[Fic] "Trollstuck," part 13 -- Homestuck

[edenfalling]

back to part 12

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Trollstuck, part 13
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====>Davven: Answer Kanaya

-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling turnwiseGears [TG] --

GA: Hello Davven
GA: I Am Unsure If You Are Still Awake As It Must Be Near Dawn At Your Hive
GA: But I Thought I Would Wish You A Good Morning Nonetheless
TG: ( hey maryam hows tricks )
GA: Alas Tricks Are Nonexistent At The Moment
GA: I However Am Fine
GA: I Anticipate An Invigorating Day In My Garden And Also At My Sewing Machine
GA: Not That Either Activity Will Be Of Any Interest To You Im Sure
TG: ( you want me to play dressmakers doll again dont you )
GA: Whatever Could Possibly Have Given You Such An Idea
GA: I Explicitly Said You Would Have No Interest In My Plans
GA: That Is The Opposite Of A Request For Help
TG: ( i rest my case )
GA: Yes All Right Youve Caught Me
TG: ( booyah )
TG: ( youve been talking to alonde again i can tell )
GA: Her Method Of Interaction Is Somewhat Contagious I Confess
GA: But I Will Ask Directly
GA: Will You Be My Model Today
TG: ( lemme think about it )
TG: ( ... )
TG: ( nope )
GA: What If I Said The Shirt Is For Terezi
TG: ( double nope )
TG: ( not that ive got anything against classy rags but shit maryam dont be messing with the laws of nature )
TG: ( she steals my clothes not vice versa )
TG: ( who knows what catastrophe you might set off )
TG: ( meteors destroy the world )
TG: ( hemospectrum tips upsidedown )
TG: ( barkbeasts flip red for cats )
TG: ( oh shit call the legislacerators weve got a dangerous scofflaw to apprehend )
GA: You Fail To Understand
GA: The Shirt Is Ultimately Intended For Terezi
GA: But I Know She Will Prefer To Appropriate It From You
GA: So I Must Make It Fit You Even Though The Other Design Elements Are Aimed At Her Tastes Rather Than Yours
TG: ( ooh maryam ooh )
TG: ( you asking me to be in cahoots against my best girl )
GA: Only For Her Own Good
TG: ( definitely been talking to alonde )
TG: ( what the hell though )
TG: ( slow death from pins and scissors cant be any worse than death from boredom )
TG: ( half a sec and ill blink over )
GA: You Dont Need To Arrive Immediately
GA: I Have Gardening To Finish First
GA: Its Best To Water Around Dawn And Dusk And I Prefer Brighter Sunlight For Needlework In Any Case
TG: ( getting near dawn at my place too you know )
TG: ( nearly time for all good trolls to get indoors and anticipate sweet daymares )
TG: ( youre gonna keep me up way past my bedtime )
GA: Oh Dear Im Sorry
GA: Despite Our Sweeps Of Acquaintance It Never Occurred To Me That You Might Wish To Maintain A Schedule Normal For Our Continent
GA: Rather Than One That Allows You More Overlap With Our Mutual Circle Of Friends
TG: ( little heavy on the sarcasm there but not bad not bad at all )
GA: I Live For Your Approval
TG: ( thats why i like you )
TG: ( ok ill hang here for lets say one hour )
TG: ( then assuming i havent killed myself to see if haunting aradias less boring than my life )
TG: ( ill blink over to your place )
TG: ( get this party started )
GA: Thank You
GA: We Can Grief Afterwards If Youd Like
TG: ( see now youre talking my language )
TG: ( thats the liver all you showed me was the passive aggressive stick next time start with the bribe )
GA: If I Thought I Could Without Setting Off Your Suspicions I Would
GA: Alas
TG: ( yeah yeah whatever )
TG: ( later )

-- turnwiseGears [TG] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --

====>Now what?

You've got an hour to kill and dismember. Unfortunately your hive is just as boring as it was when you went outside to watch the stars. You open an art file and try messing around with the latest issue of your comic -- the shenanigan filled saga of these weird little black-and-white game piece people and their town made of cans -- but you don't remember what Terezi said should happen next and it's not half as fun without her cracking jokes over your shoulder and jostling your hand so the art goes all scribbled and beautifully terrible.

You're about to give up and drop in on Maryam early, maybe snoop around her hive while she's out mysteriously not frying under the sun, when your computer chimes again.

The fuck is Jothan doing up at this hour? It's only just dusk at his hive, way too early for any sane and self-respecting troll to be awake and online. Then again, since when does that describe Jothan? He's always been an evening person.

You wonder what he wants to talk about.

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So what does Jothan want to talk about? Something serious, or just him and Davven being giant dorks together? (Remember, we are several hours back in time before Jarlia trolled/will troll Jothan about Vriska and Aradia. But they can talk about stuff relating to the general situation -- the Flarp incident, Davven's falling out with Jarlia, their respective relationships with Vriska and Terezi, etc. -- if you want.)

Also! This is an experiment for Davven's quirk, suggestion courtesy of marici. Is it too distracting or difficult to read? My other thought is to enclose all his lines in parentheses -- (so hes always talking like this) -- but I'm not sure that's actually any better. Does anyone have any other ideas? Or should I just leave well enough alone and let Davven's quirk be nothing more than Dave's quirk in a different color and with different cultural reference points?

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continue to part 14

I arrived at the smoke shop expecting to work with JM and BW, but instead found JM and PM (my manager) changing what seemed like a third of the light fixtures in the store. It turns out that when BW came in this morning, he was in terrible shape -- clutching his chest and saying he couldn't breathe -- but he refused to go home, or even to sit down and stop running himself ragged, until PM arrived on her way to the Elmira store and ordered him home. Before you ask, it is apparently a lung thing rather than a heart attack, but given that BW said something to the effect of having had surgery for this problem sometime before, I am still pretty worried!

So that was my excitement-by-proxy for the day.

Comments

[marici.livejournal.com]

I like Davven's susceptibility to Kanaya. She feels kind of like a big sister to him -- she even griefs with him. As for what Jothan wants... you could set up why he's hostile to Jade, but I think I'd rather see more generally about who he is here. He's clearly not going to help Jade or Aradia, but what does turn his crank? Is he pranking Davven? Is he any good at it? He seemed to have a sincere commitment to things he likes in canon -- are he and Karkat fond of discussing movies?

====> Jothan: prank Davven.
====> Davven: hide your friendship/enemyship for Jothan like a wet t-shirt hides the body underneath.
====> Davven: finish conversation with Jothan when you are inspired by an idea for the Can Town story
====> Narrative: cleverly use Can Town Story to foreshadow themes and conflicts in the upcoming story, despite being reader-driven!

[edenfalling]

Oh, Jothan likes Jarlia! They're friends and, at least on his side, would continue to be friends despite his actions in chapter one. He just doesn't like her trying to manipulate him into taking sides against Vriska in what he sees as a private fight with Aradia.

He and Karkat do talk movies. A lot. Jothan prefers action films while Karkat prefers romances, but there's enough overlap between those genres to give them plenty of conversational material. They also share a similar (lack of) taste and commiserate over their friends' dislike of their favorite stories.

As for the rest, Kanaya gives off big-sister vibes in general, I think, and Dave (for all his rebellion) does seem to like... I dunno... taking orders isn't quite right, but he's a knight, not a general. He wants someone else to provide the overall structure within which he will then riff endlessly and kick at the walls. So that was a fairly natural interaction pattern. And I like your Can Town idea! *plots evilly*

[vehrec.livejournal.com]

Quirk is good, much more readable that Gamzee's is most of the time.

clearly, Jothan is here to both prank Davven and to talk to him about some movie whose themes will later prove key in making him do what Jarila asks.

[edenfalling]

I changed the quirk to parentheses -- is that more or less readable?

Hmm. Pranks and movies, you say... *ponders*

[askerian]

i'm enjoying the interaction with kanaya, didn't expect them to have a friendship but it works really well. Dave needs to be someone's little brother, i think. aww. and i like the bits about how they interact with Terezi. d'awww.

The strikehrough makes some letters hard to puzzle out, though. I thought the parentheses would be like two halves of his sign, maybe? that'd be neat.

sorry i can't offer suggestions about John, I really have no clue. they could and probably should talk about the FLARP incident, yeah, and/or the jadedave thing... hmm. idk. both? maybe they're avoiding one topic and sliding onto another. hmmm.

[edenfalling]

The parentheses are like the two halves of his sign! I have changed the quirk to that, at least temporarily, which definitely is easier to read. Is it visually coherent, though?

Perhaps Davven tries to avoid talking about Jarlia while Jothan tries to avoid talking about Flarp, and somehow neither succeeds. Hmm. This is probably going to be a long chatlog, whatever topic of conversation they start from. :-)

[explodingfrogs.livejournal.com]

I didn't post anything until now because I considered my previous set of suggestions (specifically, the Jothan one) to be my vote on the matter. However, I would now like to say that I like this idea.

If the chatlog's going to be that long anyway, would it be too much trouble to work in the ongoing Troll Nick Cage argument from my earlier Jothan suggestion? Not necessarily as a topic unto itself, but maybe something like Davven working Cage-mockery into one of his extended metaphors and Jothan getting all indignant and Davven casting flushed aspersions on his hero-worship.

So basically, just like canon.

Also, I find the parenthesis and the strikethrough to be equally readable typing quirks, and have no strong preference for either.

[edenfalling]

Troll Nick Cage can definitely be a running gag. :-)

I think, in the end, I am going to go with parentheses alone rather than strikethrough. Partly because strikethrough does make certain letters -- mostly lowercase c and e -- difficult to tell apart, but also because after looking over all canonical typing quirks, none of them involve any "special effects" other than color choice; they are all done entirely with actual characters rather than italics or fonts or anything of that nature. (The exiled queens are a special case, but I am handwaving that by saying they're not using the standard interuniversal Sburb-supported chat program, and the station consoles obviously have funky powers anyway to make typed words appear as whispered voices in the backs of the players' minds.)