Storyboard

Askbox Shenanigans: Scritches and Comfort

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:12:39 -0500

Sometimes, when Karkat’s getting too worked up over everything, he sits down on the couch and starts marathoning bad romcoms in attempt to distract himself. He’ll sit there, with his legs scrunched up to his chest, staring at the TV from behind his knees, for hours. Eventually, Dave finds out and joins him, throwing himself onto the couch and taking up as much room as possible. He watches for a little bit, but at this point he knows the movies almost as well as Karkat does.

So after a few minutes, he reaches over, tugs Karkat into his lap, and starts gently scritching his head. At first Karkat growls at him, but then the growl starts hitching in his throat, turning into a reluctant, nervous purr. Dave hides his grin out of courtesy. He’s done this enough times that he knows all the right ways and places to scratch. Long, hard scrapes at the base of the head, light, wandering fingernail traces on the sides, and slow, gentle massages around the horns.

The longer he goes, the more Karkat relaxes. His shoulders untense and he starts spreading out on the couch, letting his legs stretch out to their full length. Sometimes he keeps trying to watch the movie, eyes open at half mast until a particularly good scratch makes his purring spike and his back arch, breaking his line of sight. By the end, he’s almost always asleep, the purr a deep rumble that resonates in Dave’s chest.

Dave will never admit it, but he sincerely likes those moments, with Karkat resting against his leg, finally content. Still, he’s a Strider, and he has a reputation to maintain. So each and every time, when Karkat’s completely asleep, he pulls out the pack of hair ties he alchemized just for this purpose, ones with little bows and cute designs, and makes little ponytails all over Karkat’s head.

It can take a while for Karkat to see himself in a reflective surface, but once he does, the resulting explosion of words is harsh on the ears, to say the least. He always swears that he’ll never trust that imbecilic Strider again. Dave usually just grins. “Pooky, you’ll always love me.”

__________________________________

Look ma! No smut!

Anyway, another headcanon request, this time for DaveKat (amongst other pairings). It figures that the one time I write a fluffy, non-sexual, comfort piece, it’s the pairing that isn’t firmly rooted in taboos and kinkiness. Dave and Karkat’s actions feel a little bit off at the end, but it’s a stress relief fic, so I didn’t feel like overthinking it.

Askbox Shenanigans: Recording a Musical Instrument

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:02:51 -0500

Sometimes, Dave likes to sample Dirk for use in his mixes. Of course, most of these tracks are kept for their ears only, but every now and then the public gets to hear an especially…unique track from DJ Pepsicola (who of course had no relation to the world-renowned director Dave Strider. And if you disagreed, you’d be hard put to prove it.). Dave’s an artist, though, and like any instrument, playing Dirk well requires lots of practice and repetition.

This would sometimes lead to nights like this one, with Dirk tied spread eagle to the bed, preparing for a recital. Dave would start his own preparations hours in advance, making sure the apartment was just a little cool if you weren’t wearing clothes (a slight chill made the warmth of flesh all the more effective), cleaning the ropes and making sure they hadn’t begun to unravel, gathering any tools he wanted to test that night.

This might mean putting ice in the freezer, or buying a few premium feathers from the craft store, or just making sure he didn’t clip his nails for a few days. That night, Dave would drive Dirk to the edges of his endurance. Sensation upon sensation until he was moaning wantonly, desperately looking for the push that would let him come.

The recording equipment was carefully set up in the corner and then ignored. What good musician cared about a microphone? The important part was the music. Dave would lavish attention on Dirk’s entire body, from gentle nips at his earlobes, to scraping nails down his sides, to sucking at his inner thighs, drawing out the choicest sounds Dirk had it in him to produce.

The finale was, of course, when Dave turned his attention to Dirk’s penis. At that point, he usually had all the noises he needed for even the most uncouth of sick jams, but he made it a personal goal to make the last few minutes the most lewdly melodious ones of the entire recording. Dirk was beyond anything but pure, animal want, and as a result nothing censored his moans and shouts and swearing. Dave loved it.

Afterwards, Dave would lavish care and comfort on Dirk just as much as he’d given him torment before. He’d bring over a cool, wet cloth to wipe the sweat and cum off his brother’s body, then wrap him in his arms. Tired, warm, and utterly satisfied, Dirk would usually fall asleep immediately, but Dave would stay awake for a while longer, stroking his hair and smiling to himself.

The next day, Dirk would often wake to find Dave had already left for his latest job, but there was always a special surprise waiting for him, like pancakes that were somehow always still warm when he was awake enough to stumble to the kitchen, or a few packs of Pocky hidden around the house where he was likely to find them. Later in the week, he could look forward to an e-mail with the link to the latest song from DJ Pepsicola, with a few ironic comments about the more creative noises.

Sometimes, there’d be no DJ ‘cola link, and instead he’d find something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yLCaAcZ9JE

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The request was for alpha Dave and Dirk this time, so…yup. Written while listening to Satisfaction by Benny Benassi and Six Days (Remix) by DJ Shadow and Mos Def. The DJ name references Dave/John, because I like to think that even though in that universe they’ve never met, he still gets flashes of memory sometimes of something he’s lost.

Apparently anonymous porny things are really good stress relief. Good to know.

Askbox Shenanigans: Puppeteering

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 04:32:00 -0500

Cal’s got a thing for being a puppet, and Bro’s got one for puppeteering. It works out. Cal puts on makeup, rubber bands over his joints and everything to make himself seem more fake, and then he and Bro head off to the local mal. Thye sit on the benches near the south entrance, Cal balanced on Bro’s knee, Bro’s hand on his neck. A squeeze means Cal should open his mouth, a release means to shut it, and a finger nail across the back of his neck means he’s done well.

Their routine’s pretty good. It took a while for Cal to learn to keep his body stiff enough to sit but limp enough to seem like fabric, and while Bro was always good at throwing his voice, making it seem like something that would come out of Cal’s vocal cords took time. But these days, almost no one can tell what’s really going on. On slow days, Bro whispers in Cal’s ear about turning him into a real puppet, making it so he couldn’t even move if he wanted to. Cal struggles not to shiver.

The longer they’re there, the more Cal finds himself being used to say things like “I love being a puppet boy!” and “I’m real lucky my friend here is around to help me move!” Each time he forces his arms to grow limper, even as other parts get hard. By the end, he can feel Bro pressing into him from behind. Eventually, Bro decides they should head home (Cal never does the deciding. Puppets don’t think), picks him up, and carries him back to the car.

When they get home, Bro uses Cal’s own hands to tease him and, eventually, to get him off. When Cal’s finished, he takes care of himself, normally only needing a few sharp jerks. Neither of them know what they’re going to do when Dave becomes old enough to ask what’s going on.

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I wanted things to write about, and someone I follow asked for stories about Bro and Cal.

Edit: Whoops! Sorry. Readmore’d.

Getting Out the Words

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 22:04:00 -0500

He stared at the sky, trying to divine the words that would calm down his mind.

“I would dance for you
like fire,
consuming me
to give you a flickering light.”

No, not quite right. “consuming myself”, maybe? “consuming my soul”? Yeah, let’s go with that.

“I would dance for you
like fire,
consuming my soul
to give you a flickering light.”

After a bit of shifting around, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit on the tree roots, he leaned back against the trunk and returned to thinking.

“Let me be your candle.”

“I want”…

“I want to be a light in your dark days,
even if it melts me,
breaks me,
dissolves me into smoke.”

What more could be done with smoke? Smoke signals, burnt offerings. Yeah, offerings, prayers, messages to the gods…

“Kill me for your prayers,
send me to God
to beg
for your solace and rest.”

Man, now it’s getting morbid.

He just wanted to find words strong enough to make his heart stop pounding, so he could get back to his homework and maybe get some sleep tonight. There was always so much homework, and he really didn’t have time to keep getting distracted.

He just wanted her to be happy, damn it. He just wanted enough words to get her to stop crying, or to convince himself that being a good friend would be enough, or to do in words what he wished he could do in life.

I wish I could just burn away pain.

“I wish I could light your anguish,
take it to my pyre
and let that be its grave.

I wish I could sacrifice my heart
in flame and blood and glory
and call down any gods that hear
to stop your flood of tears.”

Setting myself up as fire versus her pain being water. Probably should’ve focused on that more. Whatever.

“I wish there was more in me
to give
to fill your empty spaces.”

Close. C’mon, I need a good finish, just one more good image or phrase…

Oh.

That’s almost too easy.

“I wish that I could burn away your pain.”

He tapped the pencil’s eraser against his lip a few times.

More? It still feels unfinished.

His head was quieter, but thoughts still pushed at him, restless, unhappy.

“I am not fire,
I cannot stop pain.”

“I am not water,
to control your flooding tears.”

…

“I am just tired,
and sorry.

I wish I could do better than simply hold you close.”

It still hurt, but it was enough.

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This one kinda came out of nowhere. I’ve been experimenting with creating characters recently, and I kept wanting someone who felt more alive and drew in the reader more than what I’d been coming up. I’d also been reading Bleach, and was trying to figure out what made the random phrase they’d used to start a chapter seem so deep.

I didn’t actually realize this was anything other than an idle, creepy love poem for him until I hit the line about him wanting her to have solace and rest. As a result, the poem’s probably really choppy and doesn’t work well, but since he’s writing for himself and just to get his thoughts on paper, I figured it works well enough. Most of my poetry works the same way, so it’s realistic enough.

For the record, I’ve no idea what she’s so upset about.

Tango Attitudes

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:49:15 -0400

I’d like to take some time to tell you about the different types of tango. No story, just a headcanon for real life, if you will.

We’ll start with the standard ballroom tango.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0tIE7X1Nq0&feature=related

I want you to imagine that the two dancers are a dating couple. They’re both passionate and strong willed, and right now, they’re having a fight.

They still need to perform, so they can’t avoid each other entirely. Still, the girl wants to make it quite clear that she is still mad, and the guy wants to antagonize her as much as he can, since he’s still pretty pissed, too. So they do ballroom tango.

Once they really get going, look how rigidly she stands. She’s leaning back pretty far because she doesn’t even want to look at this guy’s face right now, let alone dance with him. To further that point, she intends to do the entire dance without looking at him a single time. Every now and then he does something she didn’t see coming or changes direction, so she needs to turn her head and look forward, but her goal is to never meet eyes with him. She won’t even let her hand rest on his shoulder, instead holding it stiff and upwards, so only her thumb and the side of her hand touches him.

This makes the guy’s goal pretty clear; he’s going to force her to look at him. He can’t be too obvious about it, because they -are- being judged here, but that doesn’t make him any less intent. So he keeps switching things up, quick changes in direction, trying a different type of step, throwing in all his best moves to confuse her and make her accidentally look to him for direction. If nothing else, it’s a constant reminder to her that he’s the one in charge, here, and he -knows- she hates it.

Every now and then he succeeds, and she freezes for a split second before whipping her head away, furious he made her look.

The whole dance is this big competition between the two of them, all while trying to dance well, too. So their moves are all perfectly graceful and smooth, but their feet and heads whip left and right.

Now, Argentine tango.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvYegLQ40sI&feature=related

The couple has gone on to get married, and neither family likes the other. No one approved of this marriage, and frankly, the dancers aren’t getting along any better than before. But it’s a family reunion, and they’re both still stubborn to a fault, so they want everyone to believe they’re still having a wonderful time and everything is just filled with passion and romance for them.

They probably had some snippy little discussion just before going on stage about “Try to at least dance like you have some class,” and “You’re the one who’s lacking in that department!” Both of them are hugely invested in every movement seeming like it’s overflowing with passion and intense romantic feelings. The girls leans close to him whenever she’s nearby and makes a huge show out of meeting his eyes, and for his part, the guy keeps meeting them, like he can barely tear his eyes away.

But they’re still fighting, and she claimed -he- couldn’t dance!

So he wants her to trip.

Look at their legs. See how he keeps sticking his leg in between hers? Yup. She catches on to the game pretty quickly and starts joining in, kicking around one leg or the other. Never hitting him, of course, but making it that much easier for him to get hit if he’s not paying attention. He lifts her up and spins her around, she slides across the floor and does high kicks, both of them trying to get the upper hand and make the other mess up.

The entire fight stays under the table, so to speak. Their eyes and hands are nothing but intensity and passion. Look how she actually holds his shoulder and back now. Clearly, they’re in love. So long as no one notices their feet.

Opposites

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:11:00 -0400

…I sang for him. Truly. I closed my eyes and didn’t even let myself look at the words before they flew out and I barely paid attention to the melody, just let the notes go where they needed to be and hoped the words were true, because I couldn’t give my mouth to my heart any better than that.

And I sang for as long as I could stand it, run-on sentences and all, and by the end I don’t even know if I made any sense to him. If I even made sense to him when I started.

I don’t think I ever made sense to him, even when -we- started.

But he doesn’t speak in songs. He doesn’t know how to translate notes into feelings and thoughts like I can, and he saw no need to grow such an outlandish skill.

I’m not really sure how we held ourselves together for as long as we did.

He hissed angrily and tried to explain it to me again, when I had finished. He brought out his finest pronunciation and crispest, five-dollar words. And I listened, no matter what he wants to claim. I held myself as still as stone and I did my best to pull a meaning out of the torrent of words he poured over my head. The “incompatible methods of seeking to achieve disparate goals” and the “incomprehensible attempts to convey feelings through nonverbal cues” when it was clear that he was “a man of numbers and science” who “could not be expected to tolerate such childish imprecision in language”.

He used so many words, but the only ones he needed were much smaller. “You are still a child, and I have now outgrown childish things.”

Not people. Things.

So now he is packing, and I am giving him “peace and solitude to accomplish this last task”, just like he wanted.

And I will sit here in my own solitude, and I will not sing a single note. Today my heart has only silence.

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This was poking at the idea of opposites clashing in a relationship, though it’s a bit of an extreme situation. I also tried to put in a bit more characterization (for my narrator, at least) than simply using the words that came to mind. I’m going to need to work more on that in the future, as both characters still strike me as extremely one-sided.

The piece was written in about half an hour, give or take a few minutes. I hope to do some more of these speed pieces in the future. Topic suggestions are always welcome.

Today’s song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onRRBFi9PCY

Papergirl

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 17:24:03 -0400

Once, there was a little paper girl, thin as newspaper but not quite as light.When she was young, she lived among the pages of a great library, staring at each page for a picture of what she might become. There were drawings of wise men and mages, princesses and even warriors whose parchment arms would crinkle into a salute just for her. She always saluted them back.

As she grew, she explored further and further into her little, literary sea, until one day she found a set of paints. She thought back on all the wonderful things she had seen, and all glorious illustrations she had met, and decided that she wanted to be glorious, too. So she found a brush, wetted it nervously (too much at first, so she needed to carefully squeeze it out against the plastic), and began to paint herself. When she was done, she didn’t think she was as pretty by half as all the things she’d seen, but she was okay with that. Art takes time to grow, and she could always paint herself again, better, when she learned how.

Thus arrayed in her finest shades, she decided it was time to leave her protective shelves and see what she could see. But to her surprise, in the land outside everyone she met was round and large, heavy and monochrome. She rustled this way and that, but couldn’t find a single flat place on any of them. Some had more lumps than others, it must be said, dips and crinkles almost like the pages of the older books back in her home, but they had so much more substance. She found that sometimes they even had too much, the filling inside them swelling up to the point they bounced and ricocheted off walls until they burst.

She had never seen anyone pop before. She did not think that she wanted to see it again.

So she bent this way and that, trying to find a way she could help, and found she could bend herself into a little cup. So shaped, she rocked onto her side and rolled around with the spheres, and when she found one fit to bursting, she tilted back and let them pour some of their filling into her, instead. She found they all were filled with different colors, and found that sometimes, the colors wouldn’t wash off of her when she was done. Her old paint became covered up with time, but her new coat was bright and still held her interest, as new things are wont to do, so she let it be.

Some of the sphere would ask her what she held, so she could share with them, too. And she said, “I hold nothing. See?” And she’d unfold herself for them, easing out of each crease until she stood flat again. But they laughed and said, “What kind of shape holds nothing? Didn’t you just hold me?”

And she always wondered why they laughed. Her kind of shape held nothing. Was holding so important after all?

One day she sat down and tried her very best to fold herself into a sphere, but no matter how often she bent, she could never be round. She tried crumpling herself up, balling up her body until she could go no tighter, and thought she had done it, for a moment. But as she rolled along triumphantly, a sudden breeze took her in its arms and rushed her far away.

She stretched back up, wrinkled but intact, when the wind finally set her down, and looked around her. There were no other shapes here, just trees and wind and distance. She rustled quickly to the trees, trying to hide from the breeze, and settled herself in their roots to rest for a while.

Above her, leaves fluttered left and right, unable to escape the playful winds, and she wondered why the trees were not afraid for their children. But instead of angrily blocking the wind or fearfully shirking from it, she found that they shaped it, letting it slip through their leaves just so, and the resulting murmur let them sing.

She sat and listened to the trees for a while. They didn’t hold anything, either. But they could sing.

She wanted to sing.

So, slowly, nervously, creasing left and right to make sure no one could see, she folded her hands into a whistle. Carefully, she pushed her hands out from behind the tree trunk, just enough for the wind to go through.

The sound was breathy and strange, but she had made it, and it made her happy. She folded it tighter and the pitch rose, looser and it dropped. It took many wrong notes, and never got quite right, but she found she could make a little song, if she tried.

She stayed there for a long while, whistling with the trees, but eventually, it came time to go home. So she glided over the roads and came to rest back with the spheres.

The next time a sphere asked her what she held, she proudly declared, “A whistle!” And then she shooshed them and held up her hands, but there was no wind, and so nothing happened. She tried again, anxiously, but again, there was no wind, and so no sound.

The sphere had chuckled, because they always did, and forgotten about it as likely as not. But the little paper girl had a memory as large as a book, and never forgot anything.

She did not try to whistle for them again.

But every now and then, she would still sneak back up to the woods, where the breeze was always blowing, and the trees would always smile to see her come. And there at their feet, with a voice as shrill as an insect, she would sing with them for a while.

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This was a 2:00am, self-indulgent doodle. The main purpose was just to spit out a certain idea, which required a small intro, which required a conclusion, which became a story and left me with this. It’s meant to come across like one of those indie, artsy films with queer designs and soft colors and no dialogue. Hopefully you know what I mean.

Written with this on repeat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on1hmcma0h0

Drunk writing #1: chatlog

Sat, 05 May 2012 16:36:54 -0400

a-stands-for:

No way am I spending the time it would take to edit out all the “User so-and-so has opened the document” and “User whatzisface has left” messages. I trust you all can glaze over them. :P

Read More

Anon 523 over here. Once again, this was awesome. Thank you a-stands-for for doing it! :D

Short Shot: Staring Out to Sea

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:53:00 -0400

You stared out at the ocean for ages, trying to figure out just how bad of an idea it would be to start swimming until you reached somewhere. Anywhere that wasn’t here.

First you needed a measurement for “bad”, so you settled on “probability of death”. That was the easy enough.

It was a lot harder to come up with a way to measure that, though. You were in pretty good shape, so it would take a while for exhaustion to do you in, but the lack of food and fresh water would catch up with you pretty quickly.

How long could you go without food? How far away was the closest unsubmerged landmass, for that matter? Wistful thinking aside, there was no way you’d make it to Roxy, say, or the island where Jake lived so many years ago. And even if you could make it, the carapaces would probably shoot you on sight, and it’s not like Jake would be on his island in this day and age.

You flicked your gaze to the top corner of your shades for a moment. Jake still wasn’t online. Back to the ocean.

Where were you? Oh, distance. You supposed you could ask AR to check into satellite data. As soon as you opened up a chat window, he sent you a message. You wondered if he knows you a little too well, even if he is you, by some definitions.

TT: Far enough, bro.

TT: And exactly how far would that be?

TT: Too far. Do you really need me to make up some off its rocker metaphor for how crazy high this number’s set itself up to be?

TT: There’s no need to start talking back. I simply requested a piece of data that you should have no problem obtaining.

TT: …
TT: I know what you’re trying to calculate, all right?
TT: I’m not stupid, any more than you’re stupid.

TT: Oh? Then what’s the answer?

TT: Don’t do this.

TT: I’m just requesting that you perform a calculation. As a mechanical entity, that’s right up your skill set, is it not?

TT: Are you seriously going to be like this?
TT: Fine. The probability is .97, okay? It’s 97% certain that you would die in the attempt.

You closed the chat window.

For a while you listened to the water lapping at the base of your building’s frame.

3/97.

On a day like this, that sounded like pretty good odds.

___________________________________

You know how artists do 20 minute speed sketches for practice? This was an attempt at doing that with words.

Inspiration was from a picture on Dodostad’s tumblr: http://dodostad.tumblr.com/post/21673219202/so-maybe-sometimes-dirk-gets-a-big-blanket-and

And the song Friend of the Night by Mogwai.

Breaking Point

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:39:41 -0400

[Everyone’s trapped on the asteroid AU, John’s POV, sadstuck]

You’re getting better at being observant. Dying was kind of an eye opener for that one. You’d always paid attention to details, because the best pranks are specifically crafted for the prankee, but you’d never really cared about how they affected anything else. It turned out that part is kind of important.

Being a friendleader’s pretty much all about watching the small stuff. If you aren’t careful, all the bits you thought were unimportant gang up on you, and then you’re really in trouble. Like, grimdark trouble. Or Bec Noir trouble.

Living on this asteroid thing’s given you a lot of chances to practice your detail-watching. It’s like math. Well, like math used to be, before the game and everything. You had to sit there and do practice problems for forever before you finally got better at it. But there aren’t any practice problems out here, and you’re kinda worried you won’t pass this time, either.

As soon as you start, you kinda wish you hadn’t.

Dave’s hands have started shaking when he sits in the computer lab. He’s almost always there, headphones jammed over his ears, trying to mix up some new jam. Before, sometimes, when he finally had something he liked, he’d give what he thought was a coolkid nod and pass you the headphones so you could share the beat. You’d always make fun of it (duh), but one or two were actually decent sounding. He almost never finishes his songs, now. He stares at the screen, with his shoulders all hunched up, hands trembling, muttering curses. You can’t remember the last time he let you listen.

And when Rose is talking, every now and then she needs to stop, wracking her brain for a word she used to know. She always finds it and blathers on like nothing happened, but her eyes get tighter at the corners, and the pauses are getting longer every time. She doesn’t use as many pointless words these days. The first time you noticed, you were kind of glad, to be honest! But then you saw how her hand would curl up on itself, clenching until the knuckles were white.

When everyone is joking and laughing, she grins and opens her mouth to add in some sarcastic, so-wordy-it-doesn’t-make-sense remark, but then stops. Her eyes get all wide and panicky, and then she closes her mouth without saying a word.

When you asked about it, because you were trying to be a good friendleader, she gave a smarmy little smile and said she simply “thought better of a comment that would be far beyond your humble processing capacity”. You decided not to ask anymore.

Jade… well, Jade just gets angry. At first it would just be these snippy comments when you dropped a bucket on her head for the n-th time (look, you’ve got limited resources, and you didn’t think she’d actually fall for it again!). You’d never say it to her, but you guess that was fair. But then she really lashed out at Sollux just because he was having trouble working out the captcha code for vegetables. (Apparently carrots are hard. Who knew?) He’d gone into depression mode for a week and started refusing food. The only reason things didn’t go from bad to worse was Karkat, who’d shouted until he lost his voice, and then resorted to squeaky rasping and flailing his arms to make up for the lack of volume. Sollux had burst out laughing despite himself, and things had calmed back down.

Jade had eased up after that, but it was starting to creep back in when she wasn’t looking. Shouting at Dave for breaking a plate, making nasty comments to Rose when she foresaw something wrong. Everyone had started avoiding her when she was in what the trolls called her “sober” moods, and they had started coming more and more often.

Somedays, you wondered if you should just give it up and let Karkat lead everyone. He seemed to know what everybody needed to pull everything back together, even when it looked hopeless. Kanaya had told you he’d even managed to calm down Gamzee when he was in full-on clown psychokiller mode just by hugging him. The best you’d been able to come up with when Rose went grimdark was a few Lassie jokes, and look how well that had gone.

You were lucky neither of you had stayed dead.

But you need to be a leader, because Karkat’s got too much to take care of as it is. Aradia’s started accidentally making time loops in corners of the asteroid, like chronological twitches or something. You’d apparently been stuck in one for five hours real time before Dave found you and broke you out. Terezi was a constant danger to everybody if she lost her temper. Being Seer of Mind meant she knew everything about you that you hated the most, and being a troll meant that if she decided she didn’t like you she would tell them to you over and over, grinning her head off the whole time. Sollux was bipolar, Gamzee was part of that clown psycho caste, and Kanaya was a vampire.

Actually, Karkat probably had his hands full before any of this mess even started.

You’d figured Karkat would start getting angry like Jade, but he’d surprised you. He just got quieter and more hunched the longer you guys were stuck here. Whenever he decided “THE IDIOCY HAD PASSED HIS CAPACITY TO GIVE A SHIT”, he’d shut his mouth with a click you could hear, sometimes mid-swear, and stomp over to the transportalizer. Anyone who tried to stop him was shoved away, hard, and once he disappeared there was no way to figure out where he’d gone.

One time you were grabbing a late night snack and you caught sight of him by sheer luck, so of course you followed. You didn’t want him hearing you, because he’d totally rip your head off, so you’d drifted along the ground with the quietest wind you could make, so small that your clothes didn’t even rustle in the Breeze. You’d hidden behind corners and doorways, terrified of what would happen if you were caught.

With quick steps Karkat had gone to a dark lab room nobody ever used. Well, that you’d thought nobody used. He’d punched at the keypad to unlock the door and stormed inside, the door sliding shut right behind him. You’d drifted closer, pressing your ear against the cold metal, ready to bolt if it sounded like he was going to come back out. So you’d heard it perfectly when he screamed.

It sounded like he was trying to rip his heart out of his chest with just his voice. Eventually he ran out of breath, and his short gasp was followed by another agonized wail, breaking into heaving sobs, which died away with choked whimpers. After that came a long silence, then steps as he moved back towards the door.

You were safely hidden in a room across the hall when he walked out, shoulders high, face blank. He’d left with the same fast stride he’d arrived with, disappearing from sight.

These days, you try to avoid that hallway.

You kept paying attention, though, and you kept noticing little things. Important things. Even if you’d sleep better if you didn’t know them. The more you watch, the more you realize that it won’t be much longer before something breaks. No one likes when you comment on it, so you don’t tell them anymore. It’s a friendleader’s job to take care of this on his own, right? They’ve all got plenty of problems without realizing just how close to breaking everything is right now. So you keep watching quietly, and pay attention to as much as you can.

The jerkass part of your brain likes to laugh at you for that. “Good job, you can look at things. Now what?”

“What are you going to do?”

What can you do?

You can bite your nails. And laugh too loud. And make horrible jokes and try to force them to laugh with you. It makes Jade mad at you and makes Karkat clench his fists, but damn it, someone needs to make everyone smile, before they break down and scream like Karkat in an empty room, scream like Terezi when she wakes up from dreams of her eyes burning blind, scream like you when you met Vriska for the first and last time!

Someone needs to do something.

Please.

Short Shot: One Bad Decision

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:23:00 -0400

—turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 18:03—

TG: okay so maybe i fucked up. all right?

TG: good job. you got the legendary dj stridenasty himself to actually admit to being anything less than perfect. youve no idea how horrified my fansll be to hear this. forcing this out of me might just break their fragile little minds. but i did it. for you. can we go back to things being normal again now?

EB: admiting you screwed up isn’t an apology, dave, and i’m not forcing anything out of you. actually, can we not focus on you right now? because i kind of don’t care what your nonexistant fans think. believe it or not, my day was pretty horrible, and i don’t feel like dealing with your crap right now.

TG: goddamn it. look egbert im sorry okay? i was just palling around i didnt think youd take it seriously or anything.

EB: stop. you’re still not getting it. i don’t care that you kissed me, okay? no, i’m not gay, and you know, if things’d gone differently maybe i’d be apologizing to you for this. but the problem is that you didn’t ask, and you didn’t just kiss me, but you decided to make it into some big thing where the whole cafeteria could watch and laugh at me!

EB: you’re cool! no one cares what you do! i’m betting the worst that came out of this for you was a couple of jokes about how there were other men in the sea or something! but i’m going to spend the rest of the schoolyear with people either calling me a fag or saying i’m a jerk for not “letting you down more gently”. the rest of my school year is effectively hell.

TG: people dont actually do that egderp

EB: tell that to everyone in my last three periods. i’ve gotta go set the table for dinner. i’m not going to be back on later. goodbye, dave.

TG: wait john!

—ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 18:25—

TG: fuck.

_______________________________

Writing for teenage boys online makes my spellcheck horribly unhappy. Anyway, this is what happens when people ask for askbox drabbles and I’m not in the best mood. I decided it was too cruel to send something as depressing and resolution-less as this as a gift, so it’s got a different label and it’ll go up here instead.

For future reference, “Short Shot” is going to be my label for small works that don’t fully flesh out their ideas and aren’t submitted via askboxes.

Askbox Shenanigans: Buying a Rainbow

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 23:47:05 -0400

What if I offered to sell you a rainbow? Inspiring glow is extra. And so is shipping.

It might break in the mail. They’re notoriously bad at being careful with precious things. You’d open your long awaited box to find pointed edges of sharpened light, colors once so smooth now jagged and raw.

I think there’s more light in them, when they shatter. Anyway, you can’t cut free a dream with the puny, blunt thing you used to admire in the sky. But with this, with this you could sever the ropes that held you back all your life.

But if you cut yourself free, there’s no reason to come back. Not really. Not anymore.

Well. Back to your box of broken prismlight. Put the pieces aside for now. We can play with them later, when whimsy and starlight tempt us back, and the birth pains of your thoughts make drastic measures seem worthwhile.

What of the box? Across its edges are multicolored dust, ground off your discarded shipment, glittering under your 60 watt tungsten bulb. See how it shines? Like fishscales in sunlight, like coins scattered across a floor.

You could make enough dreams to fill a week of nights with the precious contents of this box! Even then, you’d have seasoning for many nights to come. (Special tip: dust the remainder into the dirt with seeds you thought too old to grow. Wait a little life, then check back. I’ll leave the best surprise untold.)

But this is all hypothetical. There is no such star-dusted box in your kitchen, no broken glories on your floor.

The question still stands, though. What if I offered to sell you a rainbow?

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More askbox stories. This one was for a very different type of tumblr. A little more thought went into the work as a whole, instead of taking it section by section, and it’s not quite as personalized as my other one. I might try more stories for this person in the future to see if I can do a little better.

Askbox Shenanigans: Gamzee and Karkat

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:05:00 -0400

Under the night sky, far from the town, Karkat finally let himself relax onto Gamzee’s lap. It had been… what, four days? Four days since he last slept. A gentle hand smoothed down his hair, stroking around his horns with spindly fingers. Four was wriggler’s play, he could go longer, easy, but when he opened his mouth to say so, Gamzee’s other hand covered it quickly. “Shoosh, little bro.” A soft finger idly traced his lips. “No need to get your pride on up here. It’s just us two.”

Huffing slightly, Karkat tried to nip at Gamzee’s finger, but it was pulled away too quickly for him to manage. There was a chuckle from somewhere above him as the offending digit papped his nose lightly. “None of that, now. You need to let up and relax.” A hand gently caressed his cheek, and Karkat closed his eyes with a sigh. “I hope you know I’m only doing this to spare me your embarrassing declarations of pity.” Another chuckle. “It’s still a motherfuckin’ miracle if I ever seen one.”

The finger returned to making gentle passes along Karkat’s lips. He snuggled closer to his moirail, lips opening slightly as his tension began to drift away. There was a pause, then he felt it in his mouth, carefully gliding along the edges of his teeth. He moved his tongue to meet it, gently running across the finger’s pad. His reward was the strange, sweet and sour taste of sopor slime, sharp yet soothing. Without thinking too much, he closed his lips and sucked slightly, looking for more.

There was a rustle as Gamzee shifted his weight, and then the finger pressed deeper, along the middle of his tongue. Slowly, it was pulled back, scraping slightly against his teeth. He thought he could hear a sigh as it was pushed forward again, this time deeper than before. Gamzee continued his slow thrusts with one hand while the other traced its way over Karkat’s ribs, a gentle pressure first at his side, then his stomach.

When Gamzee’s hand reached the top of Karkat’s jeans, a second finger joined the first. The hand teasingly scraped along a sharp hip bone, drawing a curved line downwards. Despite his best efforts to hold still, Karkat shuddered. Gamzee bent in half, kissing him on the top of his forehead. “Let it go, bro. No one’s gonna get their gander on while we’re here. A motherfucker’s just safe to be whoever he wants to be.” This time it was the palm of his hand that slid along the sensitive skin.

Karkat struggled to keep his breath steady as a line of drool escaped his mouth along with a quiet moan. Reaching blindly towards Gamzee’s other arm, he pushed the hand lower, until it reached his bulge.

When the thin fingers wrapped around him, he couldn’t stop his hips from thrusting. The hand promptly let go. “Nah, I’m in charge here. You just lay down right there and enjoy it. No, and whining won’t change nothin’.” He lay still as the fingers in his mouth massaged his tongue. “Better.” Finally, the hand closed around him again. It slid up, pausing while a finger caressed his tip, then slowly back. Karkat shuddered.

With the fingers persistently thrusting into his mouth and the hand stroking his painfully hard bulge, Karkat felt himself whining quietly, and he couldn’t stop. The hand took a moment to cup his shame globes, squeezing gently, pressing upwards maddeningly, before returning to his bulge. He tried to beg Gamzee to move faster, but around the fingers it simply came out as drool and louder moans. Still, his message got through. “All right, since you’re bein’ so good and all.”

Things slowed as a third finger slipped past his lips. As his saliva coated it, the pace increased and the fingers pushed deeper into his mouth. His bulge was gripped firmly, and this time Gamzee didn’t stop him when he began thrusting into each stroke, making them faster, stronger. He forced his eyes open and saw Gamzee’s grin. “Come for me, motherfucker.” And he did.

__________________________________

This is one of the aforementioned askbox stories. Typos have been fixed and a repeat due to askbox troubles has been removed, but it’s the same besides that.

Dancer

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:41:00 -0400

You looked around carefully. Checking every corner, peering into every nook, sweeping out every cranny, making sure there wasn’t a single person here to see what you were about to do.

Room: cleared. Population: one.

Just you.

You shut the door quietly, locking it, pressing against it once to make sure it was really closed and pulling back once to ensure it really wouldn’t open.

No one was allowed to know about this.

You moved to the center of the room. Then, closing your eyes, you let your right foot slide to the side. Point the toe towards the wall, sock slipping easily across the plastic-covered floor. Bend the left knee, slowly, keeping your body straight and balanced while your right arm moved out, matching your foot.

Wait. Hold the stretch. Breathe out.

Then, faster, slide your weight to the right, left arm tracing a flat, half circle in the air in front of you, ending with your pose reversed, left foot and arm out, right knee bent with your body centered over it.

Pause. Relax. Breathe in…

Push off with the right foot, weight shifts to left—spin!—stumble with your right foot out, stop yourself, momentum pushing your body forward, right palm to the ground, left arm pointed upwards.

Breath. In. Out.

Head back and up, push up to a crouch, arms curled one around back and one around front, jump! Arms thrown outwards, as though for a moment you could fly. Land, rock forwards, then spin once more.

Suddenly, from outside the room, laughter. Head flicks around, pupils dilated, breath held.

The footsteps pass your closed door, the laughter retreating with them.

The mood’s broken. Your breath escapes with a sigh and you stand up, shivering slightly. Quickly stepping to the door, you unlock it, then move to turn off the lights.

In the darkness, for a moment, you pause. Extend the right foot forward, sweep it in a half circle to the right, push off with the right foot and spin…!

Catch yourself, stumbling slightly. Return to the door. Leave without a backwards glance.

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Inspired by this picture: http://elanorpam.tumblr.com/post/14090437194/homestuck-solo-practice

The dancer is meant to be Karkat, but it’s not a necessary part of the story. Mostly I wanted to try describing movements in detail while maintaining the pace and smoothness you’d get from watching the actions take place.

Hello, World

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:55:00 -0400

First posts are always an awkward affair. Welp, let’s get this over and done. I’ll get to stories soon enough, I promise.

The main purpose of this account is for me to post short stories, often but not always Homestuck fanfics, sometimes nsfw. I’ll do my best to tag “nsfw”, “story”, or “ramble” in the appropriate places, and you can navigate as you please. Critique me. Pick at things you find interesting, odd, or wrong, and call me out on them. Part of the purpose of posting my writing is to get feedback.

The work you’ll find here will be of varying quality. I need practice, and having an audience is a good motivation for me.

Previously I’d inhabit people’s inboxes and send out stories piecemeal from there. The positive feedback I received from there was my main motivation for creating this account, so if write something well here, I owe my thanks to you guys. Anything wrong is completely my own doing. :)