experimental AU fic)

Outlines

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> Enter Name.

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Your name is JAMES EGBERT, and your life thus far has been fairly good. There are others who would claim that you are surrounded by a certain aura of dire tragedy that borders on the comical, but you never stop smiling and you never stop believing despite it all. You have a wonderful son and a great job and things couldn't be better.

Your friends of course whisper about how it's all an act. After all, your beautiful wife and your loving mother both died in a tragic joke shop fire when your son was only two years old, but while you miss Elaine you choose not to dwell on it. Life is too great an adventure to dwell, after all, so instead you focus on raising John to be the best son he can be. Still, Elaine does haunt your life more than a little. Her influence is clear in the harlequin paintings all around your house; both she and your mother do love harlequins.

You know that Elaine wouldn't want you to be sad, so you smile instead. And today, you think as you adjust your tie, maybe you'll call Lillian after all. You know that Elaine would want you to move on, and you've always liked Lily. Maybe today is the day.

You adjust your fedora (a birthday gift from your dear friend Frank Finnegan) and straighten your tie. Today you go to work at the law firm that you've always told John is full of clowns. You smile to yourself as you think that really, it's only half a lie. Just look at your boss' hair. And the way that Frank acts sometimes.

You check your calendar. The astronomy conference gets out at seven, which leaves you plenty of time for a late dinner, and then to take Lily for a walk around the park. Yes sir, this evening's going to be a lovely one...

> Who's this douchebag?

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Your name is AMBROSE MAXIMILLIAN STRIDER, and by god do you hate that name with a passion. You were born into a fairly well off middle class family in Texas, and all your life you wanted nothing more than to get the hell out. Luckily for you, your mom and dad were weird and neglectful hippies (ah, Austinites), and so they didn't care very much when you moved out of the house for college at the age of eighteen and actually took your eight year old brother with you. The only thing they said was that if you had any problems just send little Davey on home. Damn. You're not sure which is worse – Dave living with those stoners or Dave living with you. You're pretty sure it's the former, but you don't know. What you do know is that no matter what you do, your parents seem perfectly okay with it. They even know about your, ahem, independent ventures. Fuck, your dad sends you a crate of Smuppets every year.

You just don't understand them.

You refuse to go by your full name. Your sort of friend sort of god it's complicated nevermind Lillian always calls you by that name and if you didn't a special understanding you'd flip the fuck out about it, but to be honest she makes it kind of cool. And even almost ironic. You can keep your tough guy image if you don't say a word, you guess.

Still, everybody else calls you Bro. Once you managed to get them to call you Maximum but that was in middle school and it was stupid anyway.

You are known by most everyone as an epic poseur, and you claim to only be a poseur ironically. Originally you adopted your tough guy rapper persona to tick off your middle class hippie parents, except of course your parents are fucking impossible to tick off. So then you decided to only do it ironically to make fun of other rich white guy rappers pretending to be inner city tough guys. Except you get the sneaking suspicion that the irony bit is lost on everyone you know.

Right now you're a senior in college (English major, minors in VMA and music; also minors in 'drinking' and 'the ladies' but who doesn't minor in that), and Dave is going to private middle school, and both of you are exactly the kind of pretentious douchewads who look like they're not trying and claim to not give a shit but get A's anyway. Dave only lives with you part time, and now when you think a little harder about it you think your parents only allow this crap so they could send him to that private school. A kind of a loop-hole. He gets to go back home to Austin on the weekends, which is just as well so that you can do crazy party type things and invite the ladies over without your brother getting underfoot. You've talked to your parents, and thanks to you having a shit ton of your own money (and no college loans, thank you scholarships) that they want Dave to keep going to that private school and to keep living with you. You're pretty sure that this has made Dave (and you) a bit touched in the head.

But you wouldn't want it any other way, and after four years you couldn't imagine not having the little bastard around.

> Be the flighty broad.

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Your name is LILLIAN LALONDE. You were married to a gentleman named Robert Lalonde but the bastard divorced you, probably because he found out about an affair you had that you won't talk about but it's his own fault for being such a limp fish in bed. You got away with most of his money, all of your own money, and the only thing that you actually care about – Rose.

You had a brief fling with a young man nearly half your age, which was awkward for both of you; but now you've decided to be a bit more serious about all this. There's a widower you have your eye on, and you think maybe, just maybe, you can bring yourself to care for once. He'd be a good father, and God knows that Rose needs a good father in her life...

The truth is that you're really not cut out for the rich life (or so you think). You are actually a bit of a nerd – you loved wizards as a child, Lord of the Rings and The Once and Future King and all that, and eventually you became a scientist because science was the closest you could find to magic. You're a well known and talented astronomer and unlike most of your brethren you can actually afford your own observatory, thank you Robert. In the end, even the alcohol isn't what calms you – it's the gentle sweep of an orbital and the twinkling of distant starts.

Your specialty is an obscure one – asteroid hunting. Not many follow that path. But it's your hobby and you've named quite a few. In fact, a few have rather whimsical names, and they make you smile. Lalonde, of course; but also Egbert and Harley; Dave, Rose, Jade, John; and yes, even Strider, which you hope that Ambrose never finds out about. As if your relationship weren't awkward enough.

Some part of you likes to think that your work might someday save the Earth. If one could reach the meteor in time. If NASA weren't a bunch of wasteful idiots. If, if, if...

You don't need any funding, but you got it anyway, despite all your protests. You've since piped down and simply taken the money, but it still irks you just a little. You can take care of yourself. You always have. You always will. Still, the old man was so interested in your work and insisted on helping you out, and who are you to turn the fellow down?

For now, you watch the skies, martini glass in hand, and you hope that Rose understands that you do this out of love.

> Yes. Hells fucking yes.

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Your name is HASS “THE FLAME” HARLEY, and god damn do you love ADVENTURE. When you were fifteen you lied to the army and went off to fight in the Second World War as an airman, flying against the Japs in the Pacific. Harrowing times, but you felt you were doing a good day, back when wars meant something and men were real men and women were real men and there was such a thing as good guys and bad guys, right and wrong. Or so you felt.

Shortly after the war you began investing in all sorts of things, first and foremost nuclear power and second in aviation and aeronautics. Part of you felt like you'd missed out, being genuinely too young and inexperienced when the war started to work at Los Alamos. Still, thanks to the Russians you never wanted for work, and through a series of clever investment schemes and pure hard work you managed to amass quite a fortune, which you then spent on all sorts of relief work in Africa, India, and the Middle East. You also did a little hunting back when it was still alright to do that sort of thing, but stopped when it became wiser to invest in things like clean energy and probiotic yoghurt.

You began to fund all kinds of other projects. You put some money into a law firm that specialized in patents for magicians, clowns, and other performers; you founded a scholarship fund for English majors; you began to fund a large project to catalog near-Earth asteroids. You had your fingers in all the pies, all of them. Every last goddamn pie.

Sometime in the ninties you became a little too old to keep flying around and doing that sort of thing. Your vision had gone, your old bones were a bit creaky, so, you being you, you bought an island on the Pacific Rim with an active volcano on it and built the most ridiculous house you could afford.

There, you rapidly became isolated from the world. You almost became a complete hermit, so completely alone in the world that you took to talking to the various dolls and mannequins you'd collected in your travels. Fortunately or unfortunately, fate seemed to have other plans for you, and when your young granddaughter was orphaned in a tragic accident you took her in. She never knew her parents, and you cared for her as best you could. You imagine she's growing up more than a little eccentric, but you wouldn't have it any other way.

> James: reminisce about Elaine.

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You still keep her picture on your dresser to remind you to be strong, to go on, to care for John as best you can. You'll always love her and always miss her slightly gap-toothed smile. Her sister and her sister's husband died in the same fire, and all in all it was the worst day you could ever have imagined.

Still. You know that she's encouraging you. You put on your best tie and your best hat. Lillian will be in town soon, and you must simply look your best.

> Lillian: go to meet James.

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You're in town for an astronomy conference. Why the hell they'd hold a conference in Washington State is completely beyond you, as you can never see any stars this way. Terrible idea, really. So you make the best of it.

James. James, safe and stable and steady and loving, and after your last parade of men either too rich or too young or too flighty he's... exactly what you want. Maybe what you wanted and needed all along.

You walk downtown and hold hands, and you drink as always a little too much wine and he drinks only a little and the furthest you get is a goodbye peck on the cheek but it's always so lovely to see him. Always.

> Hass: call Lillian.

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In the morning, you call Lillian, and you ask her about her latest findings in regards to meteors. You've been collaborating on cataloging celestial phenomenon, and at this point you're a little too old to leave your island. She gives you the report on the conference – boring, boring boring – and you ask how James is instead.

She pauses, and says that he's quite well. You smile. It's good to know that your nephew is doing well. That he's finally moving on. You say that you think he'll be a good husband.

There's a heavy pause, and then she says something that almost makes you drop the phone. You ask her to repeat.

“There've been some new meteors that I've charted, Hass. I've sent you the data, and I'm reluctant to post the results yet. But you should take a look...”

> Ambrose Maximillian Bro Strider: flip through GameBro.

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Dave just finished his latest post on his blog about how unbelievably shitty GameBro is, and in the same way that some people just can't not look at a car crash you can't not pick up the thing and take a gander. They're talking about some game named Sburb which of course they haven't played and of course they automatically say is shitty. You smirk. But then you find yourself curious.

You slide into your chair and go to the game company's web site.

> James: think about what to get John for his birthday.

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You've already thought of a few things, but there's one more thing John asked for. Some newfangled computer game?

You guess it couldn't hurt.

> Lillian: Chart the skies.

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This becomes an obsession for you. You purchase a new mainframe computer and begin to sleep in your lab, charting the path of the meteors you've begun to observe. Too many of them. And sometimes they're there and sometimes they're not and suddenly you start finding reports of them in every astrophysical journal you own.

Reports dating back years.

You don't remember these. You would have remembered them. Especially the ones you wrote.

This cannot be real. This cannot be happening. There are no craters in those locations. You remember. You remember.

So why are you afraid?

Author notes?

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Oh yes there will be moar. MOAR. but like I said I'm slow to write. Thanks to everyone who suggested names all those pages ago.

In case it wasn't obvious, "Outlines" and "Free Writing / Experiments" are chapter titles, not descriptions of the contents within.

also thoughts?

[Kassiopeia]

Seraph, you are a goddamn genius. NEW PERSONAL CANON, ALL THE WAY. now brb re-reading

[Zerovirus]

Oh my gosh lucid you win the everything of everything ever.

[sebastian]

@Luciseraph: ROCK! ON!

(and not just because you used my suggestion for Bro's name.)

[Graven_Image]

Seraph, whatever the heck this is, KEEP DOING IT.

[Katrika]

Kanji: Oh, that was excellent!

[Limot]

Hey guys. I've been browsing around the fanfic directory, reading up on a lot of the finished fics. There was one I read that I absolutely loved, but wasn't finished in thread two. I was just wondering if the other seventy or so points in Rose Lalonde's 101 Things I Will Not Do In An RPG. Again. were ever finished in this thread? Also, is there any suggested reading from thread three? I really love all you guys' stuff and wonder what gems are hidden in these eighty pages :P

[Graven_Image]

Come What May

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The first rule of the game is

You are always playing the game.

The second rule of the game is

You never stop playing the game.

Not even if you lose five days of your life and a substantial portion of your self to a power-hungry archagent's machinations.

In the movies, getting robot parts is supposed to make you cold. You're supposed to go into this emotional vegetative state, to be "rescued" later by a dashing hero or stunningly beautiful heroine.

If anything, it's just made her more human.

She knows how close she was to being an interplanetary weapon for the rest of her life. Now she's determined to appreciate every breath she takes, even if it's through a pearly metal jaw.

She knows how lucky she is to be speaking of her own accord, even if she sounds like she's on the other end of a length of pipe.

And you know how lucky you are to still have her.

---

In the end, the 36 of you decide not to break with Prospit.

You've been fighting alongside them for as long as you've been here. Undoing that now would render the last seven weeks of your lives completely pointless.

The Queen assures you, Diamont was acting of her own accord. The White Kingdom takes no responsibility for her actions.

And you assure her, if any other Prospitians try to pull something along these lines again, you won't be so kind as to simply exile them.

---

Seven weeks is a long time to wait for anything.

Waiting that long to figure out your title is just absurd.

You're the DJ of Hope. Your first reaction was disbelief. You? A DJ? Surely this can't be correct. You've done nothing but listen and appreciate the music. You haven't cut it or diluted it in any form.

Only you have. You've used the music, bent it to your purposes. You create your own when nothing you have would suit your needs. Before you know it, you've forged your first fraymotif.

She loves it, of course. It's ten times more powerful than what she has right now. And she'll need it to make up for the five days of fighting she missed out on.

---

Looking back, a lot of Diamont's actions start to make more sense. She was powerleveling the lot of you, fattening you up until she could butcher you for use in another of her war machines.

In fact, you're pretty sure that's what she was attempting to do just before you exiled her.

She was accompanying one of you, the Heir of Motion, into his Denizen's lair. After he slew the beast and scaled the final rung, she decided to make her move.

And unfortunately for her, that required her to physically move. Which meant he knew what she was doing five seconds before she did.

She was flung out, out, out into the veil, hurled through several miles of rock and stopping just short of being pulverized into nothing. You left her there for days.

In the end, exile was the verdict chosen. You last saw her meteor hurtling into the gravity well of Skaia, disappearing into a portal.

Never to be seen again.

---

You're almost boastful of your newfound skill. You take motifs and blend them together, rendering them into armor for a Knight or concentration for a Seer.

Or notes for a Bard to sing.

You cut up songs from home, songs that on their own did nothing, and they fit together into an elegant weapon, or a graceful tool. You've unlocked the means to bend space, twist time, warp reality... and inspire Hope.

Hope.

It's such a small word. But it means so much to those you fight beside. You play the song, and they swing harder. You scratch it like a record, and the enemy falters.

Hope.

---

The two of you fight together across the system, standing together over another two weeks of combat. It's a uniquely suitable pairing, you realize. A DJ wouldn't mean anything if he didn't have a Bard's music to arrange. And you can have all the Energy in the world, but it's worthless without Hope enough to put it to use.

You play, and she sings. She sounds like a vocoder. But neither of you mind.

In time, you scale the ladder. It's long, arduous, and almost thankless. It was made to last for two months, after all. But you finally make it to the top.

And you both know what has to be done next.

But you'll do it.

Come what may.

[KarneWarrior]

Hey guys. I've been browsing around the fanfic directory, reading up on a lot of the finished fics. There was one I read that I absolutely loved, but wasn't finished in thread two. I was just wondering if the other seventy or so points in Rose Lalonde's 101 Things I Will Not Do In An RPG. Again. were ever finished in this thread? Also, is there any suggested reading from thread three? I really love all you guys' stuff and wonder what gems are hidden in these eighty pages :P

Naw, see, that's still active. Thing is I can only write it when I'm in a Mood (and when I get some donkey bones. Don't ask) so it's been on hiatus for a while. And probably for a little while more, but even I can't predict these things. I know it's been a while though, and Jack has quite a few rules to go through yet! >

[Katrika]

Hey guys. I've been browsing around the fanfic directory, reading up on a lot of the finished fics. There was one I read that I absolutely loved, but wasn't finished in thread two. I was just wondering if the other seventy or so points in Rose Lalonde's 101 Things I Will Not Do In An RPG. Again. were ever finished in this thread? Also, is there any suggested reading from thread three? I really love all you guys' stuff and wonder what gems are hidden in these eighty pages :P

Well, you GOTTA read the parts of Gallows that are done so far, and Graven's What Lies Within and Half and Half (and Come What May, hell of a ninja, there, Grav). Then there's Sionnan's Strider fics, can't miss them.

...and then...maybe, my filk songs? I-If you need some silly and stupid to wash down all that awesome.

[DJ-P0N3]

@Limot
let me put it this way.
Anything by Graven and Wigmund you will want to read.
As for the Strider fics, those too.
And the rest.
Just go crazy and read them all.
All of the fanfics.
All of them.

[SataiDelenn]

Hey guys. I've been browsing around the fanfic directory, reading up on a lot of the finished fics. There was one I read that I absolutely loved, but wasn't finished in thread two. I was just wondering if the other seventy or so points in Rose Lalonde's 101 Things I Will Not Do In An RPG. Again. were ever finished in this thread? Also, is there any suggested reading from thread three? I really love all you guys' stuff and wonder what gems are hidden in these eighty pages :P

You've also got to read Conquest.

[sebastian]

Conquest.

a hand in holding hands

all the homestuck/SCPs articles, now in their own convenient thread

Notes from a doomed timeline by kassiopea

The felts by Dermonster

But really, start from page 1 and go on, it is the only way to be sure.

[ArmsAreLoud]

I was on one of my many Depeche Mode binges, and the title of one of the songs inspired me to write a "what if" scenario where Rose cannot enter the Alpha Timeline through her dreamself. The song doesn't have anything to do with the fic other than the title, but yeah. ArmsAreLoud presents...

Enjoy the Silence

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Two months. The game gave me two months before the Reckoning. I suppose it is in Skaia's nature to be especially cruel to the doomed, but still it hurts.

Two months. I have been living in the silence for two months, waiting for my inevitable death. It is quiet here with everyone dead. I have certainly had time to catch up on my reading, but such loneliness can drive a woman mad.

Two days. It took me a mere two days to climb my echeladder the first time, and only two days more to ascend to Godhood after my suicide. It was, as everything is in this timeline, an effort of futility. I cannot fight the King alone regardless of my power. I am dead.

Two hours. It was only two hours after Dave left to the Alpha Timeline that I began contemplating suicide. And yet, other than my Quest Bed Death, I could not bring myself to do it. It is a coward's way out.

Two seconds. The King only required two seconds to finish me off. I know not what happens now. All I know is that the silence is over.

This may be the shortest thing I have ever attempted to pass off as a story. Hrm.

[ceruleanTresses]

Come What May

show spoiler

hide spoiler

The first rule of the game is

You are always playing the game.

The second rule of the game is

You never stop playing the game.

Not even if you lose five days of your life and a substantial portion of your self to a power-hungry archagent's machinations.

In the movies, getting robot parts is supposed to make you cold. You're supposed to go into this emotional vegetative state, to be "rescued" later by a dashing hero or stunningly beautiful heroine.

If anything, it's just made her more human.

She knows how close she was to being an interplanetary weapon for the rest of her life. Now she's determined to appreciate every breath she takes, even if it's through a pearly metal jaw.

She knows how lucky she is to be speaking of her own accord, even if she sounds like she's on the other end of a length of pipe.

And you know how lucky you are to still have her.

---

In the end, the 36 of you decide not to break with Prospit.

You've been fighting alongside them for as long as you've been here. Undoing that now would render the last seven weeks of your lives completely pointless.

The Queen assures you, Diamont was acting of her own accord. The White Kingdom takes no responsibility for her actions.

And you assure her, if any other Prospitians try to pull something along these lines again, you won't be so kind as to simply exile them.

---

Seven weeks is a long time to wait for anything.

Waiting that long to figure out your title is just absurd.

You're the Deejay of Hope. Your first reaction was disbelief. You? A DJ? Surely this can't be correct. You've done nothing but listen and appreciate the music. You haven't cut it or diluted it in any form.

Only you have. You've used the music, bent it to your purposes. You create your own when nothing you have would suit your needs. Before you know it, you've forged your first fraymotif.

She loves it, of course. It's ten times more powerful than what she has right now. And she'll need it to make up for the five days of fighting she missed out on.

---

Looking back, a lot of Diamont's actions start to make more sense. She was powerleveling the lot of you, fattening you up until she could butcher you for use in another of her war machines.

In fact, you're pretty sure that's what she was attempting to do just before you exiled her.

She was accompanying one of you, the Heir of Motion, into his Denizen's lair. After he slew the beast and scaled the final rung, she decided to make her move.

And unfortunately for her, that required her to physically move. Which meant he knew what she was doing five seconds before she did.

She was flung out, out, out into the veil, hurled through several miles of rock and stopping just short of being pulverized into nothing. You left her there for days.

In the end, exile was the verdict chosen. You last saw her meteor hurtling into the gravity well of Skaia, disappearing into a portal.

Never to be seen again.

---

You're almost boastful of your newfound skill. You take motifs and blend them together, rendering them into armor for a Knight or concentration for a Seer.

Or notes for a Bard to sing.

You cut up songs from home, songs that on their own did nothing, and they fit together into an elegant weapon, or a graceful tool. You've unlocked the means to bend space, twist time, warp reality... and inspire Hope.

Hope.

It's such a small word. But it means so much to those you fight beside. You play the song, and they swing harder. You scratch it like a record, and the enemy falters.

Hope.

---

The two of you fight together across the system, standing together over another two weeks of combat. It's a uniquely suitable pairing, you realize. A Deejay wouldn't mean anything if he didn't have a Bard's music to arrange. And you can have all the Energy in the world, but it's worthless without Hope enough to put it to use.

You play, and she sings. She sounds like a vocoder. But neither of you mind.

In time, you scale the ladder. It's long, arduous, and almost thankless. It was made to last for two months, after all. But you finally make it to the top.

And you both know what has to be done next.

But you'll do it.

Come what may.

Goddamn I love this fic. I thought my favorite thing was always going to be the cyborg girl, but as the musical element becomes more fleshed out, I've realized just how ludicrously awesome it is. The whole DJ of Hope thing is a really awesome use of the canonical hints about music's role in Sburb.