[Fic] "Trollstuck," part 14 -- Homestuck

[edenfalling]

back to part 13

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Trollstuck, part 14
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====>Answer Jothan

-- ghastlyTrickster [GT] began trolling turnwiseGears [TG] --

GT: ~~ hey davven! what's up?
GT: ~~ don't tell me you're asleep already.
TG: ( nah course not sleep is the enemy )
TG: ( i never sleep )
TG: ( any time you thought you saw me sleeping was just faking for ironic purposes )
GT: ~~ hahaha!
GT: ~~ you are such a liar.
TG: ( im saddened by your lack of faith bro )
TG: ( like youre stabbing my own sword right through my blood pusher )
TG: ( swirling it around mixing all that blood and flesh together into an autoerotic slurry )
TG: ( just crying out for a whole new quadrant to express the feelings you inspire )
TG: ( cant call them quadrants anymore theyre quintdrants now )
TG: ( whole fabric of society and all biological imperatives shaken and rolled out like hyperactive shithive dice )
TG: ( all because jothan aeolio cant keep faith with his best slurrybro )
TG: ( for shame man )
TG: ( for shame )
GT: ~~ we aren't slurrybros, dumbass. different continents means different mother grubs!
TG: ( there you go again )
TG: ( stabbing me in the feelings is your new hobby admit it )
GT: ~~ new?
GT: ~~ you mean you only just now noticed?
GT: ~~ and here i thought you were supposed to be the smart one. ;)
TG: ( yeah whatever im cutting this off before it gets even stupider )
TG: ( sup bro )
TG: ( any reason youre online so early )
GT: ~~ not really, i'm just bored.
GT: ~~ vriska's been moping around her hive the past couple nights and she's all twitchy but trying to hide it when i try to cheer her up.
GT: ~~ and i have no idea where gamzee is.
GT: ~~ he said something about going to LeNd TaVbRo A hAnD,
GT: ~~ but you know him.
TG: ( no i dont )
GT: ~~ yes you do. i've seen his old trollian logs.
GT: ~~ you trade sick rhymes like they're going out of style.
TG: ( rapping with a guy and knowing a guy are two completely different things get that straight right now )
TG: ( if they were the same thing i wouldnt know you from an alien now would i )
GT: ~~ bluh.
GT: ~~ ok fine. the point is gamzee's gone walkabout and didn't take any computers with him so he's useless for hanging out.
GT: ~~ and karkat's been pissy at me this week for some reason.
TG: ( yeah some reason )
TG: ( couldnt possibly guess what that might be )
TG: ( nope not at all )
TG: ( im all out of guessing over here )
TG: ( i am as without a clue as fucking tavros nitram whoops maybe thats it )
TG: ( not that i know how you can tell if vantas is more of an asshat fartsucker than usual )
GT: ~~ oh fuck you too, davven.
GT: ~~ you hate tavros. why do you care what vriska did to him?
GT: ~~ besides, it's not like i laid a claw on him.
GT: ~~ i didn't even touch aradia, let alone terezi!
TG: ( i dont hate nitram i just dont give a flying string of birdshit about him )
TG: ( hes a useless waste of breath and its hilarious to mess with him when he thinks hes being all cool and trying to mess with me )
TG: ( but a bunch of other people like him for some unknowable reason and its fucking dumb to pretend you dont know why our friends are pissed off at you )
GT: ~~ why mister kronos, is that sincerity i detect????????
TG: ( were not talking about me were talking about you and your utter lack of clue )
TG: ( like what kind of dope lets spiderwitch talk him into cahoots without getting all the details of the plan first )
TG: ( could his name be jothan aeolio )
GT: ~~ hey! vriska's not a witch.
TG: ( yes your tyranny yes i do believe it could )
TG: ( bang the gavel summon this king of dopes before the court )
TG: ( what does he have to say for himself )
GT: ~~ do i call terezi names? no i do not.
TG: ( durr movies durr special stardust durr cake is evil durr niklas cayidj )
TG: ( yep hes a dope )
GT: ~~ at least i trust my friends and don't turn on them for no good reason.
TG: ( oh you did not just go there )
GT: ~~ jarlia misses you, dumbass.
GT: ~~ even if you don't believe her about the future stuff, that doesn't mean you had to throw it in her face like a giant douchewaffle.
TG: ( what even is a douchewaffle man )
TG: ( you always say that and nobody knows what it means )
TG: ( douche sure who doesnt know about nook cleansing apparatuses but what the hells a waffle when its at home )
TG: ( or when its wandering around the lawn rings )
TG: ( like a lost wriggler bleating for her lusus )
TG: ( wah mommy where are you come find me take me home im scared of the big trolls i dont like it here what if they think im still a grub and turn me into sauce )
TG: ( poor little tyke )
TG: ( ground up for grubloaf not even a tombstone to mark her remains )
TG: ( here in this pile of trollshit lie the last traces of waffle whosit who disobeyed her lusus and ran away from home )
TG: ( learn your lesson kiddies dont do that )
GT: ~~ ...
GT: ~~ you are such a weirdo.
TG: ( nah thats you im not weird im cool )
GT: ~~ nope, totally weird!
GT: ~~ and a waffle is a sort of perforated bread product generally eaten for breakfast. sometimes with syrup or jam, or even chocolate if you're feeling indulgent.
GT: ~~ they're delicious!
TG: ( i dunno bro sounds suspiciously like cake to me )
GT: ~~ waffles are nothing like cake!
GT: ~~ cake is an evil conspiracy designed to brainwash us into being nothing but cannon fodder instead of taking over the empire as is our rightful heritage.
GT: ~~ waffles are just something nice to eat in the evening.
GT: ~~ in fact i'm eating one now. :)
TG: ( thats what they want you to think )
TG: ( seems to me if one grain based food is evil they all are )
TG: ( stick to meat like a real troll )
TG: ( get strong put some spikes on your joints )
GT: ~~ bluh, no. one equius is more than enough for a single planet.
GT: ~~ actually i think one equius is more than enough for the whole empire.
GT: ~~ hehehe
TG: ( k fair point dont need my best bro turning into a clone of sweaty mchorsedude )
TG: ( speaking of that weirdass heres something ive wondered for a while )
TG: ( why havent he and serket tried to off each other sweeps ago )
TG: ( everything i hear says they cant stand each other but they live right next door and dont even shoot token cannons across the ravine or anything )
TG: ( whats up with that )
GT: ~~ i don't know!
GT: ~~ i have wondered about that myself, but vriska has never given me a good answer.
GT: ~~ maybe they're just used to each other and don't care enough to start a fight that would probably hurt the winner as much as the loser?
GT: ~~ bluebloods get pretty high living allowances, but rebuilding an entire hive would still be hard for us to afford!
TG: ( nah that cant be it robosweat could build it himself and terezi says serkets got huge treasure hoards )
TG: ( try again )
GT: ~~ that was my only guess. oh well, looks like it will remain a mystery!
GT: ~~ where's a good investerrogator when you need one?
TG: ( other side of the galaxy obviously )
TG: ( imperial bureaucracy inaction )
TG: ( that pun was all for you btw say thanks )
GT: ~~ a whole pun, just for me!
GT: ~~ thank you, davven. it's exactly what i always wanted for twelfth perigee's eve!
GT: ~~ i will be in your debt for life.
GT: ~~ your life, not mine, obviously. it's stupid to be in debt to a ghost.
TG: ( and the master of sensitivity strikes again )
TG: ( just for that im gonna outlive you )
TG: ( douchewaffle )
GT: ~~ *applause*
GT: ~~ who is the master of stolen catchphrases?
GT: ~~ none other than davven kronos, ladies and gentletrolls.
GT: ~~ you are the master. it is you.
TG: ( go suck your own nook through a grain based cake substitute )
GT: ~~ ew.
TG: ( reusing other peoples phrases and memes isnt stealing its building up a self referential body of common language )
TG: ( which helps ease communication among the people in the know and shuts out the dumbasses we dont like )
TG: ( because the only way to know what the seeming non sequiturs mean is to have seen the original source joke without which theyre just meaningless garble )
TG: ( this is why codes are always harder to break than ciphers because each unit of data can mean arbitrarily anything there is no pattern )
TG: ( you ever want to run a conspiracy talk to me bro )
TG: ( ill set you up )
TG: ( secret as the grave )
GT: ~~ you are the best secret agent. it is you. :p
GT: ~~ i will definitely call on you when i start my secret campaign to paint the entire imperial fleet with cakes and rainbows.
GT: ~~ i want sollux to manage the more mundane stuff like computer security, though.
GT: ~~ you're not a hacker, you just know enough to manage your websites.
TG: ( ... )
TG: ( yeah ok maybe captor could about manage that )
TG: ( when hes conscious and not off his fucking head thinking hes god or a worm or whatever even goes on in his crosswired brain )
TG: ( beats me what makes you think you can judge peoples coding skills )
TG: ( youre even worse than vantas at least he can make things blow up your code just sits there and whimpers )
GT: ~~ i happen to think NOT blowing my own computer up every other month is a mark of skill.
TG: ( big words have you ever talked a robot into exploding from conflicting logic loops )
GT: ~~ no.
GT: ~~ but only because i haven't ever wanted to.
GT: ~~ come to think of it, that might be funny to pull on equius some night...
GT: ~~ i should mention that to vriska. an explosion might cheer her up!
TG: ( im gonna have to disagree with you on that one dude )
TG: ( im pretty sure spiderwitch only cheers up when the mayhem involves corpses as well as a chance to gloat over the cringing wrecks of her victims )
TG: ( zahhaks not gonna cringe the way she wants not with the stick hes got up his ass about hemocaste roles )
TG: ( not like i bet nitram did )
GT: ~~ bluh, davven, bluh.
GT: ~~ we're not talking about tavros.
GT: ~~ vriska doesn't always gloat. a lot of the time she just laughs because getting away with stuff is fun!
GT: ~~ besides, adventures always make people feel better!
GT: ~~ look at niklas cayidj in the "wherein a scholar unburies clues to the lost early imperial era and follows his ancestor's cryptic hints on a quest to save the modern empire from enemies within and without" series!
GT: ~~ he's always much more upbeat once the explosions and chases start!
TG: ( niklas cayidj is a terrible acterrorist and he makes movies entirely for the money not because the scripts have any redeeming qualities )
TG: ( therefore any argument that depends on what niklas cayidj did in some ocular sphere rotting piece of trash is automatically thrown out of court )
TG: ( qed )
GT: ~~ niklas cayidj is awesome.
GT: ~~ that is an immutable fact i am stating for the record. your attempts to disagree do not mean any actual argument is occurring
GT: ~~ because you can't argue with the truth!
GT: ~~ you're just jealous because nobody besides terezi and jarlia actually thinks your comics are funny.
TG: ( there you go stabbing me right through the blood pusher again )
TG: ( and on that note ive gotta go )
TG: ( maryam strongarmed me into playing tailors dummy and i probably ought to brush my fangs and whatnot before i blink over )
GT: ~~ yeah, you should.
GT: ~~ otherwise she'll give you the disappointed look.
TG: ( how is it that girls all know that look )
TG: ( are they hatched knowing or is it a secret conspiracy passed down through the generations from lusus to wriggler and around again )
TG: ( sit down daughter and pay careful attention while i demonstrate the ultimate weapon )
TG: ( no no you need to keep your lips a sliver firmer your face fits best with authoritarian regret )
TG: ( you on the other hand should go for the big teary eyes and the wobbly lip work that cute thing like a pro thats it honey one more time )
TG: ( ok lesson done for the night meet back here next month and report on your progress at dominating the idiot boys near your hives )
GT: ~~ haha, maybe that is how it works!
GT: ~~ i think vriska skipped most of the lessons, though.
GT: ~~ hmm...
GT: ~~ girls must have a mad elaborate code by now, after a hundred thousand generations or more!
TG: ( before their skills i am as nothing bro )
TG: ( its true i can admit when someone else is boss )
GT: ~~ unless it's jarlia, of course.
GT: ~~ then watch out! rebellion!
TG: ( wow look at the time sorry bro gotta run )

-- turnwiseGears [TG] ceased trolling ghastlyTrickster [GT] --

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...I am undecided whether to do one more part with Davven or to declare this the end of the chapter and jump to a different POV. If I stick with Davven, he'll probably do something related to Can Town, and/or briefly troll Terezi to see if she's up before he heads off to Kanaya's hive. Do you want to see that, or shall we go be someone else?

(You have no idea how amused I was when I realized the "National Treasure" movies could actually fit in here thematically... with a bit of handwaving, of course. *grin*)

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continue to part 15

Now I am going to toss the vegetables into the crock pot, after which I will take Dottie out for a long afternoon walk. The rain has long since passed, the sun is now out, and I think the forest should be dry enough not to drip excessively on my head. :-)

Comments

[edenfalling]

I would feel weird talking about "Troll Nicolas Cage" in a narrative that explicitly claims Earth and our entire universe do not exist -- it's one thing to use that as a handy intercultural reference when Earth and humans are the focus of the narrative, but when we're on Alternia and everyone is a troll... eh. So I half-assed his name into the standard troll pattern. :-)

Jothan and Vriska are not in a quadrant. They are just best friends. I think they do have vaguely red feelings toward each other (and are mutually unsure whether said feelings are flushed or pale), but right now Jothan isn't consciously thinking about romance and Vriska is still unhealthily obsessed with Tavros, so neither has pushed the issue. Do you want them to try out a quadrant later in the story?

This pesterlog was weird to write, because both Davven and Jothan kept getting so nasty to each other! It was a weird tightrope-walking exercise in avoidance and later retaliation rather than outright confrontation. I suspect some of that is just how they relate to each other -- given that Dave and John pick on each other even as humans and trolls are culturally more aggressive in interpersonal relationships -- but there is of course the other somewhat unspoken layer where Davven is pissed off about the Flarp incident (mostly on Terezi's behalf), and Jothan is pissed off about Davven's fight with Jarlia.

[askerian]

Hmmm. I think they'd do well as flushed. Pale, well, Jothan visibly has little interest in curbing her bad behavior, and she makes his worse. It's perfectly understandable if they don't get there for a couple years though, seeing how John especially is all "bah romance who cares we could be playing games" though the pressure of the drones might make him speed it up a bit... >__>

Yeeeeah, man, was there a lot of lashing out and grumbly, reluctant sheating-claws there. :X It works really well as distorted by troll culture though, even in canon John's a bit dismissive of Dave in the first place and this one's meaner, so it works.

[explodingfrogs.livejournal.com]

I agree that Jothan and Vriska currently seem rather ill-suited for moirailliegance, from what we've seen of them. Which is kind of ironic, since their canon counterparts are my pale OTP.

On the other hand, to judge from Jothan's dialogue, they do seem to have a very close "BFF" sort of relationship, and my impression is that the biggest obstacle to that turning into a stable and balanced pale romance is Jothan's sheer apathy about Vriska's more destructive side*, I'd rather wait and see what Plot and Character Development have to say on the matter before casting my vote. Assuming, you know, that voting on this is a thing.

*(possibly with an element of ignorance? Has he ever been directly confronted with the consequences of his crueller "pranks", or of Vriska's? Knowing in the abstract that people have been hurt is one thing, but actually seeing the fallout is quite another. And judging from how ticked off he is on Jarlia's behalf [for that matter, the fact that he's upset on her behalf at all], he isn't a sociopath...)

[edenfalling]

Voting on the story is always a thing! I may not always strictly follow the details of various suggestions, but I do try to follow their general direction, insofar as possible. :-) At the moment, this seems to be for Vriska and Jothan to at least try one or both of the red quadrants and see what happens.

I don't know that Jothan has actually watched Vriska feed her lusus, but he's been known to scavenge the hives of her victims -- he is quite aware of what she does to survive. Given the general setup of troll culture, he doesn't see anything wrong with that in general. But Tavros is the first time her victim has been someone he already knows, which may change things if he stops being reflexively defensive and thinks about it for a while. (Vriska's upcoming strike at Aradia is different again, because to Jothan's mind it's part of an ongoing feud, whereas what Vriska did to Tavros was unprovoked.) Furthermore, while he's come dangerously close to seriously injuring or killing his friends a few times, he's never caused irreparable damage himself. Yet. If he ever does, that might be a nasty shock to his own self-image. It's easy for Jothan to brush off scaring Jarlia by almost getting her stuck outside during the day, because she did get indoors and was safe. If she'd actually been hurt by the sun... well, look at how he reacts to Davven hurting her emotionally and extrapolate.

The other potential obstacle to establishing a moirallegiance is that Vriska doesn't stabilize Jothan any more than he currently stabilizes her. Instead they push each other to do "interesting" or "funny" things to alleviate their mutual boredom. They also create a little closed loop where each approves of the other's actions and thus provides support that allows them to reject the criticism of "outsiders." So they have the "support and comfort" part down, but instead of making each other fit better into society, they can often make each other more dangerous rather than less. In other words, for a potential moirallegiance to be mutual (instead of an exhausting mess like Feferi and Eridan used to have), Vriska would also have to decide to rein Jothan in. It could happen! But changing two characters -- and changing them in a complementary way -- is significantly trickier than just changing one.

(I like John <> Vriska myself, but making John a troll -- and particularly a highblood -- mutes a bunch of the traits that made him such a good confidant and source of inspiration for her. AUs are weird like that, you know?)

[explodingfrogs.livejournal.com]

Actually, Vriska's aggressive personality is not necessarily a deal-breaker, in my view. I interpret the goal of moirailliegiance as being not pacification specifically (though that is certainly a common form it takes) but as ensuring the stability of one's partner in a more general sense. An excessively passive troll is as problematic as a hyperaggressive one, for example, (even before his crippling, Tavros was profoundly ill-suited to Alternian society) and a pale romance can center around a shrinking violet being bolstered by his partner's extreme confidence and assertiveness as much as a berserker being taught restraint. Palemates bring out the best in one another, because they have what their partner lacks (and needs) most.

At least, that was the headcanon upon which my rationale was based. From this perspective, Tavros and Vriska might have been a very successful moirailleigiance in canon if Vriska had been willing to listen to him. Similarly, her effect on John was to push him on when he was otherwise aimless and passive, in counterpoint to his moderating influence on her.

[edenfalling]

Yeah, obviouslly if the goal of moirallegiance is to ensure the emotional and social balance of both partners, the exact type of support each will need may well be very different. Equius and Nepeta sure don't need the same things out of their romance, for example! Nor do Karkat and Gamzee. And in canon, Vriska's tendency to push the people she takes an interest in did mesh well with John's more lackadaisical attitude. There is some of that going on here, too -- she does push Jothan to be more focused and active. The problem is that she's pushing him to be more focused and active in socially disruptive ways. So again, they have the mutual support part down, but they're supporting each other's flaws rather than each other's strengths.

This may change, of course!

[marici.livejournal.com]

Kind of a triumph of good characterization, if you think about it: trolls have trouble distinguishing 'friend' from 'enemy' linguistically, and here you've presented friends having trouble negotiating a disagreement without becoming enemies because their culture gives them no tools to do so. They probably felt just as much on the tightrope as you.

[edenfalling]

Heh, true! As much as a love the concept of moirallegiance, the idea of a culture where you can only get that kind of deep emotional support from one person while everyone else (even positive sexual interests, since red-black quadrant flipping seems relatively common) is a potential enemy is very, very sad to think about in detail.